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Chapter Text

   A few days after her Vatican-sanctioned Quarantine ended, Miranda Lotto's friends realized they had missed her birthday in all the excitement. 

   "The first of January, right?" Lenalee asked, and when Miranda nodded, she continued, "we should do something."

    Miranda wasn't so sure.

   After all, it seems as though Lavi is still bitter about the ordeal, Miranda thought in misery, he only doesn't say anything because Lenalee will yell at him.

  And it wasn't like she didn't understand where he was coming from, far from it.

   I just wish he didn't express his concerns by yelling them, Miranda mused.

   I did fall for one of our enemies, after all. 

   The Clan Of Noah were intent on destroying humanity by any means necessary, and among their number, the one named Sheril Kamelot was especially bloodthirsty. 

    And Miranda was an Exorcist, one of those who were meant to protect humanity, using a substance called Innocence to fight the Noah and their army of Akuma.

   But now everything is so complicated.

   When Miranda was forced into having a day to herself back in May, she miraculously survived an unexpected encounter with three of the Clans members; Road Kamelot, Tyki Mikk, and Sheril Kamelot. 

   At first, she wasn't sure of the relationship between them, but she soon found out that Sheril was Road's father and Tyki's brother. 

   Well, her adoptive father, at least, Miranda thought with a sigh, not that this changes anything. 

   And after months of her putting up a petty resistance, Sheril finally cornered her, using the murder of women in her hometown as a lure, then forcing her to travel with him.

   It was a lost and hopeless situation for her, and she should have been murdered at his hands long before now.

   It was much to her shame that she found herself falling for the man that would be her doom.

    Well, it looks like he'll be my doom either way...

   "Miranda?" She heard Lenalee calling her, pulling her out of her thoughts. 

   "Oh, uh... sorry," Miranda apologized, head down. 

   "Come on, it doesn't have to be much," Lenalee was still on the subject of Miranda's birthday, "we can ask everyone down to the cafeteria, get Jeryy to make a bunch of German food, it'll be great!"

   "I'm not so sure," Miranda was still looking down at her feet, "the entire Order knows what happened now, so I know I'll feel absolutely dreadful, being the center of attention."

    "Too late!" A voice shouted from down the hall, making Miranda wince as she saw Allen charging towards them, Link trailing close behind, "I've already made arrangements!"

   "Oh dear..." 

   "What kind of arrangements, Allen?" Lenalee asked. 

   "Turns out there's a unused room near the kitchens that's smaller than the cafeteria but big enough for a decent sized party," Allen explained, grinning, "we've already gotten Jeryy started on food, and there's a team grabbing some alcohol from the cellars, too."

   Miranda sighed, knowing there was nothing she could do now.

   "That's great!" Lenalee's excitement made Miranda feel like she was disappointing her friends, "now all we need to do is make sure anyone who might give Miranda grief doesn't find out."

   "So Junior is barred," Link pointed out, referring to Lavi.

    "Nah, he'll be normal if it's for a party," Allen shrugged and began leading the way to the room they were using, "down worry, Miranda, we will vigilantly watch over the party to make sure no one bothers you!"

    Miranda felt a little relieved with Allen's promise, but she still couldn't help shake the sense that something was going to go wrong.

        ~*~*~*~

    It was several hours later and deep into the night when Miranda opened her eyes and felt that maybe she'd had too much to drink.

    It was eerily quiet in the room where they had held the belated birthday party, and all around her, spread across tables and chairs and the floor, was the fallout of the drunken antics that had taken place. 

    She couldn't remember anything that happened between the party starting and just now, and that was terrifying her.

   The only people still awake, as far as she could tell, were Allen and Link, which she was grateful for.

   "You realize you're going to be in huge trouble, right?" Link was lecturing Allen. 

  "Nobody important is in this room, okay? We're fine."

  "Chief Komui is," Link tilted his head towards the far corner.

  "Oh, shit, anyway..." Allen muttered and very carefully tiptoed his way over to Miranda, who finally registered that she was sitting on the floor, her skirts pooled around her, "are you alright?"

   "That depends on whether I did anything stupid," Miranda shook her head miserably and tried to slide closer to the floor, "I haven't drunk like that since we met."

  "Well..." Allen crouched down to her level, "okay, don't freak out, I'm sure no one will even remember in the morning, but-"

   Miranda squeezed herself into a fetal position, whining, "I don't want to know!"

   "-you definitely said some things."

   "Allen, don't be mean!" They heard the door creak open and Lenalee squeezed through, "she's had enough. Let's start getting these people to their rooms!"

   "I just thought she ought to know so she can deny it if anyone asks her tomorrow," Allen defended himself.

   "Okay, then I'm going to take her to her room and I'm going to tell her what she said," Lenalee stomped over and held a hand out to Miranda, "this is between us girls. If anyone asks, they were just seeing pink elephants."

   "That's not how alcoholic hallucinosis works," Link pointed out. 

   "And if Komui wakes up before I get back, tell him I'm helping Miranda!" Lenalee said, ignoring Link completely. 

   "Got it!"

   Lenalee waved goodbye as she guided Miranda up and out the door, closing it softly behind them and starting the trek to Miranda's room.

   "So, that was fun?" Lenalee tried to make conversation, "it wasn't nearly as rowdy as parties around here usually get."

   "I don't remember any of it," Miranda mumbled, trying to follow her lead while clutching her dizzy head. 

   "Well, you certainly drank more than a lot of us thought you could," Lenalee laughed nervously, "so that's not surprising."

   "Lenalee, please, I need to know what I said," Miranda pleaded, a little more forcefully than she meant to.

     I'm not in the mood to be reminded of my alcoholism, she thought but didn't say.

    "Oh alright..." Lenalee averted her eyes, turning a little red, "you might have started talking about that Noah-"

    "I figured," Miranda admitted. 

    "-mostly about how much you like his face and want to run your fingers through his hair-"

    "That's fair," Miranda nodded, turning red herself. 

    "-and the you went on to his chest, butt, thighs, and waist-" 

    Miranda didn't respond to this, knowing both of their faces were best red by now.

    "-aaaannnddd you said you saw his dick."

    Mortified. 

    Miranda was absolutely mortified, and would have loved for the floor to open up beneath her. 

    "Is that..." she gulped down the lump in her throat, the shameful burning felt in her core, "is that exactly what I said?"

   "That is exactly what you said," Lenalee cringed for her friend.

   "Good lord," Miranda began to pray in earnest, her hands clasped before her, "please, Lord, let no one else remember that."

   They walked on for a few minutes, Miranda muttering prayers under her breath, before Lenalee spoke up again. 

   "So, um... did you see it?"

   "Lenalee!"

   "I won't tell!" The young woman insisted, still red in the face, "I just want to keep your story straight if someone does remember hearing that, somehow."

   Miranda looked down and said one last prayer before answering. 

   "I didn't... see it see it, it's just that..."

   "Uh-huh."

   "He wears that white outfit, with the tight pants?"

   "Yeah, they were all wearing white, at the duel," Lenalee reminded her.

   "I guess it's a uniform," Miranda mused, "it's just that his pants are... particularly tight."

   "I was electing to ignore that," Lenalee mumbled. 

   "Ooh, this is so embarrassing," Miranda leaned towards Lenalee and sobbed, "I really hope no one remembers this."

   "It'll be fine, I'm sure," Lenalee put an arm around Miranda's shoulders in comfort as they approached the door to her room, "just get in bed and get some rest as soon as possible, okay?"

   "I wish I had your optimism," Miranda laughed, genuinely happy to have such a supportive friend.

   "Goodnight, Miranda," Lenalee giggled back.

   "Goodnight, and thank you," Miranda returned, and the two waved at each other as Lenalee started back to the party room.

   Once the door was closed behind her, Miranda rushed to put on her night clothes, feeling terrible for not telling Lenalee the entire truth. 

   After all, I couldn't tell her Road made sure I saw how... hard he was, just to make a point about Desires' bloodlust. 

  She'd definitely be disgusted with me for falling for him

  She'd probably stop defending me against Lavi, for sure...

   Miranda knew she should know better than to doubt her friends, but she couldn't help but cry as she lifted her covers and rolled into a ball.

   Feeling the wet tears soaking into the fabric, Miranda wept herself to sleep, constantly thinking, what have I done, what have I done, what have I done...

Chapter Text

    It was the nineteenth of January, the day before Sheril's birthday, and it was no surprise to him at all that his newest plan had already backfired spectacularly. 

   Since he decided he was going to murder as many people as possible to get Miranda's attention, he had been getting more and more horny with each and every kill.

    Desires' bloodlust was ramping up, driving him to uglier, more brutal deaths as the weeks had gone on.

    Even the Earl thought he was in danger of losing himself to the memories personality, so he had been commanded to 'tone it down a bit', especially since it was pointless to kill until they built a new Akuma egg factory, anyway. 

    As usual when the Earl told him what to do, Sheril seethed internally, but he decided to get Desires under control anyway. 

     And so, for the last week, he had been bringing someone else with him when he went out on a spree, to have some family bonding time. 

    Which seemed like a great idea until this particular trip, where the twins, Jasdero and Debita, insisted it was their turn to come with him.

    So there they were, bundled against the cold in an obscure Russian village no one could possibly care about. 

   "Which doesn't help me in the slightest," Sheril grumbled. 

   "Why is he so much more fun to be around when he's horny?" Debita loudly asked his twin.

   "Hehe, no clue!" Jasdero giggled with delight. 

    It wasn't the first time that day, or even that month, that the twins had made fun of him for this.

   "I have had it up to-" Sheril flattened his hand and held it up to his eyes, "-here with you two!"

   "He's emoting with his hands again, hehe!" Jasdero laughed again, making his twin laugh, too.

   "You're lucky I don't throttle the both of you," Sheril turned up his nose and kept walking. 

   "Aw, c'mon, you love it," Debita teased, "you've always had a murder-happy side you try to hide for your society pals."

    "Sheril's gross!" Jasdero added, "the high society man act is gross! You should work with us more often, it's way more fun!"

   "That's it, I'm ignoring you both now!" Sheril retaliated as he stomped off through the snow.

    "Hehe, he's so childish!"

    "So I've been told! Now please be quiet!"

    Ignoring the offended muttering behind him, Sheril kept stomping onward. 

   I know I'm being childish, but I just can't help it, Sheril thought, they drive me crazy!

   Blaming others for your behavior again, Sheril? He heard a voice from the deep recesses of his mind, how so very much like you. 

    I guess we're alike in that manner, Sheril retorted, since you like to blame the Exorcists for the way you behave. 

   You wretch! How dare you?! Desires screamed, insufferable bastard! 

   Sheril smiled smugly, fully aware of the fact that he was arguing with himself. 

    "Hey, jackass, over here!" The twins shouting startled him out of his thoughts, and he turned in their direction, only to receive a face full of snowball.

   Wiping his face, Sheril growled, "I am going to strangle you both."

    The twins took off, running and screaming in a not-entirely-serious manner, shooting any still-living humans they came across, and Sheril followed them at a run, making sure to finish off anyone who wasn't dead from the first pass.

    "Get back here! When I get my hands on you, you're DEA-"

   Sheril cut himself off and skidded to a stop when he spotted his brother, Tyki, leaning against a wall and rubbing his hands together for warmth.

     "Tyki?"

     "Time to go home, maniac," Tyki laughed as he looked up, "you look terrible. Where's Jasdero and Debita?"

    "Who the hell knows?"

    "You were just chasing them through the streets!" Tyki laughed uproariously, "I haven't seen you run like that in a long time."

    "They pissed me off," Sheril grumbled. 

    "Don't let them find out you secretly have a potty mouth," Tyki told him, "you'll never hear the end of it."

    "They've heard me say 'hell' before," Sheril paced over and leaned against the wall next to Tyki, watching him as he kept on rubbing his bare hands. 

    "Why didn't you dress for the weather?" He asked curiously. 

    "I didn't expect to have to hunt for the twins," Tyki shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and started walking. 

    "Sorry. Want my coat? It's pretty-"

    "Give it."

    "-warm. What the hell, Tyki?" Sheril laughed as he took off his heavy fur coat, revealing an incredibly thick sweater underneath, "I mean, I know I offered, but you could let me finish my sentence."

  Tyki pulled the coat on and nuzzled his face into the fur before saying, "man, no kidding, why is this thing so hot?"

   "I was just chasing the twins through streets," Sheril pointed out, repeating what Tyki had said, "oh, and my body runs that hot naturally."

   "Gross," Tyki continued walking, twisting his head in every direction for sign of the twins. 

   "You can give it back if you don't like it!"

   But Tyki said nothing else, and they lapsed into silence, Sheril still stomping along, his arms crossed. 

   "What's got you buggin' out so bad?" Tyki finally asked after they had covered a few streets, "besides the twins?"

   Sheril sighed and ran a leather-gloved hand over his head, making sure his hair was smooth. 

   "I'm not sure we've gotten the Order's attention yet," Sheril pouted, "we've seen the Exorcists out on missions, without them spotting us, but there's been no sign at all of Miranda."

   "Unfortunate," Tyki replied sarcastically, "seems like there's nothing else you can do except keep killing."

   Sheril huffed and asked, "so why are we being cut short today?"

   "Tricia wants you to be home for your birthday," Tyki informed him, "Road and the Earl agree with her, so I'd go get some sleep, so you can look at least semi-normal tomorrow."

   "Oh, alright, but only because the message was delivered by such a handsome messenger!"

   Sheril tried to loop Tyki into a hug, but he wasn't in the mood, and dodged his brother's advances. 

   "Knock it off," Tyki grumbled, and then he yelped as he got pelted by a snowball. 

   Looking around, the two of them noticed Jasdero and Debita on a rooftop nearby, and when they knew they had been found, the twins leaped down to the ground, scattering snow everywhere. 

   "Hey, Tyki, here to have some fun?" Debita greeted him. 

   "Nuh-uh, he's a fun ruiner!" Jasdero argued, "he's going to complain the entire time!"

   Tyki looked at Sheril, then rolled his eyes, a motion that always made Sheril think he had the most powerful eye-roll on earth.

   "It's time to go home," Tyki turned back to them.

   "Aaaw, lame!" The duo said as one, then Jasdero added at a whisper, "I told you!"

   "Can we sweep the village for survivors, first?" Debita pleaded, and both twins put their hands together in front of them, as though they were praying. 

   "Make it quick," Sheril nodded, and the twins took off again, screeching like banshees as they looked for any humans they missed. 

   "Little lunatics," Sheril muttered. 

   Tyki stood in silence, and Sheril resisted the urge to eye him curiously, waiting for Tyki to speak first. 

   "Still thinking about Miranda, huh?" Tyki eventually spoke up to ask.

   Sheril opened his mouth to answer, pausing briefly as gunshots rang out through the cold air, and then said, "only when I'm positive there's no Wisely to listen in."

   "He wouldn't read your dirty mind anyway," Tyki laughed. 

   "And when there is a Wisely nearby, I just think lewd things on purpose, to keep him out," Sheril added with a cheeky grin. 

   "No wonder he always cringes while in the same room as you," Tyki noted, realizing the connection. 

   "That'll teach him not to read my mind," Sheril snickered again.

   A few seconds of silence, and then, "eventually he'll figure out why you've been doing that, though."

   "He's so sensitive, he definitely won't read my mind, even if he figures out the lewd thoughts are a defensive tactic," Sheril stated with utter confidence. 

   More gunshots, then Tyki spoke again, "ugh, you are so creepy."

   "Sure am," Sheril smiled, and Tyki rolled his eyes again. 

   "Let's go help the twins," Tyki suggested, "I could go for a bit of sport after all."

   "Yes, let's," Sheril agreed, somehow feeling frenzied again after his attempts to calm down, "I can definitely get a few more kills in for today."

   Now that's more like it! He heard Desires growl with excitement. 

   So the two brothers followed the sounds of screaming and gunshots, ready to get in on the action and clear their heads of all their swirling, uncomfortable thoughts.

Chapter Text

 Several thousand years ago, long before the first war between the Noah and the creators of a substance called Innocence, the universe was a void where nothing existed. 

   Through no fault of its own, with no one to witness and no one to record it, a sudden spark in space burst into a flash of Light, and in that light, a consciousness awoke.

   The next day, looking around at the Dark from their little Light, the conscious decided to make more, and so they did.

   And then, the day after, they decided that the place was rather stuffy, so they took a deep breath and created the Atmosphere.

 After giving the idea some thought, the next day they created several little spheres, each one a different size, though they couldn't quite get the hang of different shapes.

   But the day after, they woke up out of breath, and decided it would be much more efficient if the process of making air was automated, so they created Plants, as well as Flowers and Trees, glowing with pride at the mastery of more shapes than just spheres. 

   But they found that only one of their planets would take the Plants, and if they placed them elsewhere, their creations would wither and die.

   So they decided to focus their work there, and the next day, after some thinking, they created something they called 'The Sun'.

   At first, they placed it too close to the planet with the plants, and began to singe them. But when they moved the Sun too far, it grew too cold.

   It took some time to find a place suitable place for the Sun, but eventually, they were satisfied. 

   Looking around, they decided that the place was still empty and crude, so they made a smaller, pale sphere, and named it 'The Moon', placing it where they thought would be the most beautiful. 

   They also made little glittering specks of light that they called Stars, and scattered them across the cosmos, in every empty space they could find, making sure to give their special planet the most glorious view. 

   When they were down on earth to check the view, they decided that the sphere should rotate, to see their Sun and their Moon and their Stars from multiple different angles. 

   And so the sphere began rotating. 

   And while they were at it, they made additions to the Atmosphere; the sky would be blue in view of the Sun, and black in view of the Moon and Stars.

   And then, when they saw the blue sky, they felt it wasn't enough, and created fluffy white masses they named Clouds, and made them a variety of shapes, because they could. 

   Then they slept underneath a nearby tree, staying up just long enough to decide the sky should slowly change colors as the sphere rotated, as the Sun dropped from view and the Moon rose.

   In the morning, as the Sun swung into view, they awoke and decided it was far too quiet, and that the sphere needed noise.

   Looking around, they walked some ways into the trees, picking up any brightly colored flowers they could find, then rearranged the petals into strange shapes. 

   Eventually, they had a few little round things that they breathed life into, willing them to peep and twitter and sing.

   As they continued to walk, they made more and more, giving them different voices and personalities and colors, and named the little things 'Birds'.

   Once they thought there were enough different kinds, they went back up into space to look down at what they had, and noticed that everything was mostly green or brown.

   Already fond of the color blue, they wanted to use more of that, so they cut into the ground in a few places and filled those holes with a substance they dubbed 'Water'.

   They spent a few minutes cutting and arranging, and in the end, they looked at their work and smiled.

   With the few hours left of the day, they went back down and created a different creature, feeling as though something must live in the Water they had just made.

   Noticing that some of their original Plants were thriving next to the Water, they used those to create things they called 'Fish', and added a few more water reliant plants, as well. 

   Then they went to sleep next to the water, deciding just before shutting their eyes that the water should make a sound too, and created the lapping waves.

   In the morning, they kept walking, and noticed that they made a lot more Birds and Fish than they thought. 

    So they used flowers and rocks and bark and branches to make a bunch of different creatures, of wildly different shapes and sizes and temperaments, and designed them to hunt the Birds and the Fish and each other, and called them 'Animals'.

   They also made Animals that would eat the Plants, and these they balanced out with more edible Plants, as well.

   Then they sat in a patch of tall grass, wondering whether the Animals actually appreciated the place that they had created.

   Returning to space and looking down on the planet from above, they started thinking very seriously about the little world they had made.

   Do the Birds and the Fish and the Animals see the beauty around them? 

   Do they love the Sun and the Sky? Do they see the Moon as it glows, the Stars as they twinkle?

   Do the Birds enjoy their flight? Do the Fish like to swim? Do the Animals run and frolic in the forests and the plains?

   Do my creations love all of this as I love all of this?

   So, collecting dirt and twigs, they set to work creating something just as curious and imaginative as they were. 

  This time, they named the things before completing them, deciding they would be called 'Humans', and they made two of them, one they called Adam' and one they called 'Lilith'.

   And they talked to their new creations as they built them, telling them they would be equal to each other and could lean on each other for support. 

