Work Text
It's dark.
And cold, of course. The two seem to go hand in hand, after all.
The revolting stench of rotting garbage and the dusting of dirt and other grime in the alleyway sting his nose and bare skin (an ugly, burning yellow). He's numb (dull grey), and it's snowing (too many flecks of pale, pale blue), but mostly.. it's dark.
And then it's not…
---
The first time he sees it, he doesn't understand.
It's a pure white edged with turquoise and a smattering of brown and yellow. The colors scream to him (safe hope warmth healing), and he screams back, but his voice doesn't work, and the grey is overwhelming, and then there's black and a horrid yellow-green, but it's all mixing together, and he can't breathe. Just before he passes out, the beautiful white and turquoise flood his vision, and he thinks if he dies seeing this, he'll die happy.-
He doesn't die.
-
Sometimes he still regrets that.
---
After a while, he figures out the meanings behind the colors. They help.
He can avoid Cosimov on the bad days where his usual dark green and malicious purple are tinted black at the edges.
He can get aid from people whose colors aren't completely focused because of their work.
He discovers the simple, unerring pink of a dog, who licks his red, misshapen hand as if he weren't a monster or a demon but a person. The pink is a sharp contrast to the dull, dark colors of the circus, and he never misses a chance to see the dog from then on.
-
He watches... that day.
A dark, black-purple-green aura, snuffing out the pink aura as it slowly grows duller and duller until finally, it's faded completely into black.
The dog is dead, and Cosimov walks away with black trailing behind him.
-
Red, stinging with dingy yellow and a faded red, drowns in the deep blues, holds his immobile left arm close because no matter how it has wronged him, it has always been turquoise and white. It's beautiful even with the deepest blues of his soul shattering in this too dark world.
-
He still wants that turquoise-white to be the last color he sees before he dies.
-
He wonders if a coward gets to see such beautiful things before death.
---
“He's dead..” The dog's pink aura has long since faded. “He's covered in bruises.”
The bruises match the color of Cosimov's dark aura.
Red glances over at the clown beside him, scowling. He really fucking hates clowns. Their colors are always contrasting; dark and gloomy against the brightness of their costumes. Yet this clown..
“Cosimov probably did it. 'Cause the audience likes you more than him,” Red mentions matter of factly. He can't seem to stop talking. “He hates when people are better’n him. He's got no talent, except when it comes to stuff like this.”
That's when the clown finally acknowledges him but only with words. His eyes remain on the dog's makeshift grave.
“He was an old dog,” he murmurs, orange-yellow-blue aura never changing. Strange. “He wouldn't have lived much longer anyway. It's alright.”
“Hmm..” Red hums thoughtfully, glancing up at the clown, looking for anything to imply what he might do next. There's nothing red about him. “You're not gonna get revenge?”
The clown claps his hands together in prayer. It looks fucking ridiculous in that stupid clown costume.
“If I do that, I'll get kicked out of here and won't get paid. I'm a newcomer, after all. After Christmas tomorrow, I'll move on to somewhere new.”
Ugh. This guy is a fucking lunatic.Regardless, it makes sense. A logical lunatic, goddamnit. “I see.”
“Hmm?” The clown hums thoughtfully. Like an idiot. “Who are you anyway?”
Red ignores the irrational hurt he feels at going unrecognized and answers, “I do odd jobs around here… I've brought you dinner before.”
“I have a bad memory for faces,” the idiot replies, and Red scowls further. “Oh my! You're covered in bruises too, aren't you?”
A sudden, wet, murky brown-green sensation on his skin causes him to jump away from the clown, screeching, “Gross! Get your spit off me, dummy!”
“It's disinfectant,” the clown murmurs, disheartened. His aura doesn't even dull.
“Did Cosimov beat you up?”
“Shut up!”
“Don't you have any friends?”
“SHUT UP!”
Man, this idiot is getting on his nerves!
He spits out, voice ringing with the dim red in his voice, “When I grow up… I'm getting out of here as soon as I'm strong enough, so I don't need friends.”
To his left, the clown slides up close to him so suddenly that he almost flinches back, but all the clown does is make a ridiculous face. It's stupid.
“What're you doing?” He scowls, hoping the clown is intimidated by his red and refuses to look at the dummy.
“You didn't think it was funny?”
“Sorry,” not really. “But I don't like clowns and stuff. In fact, I hate 'em.”
“My, my.” The clown says hotly, and still his colors don't change. “Well, I hate crowds and children who don't laugh.”
“Hmph.” Red scoffs. As if he'd care what this clown thinks. And yet.
“Aren't… you gonna cry? He lived with you for a long time, didn't he? Aren't you sad?”
“So sad I could die!” The clown acts as if he were to hang himself, but he wouldn't because his aura hasn't changed once since Red started talking to him. Orange-yellow-blue.
“Quit it!”
Then…
“But I can't cry… Maybe my tears are dried up… they just won't come.”
Red, deep blue overtaking the simmering red, turns away, mumbling to himself, “What's up with that?”
Weighing his options, Red decides to ask, “What… was his name?” He continues without really meaning to, driven by the drowning heaviness of the blue. “He licked my hand yesterday. His tongue was warm.”
A bright, golden yellow that held back the grey of most days. The reminder sends a wave a deep blue through him, and his voice wobbles as he continues.
“So how come… I'm crying over him?”
The blue streaks down his face in ugly sobs and tears, and he can't stop, so all he does is wail louder.
“I see.” He hears the murmured words.”You were Allen's friend, too.”
---
When it comes time for the clown to leave, Red goes with the him.
Mana.
His Mana
-
Red grows used to the constant orange-yellow-blue. It never changes, and maybe that means something is wrong with Mana, but he can ignore that because Mana loves him… right?
-
His name is Allen now. He's being named after the dog, he is…
He is..
-
Mana teaches him what colors are, describes them and teaches him new ones, not just ‘yellow, blue, green, red’ but 'sunshine yellow, sky blue, rich green, scarlet’.
Colors are beautiful.
-
The world is still dark.
-
Mana dies.
There's no more unchanging orange-yellow-blue, only black, and it hurts, the deep, drowning blue is back, but now it's shrouded in black, and he can't breathe.
Then a man, big smile, top hat, and completely black, appears, and he must be Death; who else could it be?
He says yes.
Then Mana is alive, but he's still black but now there's purple and blue and red.
The turquoise-white appears, and he screams, but Mana still dies, and this second time, it's still his fault. His face burns red-yellow-white and then scarlet-orange and gold appear, and he wishes he could've seen the turquoise-white one more time before he dies.
---
He doesn't remember much in the next few months. There are flashes of searing white, burning red and munsell yellow, and he hasn't seen the beautiful turquoise tinted white in so long. Then there's a moment; one moment that he remembers:
Scarlet-orange is here.
“Did you really love Mana that much?”
He doesn't respond. It burns.
“Fight it, Allen. Remember… what he said?”
“Don't stop.”
A flash of orange-yellow-blue, white face, a painted smile, a top hat.
“Keep Walking.”
One last smile. A 'thank you’ that ripped his soul to shreds down to the drowning blue and turquoise-white.
The blue is too much, and he feels it leaking down his face in tears.
-
Scarlet-orange-gold is named Cross Marian. Master.
And the turquoise-white, though the man doesn't call it that, is named Innocence. It's oddly appropriate.
He turned Mana into an Akuma, into black and purple and blue, and he's going to save the Akuma. He's going to save them all. -
He can see their souls. Apparently, that's not something everyone can do. He wonders if anyone else can see the dark purple and too blue, but doesn't have time to ask before he's forced to dodge another Level 1 Akuma’s attack. The white edged turquoise of his Innocence shines yellow and brown and orange as he fights.
This is the shittiest training exercise ever. He better not die.
-
Cross is a fucking asshole.
-
The scarlet-orange and gold of his Master's aura has become a comfort to him. And through the nights where he can't sleep, where even the turquoise-white of his deactivated Innocence isn't enough, he'll take in the grey tranquility of the man's slumber, and note the ever present white-red-gold-silver of his Master's Innocence, Judgement, by his side.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
He hadn't thought anything of it at first. Of how a little complaint of the stinging, munsell yellow after training earned him a weird look from Master. Or how the mentioning of the cloud of black shrouding an Akuma’s core of dark purple and deep, drowning blue muddled his master's scarlet-orange and gold aura. Only after an encounter with a pickpocket, a woman (dark green and too much blue contrasting with her beautiful appearance), does Allen really question how no one noticed anyone else's true nature.“Master?” Allen looks up sheepishly.Cross, already a few drinks in, scowls down at his apprentice, aura flashing a little too red for Allen's liking. Allen pretends not to cower and puts on a cool grey front.“What the fuck is it, Brat?”“Why do you let women like that near you?”Cross’ scowl only deepens, and he stares down at him as if he's a particularly dim child. Maybe he is to Cross.“What do you mean 'why do I let women like her near me’? Look at her, Idiot Apprentice!”“But..” Allen mumbles uncertainly, glancing at the woman's dark aura again. “She’s so… green and there's so much blue!” By the end he's barely speaking at an acceptable level, and when he looks back up at Cross, eyes brimming with confused tears, the muddled look of his aura is back.“Green?” Cross nearly whispers, eyebrows scrunched together and a perplexed frown marring his features. “Blue? Kid, what the fucking hell are you talking about?”“Her… aura?” Allen whispers back, just as confused. “Can't you see them? The colors?” Cross stares down at him, a green tinged white swimming into his aura and washing out the fiery red.“Let's go,” he orders suddenly, shooting up from his seat and walking briskly out of the bar. He doesn't bother looking back to see if Allen is following. On his way after his Master, Allen passes the green-too blue woman and, for good measure, pickpockets Cross’ wallet back from her. Subtly, he slips it back into his Master's cloak, the man none the wiser.--- Cross takes him to a doctor. A doctor. The man and Cross whisper harshly to each other in the corner (more of Master being the harsh one, but that's not surprising) for several minutes before the doctor comes over and asks him several questions.“What color is this card?”“Pink.”“What color is the wall?”“Beige.”“What colors am I?” At this, Allen pauses for a moment, taking note of the man for longer than the initial, cursory glance. Grey, silver and brown are the main foundations of the man’s core and on the very surface are tinges of rich green and light blue. He's a good man. Allen tells him so. The man frowns in confusion, and the grey and brown in his aura muddle a little.“I'm sorry, could you elaborate?” Allen does. “Your core is.. grey, silver and brown, though the brown and grey are a bit dull right now… and there's some rich green and light blue around you as well.” Allen then notices the man's clothes. “Oh, and your shirt is dark grey, your pants and shoes are black and your coat is white. Does that answer your question?” The doctor frowns, the muddled grey and brown clearing slightly as a hint of green tinged white, similar to Cross’, enters Allen's vision. Giving a pointed look to Cross, the doctor walks deliberately to his filing cabinets, opening the drawer labeled S-T. Cross walks over to join him as the man picks out a file. A little more murmuring between the two occurs before Cross’ aura brightens with white-green again. He steals a look at Allen quickly before whispering to the doctor and nodding towards Allen very unsubtly. The doctor nods uncertainly, the grey growing a bit muddled again.“Allen,” the doctor says to draw Allen's attention even though he already has it. “I believe we've found something to explain the… colors.” Allen blinks once. Twice. “Colors? What's wrong with the colors?” Because clearly something is wrong, or Cross wouldn't have bothered with this.“Nothing's… wrong,” the doctor says, but the light blue dulls even as the rich green remains clear. Allen gives him a bland look. “I think there is.”The doctor looks away guiltily, a flush pink bursting into his aura as the same color overtakes his face as well.“You've caught me,” the doctor smiles sheepishly, pink still present. “The truth is.. we believe we've found something very… interesting to say the least.” Allen raises an eyebrow questioningly and waits. The doctor shuffles the papers in his hands, the ones from the file, and looks down at them quickly.“Allen,” he begins. “This is a thesis written by a German physician. It's the first medical description we've had of such a thing, and while it's not the same as what you seem to have.. I believe it to be similar.” The doctor hands Allen the paper as he continues explaining.“Georg Sachs, the physician, describes a condition where a person’s sense of hearing and sense of sight combined. They saw colors for music.” Allen's eyes widen. If that were the case then… “Then…” Allen's eyes grow misty with his uncertainty. “Not everyone can see the colors? They can't feel them?” The doctor hesitates before nodding.“No, we can't feel the colors like you do, Allen,” the doctor confirms. “I believe, based upon this thesis, that your sense of emotion has somehow combined with your sense of sight. In other words, you can see emotions as colors.” Allen blinks, unconsciously crinkling the paper in his grip.“And.. what's this… thing called?” The doctor smiles at him sympathetically, white flooding around him and answers, simply, “Synesthesia.”---Later, when they're back in their hotel room, Allen is sitting on his bed, staring at the wall unseeingly, when he feels a heavy weight dipping at the end of the bed. He doesn't look up, but a flash of red (whether it's his Master's hair or the man's aura, he is unsure) in his peripheral confirms it to be Cross. They sit like that for awhile, a few minutes, maybe longer, waiting for the other to break. It ends up being Cross, but that's mostly because Allen doesn't have the emotional capacity right now to humour the man.“What color am I?” There's no warning, Cross isn't a man for small talk unless there's a woman involved, and the sudden shattering of the silence startles Allen into breaking his staring contest with the wall.“What…?” He asks, unsure if he had heard right. Cross scowls, even as Allen notices the tiniest hint of flush pink entering the man’s aura.“What fucking color am I, you Brat? What, are you deaf too?” The insult is empty at best, as are most of Cross’ cruel words in moments like this. The familiarity is enough to bring a soft smile to Allen's lips.“Colors, actually,” he murmurs, immediately gaining his Master's attention. “Scarlet-orange and gold.” He tells him, and Cross’ aura tinges with a dull grey before a near blinding yellow replaces it. The yellow, an uncharacteristically bright color for Cross, is immediately replaced by a huge smattering of deep purple.“I see,” the man says simply, radiating that smug purple color so much that Allen feels as if a little has entered him as well. Why not screw with the man?“You know,” Allen says innocently, only garnering a fraction of Cross’ attention. “I think my sense of touch has been affected by this too.”Cross’ aura and face go completely blank, a sharp change from the deep purple arrogance, before he falls backwards fully onto the bed, covering his face with his arm and groaning like a dying man. Allen laughs at his misery and feels some of the deep blues in his chest ease into a light turquoise.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
By the time he's reached the top of the cliff, he can feel the exhausted, faded red of his muscles screaming throughout his entire body. His hands throb with the hints of an ugly yellow, and overall his whole body is murky brown-green from his sweat.
He cringes as he pulls himself up one final time to reach the top. Absolutely exhausted, he casts the golden golem beside him an exasperated glance as the faded red of his muscles sour with the addition of a bit too much red.
At least it clears away some of his exhaustion.
“Why the hell did they build this place all the way up here?” Allen lets out an irritated breath, reeling in the red. “I finally made it. The Black Order Headquarters… I hope.”
Glancing to Timcanpy, Allen lets the red along with a hint of yellow enter his gaze.
“Are you sure this is it, Timcanpy?”
The place gives off an odd aura, which is strange in itself, as Allen almost never receives an aura from anything but living beings. This place though…
The building is black with mystery, the unknown, but it's also very, very white. Usually, such purity would put him at ease, but this white doesn't feel pure. It's as if it's missing something. Something vital.
It makes him feel uneasy.
Despite this, he stands up and begins moving towards the castle, wary of the many black golems flying around him. Finally, having reached the entrance of the castle, which looks strangely like a giant face, Allen turns around and addresses a golem that has flown closer to him. He wonders if it's observing him.
“Excuse me,” he begins, speaking pointedly to the golem. “My name is Allen Walker. I was sent here by General Cross Marian, and I was hoping to discuss some issues with the priests here.”
After waiting a couple of minutes, Allen gets a short order to <<Take an examination from the gatekeeper behind him>>. He can't get a good read off of the speaker, only grasping flashes of silver-blue-black through the neutral gray of the golem's speaker.
Turning around to follow the instructions, Allen peers up at the face he'd seen earlier. Now that he's looking closer, Allen can see the slight change in aura around the face that he hadn't noticed before. The gatekeeper, as the voice had called him, gives off a neutral grey along with a deep purple and royal blue.
Allen feels his eye twitch with red.
“Hi,” he mumbles uncertainly, looking up at the gatekeeper. “Nice to meet you..”
It's so sudden, when the gatekeeper moves, that Allen nearly jumps out of his skin in surprise. He feels like
his
soul is the one being examined for once.
“X-Ray Examination. Determining whether the subject is Human or Akuma,” the gatekeeper announces. Allen stands stiffly, waiting for the gatekeeper to allow him entrance, when it's aura suddenly spikes with a yellow tinted black.
“This guy is an Akuma!!” the gatekeeper screeches shrilly.
“Huh!?” Allen exclaims in surprise, eyes widening in disbelief.
“This guy has a pentacle on his forehead; he's cursed! Get him out, out!! The pentacle is a mark of an Akuma; this guy is actually allies with the Millennium Earl!”
“What!?” Allen gapes at the gatekeeper, shocked by the outburst.
Of course, that's when the situation gets even worse, and Allen senses an additional aura. Shifting his attention to the more dangerous-feeling aura, Allen freezes up with yellow tinted black, not unsimilar to how the gatekeeper had.
A man lands on top of the building, and Allen would be blind if he couldn't see the blazing, insatiable red of the man's aura.
“You sure have courage, coming here alone…” the man's voice rings with the same fire as his aura, and Allen can feel the instinctive red of his own soul rising to meet it, to confront the other presence trying to snuff it out
(but he's not Red anymore)
, before clamping down on the urge.
At least this new presence gives him somewhere to direct his attention other than the shrieking gatekeeper.
“Wait a minute!” Allen yells up to the man desperately. “I think you've mistaken me for some-”
Before he can even finish his explanation, the instinct to activate arises, and this one he lets take over.
“What?” Allen gasps out as burning yellow spreads up his left arm. He's pushed back by some force that he can't see, the bright flash of white blinding him.
He looks down only for his aura to immediately sharpen in surprise.
He damaged my anti-akuma weapon?? This can withstand Akuma bullets easily, but with just one hit, this guy.. is it possible that katana..
“You…” the man addresses him, aura still blazing like an inferno, and yes, Allen can see it. The flash of white from before was… “What's with that arm?”
“This is my anti-akuma weapon,” Allen explains before continuing, trying to push as much light blue into his voice as he can. “I'm an exorcist.”
“What?” the man exclaims gruffly before diverting his attention away from Allen.
“Gatekeeper!” The man yells, infuriated, and Allen hadn't realized how strong of an effect the man's emotions were having on him until they were no longer directed at him. He feels the red throbbing inside him and wants so badly to let it out, but he can't right now. Not when he still needs to prove his trustworthiness.
The gatekeeper stammers out some excuse, and for this one moment, Allen does retaliate, pounding his fists on the gatekeeper’s face as he shouts, “I'm a human! I may be cursed, but that doesn't mean I serve the Earl!”
“Ah! Don't touch me! You're cursed!” the gatekeeper squawks, yellow tainting his aura in disgust.
“Hmph, well, whatever,” the man grumbles behind him, grey tinging his voice. “If I check your insides, we’ll know for sure.”
“Innocence, activate!” The man commands as his katana begins to glow white. “I shall slice you with my Mugen.”
It
is
Innocence!
Allen steps back cautiously, holding his burning yellow arm close.
The man rushes forward, and Allen's colors flare in panic.
“Wait!” he bursts, bringing his left arm out to protect himself. “Seriously, wait! You should have gotten a letter of recommendation from Master Cross!”
The katana stops perhaps an inch from his nose, and Allen nearly has a heart attack. He senses the man's aura sharpen before a tinge of green enters his aura.
“A letter of recommendation,” he repeats disbelievingly. “From the General?”
Allen grasps onto his only hope, his aura lighting with a bright, golden yellow.
“Yes, a letter,” he murmurs, relief clear in his voice. “Addressed to someone named Komui.”
The man's aura sharpens once more as his eyes widen in surprise. Quickly, though, his eyes narrow and whatever green had held his irritation at bay before is once again overrun by red. They stay that way, auras taught and tension hanging darkly between them, until a voice rings from the golem, this one different from the last, cream and brown even as it's tense with panic.
<<Kanda! Stop your attack! Gatekeeper, open the gate!>>
“Open the gate?” the Gatekeeper stutters out in disbelief.
<<We allow you to pass, Allen Walker.>> the voice says through the golem again, as the gate opens.
That's when Allen looks away from the man, watching as the gate opens before them. However, as if in retaliation to the loss of their impromptu staring contest, Allen finds the man's aura flaring again, the katana’s point held to his jugular threateningly.
<<Wait, wait, Kanda!>> comes the silver-blue voice again, a bit yellow with alarm this time.
“Komui..” the man, Kanda, apparently, mutters threateningly, red steadily rising. “What the hell is going on?”
<<I’m sorry>> Komui says, and the yellow is replaced with a hot pink. <<Simply put, this child is General Cross’ pupil. Say sorry, Squad Leader Reever! Go on, go on!>>
<<You make it sound like it was my fault!>> Allen hears the cream-brown voice from before exclaim.
<<Timcanpy is with him; that’s proof enough!>> Komui exclaims happily. <<He is on our side!>>
Afterwards, when Kanda continues to glare, there's another moment of stiff silence before a sudden intrusion disrupts it. In the form of a clipboard.
“Kanda!” a girl exclaims, voice laced with an odd combination of red and green. “I told you to stop! If you don't get in now, I'm closing the gate!”
Kanda looks understandably stricken and extremely insulted, the girl's green forcibly pushing down his red.
Allen just feels scared.
“Come on!” the girl pouts, admonishing.
And then they're inside.
Allen looks around in awe as the girl introduces herself, “I'm Lenalee! I'll be taking you to meet the Supervisor.”
Allen smiles with as much orange as he can muster. “Nice to meet you!”
Lenalee smiles back, and begins to lead him down a hallway when a flash of yellow quickly enters and leaves Allen's aura.
“Oh! Kanda!” Allen calls out to the other exorcist as he walks away. The katana at his side is now a muted white, deactivated. Yet, Allen can see the reflected red in Mugen that rests in Kanda's own soul, alongside something else he can't make out in the Innocence's deactivated form.
Before Allen can take a chance to look over Kanda's aura more closely, the man looks ready to continue walking away again, so he instead calls out, “That's your name, right?”
Holding out his hand, he continues, “Nice to meet you!”
Kanda looks at him, red flaring alongside an alarming amount of blue, and says dismissively, “Why the hell would I shake hands with someone who's cursed?”, before walking away.
The dull red Allen had felt up until then flares back to life, and his hand shakes with the effort it takes to restrain himself.
“I'm sorry!” Lenalee apologizes hurriedly. “He just got back from a mission, and he's a bit tired!”
Allen doesn't even have to look. He can
feel
the muddled light blue in her voice.
---
Lenalee is very… nice. If a bit scary. She gives him a tour of the Order, and Allen can't deny that her dominantly green and light pink aura is very soothing in comparison to all of the negative colors he'd been feeling before. There's something else there too, something he can't quite put his finger on, but he'll do his best to figure that out later.
(He ignores the whispers around him, and instead concentrates even further on Lenalee’s soothing green. They don't know anything anyway.)
---
“All exorcists go off to their missions from here,” Lenalee explains cheerfully, voice filled with a warm yellow. “So some people call this place ‘home’.”
Home.
The word strikes him hard and he glances around the building again, this time from the inside. There's still the underlying feeling of black and not-white, but above it all is that familiar feeling of brown and yellow that he still remembers from all of those years ago. He looks down to his left arm, smiling at the ever-present turquoise-white.
Home.
---
He meets Komui. The man is still silver-blue with the familiar hot pink dancing across the surface as he jokes playfully.
Allen's happy to be able to put a face to the man's colors.
---
The checkup, to say the least, is not fun. His left arm, now hanging limply in a sling, is completely grey, a huge difference from the burning yellow from before.
As the two head down, Allen fishes for information on the Innocence, feeling a soft flush pink at his own dark orange but wanting information regardless.
And that's when he feels the sickening white overtaking his body.
It's no wonder he struggles. The white isn't
pain
per say, at least not any he's felt before, but it feels
invading
and
wrong
, as if it's absorbing every other color instead of allowing him to feel it for himself.
He shudders and struggles for all he's worth, vaguely hearing the conversation going on around him. He tries to call to his Innocence, but the numbing grey has overtaken any connection he felt with the turquoise-white.
It's scary.
He keeps pushing, pushing, and even as Komui’s words, “The anesthesia won't allow it to move”, flash through his head, he still tries. Then he feels it. And it's so utterly
wrong
, all Allen can do is stare at his left arm in horror. It's mangled and incomplete, but worst of all, the beautiful turquoise-white is dulled with grey and the hint of burning yellow. Allen wants to apologize, to say he's sorry, but he remembers what Master said and keeps his mouth shut.
He can't right now.
That's when the being, the cause of the white,
(Hevlaska, he remembers Komui calling her)
leans down to place her forehead against his, murmuring in soft admonishment, “I am not your enemy. It is dangerous to activate your Innocence when you are not fully synchronized.”
He feels the horrible yellow fade from his arm even as the grey grows stronger, but at least he isn't hurting his Innocence anymore.
Allen cringes in on himself as Hevlaska begins to count.
---
His synchronization rate is 83%.
After a brief explanation of what, exactly, that means, and the revelation that he is the 'Destroyer of Time’, Allen fishes for a bit more information, feeling remarkably less guilty with red thrumming through his aura.
“Well then,” Komui smiles, hot pink bright as he holds out his hand. “That's about it for the long explanation. Let's fight together to save the world! Be prepared though, because you won't be making a single dollar out of it!”
Despite himself, Allen feels genuine yellow-orange bloom in his chest, chasing away the red.
“Sure..”
Komui's aura dances with light blue and an even lighter pink, making his smile more genuine. “Welcome to the Black Order, Allen.”
Allen smiles back.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
After making up with Hevlaska
(looking past the
white wrong invading white
, her aura is actually very soothingly grey with mixes of soft lavender and a deep indigo)
and making it to his new room, Allen wonders briefly where Timcanpy has wandered off to before his mind drifts to another time, another memory.
---
It hadn't been long since Cross had found out about his Synesthesia, actually. It figured the man would only need to find one puzzle piece before he began to fit all of the others into place as well.
It started, at first, with the Akuma. Cross had figured out, of course, that Allen could see an Akuma’s soul within a few days of them leaving Mother's. Akuma were naturally attracted to the General's uniform, so it didn't take long for them to run into one.
The colors Allen had seen that day were like none he'd ever seen.
An Akuma's soul was shrouded in black while the soul itself was so very blue, enough to drown him, and the purple of its soul was nearly dark enough to blend in with the black. The colors made him want to weep, sob, fall into a pit of despair from which he could never climb out of, hands bloodied and searing white from his effort to escape.
And for that first time, he nearly did fall, if not for the awakening, burning yellow hidden deep within the soul.
It was in pain.
Allen needed to save them.
And he would.
-
Of course, he'd still thrown up from the onslaught of colors, but that was beside the point.
(He did better the next time anyway.)
-
His reaction had led to the discovery that he could see these souls, and at the time, Allen had even described the colors as he tried to convey the Akuma's pain to Cross.
It had only served to confuse his Master then, but now…
“So…” Allen looked up to Cross, a bit startled at the man's sudden vocalisation.
They'd been walking in silence, in search of a place to stay for the night, after a recent Akuma battle. Allen's muscles ached with faded red, but the color was becoming familiar to him as well as less of a hindrance.
Allen tilted his head in silent question, continuing to gaze at his Master with wide, curious eyes.
Cross scowled in response, huffing out, “You said an Akuma's soul is black, blue, and purple, or some shit, right?”
It was less than subtle. Honestly, Allen didn't even need to see the sharpness in his Master's aura. Cross could be ridiculously obvious when it came to his curiosity. Especially when it came to things he didn't have a clue about whatsoever.
Allen nodded in agreement, looking away and hiding his amusement in favour of focusing on the question.
“Yellow as well,” he added, growing solemn. “A burning, ugly yellow…”
His gaze met Cross’ again, tears brimming
(a bit too much blue, but nothing he couldn't handle)
in his eyes.
“They're in pain, Master,” Allen swallowed thickly but continued to gaze at his Master, gauging the man's reaction.
It was more subtle this time, but along with the tightening around Cross’ eyes, Allen saw a small hint of black shrouded blue flash into his Master's aura, curling briefly around the gold for a moment before flitting out again, as if it were never there at all.
Back to business, Cross continued, “Have you noticed anything else at all? Anything that you believe others wouldn't have noticed?”
Allen very nearly scowled, red tinging the edge of his aura.
How would he know what other people can or can't see? It wasn't as if he'd ever seen the way they had… Stupid Master
Instead of pointing this out, he replied, “I'm not sure, Master. I'll let you know if I notice anything though.”
Master nodded, accepting the answer, though he did glance down warningly at Allen for a brief moment. He'd probably let some of the red slip into his voice. Oops.
Regardless, the discussion ended, and for a while afterwards, Allen didn't think about it.
-
They'd run into a larger group of Akuma than usual, and though Cross seemed near oblivious, or at least uncaring, to the implications, Allen almost immediately noticed the Akuma's likely reason for appearing.
There was Innocence nearby, Allen didn't need to see it to know that. There was always a different feel to an area near Innocence. The Innocence's pure white seemed to charge the air until it was sparking with the white as well as the Innocence's own unique signature.
Allen had long since grown used to his Innocence's constant turquoise-white as well as Judgement's red-gold-silver-white, but being around Innocence so often, especially activated Innocence, had sharpened his senses enough that it was all too easy to feel the Innocence's pure white tugging at his senses, as if it were begging for attention.
This Innocence, in particular, remained grey, though the pure white was enough to alert Allen to its potential to enact its power on the land around it. Master had told him, one drunken night, about the Innocence's ability to affect both living and nonliving beings, even without an accommodator. It seemed this Innocence hadn't reached such a point yet but was still unlucky enough to have attracted the Akuma's attention.
“Master!” Allen yelled across the battleground, where Cross was finishing off the final Level 1 within the vicinity. For now, anyway.
“What is it, Idiot Apprentice?” Cross snapped, clearly annoyed by the Akuma's presence and disturbance of any of his previous plans for the night.
“We should go retrieve the Innocence before the Akuma find it!” Allen shouted back, urgent. “They can't be that far from finding it; it feels very close!”
“What the hell do you mean, ‘Innocence’?” Cross yelled back, red flaming with his growing irritation.
“I mean I can feel it around here somewhere, Master!” Allen yelled back, frustration flowing red within him as well. “Can't you? The white is somewhere…”
That's when it dawned on Allen, that maybe…
Glancing up to meet Cross’ eyes, Allen saw the same realization flash across the man's face, sharpening his aura, before hearing a very resigned sounding “fuck” leave his Master's lips. Sighing in exasperation
(they were so going to be talking about this later)
, Allen forcefully sharpened his aura, focusing on the task at hand.
“It's this way, Master,” Allen called over his shoulder as he turned in the direction where he felt the pure white most strongly. He began to run in that direction, and after a few seconds, Allen heard Master's footsteps following as well.
Yeah, they were definitely going to be having words about this.
-
“So…” Cross began, a scoff clear in his voice even without the irritated red of his aura. The muted white of the newly acquired Innocence rested safely in his pocket. “Innocence too now?”
Allen smiled, amused despite himself, and replied simply, “Apparently.”
Cross didn't flop back onto the bed like last time as Allen had half expected him to do, but he did lean forward, covering his face with his hands and groaning. Loudly.
“Fuck, kid, you're gonna give me grey hair. I'm too old for this shit,” Allen heard his Master's despairing words, muffled through his hands.
Allen would feel bad, if he wasn't a little shit, that is.
“If it helps at all,” Allen grinned, unrepentant. “We're definitely running out of things for me to be able to identify.”
Cross groaned louder, falling back on the bed in what appeared to be complete despair, judging by the heavy blue hanging around the man's aura.
Again, he would feel a little bad, but a couple existential crises could probably do his Master some good.
In the very least, it did do Allen good.
---
“Allen,” Cross addressed his student before him, voice monotonous.
