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When the Ark gate appeared before him, Allen didn't know what to expect. Dark as opposed to his light, it might have hidden someone who considered him a friend, or someone who wanted him dead. Especially after his memories resurfaced, bringing him and Nea to an even stranger kind of amnesty than before, it was difficult to gauge his relationship with most of the members of the Noah family. There were a few whom he wanted to meet especially. There was Road, who had thrown herself between him and Apocryphos, receiving the blow that was meant for him. Allen remembered her watching him with eyes full of tears, trying her hardest to speak, to reveal a truth - and then, as soon as it was out of her mouth, she was gone. She'd been hurt just to protect him. Was she alright? How big was the damage she'd been dealt? Then, there was Wisely, who always looked at him as if there was something about him that he'd seen through. Had Wisely known all along? About who he was? Or had he mistaken Allen for the Bookman his previous self was likely close to? A part of Allen now wanted to know what would happen if he allowed Wisely just a glimpse into the depths of him. "Ow!" he yelped, as Nea all but nudged him - how did he even do that? "Okay, fine, I get it. No trusting Wisely, okay. God, Nea. You scared me!" And there was also…
"From the looks of it, I believe you must have found your answers, huh, boy?"
The one person who deserved his apologies more than most. The one whom he had personally inflicted pain upon; the worst type of pain, honestly. And although Tyki might say that he deserved it, that it was payback, that it was only fair, Allen couldn't bring himself to agree. Having gone through all those things in his past, he especially couldn't agree with it being 'fair'. He had lost count of the times he'd said he was sorry to Nea only in the last week, even as harming Nea hadn't been something he even expected to happen. Now it was Tyki's turn to get an apology. Upon hearing Tyki's voice, tinted with a lighthearted note that was solely meant for him, Allen froze, even swallowing back the next scolding words he had prepared for Nea. He turned to face Tyki, but slowly, as if he were unsure Tyki was even there. As if he would disappear the moment Allen laid his eyes on him. Because really, this felt too good to be true. Allen was grateful for having been left alone for a while. Although he'd been seen close to Tyki by the others, he very much wanted a private talk with him. Some might still say it was a dangerous move to seek to be alone with a Noah, but both him and Tyki were different now than they were in that forest, when Tyki aimed to take his life. Much more different. "You cut your hair," was the first thing he managed to say. Their gazes locked, and the smile on Tyki's face widened. "And it seems like I'm not the only one." "It was long overdue," Allen responded simply. To his surprise, he found that he could laugh. "Apparently I used to wear it like this," he added after a fleeting quiet moment. "A long time ago. But I'd forgotten. Like many other important things." Letting the gate close and disappear behind him, Tyki approached Allen with confident steps. His smile never wavered, and the closer he got, the more evident the look in his eyes became. A mix of intrigue, familiarity and fondness. And above them all, there was pride . "You found your answers," he said again. "You found yourself ." This time, Allen couldn't help but nod. "I did," he said, eventually. "And you were right about everything." It was strange, he thought, how easy it became to pour his heart out to Tyki once the right words tumbled off his lips. He told Tyki everything he deemed important. Talked about meeting Apocryphos. About the junior Bookman who had sacrificed himself for him. About forgetting his own life. And Tyki, to his credit, listened. His undivided attention was on Allen - every word, every experience that made him into who he was today. "There was a time not that long ago, when I argued with you. About the Innocence being the righteous one, as opposed to your cause. There was a time when I called the Noah family monsters right to your face." At the mention of "monsters", Allen's voice trembled, ever so slightly, and he might have remembered just how lost and scared he had felt that night, after Tyki left. "But I was wrong. The monster that I should fear is only one." "Apocryphos." Allen nodded, shuddered. "There were moments, you know. So many moments along the way, since I cut ties with the Order. I would remember what I saw when he wanted to merge with