Lenalee's Lament

WARNING: Spoilers for episodes 50 and 57.

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.

Dale Carnegie

"Allen-kun! Please answer me!"

Her voice was hoarse. Lenalee stumbled through the woods screaming out Allen's name. Her legs were throbbing with fatigue, but she barely noticed them in her panic. She had been searching all night, and she looked it. She was covered in scratches, there were leaves in her hair, her face was smudged and her dress was tattered. Her pigtails had been shaken loose, and she had to periodically brush green strands of hair away from her eyes.

"Where are you? Allen-kun!"

Her resolve not to cry had broken down hours ago. This had to be one of the worst days of her life. First, their ship had run into a swarm of akuma. There were dozens of them. Fortunately, most of them had ignored them as they seemed more interested in something going on in the mountains. But not all of them.

She and Allen had been forced to leave their friends to defend the ship while they went to investigate what had drawn the attention of so many akuma. To her horror, she discovered that Suman Dark, a fellow Exorcist and old friend, had Fallen.

Suman had betrayed the Order and handed the Earl the information of where the Exorcists out in the field could be located. And so, his Innocence, a weapon created by God, had turned against him. It had turned him into a gigantic, hideous monstrosity. Allen had gone to stop the former human from harming any people and to try to save his soul. Even though Suman was a traitor, even though his cowardice had led to the deaths of 6 Exorcists and 142 Finders, Allen refused to let him die without a fight.

Lenalee had watched him go, frozen with indecision. She didn't know how to feel or what to do. She couldn't just allow Allen to fight alone, but she could not bear to kill one of the few friends she had. Because she knew that was how it would end. No one had ever been able to reverse a Fall.

She had told Allen some time ago (when she saved him against his will) that the difference between him and her was that he wanted to save the entire world. The world she wanted to save was much smaller. It was one that she could see and touch. It was made of her friends and family. Suman was a part of that world. And now…

"Lenalee!"

She saw the familiar eye patch and the sight of red hair and cried out, "Lavi!"

Lavi grabbed her by the shoulders just as she sagged forward in relief. He said, "Are you okay, Lenalee? You're shaking."

"I'm fine. More importantly, hurry! We have to find those two quickly." Her voice shook and the tears started again. "I saw a bright light in the sky. But no matter how much I searched I couldn't find them!"

"We'll find them," Lavi replied. His voice was resolute with purpose.

They set out to search and they quickly ran into Timcampy, Allen's winged communications golem. It was being chased by akuma, which the two Exorcists quickly made short work of. Then Lenalee hugged the golden creature tightly to her chest in happiness.

"Thank goodness! Tim, where's Allen-kun? Is he with Suman?"

It may have been her imagination, but she thought the golem hesitated for a moment it spat out a gently glowing orb. At first, Lenalee didn't recognize it. Or maybe she didn't want to recognize it. It was an Innocence, but to see it in its pure form like this meant…

Lavi's eyes widened in disbelief. "Innocence? Don't tell me it's Allen's!"

Lenalee's hands shook as she gently took the orb in her hands. The deadened voice that came out of her mouth did not sound like her own. "No, it's not. This is… Suman's Innocence."

She felt shock and worry about how Suman was doing, but underneath those emotions was a sense of relief. Relief that Allen would still be able fight by her side when this nightmare was over. She felt like a horrible person.

Timcampy led the two of them deep into the forest where it had last seen Allen. The cluster of branches above them grew denser and less light was able to make it through the trees. With each step, Lenalee could feel her dread mounting. And finally, Timcampy stopped moving forward and simply hovered above what appeared to be a dark patch of dirt. Lenalee blinked back tears when she realized the stain covering the bare ground was blood.

There was so much of it...

Lavi turned his head away and asked gruffly, "Tim, what happened?"

Lenalee opened her mouth to demand that Lavi take back his words. She wasn't prepared. She didn't want to know. As long as she didn't know...

But it was too late.

Timcampy began its playback. The images and sounds blurred past her as she watched in an uncomprehending stupor. Allen had succeeded in getting Suman changed back into his human form, but as Allen reached out to embrace the poor man, a man with gray skin showed up and destroyed Suman's body causing the Innocence within him to fall onto the ground. Allen's desperate efforts to save the Exorcist had been for nothing; his victory had turned to ashes. An enraged Allen confronted the gray-skinned man in the suit and top hat (Lavi told her the man was a Noah, one of the Earl's minions). Then there was the sounding of screaming.

It was a scream of shock and anguish, agony and horror.

The Noah had a revealed the power of being able to phase through matter by sticking his right arm through Allen's chest, immobolizing him. Then he had used his other hand to grab Allen's right arm, the one bearing the Innocence, and ripped it off as easily as one would snap a chicken bone.

The last thing Timcampy saw was Allen yelling at it to escape with Suman's Innocence. After a moment's hesitation, it flew off. The recording faded out after that point.

Lenalee sank to her knees and placed her face in her hands. "It can't be! Allen-kun!"

Lavi sounded dazed as he said, "Allen-kun is probably already…"

His voice broke off and he visibly composed himself. "It seems Allen-kun got separated from Timcampy here. He met that Noah, and after his left arm was destroyed, he knew he had to protect Suman's Innocence."