  And then they laid their new creations on the ground and left for space, waiting for them to awaken. 

  As Adam and Lilith awoke, they looked around in confusion, and their creator then spoke to them from above, trying not to seem surprised at hearing their own voice for the first time. 

   "My children, you are on 'Earth', in a place called 'The Garden Of Eden'," the voice intoned, making things up as they went along. 

   "And what must we call you, oh father?" They asked as one.

   The voice thought on this, never having given thought to their own name before, and then answered, "I am called God, my children."

   The two bowed, and Adam asked, "what are we to do, Lord God?"

   "You are to live eternally, enjoying the bountiful produce of Eden," God pronounced, and then added softly, "I expect you to enjoy this place as I enjoy this place."

   But God felt that, if these were truly their best creations, Adam and Lilith ought to be tested.

   Looking around, they spotted a tall tree with bright red fruits, and so they gave this tree special properties. 

  "But this trees fruits contain the Knowledge Of Good And Evil, and is the only thing forbidden to you."

  Surely if they were Gods best creation, they would not be tempted to eat the fruit?

  "We thank you, Lord God, for the delights which you have supplied this place."

  And so, satisfied with their works and the praises of their new, intelligent creations, the entity now called God laid back to get some much-needed sleep. 

  But when they awoke after two days of deep sleep, they found Adam crying alone, while Lilith was nowhere in sight.

   "What has happened here, Adam, my son?" God asked Adam, feeling his heartache as he spilled the Earth's first glistening tears.

  "Lilith and I have argued," Adam confessed, "the both of us want to be the one in charge, and refused to back down. Now she has left me, and I don't know where she has gone."

   God gave this some thought. They appreciated the independence and free will of these two creations, but maybe they had gone too far?

   So God searched Eden for Lilith, and when they found her, God saw that she was stretching to reach the fruit of the Tree Of Knowledge Of Good And Evil.

   "Lilith, my sweet, you have not only caused a rift between yourself and Adam, but here I find you greedily grasping for something I have forbidden you."

   Lilith stopped and looked up, scandalized, and God was stricken by the hateful look in her eyes, the first of such expressions on Earth.

   "Why can't we know what you know?!" The woman screeched, "why can't we understand Good and Evil?!"

   God wasn't sure they themself actually knew; that was just what they had named the tree.

   But they had to keep up appearances, so they decided that Lilith had to be punished. 

   "For disobeying my orders, Lilith, your form shall be changed to that of one of my lesser creatures," and before she could even move, the hand of God had descended upon Lilith. 

   She screamed as God molded her into a new shape, and eventually, they let her go in the form of a snake, and she slithered away, her quiet voice still questioning, "why?! Why aren't we allowed to know?!

   Regretting their rash decision but feeling that it was too late to change it, God returned to Adam and explained what they did to Lilith. 

   "Lord God, and please forgive me for my complaint, for I understand that you did what must be done," Adam asked, still teary-eyed, "but now I am lonely and long for company."

   "Then I will create a new Woman, one less stubborn than Lilith," and so God got to work. 

   Taking dirt and twigs like before, but also a few flowers, God molded another Woman, smaller and more delicate than Lilith. 

   God also painlessly took a piece from Adam's chest, which would bond this new Woman to him.

"This will be your companion, Eve," God said to Adam before breathing life into her and laying her body on the ground. 

   In seconds, she stirred and arose, blinking in confusion. 

  "Eve, my dear, you are now the Wife of Adam, who is your Husband," God informed her, and Eve bowed her head.

   Then the sun had begun to set, so God remained silent as they watched Adam and Eve.

   They dutifully kept an eye on their creations for several days, and when it was clear to them that the two got along well and had no complaints, they decided to get some sleep. 

   But when she was sure God wasn't watching, Lilith began slithering her way back into Eden, and found Eve by herself, cooking Fish from a lake.

   "Poor, obedient Eve," Lilith hissed, "don't you ever wonder why your God doesn't want you to understand Good and Evil?"

   Eve immediately looked nervous, not accustomed to Animals talking. 

   "I am curious about it, of course," she whispered, "but Adam has told me the fruit is forbidden to us."

   "And you listen to him? What if he already knows and is just keeping you in the dark?"

   "I think he would tell me if-"

   "You think he would tell you? You're so trusting, it makes me sick!" The Snake slithered past her at a speed that startled Eve, "I'm going to take one of those Fruits for myself!"

   Eve got up from where she sat to pursue the speeding snake, but Eve couldn't keep up, and when they made it to the Tree, Lilith coiled her way up to a low branch a shiny, juicy Apple was hanging from. 

   "You can't, dear Snake," Eve said, out of breath, "an Animal couldn't possibly understand."

   Lilith was offended, but she didn't let it show.

   "Maybe I can't, but you can," Lilith cooed as well as she could, "don't you want to know? What is 'Good', and what is 'Evil', and what do they both mean?"

   "Well, I would like to know, to understand them, but Adam said-"

   "Forget what Adam said!" Lilith hissed angrily, "what do you want to do? You can make your own choices, can't you?"

   Lilith crawled closer to the Fruit and, using the tough, lithe coils of her body to do it, grabbed the Apple and pulled until the stem broke, then tossed it to Eve.

   "Go on, try it! Doesn't it look tasty?"

   "I don't know, maybe this is a bad idea..."

   "Oh, what could God and Adam be hiding from you?"

    This question struck Eve, and with a brief backwards glance towards the cook fire, then another anxious look at the snake, she squared her shoulders and held the apple in both hands as she took a delicate little bite, chewing and swallowing it before going for another, bigger this time. 

    As she took progressively larger bites, the juice began to run down her chin, and Eve suddenly realized that she was naked.

Chapter Text

  It was the day of his birthday, but Sheril was rather disappointed; instead of a lavish ballroom party with hundreds of guests, they were having a private little family dinner. 

  The only good thing about a private dinner was the miracle of the twins being on their best behavior. 

  He thought the two of them pretended to be sweet and adoring to Tricia just to personally spite him, but so long as they kept the act up, he really had no reason to complain. 

  But oh, how he wanted to complain, and complain he would, in private, later on when everyone had gone.

  He was dressed in a dove gray shirt with white pants and matching waistcoat, a bright red tie, and black loafers. 

  His hair was tied in a higher ponytail than usual, and tied with a matching red ribbon. 

  Looking in the mirror and making sure he looked neatly put-together, he still couldn't help but be disappointed that he wasn't being allowed to cook his own birthday dinner. 

   The Millennium Earl was always asked to cook by the rest of the Noah, whenever he had the time, even if the kitchen was Sheril's. 

   Sheril did appreciate the irony of introducing his wife to the Earl, even when he wasn't wearing the suit, and was referred to by the assumed name Adam. 

  It was hilarious that his poor wife was so kind and polite to a man trying to destroy humanity. 

   But he couldn't help but be jealous when the family professed a slight preference for the Earl's cooking over his.

   It's my kitchen, why do I have to let other people cook in it?

   Seething at the idea, Sheril began heading downstairs to his kitchen, to see if he had to do any damage control. 

   As soon as he opened the door, he saw the Earl's back as he faced the stove.

  Road, Wisely, and the twins were sitting at the table, playing a card game, which immediately set off Sheril's alarm bells.

   "You know those two miscreants aren't allowed in here, right?" 

  Road put down her hand of cards, face down on the table, and gave him a glowing look as she got up from her seat.

   "Aw, come on, Papa, they weren't doing anything," she begged in an airy voice, "in fact, we were just finishing this hand and then going to join Mama in the garden."

   As she said this, Jasdero was leaning over to try and lift her cards for a peek, falling off of his chair in the process, making Debita laugh obnoxiously. 

  Sheril rolled his eyes, directed a smile only at Road, and said, "okay, but please finish it quickly, darling."

  Nodding enthusiastically and returning to her seat, Road picked up her cards and giggled as Debita lifted Jasdero from the floor. 

  Meanwhile, Sheril was walking over to the Earl to see what he was doing, but the larger man turned towards him and blocked his view of the stove. 

  "I know you're just making burgers for dinner, there's no need to block me!" Sheril said in frustration. 

  "You think I'd just make burgers for your birthday, Sheril?" The Earl responded, as goofy as always without the fat suit, "please, I'm more civilized than that, of course I'm making something more extravagant than burgers!"

   "I don't think I believe you!"

   "Oh dear, why so testy this morning?" The Earl's face fell, "what a mood to be in on your birthday!"

   Interrupted by a victorious shout from Road and groans from the boys, Sheril felt his face twitch as he answered, "you know, I just don't like other people cooking in my kitchen."

  "You treat every kitchen on the Ark like 'your kitchen'," the Earl looked down at him with a raised eyebrow. 

  The fact that this man was taller than him, even without the fat suit, suddenly made Sheril feel really pissed off.

   "Fair, but this one really is my kitchen," he said through gritted teeth.

   "Sheril, dear boy, you don't seem to understand the idea of letting others do things for you on your birthday," the Earl laughed and tried to turn back to the stove, but the deadly look from Sheril stopped him.

  "You've never done this on my birthday before!" He couldn't help but get a bit snappy, "usually I still get to cook my own meals, or hold a society party in the ballroom!"

   "Ookaaaay, we're leaving now!" He was interrupted again by Road loudly announcing their departure as she gathered the cards and the boys stood up from the table, "and you're coming with us, grumpy-guts!"

   She quickly latched onto his arm and started dragging him from the kitchen, the other three shoving Sheril from behind to leave the cooking to the Earl.

   "Darling, I love you, but I was trying to have a serious conversation," Sheril sighed as he used his one free arm to try to bat away Wisely and the twins.

  "You were having a shitfit, is what you were doing," Debita argued. 

  "Yeah, a shitfit!" Jasdero repeated. 

  "I was not!" Sheril raised his voice again, but Road pulled his arm harder so he was forced to look down at her.

  "Why so bratty today?" She sneered, "are you trying to get punished again?"

   Usually, he would have responded with something equally as catty and perverted, but instead, he felt his face get warmer as he remained silent. 

  Road looked at him intensely and pulled him aside so the other three could pass them.

  "You guys go on ahead," she nodded in the direction of the garden, "let Tricia know we'll be right there."

  "Sure, but go easy on him or Tricia might notice," Wisely agreed, and Sheril hoped the boy was too distracted to read his mind, and the twins stuck their tongues out as they followed him.

  Once the three of them were gone, Road rounded on Sheril again. 

  "Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you?"

  Sheril swallowed the lump in his throat and croaked out, "you know how I feel about my kitchen."

  Road narrowed her eyes at him without speaking, and after several minutes of intense scrutiny, she turned away. 

  "I knew you were possessive, but going berserk over a kitchen?" She laughed loudly and then hid it with a sweet smile, "I love it when you get weird."

  "Thank you, darling," Sheril smiled warmly back at her, "I appreciate that."

  Road moved her hand down his arm so she could intertwine her fingers with his, and continued pulling him along to the garden. 

  "Don't do anything silly, I know how you feel about being called a brat," she giggled again as they went.

   She was right about his reaction, and he spent the rest of their journey willing his hard-on to go away. 

   He felt fairly normal again by the time they made it outside, and he watched as Road dashed forward to wrap her arms around Tricia, who was seated in a cushioned chair on the wide stone patio that led into the manicured gardens. 

  "Oh, hello dear," he heard Tricia greet Road gently, then saw her move to get up. 

   Sheril went to her side as quickly as he could without appearing too over-eager, and said in a soothing tone, "there's no need to get up, darling, I can bring you anything you need."

   "Oh, I'm fine, dear, but how are you?" She looked up at him curiously as she settled back into her chair, "the boys made it sound as though you were rather upset."

     Damnit, they told on me.

    "Ah, you know how I feel about my personal kitchen," Sheril sighed deeply, "but I think I can make an exception for our dear Earl."

   Oh, how I love talking about him to her, he thought gleefully, she doesn't know who he is or what he's doing. 

    She doesn't know who I am or what I'm doing behind her back, he added, and the spite from these thoughts made him feel a lot better.

  "That's so kind of you, dear," he heard Tricia saying, "that kitchen is very precious to you."

   "But not as precious as you," Sheril said in a soothing tone, knowing he was lying as he leaned down to gently kiss her knuckles. 

   "You sweet man," Tricia smiled warmly, and Sheril had to resist shivering in disgust. 

   In order to get away, Sheril offered to refresh the teapot that was on a tray on the table, and when she gratefully accepted the offer, he escaped back to the kitchen. 

   "I think I'm going to pass out if I have to do this much longer," he confessed as he opened the door and let it slowly click shut behind him. 

   "So you're not as immune to pressure as I hoped you would be," the Earl said without turning from the stove.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Sheril asked, anger bubbling up within him again, even his spiteful thoughts unable to cheer him up for long. 

   "It means exactly what it sounds like," the Earl sneered, uncharacteristic of him while he was wearing his human face, "you fall apart completely under so little pressure. Incredible, really, that Road apparently thought you were the perfect Desires."

   Sheril twinged, the recollection of that day still painful, like a bruise.

   "You weren't aware of it yet, but I already had you pegged as the perfect Desires," she had told him in the orchard, in front of the clan, in front of the Exorcists, in front of Miranda, "you were such an infuriatingly uptight, bossy boots, my-way-or-the-highway, opinionated bastard."

   "That was between Road and myself," he said through gritted teeth.

   "I'm afraid she's made it everyone's business, my dear boy," the Earl sighed, as the he were the only one stressed by the situation, "and the sooner we come up with a solution, the sooner you'll feel better."

   "Solution for what? Everything is resolved now."

   This time, the Earl turned completely, giving Sheril a look so full of love and pity that he wanted to slap him.

   "You can't be saying that you don't want to see that woman again?" The man asked, and the sympathy in his voice made Sheril want to choke, "if there's one thing about you that is the most like Desires, it's the absolute obsession with one thing until you have it."

   Sheril didn't think he could take being spoken to like this in his own home much longer. 

   "So what is it about Desires that I'm missing?"

   The Earl didn't answer; he just kept on cooking like nothing was happening. 

   "I swear, if everyone keeps doing that to me, I'll-"

   "What you're missing," the Earl interrupted, making Sheril seethe, "is that Desires never lost his mind over a woman. Prior Desires' would have succeeded in their seductions by now."

   "You know what? Never mind, this conversation is over," Sheril turned around, letting his hair swish elegantly, and stomped to the door, carrying the tea tray so he could make more in the mansions other kitchen. 

   "I am so disappointed in you, Sheril," the Earl said in deep, foreboding voice, "running away every time you have a problem you can't handle. I can't imagine how a father would feel about a child like you..."

  This was the last straw for Sheril, who picked up the teapot from the tray and spun around, screaming as he swung it into the air and launched it at the wall above the Earl's head, where it shattered into little blue porcelain pieces.

   "Then it's a good thing you aren't my fucking father, isn't it?!" 

  And then he stomped his way to the second kitchen, where the pathetic handful of Akuma that could be taught to cook were working, so he could replace the teapot and make fresh tea for the wife he didn't love.

Chapter Text

   It was the last day of January, and Miranda was relieved that no one had brought up her drunken disaster party, at least not to her face. 

 The prospect of the things she said being whispered of by others, spreading behind her back, was equally as mortifying and terrible, but as long as it never got back to her that people were talking about it, she could pretend it didn't happen. 

 Which isn't a great solution, either, but it's better than nothing, Miranda told herself with a rough sigh. 

  What was weighing just as heavily on her mind was the dreadful reports the Order had been receiving in regards to the sudden drastic increase in mass murders. 

   The methods varied, and some of them were rather mundane, like the stabbings, or the gunshot wounds. 

  But some of them also described dismemberment of various body parts, or wounds inflicted by large animals, or internal organs that had been removed with no sign of an external wound it could have been removed from. 

   And, most terrifying of all, the people violently bent into twisted, unnatural shapes.

  She recognized all of these methods; the Noah were on the offensive, and the deaths already numbered into the thousands. 

  Miranda was deeply uneasy about the situation, and wondering if there was anything she could do, but it was no use.

  There was no way she could convince anyone to let her confront Sheril this time. 

    Not only did the Vatican suspect her of an attempted betrayal, but she imagined her friends wouldn't trust her judgment in the matter, knowing how she felt about him.

  Okay, maybe they'd find my safety and wellbeing the more pressing matter, Miranda thought, not moving from her bed, where she lay with her face down in the pillow, but they probably find me a bother, no matter how much they insist they don't. 

   So Miranda had been hiding in her room, only leaving when she was forced to eat, or she was asked to view the reports.

   I guess the fact that I can identify the Noah's murder methods is helpful to the Order, at least. 

   This was the only thing keeping her head above water; if it weren't for that, she would be descending back into alcoholism. 

   The thought made her clench her fists around her bedsheets, and she told herself sternly, no, no way, you have to believe you have other things to live for!

   So she untangled herself from her mess of a bed, sliding open the drawer of her bedside table to peek at the brooch from Sheril and the drawing of the man himself from Fiedla, and with renew resolve, told herself that there had to be something she could do.

   So she went to her little bathroom and took a boiling hot bath until she was as red as a lobster, and put on her uniform as neatly put-together as she possibly could. 

  She tried to look as serious as she could muster as she marched through Headquarters to Komui's office. 

   Unbeknownst to her, she had caught Krory's attention as he was leaving his room, and he caught up with her as she rounded the corner of the hall.

   "Miranda?" He called her name when he was right behind her, making her jump in fright, "oh, I'm sorry! I didn't realize you didn't hear me coming."

  Then he looked her up and down and finally realized what she was wearing. 

   "Are you planning on going somewhere?"

   Miranda gulped down her nerves and looked up at him with what she hoped was a determined expression. 

   "I need to have a serious discussion with the Chief," she told him.

   "Miranda, if this is about what the Noah are doing, you have to understand that this isn't your fault," Krory sighed. 

   Why do I have to have such sensible friends? Miranda thought.

   "Yes, I thought of that," she said truthfully, even though it didn't feel right, "but the Order isn't sending anyone else after them, either."

   "Because it's unsafe," he argued with her, "the Noah are going on a rampage, and the angrier they are, the more difficult they will be to fight!"

   "But we're supposed to defend humanity against them!" Miranda surprised herself by raising her voice, and Krory was clearly shocked, as well, "how can we do that if we're too scared to confront them?"

   They stared at each other for a long minute before someone finally spoke up. 

   "Miranda, please forgive me, but I have to ask," Krory cleared his throat and said in a low tone, "why is it that your encounter with that man has made you more confident than we, your friends, ever could?"

   Miranda wasn't surprised at all by this; she had asked herself the same thing multiple times a day.

   What is it about him that makes me feel this way? Like I'm filled with drunken stubbornness even when I've had nothing to drink?

  "I don't know," Miranda mumbled, finally breaking his gaze and looking down at her feet, "I just know we can't let them keep doing what they're doing."

   She looked up again in time to see Krory nod in agreement. 

  "I think so, too," he said with a smile, "so, should we gather the others, or talk to the Chief ourselves first?"

   Miranda smiled back at him, glad that he had stopped her, despite the questioning she had gone through. 

   "Let's go by ourselves first, everyone else might just overwhelm the Chief with shouting and arguing."

   "Excellent point," Krory laughed, and Miranda laughed too, a small girly giggle she tried to stifle out of embarrassment. 

   So Krory joined her on her quest to go have a serious conversation with Chief Komui.

Chapter Text

   By the time God returned, it was too late; Eve had already convinced Adam that eating the Fruit of Knowledge of Good and Evil was fine and tasted delicious, and why would our God keep this from us, and it wasn't anything to be afraid of. 

  God themself didn't even know what the Knowledge of Good and Evil was, since they had made that up just to test their greatest creations.

  So they were surprised to find that Adam and Eve had covered their privates in fig leaves, and Eve had included her chest, as well. 

  In a deep, booming voice they thought would impress the two of them, God asked them, "what is the meaning of this?"

  The duo jumped, startled by the sudden voice of their God shaking the ground. 

  "My Lord, forgive us," Eve spoke first, "we thought we were indecent."

 "According to who?" They questioned their creations.

  "According to ourselves," Adam answered.

  "There's no way you decided that by yourselves," God's attempt at being serious wavered, and they hoped his creations didn't notice, "let me guess, you ate the Fruit?"