“Yes, Master?” Allen looked up, voice shaking in opposition to his sharpening aura. There was a suspicious black hanging around the edges of his Master's aura, and Allen
really
didn't like it.
Oblivious to his apprentice's inner turmoil, Cross continued to acknowledge Allen's progress in his training over the past 3 years, finishing almost proudly with, “From today on, you are now an exorcist.”
Allen would have been touched
(and slightly scared)
by the dash of pink in his Master's aura if not for the ever growing black, now swimming around his Master's shoulders ominously.
Instead, he stayed silent, allowing Cross to continue his explanation as Allen continued to watch the black's every twist and turn.
(For now, he squashed down the budding sunshine yellow in his aura. He could embrace the color once the immediate danger before him had been dealt with.)
“But,” Cross said, further trampling the rising yellow. “You must first go to Headquarters and meet the people there.”
Cross stood, towering menacingly above Allen, black now completely shrouding his aura, with a mallet held in his grasp.
Allen blanched, already seeing where this was going, even as Cross asked, “You do know where Headquarters is, right?”
Allen nodded jerkily, colors sharpened and eyes wide.
“Yes…?”
“I'll have Timcanpy accompany you,” Cross continued, gesturing to the golden golem flying beside him. “I'll even recommend you to the Head Supervisor, Komui.”
Grinning darkly, Cross began to advance slowly on Allen, even as his apprentice backed up warily.
“When you wake up, go forth!” Cross ordered, raising the mallet above his head.
Allen sighed, mostly resigned even as his every instinct told him to run away from the menacing black.
“You're not coming with me, are you?” he muttered, aura slowly dulling as he accepted his fate.
“Fuck no,” Cross spat, finally bringing the mallet down. “I hate Headquarters!”
Just before the hit came, however, Allen heard the mallet stop, perhaps an inch from his head, as his Master instructed softly, “I know you have a habit of pointing out people's colors, Idiot Apprentice, but try to keep it under wraps. Especially your ability to sense Innocence, you hear? They're already going to have a fucking field day with that eye of yours. Don't you play into their hands, Brat…”
There was a moment where Cross clearly let Allen absorb his words before a searing white overtook his head, and then the world itself turned black.
-
He awoke some time later with a splitting headache and no clue as to where his Master had disappeared to. He couldn't even sense Judgement's red-gold-silver-white. At least he had Tim…
-
Fucking Cross.
---
Shivering at the onslaught of memories, Allen looks around his new room, urging the awful thoughts of his Master away. Upon seeing the picture of a grinning jester above his bed, Allen sits up and reaches towards it, hand resting at the clown's feet. It’s quite a strange coincidence that he's gotten the room with the picture of a clown, after all.
“Finally,” he whispers. “I've made it, Mana. I'm at the starting point.”
Gazing down at his bed, Allen remembers a smiling clown and a flash of orange-yellow-blue.
“Don't stop walking. Keep moving forward.”
I don't care about fate.
The imminent death at the hands of his father's Akuma.
The bright flash of turquoise-white as his Innocence activated for the first time.
His father's soul, free of black.
I have chosen this path myself.
“I promise,” Allen told the poster before him, remembering every color he'd ever been taught by Mana. Remembering the first time he'd ever felt sunshine yellow for himself. “Whatever the cost, I won't stop walking. I'll keep walking until the day I die…”
-
And honestly, despite everything that's ever happened to him, he still hopes that his Innocence's turquoise-white is the last thing he ever sees.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It's morning.The sun is a cheery yellow, immediately perking Allen up with the reminder of such a happy color. He quickly goes through his morning routine and, after finishing his 300 one-armed handstand push-ups, heads out of his room to get some breakfast.
(He only gets lost on his way to the cafeteria twice, which he is very proud of himself for. It kind of helps that he continuously asks every person he meets for directions, but he gets there eventually, and that's what matters.)
Making his way to the counter, to order his food, Allen glances around himself as he waits in line. The Order, even on the inside, rings with the unsettling not-white, but the cafeteria itself surrounds him with a homely beige, the atmosphere comforting if professional. But this is clearly the time for people to relax, in this room with a meal and comrades, the beige tinted with yellow and orange. It makes Allen smile.“Who's next?” Comes a voice from ahead of him, a startling hot pink.Allen turns around expectantly, only momentarily startled by the amount of light purple surrounding the man before him, before smiling, finding a bit of comfort in the color. The light purple is complemented nicely with both light and hot pink.“Hm?” the man hums in surprise upon seeing Allen stepping forward. “A new recruit?”Allen gives a hesitant nod, still a little put off by the intensity of the man's hot pink.“Wow, and what a pretty boy! It's nice to meet you! My name is Jeryy!”Allen flushes pink at the man's compliment, smile growing a bit more light blue.“It's nice to meet you too,” he greets back, yellow and grey. “My name is Allen.”“Oh, and so polite!” Jeryy gushes, fawning. “What can I get you, hon? I can make you anything!” Anything… Allen thinks, expression lighting up.“Well then…”After listing off the many foods he'd like to eat, Allen looks to Jeryy expectantly, already turning flush pink at the man's sharpened aura.“Are you sure you can eat all of that, sweetie?” Jeryy asks uncertainly, but his aura is already brightening with a blinding, sunshine yellow at the prospect of making so much food.“Don't worry,” Allen is quick to reassure. “I can.”Jeryy hums thoughtfully before beaming brightly at Allen.“Alright, hon,” he says. “It'll be a little while before it's finished, so you go ahead and sit down while I make it! I'll call you over when I'm done!”With that, Jeryy shoos Allen away, not unkindly, before heading back into the kitchen. Allen moves to do as he was told, before a sudden flare of red catches his attention just as an angered shout silences the cafeteria.“What did you say!?” a large man (a Finder based on his clothes, if Allen remembers correctly) , yells from across the hall. “You wanna say that again!?”Already heading in the direction of the commotion, Allen hears a soft “Buzz, stop it.” before another, more familiar voice commands, “Be quiet. You're ruining my meal with all of your fucking whining.”It's Kanda, Allen realizes quickly, recognizing the inconsolable scarlet of the man's aura. Allen even catches the hints of muted white from Mugen where the katana is leaning against the bench.“Is that how you show respect for your comrades!?” The finder continues to yell in fury, aura completely shrouded in red. “We, the Finders, support you Exorcists with our lives, and you… you're saying that mourning their deaths makes your meal taste bad!?”The man's aura flares as he sends a punch for Kanda's head, but before Allen can interfere, Kanda is already moving, tilting his body to avoid the punch before striking the man, Buzz, hard in the throat, cupping his neck and lifting, effectively choking him.Buzz gives a startled gasp as Kanda sneers at him, continuing to choke the Finder as he says, “Support us? All you can do is 'support us’. You guys were the ones who weren't chosen by the Innocence. If you don't want to die, run away. Your insignificant life can be replaced at anytime.”There's something blue, too blue, about the way Kanda says that, but Allen doesn't have time to analyse it further because Kanda's hold is tightening alarmingly quickly.Grabbing onto Kanda's wrist, deliberately using his left arm, Allen commands shortly, “Stop it.”He puts as much green into it as he can even as he tightens his hold on Kanda's wrist, knowing he doesn't have that much control over his own red. Red won't solve this, though he doubts green will do much either coming from him.“I'm sorry to interrupt you when this has nothing to do with me,” he begins, tone and grip firm. “But I don't think this is a good way of resolving things.”Kanda looks at him, disbelief in the sneer marring his face and red spiking into dangerous levels.“Back off, Beansprout.” Kanda commands, eyes narrowed. Absently, Allen notes that Kanda has already dropped the Finder, but that's not what catches his attention.
Beansprout!?
Something in Allen snaps at the new nickname, and whatever green front he had been trying to keep up is completely overcome by red.“My name is Allen,” he retorts, as much red as is socially acceptable (and probably a bit more) put into his voice.Kanda's sneer turns upwards into a smirk, and it's ugly to look at, all red and completely infuriating.
(If he hadn't been so red himself, maybe he would have seen that little something else hiding in Kanda's eyes. But he doesn't, not with his senses clouded by red, so for now, it goes unseen.)
“Heh,” Kanda huffs out a laugh, mocking and just as ugly as his smirk. “If you don't die within the month, I'll remember your name. There are many who die here, like these guys.”Kanda sneers down at Buzz, who remains slumped on the floor where Kanda had initially dropped him, gasping for air with his red muffled in the wake of Allen's and Kanda's overflowing scarlets.Allen tightens his hold on Kanda's wrist, warning. He could snap it, if he really wanted to. He knows this, but again, he has more self control than that (he's not Red) , so he just turns his burning eyes on Kanda.“As I said,” he admonishes. “That's not a good thing to say.”Kanda's eyes burn right back into his, scolding him with the fire surrounding them both.“I hate your type,” he murmurs, deep purple entering the flames. “You won't last a month.”Allen challenges his purple with orange, too much orange, replying, “We'll see about that.”That's when the flames are interrupted by a shout of cream and brown.“Kanda! Allen!” Reever calls from across the hall, catching both of the boys’ attentions. Lenalee is walking with him. “Eat your food and head down to the Supervisor's office in 10 minutes. You've got a mission!”And with that, he walks away, unaware of the smoldering fire still burning between the two exorcists.-10 minutes later, they're in the Supervisor's office, and he appears to be… sleeping. Allen knows for a fact that he's actually asleep, not just faking it, because his senses are clearly muted. For some reason, Allen's not as surprised as he probably should be.“Supervisor!” Reever calls, shaking the man. He doesn't wake up. “Supervisor Komui!”Shaking him a few more times, Reever smacks the Supervisor upside the head. Allen would be alarmed if the action had elicited anything more than a grumble from the man.What happens next, however, does cause Allen's senses to sharpen.“Hey, Supervisor,” Reever whispers into the man's ear, almost conspiratorial if not for the dark orange tinting the man's aura. “I heard that Lenalee's getting married..”The following shriek startles Allen, and he jumps a little from the sudden sound.“Lenalee!” Komui practically wails, blue encompassing his entire aura. “How could you get married without telling your own brother!?”Beside Allen, Lenalee is blushing furiously, and Reever’s colors are muted, completely resigned to his fate.“Sorry about him,” he sighs, red tinging his voice. “It's the only way we can wake him up.”It takes a little bit to calm the distressed older brother down, but eventually, Allen and Kanda are sat together on the couch (as far away from each other as is physically possible) as Komui apologizes for having been asleep when they had walked in.“Alright,” he begins, aura shrouded in grey and black. “We don't have much time, so after you hear the summary, you'll be heading out. If you want more details on the mission, just read from this file on your way there.”Lenalee hands them both packets as Komui gives the explanation. Allen smiles politely in thanks, yellow-grey, before turning his attention back to Komui.“You two will go as partners,” Komui continues.Allen and Kanda's auras immediately spike with red, looking at each other in something akin to disgust.Pouting slightly, aura tinting hot pink, Komui mutters, “Already not getting along, huh? Well, no excuses!”With this, Komui draws down a map, gold flashing through his aura with his extravagance.“We've found Innocence in southern Italy,” he continues, back to being grey-black. “However, it may get taken by an Akuma. Your job is to destroy the enemy and secure the Innocence.”Allen looks down at the folder in his hands, contemplating. He'll definitely want to read this on the way there.“Okay!” Komui says, hot pink encompassing him again. “Since the summary is over, it's time for you two to head out. I expect you both to be ready to leave as soon as possible!”And with that, they're off.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
They're on their way to southern Italy, train car compartment awkwardly silent after Allen, Kanda and their Finder, Toma, had discussed the details of the case.Apparently, the Ghost Of Mater, a legend from the abandoned town in Italy they were currently heading to, is a living doll. It's likely powered by Innocence.Great.It's the silence reigning in the car more than anything else that causes Allen's mind to drift back to his interaction with Komui before they'd left.- “It's a bit big…” Allen murmurs to himself, glancing down at the trenchcoat-like uniform he'd been given. It's white and black with silver ornaments and buttons (he vaguely wonders if this is some sort of play on their fight, one against good and evil but quickly dismisses it. It's unlikely that the order would base their uniform off of such a thing...). “Do I have to wear this?”
“It's to show that you're an exorcist,” Komui comments from behind him, yellow-orange dancing across his aura. “Don't worry about it getting in your way during battle! They're engineered for it! Oh, and I also made your gloves easier to use!”
Komui's voice is enthused, silver and gold leaking into it as he speaks of his obvious passion. The man is a born scientist if Allen's ever seen one.
A sudden rustling drags Allen's attention away from the joyous colors as he focuses his eyes on his sleeve. Timcanpy pops up from within the depths of his shirt sleeve, grinning at Allen and clearly pleased with himself.
“Timcanpy!” Allen gasps, senses sharpening slightly. “Where the heck have you been?”
The golem’s grin widens, and a faint yellow-orange mixes with the usual hum of magenta surrounding Tim. (Everyone seems to be making fun of him today…)
The gleam of color surprises Allen a bit, but not in a bad way. Usually, it's hard to sense the golem's colors, whether it's because of the fact that he's not human or something else, Allen doesn't know.
(He'd say it was because Tim is a golem, but there's none of the fuzzy grey that Allen usually sees surrounding phones or, more recently, golems. It's something else, and even though he's spent almost all of his time with the little menace for the past couple of years, Allen still doesn't know why he can barely sense Tim's colors.)
Of course, that's when the boat arrives, effectively diverting Allen's attention away from whatever cheeky response Timcanpy would have given him. He huffs out an exasperated puff of air, releasing some of the blue that’s been slowly building up inside of him since the debriefing. He can't get distracted now.
As the boat is leaving, however, Komui calls after him, voice steady and aura tinted with tender pink.
“Timcanpy has the ability to project what he's seen of someone's past,” Komui informs him, something both blue and indigo entering his voice. “I got a chance to see your adventures with him!”
And though the words disconcert him a bit, the soft muttering of “That's why I didn't get any sleep…” sends a wave of yellow-orange through him.
“I'll be back!” Allen gives a smile, and it's not completely yellow, but it is light blue.
“Later!” Komui calls back, smiling reassuringly. His aura tinges a tender pink. Allen wonders if it's some sort of default for the man: these familial colors. Probably.
Regardless, he's off. Hopefully, he and Kanda won't kill each other. Hopefully.
-
It'd been an odd interaction to say the least, but Allen feels both he and the Supervisor may have grown some form of understanding between them. The same can definitely not be said for him and Kanda.The man, sitting across from him in the train, continues to radiate red as if he were some sort of furnace. It's deep and scarlet, appearing to go even deeper than just the surface like most feelings of anger. There's also the distinct color of off-red coming from him, irritated but in a way that's almost not red at all, with the number of colors mixed into the fray. Allen catches glimpses of yellow and a murky brown-green before an irritated voice cuts into his thoughts.“What the fuck do you think you're looking at, Beansprout?” Kanda hisses at him, flames mingling with the words.Allen restrains any signs of the color from entering his own voice, putting up a front of yellow-grey.“Nothing,” he replies, and okay, maybe his smile isn't completely polite, but at least he's not outright sneering. “I didn't mean to stare.”Kanda glares at him for a moment longer, red spiking, before releasing some of the irritation with the clicking of his tongue, clearly dismissing him.They spend the next 10 minutes or so in complete silence, two different reds clashing against each other in a palpable tension that Allen is sure even Kanda can feel. After the 10 minute mark, Allen gets up without a single word and walks outside to join Toma in front of the compartment.He can still feel Kanda's red from here…“Is there something you needed, Master Walker?” Toma asks, aura a pleasant yellow-grey in comparison to Kanda's raging colors. The color does lean more towards grey though; it has since he first met Toma, polite but distant. It'd be nice if Allen could get a little more emotion out of the man.Belatedly realizing he'd been staring, Allen gives an awkward smile, projecting as much yellow as possible.“No, not at all,” Allen replies. “I was just hoping to get out of the compartment. It's a bit… suffocating.”Something almost orange tinges Toma's yellow, and Allen thinks he sees his eyes crinkle just a little before it's gone, replaced by green tinged white. The man probably understands more than Allen does; he's clearly been in the Order longer, at least.“Yes,” the man replies, looking down at the cards laid before him. Allen resists the urge to touch them, shuffle them, cheat someone out of all of their money, and listens. “Master Kanda has been known to have such an effect on people.”Allen, despite himself, let's out a small laugh, feeling yellow-orange settle nicely within his own aura. Toma seems like a pretty decent guy, if extremely professional.“Is there anything else that I should know?” Allen asks, partially to keep the conversation going but mostly out of his own curiosity, the golden yellow practically burning in his gut.Toma, for a moment, looks thoughtful, aura sharpening even further with his intent to find answers for all of Allen's unspoken questions.Allen leans forward curiously as Timcanpy rests contentedly on his head, a comforting hum of magenta.“Well…”-They've arrived in Mater at this point, and the first thing Allen notices is how run down the place is. The second thing he realizes is how the place practically sings .He's found, from experience, that places affected by innocence usually begin to project their own colors. While he's almost never seen it (inanimate objects’ auras are usually just a neutral hum of grey) Allen guesses the oddity will occur more often now since he'll be going on missions in search of such places. (There is, of course, the exceptions. There's always that one object out of the bunch that was loved or hated or cared for more than the others. The emotions of its owner linger with it. It's not all that dissimilar from Innocence, in that sense.) Mater, in particular, gives off a deep, heavy blue with such trace amounts of orange that he almost doesn't see them at all. The colors are familiar, in a way. He'd felt the same for years, both before and after Mana. It isn't a comforting familiar; it doesn't bring forward anything but green-white and blue and too little orange. (Sometimes, for reasons like this, he hates his Synesthesia. He has to feel everything that everyone else feels. And sometimes, the world is just too negative too blue too dark purple. Sometimes, there's not enough white or yellow or orange.)
(But then there's always that spark of turquoise-white, always there, his rock in a sea of harsh colors, and he can face another day. He can try and make the world brighter.)
Mater is sad, is missing something, and it's no wonder that it’s called the Land Forsaken by God. And the dolls…“The Ghost of Mater is only a doll…” he mutters to himself as they race towards the town, recalling what they'd previously discussed on the train.“It wouldn't be surprising if this were caused by Innocence,” Kanda says in reply, red focused away from Allen for once.Of course, that's when he notices a third thing about Mater. It's completely covered in dust. Or, more specifically, ashes.The finders are all dead.Beside him, he feels a pang of deep blue run through Toma's aura before the man squashes the color down, back to his neutral grey. Regardless of the man's efforts, the color is slightly more cool grey than before.“Damn,” Kanda curses beside him, looking down at the Finders’ remains. “We came here as soon as we got the transmission, but we were still too late.”Allen grimaces, deep blue overtaking his aura. He wishes the Finders hadn't died. He wishes they had been faster. “Hey, you.”He looks up, and yeah, Kanda is sneering at him again, eyes blazing red.“I'll say this before we start,” he says, looking away to survey their surroundings. It feels dismissive. “I don't care if you're going to die. If I think you're in the way, I won't help you. There's always sacrifices in war, so don't think of me as your fucking partner.”Allen feels the red entering his own aura. He's been resisting the urge; he knows how he gets when he's angry, but this is too much.“I don't like your way of thinking,” he bites out, eyes burning into Kanda's.Kanda looks indignant for a moment, red flaring into scarlet, but as he opens his mouth to snap back, there's a sudden explosion ahead of them.Allen's eye activates, and looking over to Kanda, he can see the man has come to a similar conclusion. They meet each other's eyes briefly, Kanda's eyes widening at the appearance of Allen's curse, before narrowing again, off-red once again entering his aura.“Let's go!” Allen barks out, aura dancing with lingering red and growing gold. As much as he resents his Master sometimes, the man's passion will always be something he doesn't regret channeling.Clearly aggravated at being ordered around, Kanda shoots a glare at Allen before jumping ahead of him. And then, they're in the heat of battle.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Looking back, it probably wasn't the smartest decision jumping straight into battle. Especially without a plan. If he were to put blame anywhere, he'd put it on how Kanda's red has the uncanny ability of infecting him to the point of inhibiting his judgement.
(Master would smack him upside the head and tell him to take responsibility for his own shitty habits. But Master's not here, so Allen's just going to blame Kanda for this one.)
Regardless, putting blame where it may (or may not) belong isn't a priority right now. For now, he kind of needs to not die on his very first mission.Before he can think on it anymore, Allen finds himself face to face with the Akuma. Only…
Flashes of memories assault his mind, jarring his thoughts.
The Akuma…
(It has to be an Akuma. It certainly isn't Innocence.)
It's form is that of a clown.
A white painted face and red red lips.
The jester's hat on top of its head doesn't jingle as it moves.“Smile!” the Akuma grins madly, eyes wide with an ugly, black tinted red-orange. Bloodlust.
“Smile, Allen!” Mana reminds him as he juggles the rubber balls high into the air. Allen allows a small smile to overtake his face only to trip over his own feet and fall off of the large bouncy ball he'd been balancing on top of.
White, blinding white, shoots through him and takes over his vision as the Akuma slams him effortlessly into a building.Vaguely, he hears the Akuma accessing him, commenting on how he's different from the others. Beneath the rubble that his rather rough landing had created, Allen physically shakes himself. He can't be this easily distracted. He's not going to die here.
Keep walking…
Not this easily, at least.
Never stop.
Above him, Allen senses a faint hum of magenta from Timcanpy. Good. At least the Akuma hasn't gone after Tim.Reactivating his left arm, Allen pushes the largest slab of rock off of him. He feels a trickles of blood run down his chin from where he'd bitten into his lip. Blood wells into his mouth from the small puncture wound, and Allen grits his teeth, grounds himself in the faded red of his body, and spits out his mouthful of blood.He glares past the distorted dark purples and drowning blues of the Akuma's soul, looking straight to the overwhelming cloud of black. The sight makes him want to gag.This Akuma… it isn't a Level 1; that much is clear. Even without its changed appearance, its colors have changed enough that Allen can immediately spot the difference. While the purples and blues still emanate from the Akuma's soul, they are stronger somehow, more intense, and even further past that, Allen can see something he's never noticed in a Level 1.The Akuma's soul is an ugly, dingy yellow, and Allen can almost feel the soul's pain himself. It stings, and looking closer, Allen can see how the chains surrounding the soul are tighter, more constricting and suffocating. And still, the black is even darker .Allen shakes himself. While his analysis clearly didn't take long (he'd be dead if he took his sweet time doing these sort of things in battle) , he can't afford to zone out any longer.Grasping for any remaining scarlet running through him, Allen pushes past the drowning blue and dark purple and ignores the stinging in his eyes that has nothing to do with the throbbing, faded red of his body.“You're the one that killed the Finders!” Allen spits out alongside another mouthful of blood. His lip hasn't stopped bleeding yet.The Akuma looks at him, uncomprehending for a moment, before it bursts into raucous, black laughter.“My heart!” It gasps. “My soul! Can't you hear it? Throbbing, beating! I'm so excited! This is so much fun!”Allen grimaces because, yes, he can hear (and see) the Akuma's soul, and while it may not be its soul that is excited, the Akuma itself certainly is. Allen watches with dawning horror as yellow-orange dances around the Akuma's black aura, taunting and out of place. This, paired with all of the evidence of its earlier behaviour, points to the Akuma being…
(“A Level 2,” Master says gruffly, sipping at his wine. His words slur from the abundance of alcohol he's ingested, but as always, Cross’ eyes remain sharp, dancing with the dark blue he never fails to lose even when heavily inebriated.
“Level… 2?” Allen murmurs. His aura muddles with his confusion, and he tilts his head questioningly.
“What, you think we just called them Level 1 for no reason?” Master spits, deep purple and yellow-orange tinging his aura despite the scowl etched into his face. Sometimes, he thinks the man forgets that Allen can almost always see how he's really feeling despite whatever mask he puts up.
Allen scowls back.
Master heaves out a put upon sigh, looking at Allen seriously in the way he only does when he says something absolutely imperative to Allen's survival.
“Akuma grow stronger the more they kill, brat,” Cross explains. His aura is deadly still, a deep, charcoal grey overtaking his usual scarlet-orange-gold. In times like these, despite his Synesthesia, it's nearly impossible for Allen to read past the surface of Cross’ emotions, beyond the seriousness and the flashes of long lost memories in the man's eyes.
“Don't you dare add to that kill count.”
And with that said, Cross turns back to his bottle of alcohol.)
Well, shit. He's never had the chance to fight anything stronger than a Level 1, despite the years he's spent with Cross.Of course that's when, out of the corner of his eyes, Allen catches the sight of Kanda jumping from the rooftop. In front of him, the Akuma turns to watch him as well.“Mugen,” Kanda murmurs, and yet his voice carries. Everyone here can hear his next words as well. “First Illusion: Netherworld Insects!”In one fell swoop, all of the Level 1 Akuma in the area are gone (well, shit) , the black dissipating around the blue-purple souls and becoming overrun with pure white until they're gone too. Mugen burns pure white and deep scarlet in Kanda's hands like the Innocence is covered in the Akuma's spilt blood.
(Akuma blood is black not red. Like their bodies have been completely contaminated by the Earl's evil.
Human blood is red, scarlet. Red.
It fits, he thinks.)
Allen watches as Kanda kneels down beside the befallen Finder.
(The man's soul is blinding white and drowning blue, shrouded thickly in black, too much black. But, just before the black completely overtakes him, his soul shines with something, a faint yellow and grass green, sunshine on a meadow, a sigh of relief, and he's gone.)
In the next moment, the Finder is dead, and Allen doesn't have time for tears as Kanda jumps into the crater where the Innocence is because suddenly, there's a spike of red-orange-black before him.The Akuma howls in fury, screeching, “The dolls! I'll kill you! You can't take the Innocence! I'll kill you!”, in a horrific mantra that sounds almost self-indulgent with the dull grey in its aura. Before him, Kanda leaps up to one of the taller buildings using some of the smaller structures as leverage (in the back of his mind, a small circus brat, so very red red red on the surface and bruised blue-purple both inside and out, is vaguely impressed but won't show it) , holding two figures in his grasp. One of them shines pure white, and Allen is flooded with grass green at the sight.Kanda has the Innocence.Allen finds it in him to smile, grass green leading into his usual yellow-grey mask (that he can't seem to hold up with Kanda nearby, what the fuck) , calling out, “You go on ahead!”For his part, Kanda scoffs back, colors still blazing with red.“I won't help you!” Kanda yells back. “You've gotten yourself into this mess for being emotional and reckless, fucking Beansprout! Get out of there yourself!”
(If Allen didn't know any better, he'd say he'd seen something: a flash of blue, so small that he almost mistakes it for suspicion, but no. This blue is rich and sincere. Definitely not something he'd expect from Kanda.)
Allen nearly scoffs back with the sudden flood of red that nearly overtakes his yellow-grey facade. As it is, he's probably sporting a pretty unconvincing grimace.“The name's Allen!” He calls back instead of focusing on any of the other words, no matter how the red burns against his tongue. Regardless of their differences, he can't find it in himself to lash out at Kanda when what he said is true. Even if he doesn't like it. (And he really doesn't like it.) “I'll catch up to you when I'm finished here.”Kanda's aura sharpens, in surprise or focus he can't tell, before he's jumping across the rooftops, away from the upcoming battle.Once Kanda is gone, Allen turns his full attention to the Akuma and lunges. The skirmish is clearly one sided as Allen quickly finds himself on the defensive. The clown-like Akuma (a flash of a smile, never changing orange-yellow-blue) is strong, and quickly, Allen realizes he can't underestimate it, or he's going to be dead very quickly.They fight back and forth for a few minutes when Allen notices it. There's an opening: the Akuma is right in front of him, but something isn't right, there are no colors coming from it anymore. On instinct, he locates the black-blue-purple and flips up and back, over top of the Akuma as it stares up at him in surprise. Only, it's not the Akuma. At least, not on the outside.Allen lands on his feet and doesn't waste time putting distance between him and… himself.That's fucking weird, okay.Before him appears to be an exact image of himself, only… its arm and curse are on its right side. A mirror image then.“Oh?” The Akuma hums interestedly. “How did you realize my trick? I guess you exorcists really are different, aren't you?”Its voice rings with yellow-orange, but Allen isn't fooled. The Akuma is shrouded in red, and its smile is deranged and mad like it's trying to keep up an act it never learned the part for.Allen sneers back.“How are you doing that?” he asks, aura tinted with the same dark orange it always is when he's fishing for information. It doesn't hurt to learn more about his opponent and, hopefully, Level 2’s in general. The Akuma seems like a talkative one.“Oh, have you never seen a Level 2?” The Akuma asks gleefully, bloodlust shining red-orange and black in its eyes. “You see, I'm much stronger than a Level 1! We Level 2’s have a special ability, and we obviously have much better personalities! Mine is that I can copy someone else's power…” The Akuma raises it's right arm, the one mirroring Allen's Innocence Arm, and turns its hand into a weapon resembling a pitchfork. “...and I make it my own.”The Akuma lunges again, arm raised to strike, and Allen rises to meet him, left arm ready to counterattack. They meet in the middle, and as Allen's aura sharpens in surprise and a dreading realization, the Akuma's arm splits and pierces into his Innocence arm. Gritting his teeth, Allen makes a split second decision and pulls his arm from the Akuma's grip, raking the Akuma's claw-like arm through his arm until it's free. He doesn't stop there, however, and aims for the ground, creating a small explosion of dust with the amount of force he uses to hit the ground.Thinking back to the landscape around him, Allen flees through the dust while the Akuma's vision is still impaired. With another jolt of realization, Allen realizes that he can still sense the land around him to an extent. It isn't strong enough for him to sense the smaller parts of the abandoned town, but it's enough to keep him from crashing face first into a building.By the time he stops to catch his breath and begin strategizing, he hears an outraged cry not to far away from where he's hiding. It's far enough though, and that's what matters. Settling down, he does a quick overview of his injuries (His lip has stopped bleeding, that's good. A light creaking in his ribs tells him he's gonna have to watch out if he doesn't want cracked or broken ribs, and there are multiple gashes in his left arm. Fuck, he's going to have to get that looked at by Komui later.), and overall, his entire body is stinging with faded red. It's not the best, but he's definitely fought with worse.With his assessment finished, Allen shifts so that he's balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to move at any second. He cocks his head, listening, but upon hearing nothing but the wind whistling through the abandoned town, Allen turns his attention to other methods.It takes a moment; it always does, when searching out for certain emotions, certain people. He's had years of practice doing so. After all, Master always tended to abandon him when they were in the red light district or when he'd found a woman he fancied. It had taken time but eventually, he'd gotten the hang of sensing his Master's distinct scarlet-orange-gold.
(Looking back on it, Allen can see the patterns of one of his Master's many disguised training exercises. He doesn't know whether to scowl in red-pink exasperation or allow the growing sunshine yellow in his aura to take over.)
