28A/N: I might not update regularly OR quickly, sorry. I'm trying to work on all the other ideas flitting around my big head.
The whitette couldn't help but bite back giddy laughter as he raced away from the Very Angry General, who, at the moment, was flinging these ice beams at his rapidly retreating back.
He quickly ducked a gleaming ice spear launched at his head, and leaped onto the roof, ducking into the chimney - so stuffy - and hid his presence. If the lady was telling the truth - that she had set up ice barriers - then this way, he wouldn't have to go past them.
The click-clack of General Esdeath's steel-capped boots soon was heard nearby.
She must've jumped up too.
Allen waited, though, holding his breath and praying to some deity up there that he wouldn't be found. At least he had waited for the blue-haired woman to tell him all about her team of Power Rangers Jaegers, which was important information, before making his escape.
"Some sort of teleportation teigu? I can't sense any killing intent, nor presence…Better withdraw my barricades, no point in them now." There was a muffled whump as Esdeath jumped off the roof and landed on the ground. Allen waited until he was absolutely sure she was gone and also got off.
It was almost midnight.
He wasn't superhuman; of course he was tired. The logical thing to do, in his opinion, was to re-enter the mansion and go straight to the guest room.
On his way, he gingerly tiptoed past a corpse (he didn't want to get his clothes any dirtier than they were, with all the soot and ash), and narrowly avoided a puddle of blood.
Allen huffed in annoyance when he realized that he was hungry again. Oh well, he'd just deal with it the way he had done in the past: sleep, rage, or ignore.
He fell asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.
Back in a dream.
Screams. Echos of lives gone. Pain, terror. Pain. Pain beyond what his mind could comprehend. Guilt. The nagging feeling eating away at him, all. The. Time.
The boy remembered them all. Every single one.
Dead.
Allen twitched in his sleep, something was coming.
Timothy, cornered by an elemental Level 4, helpless. Incinerated.
Malcolm X. Lvellie. It was after the boy had taken on the Noah transformation. Neah, inside his mind at the time, had insisted on revenge.
Laughmadcacklingfearpainpainhecouldhavesavedthembuthedidnothedidnotnotnot -
Marian Cross. Master; dead from a lethal poison from Dark Matter, from when he had shielded the boy.
Around the mansion, every door was being opened, every room was being checked.
And the boy remembered the fear on the now-dead so-called comrades' faces as they saw him on the mountain of akuma ash, scarlet splatters drenching him -
He remembered how it felt -
He had wanted to kill, had not restrained himself the way he had when he was naught but an exorcist; nothing more, nothing less.
Was it the need to survive? Could he blame it on Neah? Was it the fault of his Noah genes?
No, he couldn't blame anything.
But suddenly, the cries halted and everything shrunk to white silence.
"Look at this, Leone!"
"Nya~a, what is it, Mine?"
"That weird guy we kidnapped…"
"Ho? So he did our job for us. Oi, Boss! Come over here!"