  If they thought the way their God phrased the accusation was oddly relaxed, they didn't say so, and only looked down at the ground and shuffled their feet.

  Eventually, Adam spoke up, a look of shining honesty on his face, "we did, my lord, and we are deeply sorry for it."

  Eve shot him a look like she wasn't sorry at all, and then looked at the ground again.

  God sighed, and thought for a long moment about what to do with them.

   The two of them looked up into the air where they thought their God was speaking from, Adam looking scared and pathetic, Eve clearly not as easily cowed.

   When God spoke up again, they asked the duo, "what are you planning on doing, now that you have this knowledge?"

   Eve immediately made her intentions known; "I plan on making more humans, the way the Animals make more of themselves."

   God remembered devising that particular mechanism and cringed, thinking, well, I can't necessarily punish them for that, but they did eat the Fruit, so I might as well come up with something. 

   "Adam, Eve, you were meant to be my greatest creations," they finally opened their mouth to proclaim, "but even you could not resist the temptation of the Knowledge of Good and Evil."

   Adam and Eve looked up into the sky, plaintive and solemn. 

   "So you must be punished for succumbing to temptation," God announced, and gave it a moment of thought.

  What do I do? There's nothing I can think of. 

  What would I be afraid of if I were them?

  And then God made a decision. 

 "You will be banished from the Garden Of Eden," they boomed, "outside, you will have to fend for yourselves, by growing crops and taming the Animals."

   At their words, they proceeded to build a wall around the greenest, most lush area of land on Earth, centering it around the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

   The both of them looked rather relieved that they weren't being turned into Animals themselves, and began marching themselves towards the Garden walls.

   Once they had left through the gates in the wall, they shut behind Adam and Eve, and God sighed, disappointed that their greatest creations had turned out this way.

      ~*~*~*~

  The sun set and the moon rose, just as the sun rose and the moon set, for many days and nights, before Adam and Eve found a place almost as good as the Garden they had left.

   It wasn't as lush or inviting, but the soil was soft and animals hadn't yet learned to fear them, so they began the process of settling the place.

   They cleared the land of bushes, rocks, and trees, keeping what they thought would be useful, before they began building a home for themselves and a separate home for what animals they could tame.

   They knew the names of each individual creature from their time in Eden, but never thought they would have to tame them themselves, since the ones in Eden were friendly and ready to supply Adam and Eve with whatever they needed. 

   It took a few years of constant work, but eventually they established a farmland efficient enough for their survival, and decided it was safe for them to start trying for a baby.

  One the day their first was born, they named him Cain.

   As he grew up, he followed in his father's shadow, watching him work all the day, helping when needed, and was found to be particularly skilled with the farm's fields of crops.

   He was skinny, tall, and had an imperious look in his eyes, though his parents did not have that word to describe it with, so they thought it wasn't anything to worry about. 

   Maybe it something to do with his special conversations with God as he left offerings of fresh vegetables and brightly colored wheat.

   "These are as spectacular as ever, Cain," God told him, appreciating the offerings despite having no use for them.

   Cain only nodded, a solemn child even then.

   When Cain was aged seven years old, Eve gave birth again, this time to a son they named Abel.

   Abel was golden-skinned and curly-haired, and swiftly became the family's precious joy, and an empathetic shepherd who understood each and every one of his animals. 

   At first, Cain was glad for his brother's company, but once Abel was of the age to deliver offerings to God, everything changed. 

   On his way to take his offering of vegetables and wheat to the family altar, Cain encountered Abel on his way home from sacrificing a sheep. 

   Cain was mystified that such a gentle soul would sacrifice the animals he loved so much, but he never brought this up with Abel, and had no plans to, so he smiled and waved as his brother approached. 

  Abel smiled back and turned around so he could fall into step next to his older brother. 

   "Do you need some help?" Abel asked, eyeing the bundle of wheat in the tall basket tied to Cain's back and the similar basket of vegetables in his arms.

   "I'll be fine," Cain answered, a little embarrassed to be offered help by his younger brother, "you just carried a full-sized sheep up here, after all. What kind of older brother would I be if I couldn't carry my own burdens?"

   "If you say so," Abel answered, frowning slightly before saying, "I've been meaning to ask you something, if you don't mind?"

   "Go ahead," Cain frowned back, wondering what kind of brotherly advice he would have to dispense today.

  Abel fidgeted a bit as they walked, and Cain raised a curious eyebrow. 

  What Abel said next was completely unexpected to Cain.

   "Do you..." he hesitated, "do you ever hear the voice of God when you leave your offerings?"

   Cain felt the bitterness rise in his throat; for years, he had thought he was special, chosen by God, but now his brother claims that he is also special? 

   As Cain burned with jealousy, a snake lifted its head from the tall grass on one side of the path, and, scenting the foul odor of such sour feelings, began to slither behind them in hopes that it may get a word into Cain's ear.

Chapter Text

   "Sorry to be so blunt, but I already know what you're going to say," Komui sighed as Miranda and Krory stood before him in his office, "and the answer is no."

   Miranda swallowed the lump in her throat and closed her eyes, willing her heart to stop beating so furiously. 

   The two of them were there to ask Chief Komui what could be done about the Noah and the drastic escalation of their slaughter.

  This had happened before, when Sheril had managed to trap her in an abduction plot by murdering the women of her hometown. 

   But now things were serious; the Noah were wiping out entire villages, and something had to be done. 

  Miranda didn't trust herself to come up with a solution.

  The only thing she could do was throw herself to the wolves and hope that one of them would prove to be honorable and fair.

   If he hasn't lost himself to the Noah's personality, Miranda thought, if I can get there in time to...

  To save him? Is that what I'm planning? 

  Can they even be saved at this point? And even if they can, will they resist? 

  What am I thinking? Have I lost my mind? 

  Miranda was broken out of her reverie by the sound of Krory's voice.

   "But, Chief-"

   "No, no 'buts' this time," Komui interrupted, "I am so deeply sorry, but this can't happen again. I cannot send anyone to fight the Noah while they're in such a high frenzy. We have to wait until they wear themselves out."

   "That's not going to happen," Miranda opened her eyes and tried to look serious, "their stamina lasts far longer than a normal humans, and they've been taking turns, the only murder method consistently in every report is Sheril's."

   Komui and Krory both twitched slightly at the mention of his name, but neither said anything. 

   "The thing is..." Miranda tried to explain, but the words died in her throat.

   Do I tell the Chief? Does this even make sense? 

   I have to do something! I have to take this risk, even if I lose my life in exchange! 

   "I think the Noah memories can be removed somehow," she said honestly, genuine hope shining in her eyes. 

   Komui sighed, taking off his beret and running a hand over his face, the very picture of exhaustion. 

  "Yeah, the rescue team told me what you told them," he informed her, and Miranda tried not to glance at Krory, who struggled to keep a straight face, "but Allen also explained that attempting to do the same on the Ark had very... violent results."

   Racking her brains, Miranda recalled Allen's story about using his Innocence against Tyki, which only served to enrage the man's inner Noah, rather than exorcise it.

   "Well, maybe it's because he used a very violent method," Krory pointed out, and Miranda was very glad he was there to stand up for her. 

    "Even if that was truly the reason it didn't work," Komui explained cautiously, "if we tried your method, we'd be relying on the Noah that can enter minds to cooperate with his own exorcism."

   Miranda drooped, having no solution for that little detail. 

   "At least let me convince him he doesn't need to be doing this," Miranda felt as though she needed a drink.

   "Look, I'm not saying this to be mean, Miranda," Komui prefaced his next statement carefully, "you know we're all proud of you. But you tried that already, and look at what happened the first time."

   A really stiff drink, she decided. 

  Sighing heavily, Miranda clasped her hands together and shook her head. 

   "I can't just do nothing, Chief," she said as loudly as she could muster, "I really will be a complete failure as a person, as a human being, if I don't try to do something."

   "It's not that bad-" Komui tried to say, but Miranda shocked the two men by boldly interrupting. 

    "I feel like we're just repeating the same conversation as last time," Miranda was just as startled, herself, "my deepest apologies, Chief, but yes, it is that bad!"

   Before either man could say anything, she took a deep breath and kept going. 

   "I have to make him see sense! He's being childish, and I'm going to give him a serious talking-to!" 

   Stifling a surprised laugh, Komui managed to choke out, "at least take someone with you, just incase they all prove to be equally childish."

   "I'll go," Krory quickly volunteered, and Miranda nodded.

   "Is there anyone else you think would join you?" Komui asked. 

   "Oh, they would all go, but Sheril hates Allen because Road likes him, and Noise is at risk for being so close to me, and Lavi made him mad, and you definitely wouldn't want Lenalee around that man," Miranda babbled while Komui waited patiently, "so Krory is one of the few who he hasn't had a problem with yet."

   "Lucky me," Krory looked a bit more nervous, but he wasn't going to stand down, either. 

   "Alright, that settles it," said Komui, a little disturbed by the comment about not wanting that Noah around Lenalee, "I'll begin the process of determining where the Noah might strike next, so we can have a good chance of catching them in the act."

   "You're going to help?" Miranda felt guilty for asking when Komui let out another deep sigh.

   "As much as I think this is a bad idea, I just can't let you go with no support! Not after the last time," Komui's smile did nothing to make Miranda feel better, "so you'll probably have to wait a day or two before we have a logistics team ready and a location to send you to."

   "Ah, good, that gives us some time to be prepared too, right, Miranda?" Krory tried to keep her hopes up, and she smiled gratefully at him before bowing to hide her face. 

   "Thank you, Chief!" She hoped she could keep the warble of tears from her face, "I'll be waiting to hear from you."

   Before either man could say anything more, she turned and rushed from the room, fiercely wiping her eyes in the hopes no one would see her tears.

   Stupid! Don't cry after making such a display of self-sacrifice! 

   Miranda tried to rush to her room, but before she could make it there, Krory managed to catch up with her, a look of concern on his face. 

   "My apologies for saying so, but maybe you should work on not leaving conversations before they're finished?" He laughed, clearly not intending to give her a hard time, but she felt her face flush in embarrassment anyway. 

   "Was there more to say? I'm sorry, I hope the Chief wasn't angry..."

 "He'll be fine," Krory laughed again, "I'm more worried about you. You left in quite a hurry!"

   Miranda looked at her feet as she turned to keep walking towards her door, and when she reached it, she clasped the doorknob tightly without turning it.

  She stood there and sighed, a ragged, pained breath that stung her chest, before speaking.

  "Have you ever felt like nothing you do is ever good enough? For anyone?"

   Krory tapped his chin with a gloved finger in thought, still looking concerned for her.

  "Not quite, but I can imagine that feels very similar to something I have felt, which is that I'm an absolute freak no one would ever be friends with?"

   "Oh no, that's awful!" Miranda gasped, and in her shock, she twisted the doorknob and fell forward, almost hitting the door before catching herself with her other hand, "and not true! I know I enjoy being your friend, and that several people at the Order agree!"

   "And I know most of the people here love and appreciate you for everything you do!" He grinned, and Miranda realized with a start that she had stopped being afraid of his teeth a long, long time ago, "so you don't have to feel obligated to do anything about the Noah."

   "You're still trying to convince me not to do this?"

   "Thought I'd try one more time, at least," Krory said nervously.

   "I am genuinely grateful to have you for a friend," Miranda replied, "I'm going to change now, but would you join me in the cafeteria afterwards? I'm starving!"

   "Of course, of course! See you soon!"

   And so they waved goodbye, and Miranda shut her door behind her so she could look for some clean clothes. 

   Won't be they be surprised to see me after weeks of hiding in here and only scurrying out for little snacks?

   I have to face them, no matter what the consequences. 

   The Order, the Noah, my friends. 

   I have to show my face.

   I can't let this go on.

   Dressing in emerald and remembering the room on the Ark with the green wardrobe, Miranda squared her shoulders and held her head up, feeling a little sick and empty and hoping that sensation could be fixed by food.

Chapter Text

  Arystar Krory, third of his name, still wasn't quite sure he was getting this whole "friendship" thing right. 

   Oh, he wanted to believe he was doing the right thing, but no matter how often Allen and the others said he was, it still didn't feel real to him.

   He overheard the words people used to describe him, like "kind", "charming", "humble", or "strong", but he could never be sure if any of them were true.

   And he knew how well he did in training sessions, because there were always scientists in the Training Hall to break down the statistics and explain them when he was done.

   He was second after Lenalee in terms of speed, and just after Allen and Kanda in raw power. And it showed in combat, too, when he fought Akuma with such ease and grace that sometimes, he hardly even broke a sweat.

   So why did feel like what he was doing just wasn't enough? 

   Oh, I guess I do understand exactly what Miranda was talking about. 

   The feeling might not express itself in quite the same way, like he said to her before, but it wasn't entirely different, either. 

   It was definitely the overwhelming, oppressive feeling that he didn't bring enough to his friendships, that he wasn't strong enough, supportive enough, or enthusiastic enough for all of the people around him.

   He wasn't even sure who amongst them he could count as his friends, in fact. 

   There was Allen and Lavi for sure, and Miranda, at least. Marie was a good bet, and he hoped he could include Lenalee. There was a possibility that he could include Johnny Gil, and Reever, Gigi, Jeryy, and Chief Komui, as well. 

   He still wasn't quite sure about Inspector Link, but Allen seemed to like him, so that was enough for Krory. 

   Well and truly, deep in his heart and soul, Krory felt that he wouldn't be alive without these people, and that's why he had to give his best in every situation, no matter what the circumstances. 

   Anything less would be insulting. 

   So this time, when Miranda accepted that recieving help wasn't a terrible failing on her part, he leapt at the chance to go, offering support. 

   It was late evening, somewhere north of the Russian border with China, the day after they had gone to talk to Komui into helping Miranda, so she could talk some sense into the Noah she might be forming a... somewhat strange and definitely inadvisable relationship with.

   But the stomach-churning worry that she might be hurt, or even worse, killed, during this trip was eating at him, and the very thought made sour bile rise to his throat.

   So he was pacing in a circle as Miranda huddled against a tree, never crossing her line of sight as she watched the nearby mountain village for any disturbances.

   He tried to concentrate and listen out for signs that the village was in trouble, but he couldn't clear his mind.

   How could dear, sweet Miranda fall for a man like him?

   It was a mystery to everyone, but especially to those who were there to rescue Miranda when she was taken by him and brought to the Ark.

   It was difficult to reconcile Miranda's story with Road's description of him when the duel was cut short, and what little of the man's own behavior Krory had witnessed that day.

   Add in to that the reports of violence that had to be the Noah's doing, and Krory wasn't sure whether or not he liked the image of this Sheril person that was being presented to him.

   He seemed, in some ways, to be noble, polite, and self-sacrificing, but there was the strong chance those traits were only utilized for the people with whom chose to share his loyalty and dedication.

   Otherwise, he was sly and conniving, and even downright bloodthirsty, at times. 

   Krory knew that Miranda saw those things, too; she wasn't an idiot, no matter how she felt about herself. 

    So why try to save this man? 

    Before Krory could think on the subject any longer, he heard Miranda sigh into the night air, and her little voice followed after. 

   "Do you still think this is a bad idea?"

   Krory moved to stand beside his friend, and she used the tree she was leaning against to rise from the ground. 

"I mean, yes, of course," he answered, and Miranda deflated slightly, "but you're right that this is the right thing to do, it's just a very dangerous thing..."

   "As an Exorcist, I've found that often the right thing for a person to do is also very life-threatening," Miranda agreed solemnly. 

   "At least this time you have a bit more back-up," Krory laughed in the hopes he could stem the tide of her sadness, "it would have been nice to bring the others, but you're right that Sheril might not like them so much."

   Miranda shook her head, but he noticed her mouth turning up into a small smile, "I'm so sorry for this, truly."

   "I'll try not to give him a reason to hate me, too... besides the Exorcist thing, I think."

   "He's terrible," this time, Miranda made herself laugh, "you probably think I'm out of my mind for trying to help him in some way."

    Suddenly, Krory had an answer to his question. 

    So why try to save this man?

    "That's who you are," Krory smiled fondly as Miranda looked up in surprise, "when we met, in China after we lost Allen, it wasn't as though you weren't afraid, far from it; you seemed absolutely terrified."

   "Uh?" Miranda wasn't sure where he was going with this, but he continued. 

   "You could have stayed at the Order to receive more training, most likely, but you didn't," he went on, "as soon as you heard we were down a person, you were out there, prepared or not, to do what you felt was right."

   "I was as ready as I could have been," Miranda looked away again, her eyes on the village in the distance, "even if I had more time to train-"

   "You still would have shown up, right?"

   "Yes."

   "See, that's what I mean," Krory put a comforting hand on her shoulder, "you don't let terror stop you, even when you really, really want it to."

   "I really am easily terrified, though," Miranda protested.

   "You've never been a coward, though," he corrected, repeating her last word deliberately, "you just have a very interesting way of showing your courage."

  "Thank you," Miranda whispered, falling silent again.

   But before Krory could say anything more, a women's scream rose up from the village before suddenly being cut short. 

   Instead, he turned to Miranda and nodded, and she nodded back, swallowing a lump in her throat as she stepped forward, activating her Innocence before taking a step forward into the snow.

   Krory followed behind, not activating just yet to conserve energy, just in case things got ugly quick.

   He hoped for Miranda's sake that this would be easy and normal, though he knew that wish was impossible. 

Chapter Text

 "Well, you got what you were asking for," Sheril heard Tyki drawl sarcastically from behind him, "you're lucky it's only us."

   Sheril wiped his face with his sleeve, looking down at the woman's body and feeling rather disappointed; now that a scream had gone out, people would know they were here.

   He would have liked to have gotten a few more kills before then.

   "What do you mean?" He asked his brother in a solemn tone.

   "Moron," Tyki muttered, "she's here."

    Sheril listened closely, and from the next alley over, he heard the booted footsteps on cobblestone and the deep breathing of two people moving as quickly as possible while speaking lowly to each other.

  He could tell just by the way they were running and the familiar sound of her boots that one of them was Miranda Lotto. 

   Sheril suddenly felt a little embarrassed that he was wearing the white outfit; would he look foolish, wearing this in southern Russia, the cold first week of February?

   Oh well, too late for that, he thought, before the rumblings of Desires' temper suddenly made themselves known. 

    Don't you dare miss this opportunity to kill her!

    Rolling his eyes, Sheril turned in the direction Tyki was facing, and soon enough, two black-clad shapes rounded into the alley they were standing in.

    Try as he might, Sheril couldn't harden his heart against her; there she was, in black uniform, her unruly brown hair tied up and the Time Record active, glowing an unearthly green.

   And she looked infuriated.

   "Good evening," Sheril tried to sound as suave as possible, but she just scrunched up her face, still adorable in her anger, and the man that arrived with her just glared.

  "Hey, vampy-boy," Tyki greeted jovially, breaking the silence, "didn't expect to see you here. Playing bodyguard?"

   "Unlike you, we Exorcists don't have the privilege to 'play' at anything," the man snarled, and Sheril was fascinated as the sclera of his eyes turned black, his white forelock swept back, and his teeth noticeably sharpened. 

  I wonder if this is the one she was in love with? He mused, recalling the conversation they had the night he cooked her dinner, No, there's no way she'd bring that one right to me, this must be just a friend. 

  "Well, I appreciate your incredible loyalty, even if Tyki isn't impressed," Sheril bowed politely, "so, what's the occasion?"

  "You know why we're here," he heard Miranda answer softly and turned his attention to her again.

   "Of course," Sheril nodded, trying to keep himself together, "any chance we can have this conversation in private?"

   "Not at all," Miranda frowned, "if I thought you could be trusted to have a normal conversation, I wouldn't have needed back-up."

   "Sensible as ever, I see!" Sheril clapped, open in his adoration for her, "you were always quite the logical thinker."

   "Now isn't the time for flattery," Miranda raised her voice just slightly, and Sheril could tell she was struggling to keep a straight face, "you need to stop this rampage your family is on."

   When she finally said exactly what Sheril thought she would, he locked eyes with Tyki, who had lit a smoke at some point without Sheril noticing. 

   Tyki raised an eyebrow when they made eye contact, and Sheril held his gaze for so long that eventually, he heard Miranda speak again. 