In Mater, while it is across a farther distance, there aren't many auras to sense, so he quickly latches onto the pure white of the living doll’s Innocence. He runs.Twisting between the buildings of Mater, Allen runs towards the pure white, focusing on his goal. What he most definitely isn't expecting, however, is for Timcanpy to suddenly tunnel out of the ground and knock him off course. He falls to the ground (very ungracefully, and seriously, Tim, what the hell?) , and suddenly he has a face full of frantic golem.“Tim!” Allen gasps out in alarm, colors sharpened and on high alert. “What is it?”Because something is wrong. With their close proximity, Allen can see the unnatural sharpness to Tim's magenta aura, the alarm in his movements.And that can only mean…“Where are they?”Tim flies down towards the ground, and suddenly, Allen can feel . Kanda's red (scarlet red) and Toma's yellow-grey (too grey, too formal, he'll have to get him to open up more) and Mugen’s pure white and raging red heading straight for Toma...Allen doesn't think.Activating his Innocence, Allen plunges his arm straight through the earth until it's up to his shoulder and even further still until he feels it. Munsell yellow spreads up his arm, but he can feel the yellow-grey, faded and shrouded in faded red and a dingy yellow but still alive. Deactivating his Innocence, Allen drops down through the newly made hole, right in front of his copy, crippled on the ground.But shit, wait, that's not the Akuma. Allen can sense the yellow-grey from the copy, and the only black in its aura is the lingering possibility of death. Across from him, Allen can see Kanda glaring at him, furious and scarlet with a vaguely muddled aura, and then he sees Toma. But then… fuck. Just as Kanda opens his mouth (probably to yell at him, the dick) , Allen beats him to it.“Kanda, get down!”It's a miracle that he listens, but maybe it isn't. Allen can see the exact moment that Kanda's instincts take over (a flash of indigo, uncannily familiar to him after all these years) , and the man ducks down just as Allen swings his arm in a wide arch, slamming the Toma look-alike into the wall.“What the hell, Beansprout?” Kanda yells at him, looking back to Toma only to see…“Looks like I've been caught!” the Akuma stands in the place of where Toma once was, the skin he'd worn as a disguise laying crumpled and useless on the ground. The smile on his face is a strange mix of black and yellow-orange, sending a chill down Allen's spine. “But that won't stop me!”Before either of them can react, the Akuma aims for Kanda, who remains crouched low to the ground. Kanda moves, making to dodge, but in that moment, Allen can see how his muddled aura affects his movements. Kanda is slammed into the wall back first, his head thrown back violently into the wall with such force that he's immediately rendered unconscious.Allen acts on instinct, indigo flashing through his aura, as if in response to Kanda's.He lashes out with his reactivated Innocence, cursed eye coming to life in response to his emotions and close proximity to the Akuma. He tears it cleans in half before immediately making a dash for Kanda then Toma, lugging them both over his shoulders. He's down the hall and out of sight before the Akuma has a chance to reorient itself.He runs through the maze without any idea of where he's going (his sense of direction is still bloody awful) for a few minutes. It's just enough time to put a little distance between them and the Akuma.Slowing down, Allen can feel the faded red reverberating from his chest, his ribs and lungs both exhausted and sore. He walks anyways, one comrade slung over each shoulder, with only one thing to guide him: the Innocence's pure white and another aura beside it, too weak for him to read from this distance. Something about that feels… wrong. Allen pushes further, harder.“Master Walker,” he hears a soft voice near his ear and immediately recognizes it as Toma's. “Please leave me behind. You and Master Kanda are both already injured.”Allen lets out a sigh, releasing some of the red-pink he can feel surrounding him.“Still as formal as before even on the brink of death,” Allen murmurs to himself, smiling despite himself. Judging by the sharpening of Toma's aura, he still heard him despite the softness of his voice.Allen sighs once more, feeling a heaviness unrelated to the weight of two limp bodies fall on his shoulders.“I won't leave you behind, Toma,” Allen smiles, more yellow than grey, even if Toma can't see him. “I still want to get past that politeness of yours.”Not that he's one to talk, but his hypocrisy doesn't make the statement any less true.He continues making his way towards the Innocence. They're closer now, and he can feel the urgency sharpening his senses and making him more aware to his surroundings. Timcanpy is flying near his shoulder, and the Akuma is still behind them, lost in the maze no doubt.They'll get there before him. Allen has to believe that.Of course, that's when the singing starts. It's beautiful, and an instantaneous wave of pure white drowning blue too little orange makes him stumble. The blue (drowning overwhelming he can't swim in this he can't he can't breathe) nearly overtakes him, and Allen can feel the blue well up in his eyes before he focuses past it to the orange, the trace amounts of orange clinging to the song.But… that can't be right. After all, he could feel the presence of another person with the Innocence, weak but there. He can feel the strength of mere traces of orange in the city, but he hadn't sensed that in the Innocence. At least, not near the surface.So why was he sensing it now...It hits him suddenly, and despite the heaviness on his shoulders, there is another weight much worse that he can't stand to bear.A flash of yellow-green, of blinding white and dingy yellow.The growing, drowning blue and traces of orange that lingered with Mater came from the doll itself, and if the orange is back, then that means…The other person…They were shrouded in black.He runs.He follows the singing and the pure pure white because if he's right then the Ghost of Mater will be in no state to run.They won't be willing to leave the other person.And worst of all, if he's noticed the singing then the Akuma certainly has.Because while the singing will help guide him to that pure, bright white, the singing is all the Akuma needs to find them.It's a race, and he can't lose.He runs faster.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Rounding yet another corner of Mater’s underground maze, Allen nearly collapses with the sudden onslaught of grass green that floods his aura. There’s an opening in the maze, great and overarching in a way that hints to its significance. Allen knows he’s found it.
There’s still time. At least, he thinks there is.
The Akuma appears to be lost in the maze, if its growing red is anything to go by. Allen can feel the blue-purple-black flitting around restlessly, almost panicked. Before, tremors had spasmed through the earth as Allen walked. He’s pretty sure the Akuma had just been tearing through walls and pillars in its attempts at finding them, but after one particularly powerful shake, the tremors had stopped altogether. The ceilings probably started collapsing on top of it, if Allen were to guess. Probably a good thing that the Akuma stopped then.
Shaking himself, Allen refocuses on the task at hand: finding and securing the Innocence.
(He remembers a song, full of deep, drowning blue and small traces of orange. He remembers first stepping foot in Mater and knowing, immediately, that this was going to be hard. It’s not going to be hard to retrieve the Innocence and retreat safely, quickly. No, it's going to be impossible.)
Reaching the entrance of what looks to be a large, underground cavern, Allen catches a soft conversation between a pure white-blue-orange aura and another aura. He pauses, focusing on the human’s aura even as he listens into the conversation.
(Dark orange, shameful and repulsive, invades his aura before he can try to push it back. It’s not deceitful to eavesdrop. It’s
not
. It never hurts to have more information. Something like that can save lives.
And he would know, wouldn’t he?)
“Why did you lie about being a doll, Guzol?” a soft voice whispers, tinted with dull grey and rich blue. The voice sounds like that of a little girl.
(Her aura and words are all somewhat distorted to Allen’s ears. Everything about her is completely shrouded in pure pure white, and with a jolt, Allen realizes that this is the Innocence. And her colors are so… pigmented. That’s probably the best word he can decide on. It’s beautiful.)
Allen sets Toma and Kanda down gently, urging the Finder to be quiet as he gives a small groan of protest. Allen can sympathize with Toma’s sudden spike of faded red
(It’s not blinding white or munsell yellow nor is he shrouded in black anymore. Thankfully, Toma’s out of immediate danger. For now, anyway.)
, but right now he needs tact. Unfortunately, he’ll gladly come off as a little rude to get it.
Peeking around the corner, Allen spots one of the cloaked figures from earlier
(Guzol, she said his name is Guzol)
, just as he answer the Innocence’s question.
“I am…” the man pauses, emotions rearing up with a faded sort of blue and red
(He can see them, though, as they once were. Deep blue and a hurting, resentful crimson.)
“An ugly human, Lala. I don't even look human at all, and I couldn't let you be broken by strangers. Please, Lala, let me be the one to break you… with my own two hands.”
Guzol glances up to look at Lala, and Allen catches a glimpse of the man's face. He hadn't been lying about his physical aesthetics, that's for sure. But Allen knows from experience that beauty can't always be based on outward appearance.
(A gorgeous woman in a bar, cigarette in hand with a slim body surrounded by dark green and deep purple. A man shrouded in black with an aura muddled from alcohol wearing the painted, smiling face of a clown. A dog, scrawny and filthy, licking his hand with nothing to offer but a beautiful, loving light pink.)
Guzol’s aura, sadly, is completely encompassed with a sickly yellow-green, a foreboding black lingering at the edges. But deeper, down to his core, Guzol's colors shine bright with light pink, dowsing out the faded reds and blues and too little orange. Years of happiness and love are reflected in pink and sunshine yellow.
No, physical appearance has nothing on this rainbow of a man.
Allen watches as Lala leans forward into Guzol's arms, and suddenly, he feels like he's intruding upon a moment meant to be shared between just the two of them. Allen looks away to give them some pointless resemblance of privacy as Lala murmurs, “Yes, Guzol. I am your doll. Now, what can I sing for you next?”
Allen wants to hope that he can maybe, just maybe, leave them be. Regrettably, Guzol doesn't have much time left
(the black at the edge of his aura is slowly spreading towards his core)
, and he can't bring himself to interrupt them. He can just watch out for the Akuma out here, right?
Kanda, apparently, has different plans.
“What the
fuck
…?” He hears the murmur, too loud in the following silence, before he even senses how Kanda's aura is no longer mute with unconsciousness.
He tenses, knowing shushing Kanda would be pointless as he feels the sudden spike of maroon from across the room, coming straight from a certain Innocence powered doll.
Quickly making a decision, Allen steps out from behind the door, muttering a soft “Stay here.” to Kanda and Toma. He feels a spike of red, but quickly ignores it, letting olive green wash through his aura.
“I'm sorry,” is the first thing that leaves his mouth. He holds his hands out placatingly, trying to show that he means the two no harm.
Lala’s aura is still tinged with maroon, but her aura is also slightly muddled at the sudden apology. In her hands, she holds one of the pillars
(and okay, what the fuck?)
previously used to support the ceiling and ground above them. Allen gulps nervously, feeling his aura sharpen anxiously, before forcing it down.
“I didn't mean to eavesdrop on your conversation,” he continues, smiling with as much olive green as he can manage. “But I did hear what you said, and I want to help.”
He can see the maroon becoming overshadowed by dull grey and knows this is his chance.
“Please,” Allen implores softly, eyes staring straight into Lala’s one in his attempt to reflect his sincerity.
The doll hesitates for one more moment, before blinding yellow overtakes her aura, and she slowly sets the pillar down. Allen smiles
(and on the inside, lets out a sigh of relief, thank God)
.
“Thank you, Lala.”
For a moment, Lala looks surprised at the use of her name before a soft smile overtakes her face, and a mix of sunshine and golden yellow surrounds her. It matches her hair exactly.
---
They all end up huddled together after a few minutes, laying on the ground.
(Kanda radiates red like he’s made of the color, but Allen dutifully ignores him.)
And while he would love to use this time to get to know the two better
(This is absolutely amazing. He’s always sensed the emotions huddled around Innocence, always known there was some form of sentience to them, but to actually see one, animated and living, right before him is something he doesn’t want to pass up.)
, the time really doesn’t call for it. They need to use this time to strategize.
“The Akuma shouldn’t be here for a little while longer,” Allen begins, glancing around for the Akuma’s aura again just to be sure. Luckily, he’s still a ways off.
More than one aura around him becomes dotted with dull grey and small traces of blue, but Allen doesn’t let their disbelief dissuade him.
“How are you certain?” Lala asks cautiously, eye drifting up to Guzol as rich blue is added to her colors.
Allen smiles with just a hint of drowning blue in his smile, grasping desperately for at least a little light blue. He still has to keep his Synesthesia a secret, but surely, he can tell some form of a truth.
“I was cursed to see the souls of Akuma,” he explains, subconsciously lifting his left hand to cover his eye.
(“Mana!”
A skeleton, come to life, orange-yellow-blue encompassed completely in black.
Just like the day he died.)
“I’ll know when it’s coming,” Allen reaffirms, bringing himself back to the present with a shake.
Something in Lala
(the instincts of the Innocence, perhaps?)
, shines with drowning blue as well like she would cry
(For him, cry for
him.
No one’s ever done that before.)
if she had the tears to do so. Allen can even see Guzol’s arms tightening around her comfortingly.
Looking away from Lala for the moment, Guzol looks up uncertainly
(flush pink surfaces in his aura, and it strikes Allen that Guzol hasn’t had
any
positive human interaction for
decades
)
and meets Allen gaze. Then, upon seeing nothing resembling disgust or horror
(only understanding)
in Allen’s expression, grass green replaces the flush pink swiftly.
With more confidence than before, Guzol asks, “Will you allow me to be the one to do it?”
He doesn’t need to elaborate; Allen knows what he’s asking.
“Yes,” he agrees, voice soft. “You will be together until your time comes.”
Guzol smiles appreciatively, and Allen returns the gesture eagerly. That is, until a sudden roar of red beside Allen redirects his attention. And fuck, Allen remembers Kanda wasn’t awake for that part of the conversation.
“Like
hell
we’re waiting for some old man to die before we take the Innocence!” he growls, red strong in each word. “We need to get the Innocence back to Headquarters as soon as possible, not in a couple of years when this old man finally croaks!”
Kanda looks directly into Allen’s eyes, something too quick flashing through his eyes for Allen to identify.
“We can’t grant this wish! Take the heart, so we can protect the Innocence!”
Allen feels red flood his system at the words. They’re insensitive at best, and Allen won’t even say what they are at their worst. But he’ll shove it down for now. This situation needs logic if they’re all to get out of here alive
(or resting peacefully, in some cases)
.
“It won’t be
years
,” Allen nearly hisses, deep blue overtaking his voice. “Guzol will be gone within a matter of days…”
Turning to the pair before him, Allen grimaces sympathetically, hyacinth flooding him as he glances between the two. He wishes he could help them more, but he knows this will be their best shot. Looking back at Kanda, he catches the surprise etched across his face
(and in the sharpening of his aura)
, before the man can hide it.
“We can grant this wish...” he murmurs, red-orange racing through him as he feels an onslaught of cream joining his already sharpened colors. “And we can protect the Innocence as well.”
Allen looks directly at Kanda, red-orange unrelenting, and for a moment, Kanda holds his gaze before the red in his aura seems to go somewhat mute, or at least less powerful.
“How?” Kanda asks, traces of blue sneaking back into his aura in a final call for defiance.
Allen smiles, and he knows it’s not the yellow-grey one Kanda has grown used to seeing in the short time they’ve known each other. Perhaps it’s a bit too red, a bit too sharp, but they’re going to win this, and Allen’s never been above fighting dirty.
(Master would probably be proud. Allen’s pretty sure he got this smile from him, after all.)
“I have a plan,” Allen explains simply, turning his gaze so he can include the entire group in his response. “And I’m going to need all of your help to complete it.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
As it happens, they’re barely ready in time.
Allen can feel the panic sharpening his aura, enough to make his stomach turn with an unsettling amount of dingy yellow-green currently twisting in his guts
(It’s similar to Guzol’s, yes, but not the same. His sickness is much more yellow based than Guzol’s)
.
Stealing a quick glance in the direction of said man, Allen grimaces as he watches the older man and Toma slowly move through their work, both not nearly in the right condition for such tasks but needing to carry them out regardless. The plan depends on it.
A sudden engulfment of black catches Allen’s eye, and oh,
fuck
.
“He’s close!” Allen whispers frantically, aura sharpening further. He easily catches everyone’s attention; he
is
the lookout, after all. “Get into your positions. We need to be ready!”
Everyone moves swiftly
(as swiftly as you can when you’re on Death’s doorstep, a bitter, Red part of his mind provides cynically)
, and within moments, they’re ready.
It’s not, in fact, a moment too soon as Allen feels the familiar faded red of his eye activating.
(Some days, Allen swears the thing actually
throbs
. Usually on rough weeks, when he hasn’t had a chance to go hunting for Akuma in the area, or when he and Master traveled through lands where they would go without civilization for a few days. The scar, however, a twisted gift from father to son, almost always aches with a long familiar faded red. He’s used to it at this point.
That doesn’t stop it from hurting though.)
The Akuma isn’t far now, he should be here any…
“Oh my…” he hears a yellow-orange hum behind him, and Allen ducks down below a strike that could’ve decapitated him if he were a second later. “It seems I’ve found the Innocence~!”
The clown’s giggle is yellow-orange and black, dark and twisted. Allen winces
(“Smile, Allen!”)
, before focusing back on the task at hand. He’ll play his part. Hopefully everyone else will play theirs’.
“Innocence, Activate!” Allen yells, feeling the comforting flare of pure white-turquoise from his left arm. He smiles, dark orange no longer an uneasy color in his aura for once. Time to put on an act. A dual act, that is.
Allen continues dodging attacks, weaving in between the pillars and bringing up near debilitating plooms of sand. In moments like these, Allen knows he’s lucky to have his Synesthesia aiding him alongside ‘normal’ human sight. He’d surely be dead without it at this point.
(Not that Allen would have any idea what the word normal represents anyway.)
Continuing to dodge the Akuma’s attacks in an unending sequence, Allen slowly leads the clown to where they need it. They’re so close, almost where they need it, and then… now!
“Lala!” Allen calls out, dodging at a speed faster than he had been showing before and moving sharply to the left, unblocking the Akuma’s sight from what they had been leading it to.
The Akuma’s eyes barely have a moment to widen before it’s struck straight in the face by a pillar, sending it crashing back into the far wall. A startled wail fills the air, and Allen watches as the Akuma takes a moment to slump against the wall. Its aura muddles as something like faded red overtakes it. The Akuma stills, in pain and exhausted for barely a few seconds.
A few seconds is all they need.
“Now, Kanda!” Allen yells. By the responding spark of red in his peripheral, the warning was likely unnecessary
(and very much unwanted)
, but Allen ignores that in favor of finishing their job.
The strike is clean. A neat X through its body. A quick death.
(Quicker than he deserved, that bastard.)
(Good to know he hasn’t lost that sense of spite over all these years, bloody hell.)
It’s a second later that Allen realizes their mistake. It’s a vital one.
Whipping around frantically, Allen spits out, “Behind…!”, before a claw like hand covers his mouth, slamming him back right next to the still smoking form of the Akuma’s decaying skin. In his panic, Allen allows turquoise to overtake his senses for a moment and lets his Innocence unleash in a wide, desperate swing to disengage the Akuma’s iron grip.
It works, and he dashes out beneath the arm and away from the familiar face staring back at him. Somehow, through some sort of luck, he ends up beside Kanda, who sends a quick look
(dark blue and overwhelming turquoise)
his way before refocusing on the Akuma. To his left, Allen can sense Lala stepping forward to stand beside him, pillar still in hand.
Standing across from them is an exact mirror-image of Allen, a maniacal smirk splitting his face gruesomely. Allen winces; he sincerely hopes he’s never made a face like that.
(Dark orange, a handful of cards in sight with many more slipped up his sleeves. The smell of alcohol in a bar, casino, back alley. Laughter, dark and scarily light blue, erupting from his throat.)
(It was supposed to help him gain better control of his left arm and hand.
It does, but it also does so much
more
.)
(Sometimes, he finds that he scares himself just as much as Cosimov did.)
Shaking himself, Allen tenses as a snigger leaves his double’s lips.
“So you knew I was coming and set up a trap, huh~?” he giggles louder, black-yellow-orange grating and disconcerting. Allen has to fight not to take a step back. “How underhanded you exorcists are! Well, I suppose I’ll just have to play dirty too, won’t I~?”
The Akuma makes to dash towards them, and Allen feels his aura sharpen at the sudden onslaught of dark orange he feels looking at the Akuma’s actions. It’s a feint!
Following the Akuma’s eyes rather than his movements, Allen watches as its gaze lands on something behind them. His eyes widen in realization, and he’s turning around before he can even process what he’s doing.
“No!” he gasps out, lunging towards the small shelter Toma and Guzol had put together using the stone slabs from a few fallen pillars, but he already knows he’s too late.
He runs anyways, heart in his throat, as he watches the Akuma race ahead of him, claws outstretched to the two even as Toma lifts his talisman to project a protective barrier against it. It won’t hold for long, barely a second. He’ll watch them both die by the hands of this deranged form of himself, watch as their auras succumb to the black before vanishing all together.
(He still hasn’t seen past Toma’s yellow-grey yet. Guzol won’t fall asleep for the last time to Lala’s lullaby. Allen will have to watch, again, as someone dies in his stead. A sacrifice that shouldn’t have been made for an undeserving street rat with absolutely nothing left as
the only light in his life is drowned in black right in front of him
.)
He won’t let that happen.
The talisman holds for a second, one precious second, and that’s all he needs.
With a cry
(scarlet and drowning blue and old scars that throb with faded red)
, Allen pushes harder than he ever has before, calls out to the pure white-turquoise in his arm, pleads for the first time since it activated to give him
more
.
(He remembers the first time he had destroyed an Akuma.
He had destroyed Mana.
His Innocence had sparked alive, muted colors now brilliant and strong and
loving
.
He remembers a flash of golden yellow, as innocent as it was wise, appearing before him and staying, as if asking, “What do you want? How can I help? Why do you need me?”
And he’d known then as he knows now what he needs it for.
“Help me save him.”
Mana had disappeared, after that, with a bright, pure white instead of the black from before.
These two won’t disappear at all.
Not on his watch.)
His arm morphs and twists beneath him, responding eagerly to his emotions
(his colors)
and molding to his will. Behind him, he feels the abrupt sharpening of his comrades’ auras as they rush towards the Akuma as well. He’d be surprised too if he had time to think about it.
Allen lets indigo and turquoise flood through him, engulfing him, as he fires his newly formed Innocence without mercy. A volley of piercing beams shoot straight for the Akuma. None of them miss their mark.
The Akuma stops as if shocked, and Allen doesn’t hesitate.
It’s more indigo than anything resembling actual thought that drives him forward now, allowing his Innocence to morph once more as he slices clean through the Akuma’s hide, revealing the Akuma’s true skin.
It panics, jumping back as if to gain ground and reorient itself, but Allen won’t give it that chance.
“Kanda!” he calls again, changing his Innocence’s form one more time as he repeats the words he’d uttered before.
(There is no spark of red this time, only a green tinged white, and honestly, it’s probably the calmest Allen has ever seen Kanda. Allen feels the same colors engulf him too.)
They both fire, and this time, both of them hit their true target.
The Akuma disappears, pure white engulfing it, and Allen watches in a daze
(vaguely realizing he’s collapsed, depleted, to the ground)
as the chains imprisoning the soul are shattered. The soul smiles in thanks, eyes drowning blue but also grass green, before vanishing as well.
Allen smiles back even if the soul can no longer see it, mumbling a soft farewell.
It isn’t until he looks up again that he realizes that Toma is in front of him now, eyes crinkled as a strange combination of rich blue and grass green wash over him. The yellow-grey is nowhere in sight. Allen gives a soft smile and tunes back into the world of the living.
(For now, Allen’s spent enough time with the dead, he thinks.)
“...ster Walker! Master Walker!” Toma speaks softly but urgently, aura beginning to sharpen in panic.
“I’m alright, Toma,” he whispers, glancing around him. Lala and Guzol are sitting together, hugging each other
(a pure, light pink he hasn’t seen since…)
but with both of their gazes on him as grass green and rich blue mingle between their colors as well. Kanda stands a small ways away, shaky but otherwise unharmed with his gaze diverted from them all.
(Mugen lays deactivated in his hands, shining with a muted sense of gold and overwhelming orange, and for a split second, Allen’s thoughts wander to what it had asked Kanda, when and where and why, before he shakes himself. It’s none of his business anyway.)
“No offense, Master Walker, but I believe your idea of one’s proper well-being is somewhat skewed from most people’s.” Toma mumbles, a faint yellow-grey overtaking his tone even as a stronger sense of yellow-orange dances in his aura.
Allen gives a small huff in response. Toma’s yellow-orange is contagious.
“I suppose you’re not wrong…” he mumbles, feeling a bit chastised despite himself.
Toma lets out a slightly more red breath, before bringing up his hands and forcefully pushing Allen to the ground. It’s honestly a little embarrassing how little effort it actually takes.
“Get some rest, Master Walker,” Toma advises, colors shining bright with, oddly enough, red-pink. “We’ll take it from here.”
It’s an enticing offer, Allen has to admit.
Apparently his body agrees because the next thing he knows, Allen falls into the oblivion of sleep, the voices of his comrades a comforting turquoise around him.
---
Allen has found, throughout the years, that he almost always dreams without color, the exception curiously being the few months after Mana’s death when he’d been completely deprived of any proper human interaction. It was almost as if his brain was making up for the lack of color in the waking world (or perhaps it was his grief overwhelming him at the time, who knows).
The near unchanging quality of Cross’ aura (besides a growing red at having to take care of an unresponsive, practically comatose child) through that time may have contributed to the newfound color in his dreams as well.
Despite those times, however, Allen has never dreamed with much color. It’s almost as if his brain is taking a break from all of the colors it constantly takes in and processes.
There are, of course, continued exceptions to his black and white dreams.
Tonight, he dreams of turquoise, without the usual, accompanying pure white, and rich blue without the overhanging barrier of too much blue that Cross tries to mask his with.
It’s nice.
He wishes he could dream like this forever.
---
He hears voices as he drifts in some form of half-sleep. Soft murmurs of conversations not meant for his ears.
“Master Kanda, please calm down. You’ll wake Master Walker.”
“As if I care about that stupid Beansprout! He can die for all I care!”
“Don’t speak about him that way! He saved all of our lives today and deserves to rest!”
“Fuck that! I still don’t know why we don’t just take your heart and go!”
“Please, sir. He promised we could stay together…”
“I don’t fucking care what that idiot promised! I…!”
He squirms in discomfort, sickening amounts of red washing over him when he’s unprepared. As if in response to his shifting, the voices immediately silence, the red muted and replaced with flush pink and rich blue.
“Fine,” comes a much less red voice, gruff but resigned.
The red all but disappears from there, except for a soft thrumming of it in the corner of his senses, but it’s quickly put out of his mind as Allen is pulled back into his dreams.
---
Waking up is certainly strange, on the ground without his Master’s familiar scarlet-orange-gold aura. He lays there, unsure of exactly where he is, until his memories rush back to him and Allen gasps as his aura sharpens. His ears finally pick up on the soft sound not too far from him: singing.
Sitting up, Allen looks over to where he can now see Lala and Guzol together on the ground, Lala sat seiza style as Guzol lays comfortably with his head in her lap.
“She’s been singing for hours,” Toma says from beside him. Allen likely would’ve startled if not for the fact that he’d already sensed the man’s approach. Allen turns his gaze away from the pair to give the Finder his attention, curious.
“Where is Kanda?”
He can’t sense the man nearby, so he must be farther away.
“Master Kanda is currently on patrol,” Toma answers dutifully, looking back at Allen steadily. “It’s been decided that we will wait until after Guzol has passed to take the Innocence.”
Allen smiles gratefully, a conversation he blearily remembers flashing through his mind, before he brings himself together and stands. He’s very proud of himself when he only stumbles a little.
“I’ll go and patrol as well then,” Allen announces, glancing back at Toma before rich blue can sprout in his colors again. “I’ll know if an Akuma is getting close, don’t worry.”
He winks his left eye, tapping at his curse almost playfully.
It’s worth the embarrassing gesture when Toma’s eyes crinkle and the oncoming rich blue is washed away by grass green and yellow-orange.
“Be careful, Master Walker,” he murmurs softly, gaze unwavering.
Allen smiles, feeling sunshine yellow dance around him even as a faint, bright orange sneaks its way into his smile.
“Of course.”
---
As he’s walking away, Allen glances back, catching a glimpse of a folded coat where he had previously been lying. It’d likely been used as some sort of makeshift pillow for him.
A sense of bright orange
(alongside a sense of red-pink)
, stronger than before, floods Allen’s aura upon seeing that the coat is an exorcist’s and certainly not his own.
He smiles wider before continuing his walk to the surface.
---
(Needless to say, Allen thoroughly teased Kanda about it later, earning a thrilling flush pink in response even if the effect was only clear in the man’s aura.
He also lost a few hairs via Mugen, but it was totally worth it.)
-
(He thanked him sincerely later, eyes serious and full of light blue.)
-
(Also, Allen may have gotten lost on his way to patrol multiple times in the next couple of days, but no one needs to know that but him.
It gets better once Timcanpy begins to follow him around again anyway.)
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It’s three days later that Allen hears their story, and despite the positive aftermath of the fight, he can’t say he doesn’t wish that he’d heard it sooner.
The story of Mater and its abandon, of Lala and her traces of orange, of Guzol and his flush pink. It’s familiar in a way that burns scarlet, not yet faded as Lala’s is, and overwhelms him with the deep, drowning blue and traces of orange that will always cling to his colors no matter how many people he’s surrounded by.
Needless to say, the reminder stings. And yet, he feels it brings him to a closer understanding, knowing why Mater and its two inhabitants bear the colors of their souls like battle scars. They’ve fought hard to be where they are.
It’s so familiar that the drowning blue overwhelms him, and before he can try to stop them, the blue flows down his cheeks in twin streaks like the watercolor paints he remembers seeing once during his travels.
Beside him, Lala and Guzol both shine with the same colors, though faded with time, and smile fragmented smiles with cracks cemented with sunshine yellow and light pink.
Allen hopes they can feel the green tinged white in his aura because he doesn’t think he can speak around the tears on his cheeks and the lump in his throat.
-
It’s only another four days, long with most of the time filled with Lala’s lullaby, when Guzol takes his final breath.
Allen can immediately tell that the old man’s time has come. The yellow-green has nearly completely overridden all other colors in Guzol’s aura
(a small spark of light pink, unbreakable and eternal, shines unblemished in his core)
over the past few days, and now, even the yellow-green has become overshadowed by the black in Guzol’s aura.
Today’s the day, and there’s nothing Allen can do but give them some privacy.
-
When he goes up to leave, Allen casts a smile back at the pair. With it being morning, Lala is only just about to begin singing again after a small break to talk to Guzol in soft tones. Somehow sensing his gaze, the doll of Mater catches his eye as he makes to leave, and something must show in them because suddenly, her eye shines bright with drowning blue as if she’d cry if she were only capable of doing so.
He needs to say something. He never got the chance to last time
(The last few times, actually, but who’s counting? Certainly not him, he’s too busy drowning.)
, and he doubts such a chance will present itself again.
“Thank you,” he says, quietly, because false sympathies will always be a part of him
(Is it really him though? A street brat born in pale blue and munsell yellow in the dark corners of an alley with only the thoughts of dying with turquoise in his eyes as a comfort. No, false sympathies were always Mana’s area of expertise. Although, at this point, is there really much of a difference?)
, but neither of Mater’s occupants need or deserve such lies right now.
Lala’s colors muddle with dull grey before brightening, a halo of blinding yellow mingling with the golden hue of her hair. She nods.
It’s all they need, between people who are practically looking into a mirror instead of another person’s face.
He still feels the sting of yellow-green and the shadows of black at his heels as he walks to the surface alongside Toma.
-
It’s sad, really, how he still avoids death.
How he watches for it everyday, through a curse given by the dead
(his dead)
, and yet, he still can’t stand to watch someone’s aura fade completely to black, watch as everything turns black and white like in his dreams, and despair over the loss of something that’s so individually unique among a world of billions, no matter how ugly or how beautiful.
Guzol is beautiful in every way that matters, and Allen can’t even bring himself to watch such an honorable man die.
The color sits uncomfortably in his stomach, almost like chartreuse, but that has to do with nerves, and he’s not nervous, he’s only…
Pathetic.
The word rings true with the overwhelming amount of yellow clinging to him like a rash across his entire being.
Despite his resolve, the yellow clings to him just as strongly as the accompanying green-yellow, blatant and unyielding in its intensity.
He continues to wallow to himself, allowing the cycles of churning yellow and green to overtake his thoughts, before a voice, gruff and brimming with red, interrupts his thoughts.
“If it’s that painful, don’t listen,” Kanda nearly snarls at him, red making the words sharp and accusatory. “It’s your own damn fault for not taking the Innocence and just leaving.”
Allen raises his head, broken out of the shameful yellow in his colors, and retorts just as sharply, “I won’t regret letting Lala and Guzol have their final moments together. I’d
never
regret that!”
The red in his voice is backed by the glare he directs at Kanda, who only seems to grow more red at the expression. Dull grey tinges his aura, and that too is surrounded in red.
“We’re destroyers, not saviors!” Kanda hisses at him, voice pitched low even with the red dripping like blood from his words.
Allen pauses, gut twisting with too much yellow and green-yellow again.
“I know that…” he whispers harshly, barely loud enough for Kanda to hear.
“Then what the hell is your problem?” the other man growls at him. Kanda is clearly lashing out, probably not appreciating his lack of understanding when it comes to Allen, but Allen’s not in the mood to be gentle if he’s going to provide an answer.
“Guzol’s going to
die
today!” Allen yells back, voice cracking with the colors swarming in it. “And I can’t just sit here and feel
nothing
like you seem to be able to! Maybe there’s more to you underneath all of the anger you hide behind, but if you’re capable of ignoring something that’s right in front of you with the excuse of a greater good, then maybe there isn’t! How are we supposed to save the world if we can’t even save-”
Allen breaks off, gasping as his colors bound out of his control, scarlet and dark purple and drowning blue and too much yellow and traces of orange and black so much black clinging to him like he’s the bringer of Death himself, like everyone he cares for and loves and treasures will
die
not matter
what he does
.