Don't talk like that! Don't talk like he's already… dead.

Lenalee walked over to the bloodstain and touched it with her fingers. And that was when it became real. This bloodstain… this was where he was... but… he's gone. Allen-kun was gone...

The sound of her sobbing echoed through the forest.

(line)

The trip back to the ship was silent and heavy with grief. Lenalee just wanted to sleep and to forget. But she knew if she closed her eyes the only thing she would see would be the death of her friends. She was glad that Lavi was handling the travel arrangements because she was certainly in no condition to fly.

What was she supposed to do now? Suman had a wife and child! And Allen… She had known him for only a short time but somehow it had felt like much longer. Maybe if she hadn’t been so indecisive, maybe if she had been braver…

“Stop it.”

Startled, Lenalee looked over at Lavi.

“You’re blaming yourself, aren’t you?”

Lenalee just stared at him.

“Look, I don’t know what happened out there. But I do know that Allen wouldn’t want to see you like this.”

Lenalee smiled bitterly. “We don’t always get what we want.”

Silence settled over them again.

When they got to the dock she saw her friends surrounding a Chinese man with grey hair and beard. He was wearing white robes, and she recognized the designs on them.

“You're from the Asian branch?”

“The name's Wong,” the man replied in a deep baritone. “My commander dispatched me here with an urgent message.”

“A message?” Lavi asked.

“Our unit discovered Allen Walker, and he is currently with us.”

Lenalee’s eyes snapped upward. Her heart started racing and she could barely force out the word, “Really?”

The older man nodded gravely. “Yes.”

Lenalee grabbed Wong's forearms in a fit of desperation. “Is he… is Allen-kun all right? Please, Wong-san! Let me see Allen-kun immediately!”

The look of compassion on the man's face evoked more pain in Lenalee then she would have thought possible.

"Your orders are to depart right away," Wong replied simply. "You'll be saying goodbye to Allen Walker here in China."

"Goodbye?" Lenalee repeated as if she had just heard a foreign word. There was a tone of disbelief in her voice. "You mean Allen-kun… is dead?"

"I know it must be hard for you," Wong said gently. "But please think calmly about this."

Lenalee released Wong's arms and bowed her head in resignation. He was right. She was being ridiculous. There was no way that Allen could have survived such horrible injuries. She had felt a slight hope when she and Lavi hadn't discovered his body but it seemed that the Order had simply beaten them to it. Perhaps it was better that way.

Lavi said gently, "Lenalee… You saw Tim's memories too, right? He lost his left arm. At that time, it became impossible for him to be an Exorcist. We just have to accept it and move on."

Lenalee didn't reply. She remained silent the entire time it took the crew to ready the ship for its voyage to Japan and set out. Even after they had sailed miles away from any visible land, she simply sat and stared lifelessly out a port window, not even responding when her friend and newly appointed Exorcist Miranda tried to give her the new uniform that Headquarters had designed.

"Lenalee..." Miranda started to say something but stopped when she realized that she had no idea what to say.

The old, short Chinese man known only as the Bookman gently drew the older woman off to the side and said, "Leave her be. She's trying to pull herself together. She regrets leaving Allen-kun's side last night. She blames herself."

There was suddenly the sound of breaking class. The group of Exorcists turned their heads and saw that Lavi had, in a fit of anger, broken a window with his fist. Lavi, the normally easy-going and jocular teenager, was now sending Lenalee a glare filled with frustration and weariness.

"Cut it out already! That was a helpless situation. Last night, we were all fighting with everything we had. We couldn't have saved them no matter what! It's war! It's unavoidable! Get over it and stand up!"

Lenalee burst into tears.

The others glared viciously at Lavi. To his credit, the red-haired boy looked down with a look of shame on his features.

Lenalee wanted to tell him that she wasn’t mad at him, but she couldn’t stop herself from crying long enough to do so.

I had forgotten that I'm not the only one in pain. I'm sorry, Lavi...

The old man cleared his throat, catching everyone’s attention. He said, "Because I believe in the prophecy of the Destroyer of Time, I don't believe for one second that the boy is dead."

Lenalee looked up with startled eyes.

The Bookman strolled over to the broken window and clasped his hands behind his back. His tone was conversational and casual. "I asked the supervisor to put me in Cross's unit because I had an interest in that boy. I thought perhaps the "Time" in the "Destroyer of Time" might refer to a certain person. Time… Millennium… so perhaps Allen Walker is the one who will destroy the Millennium Earl? If that's so, he wouldn't die… in a place like that."

The Bookman was well-known for his lack of sentiment. As a seeker and guardian of truth, he was not the type of man who sugarcoated the harshness of reality. If he said that he believed Allen was alive, then he had a reason to believe.

Thank you, Bookman.

The power of the older man's belief warmed her. She wiped off her tears with the back of her hands. Her grief was still too fresh for her to be as optimistic as the Bookman about the chances of Allen's survival, but she was now calm enough to function.

Functioning was not much, but for now it would have to be enough.

(line)

AN: I’m sorry that it took so long to get this chapter out. My new job is taking more out of me than I thought it would, and it doesn’t help that the place I’m staying at for the summer doesn’t have internet access. I’ll update when I can but I make no promises.