Disclaimer: I do not own D. Gray Man in any manner, shape, or form. D. Gray Man belongs to the ever-amazing Hoshino Katsura-sama.

Author's Notes: Oneshot submission for the D. Gray-Man Fanfic contest on Livejournal, week #6 theme: Mask. Suggested theme music for listening while reading: Midnight Syndicate (Grisly Reminder).

Enjoy~

Summary: There wasn't anything left for the traitor Noah to take anyways: the roots of insanity had been there from the start. The mask of Mana just hid that all too well: without his mask, Allen Walker is just a broken doll. Yuu Kanda, 14th Noah Allen.

Humpty Dumpty, sat on a wall...

...in the vast dining hall of the Ark, the person who was once known as the Exorcist Allen Walker sat calmly on the great banquet table, humming softly to himself as he waited. The eerie melody that left soft, pale lips echoed through the silent expanse of the vast chamber.

While a casual passerby might've claimed he was surely dressed for a soirée with such formal garb he was, in fact, waiting for the return of his family and with their reports, also the results of the expected coming battle. His feet, alternating, took their time to swing (the table was fairly high up, after all) - slowly, slowly - back and forth to the rhythm of his melody as the blackened fingers of his left hand curled, digging into the crisply white linen of the tablecloth spread so elegantly without a single crease over the smooth wooden surface. Without warning then, his feet stilled and for a long standing moment he sat there until steadily raising a single pale, long finger of his right hand he just barely touched his cheek before that finger shifted aside and catching the gentle corkscrew of a smooth lock of snowy hair, it twirled the captive strands casually along the pale length. He observed the motion of the falling strands through heavily lidded golden eyes with somewhat childish fascination while the makeshift ridges in the linen traced out by his left hand gradually smoothed out just as quickly the moment his fingers no longer tugged at the heavy fabric.

A shuffle of wings caught his attention, and his attention turned to a butterfly with glowing dark-violet wings as it flitted into the room, brushed by his cheek, and landed gently - almost innocently - on the stem of one of the freshly cut roses occupying the sole porcelain vase set upon the table. For a moment, excitement flashed in golden eyes, but then nearly as quickly, his face fell, and with a sigh, he resumes his softly subdued melody: Tyki was not here yet, nor was Rhode, and he grows so tired of waiting...

As he thought to himself of this, he shifted from his seated position with the inhuman, almost weightless grace that so characterized the Eldest child of Noah as he, with stomach supported by the table and now adjusted to his new position, used both palms to support his head, elbows securely founded on the table. Thus the Youngest child of Noah remained, simply admiring the butterfly with half-lidded golden eyes as his eyes admired the elaborate design painting the darkly violet wings. In a funny way, the Tease's wings reminded him of the mask that his former Master's corpse-doll wore: why did Marian Cross hide the Grave of Maria's face so, anyways...?

But no matter.

Marian Cross was truly dead now - killed by his own hand. Without Judgement, the former General was vulnerable, and all the Fourteenth child had to do was to make sure to take care of that corpse first. When he thought about it now, a mask was really so fragile a thing: he had attacked Maria's believing it to be the form of her Innocence - the Fourteenth child did not expect the horror that crossed the former General's face as the corpse's face was finally unveiled. But he understood not: all he saw was the face of a fragile young woman, light no longer dancing in her eyes, whose color had long turned black... Perhaps she had once been someone dear to Cross?

That Exorcist Maria?

But no matter.

He had opened his mouth, and a song of death had left his lips. A killing aria, the devil's own score, and the great General fell at last to a monster of his own creation.

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

Even in Marian Cross's last moments of life, the Fourteenth child did not understand why even then, the General reached with shaking fingers for the gloved hand of that fragile corpse bearing the tattered mask, or the Order clinging so helplessly to the Innocence they had even once turned their very backs on, attempting even to replace with dark matter where their ranks bearing Innocence had fallen short. When he had once been among those standing with the Order, fighting that "Holy War" of theirs, as soon as they thought of him to be one of the Noah clansmen they had abandoned him.