Tears are flowing down his cheeks again, and flush pink and green-yellow shove themselves to the surface of the chaos in his aura.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs after the silence has stretched on uncomfortably. For the first time in what must have been awhile, Allen actively searches for the colors of his comrades, easily pinpointing Toma’s comforting yellow-grey
(aura sharpened a bit with alarm at the sudden shouting, no doubt)
before coming across Kanda’s usual red and… another color he can easily pinpoint: blinding yellow.
It seems Kanda’s come to some sort of decision then.
Allen pushes on anyway.
“I shouldn’t have placed blame on you, I’m really so-”
“Don’t you dare spout that bullshit after that fucking display,” Kanda growls, but his voice isn’t as red as before. “I don’t want to hear whatever lies you’re going to say. You obviously don’t like me, and I honestly don’t give a shit. But when you’re so fucking obvious about living as a fucking fake, it’s really fucking annoying! If you’re going to talk then say what you fucking mean, Beansprout!”
Allen’s eye twitches.
“Alright, then,” he agrees pleasantly, smile as hostile as he can make it. “I think you’re an asshole.”
The responding bloom of yellow-orange in Kanda’s aura is surprisingly reflected on his face in the form of a smirk. Allen still can’t get over the fact that this guy isn’t a complete sociopath that only feels red and scarlet.
Kanda opens his mouth to reply (
probably something snarky, the bloody bastard)
when suddenly, everything goes silent. And that’s definitely not right because…
Allen jolts, looking behind him where the entrance to the underground ruins are, searching and searching trying to find something yellow-green light pink sunshine yellow
anything
.
He finds nothing but black, painfully colorless in the glow of pure white lying unmoving beside it.
Allen stares, eyes watering again
(What is this, the fourth fucking time that day?)
, before turning back to the others, seeing painful green tinged white dancing across their auras.
“He’s gone,” Allen whispers softly, a broken, dark purple smile making its way to his face. “Guzol’s gone.”
-
Allen’s the first one to reach them, having run full speed, twisting and turning through the maze and following the pure white of Lala’s Innocence until he finds the archway again.
He slowly walks towards the pair, almost afraid to break something
(and what that something is, he doesn’t know)
. When he reaches them, his heart nearly shatters with the corresponding deep blue and grass green.
Overtop of Guzol’s prone form is Lala, hunched and broken with dull eyes and a true puppet’s smile, merely a husk of the lively doll Allen has grown fond of. Before her lies Guzol, eyes closed and body unmoving, unbreathing, as black continues to dance around his body even as it slowly fades away, waiting to claim another of Allen’s precious few.
Glancing down, Allen feels another rush of color overwhelm him close to tears.
Resting in Guzol’s hands, cradled protectively in stiffened arms, is the Innocence, Lala’s heart.
Allen falls to his knees beside the doll, lifting shaking hands to grasp the Innocence out of Guzol’s still warm fingers.
A sob escapes his throat, and Allen brings the Innocence closer to his heart, hoping maybe he’ll be able to feel Lala’s rich blue or traces of orange. Instead, he feels a pulse of grass green, reminiscent of his own, and sunshine yellow, a picture of a meadow on a peaceful summer day.
It pulses against him, reassuring him, and suddenly, Allen realizes that despite the change of form, this is still Lala in his hands, trying to tell him something. The colors all wash over him, and Allen knows this is Lala’s response to what he’d said earlier. This is
her
thanks.
(Thank you for letting me keep my promise, he can almost hear.)
“You’re welcome,” he whispers to Lala, hands tightening around her, lying there until he senses the approach of Kanda and Toma behind him.
Turning around, Allen smiles at Kanda, more light blue than he’s smiled for awhile even as deep blue shines through as well.
“Kanda,” he murmurs, glancing at the other to make sure he can hear him. He needs him to hear this. “We may be destroyers first and foremost in this war, but I want to be a destroyer who saves lives.”
Kanda stares at him, aura sharpening in his surprise, before turning away to scoff, red dusting across the beginning of another color, hidden deep down inside the man’s aura.
Allen turns away, holding Lala closer. He’ll learn who Kanda really is someday.
Just not today.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The train ride back to Headquarters is uneventful for the most part. Having discovered the day of their leaving that Kanda wouldn't be joining them on their trip and would instead be heading off to a different mission, Allen found himself filled with an odd mix of grass green
(This, he understood just fine. Being away from Kanda's constant, overbearing red would be like a breath of fresh air. The red,
his Red
, would still be there, of course, but Kanda's red wouldn't be around to provoke it anymore. He's found similar effects when leaving more urbanized areas or the brothels his Master and he had frequented (unfortunately). It would definitely be a relief.)
and the faintest traces of hyacinth.
It's an odd combination to say the least, and Allen doesn't know what to do about it.
(He thinks he may remember a time of seeing this. Of feeling this. Of being shoved out of the way of a wayward carriage. Of not dying and the twisted grass green that had flooded him then. Of the immediate overshadowing of hyacinth afterwards accompanied by the heavy pitch black death he's alone traces of orange why doesn't anything good stay drowning blue dark purple black
hyacinth
)
His aura muddles, and dull grey floods his vision as he contemplates the matter.
Toma, who he’s practically had to drag into the cabin with him
(claiming loneliness which, to be fair, still lingered in his aura through the small traces of orange he’d picked back up while in Mater)
, sits across from him as traces of yellow flow through his sharpened aura.
Allen nearly sighs. The man is too tense.
Guess it’ll be Allen’s job to fix that if he wants
any
comrades
(friends)
in the Order.
(He doesn’t acknowledge that this is a distraction, doesn’t tell himself that it’s not. He doesn’t know when he’s lying to himself half the time anyway.)
“You don’t have to be so uncomfortable,” Allen murmurs softly into the silence, hoping to keep from startling the
(probably? It’s not like he’s seen much of his face..)
older man.
He doesn’t completely succeed going by the sudden tensing of Toma’s shoulders and further sharpening of his aura.
“I apologize, Master Walker, but I hope you can understand that the last few days have been somewhat… stressful, per se,” Toma mumbles back, the barest bits of sarcasm leaking into his voice even as it remains almost painfully yellow-grey.
Allen winces a bit but remains undeterred in befriending this horribly polite man
(not that he can say much else for himself)
. Making a split second decision, Allen swaps to Toma’s side of the cabin in nearly an instant, causing the poor man’s aura to tense once again. Allen really wishes he could stop startling the Finder.
(It probably doesn’t help that he’s so used to being around people either too accustomed to his near bipolarity to really care, are nearly impossible to startle, or just don’t care in general.)
“You don’t have to be so polite either,” Allen says pointedly, feeling gold and overwhelming orange flood through his aura at the flush pink and yellow-orange that skim through Toma’s colors. Those colors, however, are quickly followed by red-pink, a surprising color though tinged more red than pink.
“You’re one to talk, Master Walker,” Toma retorts.
Allen has the decency to smile sheepishly, expressing his own flush pink as he feels the color rise to his cheeks.
“I suppose I am,” Allen responds softly, looking down at his hands with a smile flushed with traces of yellow. Now this conversation is just turning awkward…
“So let’s change that.”
The words leave his mouth before he really processes them, and he finds he really can’t blame Toma for the widening of his eyes; he can hardly believe himself.
(The Finder’s eyes are very expressive, as is his body language. It’s helpful when those are all he can really read off of the man besides his colors.)
Well, no backing down now.
(He’s never really been the type to either way.)
“If you tell me something about you, I’ll tell you something about me,” Allen reasons, looking to Toma even as his own colors go into a frenzy. He knows himself, and he’s gotten to know Toma these past few days to some extent. They’re both very secretive people. Regardless, he can’t help but find himself rising to the challenge.
“Alright then, Master Walker.”
Apparently, the same can be said for Toma if the more apparent yellow in his yellow-grey is anything to go by.
Allen turns to him, a newfound golden yellow surfacing in his aura even as he promises the man, “Nothing too serious.”
(He doesn’t acknowledge that this term is more for his benefit than Toma’s even if he’s pretty sure the man already knows.)
The Finder nods in confirmation, grass green
(and blinding yellow)
flashing in his eyes, before they muddle a little as he focuses his attention elsewhere.
It takes a minute before the man speaks again.
“I like to play cards,” he says softly, contemplatively. “I learned when I was younger. I didn’t have too many friends, so I played by myself then. I’ve found it’s a good pass time on missions, and sometimes, the Finders I’m working with at the time join in.”
Toma stops, apparently finished with his small tale.
Allen smiles sunshine yellow, encouraging and appreciative of this small gateway to a more personal side of Toma. In turn, Toma’s eyes crinkle, revealing barely there crow’s feet as he returns Allen’s smile. Then, he looks pointedly at Allen, expectant.
Allen’s smile turns yellow-orange as green tinged white streams into his aura.
“I enjoy cards as well, actually,” he begins, quickly elaborating as to make the trade of stories more equivalent. “You see, my arm, the left one, was paralyzed up until I activated my Innocence. That’s when Master Cross took me in to train me. And, of course, since I hadn’t been able to use my arm my entire life, I had to learn proper dexterity somehow. Hence, cards…”
Allen’s excitement tapers off slightly as uncertainty, coming as traces of yellow
(why has that been such a common color for him today?)
flood his colors, making him feel the need to turn away from Toma’s golden yellow gaze.
Out of his peripheral vision he sees the man turn away as well, green tinged white mingling in his aura. They sit in silence for a few more moments, content but still somewhat tense, when Toma seems to decide on what to say.
“It’s seemed to work well,” Toma answers, and Allen’s shoulders almost immediately lose their tension, nearly sagging with grass green. Of course Toma would go the practical route.
“It has,” Allen smiles, looking back at the man beside him.
Toma’s eyes crinkle again, aura leaning towards yellow once more, and for a moment, Allen feels turquoise sneak into his aura. He almost wants to cry at its beauty.
“Master Allen,” Toma interrupts his thoughts, aura sharpened and sounding hesitant, and Allen realizes with a jolt that this is the first time Toma has used his first name.
(Turquoise floods him again, and this time, he nearly
does
cry.)
His smile widens nearly involuntarily, and he smiles encouragingly at Toma.
Aura now stable, Toma continues more confidently.
“Master Allen. I hate to inform you of this so suddenly, but I won’t be able to head all the way back to the Order with you. I’ve been called to another mission; something strange is happening in a city in Germany. I apologize for not telling you sooner, but I didn’t receive news of such until yesterday.”
Allen looks at Toma blankly for a moment, expression unreadable as he processes what the Finder just told him. After he’s processed the information, his first reaction is to smile, the muddled light blue and dark orange flooding his aura no doubt making his smile complete and utterly fake.
But then he looks at Toma, and he sees the unmistakable color of hyacinth in the man’s aura. It’s a shuttering color on the man, and Allen’s smile wavers for a moment, keeping him silent for perhaps a beat too long.
Toma seems to take his silence the wrong way as the man’s aura sharpens a little in panic and grows even heavier with a more pigmented shade of hyacinth.
“I’m sorry that I’ll have to leave, Master Walker…” Toma seems to retreat into himself even as his body language reveals nothing of his inner turmoil.
Allen realizes that the man thinks he’s ruined whatever
(friendship? comradery?)
had begun to form between the two of them. Flush pink swarms him, making his hasty reassurance come out jumbled and flustered.
“No, no, Toma! It’s alright! I understand, it’s not like you could do anything about it. You’re needed elsewhere. Don’t worry about me; I’ll be fine.”
The man, though partially reassured, still looks doubtful, his aura an odd mix of hyacinth with too much turquoise and dark blue.
Allen decides to pull out the big cards.
“If it’s alright,” he murmurs, looking up from beneath his bangs as a vague sense of dark orange washes over him
(It’s for a good cause, he tells himself even as he does his best to completely ignore the color. He’s been pushing back his emotions a lot lately too. Fuck.)
. “Could you please keep calling me Allen?”
Toma’s eyes widen in surprise, before his aura turns almost completely yellow. It’s a beautiful shade that suits the man, dancing about in his resolute and attentive grey eyes.
“Of course, Master Allen,” he agrees readily before seeming to steel himself for something. Allen looks at him curiously. “Would you like to play cards until I have to get off at my stop?”
This brings pause to Allen as he feels something dark
(bright and dark orange, deep purple, dark green, black tinted red-orange)
rise within him in challenge. He quickly squashes it down before Toma can see, but by the look on the man’s face, he certainly saw
something
.
“I believe my left arm is still recovering, unfortunately,” the lie slips from his lips easily. “Would it be okay if we just talked until then?”
Toma shifts as traces of blue crowd his aura, revealing his disbelief to Allen’s lie, but the man nods anyways, and the blue slowly leaves his aura as the two converse for the next couple of hours.
He’d feel bad about lying to the man
(especially so poorly, Red whispers in his head)
if he didn’t know fully well that the man truly just dodged a bullet.
-
He thinks he may remember the first time he saw a hyacinth flower. It was in Italy, he thinks. A coast town along the peninsula that he can't remember the name of at the moment. (He does, however, remember every single brothel, bar, and black market location where his Master racked up even more debt to his name. Fuck, that’s so messed up.)
They’d been walking along the road, trying to find an inn, when something out of the corner of his eye had caught his attention.
He’d turned and frozen, eyes wide and breathing turning irregular. At that moment, he couldn’t place why the sight of the flowers had startled him, but he’d still gone over, crouching down to the purple-blue plants.
He’d probably stayed that way for a few minutes, paying no mind as to where his Master had gone or to how easy of a target he was for Akuma in this state.
“Aren’t they pretty?”
A voice speaks just behind him, and Allen whips around in surprise, broken temporarily from his daze. A young woman leans down to address him, looking at the flowers with a sunshine yellow smile.
When Allen doesn’t answer immediately, she turns her gaze to him briefly, her smile brightening, before turning back to the flowers.
“My grandmother hated hyacinths,” she continues, eyes dancing with light purple and faded blue. “I never understood why. She always said that the purple ones represented ‘sorrow for a wrong committed’. I think she was just expressing her regret for what happened to my grandfather, but that’s just a thought.”
She stands then, eyes still clouded with light purple but clearing quickly as she brushes imaginary dust off of her skirt.
“Well, I suppose I ought to be going,” she says, aura back to being sunshine yellow. “Have a nice day, young man!”
And with that, she’s off, unaware as to the burning turmoil of colors she’s left Allen in.
Regret.
REgrEt.
Regretregretregretregretregretohgodhe’salonenowManapleasedon’tleave…
He wallows for what feels like hours, consumed by drowning blue and dark purple and a twisted twisted grass green and
hyacinth
.
-
Allen doesn’t remember, but Master tells him he found him collapsed on the side of the road, tears staining his cheeks and a wild look in his eyes.
He’s not sure if he
wants
to remember.
-
His Innocence’s turquoise-white is a comfort that night. An anchor in a drowning blue storm of hyacinth petals.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Looking up, in that moment, all Allen sees is white, pure and unadulterated. Like Innocence. This white, however, doesn't hum with the familiar sense of emotion, so Allen figures he's just been staring pointlessly at the ceiling for the past couple of minutes.
Great.
He closes his eyes again, expanding his senses to his own body first
(his head throbs dully, the familiar faded red pulsing up and down his body)
and then outward, feeling the Order
(off-white and black as it was before)
and then another person
(a familiar aura of green and light pink)
. Then it hits him.
Not literally, of course, though the sudden pale blue placed against his forehead shocks him enough into sitting abruptly upright, earning a slightly sharpened aura from Lenalee.
“Aw!” She gasps, more out of surprise than fear. Her aura quickly calms down, however, adjusting back to its default colors. “Well, I see you're awake. I'm glad; everyone was getting worried.”
And it's true, if the rich blue hanging around her aura is anything to go by. Something bright settles inside of Allen’s aura, but he’s too distracted coming up with a response to really see what it is.
“I didn't mean to worry anyone,” Allen mumbles back, scratching at his cheek sheepishly as flush pink invades his aura. Though he can't quite remember… “What happened?”
Lenalee pauses, looking up at him from where she'd been bending to pick up the rag he’d unceremoniously flung across the bed. Oops.
“You don't remember?”
At the shake of his head, she stands back up, rich blue clouding her aura again as her brow furrows with worry.
“Well, I don't remember much of the incident myself. I was unconscious for most of it…” this last sentence, Allen notes, is muttered with particular spite, red-pink
(red nearly completely drowning out the pink)
practically dripping from the words. “But one of my older brother's Komurin went out of control… again.”
The name
(Komurin, seriously?)
triggers something in Allen's memories, and suddenly, he remembers
(though he kinda wishes he hadn't if he's to be honest)
.
“That was horrible,” he moans out, placing his face into his hands and letting out a long, pained groan. He hasn't felt this much wine red since, well,
Cross
.
(Considering the main source of the color for the past couple of years, Allen would say the name is pretty fitting.)
Lenalee lets out a giggle
(a
giggle
, an honest to God
giggle
, yellow-orange and all)
before pushing him, lightly, down into the mattress again, placing the newly wetted cloth onto his forehead. The periwinkle that follows is more expected
(and therefore, much nicer)
than the pale blue from only a few minutes ago.
“Yeah,” Lenalee agrees readily even as both flush and tender pink invade her aura. Embarrassment… for her brother, perhaps? “Komui can go a little overboard sometimes.”
The words seem somewhat lacking in the face of their current whereabouts in what Allen has come to assume is the infirmary.
“Sometimes?”
A voice cuts in, just as wine red as Allen currently feels
(Even more so, probably. Built up over time, perhaps?)
. “I’d say it’s a
little
more than
sometimes
, Lenalee.”
Allen turns his head sharply
(quickly and unfortunately ceasing the periwinkle from soothing his throbbing forehead as he sends the cloth flying again)
at the sudden onslaught of color coming from the direction of the voice.
Headaches or any sort of head injury always seems to make his Synesthesia more intense for some reason.
“Why do
I
have to do carpenter work? I’m the
chef
!”
(Light purple and red-pink. Familiar.)
“We’re short staffed; everyone has to pitch in!”
(An aura and accompanying voice he doesn’t recognize beyond perhaps a vague glance. Too much green accompanied by a warm yellow and dark blue. Science Division, maybe?)
“Well, none of you are getting any breakfast tomorrow!”
(Light purple and yellow-orange. Teasing.)
“Hey, Allen...”
(All shades of orange. So many to see, to look into.)
“Allen!”
Allen jolts, aura sharpening in surprise as he sits up again, attention quickly captured by the rich blue to his left.
Beside him is Lenalee, Reever, and a scientist that he doesn’t know by name.
“Aw, sorry, Lenalee!” Allen says, pulling up a smile tinted with flush pink. “I zoned out. What were you saying?”
The rich blue subsides somewhat, quickly replaced by red-pink.
(This red-pink is definitely more pink, more of an amaranth.)
“Well,” she begins, shooting him a pointed look that doesn’t scare him as much as it was probably meant to when he can still see the amaranth lingering in her aura. “What
Johnny
was saying is that…”
She’s abruptly interrupted by the unknown scientist
(he’d bet good money on him being Johnny)
, who jumps into the conversation at the first opportunity he sees.
(His aura shines bright with both light orange and a mild red-orange.)
“Allen, Allen!” Johnny says excitedly, glasses flashing almost menacingly as bright orange leaks into his cheeky grin. “Your room got destroyed in the fight!”
“What!?” Allen gapes, aura spiking as he stares at Johnny in complete shock.
It seems that, now that the man’s let the news slip, his initially mischievous aura has devolved to peach, green tinged white, and rich blue as he stares at Allen through his thick, reflective glasses.
“Sorry, we’ll get you a new room,” he offers not unkindly, practically leaking light orange and peach. “Maybe we can get it even closer to the cafeteria!”
At this, Allen feels a genuinely sunshine yellow smile spread across his face, appreciative of this kind man despite
(or because of)
his smartass side.
“Thank you, Johnny,” Allen says, light blue tinging his words. Feeling satisfied, Allen flops back down onto the bed and stares up at the ceiling. The white ceiling. White…
“The Innocence!” he yelps abruptly, sitting upright and uncaring of the sudden dizziness as horrible, horrible hyacinth floods him for having forgotten Lala in the first place. Before his panic can overtake him completely, however, a pair of hands is brought into his line of sight, a familiar Innocence fragment resting in their grasp.
Lala is in his arms before he even registers moving.
“Oh thank God,” Allen murmurs, grass green flooding him completely as he looks to Lenalee gratefully, smile relieved. “Thank you, Lenalee.”
“No problem, Allen!” Lenalee smiles back, green, tender pink and a little dull grey before a flash of bright yellow enters her aura. “Oh! And welcome home!”
Allen blinks, taken by surprise as a chorus of “welcome home”s greet him from the few people lingering
(procrastinating)
in the medical wing.
Allen feels turquoise
(the color from earlier as well, no doubt)
flood him again, the color a comfort as it always has been.
“Thank you. I’m home.”
---
“Welcome back, Allen Walker, Timcanpy,” Hevlaska’s voice, echoing around the chamber with soft lavender and deep indigo, greets them once the lift has ceased its movement. Timcanpy rests atop his head comfortably, close enough for Allen to feel his magenta aura.
“I’m home,” he repeats the words and finds that they still ring with turquoise.
“Komui was rather troublesome last night, wasn’t he?” Hevlaska asks, her tone mostly grey but still tinged with yellow-orange.
“That’s mean, Hev,” Komui pouts, hot, tender, and flush pink lacing his words.
Then Hevlaska’s attention shifts, and her aura grows in both indigo and sharpness with her focus.
“The Innocence,” she instructs pointedly to Allen, and though he can’t see her eyes
(does Hevlaska even
have
eyes?)
, Allen can still feel her attention on him.
He lifts Lala to be within Hevlaska’s line of sight
(or, once again, whatever she uses to see or feel her surroundings)
, though knowing her ability, perhaps she’d been able to sense the Innocence all along. Maybe he’d ask her some day.
(The questions lay on the tip of his tongue, waiting to be asked. How far away do they have to be before you can no longer feel them? Can you feel what they feel? Can you
see
what they feel? The questions are absurd, and there’s always more of them, but he can’t help but want to find someone else who’s… like him.)
“This is Lala,” he tells her and hopes that she understands, even a little. “Please take care of her.”
He feels Komui’s golden yellow gaze on his back but ignores him as Hevlaska leans down to get a closer look at the shard resting in his palms. Lala hums with pure white, traces of orange, drowning blue, sunshine yellow, and, finally, grass green. The colors tell her story as clear as if she’d been singing it.
“Of course,” is Hevlaska’s patient, tender pink response, her voice softening from its already gentle murmur.
She stoops down a little lower, and then Lala fazes out of her glass heart, drifting towards Hevlaska before shooting above her, glowing pure white. Allen’s
pretty sure
everyone else can see it too. Reaching above Hevlaska’s head, the Innocence shines even brighter, the Exorcist lifting her head and activating her own Innocence. An array of symbols appears beneath the woman, and Allen can make out small slots, some empty and some thrumming with color, all of which include pure white.
Innocence.
Allen watches in fascination as Hevlaska opens her mouth, creating a passage for Lala to join the other pieces of Innocence. Entering the Cube
(Allen can recall an extremely vague mention of the Cube from Cross in one of the man’s more drunk moments. He also recalls Hevlaska’s name specifically, so he’s pretty sure he’s right.)
, Lala shoots into her spot, almost as if she were eager to join her fellow Innocence. Maybe she was.
It’s only at that moment that Allen realizes that Hevlaska had been speaking the entire time, perhaps to Lala?
Listening more closely, Allen barely makes out the ending of Hevlaska’s speech, soft spoken but still thrumming with color.
“Innocence, sleep inside me… for a little while… until the day you meet your accommodator… and join this war…”
And Allen can only watch as Lala seems to do just that; her colors slowly become more muted even as her pure white grows to match the other Innocence within Hevlaska. He can barely distinguish her from the other Innocence by the end, though he thinks he’ll always be able to sense Lala to some degree.
There is one color he can feel in her, however, that he can now sense in all of the Innocence within Hevlaska. It wasn’t there before, he’s sure of it, and the color truly hits him in that moment.
Brown. Caramel Brown.
(Flashes of his first sweet, bought from an old but cared for candy shop, with the leftover money he and Mana had earned that day.
It had been a special occasion, Mana had said, because this was the first time he’d smiled a real smile at the crowd. Mana had wanted to reward him.
Back then, he hadn’t known what candy was what, so he’d asked Mana to pick something for him. The man had gladly picked a light brown, square-shaped sweet and handed it to Allen. “Caramel,” he’d called it. “One of my favorites.”
Caramel…
Allen had looked up at the man he felt was a father to him, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes as tears welled up within them from all of the yellow and, oddly enough, caramel brown welling up inside of him. He’d eaten the treat, so sweet and delicious, as Mana had looked down at him, yellow-orange-blue and smiling.
This moment… it felt like
home
.)
Lala
feels like she’s home.
“Welcome home,” he whispers, softly enough that no one else can hear him, as caramel flows through his colors for the first time in what feels like forever.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The Rewinding Town, as they seem to be calling it, is apparently surrounded by a giant barrier of Innocence. Great.
The pure white of the Innocence blocks everything from outside of the town, truly barricading the people from any contact with the outside world. Unfortunately, Allen can’t really tell if it’s just him able to see it or if there is a physical barrier to be seen by the others as well.
“None of us have been able to get into the town so far, Miss Lee, Master Allen,” Toma was saying, moving closer to the Innocence and passing through it, thankfully unharmed. A moment later, however, the man is back. “Whether through normal methods or more… conventional ones.”
Allen feels Lenalee’s aura sharpen as he himself blinks in mild surprise.
He smiles, catching onto the hesitation in Toma’s words quickly as bright orange bleeds into his aura.
“Conventional methods?” Allen asks sweetly, words coming out tinted with the color salmon.
(He can’t remember the last time he’d been able to use such a tone with someone. Perhaps back in...)
At this pointed remark, Toma’s attention abruptly shifts to the wall behind him, aura dancing with the barest traces of flush pink.
“Ah… yes, Master Allen.”
Allen and Lenalee both shift to look around the Finder, eyes widening at the sight of a giant hole in the wall. Even without looking at him, Allen can feel Toma’s aura practically flooding with flush pink.
“Oh…” Lenalee murmurs to herself before blinking deliberately, perhaps trying to dislodge the image or bring herself back from the shock. Quickly recovering
(Allen can’t help but be impressed. After all, it’s not the first time Lenalee has shown such a prowess in her recovery time.)
, she turns her attention back to Toma. “So that didn’t work either?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Toma murmurs back, yellow-grey overtaking his earlier embarrassment.
“That probably means that whatever’s affecting the town is affecting it as a whole, right?” Allen asks, face a mask of white even as he feels muddled light blue mix into his aura. He already knows the answer to that question; he even knows
what
is affecting the town, but he can’t let them know that. He can’t.
“Mm,” Lenalee hums thoughtfully, staring inquisitively from the hole in the wall to the entrance of the town. “It seems that way.”
That’s when Allen catches a spark of color out of the corner of his eye, and he quickly follows Lenalee’s example, turning his own eyes onto the pure white haze he can see over the entire town.
There it is again. Another spark, another color too quick for him to identify.
Walking closer, Allen brings his hand up to the wall, almost touching it. He can feel the waves of pure white flowing beneath his hand, so full of life and emotion.
“What is it you want?” Allen whispers to it, golden yellow lacing his softly spoken words.
(Because every Innocence, every accommodator, has a reason. A reason to fight, a reason to choose, a reason to feel, a reason to never want to let go.)
The Innocence shines with color before him, lost in the overpowering pure white it’s using to barricade the town. Then, Allen sees it. A flash of maroon, protective and intent and
angry
, catches his eye, and Allen just
knows.
“Who?” he asks softly again. Behind him, he can hear Toma and Lenalee talking to each other and, thankfully, doesn’t feel any golden yellow or traces of blue directed towards him. Allen waits.
It takes a moment, as if the Innocence is accessing him, testing him, before it divulges the information Allen wasn’t even sure it was capable of giving.
(Sometimes, the sheer sentience of the Innocence surprises Allen. Sometimes, the fact that he’s the first one to truly see the extent of it is even more surprising.)
Allen sees a cloud of dark purple, heavy and depressing, and then more beneath: lilac and apricot and warm yellow. The colors are so delicate and kind and
sad
that Allen could scream.
“I’ll find her,” Allen tells the Innocence, and the lack of red or any other retributive colors tells him he guessed the person’s gender correctly. Well, that made this a little bit easier at least.
Shifting away from the wall, Allen looks back to Lenalee and Toma, who are still discussing ideas of how to enter the town.
“Hey, Toma!” Allen calls, quickly grabbing both the Finder’s and his fellow Exorcist’s attention. “What if Lenalee and I both try to go in? There’s no harm, right?”
Toma’s aura stutters for a moment, tensing sudden before releasing, and a flash of bright yellow appears around him.
“I don’t see any harm,” he answers, eyes shining with dandelion yellow
(like the hope before a wish comes true)
.
Smiling sunshine yellow, Allen turns to Lenalee.
“Are you okay with that?” he asks, just to make sure.
Lenalee looks contemplative for a moment, aura sharpening with her focus, before she looks
up to him with a smile and nods.
“Okay.”
Beaming brighter, Allen waits for Lenalee to make it to his side before sending a nod in Toma’s direction and catching Lenalee’s eye to make sure she’s ready. Earning himself another nod, Allen takes a deep breath and steps into the pure white barrier.
Please. Let me help you.
---
There’s a crackle of energy, and for a few fleeting seconds, Allen’s vision goes completely pure white. Then, the moment is over, and Allen finds himself… not where he expected.
“Did we… make it into the town?” Allen hears Lenalee say beside him, aura muddled with her clear bemusement.
“Looks like it…” Allen trails off uncertainly.
Half of Allen had expected to end up right back where they’d started, rejected from the town as all of the others had been. Maybe it
is
an exorcist thing… or perhaps the Innocence within the town has accepted his offer of help.
“It might be best to split up,” Lenalee continues, eyes already flitting around the crowd.
Allen can’t help but agree. Splitting up might help them locate the Innocence faster.
Unfortunately, the complete grasp that the Innocence holds over the town is clearly messing with Allen’s Synesthesia. He can barely see the auras around him without a haze of pure white getting in the way, let alone seek out the Innocence itself.
“That’s a good idea,” he agrees, searching the crowd as well. Searching for Timcanpy is even harder than usual, but Allen feels the golem’s familiar magenta within one of his uniform pockets. “I’ll send Tim to find you if I see anything.”
Lenalee nods her understanding, offering her green-light pink smile, before heading to the left. Allen watches her go before dutifully moving rightward.
---
It’s perhaps an hour into his search when Allen finally decides that no matter where he goes he can’t sense the Innocence any better than he could before. It’s vaguely unsettling after years of practice in finding the oddities in auras and the surrounding colors.
Looking down at Timcanpy, Allen can confirm that individual auras are indeed easier to distinguish when closer to him. At least that hasn’t changed.
On the other hand, Allen can’t help but wonder if making direct contact with the Innocence would help him identify it.
(He’d noticed a while back, about a year into his travels with Cross.
They’d been in India at the time, Allen recalls.
And it’s there that Allen met a boy, his best friend, Narain.
Narain.
Dark blue and dandelion yellow.
He’d wanted to be a doctor.
A matching aura, Mina, amethyst and dandelion.
She’d wanted to be a dancer.
Allen had never been as close to Mina, but the hyacinth that had flooded him upon her death, knowing that he’d had a part in it, knowing that maybe,
maybe
, he could have prevented it, absolutely
burned
like searing white in his heart.
When he’d touched Narain then, a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder, Allen’s sure that he would’ve mistaken the boy’s grief for his own for how strong he’d suddenly felt it.
Black shrouded blue and dandelions squashed underfoot, completely destroyed.
(Brother and sister. One soul gone, the other abandoned.)
He’d felt it when he’d touched Narain’s shoulder again, only, it hadn’t been Narain that time.
(A funeral. One soul misplaced, the other gone.)
It had been an Akuma. And suddenly all he’d been able to feel was black black drowning blue dark purple
pitch black
.
Hyacinth.
The tears had stung drowning blue in his eyes as he’d watched Mina’s soul join her brother’s.)
Since his discovery that touching another person or their aura seems to strengthen his connection to them, Allen has begun to avoid contact
(again)
. He can’t avoid it in crowds, but he can try his best to reel in his Synesthesia, despite the futility of the attempt.
