Author: Aeryan

Rating: K+

Characters: The Musician/the 14th, Road Camelot, Tyki Mikk, the Earl Millennium, and Mana Walker.

Summary: The world took unexpected turns, some may even lead to betrayal and death. A drabble about the 14th Noah.

Disclaimer: I DO NOT own -man. It'd be cool if I did, then I wouldn't have to bother with these things. I do however own this ficlet and 'Hannah'.

Betrayal comes in many forms,

But relies on underlying intimacy

To insure a lethal is an emotional ambush,

Carefully designed,

Flawlessly executed,

Producing an evil sound

In the orchestra of life.

"Welcome home,"

The new Noah glanced around him, at his newfound 'family' and the grotesque man with the everlasting smile dressed in his tailored suit and pince-nez spectacles that held his arms open, welcoming him. He couldn't look away, they somehow subconsciously willed him to keep his gaze on them and drink in their grandiose presence. The assembled 'family' looked nothing like each other, he noted, and their appearances varied from English rose beauty to Portuguese statuesque as they fixed their curious gazes on him. The Noah were all different and yet the same. Seven aligned stigmata decorated their foreheads and they sported identical gray-toned skin with contrasting golden eyes that were not entirely human. They both inspired awe and horror, and even the young child that was under a woman's grasp was terrifyingly lovely, for the beauty they beheld walked by hand with the hatred locked away deep in their hearts.

He shivered.

He gave them a weak smile, deciding that he would get used to their strong presence later, but the grief of being separated from his brother was too much. The day when he was branded as one of them, when even breathing was a bother, Mana Walker had stayed by his side. He had soothed his pain-filled screams and traced his fingers along the crosses he now bore on forehead. They tore them apart; the Earl and his Noah came for him and whisked him away from his older brother's care. How could they have been so heartless? They hadn't deserved everything that happened to them and it made him bitter. Bile rose in his throat and he wanted to scream until his lungs were no longer part of him but when the young woman holding the child gave him the sweetest look, eyes lighting up like sunsets, he froze.

"Is something wrong?" Her voice was silky and smooth, a blanket of warmth.

She was tall with a cloud of dark curls tumbling down her back and had a hand gently placed on the young, pixie-like girl's shoulder with obvious affection. They all looked at him with close care as they patiently awaited his response, the Earl let out a chuckle. He looked away. Was it his imagination that showed the sadism behind that laugh?

He gave her a stronger, more reassuring smile. "It's nothing."

He felt the force of stares lighten and they smiled at him too. It was as if they already felt the ties of family binding him to them. The small girl under the lady's grasp ran up to him with eyes shining and smiled brightly as she tossed her doll into the air for a slender gentlemen in a top hat behind her to catch.

"Play with me!" She grabbed his hand enthusiastically and for a moment everything was slightly okay.

I thought you were someone we could trust.

We loved you.

You just didn't love us back.

Road Camelot grinned from ear to ear as she clapped happily, eyes bright. She twirled a pumpkin-tipped umbrella, Relo, as she spun in her dance and laughed with glee when it squeaked and yelled for her to stop. Her laughter carried throughout the room and he felt like smiling, remembering halcyon days and Indian summers.

It was just another day with the Noah, the calm before the storm.

"Road-tama!" Relo cried to no avail, the child was too caught up in the music that the new Noah produced. Road's small feet moved swiftly with incredible grace as she tried to sing along to his melody, her voice attempting to match the notes. Letting Relo go, she jumped up on it and sailed swiftly across the room as her feeble attempts to keep up with her new brother's music failed once again. A crashing noise caught her new brother's attention, a high-pitched squeal piercing through the piano's notes and he turned to see an akuma motionless on the floor. A look of horror was now forever etched on its face as it lay broken on the expensive Arabian carpet like a ragged doll. It was dead. It had gotten in Road's way and the price had been too high. He didn't mind at first, it was an akuma after all, but the small child's sadistic habits were slowly getting to him. Not only hers, everyone seemed…twisted in their own sense. It was as if they hated humanity, and was reminded of it every time they talked of them with obvious disgust and dislike. Weren't they humans too? Didn't God love all his children?

Mana was a human.

Music ceased to play and Road stopped to a halt. "What's wrong?"

Everyone seemed to be asking him that nowadays.

