So I'm back and with a one-shot, what can I say, the idea just wouldn't let go of me. School has taken up a lot of my time, and I got a job two months ago too, so I've been swamped.

It is much appreciated if you favorite or review *hint hint, wink wink* and I hope you enjoy the read!

Amaranthine

It starts with Mana, like most things have; Allen Walker took his first steps because of him, as for now—

Allen knows it's bad. He really does.

He just can't leave Mana. Nor can he bring himself to care for the pitiful humans. Mana always tells him that they serve a purpose—his eyes gain a golden sheen and his skin a shade darker than normal then—but he hasn't ever seen them any less than vermin beneath his feet.

The first time it happened, he had felt some cruel satisfaction watching the sobbing girl turn into putty in Mana's hands after a few carefully placed words here and there. His eyes were a cold silver as she screamed to life an iron skeleton that had a name engraved in it. Mana's were pure gold.

(—it was stunning how he hadn't ever seen how doomed he was from the start; gold and silver, first and last. The rivalry had already started long before he had known—)

Though he had remained hidden using the shadows as a cloak and the graves as a shield, once the girl was gone in both senses of the word, the inhumanly large smile had grown larger and eyes had flashed dangerously. It was only then that he wondered if he was safe but—

Mana would never hurt him.

So he had stood, brushed at his baggy trousers, and met those enchantingly mesmerizing eyes with his own at half-mast. And, shockingly, nothing happened. He was still Allen Walker, and Mana was still Mana Walker with a little of the Millennium Earl in him.

They still roamed the earth as clowns; save now, there was just an added pinch of excitement at night in a local cemetery. Laughs had followed them; now, there were laughs and screams, but their painted smiles never faded.

(—so what if his smile curved more with the desperate screams and the laughter less so, he had never cared to begin with.—)

Life moved on and so did they, Allen could say that he had been to all countries in Europe and was doing the same with Asia. It was in India where he met his first exorcist; the humans trying to kill Mana.

The exorcist had shocking red hair with a gun in one hand and a glass of wine in another. Stares were exchanged in silence then—it began.

Shots could be heard across the small Indian town, but the haunting laughter even more so. It echoed through the cobblestone streets, and several people later that day would say it reminded them of a loss they had suffered through. Finally, it slowly crept away as did the sun with the clouds painted a pretty red.

(—but the man's words follow him till it's all he hears one day, he screams at Mana that day. He never allows the words to take control of him once more; he still hears them though, continually whispering in the darkest recesses of his mind—)

Days later, two men in white cloaks appear and ask around for a man with red locks. The villagers shake their heads and whisper about the laughter that had made the red-haired foreigner disappear.

It is two towns away that Allen kills his first human. It had happened with a step and flick of his wrist. By the time the still body was found, they were well on their way and only one glove stained crimson.

(—three weeks later, a man in a top hat and a smile larger than his face floated down to meet a younger brother who was now the oldest; they say the boy's never been the same since the death in the family. They don't exist anymore, nothing more than ashes drifting the wind—)

His red arm is now just a shadow in his head that only he remembers unlike his burgundy hair. Juggling is impressive with two hands but more so with one. The 'oooh's and 'aaah's never get old, like his gratefulness towards Mana for destroying it. The deformity had held him back, and while he was sad that the object that started his hatred towards humanity was no longer there, he doesn't have to worry about pesky exorcists.

The fact that his foster father had hurt him never once crosses his mind; after all, Mana had had his best attentions in mind.

They're now on their way to Japan for reasons unknown to Allen—a chuckle is all he gets when he asks—and the boat keeps rocking, lulling him to sleep.

.

He finds himself in a black and white landscape that can only be of his own making, no other human could be as demented as he with ghosts of trees reaching their twisted limbs towards the black sky with a silver of a white moon hanging low. He vaguely wonders why there are ruins scattered across but there are so many possibilities—his left arm, the lack of his humanity, the madness slowly spreading—too many, really.

There's a lake in the middle reflecting moonlight casting eerie shadows, and the stones that once made a castle stand stagnant at the edge of the dark water. Then there's movement in the corner of eyes and he whirls around silently—being had a clown had its advantages.

(—as much as he'd like to say he's surprised, he can't because it really isn't. The man had warned him of this and the words are still being echoed—)

A masked being is floating with its pure white cloak rippling slightly as though there is a slight breeze, but there isn't. He watches it with wary eyes before returning to the sight he had originally seen. It doesn't move, only hovers with its empty silver mask seemingly staring at him. He forces himself to ignore it as something else catches his eyes.

There's an image in the lake.

And he knows he shouldn't but—

He's already there.

A man who looks like Mana is smiling, frozen in time and there's something so confoundingly familiar about this man. So much so that before he knows it, he's forgotten all about the cloaked being, and is reaching for the surface of the water.

Then there is a white blur and he's moving around too fast and he knows he going to fall and he is.

Right before he hits the still surface, it feels like he's suspended by a million of small invisible strings but then there is a snap and he's falling again.

The water is cold but the rush is even colder. He can't seem to think, not when the man who looks like Mana is reaching for him shouting—

(—Don't die!—)

He looks so sad as his hand brushes past Allen to someone else. It stings for some odd reason that he can't place. The man's golden eyes are shining, and Allen's heart is reaching for him, the sting is all but forgotten, because that man looks far, far too sad.

(—I won't take your body, are you dumb?!—)

The man is definitely crying as he feebly shakes the unknown body. Allen thinks he's crying, both him and the man, and there's something so heartbreaking about that.

(—No, please, don't make me…—)

The man is sobbing, his back shaking with each cry as he clutches the corpse. He can't understand why, but he's so overwhelmed by the sadness. It almost feels as though he's feeling what the man's feeling. But that can't be right—

(—I promise—)

—because why then would he be feeling this fleeting happiness at those words?

(—Allen—)

.

When he wakes, his eyes are rimmed with red, but the most startling thing is that his eyes have gold flecks now. He can't help but think that this makes him look like the man in dream.

Mana wonders and his curious stare holds unspoken questions, but Allen can't answer them. Not when he's just as confused.

The next night he dreams of the man's weeping figure and wakes to his eyes red once more. The flecks have increased and his frown deepens. The next night soon turns to night after and so on. He loses count as his eyes slowly grow darker, and Mana soon stops pestering with glances and small talks.

By the time they reach their destination, they have grown accustom to his swollen eyes in the morning and reached a comfortable agreement on Allen's silence on the matter. Mana still hasn't told him why exactly they needed to go to Japan and he waits impatiently for the big reveal.

It has to be big, clowns have never done a performance that hasn't had one big thing. Some it's juggling six things at once, others it's swallowing a sword and pretending to choke, for Mana its bringing the dead back to life. But Allen has already known that for more than a couple years, so he speculates with the little information he has.

And as he stands tall with Mana at his side, he questions what a building has to do with anything. He follows Mana regardless, because he will always follow Mana no matter what, and nothing will ever make that statement false.

He doesn't expect a teenage girl in a short skirt with purple hair in spikes and gray skin to jump out and hug him. But if she's the family of Mana, then he can smile and hug her back.

They're family now after all.

(—fate always did love play with him, didn't it?—)

Now, it starts with Mana—

(—"Hello, I'm Allen Walker."—)

(—A giggle. "Welcome home, Allen Walker. I am the ninth apostle, Road."—)

—and it can only end with Mana.