(He can’t take that much pain again.)
Regardless, Allen has a job to do. Bracing himself for the onslaught of near-invading colors, Allen begins to deliberately but subtly brush up against other people as he walks, sometimes only barely close enough to get a grasp of their aura.
It isn’t the most efficient method he’s capable of, but it’s the only option he’s got right now.
-
It takes another half hour for Allen to decide that this
really
isn’t working.
He’s been walking around, brushing people’s shoulders, hands, auras in an attempt at sensing the person that the Innocence had described, but all Allen’s got as a result is a growing migraine and emotional exhaustion.
Nothing substantial to say the least.
Deciding to take a moment to calm his aura, Allen moves to walk into an alley up ahead. Which is, of course, when his eye decides to activate.
The sudden searing white and shift in vision catches him off guard for a moment, but then the reality of why his eye has activated hits him.
(He’s become so used to his Synesthesia aiding him, to being able to catch sight of the danger before it’s too close. But now he can’t.)
Before him, Allen can see a woman, her aura too far away for him to sense, as she quakes before an Akuma whose back is to him. The Akuma’s soul catches his eye, mouth agape in a drowning blue, dark purple, black scream, and Allen doesn’t hesitate.
(Turquoise-white washes over him, and Allen’s mind clears enough of his headache to not injure himself in battle. A grateful smile flashes across his lips.)
Allen’s claws rip through the Akuma as if it weren’t even there. The soul has already begun to crumble away with a murmured thanks as he lands on the ground before the woman.
Then, as his eye deactivates, Allen pauses.
An overwhelming cloud of dark purple and beneath, lilac, apricot, warm yellow. Allen draws in a sharp breath, traces of blue entering his aura as the realization that he’s
found
her, finally, the possible accommodator.
He looks up, grass green in his smile, only to come up short at the empty alley before him.
Allen finds himself at the end of the alley, looking around frantically for the woman, before he even realizes he’s moved.
He hears a shriek in the distance, a crowd parted in collectively sharpened auras and a heavy green-yellow, as the words register in his mind.
“I’ve escaped from today!”
Allen’s aura sharpens, and he quickly tugs his glove back over his left hand from where he’d instinctively tucked it into his pocket before activating his Innocence. Then he digs into his right pocket, feeling and ignoring the dingy yellow of Tim’s indignant biting.
“Tim,” Allen says sternly to the golem, gaze intent and aura onyx black. Timcanpy immediately snaps to attention. “I need you to bring Lenalee here. I think I’ve found a lead.”
Tim nods in understanding, and then he’s flitting away, magenta aura quickly leaving Allen’s current, pitiful range.
Allen turns away, eyes tracking the movements of the crowd, before heaving a great, exhausted sigh. The woman is nowhere in sight.
“I guess it’s time to catch an Innocence accommodator,” Allen murmurs to himself, leaning back against the wall to give himself another minute of rest before Lenalee arrives. He has a feeling he’s going to need it.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“What is this?”
Allen hears the question though he doesn’t quite process it for a moment.
Being inside the small restaurant they’d found has helped his head clear somewhat, but the continued impairment of his senses further irritates him, sending a wave of red through his system before he can reel the color in. The Innocence’s prowess really is incredible; the haze of pure white hangs in the air like fog, obscuring both his Synesthesia and his concentration.
“Allen!”
Speaking of concentration…
“Sorry, Lenalee!” Allen exclaims quickly, trying his best to remember what Lenalee had said before. “Um, that’s a drawing of the woman I told you about…”
“A drawing…?” Lenalee murmurs as she looks back to the piece of paper in her hands, brows furrowed. Seeing the obvious miscomprehension on his fellow exorcist’s face, Allen ignores the pang of rich blue he feels at completely missing the dull grey of her aura even at this distance. Subtly, he allows their feet to touch underneath the table, hoping at least some form of contact will help with sensing her colors.
(He dutifully ignores the sharpening of his own aura at the unwanted contact. Despite his unwillingness to be touched by others, he can’t allow his muddled senses to conflict with his ability to read others, especially his comrades. He may be adequate at reading facial expressions, but that ability was severely lacking when his Synesthesia was usually more efficient. He should probably work on that…)
Allen lowers his head sheepishly, feeling flush pink rise in his cheeks as he sucks sulkily on his spoon.
“I’m not the best at drawing people…” Allen admits and feels his face go completely red at the disbelieving look Lenalee sends him.
(He isn’t very good at drawing in general, actually. He’d always found abstract art more his style; something about mixing different colors and shades came naturally to him...)
“Mm,” Lenalee decides to hum neutrally, a hint of yellow-grey to hide her obvious agreement before she’s back to business. “So you’re sure the Akuma was after this woman?”
Taking the spoon out of his mouth, Allen nods in confirmation.
“I’m sure there was something special about that woman,” Allen says thoughtfully, setting down his spoon so he can look Lenalee in the eyes. “She shouted something about ‘escaping today’. It sounds a lot like what Komui was talking about with the town’s rewinding, doesn’t it?”
Not to mention her aura…
Lenalee nods in agreement, absentmindedly allowing Timcanpy to land on her hand from his previous perch on Allen’s head.
Pulling up a facade of black tinted turquoise, Allen directs the look to Timcanpy, earning a sharp-toothed grin that’s distinctly bright orange even if he’s never able to sense anything but magenta from the golem without touching him.
The tension in the air eases somewhat, lessening the sharpness of Lenalee’s aura that Allen hadn’t noticed until now. A flicker of hyacinth leaves him grimacing before the comforting feeling of Lenalee’s yellow-orange and amaranth banish the color from his aura.
“Speaking of Komui,” Allen continues thoughtfully, mind flashing back to the last time they’d seen the supervisor. The man’s fluctuating sharp and muddled aura had been only one of the many symptoms that had alerted Allen to the man’s worsening state. “He seemed pretty stressed when he sent us off.”
“Yeah,” Lenalee murmurs, rich blue overtaking her aura. “Brother’s had a lot to worry about, and it’s left him overworked.”
Allen, recalling Komui’s distinct light pink and rich blue when sending Lenalee off, says, “He’s worried about you.”
The smack of Lenalee’s newspaper on his head sends a wave of apricot through him rather than any actual pain.
“Not me!” Lenalee reprimands, even as her lips curl slightly with amaranth. “It’s the Millenium Earl, Allen!”
Her tone sours significantly at the name of their enemy.
“Brother can’t seem to figure out the Earl’s plans. He said it feels like the calm before the storm. Whatever the Earl is planning can’t be good.”
Allen forces steel into his eyes even as memories of drowning blue, dark purple, pitch black, hyacinth weigh down on his shoulders.
“The Earl…” he begins before a sudden flash of dark purple in front of him catches his attention.
Dimly, Allem processes Lenalee’s “Allen, you dropped your fork.” as he stares into a pair of dark, haunting eyes flashing with dark purple, lilac, apricot and warm yellow.
“It’s you!” Allen finds himself yelling as the woman stands to flee, her aura sharp and black tinted yellow with her panic. “Lenalee, this is the woman!”
And then he finds himself hanging half outside a window, the black cloth of the woman’s skirt clutched in his hand like a lifeline.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” the woman wails even as she tugs futilely on her skirt. “I just wanted to know who you are!”
Allen doesn’t relent, instead feeling wine red consume him as he yells back, “Then why did you jump out of the window!?”
“It… It was just a reflex,” the woman mumbles back, pausing in her struggle.
Thankfully, that’s when Lenalee appears behind him, aura comfortingly olive green and sky blue
(the calm before the storm)
.
“How about we all come inside and talk?” Lenalee smiles, exuding every drop of green he can see in her aura.
-
Once they’re back inside and properly situated, it doesn’t take Allen long to recognize the sudden appearance of the four men at the counter. It aches deep within his chest that it’s his left eye’s twitch of faded red that notifies him to the Akuma’s presence.
Turning to Lenalee, Allen keeps the left side of his face from the woman’s sight, not wanting to alarm her as she tries to compose herself in the booth opposite the exorcists.
Lenalee turns to him as well, and her aura spikes at his activated curse before steel enters her eyes.
“Where?” she whispers, thankfully familiar with his abilities.
“The four men at the counter,” Allen answers just as softly, deactivating his eye
(and ignoring the munsell yellow that followed)
. “Be ready to move when I say to.”
Receiving a slight nod, Allen turns his attention back to the woman before him, whose aura seems to have reached a less panicked state
(if only because he can now barely sense its sharpness anymore)
.
“My… my name is Miranda Lotto,” the woman, Miranda, introduces herself stiltedly. “I’m very happy that there’s someone else who’s noticed what’s happening in this town. I tried to tell others what has been happening, but I was made a fool of instead. At least those children can’t pull their pranks on me anymore…”
The near hysteria in Miranda’s voice sends a wave of rich blue through Allen’s aura, but he’d learned the many signs found in a maniac’s aura, and she hadn’t shown any… at least not to a degree that required real concern.
(He’d seen many a lunatic even before he’d met Cross, and one of the first lessons he’d had to teach himself on the streets was how to avoid certain people.
Nutters, for example.
Their auras were almost always neurotic, flashing from color to color and spiking with tension, almost always with a haze of one rudimentary emotion.
Cosimov’s had been dark green; he’d always wanted what everyone else had. Though he’d been less insane than most of the other madmen Allen
(Red)
has had the displeasure of meeting.)
(Of course, there was always those who hadn’t shown such signs.)
(Mana hadn’t.)
“Ms. Miranda,” Lenalee addresses the distraught woman, solacingly pastel green beside him. “Do you remember anything about when this anomaly started?”
“Yes..” Miranda murmurs, eyes wide as Allen has come to expect from the woman. “This is the 30th time that I’ve experienced October 9th. Everyone in town seems to forget… except for me.”
Then, without any forewarning whatsoever, Miranda lunges forward, latching onto Allen’s hands desperately.
“Please help me!” she wails, aura sharp enough for panicked tears to leave her eyes. “If this doesn’t stop soon, I’m going to go crazy! Please!”
Allen stares at Miranda in momentary shock, aura as blank as the look in his eyes. Shit, the Akuma must’ve taken notice of them now if they hadn’t already.
(Although he’s nearly positive they had.)
“Ms. Miranda, please calm down!” Allen vaguely notes Lenalee’s attempts to placate their new companion, but his full attention has focused onto the four Akuma sitting at the bar.
“How am I supposed to be calm when-”
“Lenalee,” Allen interrupts, voice onyx black and steel but still quiet enough for the Akuma to remain at least somewhat unaware. He leans towards the two as if to offer a softly spoken reassurance. “We’re going to walk out of this restaurant and into the alley you found me in. As soon as we get inside, please take Miranda to her home. I think she’s the most likely person to have come into contact with the Innocence. I’ll fight the Akuma and find you later with Timcanpy.”
Lenalee hesitates for a moment, eyes dull grey with her indecision, before she mumbles a soft “Okay.” in assent.
Shuffling out of their booth, Allen waves jovially to the owner, smiling yellow-grey as they exit the shop. They make their way through the crowd to the alley as quickly as they can without running, and then Lenalee is off with Miranda in her arms, the woman shrieking in both surprise and terror.
Allen turns his attention to the alley opening, Innocence activated in its gun form.
He doesn’t sense the Akuma behind him until it’s too late to block.
Colliding with the wall, Allen quickly brings up his left arm to deflect the incoming attack, converting his Innocence back into its claw-like state. Glancing around him, Allen notes each soul hovering above the Akuma, each writhing and chained the same as the clown Akuma from Mater.
“Level 2’s, huh?” Allen utters to himself, wiping the blood dripping from his mouth. A dark orange grin stretches across his face. “This should be fun.”
“Are you underestimating us!?” one of the Akuma screeches, it’s three tongues whipping maliciously from its crooked-toothed mouth as it charges.
“It’s called manipulation,” Allen smiles again, allowing gold and overwhelming orange to flash across his aura as he impaled the distracted Akuma from behind.
(“Don’t let your guard down just because you’ve won once, Idiot Apprentice!” he can hear Master’s voice in his head, scarlet-orange-gold aura flaring wine red.)
(Allen had learned that lesson long before Cross had taught it to him.)
(He always seemed to forget it anyway.)
“Voice of Pain!” another Akuma howls, and suddenly, all Allen is aware of is blinding white, the color pulsing like his head were trying to explode. With the pain overpowering his senses
(his head is filled with an unbearable cacophony, and his vision blurs with drowning blue dark purple pitch black ebony)
, Allen barely manages to dodge another Akuma’s attacks, tumbling out of the way of the cutting blasts of wind.
Even so, a searing pain strikes his leg, lighting his senses up with first pale blue then incarnadine
(like the color of a healing burn)
and causing him to nearly double over with the hit after flipping out of the way of the final Akuma.
“Ice Fire,” the Akuma says, black tinged red-orange tainting its words. “It’s hotter than fire. Even if it only touches you a little bit, it will corrode your flesh!”
The long haired Akuma laughs as its fellow Akuma chant their own ideas on how to destroy Allen.
“Let’s tear him to pieces! To pieces!”
“No, I’m going to use my voice to scramble his brain! It’s so much fun!”
“We’re going to tear!”
“No, corrode him!”
“No, let’s turn his brain to mush!”
Allen vaguely takes note of the Akuma’s arguing, clutching his ringing ears before bracing himself and aiming at the distracted Akuma.
He misses.
Fuck.
“Why would you attack us while we’re deciding how to kill you?” one of the Akuma shrieks in apparent disbelief. Allen catches a few traces of blue in the Akuma’s voice, its three skulls frantic.
“As if I’d let you get away with such an obvious opening,” Allen huffs even as he sways to his feet, aura muddled as the ringing in his ears persists.
“We’ll kill you, exorcist!” the Akuma shriek making to lunge before halting in their tracks, faces frozen.
Allen pauses, dull grey entering his aura as the Akuma continue to float before him, unmoving. A flash of pitch black catches his attention, and for a moment, Allen’s sure the Akuma are going to attack. Then, just as he’s about to shoot, a large blast sends him rocking back unsteadily, arm raised to guard his face.
When he looks up, the Akuma are gone, and Allen warily deactivates his Innocence, dull grey continuing to hang around him.
“What was that..?” Allen wonders to himself.
He doesn’t know whether he’s talking about the Akuma’s sudden retreat or the dark flash of pitch black he’s almost positive didn’t come from the Akuma.
Maybe he was just seeing things.
But then again…
(A flash of indigo and pure white-turquoise. His instincts had never let him down before.)
Best to be prepared.
“Tim,” Allen looks up to the faint magenta presence beside him. Thankfully, his ears had stopped ringing. “Let’s go find Lenalee, okay?”
Tim nods, moving closer to nuzzle against Allen’s mussed hair
(a spark of rich blue through the haze of magenta)
before flying in the direction Lenalee had taken Miranda.
Smiling softly to himself, Allen looks back to the destroyed remains of the Akuma he had destroyed, muttering a soft prayer for a safe passage, and holds his left arm close
(pure white-turquoise-warm yellow)
as he follows Timcanpy out of the smoking alleyway.
(And yet, even as he smiles, the flash of pitch black he’d seen haunts him, a horrible raven black building in his core. Something dark has entered the Rewinding Town, and Allen’s not sure if they’re ready for it.)
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Even with his limited sight, and even more limited contact with her, Allen can tell Miranda's life has been… well, to put it simply, kind of shit.
(He sees nothing truly fracturing. The truth is scrawled, drawn, painted across her soul like she’s some work of art created for others’ entertainment.
Traces of orange, never accepted by her peers.
Apricot, trying so hard to fit in anyway and being met with a bitter-sweet acknowledgement.
Warm yellow, only found through her own forgiveness and lack of cruelty. Unreciprocated.
Dark purple, a cloud of gloom resting upon her shoulders.
There’s no ebony, no drowning blue. It's somewhat comforting to know her life could've been worse.)
(Except that it's not.)
It hurts how everyone holds colors
(whether on the surface or in their core)
that pain them enough to make his eyes sting, adding to the all encompassing ocean inside of him, drowning him in all of the colors he’ll never be able to escape.
Anyone who loves ends up hurt.
Everyone
he
loves ends up hurt.
(Allen, Mana, Narlain.)
It’s lonely.
(Surrounded on all sides.
Circus goers, looking for a fun day out with the family.
Nobles in their carriages, barely sparing a glance for the big top's many 'marvels’.
Freaks like him but not.
Surrounded on all sides.
Cornered, guard raised.
Never forget to look behind you.
Always make sure it's done without them noticing.
Surrounded on all sides.
Knowing there's always someone lurking in the shadows.
Never alone, but still feeling so damn
lonely
.)
Allen hopes the Order won’t end up being another thing for him to destroy.
(The Destroyer of Time. Maybe Hevlaska had meant the Earl. Maybe she just meant that the longer he spends with someone, the more destruction he’ll bring their way.)
(A destroyer who saves.)
A flash of dandelion yellow: a wish blowing in the wind, waiting to come true.
(He can only hope. There’s not much else to do but move forward or stop moving at all. Mana had wanted him to move forward, to keep walking.)
A promise.
(Maybe he’ll be able to outrun his world as it crumbles around him.)
-
His leg flares with mint, a strange physical sensation of stinging accompanying the vague color.
He resists the urge to hiss at the pain.
“Don’t be a baby,” Lenalee chides, her voice an odd mix of pastel green, amaranth and rich blue.
(Like an older sister scolding her younger brother.)
The picture the colors create has both flush pink and sunshine yellow speckling his aura; at least until the mint green clouds his vision again, tempering the pale blue-incarnadine shooting up his leg.
“I wasn’t,” he complains sulkily, feeling a little sore at the distinct bubblegum pink in his voice.
Lenalee sends him a distinctly unconvinced look, and Allen can feel the way her amaranth starts to tip towards wine red through the hand supporting his leg as she cleans his wounds.
The air around them feels light, free of the previous tension from earlier.
It really sucks that he’s going to have to break it.
“Lenalee,” Allen begins, and his voice comes out onyx black, all amiability abandoned. “About the battle…”
He looks up at her, seeing the exact moment his tone registers in her mind. Her aura quickly turns onyx black as well, and he knows he has her full attention.
“The Akuma...” he starts, trying to figure out how to phrase his words without revealing his Synesthesia. “Well, first, I wasn’t able to destroy them all, so we’ll have to keep an eye out for them still. But the thing is… they had me cornered, were about to kill me, actually, but then they stopped. They froze like they were… receiving a message or something. I think someone told them to retreat.”
“They retreated…?” Lenalee mumbles, more to herself than as an actual question. “And you said you think someone ordered them to? Do you think it could be the Earl?”
No. Allen knows it wasn’t the Millenium Earl
(his aura is so, so much darker)
, but he
does
know that it was someone with a similar power over the Akuma. Someone they never knew existed. And that’s just as terrifying, if not more so, than the Akuma’s Maker appearing in this small German town.
“I don’t know,” he answers instead of saying any of that. “But what I do know is that if he is here then this mission just got a lot more complicated.”
Lenalee nods her agreement, and the two of them sit there in a heavy, stilted silence for a minute before she goes back to cleaning his wounds.
And that’s when, of course, Timcanpy decides to go and poke his wound.
“Tim!” Allen practically screeches, feeling pale blue-incarnadine jolt up his leg again, this time much more intensely. “Ow! Don’t touch it, you’ll make it worse!”
A giggle in front of him brings him up short, and a wave of Lenalee’s yellow-orange hits him, washing away his anxiety and breaking the tension between them.
(He doesn’t realize until later that Tim had probably done that intentionally.)
The silence afterward is only filled with his somewhat better natured grumbling and the sound of Miranda cleaning her grandfather clock which now that he really looks at it…
Holy
shit
.
“So your gun type Innocence,” Allen notes Lenalee trying to restart their more casual conversation, but he can’t bring himself to take his eyes off of the clock. “It puts a lot of strain on your body, right? Please try not to strain yourself too much, Allen.”
“Mm,” Allen responds, forcing his eyes back on Lenalee before she can notice his rather rude inattention. “Well, my body’s gotten stronger since joining the Order! I think my abilities with my gun-type are improving! Though my aim still needs some work…”
Lenalee laughs and agrees, somewhat placatingly, “Yeah, I think you’ve definitely grown since coming to the Order, Allen.”
Allen’s chest practically bursts with sunshine at the comment.
“Really!?”
“Yeah, definitely,” Lenalee agrees, smile yellow-orange. “You’ve definitely put on some muscle even if your height hasn’t really changed.”
Allen blanches, the sunshine in his aura abruptly replaced with black shrouded blue.
His height had always been somewhat of a sore spot. It didn’t help that he was barely taller than Lenalee normally. Adding insult to injury, she always wore her heels when he was around her, so even if he was even the slightest bit taller, it never seemed that way.
(There was a small boy, an orphan, who grew up on the streets, never knowing a proper meal.
Harlequin green.
The boy was always hungry.
One day, he learned, and yet, it was still not enough because his Innocence stole away not only his life force but the energy he was meant to gain through eating food.
Harlequin green.
He was always hungry.
One day, he’d wonder why he had always seemed small and weak and short for his age, and he’d know. He’d know, and he wouldn’t regret.
(Harlequin, a character in a pantomime, mute. It was ironic that this was the color for his hunger when all hunger did was claw and growl and scream and rip his stomach to shreds, and nothing about starvation was a joke because hunger was protruding ribs and stunted growth, and the color he saw for it was like a clown laughing silently at him for eternity because his hunger never went away, was never sated, would eat away at him until the day he died.)
He’s always hungry.)
(He’ll never regret sharing his energy with his very first friend.)
(He still wishes he were just a little taller though.)
“Not even a little taller?” Allen sulks, bubblegum rising up again
(alongside the harlequin in his stomach)
.
Lenalee sends him an apologetic
(but amused, goddamnit)
smile as she finishes wrapping his leg, and her gaze flickers over to her left. Allen barely senses the rich blue in her aura now that they aren’t touching anymore, but he already knows why she’s worried.
And now that he thinks about it…
Allen stands, quickly crossing the room and crouching next to Miranda who continues to lean heavily against her clock.
“I’m so powerless. I can’t do anything to stop this from happening. Why can’t you two do something, you’re the ones with powers…?” Allen catches the tailend of her rapid mumbling, and the realization of what he can do strikes him.
“Miranda,” Allen smiles softly to the woman he knows deserves so much more than she’s gotten. He knows what he can do for her. “We’ll help the town in any way we can, but I believe that you’ll be able to do even more.”
“M-Me?” Miranda whispers back as if afraid to break whatever illusion is before her.
“Allen,” Lenalee pipes up behind him. Golden yellow shines bright around her, cutting through the even thicker haze of pure white he’s felt since entering Miranda’s home. It’s eerie how he can barely sense Lenalee’s aura even though she’s only a few feet away from him. He can barely sense Miranda’s for that matter, and they’re meer inches apart. “What are you talking about?”
Allen looks between his approaching comrade and the woman before him and smiles a dark blue smile. It’s an odd mix, he knows, and the smile itself is barely a quirk of his lips.
(Fake smiles, real smiles, all smiles have become an instinct at this point. He knows they can be anything he wants them to be.)
Regardless, he needs them to know he’s right about this.
“Lenalee, Ms. Miranda,” Allen addresses them both. He takes a deep breath, knowing that this will take some explaining. “I have reason to believe that Ms. Miranda’s clock is the Innocence affecting this town and that Ms. Miranda is its accommodator.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“W-What?” Lenalee asks after a pause, eyes wide with shock.
“An… accommodator?” Miranda whispers, confused.
There’s enough tension in the air to tell him that both of their auras have sharpened in surprise.
“I know it’s shocking
(what an understatement)
, but there's enough evidence to support it,” Allen reasons, moving swiftly towards Miranda's grandfather clock. “The town has been forced into a loop of the day October 9th, so that means the Innocence manipulates time. Miranda is the only one who's noticed this happening, and the Akuma attacked her. It all points towards Miranda being the Innocence's accommodator.”
“Hmm,” Lenalee hums contemplatively. She's definitely too far for Allen to sense her aura properly, but he swears he feels a flash of shamrock from the clock.
“Besides,” Allen continues, wanting to drive his point home through the more subtle exploration of the clock he’d done earlier. He attempts to place his hand on the clock, only for it to pass straight through and come back out at an impossible angle. “Only Miranda can touch the clock in the first place.”
Twin gasps meet his ears, and Allen knows there’s no way for them to deny the truth any longer.
“Miranda’s compatible with the Innocence…” Lenalee murmurs to herself, eyes wide with growing realization.
Allen just nods, face set in a serious but genuine sort of smile. Encouraging, he hopes.
“But what is an accommodator?” Miranda asks desperately, confused and overwhelmed.
Quickly, Allen walks back over to the woman, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
(Dull grey and too little yellow flood through him, and the sudden, foreign colors strike him as hard as any physical blow.)
“It’ll be alright, Miranda,” Allen reassures, smiling with as much steel and pastel green as he can muster. “We’ll explain it all in a moment but just know that I have a plan to get us all out of this time loop.”
Miranda’s anxiety, though not completely gone, lessens, and she offers Allen a shaky but light blue smile.
“Okay,” she agrees.
Allen turns to Lenalee then, steel in his eyes and dark blue on his lips.
“Here’s what I think we should do…”
-
The plan is simple: find a way to help Miranda truly
want
the time loop to stop. After hearing Miranda’s side of the story, of her drunken pleas for October 10th to never come, Allen knows that, in the end, it’ll have to be Miranda’s will that will free her and the town of her Innocence’s grasp.
On the outside, of course, that’s as far as the plan goes, but with the dark, raven black presence still lurking in Allen’s thoughts, he knows they’ll have to keep a look out. For what, he’s not sure. And that’s what makes the decision to tell Lenalee about the second part of the plan so much easier. Two pairs of eyes are better than one, especially when one pair
(his pair)
has been compromised.
So that’s what leads them to where they are now.
Three days later and there’s still no sign of the raven black Allen had seen. Alongside that, Miranda has lost multiple jobs in that small span of time. Even so, today seems to be going well. Lavender
(a field outside a mansion, the scent of lavender in the air, memories of a time long ago)
washes over Allen as he performs beside Miranda for the show they’re advertising.
(“Come on, Allen! Smile for the crowd!”)
Even with her lack of experience, Miranda seems to be enjoying herself. Her outwardly gloomy demeanor really suits the facade of a witch.
Allen smiles at the genuine dandelion he can just barely feel from the woman even as their director allows them a break from their hard work.
He gladly takes the break; he can feel harlequin green roiling inside of him, and at this point, anything would do to sate it. The small helpings
(a normal meal for most people, Allen thinks, amaranth rising for the muted white in his left arm despite himself)
Lenalee hands him will have to do.
“Thank you,” he smiles gratefully at her, yellow-grey and grass green.
Lenalee smiles back, and for a moment, they lapse into silence. Timcanpy lands lightly on his newly de-pumpkined head. It's comfortable.
“I didn't know you were so acrobatic,” Lenalee says suddenly, but from her tone, Allen can guess she's put some thought into it. “I know being in tune with your body is important as an exorcist, but it's different seeing such mobility in someone who fights solely with their arm.”
Allen can see where Lenalee's going with this, and honestly, he understands what she's getting at.
“You mean like Kanda, right?” Allen asks. Kanda is the only other exorcist he's met at least.
(A flare of red, scarlet and, despite himself, maroon.)
“I guess so,” Lenalee murmurs, looking thoughtful. “Kanda is fast and swift, but the way you moved just now, well… I haven't seen you fight yet, but I have a feeling your movements are more graceful.”
Allen feels flush pink enter his cheeks and tries to play it off as he jumps back onto the rubber ball he'd been performing on earlier.
Nonetheless, a moment later he finds himself smiling lavender at her words as the flush pink fades from his cheeks, and after executing a few, more showy tricks and successfully eliciting some yellow-orange giggles from Lenalee, he sits back down beside her, aura going onyx black as he contemplates what to say next.
He glances at Lenalee, and through the mist of Miranda’s innocence, Allen can just barely make out her comforting green-light pink.
(From her aura, he can see her potential to calm, heal, soothe, love, protect, and Allen knows, deeply, down to his very core, that he wants to know her enough to see that without her colors. Feeling that way, for someone besides Mana and Cross and Timcanpy, is like a splash of ice blue in his veins, a shock straight to his very being. And yet, even with the sharpness of his aura, Allen can feel dandelion and sunshine, soothing the cold and filling him, instead, with a warm warm yellow.)
He sees her and and makes a decision.
“Before I became an exorcist, I traveled a lot with the man who raised me. We were clowns and performed on the streets for money.”
“That sounds amazing,” Lenalee says wistfully, and Allen shifts closer in hopes of feeling the colors in her words. It’s seafoam.
(He doesn’t remember the first time he saw this color, seafoam.
It was a long time ago he’s sure, and back then, he still hadn’t figured out that others couldn’t see colors as he could. He’d seen it as he gazed at the people passing through the streets without harlequin tearing at their stomachs, at the children with mothers and tulip pink, at the life he couldn’t have.
He remembers thinking it was turquoise, like his innocence, but realizing, later, just how blue he’d felt with the seafoam. He remembers, seafoam, and he knows he’ll always be longing for what he can’t have.)
Lenalee smiles at him, and Allen smiles back.
“Yeah,” Allen agrees, voice holding an odd mix of seafoam, onyx black and yellow-orange. “Well, we were still broke all the time…”
But it’s still the happiest I’ve ever been.
That last part goes unsaid, but judging by the green tinted white of Lenalee’s smile, Allen thinks she heard it anyway.
He pauses for a moment, then asks, pastel green, “When did you join the Order?”
Lenalee smiles, and the colors within it are muddled and overlapping, but one thing is certain: it’s bitter.
“I’ve been with the Order for as long as I can remember,” she answers, voice dripping, dripping, dripping with drowning blue. “My parents were killed by an Akuma, and once the Order found out I was the accommodator of Dark Boots, they took me away from my brother. They wouldn’t even let me see him. Honestly, it felt like a prison at first.”
Allen thinks of the darkness in the Order, of its strange off-white despite the warm yellow and caramel of its people, and thinks he understands what she means.
(He remembers himself, younger, without any family at all, wondering what it must be like having an anchor to a world amidst the drowning blue besides the turquoise-white of the sun shining through the ocean’s depths.
Wondering, hopelessly, no dandelion, no grass, no sky blue, what it would be like to fly.
He remembers and wonders what it must’ve been like to be able to fly, like Lenalee, and to still be caged.)
“But then,” he hears Lenalee murmur, and his attention immediately darts back to her story. “My brother came back for me. He’d worked his way up in the Order until he’d become Head of the Science Department.”
Here, her face breaks out into a smile so soft with light pink that Allen feels almost uncomfortable seeing it.
“He came back for me.”
They stare at each other for a moment, eyes soft with green tinted white, an understanding between two people who have lost far more than they’ve been given, and Allen feels, for a moment, caramel.
“Hey, Mr. Pumpkin~! I want to see the show!”
Allen whips around, aura sharp at the sudden interruption, to see a young girl. Her aura is unreadable at this distance with Miranda’s innocence limiting his senses, but her expression is bored. Then her words process, and Allen jolts up, quickly shoving his pumpkin costume back on as Tim sweeps off the crown of his head.
Looks like his lunch break is over.
“Here, I’ll show you where you can buy tickets, Miss!” Allen beams, voice bright with as much sunshine as he can put into it
(though it’s a bit off with the amount of false cheer in his semi sales pitch)
. “See you later, Lenalee!”
He turns his attention back to his fellow exorcist who’s watching him with an amaranth-light pink sort of smile. The fondness is almost unnerving.
(It won’t last, whispers the Red inside of him.)
She waves goodbye as he walks away.
“So,” Allen begins, smile still in place even as he knows the girl can’t see it. “You wanted a ticket to the show, right? It’s just this way.”
He goes to grab her hand to lead her along, but the sudden contact sends colors shooting up into him, dark and malicious, a swirling, foreboding, evil pitch black.
Allen gasps, dropping the girl’s hand and backing away as ice shoots up into his core.
“What,” Allen stammers, eyes wide and aura shaking with tension. “What are you?”
The girl smiles, and Allen can feel it cutting into him as deeply as the black black black of her aura.