me. That small shard of truth. And I would realize how threatened by him I felt at that moment. How threatened I still feel." As Allen spoke, Tyki allowed his smile to slip off his face. He guided the boy to an empty stone bench down the road, so he could sit comfortably, as it seemed like his story was going to be a long one. "I told the others, too, when they came along. Kanda, Johnny, Link. Even General Tiedoll. I told them that I was terrified at the prospect of being infected by the same substance that made Apocryphos. And in that moment, I knew - neither Nea, nor any of you had ever terrified me as much as Apocryphos did. I felt so safe," Allen admitted, "when I knew you had him. So free." The wind picked up the pace, ruffling Allen's hair. His silver eyes drifted up to the sky and he saw gray clouds approaching, just as the voice of the wind turned into a quiet howl, matching his inner turmoil. Soon enough, the sun was nowhere in sight. "He stole my life from me, Tyki. This is the truth I came to know." His own voice as well, Allen observed, had become distant, as cold as ice. Tyki's eyes went wide as he watched the boy's trembling form. As he processed the meaning of his last confession. His thoughts brought him back to that night at the Order, when he had first seen Allen like this. Deep in his thoughts, he heard Joyd's voice. "Despicable!" they raged. "Hateful Innocence! Cannot forgive. Cannot forget!" "This innocence..." he began, not giving in to the impulses Joyd spread through him. "It wasn't even supposed to be part of me," Allen confirmed within seconds, a dry laugh escaping his throat. "My original left arm was cut off by Apocryphos. He sent the innocence into the wound, to become my new arm instead. A thing he could control at will. And," he added, seeing Tyki's fists clenched beside him, feeling the frustration radiating off of him, "to finish the job, the innocence took years off my life and erased everything that I knew." He was going to kill Apocryphos. Of as much, Tyki was sure. No matter what it took, he was going to hit that innocence where it hurt. 'Innocence.' What an ironic name for something so vile. Tyki had thought that, by recovering the rest of his Noah memory, he'd get the full extent of what the accursed "crystal of God" could do. And he did get it. He had that grotesque image stamped in the depths of his mind, not to be removed for the rest of his life. But for some reason, hearing Allen's story left his blood boiling more than any of the new memories did. He would tear something apart. He would crush Apocryphos with his own hands. "My life has been a lie. My body isn't even my own anymore," he heard Allen say. "Nea aside, I now have my closest friend merged into me. Through this arm. My hair color, my eye color, they used to belong to someone I once trusted with my life. Someone who once threw his humanity away to keep me safe." At the mention of that specific someone, Tyki felt Joyd go still within him for the first time in a while. 'So it was you,' he heard his Noah whisper. Recognition flashed in his golden eyes. 'Familiar, so very familiar. And yet, we could never tell why. Until now...' There was a strange kind of protectiveness, of possessiveness blooming into him. Joyd wanted out, but Tyki wasn't sure he wanted to feel what he had felt back on the ark ever again. Unable to think. Unable to tell what even belonged to him anymore because he didn't have any control whatsoever over what Joyd did. It felt like an abyss. 'How dare he ever hurt what was ours!' But with that last question, he very much agreed. Even as he knew that Joyd wasn't only referring to Allen. "Do me a favor, boy," he said finally, as he forced Joyd down a second time. "Or, well. Based on what you just told me, you might not be just a boy at all, huh?" A chuckle. Then, covering his eyes with his arm and pressing his head to the cold wall behind him, he went on, "Next time you meet the bastards who dared to doubt you, tell them this story. Tell it, in gruesome detail. Let them hear about the pure god they are serving. I have a feeling I will really enjoy the shock on their faces." "Do you know what the worst thing is?" Allen followed, silver eyes fixed on the dusty pavement. "For a long while, I'd been working with those 'bastards', proudly calling myself an exorcist, shouting it at the top of my lungs for everyone to hear. But what kind of an exorcist am I, and what is the 'evil' that I should exorcise? I figured out the hard way that innocence doesn't actually banish a Noah, but harms them and makes them run rampant instead... when I did it to myself." When he dared to sneak