content edited as of April 16, 2011; author's notes untouched.

Author's Note: Again, this is an apology!fic for procrastinating on This is for Real. It is also the longest thing I have written, if you count every chapter of something as a different thing. Almanda. Which is slash but not really slash. Still experimenting with scene breaks. Fairy-tale feel was intentional. Enjoy.

Once upon a time, there was a prince and a princess who spent all their lives together, happy and in love. And when they passed away, their souls were at peace.

Then, one day, white-clad angel-impersonators decided that they needed two souls. So they took those of the prince and the princess and shut them in the bodies of two boys, completely ignorant of the fact that one of the souls was female. The bodies were kept inside a large, cylindrical tower on top of a cliff, where they were hidden from the world.

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The first to awaken is the boy with a scar across his nose, who holds the soul of the princess. For all intents and purposes, the princess will be referred to in feminine, because it is easier. And when the prince wakes, he is helped up by the princess. She shares with him her new name – Alma – which was given to her by the white-clad angels who resided in the tower. She tells the prince his new name: Yuu. They become fast friends.

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Neither has any memory of the past.

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For months the prince and the princess are kept in the tower, where they see no one but each other and the white-clad angels who run test after test on them. The angels have used their powers to change their bodies to make them heal faster. The angels have made it possible for them to survive the grueling tests they call "synchronization".

The angels say that they are to become soldiers of God and fight the holy war. The angels justify the hours of agony that they inflict on the two – they need weaponry, after all, and only one thing will work on their enemies and said enemies' weapons, the Akuma. They call this substances "Innocence" or god-matter. The prince and the princess don't really care; they just hate it.

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They crave their freedom. They want nothing more than to be rid of this place and the Dark Religious Organization that these angels are part of. So they plan and they plan when they are alone until they finally think they are ready.

And so one night, they run. They run from their shared room to the very bottom of the tower, which bores into the cliff below it. And, in a moment of lost balance, they fall into the underground river. They welcome it – better death than this never-ending cycle of torture to prepare them for a war they do not wish to fight. But death does not come. In its stead are two black-clad angels, returning to the tower, who fish them out and hand them over to the white-clad angels.

They are kept far away from each other after that.

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In his isolation, the prince – the one with the harsher demeanor and the body of the longer-haired boy, the one with the name Yuu – knows that those two black angels only meant good when they dragged them out of the water. Maybe, thinks the prince, we could have been friends in a different life.

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Then, after an unknown amount of time, the white-clad angels summon him to the testing room, which is sterile and white. To his horror, he finds the princess standing in the middle of a pile of bodies, red staining their white clothes. It dawns on him, just as the princess raises her blade (oh, look, she managed to synchronize), that he has been brought here to kill.

As blade clashes against blade, princess says that they should die together, and the prince tells her that no, he still wants to live. The white-clad angels only stand aside and watch as the two of them move in for the kill.

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The prince catches the body of the princess, his sword embedded in her gut. He murmurs that he is sorry, so sorry, but that he can't die yet. He murmurs that he made a promise, that while they were apart, he dreamed of a woman he loved dearly, of the life he had with her. He murmurs that he promised this woman that he would find her. He doesn't notice that he is crying – even if he did, he is past the point of caring – and barely registers that the white-clad angels are taking him away from the massacre and congratulating him, telling him that he did good, that their God was pleased with him.

What angels are these, he thinks, to be telling me that I did good in taking someone's life? What god, he thinks, would be pleased with a little boy for killing his best friend?

That was the day that the prince lost his faith in the world.

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Now, if this were to be like a fairy tale, one of two things should have happened: The prince and the princess should have already regained their memories of their past lives, and they should have already run away from the Dark Religious Organization and lived happily ever after; or a fierce warrior would have already entered. The warrior would have saved the captured prince and princess long before this tragedy and freed them.

But the warrior does not come for a long, long time.

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In this time, the prince does what he is told. He learns how to become a 'warrior of God', one of those black-clad angels. (He finds it rather poetic that he trains under one of the two who saved his life.) He does the bidding of the suited and/or robed men, the ones in charge of the Organization, who pull the strings and give the orders , and every day loses a little bit more of his faith in the Organization – that is, if he had any to begin with. He does not try to run away again; what better way to find the dream woman, he tells himself, than to travel the world?

In this time, he meets a little girl who is more like a broken porcelain doll than a girl. He meets a redhead boy who is a bigger liar than the string-pullers. They are also learning to be 'warriors of God'.

But the boy has made it a point to distance himself from the Organization, he is not truly part of it, god-matter or no. And the prince envies him in this. The girl's brother becomes one of the white-clad angels to save her, and he is so jealous when she is saved. Because no one ever comes to save him – no one ever tries.

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Then, after nine long years, the warrior comes, a warrior who has also become one of the black-clad angels. But unlike the prince, the warrior believes in the cause he fights for.

The warrior does not try to sneak in, he is far too noble for that. Instead, he just walks up to the gate and knocks, calling politely.

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The white-clad angels mistake him for the enemy at first, because of a curse that lets the warrior see the souls anchored to the Akuma, and the prince is sent to dispose of him only to be stopped at the last moment. Because this warrior really is an angel. He has his weapon, he has been trained.

And he irritates the prince to no end with his infernal manners and martyr complex and all his light. And in turn, the prince sees it fit to irritate the warrior with his attitude and nicknames made to spite, "moyashi" being at the forefront of these.