   "Don't tell me you two can communicate with your minds?"

   Tyki burst out laughing as Sheril turned back to her.

   "Only when Wisely is around, but luckily for you, it's just the two of us tonight," he told her, and he was delighted to hear her sigh in relief.

   The tall man with her narrowed his eyes and continued glaring daggers at Sheril, threatening, "so are you going to stop these disgusting massacres, or do we have to make you stop?"

   At his words, Miranda seemed to lose a bit of her spirit, hunching slightly and whispering, "I don't think we're capable of that..."

   Before her support could argue, Tyki interrupted, leaning towards Sheril to make an observation he wasn't particularly interested in. 

   "I think this guy changes personality with his Innocence activated," he pointed with his cigarette in hand, "he was naive and sensitive when we first met."

   "Oh lord, weren't you with your scrubby miner friends?" Sheril sighed as though he was the one insulted, "you know I hate even thinking about them."

   "Mean-ass bastard," Tyki muttered and didn't say anything more. 

   "Anyway," Sheril tried to move on, "I don't think this is going to go anywhere unless Miranda and I can have this conversation in private."

   "I can't allow that," the tall man said, and Sheril thought he was getting close to losing his cool.

   "I don't think that's up to you," he said through gritted teeth, "whoever you are."

   "My name is Arystar Krory," the man announced boldly, starting to move forward, "and if I have to, I'll-" 

   But Miranda blocked him with her free arm, holding up the Time Record with the other. 

   "I don't intend to have a fight start here," she said, trying to keep the stammer from her voice, "if Sheril wants to talk, I'll go and talk."

   "Are you sure?"

   As Miranda looked this 'Krory' person in the eye, Sheril felt seriously ticked off, and then they shared a nod and the man stepped aside, indicating that Sheril should exit the alley with Miranda. 

  Which escalated his mood from ticked all the way to majorly pissed. 

  "Oh, no no no, absolutely not," Sheril shook his head, aware that he didn't look very authoritative wearing the white uniform and covered in blood, "the two of you are leaving while we stay here."

   "You're the one who wants to talk to her, I don't think you get to choose," Krory stepped forward and was blocked by Miranda's arm again. 

   "You're the ones who want us to stop what we're doing," Sheril sneered, "so I don't think you get to choose."

   Sheril watched as Miranda's eyes darted between them before finally settling on him. 

   "I'll stay," she agreed, "but as soon as I hear screaming, the conversation is over."

   "Of course," Sheril nodded as Tyki walked away past the tall man.

   "Good luck, you and your big white boots that go all the way up to your asshole," the younger brother waved backwards nonchalantly.

   Sheril really wanted to punch him, and really, really wanted to punch Miranda's friend when he screwed up his face at what Tyki said. 

   But the man turned to follow, tailing Tyki vigilantly, leaving him and Miranda alone. 

   They stood there in awkward silence for several long moments, Miranda shuffling her feet, before Sheril cleared his throat.

   "So, uh... sorry for being so flippant? About this whole thing."

   Miranda lifted her head to look at him but didn't say anything. 

   "You know, I was resigned to the idea that I would never see you again," he admitted, paying close attention to Miranda's facial expressions, feeling pleased when her eyes widened just a little, "I wasn't sure this scheme would work after last time."

   "If you're sorry for being flippant, I wouldn't use words like 'scheme'," she looked down again, just as miserable as before. 

   "Ah, you're right, as usual," Sheril praised, but she still wouldn't look up again. 

 The awkward silence continued, and this time, Sheril waited for her to speak up first.

   When she did, her voice was a timid and tremulous sound, "what can I do to convince you to stop this madness?"

   Sheril realized with a shock that he had no clue what he wanted; sure, Desires wanted her dead, but he was trying to resist the memories influence. 

   What? You mean you didn't lure her here to kill her?!

   "We don't have much time left," Sheril muttered to himself, and then added a little louder, in Miranda's direction, "I just wanted to see you again."

   He saw Miranda swallow a lump in her throat, steadying her nerves before responding, "despite the risks to the both of us? And at the expense of all of those lives?"

   "You know me," Sheril laughed, knowing that it was probably the wrong move, but far too aggravated to stop himself, "I'm just crazy about you."

   "I was afraid of that," Miranda responded, shaking her head like Sheril was an unruly child, "I would ask if something has happened to make you so irritable tonight, but I imagine it's a little bit of everything."

   "The irritations do tend to pile up, you're absolutely right."

 Miranda's expression changed again, to one of slight concern, even if she tried to hide it, she couldn't help herself, Sheril supposed. 

   "Has something happened?"

   "Well, quite frankly..." he hesitated to go into detail before changing his mind, "I feel like I'm not being respected in my own household anymore?"

   "After what happened the last time, I expect not!" Miranda cringed as she said this, but she also took a step closer to him, a step he matched with one of his own. 

   "Oh Miranda, you wound me!" Sheril tried to sound like this conversation wasn't maddening, "it wasn't that bad, I think."

   "I'm sorry, did you get punished because of me?"

   "Don't worry, Dearest, it was my own fault, clearly."

   By this time, they had stepped close enough that Sheril could gently take her by the shoulders and look down into her eyes, but he didn't dare to close the gap between them and embrace her. 

   "You don't have to worry about a thing," he whispered, "you're here to punish me now, aren't you?"

   Her face turned beat red, and Sheril wondered if she could feel the burn of her own skin.

   "I wouldn't call it a 'punishment' as much as a stern talking-to," she looked up, and he wondered what she could see in his face, if he was expressing anything at all.

   "I don't think you were stern for very long," he teased her, and she finally looked away from his face. 

   "This might be as stern as I get," she admitted, "I've never even given a lecture before."

   "Well, that was hardly a lecture, but if we consider this your first, maybe the next one will be easier," Sheril offered, and Miranda made a face a little like a pout, but not quite. 

   "So you'll stop these genocidal attacks?"

   Sheril definitely felt disappointed, and he knew his face must have shown it.

   "Well, I can't promise to stop entirely, or Road will be suspicious, if she isn't already," he tried to explain, and watched as Miranda became her most miserable yet.

   "Oh, Sheril..."

   "But I can make some arrangements so that they occur a lot less often," Sheril continued, "if that works for you?"

   Miranda sighed deeply, her gloomy face unchanging, "I guess it will have to do, for now."

   "Excellent! Now, if you will excuse me," he asked politely, releasing her shoulders so he could walk around her to exit the alley, "Tyki and I will have to return to the Ark to-"

  He was interrupted by the sensation of her hand on his arm, and turned back to look down at her curiously. 

   For the third time, an awkward silence descended upon them, and after what felt like several minutes, Sheril asked, "yes?"

   Her face still particularly red, she wouldn't look him in the eye, so when he saw her mouth move, he had to strain to listen. 

   What he thought he heard was "Kiss me?", a simple question that meant everything to him, but he had to make sure that what he heard was really what she said.

   "Kiss you?" He asked her to clarify, and when she nodded, he tried not to let his face light up in sheer happiness. 

   So he turned back to her, leaning forward as she went up on tip-toes to reach.

   What a brilliant but confusing woman, he thought, hunting me down to give a stern talk about genocide but still looking for a kiss?

   Still just as confused, Sheril couldn't even let himself be taken by the sensation of electric tingling all over his body when their lips finally met.

Chapter Text

 A few days later, Abel was dead, his skull crushed by a rock lifted and dropped by his brother, Cain.

   Their mother, Eve, didn't discover the body until an old, wily snake slithered into their home and whispered of the tragedy in her ear, a few days later.

  "Your beloved Abel is dead," the snake hissed viciously, "his brother the killer."

    At first, Eve refused to believe it, but she followed where the snake led anyway, heart filled with dread and apprehension, loath to trust the snake but feeling compelled to make sure of the safety of her sons.

   In the tall grass, beyond even their furthest of fields of wheat, Eve lost sight of the snake for a brief moment, and sped up in the hopes that she wouldn't get left behind. 

   When she had gone so far Eve wasn't sure if even Adam had been there before, she had to stop, out of breath from the distance she had covered.

   Gasping for air, Eve looked around herself and spotted the snake going up the side of a boulder, then back down the other. 

   Steeling her courage, Eve climbed the boulder and used it as a vantage point to scan ahead of her. 

   She wasn't sure what she was seeing, at first, in the drab, brown grass of the wild area beyond the boundaries of their land, but as she watched, the snake appeared again, and her gaze followed it to a dark shape.

    It took a while for her to realize what she was looking at, but when she did, the scream of the first mother's broken heart on earth could be heard for miles around. 

          ~*~*~*~

    No one saw Cain from then on; even when Adam followed his wife's screams, escorted her back to their home, and returned to bury the body, only to find it already gone.

   For some time afterwards, their youngest son, Seth wasn't allowed to leave Eve's sight, until one day the sly old snake returned to their home.

   Sitting by the hearth, awash in sorrow, Eve reached for her cooking spoon and raised it to strike at the snake as though she was holding a bludgeon, but before she could bring her weapon down, the snake spoke. 

   "Your little one here is safe," the creature hissed, "Cain's only quarrel was with Abel."

   Eve thought, her arm still raised, before dropping the spoon to the floor and collapsing into her chair again, hands over her face as she sobbed great, heavy tears of grief. 

   Seth watched his mother curiously, hardly old enough to understand what was going on. 

   When Eve finally spoke, it was with the terrible strain of speaking through a throat raw from screaming. 

   "But why? Why, oh snake, did my son murder his little brother?"

   If the snake could smirk, it would, but the creature kept the smug tone from its voice as it answered her.

   "Jealousy, simply jealousy, Lady Eve," it cooed, "did you know that when Cain delivered offerings to God, God spoke back to him?"

   "No, he never said anything about that to me," Eve sobbed again, which was beginning to irritate the snake. 

   "He thought he was special in the eyes of God, but when Abel told him God also spoke to him, Cain burned at the idea of not being unique in that regard."

   "Oh, how awful!" Eve hid her face in her hands again, "my poor children! I would never have thought that my Cain would kill his brother over such a thing."

   "Oh yes, you poor dear," the snake played at sympathizing, "my condolences."

   The snake spoke no further; it slithered from the house that same way that it entered, and was never seen again. 

   Watching from their airy domain, God thought it best if they didn't interact with humanity ever again, and instead, created a host of creatures they called 'Angels' to watch over and report events as they happened on Earth.

         ~*~*~*~

    After some time, when Eve had finally cried her last tears, she and Adam decided to have more children to make up for their loss.

    They lived for so long and had so many children, that eventually, their spawn began to marry each other and have little ones of their own.

    By the time God finally decided they were uncomfortable with the concept, it was too late, and there were too many people on Earth to do anything about it. 

    But the further descended from Adam and Eve they were, the more violent and brutal they got, their appreciation for the planet they lived on began to wane, and they settlements they built spread further and further afield. 

    Eventually, Adam and Eve passed away, quietly and without much by way of mourning, except by their son Seth and his closest siblings, several grandchildren, and many, many great-grandchildren. 

   One of those great-grandchildren was named Enoch, and when he was grown, he married and had a son named Methuselah.

    After the passing of both Seth and Enoch, Methuselah had a son named Noah, and in turn, Noah and his wife bore three sons, which they named Shem, Ham, Japeth.

    In their little village, far from the original farmland where Adam and Eve raised their children, everything was peaceful and idyllic, with only the occasional attack by bandits or wild animals, which the menfolk bravely fought off to protect their families. 

    But it wasn't to last, and it wasn't long before disaster struck, with Shem, Ham, and Japeth's wives at the center of it.

Chapter Text

   Miranda screamed internally at herself, wondering what the hell she was doing kissing a man she was supposed to be defending humanity against. 

   This is ridiculous! She thought, why are we doing this again?! Have I really fallen so low?

  Forcefully separating herself from him, Miranda tried to look away, but there weren't many directions to look in where he wouldn't be in view, so she resorted to turning around completely. 

   "Miranda, dear?" She heard his smooth, dulcet voice asking, attempting to soothe her, "is something wrong?"

   Miranda almost wanted to laugh at how lacking in self-awareness this man was; how could he ask her that in this situation? 

   "Everything is wrong, Sheril, everything," Miranda whispered, and she felt him lean towards her to listen, "I can't just ask a kiss from a man I had lectured for genocide moments before. And next to the corpse of one of his victims, no less!"

   "Ah, I was curious about that," Sheril laughed, a light chuckle, "I thought you were strangely unfazed, but you were worried about that after all, weren't you?"

   I'm starting to think he knows me a bit too well, Miranda thought to herself, but before she could say anything else, Sheril spoke first. 

   "I understand, and I'm sorry for troubling you," suddenly, his presence wasn't as close to her, and she saw him as he walked around her, towards the mouth of the alleyway, "Well, let's get you back to your friend, and Tyki and I will be on our way."

    "And you promise you're going to relax your murderous intentions somewhat?" She asked him, a tremble in her voice. 

   "As much as I can, given the circumstances," he sighed, "you know if Road suspects anything, I shall be punished... severely."

   "Did she..." Miranda thought the word wouldn't even reach her lips, but she forced it through, "punish you last time, when we escaped?"

   "Oh, darling, you don't want to hear about all that," Miranda saw the strain in his face as he said this, and she felt her heart leap, "it's a lot more than your innocent ears can handle."

   "I've heard a lot more than you think, Sheril," Miranda mumbled, slightly offended, "after all, Allen told us what Tyki did to Suman Dark."

   Sheril turned away and shuddered, and Miranda wasn't sure if it was from fear or from something else.

   Please don't tell me he's aroused by that story...

   Miranda shook her head, willing the thought away, and took one small step closer to Sheril's side.

   "You know I want to help you," she steeled her nerves for the inevitable moment when he told her there was nothing she could do, "I know I can't do anything about Road, but you, your memories, they're important to me!"

   Reaching for Sheril's arm, Miranda felt him stiffen as she clutched the long sleeve of his strange white outfit. 

   "Miranda, I'm sorry, but those memories are lost to me," he whispered without meeting her eye, "and like I said, there's a chance anything shown to you by Wisely isn't strictly true."

   "No, I know that place had to be something real from your own memory," Miranda couldn't help but sob at his dismissal of something she was absolutely sure of, "you have to focus on these things! The valley, the farmland, the forest, the people who lived there, I know they were real!"

   "Miranda, your spirit and tenacity are admirable, but I don't think-"

   With a sudden bright flash of light, Sheril was cut off, and Miranda felt as though she was being dragged backwards, his sleeve pulled from her hand against her will. 

    She heard the mingled voices of several people shouting all at once, including Sheril's, but she was shocked to realize the other voices she heard were those of her friends and several of the larger Finders.

    When her vision began to return, the affect of the blinding flash fading, Miranda was surprised to see that Sheril was being held down by the application of many different binding techniques at once, including Allen's Clown Belt, Noise's Noel Organon, and Link's Feathers.

   Bound in such a way, Miranda could tell that he was visibly pissed, and was about to say something when Lenalee stepped forward from behind her, and Miranda realized she was the one that pulled her away from him. 

   "Just so you know, Miranda had nothing to do with this," the younger woman announced, Sheril narrowing his eyes at her, his mouth covered by a Binding Feather, "she had no idea this was even being planned, so don't blame her!"

   "Lenalee, what is happening? I thought Komui-"

   "I am so, so sorry, Miranda!" Lenalee turned to her, a genuine expression of regret on her face, "but after last time, of course Komui had to tell, for your safety, and then the higher ups ordered a plot to capture him, and none of us wanted to do it, but-"

   "But they threatened to not let you come back home without him," Noise cut her off gently when she started to get frantic, and Lenalee nodded thankfully, letting him continue, "and none of us wanted that, so here we are."

    Miranda looked around; besides Allen, Noise, Lenalee, and Link, holding Sheril down, Lavi, Kanda, and Timothy were there as well, Innocence activated in case they were needed as backup.

   She looked at each of her friends in turn, then looked back at Sheril, noting the particular glint in his eyes. 

   Sighing uncomfortably, Miranda knew exactly what he was thinking, and told them so.

   "He could break out of these bonds at any moment, actually," she informed them, and heard Lavi and Timothy scoff at the idea, "he's only allowing himself to be held down because he knows I wouldn't like it if anyone was hurt in his escape."

   Sheril rolled his eyes before looking at her again, and she swore she could hear what sounded like a muffled laugh from behind the Feather over his mouth.

   "Damnit," she heard Allen mutter, "what now? They probably won't let any of us back into the Order without this creep."

   What can we do now? Miranda thought, whose idea was this anyway? Willingly bringing a Noah to Headquarters will be a death sentence for so many people! There's no way he can be kept under control long enough for whatever Central is planning on doing with him!

   Taking a few gulps of crisp Russian air, Miranda knew she had to say something. 

   So she looked at Sheril, noticing once again the sorrow in his strange yellow eyes, and crouched so she was eye level with him.

   "I don't know what they want with you, but I imagine it can't be good," Miranda admitted, shuddering a bit herself, "maybe they just want to see if you can be Exorcised, but it could be something much worse."

   "Convincing," Lavi muttered, earning him an elbow from Lenalee. 

    "I know you think it's beneath you, but will you cooperate?" Miranda went on, speaking only to Sheril, "even if it's just for me, and no one else?"

    Sheril continued to stare at her, and Miranda couldn't help but think that the look on his face was one of... curiosity, one could call it.

   Then he slowly, almost lazily nodded, and a few Exorcists sighed in relief as they pulled him into a standing position and started guiding him towards the village train station. 

   It was then that Miranda had a curious thought about something. 

   "Wait, what about Krory? And the fact that no police arrived when that woman screamed?"

   Keeping an close eye on Sheril as he followed with more Feathers at the ready, Link answered her solemnly, "Krory was distracting Mr. Mikk across town. And the police were informed that we would take care of incidents that occurred tonight."

   "It's too bad we didn't make it time to prevent any deaths," Noise added miserably, "there was always the possibility we wouldn't make it."

   Miranda scrunched up her face in despair, not knowing what to say, feeling as though failing to prevent that one death had to be her fault. 

   Shuffling her feet while watching Sheril keep pace with the Exorcists holding him, Miranda noticed a few Finders branching off from the group. 

   "Where are they going?" She asked Lenalee, who was walking close beside her.

   "They're dealing with the police and letting them know there was a murder," Lenalee looked just as uncomfortable as she felt, "then they'll be joining Krory to make sure he makes it home safely."

   The lack of fanfare when they finally reached the train was disturbing, and as they boarded, Miranda realized that the Finders had commandeered the entire locomotive, leaving only the crew that kept the thing moving, the passengers absent.

   Oh good, at least if something happens, we can minimize casualties, she mused as she glanced in Sheril's direction and found he was looking at her.

   And something is definitely going to happen. 

Chapter Text

   By the time Tyki Mikk realized the Exorcist Arystar Krory had left him with the bar tab, it was too late for him to be mad about it.

   Instead, all he could do was be impressed; he had expected to slip out first, leaving the vampire with the bill, but the reversal left him confused and, somehow, proud of his progress.

   "Who knew he had it in him?" Tyki mused aloud as he lit up a smoke against the cold winter night. 

   Leaning against the wall of another alleyway, Tyki wondered what the point of that was. 

   It was his own idea to go to a bar near where Sheril was left with Miranda, and the vampy-man had acted flustered at first before agreeing to a drink.

   Pushing off from the wall, he decided to go back, thinking to himself that He must be watching those two, what a creepy thing to do to a friend. 

   As he walked by the window of what appeared to be a clockmaker's shop, he happened to glance inside long enough to read the time on multiple time pieces facing the street.

   And realized that he had been in the bar for three hours before slipping out on his bill.

   "Shit!" Tyki swore, picking up the pace, "there's no way they're still here!"

   When he rounded the corner, he knew he'd be in big trouble.

   Neither Sheril, nor Miranda or Krory, were anywhere to be seen. 

    Uncharacteristically worried, especially since his brother was involved, Tyki took a breath of frosty air and began searching the town, in the hopes that they had maybe moved to a more... "private" place. 

 "It's definitely something he would do," Tyki muttered as he began his search, but as the first rays of dawn sunlight brushed over the rooftops, he resigned himself to the awful facts.

    Sheril was gone.

