Summary: Today is the day he leaves. Today is the day he dies. Today is a day he moves forward. Where does his future lie? [205 spoilers]

A/N: Allen's thoughts leading up to the newest chapter.

Walk Forward, Away

He has no understanding of his current predicament. It floats about his head in bits and pieces, occasionally forming a puzzle that breaks apart as soon as he so much as touches upon the thought. Feather-light he must approach, and without fear of consumption or a hint of disdain because that is the quickest way to frighten-no, insult-the shadow's presence, standing tall in the room, trailing behind him like a devoted admirer, or a doting parent.

Or a spirit biding its time.

There are caresses to his hair, to his face and his back that he pretends not to feel (-delighted by, -fascinated by, -frightened terribly by). He thinks pale, grey hands are putting them together, those puzzle pieces, trying to create some score to present to him, a magnum opus incomparable, in that lake beneath the moon's face, in that thicket of shadows and thorns that appear so often in his mind when it has nothing else to preoccupy itself with. He thinks it is the closest thing to a gift that ghost could give him, understanding and knowledge.

But what does he want to understand?

Why did Master die?

What reason did any of this have?

Why was anything like this happening at all?

Why couldn't humans just love themselves and their fellow man?

He can hear a faint humming, a whistle while the presence works away, devoting hours of time to trying to make him understand (but he doesn't want to just as fervently as he wants to because he wants to walk forward, and know his foot will meet familiar ground when he does so). He can but catch glimpses of it, before other thoughts chase it away, and then the search begins again. And he does search again, and grows better at it with chains linking his arms to the wall, and only Timcanpy's frustrated exhalations to listen to outside the music and muddle of his own thoughts. He has never had so much time since right after Mana to drown in his own thoughts, though they bubble beneath the surface, only thinly held away by the mask he has constructed to survive.

He remembers smiling and he remembers talking, looking into a mirror and knowing himself as a different person in a different place and time.

He remembers warmth and adventure and a searing sense of entitlement, of being right.

He remembers being innocent, and he remembers the Earl being kind.

And then it all breaks, this experience, snapped as if it were but a spider's silken thread, and he is left to blink his way back into the world, born again, into this world that just will not stop spinning around him and winding him up when all he wants is to be let (softly, please) down.

Innocence and the Noah, things so opposite that they are similar, have now revealed themselves to him in all their grey glory (but he had understood that, one hand for each world, and never for himself). An innocence tried to kill him (the Heart, he'd almost forgotten), his innocence continues to fight against him (Crown Clown is not so glorious and perfect anymore, but why had he expected any different?), and the Noah (Road, where has she gone? Is Tyki alright?) have gone and saved him for reasons he cannot quite understand. He understands, however brief his experience was, what family is and what it means. He understands because now he needs to leave in order to make his own path, and his experience is so much sweeter in hindsight. But why help this traitor of a noah inside a boy who wields (now fights his own) innocence? This war, so help him, was tying itself into knots.

And he knows only one way to unravel them.

He needs to see the world again, remind himself of his cause.

He needs to explore what he now knows is a darker and much more convoluted cause than he had ever believed.

He needs to leave his friends before he finds himself devoting his life to a cause (Oh, he will miss this) he cannot stomach any longer.

There is a call from the Order, from his home (he was not just a drifter anymore, Mana) to apprehend him, like he is some criminal, when it was their weapon, their cause that had suddenly turned against its most devoted servant. But that had been in the works for a while, had it not? The moment he returned with the powers unexplainable, and the world fell out from underneath him.

Once. Twice. Thrice.

The world doesn't like giving him a path to walk, so it drags it all away, leaving him to fall.

He has so many homes only because they keep falling down, their foundations destroyed and their location hidden by more than sealed lips.

He does not get attached to the physical, to the comfortable because in the end it will all fall down.

He needs to keep walking, so he'll mind the gap, jump, and rush his way onward before the ground collapses again.

He needs to step away and continue on his path (one hand for the Akuma, one for humans, and never one for himself), because it will be a better future for everyone involved.

All he regrets is not saying good-bye to all of them, properly.

'Tell everyone for me, Lenalee?'

I want to tell Lavi to keep on laughing.

I want to tell Kanda, when that guy comes back, to look back on his memories and remember the light in them.

I want to tell Komui to continue to take care of you all.

I want to tell you that I'm sorry for breaking your world.

I want to tell you all.

But then again, he never really liked goodbyes.

A/N: Let's say Allen has had a lot of down time to brood in the dungeons, and with those thoughts, his decision to leave the order wasn't quite made on the spot.

Can I say that I'm glad he's finally made it out of that hell-hole? I mean, I'm sorry for everyone thinking he's an enemy, his shattering of Lenalee's world, and the fact that his friends are now going to be confused as heck, but what he was being put through was just not right.

And what is it with Hitler actually begging someone for something? The only reason I'm not cheering for the old guy to ignore him is because it's for Link. Link needs to be okay and without memory loss so Allen as at least one ally in his camp. Can anyone else see either a complete Lenalee breakdown-beatdown (as in her directing it all at Allen) of epic angst and confusion, or some real tearing apart internally? The poor girl.