Disclaimer: The characters belong to their respective authors. Gallifrey is a blatant hint at Doctor Who to whom I have no rights either, but "Cliffs of Gallifrey" have been entirely made up by me, based on the amazing views I have seen in Norway.

Author's note: It's meant to be sad. It's actually meant to make people cry. Also, I know that paper doesn't last that long, but maybe the Doctor also likes that place and maybe he liked that story also and played a bit with time (and if you ask "Doctor who?" I tell you "right you are" ;) ).

Cliffs of Gallifrey

Prologue

He watched the "souls" walk away from him with strange calmness and when he heard the words he didn't feel much either. He only hugged the disfigured torso that was all what remained from his best and only friend in the complete silence that enveloped him. He wasn't sure how much time passed or if it even passed or whether the world has stopped. He couldn't even think about anything other than holding the cold torso, the corpse of the horrifying thing his friend's hate turned him into. Nothing changed in the ruins where he was, not even wind blew to disturb the smallest grain of sand. Not a sound reached him for what felt like an eternity. Then, without any warning and no reason he could conceive, silently, the corpse he was holding onto crumbled into dust, seeping through his hands and fingers. He didn't even have a time to gasp and it was gone.

The only thing left was the core.

The orb was shiny and flawless, with the exact copy of what his tattoo used to be. It was smooth and cold to touch and suddenly Kanda Yuu realized, with painful clarity, that he was alone. His breath hitched. Alma was gone, again. Alma, his one and only friend, the only person with whom he had ever laughed, was gone. And this time, She was gone with Alma because She had been Alma all that time and all those years ago Kanda could have just let Alma kill him and they would have been together. Slowly, he realized the magnitude of his mistake back then and the fact that he might have just as well killed Alma (and Her) again for all the wounds he had inflicted was too much to bear. He took a deep, shuddering breath.

He was alone.

Again he had lost Alma and the knowledge stung. No. It hurt more than any physical wound and Kanda knew it wouldn't heal so easily either. It would stay there, like a gaping hole in his chest and he could not do anything about it. He clutched the smooth core to his chest as he gasped for breath because the pain was too much. He was alone in the world that did not care and, oh dear God, what had he done to deserve this pain? Why did he have to survive again?

He was crying he realised. Tears were flowing silently from his eyes, blurring his vision until he couldn't tell apart the ruins of Mater and the devastated Sixth Laboratory. The same, cruel, blue sky was stretching above them. He squeezed his eyes shut, but it was there, glaring at him as he cried, unable to stop because it hurt in his chest, it hurt as though somebody was tearing him apart.

It was so hard to breathe.

A desperate sob tore from his lips, echoing in the empty silence that stretched everywhere around him. And there was no answer, because he was alone. Another sob followed and then, before he realized what was happening, Kanda Yuu was screaming in a wordless protest against the cruelty of the world. That scream too echoed back at him in the emptiness. He heard it and he screamed louder to fill the emptiness, to fill the silence but the silence was in his head and the emptiness was in his soul. And so he screamed more because it hurt, it hurt so much that he thought he would die. And he wanted to die, oh God, how he wanted to die. And he screamed even louder, until he couldn't scream anymore. And all he could do, as the silence wrapped around him again, soft and painful, was to clutch desperately at the smooth orb that had once been the core of his most precious person.

And this world was so dark.

He didn't know how much time had passed when he became aware of his surroundings again. He couldn't bring himself to care either, because he was still in the ruins of Mater and the only thing left of Alma was the shiny orb he had been clutching to his chest so forcefully that his fingers hurt. He didn't let go, because it was a vacant kind of pain that put the edge to the emptiness. And the emptiness filled him and overflowed and drowned all his thoughts as he stared at the cruel, blue sky.

Numbly, he felt tears trail down his face, but they were not the same kind of tears as the other time and he could not scream anymore. Through the cocoon of indifference, he felt his throat throb with pain, but that too was just an edge of the emptiness that Kanda Yuu was drowning in. And if only he could not hold his breath and submerge into it until he was too deep to resurface again. If only he could hope that it was enough to end his life.

He clutched the orb harder and stared ahead as the sky became dark and as it brightened again.

The sun, as unforgiving as the blue sky, burned his skin and when the sky darkened again, the cold air stung as it flowed gently over the blisters. But they would heal, he knew, numbly ignoring the exquisite torture of sand grains grating against the sensitive skin. He was cursed to heal and live on, no matter how much he wanted to die. Like all those years ago, he knew he wouldn't be allowed to fade away. But the people who found him were not with the Order.

They were kind though and worried when the saw a young man half buried in the sand. They dug him out when they realised that he was alive and tried to talk to him. They noticed the burns and treated them with care. And he welcomed the pain while they mistook the reason for his tears. They clothed him and fed him and did not try to take the orb from his hand, but he could see their pitying gazes as they exchanged glances.