  And there was no sign of either of the two Exorcists, anywhere, not even a lonely corpse, not within city limits, anyway. 

   There were two options he could think of; either Sheril had convinced Miranda to take off with him, or the Exorcists had captured Sheril. 

 "That would be insane though, he's perfectly capable of defending himself," as much as Tyki hated to admit it, his gross and annoying brother was plenty powerful in his own right. 

   Knowing that a brigade of Akuma had followed them, with the promise only to watch as the Noah 'strutted their stuff', as the lead Level Three put it, he flexed his mental capabilities and called that Akuma to him.

   As Tyki reached the door he and Sheril had used to get to this place, the Akuma appeared, followed by its brigade of ones and twos.

   "When and where was the last time you felt the presence of Sheril Kamelot?" He asked the thing without preamble. 

   The creatures only hovered there, giving him blank, dead-eyed looks, leaving Tyki more than a bit irritated when he realized why.

   Taking the cigarette from his mouth, he sighed and corrected himself, asking the Akuma brigade, "Desires?"

   Hearing various 'oohs' and 'aahs' and sighs of relief from the Akuma, Tyki decided right then and there that he hated his brother's Noah name. 

   He didn't have time to think about why, or how he felt about his own name, for the lead Akuma was shushing the others so it could give Tyki an answer. 

   "Lord Desires was last detected in a train bound for the west and moving quickly," it intoned in a scratchy, mind-numbing voice, "before vanishing without a trace."

     "And you didn't inform me as soon as this was happening?" Tyki bounced back with disdain. 

   "Well, uh, you seemed rather preoccupied at the time..." if the Akuma could sweat, this one would be. 

   "Oh, forget it," Tyki spat out his cigarette and stomped it under his boot, "you cretins have never been much help."

   Tyki wondered why he was suddenly so pissed as he turned to walk open the door.

   Just before taking the first step inside, he looked back at the brigade one last time, ordering them, "Go follow the train tracks and report back anything you find that looks even slightly out of the ordinary."

   Then he stalked through the door and slammed it shut behind him.

         ~*~*~*~

    Tyki dreaded having to tell Road what had happened, but there was no way he could avoid it for long enough to take care of the situation, so he decided telling her would be the mature thing to do. 

  When have I ever worried about the 'mature thing' to do, though? He thought as he found the girl alone in the orchard. 

    The orchard that was just underneath the tower where they had once fought the Exorcists for their lives.

   Tyki felt the scars from his battle with Allen burn and itch, but he ignored them, turning his attention to Road.

   She must have heard his footsteps coming up the stairs, he realized when she whipped her head in his direction, an excited look on her face as she stopped what she was doing. 

    Tyki noticed the basket of fruit at her feet.

  She must have been picking them for me and Sheril, he mused, bracing himself for the inevitable. 

   "Hi, Tyki! Did you two have a good time?" She asked as though her idea of a 'good time' wasn't a murder spree, "where's Sheril? Oh, he must have stopped somewhere to wash up, I guess?"

   "So, about that..." Tyki winced when Road narrowed her eyes at him, "the Exorcists of the Black Order were there, and they kinda... took him."

    A long silence stretched out between them, and the longer it went, the more confused and nauseated Tyki got, until finally, Road's voice sliced through the air like her favorite knife.

    "They did what?!" Road screeched, and Tyki fumbled through his pockets for his cigarettes and a lighter, "why? And how?! He could have killed them all, there's no way they could have subdued him, unless..."

   She trailed of, her shrieking petering out into a dull sadness, and her expression changed to something Tyki found unreadable and dark.

   "Unless the woman was there," she finished at last. 

   Tyki knew exactly who she was referring to.

   Do I confirm that for her? I don't know anything besides the fact that they wanted me out of the way, and I fell for it.

  Tyki was then broken out of his thoughts by another shriek from Road.

   "Put that damn cigarette out when I'm having a conversation with you!"

   "Damn, you've been crabby lately," Tyki replied, refusing to waste the smoke, "what the hell is your problem, anyway?"

    "My problem? What do you mean, my problem?!" Road stomped past him in fury, and he turned to follow her, "my problem is that Sheril still hasn't forgotten that damn woman!"

   "I dunno, he seemed pretty over it to me," Tyki tried to save face for his brother, but that just made Road angrier. 

   "Oh, he tried to hide it, but no matter how controlled his waking thoughts are, he can't control his dreams!" She sneered as she nearly flew down the stairs, stomping her feet whenever they touched the ground, "I've seen some things that'll disturb even you."

    "Why not just erase her from his memories, then? You can do that, right?"

    Coming to a dead stop at the bottom of the stairs, Road looked at him curiously, her face going dark again.

   "How did you know?" She whispered, her tone neutral.

   "I'm pretty sure you mentioned it before," Tyki returned her curious look, his also laced with confusion, "we were talking to the Earl about Sheril's attitude?"

   "I don't think that's right," she looked at him suspiciously, "are you sure you weren't listening in where you shouldn't be?"

   This time, Tyki matched her expression perfectly, "why shouldn't I know you can do that?"

 "Ugh, forget it!" Road stomped away, clearly agitated, "what's more important here is the fact that Sheril let himself be taken! We both know he could have slaughtered them in a matter of minutes, so he had to have let this happen!"

  "Maybe he's planning on freeing himself in a place that would do the most damage to the Order?" Tyki put an idea forward.

   "Oh, Tyki, I wish I could believe in him the way you do," she sighed wistfully, then asked, "wait, when did you start believing in him?"

   The nauseous feeling was getting steadily worse, and Tyki wasn't sure what to do except follow Road, wherever she was going. 

   They wound down the tiers of the city in a wild zig-zag for several minutes of silence before Road spoke up.

   "Well?"

   "Oh, you wanted an answer to that?" Tyki puffed on his cigarette, which did nothing for his nerves or his stomach, "I dunno, something just... feels right, I guess?"

   "Something 'feels right', about letting your brother do whatever he wants instead of killing this Exorcist like he should?" Road sneered, "and your Noah memories have nothing to say about that?"

   "Well, they never have before," Tyki admitted, recalling a conversation with Sheril about the same thing. 

    Tyki's memories had never spoken to him directly, and still haven't; according to Sheril, his memories were vicious, the voice in his head torturous and demanding. 

   But what does that mean? Tyki's head felt hot and scratchy, like he was coming down with a fever, something he only remembered happening twice before. 

    Once the day he Awakened as a Noah, and more recently, after his fight with Allen Walker. 

    But what could be happening to cause this now?

   Lost in thought, Tyki was taken by surprise when he was suddenly being embraced, Road wrapping her arms around his waist in a tight hug.

   And just like that, the pressure building up was less intense, the nausea began to dissipate and the fever rapidly cooling. 

   "How did you do that?" Tyki muttered, looking down and putting a hand on her head, gently mussing her hair. 

"You weren't feeling good, were you?" Road sounded as miserable as he felt, "I don't think your Noah agreed with you at all."

   "He should tell me that directly instead of making me sick," Tyki grumbled, and Road looked up at him, frowning at first before her lips curled into a smile. 

   "If he's never spoken to you before, I don't think he would now," she whispered cryptically before letting him go.

    Tyki almost went after her, convinced breaking the hug would make him sick again, but when nothing happened and he remained fairly normal, he let her go.

   But there are a few things I feel the need to ask her.

   "Road?" He called out, and when she turned to look at him, he caught up with her pace to ask her, "what was my Noah's name, by the way?"

    Road gave him another serious look, but this one didn't make him feel sick.

   "It was Joyd," she said in a voice Tyki was unable to read, "why?"

   "Do you have any memory of what his relationship with Desires was like?" Tyki couldn't believe he was asking her this, "that was the name of Sheril's, right?"

   Tyki felt his breath hitch in his chest as a single, solitary tear ran down her cheek, falling onto the flagstones beneath them.

   Oh no, am I turning into Sheril? Why do I feel this way over a little tear?

   When Road finally started to speak, Tyki had to strain his ears to listen. 

   "Joyd and Desires have always been close, as close as brothers, in fact, even though no Noah have ever been truly siblings except for Bondom," she began, "you know, the twins."

   "Uh-huh," Tyki nodded, finally tossing his spent cigarette to the wayside. 

   "Joyd was so cute, so loving and well-loved by the others, so musical, so tender and relaxing to be around," Road drifted off, walking away as though she was talking to no one, and Tyki easily kept up, "he was spoiled, but not rotten; it didn't make him a bad kid, usually."

    Something about this seemed strange to Tyki, but he let her keep talking. 

   "And despite what it may seem to you," she went on, but Tyki still wasn't sure she was talking to him, "Desires was just as well-loved, but for different reasons. He was also a talented musician, but he was an even greater actor and a brilliant artist. And one of our strongest protectors, when it came down to it."

   They had reached the door to Road's favorite home, the door with the sloppy pumpkin painting, without Tyki even realizing, and she turned back to him with her hand on the doorknob.

   "They had their disagreements, of course, mostly on the topic of sex; Joyd liked having plenty of people to share his love with, while Desires poured all of his love into one person, maybe even two at the most."

    "Shouldn't that be the other way around?" Tyki interrupted to ask.

    "You'd be surprised," was all she said as she opened the door. 

    Tyki reached over her head to hold the door open and mutter, "that isn't much of an answer."

    "Shut up, you're lucky I'm not angry at you," Road giggled as she walked down the hall.

    Forgetting the subject of the Noah memories and following her footsteps, Tyki's jaw dropped open, and he asked her, "you're not?"

   "Nope, in fact, I'm actually pretty excited!"

   "What for?" He asked, swallowing a lump in his throat. 

   "For my excellent new plan!" The little girl giggled again, more maliciously this time, "not only am I going to end this, I'm going to make sure it never has the opportunity to happen again!"

Chapter Text

   Sheril breathed sharply through his nose, his mouth still covered by what he assumed was the Feathers deployed by the Orders CROW unit.

  He was in a dimly lit train car rattling towards the west, out of Russia and into Eastern Europe. 

   Despite the fact that he had been released from the two Innocence that bound him, leaving only the Inspectors Feathers, Sheril felt utterly miserable, the annoyance at the situation only mitigated by the fact that he was doing this for Miranda. 

   I should have killed at least one of the brats when I had the chance, he thought to himself, rolling his eyes, but she read me like a book! Of course I couldn't harm her friends with her there as a witness. 

  He felt his inner Noah grumble, but it otherwise said nothing. 

 Yeah, that's what I thought, you stupid bastard, Sheril taunted the voice in his head. 

   Then he felt his body seize up, his limbs locking violently, and he struggled to continue breathing, impaired as he was by the Feathers.

    Just like he did to me in the bath, the morning of the duel, Sheril struggled to even form the thought, hoping he wouldn't pass out before someone noticed. 

   Oh, the fools who are responsible are in this train car, aren't they? 

  At this, Desires loosened his control, and Sheril took several deep breaths, his mouth still maddeningly covered. 

   Knowing he had to look like a terrible mess by now, Sheril surreptitiously glanced around the car.

   It seemed like no one saw him, the room being empty save for the trio that had bound him in the first place ; Allen Walker, Inspector Link, and a tall, brown-skinned Exorcist he remembered from the rescue of Miranda.

   Rescue? So you do remember that she was there unwillingly?

   Sheril tried to shake his head of the thought, but even that motion was restricted by the tools used to hold him down. 

   Again, I could free myself, but Miranda would be upset if I injure them.

   Sheril began to look around the room again when the car door on the closer end suddenly opened, Miranda entering as though she was blown in by the wind, then closing it behind her.

   Immediately, her friends looked up, and Sheril felt a little miffed that no one had paid attention to him when he was suffocating, before he realized how ridiculous that was.

   Registering who it was, the boy Allen stood to approach her.

   "Hey Miranda, what's up? Is something wrong?"

  Miranda fidgeted with the small bundle in her hands in front of her as she formulated what she wanted to say. 

   "Would... well, would you guys mind letting me talk to him? Alone?"

   Sheril was surprised at her bold request, despite her wavering voice as she asked it.

   Rather impressive of her, he grinned internally. 

   "Are you sure that's a good idea?" The tall Exorcist asked her, and Sheril thought she would drop, her knees were shaking so hard, "you should let someone stay, don't you think?"

   "No, it's alright," Miranda answered, "besides, the Finders have prepared a meal in the dining car, you three should eat, especially Allen."

   Allen's eyes sparkled at the mention of food, and he gladly walked to the door, turning to speak to the others.

   "Well, so long as you've already eaten, yourself," he said, and when she nodded, he continued, "come on, you two trust Miranda, right?"

   "She's not the one we're worried about," Link replied cautiously.

   Enough beating around the bush, you fool, Sheril seethed, we all know I'm the only person you could be referring to.

   But the tall Exorcist stood as well, and nodded politely as he passed Miranda, sparing not even a minuscule look for Sheril. 

   "You seem to be sure, so we won't stop you," the man said, "but you know if you call out to us, we'll be here."

   "Yes, of course," Sheril could hear the warmth in Miranda's voice, "thank you, Noise."

   It was him.

   That's the one.

   That's the one she had feelings for before she met me.

   Recalling their conversation the night before the duel, Sheril felt his blood boiling.

   I know she reassured me that nothing had came of it, but I can't help but feel bitter over it.

   Must be something Desires and I agree on.

   Through the fog of his anger, Sheril saw that the Inspector had now stood as well, and made some motion towards him with his hands.

   Sheril paid close attention to what he said next.

   "You can now remove the Feather over his mouth, but others will remain intact," he explained.

   "Thank you, Link," Miranda whispered, bowing as the three of them finally left the car.

   She remained stock still for a few minutes before taking a tentative step forward, and when she made eye contact with him, he gave her what he hoped was a cheeky look.

   "Oh, you terrible man," she sighed, kneeling in front of him where they had sat him on the floor, placing the bundle between them, "I can't believe you'd do this for me."

   Reaching her arm out to peel the warm paper from his face, she asked him softly, "do I do this slowly, or do you want it done quickly?"

  Well, I'd love for it to be ripped off, he thought, but I want to see what she would do.

   When he gave no answer, Miranda sighed again and began peeling it slowly and methodically. 

   It didn't hurt like a bandage did; whatever was keeping it attached wasn't adhesive, apparently, because it came off smoothly and without pain.

  As soon as his lips were free, he grinned, "that was anticlimactic."

  "Oh? Was it painless?"

  "Completely, in fact," he smiled warmly at her before asking, "so, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

   At his question, she lifted the bundle and began unwrapping it, "I asked the Finders to make you something. I'm not sure how long it takes for you to feel hunger, but I felt so bad for letting this happen..."

   Sheril felt the heat in his blood die down as he looked at the rather meaty sandwich that was being offered to him by Miranda's delicate hands.

   "Oh, but Link left your hands sealed, what a bother," she pouted, perhaps unintentionally. 

   She probably doesn't think she has the capacity to pout, he mused, but I've seen her do it before.

   "You could always feed it to me," Sheril offered, feeling inspiration strike, "sure, sandwiches aren't necessarily the sexiest food to feed someone, but it'll have to do for now."

   Inwardly celebrating his success when her face turned red, Sheril waited for her to decide.

   And he got exactly what he wanted, watching intently as she lifted the construct of bread and meat to his face. 

   "Please don't do anything weird," she whispered, becoming more red the closer she got.

   But to Sheril, it was pointless to do anything 'weird'; she was wearing gloves, and the crusty bread and sloppy preparation were making a mess of his face and clothes.

   When he had eaten the entire thing, Miranda then took out a handkerchief from a pouch at her waist, using it to wipe his face for him, turning ever more red as she went. 

   "I'm sorry that couldn't have been more..." she trailed off, and he dared to fill in the end of her sentence. 

   "Romantic?"

   "Oh, Sheril, don't you realize what danger you're in?" She asked him, concerned.

   "Miranda, my dear, nothing your Order can do will compare to Road's punishments," Sheril tried to maintain a glowing smile, but he knew the expression he wore was downcast. 

   "You say that, but I've heard stories-" she began to argue, just as she did in the alleyway, but was cut off.

   "Darling, I can tell you stories that would make your ears bleed," he told her frankly, "I've seen horrors unimaginable, and a lot of them my own fault."

   Miranda fell silent, and Sheril wasn't sure what she was thinking.

   She has to regret falling for me, he thought, remaining equally as silent, maybe if I do that, this will all be over. 

   I really don't want to, but it's for her safety that she associate with me no longer.

   He had almost solidified his decision to ruin their relationship when Miranda said something completely unexpected. 

   "Let's get off the train," she averted her eyes for a split second before looking at him again, "not now, but when we're as close as we can get to Portugal."

   Blinking in confusion, Sheril lowered his voice to ask her, "why?"

   "So we can find your home," she was clearly trying to suppress a smile, "we know what country it's in, and I've seen it in your-"

   He felt bad for interrupting her a second time, but he couldn't help it, "in my mind? Miranda, I told that was most likely just a fake by Wisely!"

   "And I told you," she began, surprising him with the sudden force, "I know it was real! It was just so, so... so like you."

   "Miranda, darling..." he struggled, feeling something deeply wrong, "what do you mean?"

   "Well, Road was there, and she said she had to destroy the place repeatedly, or your memories would come back," Miranda cringed when she saw the look of pain on his face, "because it was a real place, which is uncommon for 'inner worlds', as Wisely called them."

   "And everyone has one of these?"

   "Well, he showed me my own, as well," Miranda sighed wistfully, "it was lush and green and smelled of mint, but also very empty."

   "And mine was a miserable, disastrous wasteland, I take it?"

   "Yes, but oh, Sheril, just underneath the surface, there were sure signs of what was, what used to be," she reassured him, in a caring, comforting voice as she shuffled closer, "it was close-knit, secluded, but rich with culture, and smelled of lilac, I promise it did."

   There's no way you believe her, is there? Intoned something deep and ferocious from the back of his mind.

   Sheril resisted the urge to reply, knowing anything he said could set Desires off.

   Instead, he spoke to Miranda with what he hoped was a comforting voice of his own.

   "And you'd be willing to find this place for me? To search for it together?"

   "I would," she answered plainly, her brows knitted in a serious expression. 

   "With the excuse that it would be good for humanity if you managed to get rid of me, of course?" He teased her.

   Her serious look unwavering, she responded, "I guess you could say that, couldn't you?"

   "That's the spirit," Sheril laughed and looked down at where she had carefully placed the Feather she had removed from his face, "I imagine your friends would appreciate if you put that back."

   "Oh, right," she picked up the Feather and spread it flat, holding it up to his face.

   Taking one last free breath, Sheril was stunned as Miranda put the paper to his mouth and then pressed down with her hand, smoothing it neatly and with more pressure than he expected. 

   "Be good, okay?" She requested of him without realizing just how dirty it would sound in his ears.

   He watched her with great interest as she stood and walked away, turning at the car door to wave back at him before opening it and stepping out into the wind.

   The door shut with a rattle, and Sheril hoped it was dark enough in the car that no one who entered could see the state he was in.

Chapter Text

    It began when the Angels God had created to watch over Earth in their stead had gotten a little too close to their charges.

    At first, things had ran smoothly; there were so many Angels that there was little jealousy over who spoke to them.

    But as the years went on and humanity lost more and more of what made them human, so too did the Angels become more disconnected from them.

   In the formerly idyllic little village that was the home of Noah, his wife, his sons, and their wives, trouble was brewing that would spell the end of their world.

   It began with the wife of the youngest son, Japeth.

   When she began seeking out Angels with more frequency, many of the villagers thought she just needed advice on some difficulty they didn't understand.

    This couldn't be further from the truth.

  After years of marriage to the youngest grandson of the village patriarch, Japeth's wife was dissatisfied, and she knew she wasn't the only one, having spoken of the subject with Shem's and Ham's wives.

    They felt as though their husbands regarded the village as more important than they were, and had shown no interest in starting families at all.

   So Japeth's wife went out at night, searching out for the Angels that advised their village.

  The first night she did this, she approached cautiously, flinching in fear as the Angel noticed her.

   The thing appeared human, except for a pair of tiny wings and overly large eyes. It spoke in a deep, warm voice and had a black tongue.

   "Yes, my love?" The Angel asked, calling her the same thing it called everyone else, which made her shiver nonetheless.