a glance towards Tyki, Allen found that he was watching him, his gaze heavy with a feeling he couldn't decipher. "I didn't know, Tyki. And in my ignorance, I left a mark on you that can never be erased for the rest of our lives." "Come on, now. Don't blame yourself for something you couldn't have known. It would have been to blame if you were aware of what could happen, and still decided to stab me. But you weren't. You did it all to set me free. I saw it in your eyes." Allen shook his head, averted his gaze. He looked down at his arm, deformed by innocence. Made of innocence. His scars, that once throbbed with a mind of their own, causing him a pain so acute he felt delirious, were now reduced to a dull ache, a reminder of his mistakes. "No," he decided, a note of finality in his voice. "Let me take this blame. Let it burn me until it can't burn anymore. Because look at what the innocence did to me. And I, in turn, shared some of the pain with you. For this alone, I am asking both of you-" His right hand went to Tyki's chest, and even as he couldn't see them through the layers of cloth, he knew exactly where the scars rested. Where he had left them. "Please, forgive me, Tyki." His breath caught in his throat. "And you, too, because I know you're there... Joyd." Silence covered them like a warm blanket in winter. For the first time in almost a decade, Allen allowed his tears to run free. Without fear of the Earl finding him and cursing him. Without the belief that his cries would fill the world with akuma, who would only leave dead bodies in their wake. He just cried, quiet little rivers leaving trails on his cheeks. And Joyd cried with him, leaving Tyki stunned. Because, as he knew, Noahs only cried when mourning one of their own. But right now, there was no one to mourn. Just a young man, watching him with the most earnest gaze he'd ever seen. Watching both of them. * Allen didn't know how long it had been since either of them spoke. He only knew that, where there had been heavy clouds, now the sun beamed bright, and its glow warmed his skin. The wind had also calmed down, turning into a quiet, friendly breeze. And when his eyes met blue skies, Allen felt his heart a little lighter. "I asked him, you know," Tyki started, and Allen's eyes were on him in a heartbeat. "The Apo-creep. I asked him about you. I wanted to know why exactly he is so obsessed with you, following you around like that. Naturally, I wanted to know whether or not you were the Heart, because that would justify his clinging to you. I didn't get a clear answer." "You of all people should know best that I am not the Heart. You shattered the innocence with your own hands. It didn't turn the others off." Tyki let out a long hum, and for a moment, he seemed lost in thought. He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. Lit one. Allen only watched as the smoke traveled in tendrils up to the sky. As Tyki dragged that smoke into his chest. Breathed it out. "I know. But with how the innocence never actually disappeared, I had my doubts for a moment. I guess I just wanted to hear it from him. That you weren't the one we needed to kill in order to end this." 'Because I didn't want it to be you,' was the part that remained unsaid, a truth of which both parties were aware. "What I got instead was the bastard implying that I was obsessed with you, just like Joyd is 'obsessed' with Nea. This guy clearly doesn't understand the meaning of obsessions though, because if he did, he'd see that he's the picture perfect stalker." Not "the fourteenth", but "Nea", Allen observed. It was nice not to feel Nea seething within him over that nickname for a change. If anything, he seemed quite pleased with the development, despite the memories he'd been showing Allen, of himself and Joyd. Nea's current reaction to the new mention of Apocryphos, by comparison, was a lot less friendly. Allen felt that, if Apocryphos were to be nearby, Nea wouldn't hesitate to make a scene. But probably after all was said and done, that was also true in Tyki's case. "Hear me out," Tyki continued, more disgusted by the minute, while also trying to maintain some level of high spirits, "he dared to call you, and I quote, 'the reincarnation of an angel that he wanted to raise and nurture.' He said that during the interrogation, even going as far as to call you his Allen. I told him you were not his, and you would never be." Allen looked Tyki in the eye, blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. But the words to describe what he felt upon hearing about Apocryphos's utter delusion just didn't come. It was like they were stuck somewhere. "That's