A madman, they thought and let him sleep in their camp, but he could not sleep. He knew without even trying, because the thoughts danced at the edge of emptiness. Sleep would invite them into his dreams and he could only dream about the life he did not get to live and it hurt even more and tears were already silently running down his face. So he repaid their kindness with theft and vanished into the night, to find a place where nobody would disturb him.

He walked until he passed out from exhaustion and he ate the food he had stolen when he came back to his senses. And he walked again, not caring for the direction. The blisters were long gone not leaving the slightest scar, because his cursed body healed them. Only the emptiness remained. It wrapped him into a cocoon of silence, it numbed his senses and it forced tears out of his eyes. And so he walked and ate the stolen food and slept when he passed out and he did not count the days or the steps he took in a direction he didn't remember.

Eventually, he heard a familiar voice and a sting of fear cleared his senses. He did not want to be found by the Black Order. They would drag him back and force him to take up the Innocence again and even though he missed it like a missing arm, having it would only be worse. Because the Innocence was the cause of it all: his pain, Alma's death, the war. It was because of the Innocence that he had been brought back in this cursed, amazing body, with a mind tortured by half-erased memories. It was because of the Innocence that Alma had been forced to suffer and it was the Innocence that had allowed him to kill Alma.

He did not want to go back.

So he hid in the shadows and watched the familiar silhouettes pass by. He heard snippets of their conversation but he refused to listen, because he did not belong to that world anymore. He did not want to belong to the world that had driven Alma into madness. Instinctively, he tightened his hold on the orb, concealed within the flappy clothes of the people from Mater. He watched the Exorcists until they were but specks in the crowd of the city waking up, and he realised that he had no idea where he was.

A large part of him still didn't care, but the shot of adrenaline woke up his survival instincts and if he was forced to survive, he would do it on his own conditions. If he didn't want to go back to the Order, he needed to be more careful because there was not one Exorcist or Finder who did not know his face. If he was seen, they would be on his track immediately and losing Lvellie's Crow dogs was trickier than he cared to admit.

The key, he knew, was to not stay too long in one place, to not let people around to get used to his face, to recognize it. If he was just a passer-by, they would forget no matter how characteristic he was, because their everyday life would not include him. If he could earn some money by helping out here or there, he wouldn't need to steal either and if he was careful, he would be able to avoid the Exorcists when they showed up. If he was really careful, he could even eavesdrop on them and know what the Order was up to. Or so he thought.

He was mistaken though, because the news he heard strung something inside, something that was but a mere echo of the pain of losing Alma again, but it was painful nonetheless. The idiot rabbit was gone, missing since that horrifying time in the North American Branch. The beansprout was imprisoned on the charges of treason and it didn't take a genius to figure out what the treason was.

"Thank you, Kanda Yuu, for waking up the Fourteenth."

Guilt ate at him, because Allen Walker has risked it all to save Alma and Kanda, even when they were both too blind to realise. And he had hurt the damned beansprout. He had impaled him upon Mugen without a second thought, calling him a Noah and blaming him for things the beansprout hasn't done and would have never done. He remembered it now with more clarity than he would have liked, even if it had all been hazy back then. The Earl made it clear that, if not for the wound inflicted by the Innocence, the Fourteenth would still sleep. Kanda wanted to add this to the list of charges against the hated substance, but it was his fault that the beansprout was imprisoned.

A thought, a tiny little sprout of an idea, crossed his mind: he should go back and help Allen Walker. He smothered it immediately, but he couldn't stop his guilty conscience. It was the least he could do to repay the beansprout for giving him and Alma a peaceful moment to say goodbye. Alma would have wanted him to go, he thought miserably and, as though in the answer, he felt the orb pulse with warmth briefly. Only, it must have been his imagination and he chased it away because it brought too many hopes he dared not to voice and hope invariably brought pain.

Knowing that it was too late in the day to take any decisions anyway, he went back to the place where he was staying. It was a small inn, uncomfortable and not as clean as he would have wished for, but it charged little and Kanda Yuu did not have much money to spend. The bed on which he slept for already three nights, which meant it was time to go, was uncomfortable and he woke up often, not always because of the nightmares. But he did not care all that much. Nothing was important because he was alone.

That night was no different. He barely fell asleep when a nightmare forced him awake, sweating and trembling and all he could do was hold Alma's core tighter as he closed his eyes again. He fell back asleep fast enough, only to wake up because the bed was too hard and every time he moved, he would wake up from it. Really, it only meant he was not tired enough, he thought as he closed his eyes again, ignoring the pulse of warmth from the orb.

The following day, he decided, he would leave. He wasn't sure if he would go to the Order, but maybe he could at least come closer, just in case he made up his mind. With that idea he fell asleep again and dreamt, for the first time, about a warm embrace. When he woke up in the morning and realised that he was not really alone in the bed all his thoughts of Allen Walker and the Black Order flew out of his head. He stared at the incomprehensible miracle in progress and he felt hope for the first time in nearly ten years.