   Mustering up all her courage, she asked the Angel, "I wish to know what I can do to get my husband to pay attention to me."

   The Angel looked perplexed, and answered, "I'm afraid this I cannot help you with, for I do not understand the concept of love for an individual, only love for all things."

   "Oh, that's so sad," Japeth's wife said, thinking that this sounded like a miserable existence, "would you like my help? I could teach you what little I know..."

   "Then, with our combined knowledge, we can find a solution to your problem," the Angel attempted what it thought was a kind smile.

    So the two of them met in the same spot, at first once a week, then twice, until eventually they were meeting every other night.

    Then Japeth's wife convinced Shem's and Ham's wives to come along, and the Angel told a few of its comrades it thought would be interested in learning about humanity.

   When a few more of the village wives expressed dissatisfaction with their marriages, they were invited to join as well, and in the end, the group consisted of twelve women and twelve Angels.

   Japeth's wife and her Angel were the first amongst their number to realize that the emotions they felt were more intimate than was appropriate, but because they didn't have the words to express that, they instead made love to each other in the human way.

     Soon enough, more of the wives would form relations of this kind with their chosen Angels.

    The spawn of these unholy unions would come to be called Nephilim, and in the end, there would be thirteen of these children, each one twisted, tortured by the circumstances of their birth.

   But Japeth's wife couldn't know that when she gave birth to the first of these thirteen children and gave it the name 'Adam'.

Chapter Text

  Miranda was starting to get more and more nervous the closer they got to Germany's western border.

   They had entered the country safely, even changing train lines a few times, everything they needed facilitated by the Finders. 

   The last time she spoke to Sheril in private, feeding him like the first time, he said they would disembark, just the two of them, outside of Dusseldorf, and now that they were approaching that city swiftly, Miranda felt her anxiety spiking dangerously. 

   What is he planning? What if someone gets hurt? She thought frantically, making her way through the train in the direction of the car he was currently in, Oh, this was a terrible idea!

   Opening the door and steeling herself to step out onto the gangway, she was taken by surprise and gripped the door with a terrified scream as the train came to a sudden halt, almost flinging her from the platform. 

    "What could that have been?" She wondered aloud as she shut that door and hopped to the next, quickly passing through the cars as she headed to the back of the train. 

   Miranda picked up her pace when she heard yelling, swearing, and the distinct sound of metal objects clashing together. 

   He's done something awful, she felt in her heart, and when she made it to the car they were keeping Sheril in, she knew her intuition was right. 

  Sheril had finally gotten tired of pretending he could be bound by them, and was standing in the middle of the car in all his white-clad glory. 

   The three of her friends who had been standing watch over him were on the floor, having apparently been knocked out but not seriously injured, she hoped. 

   "Well, this is... unfortunate," Miranda mumbled, Sheril twisting his head in her direction at the sound.

   "I'm sorry you had to see this part, darling," he frowned, "you see, I have to make it look like you were taken against your will, don't you agree?"

   He really is the scheming type, she reminded herself before nodding in agreement, "in that case, we should go make the car I was sleeping in look as though a struggle occurred?"

    "Exactly so!" Sheril laughed as he passed her at the threshold, "you have a devious little mind, Miranda dear."

  "I'm not sure I should take that as a compliment, or-"

   She cut herself off with a squeak when Sheril picked her up, seating her in the crook of his arm and using his strings to pull them both up onto the top of the train car.

   Once at the top, he kept walking, giving Miranda no time to catch her breath as he lept over the gaps between cars, striding confidently towards the front. 

   "Which one is it, darling?" Sheril asked her as he slowed to a more comfortable pace.

   "The next one over," she gasped for breath, and he hopped down to the gangway, finally setting her down so she could gingerly open the door, muttering, "that was entirely unnecessary."

  "I didn't want you falling off," Sheril smiled, watching as Miranda quietly stepped through the door. 

   The room was empty except for a few bunks, couches, and some tables and chairs, all the furniture in the room being bolted down. 

   All of the bunks were neatly made, as though they weren't being slept in at all, the suitcase on one of the bunks being the only indication that someone had been here. 

   "Where were your other friends sleeping, Miranda?" Sheril asked curiously.

   "Lenalee was in here with me, but she keeps her bed made, like I do," Miranda pointed to the bunk above hers, then turned to point in the direction they came from, "and the others are in the next car over."

   "They've probably split up, one group to check the engine room, one to see what I'm up to," Sheril deduced from the fact that no one was there, "which means we ought to be going before someone returns."

   Miranda lifted the bunk mattress, taking the Time Record from where she had hidden it and pulled the strap over her head, settling it on her shoulder so the Innocence rested at her side.

   After looking at the bunk and thinking about their plan, she then threw the blankets around haphazardly and slapped at the mattress, to give it the appearance that a fight had taken place. 

    "They're never going to believe it, but it wouldn't hurt to try," she turned back to Sheril just as he began loudly crushing some of the bolted-down furniture. 

   Suppressing a laugh, Miranda also pulled down the blanket of the bunk above hers, letting Lenalee's suitcase fall to the floor, and left scuff marks on the floor with her boots.

   Looking around at the hopefully convincing chaos, Miranda was starting to have second thoughts. 

   Should I really be doing this? What if it doesn't work? She thought desperately. 

    What kind of person is he going to be if it does work?

    Does he even have a real personality under there?

    What if so many years of being a Noah has destroyed whatever he once was?

    I could be making a terrible mistake!

    She was suddenly brought out of her thoughts by a gentle touch and her elbow, directing her to the door of the car.

    "I'm sure whatever you're thinking is extremely important, my dear," Sheril was whispering, "but I really think we ought to be leaving."

    "Of course, of course," she agreed anxiously, and he opened the door, stepping out first and looking down the train in either direction, satisfied that they would be unseen before waving for her to join him.

    They were in a heavily wooded area, in the middle of a dark, lonesome night in the German countryside, just like the last time the two of them traveled on foot together.

   "So, uh... should I be screaming?" Miranda asked him as he picked her up again and hopped down from the gangway onto the grass by the side of the tracks.

  She couldn't tell in the darkness, but she thought his cheeks might have been tinged pink as he answered, "if we see your friends again, just say I had your mouth sealed shut."

    Recalling that this was a thing he could do, she nodded, less nervous this time when he carried her into the woods. 

    Shifting a little so she could keep her eyes on the train, Miranda ended up resting her head on his shoulder, and before she knew it, the soft sounds of the forest and the rhythm of his pace had somehow lulled her to sleep.

Chapter Text

    After their escape from the train, Sheril carried Miranda through the night and all of the next day, stopping just before dawn only for him to use his Noah powers to change clothes. 

When Sheril set her down, Miranda looked away shyly, not understanding exactly how the Noah's summoning of clothes worked and not wanting to take risks.

     That is too cute, he thought as he selected something, picturing the outfit in his mind.

    "All done," he whispered close to her ear, making her jump when he stepped in front of her wearing simple traveling clothes, including a rather familiar hat, "ready to go?"

   "You know you don't have to do that," Miranda said nervously as Sheril tried to pick her up again, "I can walk just fine."

  "I'm sure you can, but this will be faster," he frowned, knowing she couldn't see his face the way he was holding her anyway, "you're going to have to submit to being carried."

   Relenting, Miranda managed to fall asleep again, and Sheril basked in the warm sensation, despite the urging of violence from Desires.

   Early on the second day, Sheril finally let her down to walk, keeping an arm linked in hers to pull her up when she tripped, but they still didn't stop until sunset the next day, when Sheril felt they had gone far enough. 

    "Luckily for us, I've brushed up on my wilderness survival skills since the last time we traveled together," Sheril smiled smugly, gathering some firewood and dry tinder for a fire, "we'll stop for an hour or two here, walk until the sun rises, then sleep for a few hours."

   Looking around her, Miranda nodded, then asked him, "is there anything I can do to help?"

   Sheril thought about it, looking at Miranda and taking in what he saw; the fidgeting, the uniform, the Time Record, the dirt on her boots and the smudges on her face, and smiled at her, not a smug smile, but a hopeful one. 

   Then the fire sparked up between them, and Sheril looked down so he could feed it more tinder before catching Miranda's eyes again.

    "Think you can look after the fire while I see what there is to eat around here?"

    "I can try," she answered, sitting beside him and listening intently as he explained what types of kindling he had picked up and what to do if the fire went out.

    "And don't be afraid to call for me loudly if something happens that you can't fix yourself," he added when he got up to look around. 

   "That's going to be everything," she tried to protest, but he put a hand over hers and shook his head.

   "Not so! There are many things that only you can do, Miranda dear," he gave her hand a squeeze before getting up and striding to the edge of the clearing, "I'll be back, hopefully with breakfast!"

   Waving as he went, Sheril slowly wandered around, occasionally looking back to make sure he could see their fire from wherever he was, and keeping his senses open, just in case the Exorcists managed to guess which direction they went.

    Eventually, he came across a full bush of blackberries, flush with harvest and untouched by man or animal, and took off his hat, filling it with juicy berries from the hardy shrub. 

   Crunching through the leaves on the forest floor back to the clearing, Sheril thought about something that hadn't crossed his mind in a long time. 

   She's still seeing only the things she wants to see, he mused, his mood darkening briefly, what are we going to do if her theory is incorrect? If nothing can be done about me?

  What if I can't be human enough for her to truly love? 

  Stopped dead in his tracks by a sudden pain in his stomach, Sheril groaned, knowing that it was Desires' exerting the memory's power over his body. 

    We are human, remember?! He heard the unholy screech in his mind, and he hoped Miranda couldn't see or hear him as he moaned and leaned against a tree, The Clan Of Noah are humanity, and the users of Innocence must die! 

   Trying not to drop the hat full of berries, Sheril whined through gritted teeth, "I don't particularly care anymore, so buzz off!"

   You're lucky I'm willing to wait for a more opportune moment, the Noah chuckled, killing her out here, in the lonely dark, with no witnesses, would be so tasteless, don't you agree? 

   Sheril refused to respond, knowing that Desires knew what he was thinking, anyway; that he would fight the memory every step of the way, if he had to.

   You can try, of course, but one day I will have this Exorcist dead, the voice intoned darkly, and then went silent, the pain in Sheril's stomach subsiding. 

    He waited for a brief moment until he was sure Desires had nothing more to say, then stooped to pick up a few dropped berries that weren't squashed. 

   Trudging back to the clearing, Sheril was relieved to find Miranda warming her hands by a crackling fire, and announced his presence with a soft, "I'm back, my dear."

   Miranda looked up and frowned, brows furrowed as she asked, "are you okay? I thought I saw you head this way, but then you stopped..."

    Damn, she noticed, he thought, then considered making something up before deciding to tell the truth.

    "Oh, I had an argument with Desires, is all," he admitted gloomily, cringing slightly. 

   He saw Miranda flinch, as well, and she whispered in a tremulous tone, "about me?"

   He nodded, unwilling to say anything more, and swallowed a lump in his throat as Miranda hugged herself a little tighter.

  He sat across from her, the two of them on opposite sides of the fire, and handed the hat full of berries over to her, expecting her to grab a handful and draw her hand away again. 

     But instead she took a pouch from her belt and handed it to him with one hand while she took the hat in the other.

     Sheril took the pouch from her, a bemused expression on his face. 

   "I forgot I had these on me," Miranda said hopefully, "I use them for quick energy on missions."

   Opening the pouch, Sheril was curious to see what was inside, slightly surprised when he found a variety of flavored hard candies. 

   "Fascinating," he took out a little green-wrapped candy, "and I'm guessing you also share them with your friends?"

   "Yes, but only the ones that aren't mints, those are mine," Miranda answered, then looked shocked at herself for saying something so selfish. 

   Sheril laughed and put back the candy, picking one with a yellow wrapper instead.

    Finding it to be lemon flavored, Sheril savored it with glee as Miranda ate a few blackberries, then traded the pouch for the hat when she handed it across the fire.

    The two of them sat in silence until Miranda spoke up again, delicately unwrapping a green candy.

   "Do we have to move on so soon?" She fidgeted, a small motion Sheril caught out of the corner of his eye.

    "I'm afraid so, my dear," Sheril sighed in disappointment, knowing that he would have enjoyed just staying here, with her, for as long as he could, "if you want to test your theory, we have to make it to Portugal, before either your friends or my family find us."

    It was fully dark by now, and any little noises in the woods made Miranda's eyes dart in different directions, expecting things to jump out at them from behind the trees.

   "But wouldn't it be safer if we stayed the night here, and continued in the morning?" She suggested quietly, "it's been three days already, and even though you don't get tired quickly, I'm sure you'd like to sleep."

    She is so kind, Sheril mused as he looked into her earnest face, far too kind to someone like me. 

   "You've carried me most of the time we've been out here, after all..." she pointed out hesitantly, and Sheril came up with an idea.

    Hopefully it'll be worth the risk of pissing off Desires...

   "In that case, I'd love to have a little nap, if you can keep watch?" He asked as he stood and approached her where she sat, "you're trained to stay awake as part of your skills with the Time Record, as I recall you saying."

    "Well, yes, I suppose I could try keeping watch for-!" Miranda interrupted herself as he lay down near her legs, using her thighs as though they were a pillow, "Sheril?!"

    "Yes?" He looked up, feeling cheeky, "is something wrong?"

    At first, Miranda looked puzzled, but then she smiled a little, and said, "I would have said yes if you had asked first."

    Unable to look away and hide, Sheril felt his face turn pink, and he could only mutter, "I'll remember that next time," closing his eyes and hoping he wouldn't embarrass himself further.

    He thought he heard a murmured "Goodnight," but he didn't address it, trying to will himself to sleep. 

   When it finally worked and he began drifting off, he felt something gingerly touching his hair, combing through the strands as though they were made of delicate silk.

   His last thought before sleep claimed him was that he didn't deserve the tenderness he was receiving at the hands of a woman that was an enemy he had sworn his life to destroying. 

Chapter Text

   Miranda couldn't help it; as soon as Sheril laid his head in her lap, her first thought was to run her fingers through his hair. 

  I meant it when I said he could have asked, she thought, but then I didn't ask permission to touch his hair! How hypocritical of me...

   But he seemed to be fast asleep, maybe he didn't notice!

   Her furious chain of thought was interrupted by an undignified snore from the man below her, and she put her hand over her mouth in an attempt not to laugh. 

   When she was sure he was still asleep, Miranda moved her hand down to his hair again, marveling at the incredible waves and twists, the deep black bringing to mind a sea of spilled ink.

   He's so proud of it, and rightfully so, Miranda was sure of it, but Wisely said he's actually ashamed of himself, deep down? 

   He doesn't seem to be the type to be inflicted with Catholic guilt, even though he should be. 

   But I can't believe the idea that he doesn't think he's attractive. 

   Feeling her face turn red, Miranda shoved all the swirling thoughts from her mind, turning her focus on keeping her eyes and ears open for any sign of danger in the woods.

          ~*~*~*~

    Blinking in the bright daylight, Miranda awoke the next morning to find Sheril had already gotten up, and had rested her gently against the tree instead of waking her.

   The second thing she noticed was the smell of fish roasting over a fire, and when her eyes adjusted to the sun, she saw that Sheril was across from her, cooking some fish he had caught and skewered.

   Noticing that she was awake, he greeted her, "good morning, darling. It seems we slept through the night."

   "I'm sorry, I didn't mean for us to lose time like this!"

  Chuckling, Sheril plucked the sticks from the ground and stood up, then said, "I hope you don't mind eating as you walk?"

   Miranda nodded and made sure she had all of her things before standing, where Sheril handed her a fish before turning to kick dirt over the fire until it was completely extinguished. 

   "Be careful of the bones," he added as he looked back at her, "cooking fish like this more Tyki's thing."

   "Where did you even find them?" Miranda asked curiously.

   "There's a river nearby," he answered, "we should be well out of Germany, so it shouldn't be the Rhine, I hope."

  Nodding in agreement, feeling like she would just be irritating if she apologized again, she followed him, nibbling delicately on the fish as they went. 

   "Honestly, I don't enjoy cooking like this," Sheril confessed, "but it will do in a pinch."

   Smiling warmly, Miranda responded, "I've actually never eaten like this before, so this will be a new experience for me."

   "Well, that I am glad of," Sheril smiled back. 

   The two of them went on in silence for some time, eating fish and disposing of the parts not fit for consumption by tossing them into the woods. 

   "And now, if you don't mind being carried again, we might move a little faster?" Sheril asked for her permission when they were finished with their breakfast. 

   Miranda looked into the forest ahead of them; they weren't following any path, the way strewn with rocks and fallen logs and possibly vicious predators, and decided to allow herself to be carried. 

   Opening her pouch and removing a purple colored candy, she handed it out to him and said, "here, this might help."

   Watching the softening of his face, Miranda's heart skipped a beat when he took the candy, touching her fingers as he did so, then unwrapped and popped it into his mouth before stuffing the wrapper in his pocket. 

   Then she braced herself for contact as he lifted her in his arms and began walking, softly and gently through the trees as he tried not to jostle her too much.

   Miranda leaned her head on his shoulder again, so she could keep an eye out in the direction they came from, just in case.

   She wanted to strike up a conversation, to keep herself from falling asleep, but she wasn't sure what to say. 

   Well, I do have one thing I want to ask, but I'm not sure if he'll consider it offensive or not...

   "If you don't mind, I was wondering..." she began hesitantly, "do you... ever go to church?"

   Sheril didn't stop moving, but his silence was eerie to Miranda, just the same, and she was about to apologize when she heard his low voice close to her ear.

    "I do attend a magnificent little Catholic church, for Tricia's sake," he whispered, and Miranda could detect a hint of nerves in his voice, as though he were wary of bringing up his wife.

   Oh, I am such a horrible person! I keep forgetting about his wife, of course that was a terrible question to ask! Frantic thoughts filled Miranda's mind, and she opened her mouth to apologize, as she had her entire life, when Sheril went on.

   "Though I must admit, I'm afraid I don't deserve to be there," he sighed, "she's been so good to me, after everything I've done behind her back!"

    "I'm so sorry, I know you-"

    "Please, don't blame yourself for something that is my own selfish fault!" He interrupted her sternly, "I shouldn't have dragged you into this, and now it's too late to change anything."

    Miranda thought back to the day they met, the series of events that could be described as a date, the hedge maze where he arranged to have her let go, at the apparent protest of his fellow Noah. 

  She recalled his sly delivery of gifts on her missions, including a simple watch he had personally inscribed, and their next meeting, in Ireland.

   And then the ensuing string of murders in her hometown, just to get her attention, on the condition that he would stop if she traveled with him for a while.

    I really let myself forget how wicked he can be, didn't I?

    But I just had to fall for him anyway, despite all of that. What a clumsy thing to do!

   What followed was a terrible struggle it broke her heart to think about; the attack by Road, awakening on the Ark to more pain, more suffering at the spiteful girls hands, just like that day when her Innocence activated. 

   Their first kiss, then a romantic dinner, the duel between them, surrounded by her friends and his family alike, and the frantic escape afterwards all went by in a terrifying whirlwind.

    The watch crushed by a vehemently jealous little girl.

    She was hardly able to pull herself together, the blaze of emotions soul-crushing and tragic, and she thought they would never see each other again. 

   But here they were, and Miranda felt as though she had made an awful mistake. 

   What am I going to do if this isn't right? What if nothing will fix this? If he can't be saved, what am I supposed to do? 

   And when did I start thinking of this as 'saving' him? Am I developing a complex?!

   Oh, it's too late for that... she groaned internally, not realizing she had subconsciously gripped the man in question tighter, fingers curling into the front of his shirt.

   "Miranda? You've been silent for some time," she heard Sheril say gently in her ear, "are you all right?"

    Clutching his shirt, she buried her face in his shoulder and sobbed, barely noticing his grip tightening around her waist and knees.

    Try as she might, Miranda could do nothing to stem the flow of tears as she cried, "what if this is all wrong? What if we're making a terrible mistake?! This is going to have disastrous consequences, for the both of us, for everyone around us, for everyone on earth, we could-!"

    "Breathe, Miranda, it's alright, just breathe," he whispered soothingly, and she nearly jolted when she felt a hand rubbing her back in circles, "we won't know until we get there, so relax, for me?"