“Why, little exorcist,” she smirks, eyes gleaming dangerously. Insanely. “I’m just a dream.”
Allen whirls around, catching sight of Lenalee where he’d left her behind, and yells, “Lenalee, get to Miranda! She’s-”
He doesn’t get another word out before he feels fire - pale, pale blue - and Akuma bullets shooting into him, searing white.
(Absently, he notes that the pumpkin head has been burned away.)
He thinks he hears Lenalee screaming his name and sees Tim’s signature flash of magenta heading towards him as he passes out.
In the wake of his unconsciousness, all Allen is sure of is the wisteria that clouds his vision, like a nightmare ensnaring him in its grasp, until the colors before his eyes fade completely to black and white.
He dreams.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The world comes back to him in a blur, black and white in a way only his dreams are before mixing into an overwhelming fog of colors.His head throbs dully of dingy yellow.Then, with just a slight twitch, searing white shoots up through his left arm, and Allen’s head turns languidly to see the damage.An Akuma, black-purple-blue, is striking metal rods into his still activated left arm, sending another wave of searing white through him. He cringes away at the unwelcome color and finds his eyes drifting as his bleary vision begins to clear.“Allen…” he hears a voice moan, filled with unpleasant colors he can’t focus on enough to identify. It sounds familiar…His eyes focus on Miranda, and with a jolt, his aura sharpening, Allen realizes that her hands have been bolted down to her clock with the same rods holding down his arm. He can see the blood (can almost feel the slick, deadly shade of copper) dripping down the sides of her Innocence, dark and painful like the drowning blue running in thick streams down her face.Her lilac-apricot-warm yellow has been suffocated by drowning blue and black tinted yellow.“Miranda,” he whispers, finding words lacking for all the colors flowing through and around him, filling him to the point of breaking.“Yeah, black looks good on her.”The voice drifts over to him, and Allen’s aura sharpens even further as the situation they’re in really begins to set in. They’ve been captured. But by who?
(A pitch black presence. Gut-wrenching raven black.)
“Master Road, what’s the point of dressing her up like this?” Allen hears a voice - one of the Akuma from earlier, he realizes - asking.“A weapon like you wouldn’t understand,” comes the reply, a girl’s voice, bubblegum pink in tone but with an underlying black tinted red-orange. “An exorcist doll is so rare, of course I’m going to play with her!”At this, Allen’s head jerks up, searching for the voice’s source, and his eyes widen at the sight before him: Lenalee, dressed in a black, corseted gown with her hair curled into ringlets, stares blankly forward. There’s no color in her eyes - no steel or red or even black tinted yellow - and her usual green-light pink aura is muted, almost fuzzy grey, as if there’s some sort of disconnection.The sight sends a wave of maroon through him, and his eyes quickly find the girl he’d heard earlier.Ice blue floods his body, freezing him in his shock. It’s the girl from earlier, her deep blue hair and gothic lolita style matching the room around her. But it’s not her appearance which shocks him; it’s her aura.It’s completely wisteria, as if she were nothing but a dream herself.And yet, there isn’t even a trace of the pitch black from before. Raven black crawls through him, and Allen finds himself glaring at the girl - Road? - as she turns her attention to him, traces of blue in his gaze.“What are you?” he asks, aura alight with red-maroon-scarlet. “And what have you done to Lenalee?”“Aw, so her name is Lenalee!” Road exclaims, voice bubblegum pink as she brushes her hand gently across the exorcist’s cheek. “What a beautiful name for a beautiful doll.”Allen growls, low in his throat, and is about to snap at her when she turns back to him, pink gone.“As for what I am,” she smiles darkly, eyes shining black tinted red-orange. “I’m human.”Allen blanches.
(One side of him screams that she’s lying, but there’s no muddled light blue in her words.
He can’t believe that she’s human, not when he’d seen something so dark, pitch black , inside of her.
The other side of him, the one that burns with red scarlet Red, knows that some humans are far worse than demons.)
“Oh, don’t give me that look,” Road laughs. “Is it so wrong for humans to get along with Akuma?”“The Millenium Earl creates Akuma to kill humans,” Allen replies, dull grey tinging his aura. “How can you get along with them when they were created to kill you?”“Oh no, silly~!” Road smirks, expression twisted with persimmon. She’s mocking him. “The Millenium Earl is my brethren. We’re the chosen humans. You don’t know anything, exorcist, you were chosen by a False God.”As she steps closer to him, Allen watches as Road changes, 7 crosses splitting across her forehead. Her skin shifts to a dark grey.That’s not what has ice blue, black ice horribly horribly dark, spreading through him though. Before Allen’s eyes, Road’s aura melds from solely wisteria to pitch black, bringing out the pure darkness that Allen knows he’d felt before.
(She feels like a dream, a dark dream.
A nightmare.)
“We’re the true apostles of God,” Road murmurs, eyes glinting darkly. “We’re the Noah Clan.”Allen looks into Road’s eyes and feels an overwhelming sense of raven black.If that’s true then…“Why?” he whispers, voice shaking, too many colors roiling inside for him to name. They feel almost black with how they coil and twist together inside him.“Hmm?” Road hums questioningly, eyes half-lidded in her disinterest.“Why would you attack us?” he asks, and he can feel one color rising above the others, taking precedence in his words: scarlet. “How could you fucking do that to them!?”Road’s expression blanches, and for a moment, Allen catches a glimpse of golden yellow in her eyes before she leans down, balanced in a crouch before him.“Who?” she asks simply.“The Akuma,” Allen answers, eyes blazing as he stares at the Noah.
(Mana, brought back as an Akuma, cursing him.
The months of searing white and dingy yellow, having hurt his loved one in the worst way possible.
Narain becoming an Akuma, his sister’s soul wailing.
Lenalee, losing her parents to an Akuma.
Komui coming back for her.)
“The Akuma,” he repeats, voice soft but burning with maroon and crimson. “And the loved ones who brought them back, who died because of it. The people they’ve killed, the souls that scream to be set free from their prisons, the ones left behind. The humans.”Road stares at him, expressionless, before her face splits into a mad grin.“Weapons exist so humans can kill other humans,” she answers, eyes black tinted red-orange.Allen sees Red .“You may be human,” Allen whispers, words sharp. “But not in the way that matters.”Road’s expression flickers for a moment, her aura sharpening in surprise, before she grins again.“You’ve got one thing right,” Road says. “The Noah Clan are descendants of the oldest human apostle in human history, and we inherited his genes. We’re superhuman. We aren’t weak like you wimps.”And then his left eye becomes searing white.
(Mana I’m sorry please.)
There’s a candle, sharpened to a stake, where his eye should be, and the wet squelch he hears as Road tears her weapon from his eye socket has a dingy yellow-green settling in his stomach. He can feel the copper dripping between his fingers as he holds his right hand over the wound. The searing white of his eye joins that of his still bolted arm.Allen glares at Road, breathing ragged.“I hate this world full of weaklings,” Road explains as she licks his blood from her candle. “You all should just die. Even God wishes for the end of the world. That’s why He gave us the Akuma.”Allen growls.“That’s not true,” he hisses, clenching his teeth. “That’s no God.”Road looks unphased by his protests, persimmon dancing around her.“Well, why don’t I show you,” she replies, grinning. “I’ll kill one right now.”Allen watches as Road’s gaze darts over to…“Miranda!”“Akuma,” Road says, onyx. “Kill her.”Allen hears Miranda shriek as the Akuma all turn on her and reacts without thinking.There’s a tear, and his entire left arm is searing white, but that is nothing compared to the maroon flowing through him.His senses explode with searing white as the Akuma bullets riddle across his entire form, Miranda tucked safely behind him.Allen has enough sense of mind to tug the rods binding Miranda to her clock from her hands before he slumps to the ground, mind reeling with pain and color.“Allen..?”He hears a soft, black tinted yellow voice.“Allen,” Miranda whispers shakily. “Please don’t die. Please don’t die, Allen…”Allen shifts, forcing as much pastel and grass green into his smile as he can, and turns to her.“I’m… okay…”He can feel the copper running down his face as drowning blue runs down Miranda’s before he slumps forward.Then he feels someone embracing him, curling over him, holding him.Protecting him.
Maroon and Pure White.
-There’s a jolt of mint green racing through him. Mint green and pure white.He cracks his eyes open, blinking several times as a haze of pure white clouds his vision.Sitting up, Allen feels the mint-pure white flowing through him fade to a dull hum beneath his skin. He glances behind him, eyes wide as green tinged white floods into him.A smile graces his lips.“Allen… you can move?” Miranda whispers, an odd mix of ice blue and dandelion faintly visible beneath the mist of pure white.“Miranda,” he whispers, awed. ( A color rises within him, like the sun in the wake of dawn. He can feel it in the air, in Miranda’s Innocence, like the first light of day falling across his face. Sunrise.) “You were able to control it. Your innocence believed in you.”Miranda’s eyes widen, tears filling her eyes. She gives him a tentative smile.Allen smiles back, steel gleaming in his eyes.“Now,” he says, standing up. “Let’s save Lenalee.”Closing his eyes, Allen stretches out his senses, wary of the possible backlash he might receive for pushing too hard. Instead of pain, the colors outside of Miranda’s Innocence dome ring with deep pigment, clear to him despite the haze of white around him.Mint-pure white pulses softly through him.Allen senses Road’s pitch black-wisteria first, then, beside it, the faintest buzz of Lenalee’s muted green-light pink. The black-purple-blue of the Akuma are gathered around the dome.He activates his arm and reaches.Pulling his arm back, Allen gently sets the elaborate chair down, rushing over to Lenalee.“Lenalee?” he asks, dandelion humming within him as he hopes for an answer. Despite already knowing she’s alive, he grasps her wrist, feeling for a pulse.The steady beat of Lenalee’s heart thrums beneath his fingertips.“She’s alive,” he murmurs, more for Miranda’s benefit than his own. “I’m not sure what’s wrong though. The Akuma could’ve damaged her nerves, or Road might’ve done something…”Allen glances down at Lenalee’s palm, curled tightly around… magenta?“Allen,” Miranda twitches, forsythia clouding around her. She twists her hands, bouncing anxiously, the color following each movement. “How is Lenalee…?”Allen smiles pastel green, turning his gaze to Miranda as he feels the same mint-pure white within him begin to flood into Lenalee.“As long as she’s within this sphere, your Innocence will be able to heal her.”Suddenly, clocks, their hands spinning rapidly backwards, begin to float from Lenalee’s skin, mint green engulfing her as the green-light pink of her aura begins to glow brighter.“What..?” Comes a confused whisper as Lenalee’s eyes widen and lose their blank glaze. “Allen? Miranda? What’s going on?”As she becomes more aware, Allen watches her hand’s grip loosen, and he goes to peak at what had been held in her grasp when..Faded red sweeps over his nose as Tim shoots from Lenalee’s hand, his magenta blaringly clear from his connection to Allen sore face.“Timcanpy!?” he gasps, running a hand over his nose even as mint quickly sweeps over his throbbing face. Red simmers in his eyes as he glares at the golem. “What were you doing in Lenalee’s hand!?”“Oh, he shattered when we were attacked. I held onto his fragments.” Lenalee explains quickly, still looking unbearably confused. “But what’s going on? Where are we? Why am I dressed like this?”Allen smiles, sunrise.“Miranda saved us,” he tells her, watching as Miranda’s eyes widen with too little blue. He turns to her. “You saved us, Miranda. You activated your Innocence, and it took away the time when we’d been injured. Thank you!”Watching as Miranda’s aura swarms with the same odd mix of ice blue and dandelion, Allen lets steel enter his gaze.Turning back to Lenalee, Allen knows what they need to do next.
(Green tinged white.)
Activating his left eye (grass green washes over him as he realizes it’s been reformed) , Allen watches as the souls of the Akuma appear around them. Nodding to Lenalee, Allen points to where one of them is.Lenalee nods back.They attack.-With their sudden recovery, Allen finds that he and Lenalee are able to take the Akuma by surprise, driving them back. He feels pure white flood into him as his arm morphs into its secondary form, a blast from its gun-like structure blasting away one of the Akuma. Beside him, Lenalee destroys a second with a powerful kick, her Innocence glowing pure white.“Let’s go, Lenalee,” he says, readying himself. She voices her affirmative.“Wow.”Allen looks up to see Road’s wide, manic grin.“Who knew exorcists were so interesting,” Road hums thoughtfully. “Seems that Miranda woman was an accommodator. She must’ve healed them.”Beside her, a strange umbrella that Allen hadn’t noticed before (it glows magenta) nods in agreement, movements frantic.“Allen,” Lenalee says, dull grey in her words. “Who is that girl? She attacked you before. Is she an Akuma?”Allen glares at Road, eyes drowning blue with the words he’s about to say.“No. She’s human.”Raven black spreads through Lenalee’s aura, and her lips purse into a grim line.“I see.”“Allen~”Allen jolts, aura sharpening as he whips around at the call of his name.“Allen Walker, the one who sees Akuma’s souls.” Road says, matter-of-fact. How does she know his name? “The Millenium Earl told me all about you. You became an exorcist to save the souls of the Akuma, right?”Road smiles, almost sweetly if not for the black tinted red-orange in her gaze.“All because you were cursed by your dear foster father,” she murmurs. Her eyes burn into his. “That’s why I swore I’d go after you.”Something flashes in her eyes, but Allen can’t process it over the raven black rushing through him, making his ears ring.She knows him.She’s planning something.“Hey, Akuma,” Road says, onyx-pitch black ringing in her voice. An order. “Self destruct.”Allen’s eyes widen in horror.“No..” he rasps, his left eye throbbing.
(Master hadn’t wanted him to know.
His modified Akuma, for all their seemed freedom, held a fate far worse than any other.
The first time Allen saw an Akuma self destruct, he’d felt a horrible, awful sense of blankness.
It’d terrified him then. It still haunts him now.
He’d screamed at Cross for it, had seen the horrible mix of hyacinth and steel grey in his Master’s eyes. Had seen the resolve he’d formed to excuse the horrible sacrifices he made.
Had seen the same blankness of the Akuma’s uncleansed soul, never to be freed, in the mask Cross tried to cover his colors with.)
Allen screams because despite everything, despite the steel of his eyes, the ice blue dancing in his veins, the turquoise-white of his Innocence, he knows he won’t make it. He knows he can’t and won’t and isn’t jumping to the Akuma’s rescue because no matter what he does now, that Akuma is doomed, its soul swallowed where not even an all encompassing black can touch it.Blank.If not for the steel ice turquoise-white, Allen’s sure the blankness would completely encompass him. Instead, he feels red maroon crimson scarlet, deeper and harsher, cutting into him and saturating him with all its hues, and suddenly, Allen is launching himself at Road, red so dark he can feel it leaking from his remaining eye.Road watches him, unimpressed and doesn’t bother moving when his left arm stops just short of her. Allen watches through a red haze as she blinks lazily at him. And yet, her eyes shine bright with something beyond wisteria-pitch black. Road’s eyes glow lighter with golden yellow; she’s intrigued.“You didn’t save it,” she whispers, words soft enough that Allen realizes belatedly that despite his resignation, he can’t sense the screaming blankness of a self destructed Akuma. He looks towards where the Akuma, the one remaining after his and Lenalee’s onslaught, last was to see it still there, still black dark purple drowning blue. Allen never thought he’d be so happy to see the colors of death.Then, before either he or Road can react, there’s an explosion, and suddenly, Allen’s vision is filled with an oddly comforting black. Lenalee steps down, Dark Boots glowing turquoise-white, with rich blue and maroon dancing across her usual green-light pink.She looks up at them both, righteous anger and concern clear in the set of her face, and Allen tries his best to reassure her (to thank her, grass green flashing in his eyes instead of a horrible horrible blankness) , before setting his face with steel.“Go help, Miranda!” he shouts to her, sudden rich blue flooding him at the reminder of his newest comrade. Lenalee hesitates for a moment more, indecision clear in her steps, before nodding and racing off, Dark Boots leaving a ribbon of turquoise-white in her wake.Allen allows himself a second to watch her go before turning back to Road, steel still shining bright.“I didn’t need to save her,” he says in reply to the golden yellow he can still see scrawled across her aura. (He remembers a soul, strangled by black chains and weeping drowning blue, long hair and shrieking voice dark purple with her grief. He remembers what that Akuma’s soul had looked like. He remembers them all.) “Lenalee saved her.”The use of the pronoun resparks Road’s curiosity. To an outsider, it might seem as though they were talking about Miranda.They both know they aren’t,“Are you sure about that?” she asks then, voice soft but mouth twitching into an almost manic smile, completely ignoring his second comment. (It was more for himself than her anyway.) “We can’t save everyone,” Allen admits, but as the words leave his mouth, he knows that Road can hear the hyacinth in his voice, the whispers that that’s not true too little light blue light blue light blue if I’d only tried harder I could have saved him her them everyone Mana . He knows she can hear how much he wishes that weren’t true.Road stares at him a little longer after that, face going blank but for the black-wisteria and golden yellow.“And if you don’t even try?” she whispers.Allen freezes, ice in his veins.Then, as if a switch had been flipped, Road’s face splits into a mad grin, eyes gleaming darker once more, before she moves in close to his face. Her hand cups his left cheek, close enough to his injured eye to send waves of dingy yellow through his head.“We’ll see who you’ll be able to save, Allen,” she whispers to him, and then she’s gone. Allen barely catches her eye as she walks through a newly created door, grin still plastered across her face until the door closes behind her.The loss of the black-wisteria of her aura strikes him, and suddenly, the space around him (which, he notes tardily, had previously emanated wisteria) feels lacking, without color. And like all other dreams, Allen could feel it crashing down around them.Without another glance back, Allen rushes to Lenalee, Miranda and Tim as the dreamworld around him comes to ruin.---
(It isn’t until later, much much later, that Allen allows himself to think about the words Road had whispered to him.
“And if you don’t even try?”
They ring with him, tug at him, keep him lying awake at night among all of the darker colors in his head, but really, it was the look in her eyes that had struck him as if she had pierced him again with one of her candles.
It had been as if he were looking into a mirror, a reflection of himself.
In her eyes, all he’d been able to see was hyacinth.
Hyacinth and black tinted turquoise.)
---
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Master?”
Allen’s head tilts up as he rushes to walk levelly with Cross, hoping to meet the man’s eyes. He finds that despite his Synesthesia, looking someone in the eye or touching them always gives him a better grasp of their emotions.
“What, brat?” Cross grumbles. They’ve been traveling for hours now, and the tedium of it has clearly begun to weigh down the man if the hum of red around the him is anything to go by.
“Why do you wear your uniform?” Allen asks, despite his better judgement. The thought has grated at him for some time now; why wear something that would so clearly state who you are? Why not hide, keep your advantage.
(He tugs at his hood, bringing it further down to conceal his white hair.)
Why make it easier to be seen?
“Why?” Cross asks, brow furrowed as his eyes lower to glance in Allen’s direction. They swarm with golden yellow and the same hum of red present in his aura. He assesses Allen for a long moment. “Because it sets me apart, Idiot Apprentice. The cross on this uniform tells people that I’m an exorcist.”
Allen stares at him, uncomprehending. His eyes cloud with dull grey, and his confusion must show on his face as Cross sighs, turning to face him completely.
“Not everyone has your gift,” Cross says, leaning down in a way that isn’t condescending the way he would normally act when among others. He knows there is little of his manner he can hide from Allen, though the idea continues to streak red through his aura whenever the fact is brought up.
(This only adds to Allen’s confusion. Cross has always been a man that hides, whether it is his emotions, his face, or himself. So why not now? Why wear the uniform?)
“We can’t identify the Akuma the way you can,” his Master continues, voice gruff in a way that’s almost gentle for him. A teaching tone, in a way. “Wearing this uniform gives us a way for them to identify us, come to us. That way, anyone who comes near us is a suspect.”
Allen’s eyes widen with green tinged white. Oh.
Cross’ eye suddenly looks away from him, a tell, if Allen were to ever call him on it, that he’s trying to hide something. But Allen still sees it. Kelpie green, vivid and deep, leaks into his eyes, quickly tainting the rest of the man’s aura before he quickly seems to shut down the emotion, hiding it away from even himself.
But Allen had seen it.
(Kelpie green, Allen knows, almost always finds its way into the eyes first. He guesses that’s one way of thinking of it as the green eyed monster.)
“It’s called a curse for a reason,” Allen cries, red flooding into him. It’s irrational, he knows, to blame Cross for feeling the way he does. He’s never heard the Akuma’s screams for death, seen their bound souls, felt the black-purple-blue of their suffering.
(He doesn’t think he’s just talking about the curse anymore.)
Allen sees the slightest flash of hyacinth and green tinted white in Cross’ eyes before the man shrouds it in steel and onyx, a grim sort of mask shielding him.
“It still makes things easier for you,” his Master says, face and tone hard. “You’ll be able to see a threat, Akuma or otherwise, far before it attacks you. And for an exorcist, that’s an invaluable gift, Allen.”
Allen grits his teeth, red and drowning blue (and the little whispers of ‘why me?’ that haunt him in the dead of night where there are few colors but for a haze of sleep muddled auras and the pure white-turquoise of his arm) building within him.
He knows Cross is right, feels flush pink and apricot building in his gut and knows that it’s stupid to complain about something that gives him even the slightest edge in his fight for survival. And yet…
His scar throbs.
“It’s not fair,” he murmurs, eyes stinging with a drowning blue he refuses to let fall.
Cross sighs, a great jumble of colors that Allen can’t focus on through his blurry vision, and stands up.
“I know,” he says, allowing his hand to drift passingly over Allen’s hood. He ruffles it the tiniest bit, enough to bring Allen’s brimming eyes up to his. His Master isn’t a comforting type of person after all. “But you’ll keep walking, won’t you.”
It’s not a question.
Cross knows why Allen is here.
“Yeah.”
They keep walking after that, silent but for the flap of Timcanpy’s wings and the steps of their boots until a sudden burst of wisteria begins to flash before Allen’s eyes, sapping the color around him.
“Master!” Allen cries, eyes wide.
But Cross keeps walking, facing forward, leaving him as the wisteria too slowly fades into a deep, raven black, almost pitch.
A flash of a smile, dark with black-wisteria, and Allen wakes with a jolt.(He’d been dreaming without even realizing it, reliving his own memories.Rarely does Allen find his dreams to be his own realm. They’ve almost always been in black and white, without color or meaning for him, a confusing and blank place he can’t comprehend.Some days, it feels as if he doesn’t dream for himself, except in rare moments like these, where his colors and thoughts invade even his sleeping hours.)
(Rarely does Allen dream his own dreams.)
He glances around but quickly finds his vision impaired not only by the haze of mind but also by the covering of his left eye. Allen goes to lift his arm, intent on checking his eye, only to find the appendage heavily bandaged, prickling grey rather than the blinding white he’d have expected after his fight with Road…“Ah, you’re awake?” asks a familiar silver-blue voice from beside him.Allen jolts again, sitting up this time to face Komui, whose hot pink smile does little to hide the rich blue and onyx black in his gaze.“Komui?” Allen murmurs, eyes wide as his aura sharpens upon seeing the man. “What are you doing here?”Komui’s smile softens significantly, traces of the rich blue from earlier and grass green slipping into his aura.“The finders around the Rewinding Town told us that everything had returned to normal,” he explains, smile still soft. “Toma especially expressed concern for you. The woman who came by here, the latest accommodator, she’d been very concerned as well.”Allen’s heart warms with sunshine yellow at the thought of Toma, remembering the last time he’d seen the man just before he and Lenalee had entered the town, before what Komui said catches up with him.“Miranda was here?” he asks, eyes once again widening at the information. At Komui’s nod, another thought strikes Allen. “Are you here for Lenalee? I know her nerves were damaged somehow by the Akuma and…”Allen trails off, remembering Road.Komui smiles, his eyes closing, and Allen can’t help but find the action deliberate as rich blue and tender pink flood back into the man’s aura.“Actually, you’ll need to go on a mission after this. It’s not urgent, but we’re rather close by so you’ll be able to handle it. I’ll tell you more once Lenalee wakes up and you’ve recovered a bit more.”That catches Allen’s attention.“Lenalee still hasn’t woken up?”“Like you said, her nerves were damaged in the fight, but don’t worry, the Old Panda will be able to fix her right up!”Allen’s head jerks around so swiftly that his grey body prickles slightly with faded red.Before him, leaning against the frame of the doorway, is a boy with a shock of ginger-red hair and sharp green eyes, but despite this, Allen’s first thought when he sees the teen is yellow .He’s shrouded in it, heavy, as if he were trying to hide himself away in it.Allen knows the feeling.The boy smiles, and that too is yellow, amber in a way that burns at Allen’s eyes.
(Amber, seemingly sweet. Beautiful, sugar-coated, until it hardens, trapping what’s within.
It still shines brightly, despite the darkness it holds.)
“I’m Lavi! Nice to meet you!”Allen blinks, and Lavi just keeps smiling.He remains silent almost long enough for it to become awkward before answering, yellow-grey, “Nice to meet you too.”“Oh, Allen!” Komui exclaims, eyes a little too narrowed for Allen to think he hadn’t noticed the odd exchange. “Miranda left a letter for you! And after, I think it’d be best for you to visit Bookman.”“Oh yeah!” Lavi joins in. “I’m sure the Old Panda will be able to do something about your eye!”Allen glances between the two, aura muddled with the sudden commotion, before sighing and taking the letter Komui holds out to him.-Reading Miranda’s letter, Allen can’t help but let grass green wash over him.To know the woman is alright and may finally feel as if she’s found a place she belongs brings sunshine yellow settling into his chest, warm as a summer day.He can’t wait to meet her again, not as a woman without a place in the world but instead as his fellow exorcist.-“This is most unusual,” the old man murmurs. “Your eye is regenerating.”His aura is sharpened, perhaps with a hint of golden yellow, but unnervingly enough, that’s about as much as Allen can truly sense from the man emotion wise.There’s little he can actually read from the older man.“You can’t see with it yet,” he continues. “But that will soon pass. At the rate your eye is healing, I’d say you’ll be back to normal within a few days.”He pauses here, seeming to weigh what more he should add, before adding, “I heard that it’s a curse.”Allen falters at that, his one working eye meeting Bookman’s two, before nodding.“It allows me to see the souls of Akuma,” Allen offers that but no more. Being in the same room as two people he barely knows, especially with the trouble he’s having reading them, leaves him a bit tight-lipped.“I see,” Bookman says, eyes sharp and shining with what might be dark blue and turquoise. “Allen Walker. You are the child of prophecy, the Destroyer of Time. We are called the Bookmen, and for reasons I can’t disclose, we have joined the Black Order and become exorcists. That boy over there is Lavi, and I have no name. You may call me Bookman.”Allen looks at the old man, Bookman, dark blue and overwhelming turquoise hanging around him.The new information is something he tucks away for later. He doubts he could trick this man out of much without more of an idea of the situation.
(Dark orange flashes in his eyes.)
Still, the man had offered him something even when Allen had not, and for that, Allen can show him some respect.“It’s nice to meet you, Bookman,” Allen smiles, warm yellow-grey.They shake hands, and Allen finally catches something of the man, an aura buried so deep that even touch doesn’t allow Allen to see the full story of his colors.Bookman’s aura is cedar brown and stone grey, stable in its foundational nature and wisdom, and yet, it’s neutral, without emotion, to the point that it’s disconcerting. Still, beneath it all…Bookman lets go, gives Allen one more assessing look, and inclines his head, before packing up his equipment and leaving the room.With the older man done with his diagnosis, Tim settles on Allen’s head, nuzzling his head. Allen smiles warm yellow, before his attention is grabbed by a shift in the colors around him.He turns his head and meets Lavi’s gaze, whose eyes shine with a new emotion Allen hadn’t seen from him before.It wasn’t yellow.Lavi tilts his head to the side, bright orange flowing around him. The color matched his hair near perfectly.His smile, still slightly amber but softer somehow, more golden yellow than anything, widens, and he asks Allen cheerfully, “Do you wanna build a snowman with me, Beansprout?”Allen pauses, smile frozen on his face as ice blue shoots through him.“Eh?”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
(He doesn’t know why, of all the beautiful shades of yellow, he can tell that Lavi’s smile is amber.
It’s sweet, as if he’s trying to present the best version of himself, except that he’s not. Allen can see it, in the amber, frozen and beautiful. Lavi is
more
.
But that’s the thing.
Amber is meant to be deceitful, like honey, catching and sweet until it hardens, trapping in a way that even dark orange can’t reach for all the sweetness presented beforehand. It’s even crueler when kindness is traded for what lies beneath.
Kept in place for too long, and Allen knows Lavi’s amber won’t just ensnare the people around him, leaving mere fossils behind, but also himself.
Allen doesn’t want to see that again.)
-
“So, how old are you?”
Allen looks up from where he’s molding his snowman’s bodice, expression scrunching up as his aura muddles.
“I’m 15…” he answers, unsure of the question’s importance.
“I’m older than you then,” Lavi muses, still facing his own snowman. “I’m 18. I guess I thought you were older though. Must be the white hair. Oh, and you can call me Lavi.”
Allen continues to stare at the Bookman, traces of blue swirling around him.
“Some people call me Junior though,” Lavi continues to ramble, and scarlet-orange takes hold of his voice for a moment. “I’m going to be the next Bookman, after the Old Panda.”
Lavi looks up, and the scarlet-orange around him shifts to yellow-orange.
(His aura always seems to drop back to yellow.)
It makes the smile he directs Allen’s way more real.
“You could stop looking at me like I’m gonna stab you in the back or something,” Lavi murmurs, eyebrows scrunching up into a more genuine expression than Allen’s seen from him thus far. “I’m not trying to trick you or anything.”
Allen disagrees because what else is he supposed to make of that much amber in one person’s eye. It’s a bit too sweet, a little frozen, not quite right. And yet…
There’s also something
real
there.
Allen smiles sheepishly, cheeks warming with flush pink. Lily white
(soft, whispers of askance and forgiveness)
tinges his voice as he apologizes.
“I’m sorry,” he says and, in a
(not rare, he urges, he isn’t a
lie
)
moment of truthfulness, adds, “I guess I’ve gotten used to being suspicious of people I have trouble reading.”
Lavi looks at him, expression blank but for the dark blue and onyx black in his eye. And then a flash of bright orange.
“Guess you’ll just have to get used to me, Beansprout!” Lavi’s laugh is loud and boisterous
(and just a hint forced and muddled light blue)
.
Allen actually blanches at that before red bursts from within him.
“Beansprout!?” he near shrieks.
Lavi had called him that earlier too, but that wasn’t what set him off.
“What the fuck do you think you're looking at, Beansprout?”
Allen feels his eye twitch with a spasm of scarlet at the reminder of Kanda.
“Yeah, that’s what Yuu’s been calling you!”
Yuu?
“Yuu?” Allen asks, red fading and aura muddling again. That seems to be happening a lot today.
“Yeah, Yuu! You know, Kanda. That’s his first name!”
Allen blinks, once, twice, before yellow-orange bursts into his aura. He releases a snicker, bright orange, before clamping his hand over his mouth to stop himself.
Lavi blinks as well, his one eye widening as his aura sharpens for a moment in surprise, before his mouth widens into a grin just as bright orange as Allen’s had been.
“You should call him that next time you see him,” Lavi suggests, but by the tone of his voice, Allen can immediately tell what kind of death wish that would be.
“I’d prefer to live at least a
little
longer, thanks,” he replies, rolling his eyes.
Lavi hums in acknowledgement, looking back at his half formed snowman.
“It’ll probably be awhile before you see him again, anyway,” he says after a moment, aura suddenly onyx black. Allen immediately feels his aura sharpen. “I’ve got a feeling something big’s gonna happen soon.”
Allen stares for a moment, thinking, before ice blue washes through him.
“We’re the true apostles of God. The Noah Clan.”
“Do you mean the Noah Clan?” he asks, immediately feeling misplaced dandelion for his suspicions to be false.
Lavi looks at him, a little golden yellow but mostly dark blue and overwhelming turquoise. He nods, and a rough breath leaves Allen’s lungs.
Suddenly, Allen can’t breathe, and he’s
drowning
.
He turns around abruptly, stalking away. He needs to leave. Anywhere but here.
“Hey, Beansprout!” Lavi calls.
Allen ignores him.