it," he decided. "I've had it. I'm going to throw up in that trash bin over there. Twice!" "Not even I could have said it better," Tyki pointed out, a somewhat delighted glimmer in his eyes. Then, softer, "I'm sorry for this, boy." As he slowly drifted away, Allen kept murmuring to himself, "First he ruins my life, and now I'm the angel that he wanted to raise and protect? He robs me of all my truth and then dares to call me his? And by 'protecting' me he means getting rid of everything and everyone that might have ever helped me regain the memories that he stole?? Give me a break. What's the deal with this creep-" "I second that!" Tyki called from their bench, where he waited patiently for the boy's return. He found that he didn't quite want to tell Allen what else he had found out from Apocryphos, and how that tied them together. But he had to, because Allen had opened his heart to him first, and he wanted to keep things fair between them. Deep down, a part of Tyki feared they might lose their current familiarity over something their Noahs had shared. And that was something he wouldn't have. He laughed - a quiet, choked laugh, then a sigh that hurt to let out. "What the hell was that with you two, Joyd?" But Joyd said nothing. They stayed as silent as their surroundings were, probably in the chains of their guilt. Disappointed, but not really surprised by the Noah's silence, he dropped the rest of the cigarette onto the pavement, crushing it underneath his heel. Tyki might have heard Allen protesting in a low voice, even as he made his way back. Only this time, it wasn't about Apocryphos. It was about him - or rather, about the one hiding inside of him. "This isn't me apologizing to Joyd in your name; if anything, I urge both of you to solve your differences on your own. I only apologized to Joyd for the things that I did. The rest," he trailed off, realizing that Tyki's eyes were on him, molten gold searching for his silver, "...is your history." And Tyki knew as soon as his Noah's name was out of Allen's mouth who the boy must have been talking to. It seemed like the secret he was trying to hold onto wasn’t exactly a secret anymore. "You know," he breathed out, face now twisted in an expression of remorse. He let those two words hang between them, their weight excruciating. And then, "See, boy? This is why I told you that you didn't have to apologize. What I did-" He shook his head, lowered his gaze. "What this fool inside me did last time is enough for your attack on me to be considered karma." Allen thought back on whatever Nea has been telling and showing him upon finding out that he and Tyki were close. He'd switched from his childhood memories to something more, to the most unlikely bond that there was. And as the story progressed, it became clear that Joyd's previous host had grown overly attached to Nea, gravitating towards him like a moth to a flame. But in the end, when the Noah's mission overshadowed their relationship, all that was left was betrayal and tragedy. Chaos . Nea, as Allen knew, had a very hard time trusting people, much less opening up to them about his worries, his pain. The thing with Joyd, and with the entire Noah family by connection, it might have only added salt to the wound. Or rather, it gave Nea a whole new reason to distrust, given what he did. "I still don't know all the details, but we're working on it," Allen said, a faint smile pulling at the corners of his lips. What he didn't say was, he had come to know the most gruesome detail of them all, and he'd known it for a while now. It was just that, in the past, it felt much too confusing to even start pondering over. That huge pillar of light, that brought everything to ruin. The one thing that the Noahs wanted to avoid at all costs. He'd seen it over and over in a series of strange nightmares. He guessed it must have been Nea's doing as well. But because they were just that, Allen could do nothing to stop it from exacting the destruction of everything. So he just watched over a deserted world, until it felt like the pain of it was going to split him in two. "Tell me. What are you planning to do once you know the whole story?" There was a plea hidden somewhere behind Tyki's words, Allen noticed. "I don't want a repeat of the past. While I did contract Nea willingly, I refuse to see you as someone I should exact any revenge on. I told Nea as much. If anything," he went on, his voice now down to a whisper, but no less determinate, "I would very much like you and me to be allies ." 