   She drew in a deep breath, trying to do as he asked, but instead of calming her down, the rush of cold air into her lungs made her anxiety boil over, and she began crying in earnest. 

   What started as weeping grew into wailing, then screaming, louder than she ever had in her entire life, even when she had lived the same day thirty times. 

   Even when she had lost her one-hundredth job.

   Even when her mother had abandoned her, alone in their apartment at the age of eight. 

   Even when her father died, just weeks before then.

   She screamed until she thought her pitch couldn't get any higher, then she forced herself to go a pitch above that, until her voice was hoarse from the effort. 

   When she had screamed so hard her whole body hurt, she gave up, her voice slowly becoming quieter and quieter before giving out entirely, still breathing heavily, no sound but pained gasping from dry and empty lungs.

   When Miranda's head stopped spinning, she realized that Sheril had stopped walking, and she looked at the spot her tears had left on his shirt, along with a gross string of snot.

    Raising her arm to wipe at it with the sleeve of her uniform, she muttered a soft, little, nearly inaudible, "I'm sorry."

   "Well, barring the fact that I didn't think you could achieve that kind of volume," Sheril said seriously, continuing their forward movement, "I'm proud of you! I love to have a good scream every know and again, helps clear the mind of clutter, I think."

   "You, screaming?" Miranda asked, still trying to clean his shirt, now curious as to what he was talking about. 

   But my mind does feel clearer, so...

   "I'm surprised at you, dear," Sheril laughed, and Miranda felt a little teased, "after all we've been through, you haven't noticed my Aura of suave masculinity is just a projection?"

   His steps faltered slightly as he said this, and Miranda moved to look around at what he could have tripped on.

   Seeing nothing, she asked him, "are you alright?"

   "It was nothing," he replied with a wince, then seemingly changed his mind, "ah, truthfully, it's that Desires doesn't appreciate whenever my confidence happens to waver."

    Several different incidents during their first journey together came to mind at once, and Miranda understood what he was talking about.

   "Wisely said all of this to me, on the Ark," Miranda began, "about your self-image, about your face, about your arrogance being a cover-up for a sense of shame..."

   "Oh, how brutal, that he would paint such a picture of me!" Sheril sighed dramatically, "well, I will neither confirm nor deny, lest we risk Desires having something to say while I'm carrying such precious cargo."

    Miranda giggled at the sudden flourish in his vocabulary, before he looked at her to ask her something. 

   "When did Wisely have the time to speak to you, by the way?"

   "Oh, when Road punched me, in the cell," she answered, feeling him wince again, "he appeared in my dreams, in a place he said was my 'inner world', something that was personal to me, and that everyone has one."

   "And he showed you something he claims was my own inner world?"

   "He didn't claim as much himself, but Road was there," Miranda related the details as she could remember them, "and she said it was yours, and your home."

   He thought a moment before asking her, "in a little valley?"

   Miranda kept talking, the details coming to her clearly as she focused on imagining the place as it should have been, rather than the terrors that she had seen.

    "The valley walls were gently curved into a wide, soft shape, the space wide enough to contain a forest, and the church was right next to it."

   The more she spoke, the slower Sheril walked, until he was barely moving at all.

 "There was a hill, with a fence marking the boundary, that appeared to be the biggest property besides the church grounds."

   She couldn't tell how he felt; even when she leaned to get a good look at his face, it was blank.

   "And the house on the hill, with the little barn and work shed, where you raised dairy animals and produced fine cheeses?"

   "And Tyki?" He suddenly spoke up, startling her a little, "what was there of Tyki?" 

   "I'm sorry, Sheril, but I didn't see him," he looked so miserable and pale that she felt her heart sink, "Road said she was covering up anything she didn't want you to know. "

   She felt him trembling then, and underneath her hand his heartbeat quickened noticeably in panic, and she knew it was her turn to comfort him. 

   Miranda adjusted herself as well as she could so that she could wrap her arms around his neck, letting him bury his face in her shoulder. 

    She was surprised to feel warm tears, his arms tightening around her as he grieved deeply. 

   This time, Miranda didn't worry about permission as she began stroking his hair, occasionally running a finger through the coils, while Sheril shed silent tears into her black uniform. 

   "It's okay, it's okay," she whispered, doing her best with what little experience she had at being comforting, "you can scream, too, if you like."

   Sheril hiccuped, another undignified sound, and muttered, "I think I can manage without screaming, this time."

   "Want to talk about it?"

   His sudden lurch forward made Miranda gasp, and she craned her neck to look in the direction they were going in.

   There was a break in the trees, and she could see the bright light of the sun shining through the shadows of the woods.

   Stumbling, Sheril crossed the last of the logs and rocks, passing through the break and into the light. 

    It was a larger clearing than the last, and he very slowly let Miranda down from his hold, and they supported each other to a patch in the clearing that had obviously been used for a fire.

   The two sat down heavily on the ground, exhausted from the walk and the emotional turmoil. 

   "Well, we've been at this for three days, so if my thinking is correct, we should be just on the opposite border of Belgium," Sheril sighed, and Miranda looked at his face. 

    He looked more tired than she had ever seen him, and she wondered if his Noah powers weren't working as they should, when he smiled wryly at her and asked, "something the matter with my face?"

   "Just... wondering if you wanted to tell me what was wrong," she said truthfully, "but you don't have to share if you're afraid I won't like it."

   "Oh, my dear, how kind of you," he looked down at the ground, then closed his eyes before going on, "you see, what you said, about Road and my memories, reminded me of two very important things."

   Miranda stared harder, paying close attention as he went on.

   "Nothing to do with my home, I'm afraid, but after that," he shifted closer to her, "when I first awakened, Road told me that Desires had trouble contradicting anything that was willed by her."

   "It doesn't seem that way now," Miranda pointed out. 

   "Ah, yes, because she encouraged me to fight her, to resist her, even though that in itself seems contradictory," Sheril looked back up, and the both of them scooted even closer. 

    Miranda nodded, "She seems to be a very... multifaceted person."

   "Oh, she is!" He said, sounding pained, like he had been run through with a knife, "dearest Miranda, my deepest apologies, but I cannot help but love her still!"

    Miranda was stung by this statement, the knife having turned on her, but she only asked him, "and what of the second thing?"

    Clearing his throat, Sheril continued, "for the next few days after my awakening, Road bullied me intensely, in order to remove my memories and let Desires take over."

    Miranda only looked at him.

    "But the one thing I couldn't forget was my little Tyki," he stared wistfully into the distance, "even when she threatened to find and kill him- we had been separated somehow, you see- I couldn't get him out of my mind."

   "You must have made an incredible older brother," Miranda rested a hand on top of his own, where it was clutching his left thigh in frustration.

   "I so hope that I did," Sheril sighed again, "but now, in this time, I really must stop bothering him with my anxieties. After all, what kind of older brother would I be if I couldn't carry my own burdens?"

   Something about what he said shook Miranda to the core, and she felt the tears well in her eyes again.

   She leaned against his side, wrapping one of his long, lithe hands in both of hers.

   They're so cold, she thought, I didn't even know he could get cold like this. 

   Of course he can! His body is as human as mine! And his heart is, too!

   I can't let any doubts consume me anymore! This has to be it, this has to be everything!

   This is the last time I am telling myself this!

   Some form of drunken impulse washed over her, suffusing her veins with a burning fire that was as empowering as it was frightening, and before she could stop herself, she reached up to put a hand on the back of his neck, pulling him down into a kiss.

   She wasn't quite sure what she was doing, but it must have been something right, because he moved both of his hands to clasp her on both sides of her face. 

   She had no idea how long the kiss lasted, but Sheril must have noticed a change in her breathing, and he broke it off, looking awestruck, himself. 

   "Interesting way to cheer a man up," he teased her lightly. 

   "And after you reminded me that you're a married man, too!" Miranda realized as she came back to her senses, "awful of me, just terrible, absolutely dreadful..."

   "Miranda, dear, you know which of us is worse, now please come keep me warm," Sheril cooed, "it's a cold, cold February day, and I'm afraid I selected exactly the wrong outfit."

   A little unnerved by his flirty tone, she replied, "can't you change again, like when we set out?"

   "I'm sure if I do that too many times, the family will notice it."

   "They will? How does that work?" Miranda asked, not sure if he was telling the truth or not. 

   "I'm so glad that you're curious, dear, but don't you want to take a nap? We've been at emotional confessions all day!"

   Miranda looked at where he was sitting, braiding his hair into a tight plait and stuffing it into his hat, so it wouldn't get dirty as he laid back upon the ground. 

  She wanted to ask if he thought it was safe enough here, but decided against it.

   He's right about the emotional day we've been having, she thought, laying next to him on the ground, where he raised an eyebrow at her but said nothing. 

   Pulling in close before laying flat as a board, Miranda tried to empty her mind of everything she had learned, but one thing kept coming back no matter how hard she ignored it. 

   "Oh, she is! Dearest Miranda, my deepest apologies, but I cannot help but love her still!"

   Eventually, she gave up, and turned away from Sheril so he wouldn't chance to see her anguished tears.

Chapter Text

  Soon after Adam's birth, the leader of the Angels in her village called him, "he who would hate God most," and Japeth's wife didn't understand it, but she was too afraid to question it, either.

   Despite the gray pallor to his brown skin, Japeth had no doubt that the child was his, and so it was with the other twelve women and their husbands, so eager to imagine their bloodlines continued they were blinded to the truth.

   But with each child came a proclamation from an Angel, delivered far from the mother's husband, and with each, Japeth's wife's dread grew.

    The second woman bore a child of hardy constitution who she named Tryde, "who would judge others," according to the Angel. 

   Shem's wife had a son who was quick to laughter, even as a newborn, who she named Joyd, "who would be pleasing to others."

   The next womans child clung closely to whoever was nearest available, and she named him Desires, "who would crave others."

   The fifth woman gave birth to a silent child who stared deeply into one's eyes, and he was named Wisely, "who would know all."

   The child after that was strange and moody, and was named Fiedla, "who would corrode all."

   The seventh child was stern with others, but not unfair, and was called Mercym, "who would forgive all."

   And soon after, the birth of the eighth child nearly killed his mother with the size of him, and she named him Wrathra, "who would forgive no one."

   With the ninth child, a girl was finally born, and there was much delight and rejoicing, and her mother named her Road, "who would see into dreams," the Angel claimed. 

   Ham's wife bore a pair of twins that she first called Bondom, who were soon named Jas and Dev by the other women, and "who were born tangled."

   The woman after her bore another girl, who she named Lustol, "who would love herself."

    And the last woman bore a child so sensitive to light that it never left their hut unless completely covered, to block out the sun, who she named Mightra, "who would be most capable."

   This took place over the course of several years, and by the time Adam was twelve and Mightra, only two, Japeth's wife thought they were safe and sound, their deceit undetected by the villagers, and she breathed a sigh of relief. 

      Of course, it wasn't meant to last.

       ~*~*~*~

    Some time after Adam turned twelve, he was tasked with the care of the other children, especially Wisely, who was fragile and prone to headaches, and Mightra, whose sensitivity to light prevented him from going outdoors. 

    "And I'm the oldest, so they put me in charge," he whispered to Desires, who carried little Lustol as he followed Adam, who was carrying Mightra.

    "I think Tryde is smarter than you," Desires replied with a laugh, "you're really pretty, though."

    Adam swished his long, silky black hair around, making Desires laugh again, and said, "thank you! Now, should we play a game?"

   "He was making fun of you, Adam," Joyd appeared by them suddenly, with a sweet smile that distracted Adam from what he had said.

  "Oh Joyd, I know you're the cutest person here, don't worry," Adam tried to console him, but the gathered children only giggled.

  "Adam, you goof, that's got nothing to do with what I said!"

  "Oh well," Adam brushed him off, "we were about to play a game! What would you like to play, Joyd?"

   But before he could answer, a sudden screaming and shouting was heard outside their hut, and Adam shushed the children before tiptoeing to the entrance to see what was the matter. 

   Just then, an Angel rushed into the room, followed by another, with a few of the human mothers behind them.

   They were picking up the children and leaving the hut, panic-stricken looks on their faces as they went.

   Adam recognized the Angel that was his father when the entity picked him up and cradled him in its arms, following the rest of the Angels out into the desert. 

   "What's going on?" Adam tried to ask even as he was choking on sand, "are we under attack by bandits?"

   "No, my child," the Angel intoned, and Adam heard the voice like a ringing in his ears, "one of the mothers has been overwhelmed with remorse, and has confessed the truth of your parentage to her lawful husband."

    Adam looked into his human-like face, then back down at his own skin, and whispered, "that's not good, is it?"

   "Do you understand the severity of the situation?"

   Adam nodded, not actually sure what was going on, but if the Angels were afraid, then that was quite worrying, indeed. 

   The sounds of angry and terrified human voices followed them into the desert, and when they had gone far enough that the screams had faded, they met an Angel bearing news.

   "Our lord God has delivered a message to Noah," this Angel announced, "the descendants of his original humans have become corrupted by hatred and greed, and he has named the Angel spawn the successors of his will."

   The children and their mothers blinked curiously as the lead Angel addressed the messenger.

   "What will our lord God do about this hatred?"

   "Our lord plans on flooding the earth, destroying all those who would hate the Angel spawn, and has ordered Noah to build an Ark, so that those deemed worthy may survive the great waters that come."

   The mothers sighed with relief as the Angels nodded sensibly, but Adam struggled in his father's arms to face the messenger.

  "What about our families? The womenfolk, the other children-"

   "Are being handled by Shem, Ham, and Japeth, who have chosen to forgive their wives and protect the children born to them," the Angel answered, "those who are as kind and understanding as they are will be spared the floodwaters."

   Adam wasn't sure the Angel was being truthful, but he didn't know how to argue his opinion, so he remained silent but wary as the group surged forward, led by the messenger.

   The faster they ran, the harder it was to hear over the wind, and Adam had to strain to listen when his Angel asked, "and what are our orders?"

   "We are to take turns at two tasks, alternating between raising the children to defend themselves, and assisting Noah with the construction of the Ark."

   The Angel nodded, and they fell into an uneasy silence, not a sound to be heard except the whipping of the desert winds, until some time after nightfall, when the travelers reached a tiny oasis. 

   "This is where we shall make shelter, for the time being," the lead Angel decided, and Adam was once again left in charge of the little ones as the mothers and Angels began to gather what meager resources they could.

    The children all gathered closely next to him, especially Desires and sweet little Road, who was only five, as he cradled Lustol and Mightra in each arm, and Tryde held the tiny twins.

   Adam felt a tug on one arm, and looked down only to instantly lock eyes with innocent Road, who asked him, "what are we running for?"

   But before Adam could answer, Joyd butted in, "because the villagers don't like us anymore."

   Road scrunched up her nose in an expression that suggested she was going to start crying, and whispered, "what did we do?"

  Adam was turning to reprimand Joyd, when Wrathra spoke up, "well, I didn't like them, either!"

  "Wrathra! That's enough!" Adam was aware that the children were getting nervous, but he didn't know what to do; he had settled arguments before, but nothing quite like this, "and you, Joyd!"

   "But what if it is because they don't like us?" Desires piped up with tears in his eyes, "did we do something?"

   "It's because our fathers aren't really our fathers," Fiedla pointed out, caustic in tone, "that's bad."

   "The village men are that proud of their bloodlines?" Wisely said, eerily mature for his age, Adam thought. 

   "It doesn't matter why we're out here!" Adam tried to diffuse the conversation, accidentally raising his voice far more than he wanted to, "you heard the Angel! God is flooding the world, and we get to survive! Let's do what we can to make sure we deserve this, and that means no arguing!"

   Still so trusting of their eldest friend, the children nodded and quieted themselves, and even the babies grew still and calm. 

    "If we just listen patiently and learn what we can, maybe everybody we love can come with us, and we all get to live," he whispered, and the children nodded, "who do we want to stay with us on the Ark?"

   "All our mothers," Tryde answered.

   "And our Angels," Wisely whispered.

   "Granpa Noah!" Road beamed delightedly.

   "And Shem, Ham, and Japeth, too," Joyd laughed.

   "And every animal, since they didn't do anything to deserve this," Desires added.

   And they talked through the night, about who they would rescue and what the Ark would look like, and the powers such a magical place would have, and eventually, the little children fell asleep, everyone wrapped in each other's arms underneath a canopy of stars.

Chapter Text

    They didn't see any towns until they left Belgium behind for France, where Sheril bade Miranda stay on the edge of the forest so he could find her proper traveling clothes. 

   "We can't be seen together with you in your uniform, after all," he explained solemnly, and she nodded, even though she'd rather not be left alone.

   He didn't take long, returning with a gray and green traveling gown, a pair of women's trousers, a rucksack for her to carry her belongings in.

   "You must have stolen them from somewhere," Miranda pointed out, "if you had any money on hand, we wouldn't have avoided human civilization for so long."

    "Absolutely true," Sheril laughed, making Miranda sigh, "I'm going to grab a few more things, if you'd like to change in peace while I'm gone?"

   "Please, try not to take anything that isn't absolutely necessary?" She asked, knowing it was futile.

   "I'll see what I can do," Sheril winked as he turned and walked back towards the town.

   Miranda waited until he was out of sight before quickly removing her uniform and dressing herself as well as she could, despite knowing she was missing a few layers and not understanding the fashion of the French. 

   Trust him to grab something this fancy, she thought, it's clearly not meant for traveling on foot. 

   I wonder if I can fit the trousers on underneath the skirt? No, best leave them in the rucksack in case of emergency. 

  It'll have to do, I guess. 

  Miranda sighed again, reflecting on the last few days of their journey. 

   I know I shouldn't let it get to me, what he said about his feelings for Road, but I can't help but feel this pain in my heart because of it.

   After all the things she's done, he still...

   Pushing back tears, she focused on watching for his return, and it wasn't long before Sheril walked out of town again, this time with a bedroll and two travel cases, one shaped like a musical instrument.

   "Someone's instrument, Sheril? Really?" She asked incredulously, but he kept his face still as stone.

   "It'll come in handy, you'll see," he assured her, "now, shall we move on?"

   So the two of them continued, Miranda starting to doubt again, in spite of what she had told herself in the woods a few days ago.

   He's always doing something new that undermines my resolve, she thought, should I just ignore these things as particular quirks of his, or treat them as a serious problem?

   Or am I enjoying the fact that he's such a bizarre person?

    Oh, Miranda, just focus on making it to Portugal, she shook her head to empty it of her anxious thoughts and caught up with Sheril in a few steps.

             ~*~*~*~

    Two days later, they were in the woods again, eating fish Sheril had caught from a nearby river.

   Miranda felt as though the mood had turned sour, somehow, and she hoped it wasn't about their heartfelt conversation a few days ago. 

   Did I say too much? Did I force him to say things he didn't want to?

  Or maybe he's contending with Desires' influence on him, and my presence isn't helping much...

  Quick, distract him with something! She thought frantically before blurting out;

   "What sort of instrument do you play?"

   Sheril looked up at her, taken aback by the sudden question before grinning smugly. 

   "Well, the one I have here is French-made, of course, even though I'd prefer a Portuguese Guitarra or an Italian Mandolin," he explained animatedly, clearly excited that she asked, "and I'm not too shabby at the accordion, either, as well as the Portuguese concertina."

   Miranda wished she could have been surprised, but it seemed in-character for him to profess a talent for so many things. 

   "That's amazing! I could never learn how to do such a thing," Miranda sighed wistfully as Sheril took out the guitar and began tuning it.

   "Ah well, not everyone has to be a musician," Sheril laughed, but it wasn't as energetic as it had been before, "it's an incredible talent to have."

   Miranda felt herself lurch forward slightly as she asked without hesitation, "are you okay?"

   Sheril looked down at the guitar in his hands and strummed a few half-hearted notes, not meeting her eyes. 

   She didn't want to push him if he'd rather not tell her, but before she could say anything, he opened his mouth to speak. 

  "It's just that, the closer to Portugal we get, the more I find myself with a splitting migraine," he admitted with a wince.

   "Oh no, is there anything I can do?"

    When Sheril's lips curled into a frown, she almost forgot what they were talking about, thinking to herself, Even his frown is elegant.