At that thought, with slight hesitation, he leaned his weight further to his left hand to support his chin, and the slim, long fingers of the other hand began delicately tracing the stigmata wounds on his forehead... Unbidden, the sharp nails dug a little into the no-longer bleeding wounds of the holy marks. And then suddenly, without warning, he laughed. The humorless laugh, so hauntingly cheery, eerily childish, resounded about the empty chamber.

God really did have such a twisted sense of humor.

"Come here."

The Fourteenth child had beckoned the creature, the Tease belonging to one of his brothers - his uncle in the real world - and with an elegant flutter of glowing dark-violet wings, the Tease settled on his outstretched fingers. He brought the deadly golem close to his lips, eyes closing steadily as he traced its delicate wings with the gentlest feather-light brush of his lips, marveling at how a creature of such physical beauty could be also quite the omen of death. One golden eye lazily fluttered open as the ground of the chamber trembled and a door rose from the marble: a heart shaped door lined richly with velvet, the crown of the portal adorned by a golden, violet-jeweled diadem. The double-doors flew open and the Eldest lightly stepped out, accompanied by Tyki. Here, however, the Youngest child of Noah paused: not at the sight of his siblings, no, but at the sleeping girl in Tyki's arms.

"Lenalee." He breathed.

Her Dark Boots were gone.

"Get ready, shounen." The Noah of Pleasure softly sneered, as he watched a blankly calm expression settle on the Fourteenth child's features.

Of course Tyki would win.

Leaving his place on the table, he approached the older Noah and then, and almost as if in wonder, lifted up a hand to delicately trace the girl's cheek. Warm. She almost seemed to be alive still... But that's not possible. So he stopped, and looked up to Tyki almost questioningly. The older Noah merely laughed at this gesture, and leaning down, that whispered breath tickling the boy's ear, Tyki said:

"I didn't take her heart - yet."

...but that did not mean Tyki had not removed any other organs.

Either way, she had perhaps only mere hours to live. Such a fragile fading light of a life just like poor, old General Yeegar. But, where a time ago he might have had perhaps wept, here he did not feel anything: nothing at all, even with that knowledge. Why did he love humans again? As the Fourteenth child gently traced her paling cheekbone, he wondered this all the more so: what of these pitifully weak things had so attracted him once to give his everything...?

She stirred.

"Al...len..."

Her breath was weak: after all, her body was dying. She reached out with a trembling hand, and with the surprising strength of the dying, clung to his blazer's sleeve. "Al..." Tears began spilling from her eyes, but just as swiftly with the moment, Rhode Kamelot interceded, her golden glare menacing as she back-handed the Chinese Exorcist's touch away from her brother.

"Do not touch him, filthy human." She spat, venomously. But then, a sickeningly sweet smile curved her ashened lips: a smile with all her demonic beauty as the first child took the dying girl from Tyki and called for a Level Two. Moments later, an Akuma stepped out from the Eldest's door, ready to transport both its mistress and her new doll. As Rhode took Lenalee away, the girl, in an unexpected burst of strength, yelled - no, she screamed - at him: all the grief-stricken sorrow since that disastrous mission in Istanbul nearly two years ago welling up in those violet eyes, empowering her sudden strength in the form of only one word:

"Why!"

Perhaps she would've been only able to say that much anyways, for the Eldest's palm struck the Chinese girl's cheek with all her violent inhuman strength, sending Lenalee's head reeling aside from the force of the blow.

Why?

Why, she asked?

He...he...didn't know.

Was this...because this was what it was like to be a Noah...? Did he resent the Order, for leaving him to die when the stigmata pains so suddenly came - left him to die all alone in the caves of Istanbul, his throat slit by the Thirds? Or the fact that he had been so easily abandoned by the Innocence that had once saved his life - the Innocence he had been born with, whom he had thought of as his partner? Noah had saved him then, healing what should've been a fatal wound, and then the clansmen themselves came and slaughtered the Thirds who had attempted to accomplish the Order's command to murder the Fourteenth child before his awakening. Then Tyki, Sheryl, and that Noah called Mercyma brought him back to a place called home.