'Maybe something from their past might be fixed that way,' is what Allen thought, but didn't say out loud. His words made the unease in Tyki's chest unclench, just a little. It made him feel hopeful. He'd told Allen he should make sense of the labyrinth inside of him, and above all else, to keep holding onto himself. With what he uncovered, Tyki felt like he could benefit from that advice as well. Because he, too, didn't want to cause a replica of the tragedy from long ago. Nor did he want to believe that him gravitating towards Allen the way he did was only because Joyd had some unfinished business with Nea, like Apocryphos suggested. They were their own selves, he tried telling himself. They were the ones who would make a difference. And yet- "Allen...! Where have you gone?" That was Johnny. Hearing his voice, Allen jumped, his mind filling with urgency. He had to go. Their time had run out. "One more thing before you go, boy," came Tyki's voice, as he reached out for Allen's sleeve. "You said it yourself that you lived a fake life. Your age, your body, they don't match who you're supposed to be. And I, too, seem to have been one of Joyd's... choices . A host that resembles someone whom the previous host was 'passionate' about." "That would be Nea," Allen followed, and Tyki nodded, trying to ignore the way his heart skipped a beat. "In a sense, doesn't this make us both sort of 'unreal'? I said it before, even as I knew you wouldn't take me seriously, but if it really was the twist of fate that brought us together like this, then we make for some interesting jokers. At least it feels like that, to me." Allen, who had partially turned away at the sound of Johnny's call, was now facing him again. A sad smile graced his lips as he said, "You are as much of a real human being as I am, no matter what we've been through. Take me as I am, as now you know the real me. And I will do the same for the real you." Before they knew it, the Ark gate was open again. And just like that, they had to part ways. They shook hands, shared smiles. Promised to meet again soon. But really, there was nothing certain that any of them could say or do at the moment. Only time would tell. There was something, a detail worth mentioning that neither Tyki, nor Allen wanted to mention just yet. But Tyki couldn't help but wonder, as he stepped through the gate to meet with Wisely - what would happen when this fight inevitably became about Nea and Mana all over again? About the two halves of the same whole, that is no longer whole? Had the boy realized, upon getting his memories back, that the person he'd been so attached to was not only part of the Millenium Earl, but the Earl himself? "How is he?" came Wisely's voice, an echo in the common room on the Ark. "Why are you asking me, when you could check on him yourself?" Was that irritation in his voice? Maybe. "I could," Wisely agreed with a short laugh. "But I thought I wouldn't intrude on your long-awaited alone moment." "Oh, how generous you are," Tyki said, and the eyeroll was audible in his tone. "But to answer your question, he's fine. Different, but fine." "Different how?" He took a moment to ponder on that. "More mature. He's grown up a whole lot, that boy." He threw himself onto the couch, let out a groan; this day was already full of confusing emotions and it was only a few hours past noon. Feeling Wisely's gaze still lingering on him, Tyki had to add, "He told me he wanted us to be allies, as opposed to my past self and Nea. It gave me hope. He even apologized to both me and Joyd for these scars." That piqued Wisely's interest. "Oh? That's a really good thing to hear. Who knows, maybe that man will also have a change of heart, but I highly doubt it, all things considered." "We will see," Tyki allowed. For a while, Wisely was silent. But in his mind, he had already come up with five different scenarios for this war, and where it could lead them. Tyki could bet on that. No wonder the guy got migraines so often. When he finally spoke again, he held a certain note of warning in his normally pleasant voice that Tyki didn't like. "I know that you have taken a liking to him," he said. "To Allen . I know, because I did, too. Not to mention Road. But if worse comes to worst, I would hope you know that there won't be any room left for feelings this time. Nea knew it 35 years ago." He was well aware. Tyki was well aware that another carnage like that one would lead them even closer to the Pillar, maybe even bringing it back. And to make matters worse, now innocence inhabited Allen's body, the "host" that Nea chose for himself. And yet, he still wanted to cling to the small bits of hope that the boy was going to make things right somehow. He wanted so desperately to cling to Allen.