Red simmers beneath his skin again but even more so does the deep, drowning blue and the memory of hyacinth and black tinted turquoise in what should’ve been a monster’s eyes.
And yet, she’d seemed so very
human
.
The two aren’t mutually exclusive, he knows.
So lost in thought, Allen doesn’t realize he’s entered the busier part of town, filled with crowds and crowds of people, until he feels the familiar, but near uncomfortable, sensation of too many colors as he brushes past pedestrians in the street.
The rush of colors, most foreign but at least familiar, muddle his aura a little, leaving him in a somewhat dazed state of blurred colors. It’s lulling, emotions,
colors
, not his own flood into him, leaving him
red bubblegum brilliant blue hyacinth flush pink grass green drowning blue dark purple black
.
Wait.
Allen jolts, brought back to himself just in time to see an Akuma’s gun barrel aimed his way. Turquoise-pure white rushes up his arm, urgent alongside a flash of indigo, and before Allen can really think about it, he’s smashed in the head of a half transformed Akuma in the distorted body of a child.
Sudden screams erupt around him, shouts of “murderer” ringing out around him, but Allen ignores them as he scans the crowd for more blue-purple-black. As he does so, his eyes meet Lavi’s, who’d clearly been about to intervene before Allen had managed to release the Akuma on his own.
The redhead’s eye shines with golden yellow and traces of blue.
Fuck.
And then, there’s Akuma transforming all around them, and Allen doesn’t have time to ponder what Lavi was thinking anymore.
Indigo and turquoise-white flood his veins, and they both jump into the fray.
-
“How did you know?”
Allen turns at the question, eyes golden yellow from where they’d been staring sightlessly at the ground.
“Hm?” he hums questioningly. His left arm burns dingy yellow. He’d pushed too hard earlier.
“You didn’t hesitate,” Lavi explains, eye and voice carefully (but pointlessly) blank. He’s back on guard.
(His aura dances with dull grey and what Allen has come to realize must be a constant hum of golden yellow. Not just amber.)
“When you killed that Akuma. You couldn’t have known whether it was human or not…” The bookman apprentice stops, making his single jade eye meet Allen’s own silver. “You hadn’t even been facing it at the time.”
“I’d… like to think I have good intuition,” Allen smiles, picturing the flash of indigo he’d felt course through him earlier in battle.
Despite the slight half-truth, Lavi’s eye still shines with traces of light blue; his shoulders straight with a near-hidden tension.
“If I said I believed you, I’d be lying,” Lavi says quietly, looking away from Allen and back to the horizon before them, and for once, his aura holds unobscured light blue.
(They’d defeated the Akuma, in the end.
“How many did you get?”
“34.”
(He’d counted. Even if he couldn’t see their souls this time, Allen had wanted to remember. It was the least he could do.)
“I got 37, I win.”
Despite his words and the yellow-orange in his aura, Lavi’s eyes had flashed with dark blue and turquoise.
Then, an explosion had rocked the ground beneath them. Allen could almost feel the incarnadine in his veins at the sight of where it had come from.
They’d rushed over to the hospital they’d been staying at, right where the explosion had gone off.
Were the Akuma a distraction?
Black tinted yellow filled his vision at the thought of what they might find.
But they were okay.
Allen felt grass green fill him when he saw Komui, Bookman and... Lenalee! She was awake! And, thankfully, they’d all turned out alright.)
They sit in silence for what feels like ages; seconds, minutes, hours perhaps, passing by as the two exorcists stare at the setting sun before them.
“I can see the souls of Akuma,” Allen starts softly, ignoring the way Lavi jumps at the suddenness of his words.
Waiting for an interruption and receiving none, Allen continues.
(He shouldn’t be saying this, especially not to a Bookman of all people, someone he barely even knows. Cross has warned him, and he knows from experience that he can’t take such words lightly, so he has to choose
his
wisely.)
“But sometimes it feels like I can see the souls of humans too. There’s always something dark within everyone, no matter how kind they appear on the outside. Human beings are selfish and cruel, sad and mean, lonely and happy and so much more. You never know what someone wants from you because there’s almost always an ulterior motive to their actions: kindness is so rarely born from selflessness. At least with Akuma, I know what they want.”
He turns to Lavi, then, and catches sight of an eye wide with orchid
(So very different from the amber of before, untouched by its sugar-sweet, deceptive hues. Orchid feels like he’s been given a gift, not out of pity or righteousness, but because he deserves it.)
and a strange mix of blinding yellow and dull grey, like Lavi’s realized he’s found something of value but doesn’t know what to make of it.
“You haven’t had the best experiences with people, have you?” Lavi asks, tone soft and holding enough green tinted white for Allen to feel comfortable replying honestly.
“Neither have you,” is his response, spoken just as softly.
He doesn’t answer yes, but then again, he doubts he has to.
Lavi’s chuckle, without a trace of yellow-orange, holds no trace of amber or muddled light blue. It brings Allen pause.
He can’t say for sure if what he’d seen of Lavi earlier was a complete lie
(he thinks it was at least partially real, but that discovery will come with time, he’s sure)
, but this laughter, he knows, is true.
“You’re something else, Allen Walker,” Lavi murmurs, almost to himself, eyes flashing with colors fast enough that Allen has a hard time tracking them. “I can’t seem to figure you out.”
“Few can,” Allen replies back honestly, eyes shining with a blue tinged yellow-orange.
Lavi looks at him, and he must see something in his gaze, perhaps the sad sort of amusement dancing in his eyes, because the redhead’s face quickly morphs into a challenging half smile.
“Guess I’ll have to try my hand at it then, huh.” his smile widens, and a steel bravado rings in his words. “I’m gonna be a Bookman, afterall.”
Allen, despite himself, finds himself smiling back.
“You can try,” he replies before a comfortable silence falls over the two, and they both turn to face the brightening sky, the darkness from the previous evening almost completely dispersed.
-
It’s right before they leave in the carriage
(they’re going to have their mission briefing on the road after what happened with the Akuma)
that Allen decides to say one more thing, because he’s pretty sure the Bookman Jr. needs to hear it.
Bookman, Komui and Lenalee have already climbed into the carriage when Allen tugs firmly on Lavi’s sleeve, stopping him in his tracks.
Lavi’s eye meets his questioningly, but Allen’s eyes are steel, unrelenting and promising to convey his message, no matter the cost or awaiting conflict.
“I just wanted to say,” Allen begins, and he sees Lavi’s eye sharpen at his tone. “Not all humans are bad. I’d like to think that sometimes, there are some who will do kind things for good reasons.”
Lavi stares at him, unmoving, with an eye flashing with too little blue.
“Have you met any?” he asks Allen, and he can see it in Lavi’s face, the golden yellow burning in his core, mixing with the dandelion and amber in his eyes, and he knows that all Lavi wants to do is
believe
.
(And Allen thinks of all of the good he’s seen.
A dog licking an unwanted child’s hand.
Mana’s smile as they perform together before a crowd.
The momentary flashes of tulip pink in Cross’ aura that he knows he’ll
never
tell his Master about.
A doll abandoned in a town, too little orange, and found by a little boy.
A woman, apricot and warm yellow, who always gave and gave and gave and finally received.
An older brother who gave up everything for his little sister and made
her
his everything instead.)
“Yes,” Allen replies, a soft, blue smile gracing his lips. “Yes, I have.”
-
(Allen thinks, from one masked liar to another, that he and Lavi could be friends.
Maybe that way, they’ll be able to call each other out on their bullshit every once in awhile.
Maybe that way, they’ll be able to become just a little more real.)
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
On their way back to Headquarters, Komui explains what he can.
Lavi and Bookman have duties of their own to attend to, so for the moment, they’ll be staying at the European Branch.
Lenalee would also be staying to allow her further recovery from the nerve damage she received from their previous mission.
Allen, on the other hand, would be sent out on another mission.
At this, Lenalee’s aura had morphed red in an instant, an indignant expression on her face.
“I’m fine,” she continues to insist, hands clenched in her lap to hide the shaking Allen had seen from them earlier. He looks her over, rich blue growing in his aura at the sight of the strange mix of grey and faded red shooting through her body. Rubbing absently at his body, as if trying to bring the feeling back to his own nerves, Allen speaks up before Lenalee can say anything else.
“You’re not,” and before she can protest further, “Lenalee, you’re still recovering. You need to rest.”
Lenalee looks ready to protest but stops, aura flooding with currant.
The color feels bitter, like overripe berries on his tongue, staining his palms as blackberries and raspberries would rot in his hands from the moment he’d picked them.
(Hoping they would keep, knowing they would not.)
Her eyes look pleadingly around the compartment before settling on Allen, rich blue overtaking her aura.
Allen smiles grass green.
“I’ll be alright, Lenalee,” he promises, steel in his voice. “I can take care of myself.”
From his place on Allen’s shoulder, Timcanpy bites down reproachfully on Allen’s ear, sending a wave of the golem’s red through his head alongside a shock of dingy yellow.
“Ouch, Tim!” Allen yelps, sending a wave of yellow-orange over the occupants of the cart. Allen sighs, filled with both amaranth at Tim’s antics and grass green at the release of tension around him.
“Besides, I have Timcanpy with me,” he adds begrudgingly, glaring at the golem. Tim grins back.
The yellow-orange of everyone’s auras lightens the mood for the rest of the journey.
-
Allen has a few hours before he’s supposed to leave for his mission.
Harlequin green eats away at his stomach as a growl erupts from his midriff. He walks a little faster towards the cafeteria.
And of course, in his distraction, he bumps into someone.
“Watch where you’re going,” comes a gruff command from a familiar voice.
Allen looks up, an apology on his lips, before red washes over him.
And he’s pretty sure it’s not just his own.
“Kanda,” he greets, voice just as red as the aura before him. He really needs to get ahold of himself around the older exorcist.
(But Red’s always had more of a grasp over him than any other color.)
“Beansprout,” Kanda growls back, eyebrows furrowing.
“Beansprout?” Comes another voice, this one Allen doesn’t recognize. Bright orange and bright yellow color its next words. “So this is the Beansprout you were talking about, Kanda? Gotta say, I think you placed him right! Definitely looks like a bean sprout!”
“I am
not
a bean sprout,” Allen bristles, struggling to maintain a facade of yellow-grey.
“Ooh and he’s got a temper on him too!”
Allen rears back, ready to retort, when the stranger comes into view.
His breath leaves him as his aura sharpens.
Before him, garbed in a long, ball-ended hood and sharp, tear-like makeup, is a jester. Allen blinks at him a few times, taking in the man’s smirk, nearly as sharp as his nose and the purple tears beneath his eyes. His aura is bright orange and hot pink, and beneath it all, there’s a bright, glorious ocean blue.
(Allen remembers staring out at the ocean’s horizon, infinite it seemed to him then. He remembers thinking maybe he’ll be able to find that end someday. Maybe he won’t.
That was the fun of such things, it seemed.
He’d never had such an adventure before.)
(One day, he asks Anita if she’d ever found the end of the ocean.
It hadn’t been long after he’d first started traveling with Master. He was still learning, still didn’t quite understand everything he saw before him, not the colors, not the kindness of the people around him.
Not himself.
So when he’d asked, he’d expected an answer and to be done with it.
But instead, Anita asked him, “Do you want to try to find it?” and had taken him on her ship to sail. Mahoja had smiled at them, warm with light pink and rose.
(The tender pink, he could feel, was meant for both him and Anita. But the rose - beautiful, like a path of petals leading to the person you are meant to be with, a red string connecting them, two hearts becoming one - was meant for Anita alone.)
Allen had smiled as the sea mist hit his face and felt, for the first time in a long while, as if he didn’t need a purpose to keep living.
All he needed was this beautiful, unrelenting ocean blue.)
“Do you have a scepter to go with that hat of yours, jester?”
The words escape Allen’s lips without his permission, peppered with bright orange and yellow-orange.
Kanda bristles, and for a moment, his usual scarlet shifts to maroon. Interesting.
Beside him, however, the fool’s face blanches before breaking out into a grin as he laughs boisterously. His cackles gleam light blue and yellow-orange.
“Oh, I have something far better,” he answers after a moment, and now his voice is gold and overwhelming orange. And then, a sudden burst of pure-white bursts from the ball on his hat. The ball glows, detaching from the jester’s hat where he begins to juggle it as if it were a soccer ball. Allen stares and sees, within its pure-white core, the same shade of ocean blue as that within its accommodator.
“Cool, right?” the man grins, still gold and overwhelming orange but also light purple.
Allen smiles, warm yellow and completely light blue.
“Yes,” he says simply but earnestly, eyes glowing as the fool does more and more elaborate tricks. He can recognize a fellow performer when he sees one.
“You’re one to call someone a jester,” Kanda mutters from in front of Allen, belatedly defending his companion. Not that he would admit it.
(And yet, the maroon still lingering in his aura is telling. Even if it’s still red, very red indeed, it’s a more caring color than what Allen’s seen from Kanda since, well, ever.)
“I know another clown when I see one,” Allen replies casually, as if he hasn’t just laid out a piece of himself to be potentially trampled. At the twin curious stares this earns him, he adds, “I grew up in a circus.”
He doesn’t say anymore.
And yet, the man grins at him, deactivating his Innocence and returning it to its perch on his hat. He moves forward, eager and bright, as he grips Allen’s hands with both of his, giving them an enthusiastic shake.
“I’m Daisya Barry, the jester of the Black Order and best soccer player in Europe!” he introduces himself, grinning like the fool he says he is. His eyes shine with bright orange and a softer warm yellow.
“Allen Walker, former clown and current Exorcist of the Order.” Allen returns, smiling as well.
Kanda grumbles from where he’s backed farther away from them, looking ready to leave at a moments notice.
“Are we heading down to train or what?” he asks impatiently, proving Allen’s previous thoughts true.
“Oh, yeah!” Daisya lights up with bright yellow, having clearly forgotten. He turns excitedly back to Allen, and the younger exorcist has to blink for a moment at the electric blue
(like a jolt of energy through his body)
in the other’s gaze. “Would you like to join us, Allen?”
Allen blinks at the offer, going suddenly flush pink at the attention. He focuses on Kanda’s red, which had suddenly spiked at his comrade’s question, and allows his heart to slow from its more elevated pace.
“I really would love to,” he answers even as an apologetic smile graces his face. “But I was heading to get some food before my next mission. I’ll be leaving in a few hours.”
Daisya’s smile droops a little, but there is barely a flash of currant in his aura before he’s beaming again, clapping a hand on Allen’s back as he races past him. Kanda quickly follows.
“I’ll see you later then! When you get back! It was nice meeting you, fellow clown!” the jester yells back at Allen as he races away.
“Good bye, Daisya! Kanda! It was nice to meet you too!” Allen calls, smiling bright orange at the spike of red this earns him from Kanda. He does get a click of the tongue in farewell however, so Allen supposes that’s progress.
He turns back around, heading once more towards the cafeteria.
-
As he goes to find a seat in the cafeteria, cart full of food in hand, Allen hears a vaguely familiar voice just to his right.
“Hello, Allen!”
He whips around, absently thankful that he wasn’t holding a tray as he might’ve dropped his food, and meets the eyes of the person who was addressing him.
Or, rather, the glasses of the person addressing him.
“Johnny, right?” Allen smiles yellow-grey, bright yellow lighting his eyes.
The scientist’s smile is light orange, a few shades lighter than his curly, brown-orange hair.
Johnny nods enthusiastically, nearly knocking his own glasses askew in his earnestness.
“Yes,” he agrees, still light orange. His face lights up further.
(The light orange of the man’s aura is bright and soothing, calming and innocent and friendly in a way Allen has so rarely experienced.)
“Oh! Have you met Suman, yet? He’s actually another parasitic type like you! Suman Dark, Allen Walker. Allen Walker, Suman Dark.”
Allen blinks after the introduction and glances over to see a stoic looking man, who nods at him distractedly as he looks intently down at a…
“Chess?” he asks, dull grey entering his voice.
“Suman and I play whenever we can!” Johnny explains, glasses gleaming as a glimpse of bright orange enters his aura. “Suman hasn’t been able to beat me yet. And he’s always a sore loser about it too.”
“I’m not!” Suman argues, red flaring indignantly in his aura. He makes a very decisive move of his one remaining Rook, leaning back in his chair with an air of too much orange. “How’s that, Johnny?”
Eyebrows scrunching, Johnny looks at the board for all of a second before smiling and moving his Queen.
“Check.”
Suman gapes, ice blue flooding his veins in disbelief.
Allen tries not to laugh.
The man’s aura is steel and grey, very stoic and strong. He doesn’t seem the type to lose composure so easily.
Allen settles for grinning behind his gloved hand.
After a few more moves, Johnny’s check turns to checkmate, and Suman releases a deep sigh of defeat.
“You win again, Gill,” he says, onyx black making Johnny’s victory out to be the utmost aggrievance against him.
Johnny smiles brightly at the other, and for a moment, Allen can see a clear contrast between the two, and something in his heart lightens at their friendship.
(If these two, complete opposites in both appearance and demeanor, can become friends, then maybe…)
“Would you like to play a round, Walker?”
Allen jolts as he’s addressed, directing his attention back towards Suman.
The older man looks more yellow-grey than anything, but there’s a spark of golden yellow and something else in his gaze as well. Allen looks deeper and sees a flash of tulip pink, as he would see sometimes in Cross, hidden far away from where he’d want anyone to see.
Suman Dark, a man of steel and rare, warm yellow smiles, is a father.
Something in Allen warms further at this realization. He smiles more yellow than yellow-grey in reply.
“I’d love to,” he answers and then, sheepishly, adds, “I don’t really know how to play though.”
Johnny smiles, joyfully announcing he’d be more than happy to help Allen learn, and Suman smiles as well, small and encouraging.
Allen spends the next couple hours before his mission learning the rules of chess and getting crushed by Suman, even with Johnny’s help.
It’s a lovely moment of sunshine yellow, especially when Suman’s gaze turns to sunrise when Allen finally manages to ‘check’ the older man.
Despite himself, Allen can’t help but appreciate this moment of peace.
He really, really hopes it’s not the calm before the storm.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The train whistle shrieks as the wheels beneath him screech to a halt.
Allen grasps the case sitting in his lap a little tighter, intent on keeping hold of his delivery. It’s been a couple of days since he’s left Headquarters, but the hours of travel, even if not on foot, leave him feeling light purple with its familiarity.
He glances out at the scenery beyond the windows and glimpses the rough terrain around them, sparse trees and bushes scattered through the dusty landscape.
Exiting the train, Allen looks around him, searching for the life he knows resides even in such barren places. He has a little time before he’s meant to make his delivery.
(“I’m told the General is rather strict about manners,” Komui had warned him, onyx black. “Be sure to deliver the package to him. It’s important that it reaches him.”
Allen had nodded, forsythia humming around him.
It was time to leave for his mission.)
Walking down the platform, he removes the glove from his right hand, stooping down to the sandy soil alongside the path leading to the town ahead. It’s dry beneath his fingers, but as he allows his hand to wander, Allen feels a brush of color across his senses.
A single plant, small but thriving, lays hidden within the dunes.
He can feel it as his fingertips brush the sprout’s tiny leaves, a low thrum of rainbow white.
(He remembers, in his travels with Cross, entering a forest.
There, they’d taken residency in a cave for the night. And as the sunset’s final rays had begun to slip beneath the horizon, he’d caught a flash of a rainbow before his eyes.
He’d fallen asleep to these colors in his head, and beneath him, where a large patch of moss lay, he’d felt the colors humming. All around him, the colors had glowed.
Waking up to the sun’s rays falling along the walls of the cave, Allen had seen crystal, lining the interior around them, turning the rays from white to rainbow. And as they’d left the forest, he’d felt the same myriad of colors as he brushed his bare hands along the plant-life around him.
Faintly, they all hummed of rainbow white.
Of life.)
Allen takes a moment to relish in the purity of this rainbow white, so full of life, full of everything which makes life so real, the light and the dark. Like a ray of sunlight shining through a crystal, allowing its true colors to be seen.
It’s been a long while since he last allowed himself a moment to appreciate the life he strives to protect rather than the death he lives to prevent.
“Master Walker?”
Allen jumps, checks to ensure the hood of his uniform is up, and stands to greet whoever spoke to him.
Casting his senses out warily, Allen turns around carefully, sharply aware of his still recovering eye. He allows a smile to grace his face at the sight before him.
“Toma!” he calls, waving with genuine sunshine. “I didn’t know you would be here!”
As Allen approaches, he takes in the man’s aura, still shining his ever-present yellow-grey.
The man’s eyes crinkle at the edges, yellow-orange mixing with the grey around him.
“I have been here for a few days now, Master Walker,” Toma assures him, assessing the exorcist. He pauses on Allen’s eyepatch, and his brow furrows with rich blue. “I am sorry to see that you still bear injury from your mission in the Rewinding Town.”
Allen smiles back, and though he tries for grass green, it comes off as lemon yellow. It’s bitter, like lemon juice on his tongue, too sharp, too harsh, too biting. His smile comes out wrong.
“It was worth it,” Allen says, then, feeling Toma’s aura edging towards hyacinth, he adds, “Bookman said it’ll grow back. In the meantime, I just have to be more vigilant.”
He smiles, and this time, it comes out more yellow-orange than lemon. Toma smiles back before his already neutral face smoothes out with onyx black.
“I was sent to bring you to our current location,” Toma explains, glancing around warily. His aura is sharp. “There have been more akuma than is usual for this area, so we’ve all been on high alert.”
His gaze darts to Allen’s eye for but a second, but Allen catches it all the same.
“I’ve learned my lesson in vigilance,” Allen assures, grass green. “Master Cross made sure of it.”
Not to mention his Synesthesia. But he doesn’t add that part.
Toma nods, and the tension in his body lessens as grass green settles over him.
“Shall we head to our current headquarters then, Master Walker?” Toma asks, gesturing not towards the road heading into town but one leading further into the desert.
Allen nods.
Before they leave, he turns, catching a final glimpse of the sapling hidden within the dunes of sandy soil. For a moment, he almost sees a flash of rainbow white.
And then it’s gone.
-
About 10 minutes into their walk, Allen sees a carriage before them, parked in a small area filled with more life than they’d seen throughout the entirety of the sandy landscape.
The horses graze on the scant grass around the area, and as they approach, Toma addresses him.
“I believe you’ll like the General,” Toma says, his aura grass green. Allen must’ve been more nervous than he’d thought if Toma is trying to comfort him. “He is very kind.”
Allen smiles at the man, grateful.
And when an older man in a golden trim exorcist uniform opens the door to the carriage, Allen can tell that Toma had been right in saying the General is a kind man.
General Yeegar’s aura shines warm yellow and cedar brown down to his core, and a small smile graces his face as he greets them.
“Allen Walker, I presume?” he asks, holding a hand out to shake. Allen eagerly returns the gesture.
“Yes, sir,” he answers, before holding the case he’d been given by Komui out to the man. “Komui asked me to deliver this to you, General Yeegar.”
The man’s smile is just as warm yellow as the rest of him.
“Thank you, Walker. I’ve been needing a new golem,” he says, before opening the door to the carriage. “Please do come in. I’ll introduce you to the others.”
The others, it turns out, are the Finders working alongside the General: Thierry
(an interesting combination of olive green and maroon)
and Farran
(lily white and peach)
.
Talking for a few hours, Allen grows to know them better. All in Yeegar’s company are kind
(warm yellow permeates the air around them)
, and Allen finds himself relaxing more as the conversation flows around them.
General Yeegar kindly cooks them dinner which Allen finds himself mostly devouring, much to his chagrin.
“I knew that parasitic types have quite the appetite,” Yeegar smiles warm yellow-orange, placing another steak onto the stove. “I’ll take it as a complement to my cooking.”
Allen smiles flush pink as the man adds, bright orange tingeing his words, “We’ll have you do the grocery shopping tomorrow.”
The joking tone of his voice is clear, and despite the flush pink in his aura, Allen feels sunshine yellow blooming around him.
-
After dinner, Allen finds himself outside, petting the horses; he projects as much pastel green as he can so as not to startle them. Beneath his fingertips, Allen can feel their bodies rise and fall with each breath they take. Rainbow white flows gently through them.
Above him, the night sky shines bright with flecks of white, almost as pure as Innocence.
“The stars are beautiful tonight,” Yeegar says as he walks towards him. Allen had felt his aura as he approached. “Do you know what the North Star is, Walker?”
Allen looks to Yeegar, dull grey entering his aura.
“I’ve heard the name,” he replies. “But I’m not exactly sure what it is, General.”
Yeegar smiles at him, warm yellow, before cedar brown enters his voice.
“The North Star,” he begins, pointing to one of the brightest stars above them. “Was once used for navigation because the direction for true north always lies directly beneath this star. It is one of the brightest stars in the sky.”
Allen looks up at the sky, wide and dark and bright, and feels that same sense he’d felt as he had when he’d looked out upon the sea, Anita guiding his eyes across the waves.
Ocean blue.
And suddenly, the cedar brown of the man’s aura makes sense.
“Were you a teacher once, General Yeegar?” Allen asks, golden yellow. He doesn’t expect the drowning blue which suddenly takes over the older exorcist’s aura.
“Once,” he says softly. “But I can’t say I was a very good one.”
Allen says nothing, giving the man the chance to explain.
“I taught my students with love, and that was their downfall. One of my students, she was so young, gave into the Millennium Earl’s temptations. The Akuma killed all of my students and most likely would have done the same to me if not for an Exorcist of The Black Order.”
Yeegar turns his eyes back to Allen from where he’d been studying the sky, dandelion dancing in his eyes.
“That’s why I wanted to meet you, Allen,” Yeegar says, voice heavy with his age. He looks over Allen, golden yellow and dandelion rising against the drowning blue of his past. “I wanted to see for myself who the Destroyer of Time would be. Please, Allen Walker, live the life my students weren’t able to. Live for your goals but also for life itself. Live to see the good in life, not to survive the bad.”
Allen feels tears form in his eyes but does not let them fall.
Instead, he goes back to stroking the horse, looking up to the skies around him.
(Maroon, light orange, sunshine yellow, grass green, turquoise, ocean blue, lavender, rose.)
(Rainbow white.)
“Yes, sir.”
-
They send him into town for groceries the next afternoon.
He’s gone for an hour at most, but he hasn’t even left the town before the screams reach his ears.
His eye pulses black and copper.
He can feel it, scolding and red, blood staining his eyepatch and dripping down his face, but Allen doesn’t let that stop him.
The apples he’d gathered at the fruit stand bruise and roll away as he drops his bags and runs.
It’s a massacre, and for a moment, Allen’s vision goes completely black.
Ebony.
Shrieks fill the air around him, and Allen allows pure white-turquoise to shift his arm into a weapon.
He fires.
The streets around him are filled with dust, and even as he fights, Level 1’s and 2’s blasting through the housing around him, Allen helps the people of the town hold scarves, shirts, blankets over their mouths to keep from breathing in the toxic particles.
He ignores the burning of his own throat.
He’ll heal.
Left and right, Allen can feel rainbow white, mixed with the auras of so many dark, dark colors
(drowning blue, dark purple, red, dingy yellow, blinding white, hyacinth)
, and even as he feels their life, he can feel the deaths
(ebony)
of those around them.
He fights.
And soon, it feels like
hours
, the only akuma left are straggling Level 1’s; there are no more mad-eyed, red-orange-black Level 2’s.
The Level 1’s blank stares are almost worse.
He can see the few people still in the streets running for shelter, and he’s so filled with grass green for a moment that there are still people
to
run to shelter that he almost doesn’t blocked the bullets heading straight for them.
Pure white-turquoise flows through him, as if to comfort him.
He needs to focus.
Throughout the battle, Allen had fought across the entire town, even as he’d tried vainly to head towards the location of General Yeeger and the others. Finally, as he defeats the last of the Akuma, he can.
And he runs.
There’s black all around him, and Allen wants to weep with the sheer force of the colors around him, grieving, pained, scared.
He shakes his head and keeps running.
And when he reaches their campsite, copper burns his tongue, nose, aura.
As does an awful pitch black.
Wisteria dances across his vision.
“Road?” he whispers, frantic.
Before him, standing in the arc of one of her doors, is the Noah, eyes gleaming gold.
“Hello, Allen!” she exclaims cheerfully, smiling sweetly. The copper in the air mixes with the red-orange-black in her eyes. There are blood-tipped candles floating in the air behind her. “Oh! I see your eye still hasn’t healed! Too bad, your eyes are such a pretty grey! Like a doll’s!”
Allen’s hand twitches, almost moving to cover his eye before stopping himself.
“Leave him alone, Road,” says a voice from behind him, and before he can move, a hand slithers over his shoulder and across his chest. A warning. “Don’t move, brat.”
Allen shifts just enough to catch a glimpse of dark skin and a cigarette
(lit, smelling of ash, like an Akuma’s victim)
before a sharp pain in his right arm has him flinching back. His eyes dart over, but all he sees is a glimpse of black and purple
(fuzzy grey surrounding it)
before it disappears.
“I said ‘don’t move’,” the voice whispers in his ear.
Road hums a tune beneath her breath as she skips towards them, eyes intent.
“Tyki~,” she singsongs, looking over Allen’s shoulder. “We were leaving weren’t we?”
Her eyes flash briefly dark orange, darting to Allen for a moment, and Allen realizes with a jolt that, despite the bloodied candles floating menacingly behind her, all of the red-orange-black has faded from her aura. She doesn’t want to kill him.
Road doesn’t meet Allen’s eye.
“And leave the little exorcist alive?” the man, Tyki, asks, his arm tightening around Allen. For a moment, Allen can’t breathe.
Pitch black floods through him but alongside it comes a horrible, misplaced sunflower. For a moment, Allen feels as if he’s looked to the shadows and thought they were the sun.
The feeling leaves him shaking.
“Oh, but what’s the fun in killing him now, Tyki~?” Road pouts. “We’ll get to kill him later anyway. Maybe he’ll even be on your list!”
Tyki hums, thoughtful.
Slowly, he retracts his arm. Allen’s legs wobble beneath him.
“Alright, Road, let’s go,” the man looks back at him, and Allen barely registers wavy black hair and a tall, black top hat before he continues. “I hope we meet again, Exorcist. It’ll be a pleasure to kill you.”
And then they’re gone.
Allen’s knees nearly buckle as the pitch black goes from overwhelming quantities to nothing in seconds.
It’s then he sees a cross, stabbed deeply into the ground, blood trickling down its pole.
He tastes copper once more.
Allen’s feels tears fill his eyes as the sight of General Yeegar, hanging spread along the cross in a sick parody of Christ. He chokes, dashing over to the man.
“General?” he asks, tentatively, eyes wide.
The man’s aura is not one of death, but the same cedar brown and warm yellow of before. It doesn’t shift, doesn’t waver, even with how clearly injured the older exorcist is.
It’s unnatural.
“General?” he asks, and some part of him
(I’d buried you, the Red inside him whispers. I buried you with my father.)
breaks. “Please answer me.”
(Mana, he almost whispers.)
“Master Walker?”
Allen tenses, his head whipping around to find Toma, accompanied by his fellow Finders.
In Toma’s grasp, he holds the nine pieces of Innocence that the General had been carrying with him in his travels. Allen readily takes a few from the man, holding the comforting weight of them in his arms.
Behind him, Thierry lets out a sob.
“He told us to run,” he says, drowning blue overtaking him. The color brings more tears to Allen’s eyes. “The Noah, they showed up, and the General handed us the Innocence and told us to hide. They didn’t get the chance to come after us, the General wouldn’t let them.”
Allen clenches his teeth, biting into his tongue.
There’s copper on his tongue now too.
And then he hears it.
Someone humming behind him.
“General?” Farran calls, dandelion in his voice. He moves to step forward, but Allen raises his arm out to stop him. “Walker?”
“He’s not there anymore,” Allen says, his voice comes out almost flat with how weighed down with color it is.
“What do you mean?” Thierry interjects, red in his voice.
Allen goes to answer but is interrupted.
“The Lord Millenium is searching for you~,” Yeegar sings softly. His words are barely a whisper for how weak he is, but his eyes are wide. Sightless. “Looking for the heart now, have you heard the news~? I didn’t have it… who will be next~?”
Tears fall from Allen’s eyes, unbidden. There is no hope left among the finders.
“They drove him mad,” Allen says softly as Yeegar begins to hum again.