And though he wishes otherwise, the prince is sent with the warrior on multiple missions to retrieve the god-matter. The only one of these missions relevant to this tale is the first one, where the prince and the warrior go to the abandoned city of Martel. There, they find a doll and a man who loves it. There, the prince learns of the warrior's martyr comlex – he was willing to abandon the mission to save the doll and the man. There, the prince announces with a slight trace of pride as an Akuma tries to kill him that will not die until he finds someone.

And though the prince does not learn this until much later, this statement was also heard by the warrior, who, even with all his curiosity, did not pry.

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The prince watches as the warrior exchanges his claw for a gun, then the gun for a sword. He watches as the warrior protects their Home when the enemy launches their first direct attack on the headquarters and destroys it. He watches as the warrior gains control of the Ark, something that could transport anyone anywhere. He watches as the white-clad angels turn on the warrior and suspect him of being in league with their enemy.

And when this happens, the prince stands by the warrior; he has grown attached, even though he would never admit it. This is the reason he has protected the warrior from the inhuman enemies that they face, because no matter what anyone says about warriors not needing protection, this warrior is far to nice not to need it.

And he watches as the warrior holds true to his morals and his promises. The warrior holds his ground and keeps his chin up, angering the white-clad angels, who assign a lapdog to follow him. But the warrior does not give them the pleasure of angering him and continues to dispense his smiles and light.

This, thinks the prince, is the difference in strength between us. And although he has some trouble admitting this, he has come to respect the warrior, albeit grudgingly.

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And a year after the warrior first arrived, the enemy launches an attack on the North American branch of the Dark Religious Organization.

The prince and the warrior are sent to help take care of it.

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There, the prince and the warrior are met by all thirteen of their enemies – the Noah clan, who claim that the warrior is their fourteenth. The oldest of them, the Millennium Earl, also known as Adam, tells them that their secret weapon has been stored here all this time. And Adam laughs as the vessel of the princess is revealed. Even though it is dead, the body of the princess has aged these nine years – it is no longer the little boy body that the prince had slain.

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The prince does nothing – can do nothing – as the Noah of Dreams takes him back to the time he has tried most desperately to forget. And to his even greater horror, the warrior has seen it all.

But the warrior does not react the way the prince expects him to. The warrior does not shun him – he tries to help. Which only leads to absolute disaster as the body of the princess becomes an Akuma, fueled by hate and sorrow.

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The prince and the princess duel once again (how many times is he doomed to repeat the same mistake?) and the warrior keeps trying to stop them – how can you attack him with that expression, asks the warrior. Even through all the pain, he was still someone you cared about, someone you wanted to spend your life with! But the prince does not listen. He has lost himself to the power coursing through him: He tells himself that Alma is an Akuma now, that Alma needs to be exterminated.

But he does not succeed in killing the princess again. Instead, the warrior jumps in his path and prince runs the warrior through with his sword, and for a moment the warrior becomes this fabled fourteenth Noah. The change isn't permanent, but it is enough to snap the second prince out of his blood-lust. And this is the best thing that has happened this day.

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With his eye that could see the souls anchored to the Akuma, the warrior notices something about the Akuma that was once Alma. The warrior sees the soul and realizes that this is the person the prince has been looking for. And, by some miracle, he manages to make the prince notice it too.

But this realization, this realization that the person he has been looking for for nearly a decade was the one he killed, comes too late. Both the prince and the princess are on the brink of death; the prince lays on the ground, while the princess has been deformed into a column of horrors.

So, disobeying a direct order from the white-clad angels, the warrior offers something to the prince: He offers to send them far away, somewhere the Organization will never find them. He will open one of the Ark's doors to Martel and destroy it before anyone can follow. He will never tell anyone where he sent them.

The prince agrees without a second thought; and just before he jumps with his superhuman ability to collect the princess, he says to the warrior: "Thank you, Allen Walker." and the warrior would later swear that the prince is crying.

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The prince traps the princess in his arms in a painful hug. We're going away, he tells the princess, just like we promised. And the princess can't help but think that maybe she has been sent her own angel.

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In their free-fall to the open portal beneath them, the prince tells the princess that he has been looking for her all his life, that he is so, so sorry to have betrayed her; he asks if the princess knows what they used to be, and for how long. And the princess tells him that she has known for a long time. She tells him that while they were apart after their failed escape, her memories came back to her. She tells the prince that as long as he was looking for her, they would always belong to each other and to no one else.

The prince can't find it in him to care that the princess has kept this secret from him. He is actually rather relieved.

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They crash into the ruins of Martel and the prince leans against one of the crumbling stone walls, cradling the deformed body of the princess in his arms; the scar on the nose-bridge of this body is still visible.

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The door blows apart seconds later, covering them in splinters. It is good to know that the warrior has kept his promise, even though the white-clad angels will punish him dearly for it.

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The prince holds the princess close, unwilling to let her go. The princess is glad for it – the arms of this body can't be used for hugging anymore. Neither are breathing properly. They don't mind that death has finally caught them. They have found each other again. They have made their peace. They are happy.

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I love you, murmurs the princess, just loud enough for her companion to hear.

I know, says the prince, a tear sliding down his cheek.

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And their souls depart the bodies they were forced into a decade ago. They are finally free.

And that's where it ends. Tell me what you think, what you liked and didn't like, and if I made any mistakes. Because this is unbeta'd, as always.

To those of you reading This is for Real, please tell me whether or not you want to see Alma and Kanda in it. Seriously. Because it's either them or Lavi.

(BEWARE SHAMELESS PLUG) To those of you who aren't reading TifR, go read it and tell me the same.