What's wrong, what's wrong, what's wrong…

The room seemed to be spinning, objects defied gravity and his head was beginning to pound. His fingers lay motionless above the piano's keys and the laughter of the other Noah had stopped. Vicious fangs sprouted from their contorted mouths and their ochre eyes faded to a bloody crimson, and Road's lips curled into an evil smile as she tilted her head, observing prey. The other Noah began to stalk towards him, their scorching vermillion eyes wicked and deceiving. Then the Noah turned all their hatred, all their pain and suffering towards him.

The brief vision faded as soon as it came, Road was still awaiting his answer. Her eyes a bright cheerful gold and his brothers and sisters were still scattered across the room laughing and mingling among themselves. Nothing had happened.

He offered the small girl a faux smile that seemed much too real, "nothing."

Everything was nothing.

Children had a different view of the world, of the people that lived in it.

They saw things we refused to acknowledge for various reasons unknown to even ourselves.

She was quite a lovely girl.

All that needed to be done is to accept.

"Neh, Tyki?"

The debonair Portuguese gentleman looked up and faced his niece that had a thoughtful look painted on her features, something rare for carefree Road Camelot. Tyki Mikk's hand ran through his dark curled hair absentmindedly as he set down a book he had merely stared for the last ten minutes.

"Hmm?"

"He's been acting strange, don't you think?" Road motioned towards the man that was silently reading at the edge of the library, eyes glued to the book and seemingly oblivious to their conversation.

"Why do you say?"

"I don't know, Tyki…. There's something off. Maybe he's sick?"

Tyki smiled at her and tossed her a doll. In a flash of a second Road fell on her back in order to catch it and burst out in fits of laughter as she twirled it around victoriously in the air. Her small hands were occupied and her mind no longer held thoughts of her new brother or her conversation with Tyki. It had wondered of into a land only children knew of.

The Portuguese stared at the Musician's back.

And he didn't turn around to look back at Tyki. Not once.

A wound to the heart is easily made,

Hard to repair,

And impossible to completely get rid of.

What you did to me, to us, was far worse.

Her slender hand ran through the ivory keys of the lone white piano in the otherwise empty room, a tender look of melancholy lingered as she pecked at the keys gently. Wordless songs weaved themselves from her lips, tunes that had lost their voice long before. Only a grieving melody dispersed by time was left. Her heart clenched and tears began to spill from her eyes as the sickening sound of hands being slammed against keys echoed through the room.

Why did he leave us?

His betrayal was much worse than a direct stab to the heart; it was as if something inside of them all had died once he left. Did he not love us? God knew we loved him so. Crazed, mournful thoughts ran through her head as she glanced sadly at the sparsely furnished music room. Its high ceiling ascended above, like a blank sky that was void of its pale cerulean color and was sickeningly empty. The young lady knew that this room would be left to be forgotten after this, to gather dust and be lost in time.

"Dieu, aide a Nea parce-que'il est perdu." She prayed, her mouths forming shapes as her eyes closed. Nothing would ever be the same.

"Hannah, you're crying for him too?" A juvenile voice said from behind, soft like poisoned chocolate in its lost innocence, "Why is that we are crying? Noah doesn't cry, much less for a traitor like him. He tried to assassinate the Earl, you know? He betrayed us and the Earl killed him."

Hannah turned around to face the young girl that was before her. She was just a child. Her dark hair was short and spiky on her head, and her golden eyes were liquid butterscotch as tears streamed silently down her gray-stained face. A doll was clutched in her left hand, a bear with a scruffy ear and dusty white fur that had been a gift from the dead. Road Camelot was squeezing it to the point soft stuffing dangled from its limbs.

"I know, I know." She reached out and grabbed Road's free hand and led her out of the room. The seven crosses they bore on their foreheads seemed to burn, even if it was just a bit, and it was as if they were mourning for his death too.

And then the boy fell deep asleep.

The flame inside the breathing ashes.

One by one.

Rise up and expand into that beloved face.

Suspended from the earth,

Thousands of dreams.

On the night when those silver eyes trembled,

You were born,

Shining brightly.

Hundreds of millions of months and many years,

No matter how many prayers are returned to the Earth,

I shall continue to pray.

Olaya: Well that was…strange. I came up while watched the -man episode when Allen plays the 14th's melody and the idea spiraled out of control and formed this. Not a very good set drabbles, but they''ll do. The extract at the beginning belongs to Frank P. Whyte and is from his poem "Betrayal" and the ending is the Musician's melody transalation from the manga I read.