Allen feels hyacinth flood him, the drowning blue and dark purple of the others overwhelming him. Toma looks to him, not a trace of his usual yellow-grey in his expression, and that’s what finally breaks him.
Clutching the pieces of Innocence to his chest, relishing in their pure white and faint grass green, Allen falls to his knees and sobs.
Yeegar’s humming continues, and Allen can’t tell if his unchanging cedar brown and warm yellow are worse than the ebony of death.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
For a long time, Allen had hoped for, nearly longed for, the sweet embrace of death. The mercy of its warmth wrapping around him in a hug, guiding him to a deep, eternal sleep.
Ebony, dark and foreboding and breathtaking, was not the kind welcome he’d longed for.
-
Long before Mana - before anyone, really - Allen remembers: a fuzzy memory, tainted around the edges with an off-putting light purple. Thistle.
(The color is of a memory, nostalgia with an insufferable ache, without fondness. It bristles and entangles him, painful and unrelenting.)
It had been winter at the time, the temperature well below freezing.
Pale blue bit at any exposed flesh, leaving his fingertips and ears tipped near black with frostbite. His nose and mouth were caked in ice. He felt as if he were crying crystals.
The only warmth he could feel was that of the pure white-turquoise surrounding him, fighting off ebony for all it was worth.
He’d taken shelter in an alley; the little protection it provided was lifesaving.
Pale blue had seeped into his clothes, his skin, his core, and it felt as if incarnadine were burning him from the inside out. Everything else was a dull grey.
Beside him, frozen over completely and covered in snow, was a heap of ebony. Beneath its concealment, a hand reached out from beneath the snow.
It was completely black.
He tugged the scarf around his neck tighter, moving numb fingers and unresponsive limbs to huddle closer.
The scarf had belonged to the long dead woman.
He knew she wouldn’t need it anymore.
A crystal formed in the corner of his left eye.
It was too cold to cry.
-
(Long before Allen, or even Red, there had been a boy without a name, without anything to call his own but a spark of pure white-turquoise.
The woman in the snow, Allen knew, had not been the first that boy had seen of ebony.
It wouldn’t be the last either.)
-
The days following General Yeegar’s death are little more than a blur in his mind, and yet Allen swears he can remember every agonizing second.
His stomach growls, harlequin green slamming around his insides as if it were trying to escape, but Allen swears he isn’t hungry. Everything feels dull grey, there is not a grace of sunshine yellow across his aura.
He feels numb from it all, despite the colors of Headquarters swarming around him. The off-white of the building makes him nauseous, the drowning blue hyacinth black shrouded blue dark purple bring him to tears.
Unchanging cedar brown and warm yellow.
Allen knows now.
Sometimes, ebony’s welcome is a blessing.
-
Allen comes back to himself, suddenly and frightfully, his cursed eye flaring to life with a stab of ill-placed black tinted red-orange.
He feels himself gasp, the searing white of his eye bringing Allen back to himself.
For the first time in days, Allen feels like he can breathe.
(A flash of a memory. Bloodied bandages, sheets smelling of cigarettes, a shattered heart.)
(“Did you really love Mana that much?”)
(“Fight it, Allen.”)
(“Don’t Stop. Keep Walking.”)
He breathes and immediately shudders at the feeling of a hand, solid and warm, on his shoulder.
Pale blue thrums in his blood. Incarnadine burns his bones.
Allen lashes out, scrambling away until he can’t anymore. There’s a wall at his back.
“Allen.”
Jolting at his name, Allen looks up to the figures before him.
Lenalee and Daisya stare back at him, both radiating rich blue as they stare at him with wide, surprised eyes.
“Allen,” Lenalee whispers this time, moving forward a step until Allen flinches back. Dark purple flashes in her eyes, but she doesn’t move any closer. She tries to smile, but it’s cracked like broken glass, leaking rich blue and an off-grass green. “Allen, you’re awake.”
Allen takes a moment to process the words, feeling distant and dull grey for a moment longer before another throb from his eye has him slapping a hand over the left side of his face. A pained wheeze leaves his mouth, but he grits his teeth and pushes down the searing white and burning yellow.
“Allen?”
“Hey, Beansprout. Allen?”
“Oi, Idiot Beansprout!”
Allen jolts at the spark of red in the words, feeling the near maroon of the color. The searing white of his eye fades.
“Kanda?” he jolts, coming back to himself again. Dull grey still hangs around him in his peripheral, but Allen pushes past its tempting numbness. He jolts as his eyes land on the doorway. “Lavi?”
Leaning against the doorway, Kanda glares at him, Lavi peaking over his shoulder. Kanda’s countenance is a mask of red - maroon, strangely - but Lavi’s face, in contrast to his supposed facade, betrays the same rich blue of his aura.
The color hangs thickly in the room, near suffocating to Allen’s already labored breaths.
“Hey, Shortstack,” Lavi aims for a carefree smile, nearly hitting the mark but not quite. Despite himself, Allen feels himself fall further into his skin, into reality, the dull grey almost completely receding. His brow twitches in irritation at the poke at his height, and the heaviness of the room lifts a little. Lavi’s next words come out more light blue. “You done getting your beauty sleep? ‘Cause I’ve gotta say, there’s only so much you can do.”
Allen releases a breath, nearly a laugh, before stiffening.
“How long have I been out?” he asks, forsythia seizing his lungs.
Lavi and Kanda’s expressions blank, and out of the corner of his eye, Allen can see Daisya and Lenalee shift uncomfortably.
“You’ve been unconscious for 4 days, Mr. Walker.”
Allen’s eyes snap to the new aura, rich green and onyx black.
A nurse stares back, stern faced with the same onyx black of her aura and a color reminiscent to tulip pink.
“Severe emotional and physical exhaustion is nothing to scoff at,” the nurse continues, glaring fiercely around the room. “And if I remember correctly, and believe me, I
am
, my conditions for Walker’s visitors included a
low stress environment
.”
Lenalee steps forward then, eyes wide and earnest.
“I’m sorry, Head Nurse,” she says, rich blue returning to her aura. “Allen woke up, and we crowded him. We didn’t mean to cause any problems.”
The nurse’s - Head Nurse, apparently - expression softens, if only slightly.
“Well,” she sighs before turning abruptly towards Allen, who flinches back in surprise. Again, her expression softens. “Let’s get you back into your bed, dear. We can’t have you catching cold by laying on the floor.”
With a pointed look around the room, Daisya and Lenalee quickly move forward, Lavi moving towards the infirmary bed to straighten the disheveled covers. Allen stands, and his aura muddles at the new developments.
“Thank you,” he murmurs as he sits on the edge of the bed, not moving to lay down again despite the Head Nurse’s stare.
“What… What happened… after?” his mouth goes dry at the onslaught of memories the question brings.
Unchanging cedar brown and warm yellow.
Allen’s breath catches again as he fights back a sob.
He will not cry here.
“They… The Noah, they drove him insane,” Allen whispers, his aura black shrouded blue.
“Allen,” Lenalee says, eyes swelling with drowning blue. But she too holds back her tears. “General Yeegar is dead. His funeral was held yesterday.”
Allen feels a horrible grass green wash over him at the news.
Sometimes, death is a mercy.
Allen doesn’t voice this thought, ducking his head in what he hopes is perceived as merely grief.
“I see,” he murmurs, chancing a glance up only to meet Kanda’s eyes. His eyes are red, the same as the rest of him, but Allen can see the dark blue and overwhelming turquoise of his gaze.
And then Allen’s left eye throbs again.
“Ah!” he gasps out, hand going up to cover his left eye but not before seeing the widening of Kanda’s eyes and the sharpening of multiple auras around the infirmary.
“Allen?” Lenalee asks, moving forward before the nurse beats her to it.
The older woman leans down before him, gaze onyx black.
“Walker?” she asks, waiting until he nods in affirmation of hearing her before continuing. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
Allen twitches away from her outraised hands, right eye wary. He tries to smile pastel green, knowing it likely comes out as a grimace.
“My left eye is cursed, ma’am.” he answers, purposefully. He gives a mirthless laugh. “Sometimes, it demands penance. I’ve been inactive for long enough, it seems.”
At the further creasing of her brow, Allen quickly adds, “It should leave soon on its own, once it realises their aren’t any Akuma nearby.”
With another throb, Allen stands.
“It helps if I’m somewhere more private.” he provides, barely wincing at the slight lie. In the very least, the Head Nurse moves back enough in surprise for him to slip towards the door, swiftly moving past Kanda and Lavi, who had moved into the room at some point.
He glances back long enough to add a quick reassurance of his return over his shoulder before dashing from the room, leaving the rich blue and the cries of his name behind him.
-
When he’s out of sight, only a few twisting pathways away to somewhere slightly more isolated, Allen slides down the cool wall and grinds his palm into his left eye.
Harlequin green rips at his insides, and searing white burns into his eye.
Pale blue. Incarnadine.
He tries not to wretch.
-
The funeral, small and ceremonial, had been held while Allen was in the hospital wing. Allen’s only visited one other grave before in his life, and nothing good had stemmed from the experience.
(How could you, Allen?)
Kneeling before General Yeegar’s grave should feel entirely different from sitting against Mana’s, grieving for the only father he’d ever known.
Somehow, the two experiences are both eerily similar and different.
Thistle looms over him, bristling and painful, but Allen pushes it aside.
He cannot bear to relive anymore memories.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, tracing the words scrawled across the stone.
Kevin Yeegar.
Teacher, Exorcist, General.
“It wasn’t your fault,” a voice says behind him, and Allen turns, startled.
Farran, Thierry, and Toma stand behind him.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Thierry repeats, his eyes drowning blue but lined with steel.
Allen feels tears well up in his eyes.
“I couldn’t save him,” he whispers, his words coming out choked but
red
.
Farran and Thierry shift back, looking almost intimidated if not for the rich blue shining clear in their auras.
Toma moves forward, leaning down beside him.
“You can’t save everyone,” he says, placing a gentle hand onto Allen’s shoulder. He shivers, unable to bring himself to shrug off the touch.
(“We can’t save everyone,” Allen admitted, hyacinth.
“And if you don’t even try?” Road had whispered.)
“I wanted to try,” he whispers, tears building in his eyes.
Hyacinth hangs around him, heavy.
“Never stop trying,” Toma whispers back, and Allen’s aura sharpens in surprise as he looks up into Toma’s eyes. The man stares back evenly, unwavering. There is steel in his eyes. “Never stop.”
(Don’t Stop. Keep Walking.)
Allen’s eyes widen, and he feels the tears fall.
(Fight it, Allen.)
He smiles for the first time in days, and even if it’s shaking and broken and wet with the drowning blue spilling from his eyes, it’s real.
(Live to see the good in life, not to survive the bad.)
“Okay,” he answers, steel.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The next step, as it turns out, is finding the rest of the generals, Komui explains the following day.
“We need to gather our forces,” the head scientist explains, his voice onyx black even as his aura shines with rich blue as he glances in Lenalee’s direction. The female exorcist sits beside Allen during the conference. “The Earl is clearly targeting the generals in search of the Heart. We need to find and protect them.”
(Looking for the heart now, have you heard the news~?
Unchanging cedar brown and warm yellow.)
Allen shifts, forcing his face to stone grey despite the turmoil of colors writhing inside him. He can feel Lenalee’s eyes on him.
“The heart?” Daisya asks as he lounges on Allen’s other side. From where he leans against the wall next to Bookman, Lavi straightens to attention. With his new focus on the subject, Lavi’s eye moves from where it had previously been staring unerringly at Allen.
“The Heart is the shard of Innocence that contains the source of power for all Innocence,” Komui explains, mouth pursed into a thin line. His brow crinkles. “If the Earl manages to destroy the Heart, he will destroy every single piece of Innocence.”
There are sharp intakes of breath all around him, ice blue filling the air with a stinging tension. Within his left arm, Allen feels his Innocence humming softly, turquoise-pure white as always but also warm yellow and caramel brown.
(A place to belong,
Allen thinks. Someone
who you belong with. A heart.)
“We won’t let that happen,” Allen says, steel in his voice. Everyone around him jolts at his interjection, auras sharpening at his words. “General… General Yeegar’s sacrifice can’t be in vain. We’ll keep the other generals and the Heart safe.”
He looks up from where he’d been holding his left arm to see dandelion yellow and grass green. It’s like waking up to the sun after a long, bitter cold night.
Allen meets Komui’s eyes.
The man smiles back, face set with steel.
“I’ll assign the teams then.”
Komui turns to face the room at large, serious once more.
“Kanda, Daisya.” The two exorcists straighten at their address. “I’ll have you both meet with Marie to search for General Tiedoll. You all have the highest probability of finding him.”
Komui turns to the rest of the room, his shoulders falling slightly with an odd, muted yellow-orange.
“As for the rest of you,” Komui sighs. “I believe we’ll need all the help we can get for our search of General Cross. Even with Timcanpy’s ability to track him.”
Allen straightens, ice blue jolting him upright. On second thought, he really shouldn’t be as surprised as he is. Even so…
“We’re searching for Master?” Allen asks, and though he can hear Kanda’s muttered, “Of course, you stupid beansprout,” Allen focuses more on Komui’s obvious sympathy.
“I know it’ll be hard,” he agrees, brow crinkling. “The General has never really seen the Order as home.”
Allen gives the man as flat a look as possible.
“Before I came to the Order,” Allen recalls, wine red. “My Master told me that he would never return to the Black Order Headquarters as he hit me over the head with a hammer. I woke up, and he was gone.”
There’s several sharpened auras at that, and Allen has to smile at the reaction Cross has managed to get from a group of people even without actually being present.
“Have to say, that explains a lot, Shortstack!” Lavi calls from across the room, bright orange shining in his eye.
Allen glares back, resisting the urge to stick out his tongue childishly. He can feel the tension in the room lowering, replaced with yellow-orange and amaranth.
“Alright, alright.” Komui says, bringing his hands up as if to try and tame them. With a room full of teenagers, he might be. “You’ll all be heading out soon. There isn’t much time to waste. Get ready to leave.”
Komui looks over them all, face set with rich blue.
“Be careful.”
-
They all leave the room pretty quickly after that, and it’s not too long after that they head out.
And just before they all leave, Allen manages to say good-bye to Kanda and Daisya. Whether he really wanted to or not…
“See you later, Beansprout!” Daisya calls, grinning bright orange. The hand he uses to ruffle Allen’s hair is surprisingly gentle. “Come back safe, you hear me? We still need to play soccer together!”
Allen smiles softly, sunshine yellow.
“You too, Daisya,” he says before looking around the other man to where Kanda is leaning against the wall, radiating red as always. “See you later, Bakanda!”
Kanda twitches, and Allen can practically see a blood vessel burst.
“What the hell did you just call me, you fucking Beansprout!?”
Allen bolts, not really trusting his ability to defeat Kanda in his current state of recovery.
He can hear Daisya’s howling laughter echoing off the walls as he makes his strategic retreat.
-
Cold wind whips around him, biting at Allen with its pale blue teeth.
The storm billowing around them is torrential, unwavering in its assault, and Allen feels almost as if he could be swept away.
No.
The freezing rain, no matter how unpleasant, grounds him. He needs that tether right now.
(The rain,
Red would think.
Could have meant death in the colder seasons. Now all it can do is hide your godforsaken tears.)
There is a man before him now, a mob of villagers behind them shaking with black tinted yellow hovering around them like a shield. At his back, Lavi’s usual jovial face is set with traces of blue.
Allen can feel his eye throbbing.
(The feeling was foreign, at first.
When he’d originally realized that his left eye was capable of actually functioning, he’d accepted the fact tentatively. Nothing came without a price, he knew.
The first time his curse had activated, his eye had churned with searing white, twisting and thrashing as if to remake itself. He’d opened his eyes again, feeling copper run down his face -
again, just like that night
- and the world, one that sneered, glared, hated him, had been colorless.
Mana’s curse had not been made of empty words.)
His eye is remaking itself again.
“Ah-!” Allen gasps, nearly crumpling at the searing white of his eye. As it is, he finds himself kneeling on the ground as blood drips down his face and his left arm - previously activated - spasms and shrinks.
“Allen!?” Lavi asks from above him now, still facing their opponent even as his attention obviously wavers.
Before them, Allen can feel the man’s - vampire’s? - aura falter. His teeth are stained red with the blood of the Akuma in his grasp; Allen can feel the black-purple-blue fading to ebony.
Forcing himself to look into the man’s face, Allen sees the man’s eyes widen almost imperceptibly.
And then he’s gone.
Allen blinks once, twice, as if to summon the man back. There isn’t even a blur left.
“Beansprout?”
Allen looks up, meeting Lavi’s single eye, shrouded in poorly concealed rich blue.
His genuity nearly brings a smile to Allen’s face. Even with the clear concern though, Allen can feel nothing but steel right now.
“I’m fine,” he assures quickly, standing swiftly. Lavi dutifully ignores Allen’s slight swaying and merely lays a hand on his shoulder to steady him. Allen nods, grateful. “We need to follow him, Lavi. He’s not a vampire; he’s an accommodator.”
Lavi’s aura sharpens, his eye widening almost comically.
They move forward quickly, ignoring the cries of the villagers behind them. Right now, there’s something -
someone
- far more important.
Allen can still see the man’s aura, flashing before his eyes.
Rose pink and midnight violet.
-
(Midnight violet, as its name suggests, comes for him at night.
The color itself is deeply beautiful somehow, as if he’d rather focus on it instead of the reason for its presence.
Midnight violet burns at his eyes and throat and lungs until he feels as if he can’t breathe. It surrounds him in a haze, deep and dark and impossible to see through, all in the cover of night, when his thoughts haunt and tear at him.
The color hangs over him like a low bearing cloud. It gathers in his lungs, his organs, his heart until he feels as if he could lay paralyzed with its feeling. It leaves in tears but never truly wavers.
Even during the day, even with the distraction of life - of rainbow white and sunshine yellow and grass green - Allen can feel it simmering below his skin.
The color never really leaves, even if he sometimes forgets, or ignores it, or thinks he’s moved on.
No.
Self-hatred never truly leaves him.)
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Allen sees a flash of off-rose pink and rainbow white and lemon yellow, so strong he feels as if he could taste it on his tongue, and his immediate thought is,
oh fuck no.
And the next thing he knows, he and Lavi are hanging upside down by their feet, his head heavy with the blood rushing to it.
“What the hell!?” Lavi practically shrieks. His one eye is wide with ice blue and indigo, his hand reaching for his hammer, and Allen barely has enough time to stop him before he starts swinging it around.
“Lavi, stop!”
Lavi looks up at him, his aura muddled and eyebrow raised in incredulity. The effect is somewhat ruined from his current upside down disposition.
“Why!?” he gapes, barely swinging out of the way of a gaping mouth. Okay, Allen needs to work fast.
“Master had a plant like these ones! Roseanne! We need to show them love and then they’ll let us go!”
Taking a deep breath, Allen pushes down any potential flush pink, instead pulling forth as much rose as possible.
“I LOVE YOU!” he shouts.
Lavi looks at him like he’s gone insane. Allen honestly doesn’t blame him.
“I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU!”
The carnivorous plants slowly begin to back off, and Lavi, realising Allen is, in fact, not getting eaten, joins in his frantic yelling.
The air is sickly sweet with a strange off-rose as the lemon yellow begins to fade.
When they find themselves back on the ground, without harming the plants fortunately
(or
unfortunately
, who knows)
, the two bolt, sprinting for a side door.
Glancing back just before they cross the threshold to the outdoors, Allen swears he catches a glimpse of something.
It’s the same off-rose pink he’d felt, but there’s
more
.
For an instant, he thinks he’s seen an Akuma.
And then the door slams shut behind them, and the color is gone.
-
There’s a graveyard before them, covered in stars.
It’s a burial ground for Akuma. For demons.
The irony pangs.
Beneath its bandages, Allen’s eye
throbs
.
“He buries them,” Lavi says from beside him, face unreadable.
(But there’s a color in his eyes that Allen has seen in the faces of others, worn down over and over and over again.
He’s seen this look in the faces of the battle-worn. Those who have been through war and
survived it
.
He sees the same color in the frown lines of Cross, in an old man
(a veteran, he knows now)
in an alley in Britain who’d been missing an arm, in Lenalee, Kanda, Komui, the Order.
A color like black shrouded blue, like grief, but not quite.
He sees an emptiness there, too little derived from having seen far too much.
War-ridden.
Navy blue.)
“To mourn one's enemy is foolishness,” Allen says, eyes taking in the stars, stark against the soil. “That’s what Master told me. ‘Mourning them is useless when they’re already dead’, ‘you didn’t even know them’. But I could see it in his eyes. He didn’t really believe it. Maybe once, but something changed.”
(What he doesn’t say is that he’d seen the change.
He’d seen Cross’ eyes slowly well with navy blue, with black shrouded blue.
He’d seen the color rise within his Master, slowly and waveringly.
What he’d never understood was why that color had always been directed at him.)
“You know,” Lavi says, bright orange in his voice. The sudden change almost makes the words seem ingenuine if Allen didn’t know better. “I think this is the first time I’ve heard you say something nice about General Cross!”
Allen feels red pulse briefly beneath his skin, bubbling.
He may or may not have ranted a good portion of the train ride here about his Master’s… habits.
“Don’t get used to it,” he huffs, more amaranth than anything.
There’s a pause between them, auras almost light in the sudden moment of calm before their thoughts return to the situation at hand.
“So what, this guy’s mourning the Akuma?” Again, there’s something very old - ancient - in Lavi’s eye. Their brief moment of olive green resides. “Why?”
Allen pauses then, bright yellow flaring.
“What if…” he contemplates aloud, eyes never leaving the graves before him. “What if he thinks he’s a vampire as well? Maybe he doesn’t realize that the people he’s killing are Akuma.”
Lavi seems to think this through for a moment, his single eye unfocusing as his aura clouds with dark blue.
There’s a flash of movement out of the corner of Allen’s eye.
“Lavi!” he cries, but he’s too late. Lavi flies through the castle’s wall, slumping over the debris. Allen takes a second to catch sight of his aura - muted but not black - before he engages the vampire - Krory? Allen thinks that’s what the villagers called him - in battle.
The man’s mouth shines pure white as he bares his fangs at Allen.
“Krory!?” Allen cries, trying to grab the man’s attention. It’s a little more difficult than expected as he dodges the other’s attacks.
“Please! I just want to talk! You’re not a vampire, you’re an accommodator of Innocence!”
Fighting another accommodator feels strange, off and dark in a way that Allen thinks might be instinctual to the pure white of his arm rather than himself. He hesitates for too long.
“Not a vampire, you say?” Krory growls, far closer than he was a moment ago. Allen’s neck
burns
searing white. “Innocence? I do this because I like it, and you’re telling me I’m not a monster?”
The air around them stings with midnight violet, and for a moment, Allen can’t breathe.
That moment costs him.
The next thing Allen knows is the feeling of flying through the air, weightless, and then a crash, searing white and copper, and nothing more.
-
His vision blurs, turquoise-pure white, like a haze over his already muddled aura. His head feels like copper and dull grey, the world doesn’t make sense, a jumble of colors, spinning around him.
There’s a hand around his throat, squeezing, and suddenly Allen’s vision whites out, burning yellow clogging his lungs, his throat, eyes a searing white.
He sees a flash of purple-blue-black and an off-rose pink.
His lips move, but he can’t hear anything, can barely think.
There’s a whisper, likely a shout, but his ears are fuzzy with dull grey.
“Do you think I’ll let you take him away from me!?”
Everything goes black and white, mute.
All he can see is turquoise-pure white.
His Innocence awakens.
-
There’s a hand holding his.
It’s his left one, bare to the world.
It doesn’t seem to matter here.
“..n...”
“Mana?”
The hand holding his thrums, orange-yellow-blue.
“
Mana!
”
He looks up, the black and white world around him fading, into the face of his foster father.
A skull looks back.
“I’m back, Allen. The darkness has returned.”
His left eye
throbs
.
“Mana,” Allen gasps, drowning blue. He feels as if he can’t breathe. “I’ve made a vow to save them, the Akuma. To end their suffering. But I also…”
A flash of faces before his eyes - Kanda, Lenalee, Lavi. God, he’s barely met them. Barely knows them.
They barely know him.
“I want to help them… my friends.”
The skull stares back at him before turning away, hand slipping from Allen’s. When it looks back, all Allen can see of Mana is a top hat and a shadowed face.
“Then go deeper. To a world darker than black, brighter than white. Embrace it.”
The world around him is black and white, but Allen can still feel it, the copper slipping down from his left eye, his vision shifting.
“Welcome back.”
-
Allen opens his eyes, and for a moment, his world flickers between monochrome and color. He can still feel the faintest traces of orange-yellow-blue on his fingertips.
Turquoise-pure white flares in his left, and Allen gasps at the flash of maroon he can feel in his arm. His Innocence rarely changes from its constant turquoise.
Allen looks up, feeling his eye morphing, changing, searing white.
Before him, through the glass of his newly formed eye, Allen can see a soul, weeping.
“Who are you?”
Allen’s eyes lock with those of a woman, the Akuma. Her aura gleams with off colors, as if he were looking through some sort of veil. Wine red.
“What a brat,” the woman mutters, picking at her ruined clothes. There are slash marks in them, did his Innocence-? “Ripping up a lady’s clothes and
then
asking for her name? You really don’t know anything about etiquette.”
Despite himself, Allen feels flush pink at her words.
“Y-You’re an Akuma,” Allen mutters, trying to regain his composure. “Why would you care about something like that?”
The woman looks at him for a moment, face unreadable. Her colors fade to an Akuma’s blue-purple-black.
“Eliade,” she says finally. Allen blinks, dull grey. “This woman’s name, my name, is Eliade.”
There is something in her aura, in how deep it is, how deep Allen can see.
Drowning blue and dark purple.
“But you know,” Eliade says, aura shifting. “That doesn’t really matter right now. Pity, I hate being ugly.”
Black tinted red-orange.
-
The next moments that follow are filled with nothing but turquoise-pure white and indigo. Allen reacts on instinct, battling against the newly transformed Akuma.
Eliade.
They move as if choreographed, a dance of black tinted red-orange, of dark desires, and indigo, their instincts to survive, to fight.
He dashes forward, for what must be the dozenth time, when suddenly a pure white force crashes through the mansion.
Allen looks up, his eyes widening as he sees-
Flames. Pure-white and incarnadine rage around them.
And yet, they seem… controlled.
Lavi.
Allen stares, transfixed, his aura sharp.
(Back when he’d first met Lavi, when they had first fought together, Allen hadn’t had the time to really focus on the other’s innocence beyond its form as a hammer.
But seeing it now, roaring flames and all, Allen can feel it.
Pure white and Golden yellow.
It’s nice, Allen thinks, that Lavi’s core shines so brightly in his Innocence.
An insatiable curiosity, searching for connections everywhere.
Always searching, always changing.
Golden yellow.
It suits them.)
The next moment, Allen comes back to himself, feeling a tug at his hood as he’s suddenly held aloft. He can feel a pulse of yellow
(so, so much yellow)
as the hand Lavi’s holding him with brushes his skin.
“Hey, Allen!” the older exorcist calls, hot pink ringing in his voice even in the heat of battle. The color is almost soothing.
“Lavi!” Allen replies, looking up.
“Oh, hey!” Lavi smiles, aura tensing in surprise. “Your left eye’s healed?”
His attention is suddenly seized, and as Lavi turns his head, Allen knows he can
see
.
Lavi’s aura goes icy blue and dingy yellow-green. His face nearly turns the same shade.
“A-Allen…” Lavi gasps. His voice shakes. “Is that woman… an Akuma?”
Beneath them, Allen can see Krory -
had he and Lavi been fighting outside?
- and the Akuma, Eliade. Krory seems to be in a similar state of shock.
“Yes,” Allen replies simply, feeling, for a moment, lemon yellow.
“Woah,” Lavi gasps even as the icy blue begins to fade from his aura. “Why can I see it too? Is it because of your left eye, Allen?”
Allen looks back at Lavi in shock, truly processing his words as icy blue spreads across his aura.
Then go deeper. To a world darker than black, brighter than white. Embrace it.”
The idea strikes him, and Allen feels his aura tense.
Has Mana’s curse grown stronger?
Looking back at Eliade’s soul, Allen feels as if he can see her more clearly, more deeply. Could that mean that others could see her soul as well?
“Crow!” Lavi cries, and the sudden sounds breaks Allen from his stupor. “That woman is an Akuma, like what I told you about earlier! She’s your enemy as well as ours!”
Allen can feel the awful crash of icy blue and raven black in Krory’s aura as reality finally begins to set in.
He feels as if he were being choked again.
“Eliade…?” Krory whispers. A final, broken dandelion.
“So you know,” Eliade says.
Her voice is flat, resigned, but Allen can see her aura, through the veil of off colors.
Hyacinth and rose.
Eliade begins to transform, but Allen is faster.
His left arm pierces through where her heart would have been.
With a jolt, Eliade halts her transformation.
“At least,” she gasps out, blood trickling from her painted red lips. “Let me die pretty. Let me die by his hands.”
Allen stops, looking to Krory, who stands frozen with black shrouded blue. In the dark, the color almost looks navy blue.
“Krory,” Allen whispers, and he withdraws his arm, allowing Eliade to fall to her knees.
“My love,” Eliade says, smile drowning blue.
Krory shakes his head, tears streaking down his face even as his Innocence begins to shine pure white.
“My love,” Eliade repeats, far more firm. Krory straightens at her tone, finally raising his head. “Please.”
Krory hesitates for a moment longer, before a pure white light flares, and suddenly his jaws are around Eliade’s neck.
“Thank you.”
Her voice is soft, and Allen hears her soul echo the same sentiment as it is released from its chains.
Krory slumps to the ground gasping, teeth receding as drowning blue and black shrouded blue crash over him. Allen can feel the tears forming in his eyes.
“Eliade,” Krory whispers, and for a moment, Allen can see it. Navy blue. “Please, kill me. Let me be with her. She’s all I had. Kill me.”
And as Krory scratches at his own skin, an awful, familiar midnight violet building in his veins, his core,
everywhere
, Allen
snaps
.
(“Did you really love Mana that much?”
He doesn't respond. It burns.
“Fight it, Allen. Remember… what he said?”
“Don't stop.”
A flash of orange-yellow-blue, white face, a painted smile, a top hat.
“Keep Walking.”)
“Krory!” Allen yells, shaking the man. There’s still blood on the other man’s lips, and Allen can almost
feel
the copper on his own. He holds onto Krory as if the man were his lifeline. As if Allen were his. “You can’t blame yourself for her death! If you do, it’ll destroy you! And it hurts, more than anything, and it’s so-”
So, so blue, midnight violet, hyacinth.
He looks up, meeting wide, drowning blue eyes, and makes a choice.
“Their deaths hurt more than anything, but you have to move forward.” Allen whispers, and the hands he’d used to shake the man before ball into fists in his shirt, shaking. His body shudders with black shrouded blue. “You have to move forward, or else it’ll mean their deaths meant
nothing
! You can become an exorcist!”
He’s gasping by the end, and all he wants to do is cry, drowning blue cascading down his face.
(A little boy, so very very blue, shrouded black, huddled in a corner for months waiting for death to take him, please all he wants is to see him again, just one more time.
Death never comes, and neither does his relief.
Only a purpose.)
Krory’s eyes stare back into Allen’s own, drowning blue spilling over, but there is something bright in them too, gleaming strong and newly born. Steel.
“Okay,” the man whispers, softly but not without force.
Allen thinks, seeing the man’s own aura, even shining with black shrouded blue and midnight violet, that Krory will be okay.
There is more to the world than twilight.
-
“Will you tell me about her? Someday, when you’re ready. If you’re ready.” Allen asks as they walk away from the smoldering ruins of a castle. A sudden spike of forsythia gives him pause.
Is it too soon to ask something like that? Is he being insensitive?
But instead, Krory smiles softly, drowning blue and rose.
“I think she’d have liked that,” he answers, looking back at the castle for a moment. His fingertips graze his lips. “She always loved being the center of attention, you know.”
Allen releases a soft breath, smiling back at the taller man. Beside him, Lavi smiles encouragingly. There’s green tinged white in his eyes.
For a moment, tears gather in Krory’s eyes, but he sniffles and looks forward.
They don’t look back again.