Perhaps something in him did break that night in the cave - no, for certain broke - but...

He didn't resent the Order.

"I want a family..." He told her.

"...lasting Eternity."

A choked sob escaped Lenaelee's throat at those words, yet still, he felt nothing. He had never asked to be saved. Never asked for the Exorcists to come for him, to come willingly to the black Ark. But too much, it was too much for that poor girl's ears... So weak, too weak: Exorcists are too easily broken, and they all too easily die.

He could no longer feel for humanity. It hurts all too much, to love such ephemeral things.

In the end, what killed Lenalee Lee, was not Tyki Mikk's power, nor the Eldest's deadly Dream.

No, what broke her was the sheer irony of this scene. The last time, in the other Ark, Allen Walker had been by her side, as they together faced against the Eldest child and the Noah of Pleasure in the white Ark's dining hall. Rhode Kamelot would return - that the Youngest child well knew - the Eldest would come back wheeling in her new doll. But in the meantime, with the departure of the cheerful Eldest, silence fell once more in the great dining chamber.

All the King's horses, and all the King's men...

"The twins are fighting the vampire." Said Tyki, as the older Noah settled into a chair and lit his cigarette. "And Wisely is up against this brat."

"Ah."

The Noah of Wisdom would have a bit of a hard time there. He would not be able to dominate that particular Exorcist's body with the Ashura eye. The perfect counter: the Exorcists had come prepared this time, because Innocence itself, Tsukikami, inhabited its host's body while Timothy himself targeted the mind of the enemy. Fairly interesting...a battle of wills...

But the boy would surely lose.

Timothy Hearst was not yet even able to control a Level Four, much lest to fight a member of Noah's line. Yet all the irony: just like the last time, it would seem the Exorcists have yet again left their comrades behind, one by one, just so they could proceed their way through the black Ark...

Their way to him.

Only, there would be no miracle this time.

...

Time passed. He returned to his seat upon the edge of the table. One by one, the Family returned and one by one, the extra seats that were prepared... The Fourteenth child watched impassively as the chairs set aside for the Exorcists were filled. A grotesque banquet of Noah and dolled-up corpses of Exorcists. One by one, the Family deposited the Innocence belonging to the Exorcist they fought before him. But the Eighth seats, for both Noah and the Exorcist "guest" were still empty.

So he sat there on the table, swinging his legs casually to his softly hummed melody, patiently waiting. The Fourteenth child held his breath.

The sound of swift footsteps.

Could it...be...?

The door to the dining hall burst open.

Ah.

"...welcome, Exorcist."

The soft, beckoning tone of the Fourteenth child spoke kindly, almost benign, even, but the lingering disdain for humanity still infected that softly childish voice.

Yet, there too was something else to his smile...

A rush of wind passed: a tribute to this particular Exorcist's deadly speed. Delicate, yet strongly calloused fingers gripped his neck, while those fingers possessing unnatural strength shifted through thick strands of his wavy, pale hair. Those fingers held his head almost painfully up in a deadly vicegrip to meet the burning dark eyes of the Exorcist whom the hand belonged to. A sharp sword was at his throat, the other hand stilling the blade with great certainty, drawing a line of crimson against the pale skin: the burning touch of Innocence, Mugen deadly and prepared to slay yet another Noah. And for the first time in a long while, the Youngest child felt a twinge of excitement - such a long time it had been that he was devoid of feelings, ever since the memory of Noah's Will ate the entity called Allen Walker in the shadowed caves of Istanbul...

And for the first time in two years, he truly smiled.

"So. You have finally come to kill me, bakanda."

It certainly took the other long enough.

Relief.

...couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again!

In the end, which mask was really broken?

~Fin~