    But she pulled herself to her feet and went around to his side of the fire, and he quickly placed the guitar in its case as she sat beside him, gently taking one of his hands in hers to rub his knuckles with her thumb.

   He looked slightly shocked until his face softened significantly, and he closed his eyes as he leaned against her shoulder. 

   "Tell me about your childhood," he whispered, a tiny voice Miranda never expected out of such a talkative man.

  She thought back to her time on the Ark, when Road asked her the same thing in much more malicious terms.

  It felt so weird, being the one someone else was leaning on, but at the same time, it felt right for them to be there like that. 

  So Miranda began the story much the same way she did then.

   "My dear father was a bricklayer, and my mother was a seamstress," she spoke lowly, having cried all the tears she could a long time ago, "he was a drunkard, but he never laid a hand on us."

   Sheril made a humming noise to indicate that he was listening. 

   "But my mother was resentful anyway, and it made her cold and distant," Miranda swallowed hard, "when he died in an accident on the job, just after I turned eight, my mother left me alone and never came back."

    "Oh Miranda, how awful!" Sheril leaned back to look at her, "how did you even survive after that?"

    She wondered briefly if she should be offended by his phrasing, but then she thought about everything she knew about him, and decided it must be something to do with his inability to survive with no family. 

    This man can't exist without someone close to him...

   "I managed to scrape by in my family's apartment for a year before being discovered," she continued, "no one cared to look for poor, little Miranda Lotto, who had no talents to speak of, especially not her mother's skill for dressmaking."

    "Miranda, you poor dear! That's terrible!"

   "But the schoolteacher who found me campaigned for me to be able to live in the schoolhouse until I was thirteen," Miranda sighed, "around that time was when they thought I should start working."

   "And this didn't go very well for you, did it?" He asked softly, "you know, all of this sounds vaguely familiar?"

    Turning to look at him, it felt strange for Miranda to be looking down into his eyes instead of up, and she thought about when she told Road the same story. 

   Oh.

   That's right.

   "I told Road when we were inside your 'inner world', so maybe you heard us then?"

   Sheril squinted his eyes at her and laughed, low and melodious, before saying to her, "I guess I have no choice but to believe you."

   "I'd appreciate that, actually," Miranda laughed back and marveled at his pink face. 

    Sitting up straight again, Sheril picked up the guitar and delightedly began showing her the notes, playing progressively more difficult chords until they were too tired to keep their eyes open, then the laid out the bedroll and slept closely together. 

Chapter Text

 "That utter asshole!" Lavi shouted into the moonless night, "after all the faith she put in him, this is how he repays her?!"

  "I knew he was only pretending to be caught," Allen grumbled, still irritated by how easily he was knocked aside, "next time we'll have to be more alert to trickery."

   It was three weeks after Sheril's escape from the train, taking Miranda with him, and tensions were running high amongst the Exorcists as they only got more and more lost.

   "Are you sure we're headed in the right direction?" Krory asked in exhaustion, "you said he was a politician in Portugal, right?"

   "Yeah! He's always in the news for some reason or other," Lavi repeated, having said this many times in the past few weeks, "if they're still traveling on foot, they'll be going that way, I'm sure if it!"

   "We could take a train," Link pointed out.

   "It'll take too long! We'd have to call Headquarters, get told by Komui to go there first, while he wastes time arranging a Finder team, who'll waste time arranging transportation, letting that rat get way ahead of us!" Lavi detailed with mounting frustration. 

   It seemed as though even the forest was listening in the momentary silence, before Allen pointed out, "but I can't live on just berries and fish anymore! Tell him, Krory!"

   "I could stand to have a nice meal," his fellow parasite-type agreed, "there haven't even been any Akuma around for me to drink from..."

   "This long stretch of woods with no villages in sight is pretty eerie," Lenalee pointed out, "we don't even know which country we're in anymore!"

   "Allen, what about the Ark?" Noise asked, and everyone turned to him, but he waved his hands nervously.

   "I thought about that! But I don't know where any of the Portugal doors are, so we'd have to go back to the Order and leave from there anyway," Allen scratched his nose sheepishly. 

  "Ugh, it's better than nothing," Lavi muttered and stomped off.

  "Let's find a village and ask where the nearest train station is," Noise suggested, and when the group agreed with much grumbling, they followed Lavi into the night. 

      ~*~*~*~

  "That woman probably went with him willingly," Kanda sneered as they settled into two booths across from each other in the train car, "if she likes him so much."

    Letting Lenalee and Noise do the talking, they managed to get space on the train for the seven of them, and they were on their way to England from somewhere in southern Germany. 

   "She would've..." Lenalee hesitated, horror and sadness in her voice, "she would've turned into a Fallen One."

    Allen recalled with sharp clarity the terror of discovering Suman Dark, one of the many terrifying things him and Lenalee went through together, and his apparent death at the hands of Tyki Mikk that he went through alone. 

  "Nobody would have gotten off that train alive if that happened," Allen said solemnly, earning a look from Lavi.

   The group became pensive for a moment, except for a confused Timothy, but before he could say anything, Noise gently shook his head, and he remained quiet. 

   Finally, an impatient Kanda raised his voice, "so, if you believe that woman-"

   "You know her name!" Allen, Lenalee, and Lavi all shouted at once.

   Glaring at the three of them, Kanda begrudgingly corrected, "-Miranda didn't go willingly, what exactly did he do to carry her off?"

   "There was sign of a struggle on her bunk," Krory reminded him. 

   "Not good enough," he said gruffly.

   "Why not?" Lavi asked incredulously. 

   Shaking his head, Kanda folded his arms and leaned back in his seat, "because we would have heard it. She certainly screams loud enough, when she wants to."

   No one could think of anything else, and the atmosphere began to grow tense again, until Lenalee recalled something Miranda had told her. 

   Shuddering at the thought, Lenalee cleared her throat before announcing, "he has some kind of manipulative powers. Remember what he did to Lavi?"

   "When he flung me through the air with invisible strings?" Lavi pouted, "what an asshole."

   Nodding, Lenalee continued, "according to Miranda, he can do a lot with those strings, including sealing people's mouths shut."

  "So he could have bound her and carried her off like that?" Kanda concluded, "Seems plausible."

  Shooting him an irritated look, Lenalee went on, "now that that's settled, what next?"

   "We stop at Headquarters to eat and refresh, hopefully without any higher-ups noticing, and discreetly ask someone where the Portugal door is," Allen nodded, looking determined. 

   "I'll ask Komui, he should have the doors on record," Lenalee offered, "but it bears repeating that we have to be as quick and quiet as possible!"

   Settling in for the ride home, everyone thinking private thoughts about the matter at hand, they discussed a game plan for getting in and out of headquarters with food and a destination. 

Chapter Text

   As they finally crossed into Portugal, Sheril's headache was so terrible he thought he would die before they found the Valley Miranda was so determined was real.

   He was surprised he could even see, the pain was so severe, and the bright sunlight wasn't helping. 

   The only thing that brought him any relief was to put some distance between himself and Miranda. 

   He knew that this was hurting her, he could see it in her eyes whenever he chanced a glance in her direction. 

   But Desires understood what they were up to, and wasn't going to let them have their way, despite claiming he wouldn't kill Miranda without her friends as witnesses. 

   "Shit," Sheril muttered unconsciously, drawing her attention. 

  "Does it hurt?" She asked quietly, and it felt like he was being jabbed in the skull at every word, "we can stop and rest if you want."

  Sucking in a breath between his teeth, he answered, "it wouldn't help," and said nothing further as he stomped heavily through the woods.

  For the next hour, it was silent, and Sheril could tell that Miranda was falling behind, getting caught on branches and stumbling over rocks.

   What do I do? Sheril thought through near-debilitating pain, this is going to slow us down, but if I try to carry her, I'm going to pass out. 

   He kept on marching, occasionally stopping to let Miranda catch up, knowing it was futile and that their mission was doomed. 

   "At least no one will find us after we die out here," Sheril muttered, hoping Miranda wouldn't hear him.

   "Oh wow, that was your plan? Fucking dying?" A dearly familiar voice taunted him from the trees.

   Raising his head to look around, Sheril whined, "Tyki? I didn't think I was at the point of hallucination already!"

   He didn't realize he had stopped in his tracks until he felt Miranda's hand on his back, "no, I heard him, too! How could he have found us?!"

   Examining his surroundings, Sheril spotted his brother through the darkness, and headed in that direction, in spite of Miranda's protests that "it might be a trap!"

   But as they approached the man and the fog in Sheril's mind became a little clearer, he registered Tyki's stone-faced expression and sighed.

   Now standing a mere three feet from his brother, he asked plaintively, "what are you doing here? Is Road nearby?"

   Puffing away at one of his noxious cigarettes, Tyki replied, "if I went home without you, she would have kicked my ass."

   "I seriously doubt it," Sheril retorted, and turned to look at Miranda hiding behind his back, "it's just Tyki, he's no threat."

   Rolling his eyes, Tyki raised his voice slightly to say, "I knew you'd be coming to Portugal, so I've been patrolling the border for several weeks now."

  "So you can catch us and take us to Road?" Sheril raised an eyebrow skeptically. 

  A tug on his sleeve told him Miranda was getting nervous. 

  "Are you suggesting I couldn't come up with a plan like this on my own?" Tyki quipped back, "that I'm some kind of idiot?"

   Taken aback by the sudden aggression, Sheril answered, "the last time we spoke about your level of education, you said it didn't matter anymore."

   "You're right, it doesn't," Tyki sneered, "you're just naturally more clever, more cunning, more details-oriented than I am."

  Feeling Miranda cringe behind him, Sheril could only nod and try to placate him, "you're right, it was rude of me to question you. Can I rely on your help while I suffer an awful migraine?"

   "Sheril, what if he's just taking us to Road?"

   Humming slightly, not quite sure of Sheril's sincerity, Tyki said, "are you looking for the place we came from?"

   "Miranda is persistent that this sweet little valley exists, despite my insistence that it's just a projection of Wisely's," he explained, and Miranda finally stepped forward.

   "We can't ask him for help," she whispered as she caught his eyes, "he might be trying to sabotage us!"

   "You don't think it's possible that both of us want to be free from the Noah?"

   This got both Sheril and Miranda's attention, and as she shook her head in disbelief, he asked, "are you sure?"

   "That's why you're going to this place, isn't it?" Tyki finished his smoke, letting it burn into ashes that drifted away on the breeze, "do you think it could work for me, too?"

   Miranda opened and closed her mouth several times, and Sheril snickered before saying, "I don't see why not?"

   Looking at him sharply before turning back to Tyki, Miranda nodded, "okay, but please try to be normal, at least?"

   "Sure, 'normal', okay," Tyki drawled, "you both look like you need to be carried the rest of the way."

  "Not at all," Sheril gritted his teeth at the suggestion, "but you can help Miranda by clearing the path for her."

   "Got it," Tyki muttered, and then indicated a sack he had laid at his feet, "I also nicked some fruit from the orchard, if you want."

   "Angelic, thank you so much!" Sheril cooed, then rummaged in the sack for an apple, which he offered to Miranda. 

   When she examined it briefly before taking a bite, Sheril was satisfied, and took one for himself as they continued their journey south.

     ~*~*~*~

    Eight days later, Sheril woke up to find that somehow, Miranda had ended up in his arms, sleeping soundly, and that he had an incredible hard-on.

   And there it is, a pounding headache, in more ways than one, Sheril thought through the sudden cloud of pain, how do I extricate myself from this before she or Tyki find out? 

   Thinking back to the night before, he realized that Miranda must have done this herself, after he had already fallen asleep. 

   But she has to understand how risky that was? With Desires being the one causing this, any contact with me could be disastrous for her!

   I'll have to remind her later, he decided as he slowly scooted away from Miranda and lifted the blanket off of himself, moving carefully so she wouldn't wake.

   When he had successfully removed himself, Sheril saw that the sun was barely rising, and he stepped over a sleeping Tyki to get out of the clearing. 

   Walking until he reached a little brook, Sheril splashed his face with the clear water, sitting on his heels and thinking about the last few days. 

   Tyki's presence had alleviated most of his pain, and they had spread their search to a decent area, but there was no sign of the Valley they were looking for. 

   And I so wanted to believe Miranda, Sheril thought glumly, but what if it doesn't exist? It's probably just a fake projection by Wisely, devised by Road's devious little mind in order to fool poor Miranda. 

   If only I could will myself to disappear, to end all of this...

    Shaking his head until it throbbed, he splashed himself vigorously until his body no longer rebelled against him.

    Avoiding looking in the water, afraid of what he might see, he didn't turn when he heard the crunching of the leaves behind him. 

   "You look miserable," he heard the sound of a lighter as Tyki lit another smoke, "wanna talk about it?"

   "Oh, you know, just overwhelming pain, seething anger, an existential crisis," Sheril said sarcastically, straightening up and looking at his brother, confident that his body was back to normal.

   "That's not a real answer," Tyki rolled his eyes. 

    Sheril scoffed in return, "well, what kind of older brother would I be if I couldn't carry my own burdens?"

   Tyki's eyes widened slightly, and he took the cigarette out of his mouth to say, "that sounds familiar, have you said that before?"

   "I'm not sure, my mind is so fuzzy I wouldn't know," Sheril shrugged, "let's go get Miranda, I'm afraid of what will happen if she wakes up alone."

   Following him back to the clearing, Tyki muttered, "you owe me an explanation for this."

   "Yes, yes, I'll pour my heart out to you later," Sheril tried to grin through the fog in his brain, "don't let me forget."

   "You can count on that," Tyki laughed, and the two of them returned to awaken Miranda and pick fruits out of the sack to eat for breakfast. 

Chapter Text

     As the progress on the Ark went on, and the children became old enough to not need minding by Angels, each of them discovered a talent that set their mother's nerves on edge.

   At a very young age, Mightra was found to have an aptitude for magic, and with a little training, was helping to build the Ark before the age of twelve.

   In addition to her great beauty, little Lustol found she had the ability to shapeshift into any creature she could imagine.

   The twins discovered the ability to make their imaginations come to life, as well as being able to fuse into one body.

   Sweet Road, who was everyone's favorite, could enter into dreams and manipulate memories through them.

   As Wrathra grew into a strong, burly young man, it was found that in his anger, he could generate lightning.

   Mercym was built in much the same way, and his strength was even greater, enhanced by the bloodline of one of the more powerful Angels.

   Quiet and relaxed, Fiedla discovered the ability to create eyeball-like parasites, frightening their mothers but entertaining all of his friends.

   Wisely kept his ability secret to all but his closest friends, when he discovered that he could read others' minds.

   For Desires, it was the opposite, something to be shown off and enjoyed, when he discovered the talent of puppeteering others' on invisible strings

   Beloved Joyd, who could make even the most stoic man laugh, could faze through objects as though they weren't there.

   And Tryde, always stone-faced and isolated, discovered that any object put in his hands could be used as a weapon, and was soon trained in swordsmanship to take his skills as far as he could.

   This left Adam, who, even at the age of twenty-two, still didn't know what talent he possessed.

   But all of that was about to change when disaster struck their little family.

        ~*~*~*~

   Adam ran from the far end of the lake back to the side they were building the Ark on, delivering jugs of water for the thirsty workers.

  A few of the village men and sided with their wives in secret, including Shem, Ham, and Japeth, and they occasionally stole away to the building site to help.

   They were putting a few finishing touches on the Ark itself, and their grandfather Noah was busy collecting two of every animal and loading them aboard.

   Anyone whose ability could help with the building was doing so, leaving Adam, Wisely, Fiedla, and Road to do whatever petty tasks were left over.

   Keeping an eye on Road, Adam occasionally spotted her stopping to tease Joyd or Desires, who were using their abilities to transport tools and materials around the Ark.

   Adam smiled, but it was filled with grief; every day he went without discovering his powers, it felt like the others were shutting him out.

   Looking at them, seeing Road hop on Joyd's shoulders or hug Desires around his waist, made Adam feel deep joy for his family, but also a sting of loneliness.

  He wanted to be held like that again, he wanted it so badly it hurt.

   Realizing he hadn't moved for some minutes, Adam lifted a foot to keep going, then lost his balance when a shout cut through the night air.

   "Move, move, everyone, move!" The woman who was Fiedla's mother screamed as she ran up the path, "men on horseback, coming this way! They must have noticed Shem, Ham, and Japeth's absence!"

   As she shouted, the dark skies suddenly became even darker, and a light rain began to fall over the Oasis.

   The Angels dropped their tools and began frantically moving the animals Noah was still loading, trying to speed up the process.

   Men who had still been hammering away at the Ark tried to finish their tasks, while Fiedla's mother still shouted hysterically below them.

   "There's no time, they'll be here any-"

   A noise like a high whistle, then the dull thunk of an arrow striking something large, and the woman hit the sand, and Adam's eyes widened as he realized they intended to kill everyone there.

   Scrambling up from the sand, Adam ran to gather Wisely and Fiedla, the only two that were still going at their assigned tasks.

   He found them frozen, looking on in horror at where Fiedla's mother had been standing.

   "They... they did it," he heard the eighteen year old muttering, "they mean to kill us."

   Wisely patted his shoulder in some form of comfort, and Adam had to grab their hands to get them to move.

   "Come on, we've got to get on board," he hissed.

   They stood, stiffly at first, until Adam began wrenching them towards the boat.

   The last of the animals had gone up the plank, and their old grandfather Noah ushered them inside, even as Fiedla tried to pull away towards his mother's body.

   "Fiedla, no, we don't have time!" Adam yelled, but Noah looked at the struggling boy kindly and nodded.

   "My boys will take care of it, don't worry," Noah said as he helped hold him back, and Shem, Ham, and Japeth sprung into action.

   Adam felt as though time slowed to a crawl, watching the three men try to carry the heavy body, feeling the dread tearing him apart as they signaled for their father to pull up the ramp.

   The rain was falling heavily by then, and at first, the desert sand absorbed the water, until it could take no more.

   The water started rising, and the men lifted the body up to be taken in by those already on board.

   Then the people on board grabbed their hands and started pulling them up, but Adam knew it was too late when he heard the whistle of arrows through the air.

   First Shem, then Ham, then Japeth, were struck by flying arrows, and Adam heard women screaming and his grandfather bellowing something that sounded like a curse in his ears.

   The water finally rose enough for the Ark to begin floating, and the men on horseback were swept away by the overflowing oasis, and Adam's head was filled with animal cries and people screaming.

   Looking down at his hands, they were covered in blood, though he wasn't sure whose, and he finally blacked out, falling to the board below him.

Chapter Text

   After spending two weeks up and down the mountains and valleys of Portugal, the three travelers finally found the place they were looking for. 

   At least, Miranda was convinced it was, and Sheril couldn't find a reason to argue. 

   Tyki's presence had made Desires back off somewhat, and his headache wasn't quite as bad as before, so he followed Miranda as she rushed down the sloping path to the valley floor.

   The place was shaped in a wide double curve, with houses on either side, and a forested area to the right from the direction they had entered. 

Miranda seemed to be turning in circles, trying to take in every sight she could as she walked down the muddy road dividing the village in half.

   The buildings all looked like they had been burned down, dry, crackling skeletons of their former selves, and many of the trees looked the same. 

   And there were actual skeletons, as well, in various stages of decomposition, and Sheril had to try not to smile gleefully at them.

   Miranda will be greatly upset with me if she finds out how funny I think this is, Sheril thought while trying to keep his face from cracking.

    When she finally stopped in front of a formerly fenced-in yard, he followed her eyes towards the house on a hill behind it, and the mostly still standing barn next to it.

   Catching up to her, Sheril stood silently at the crumbling gate, and Tyki began to watch them both.

   Turning his gaze farther inward, he noticed that this house was larger than many of the others. It had a barn, a little shed that must have been for crafting something, and pasture land for the animals themselves. 

   "This is it," he heard Miranda whisper, and followed her as she stepped over the gate and approached the front door. 

    A sudden pang of sadness washed over Sheril, and he caught up to her, grabbing her hand and dragging her back over the gate. 

When she turned to look at him curiously, he grinned weakly and asked, "can we save this for last? There's plenty more to look at, after all."

   "Are you sure?" Her look of deep concern made his heart ache, possessed by the sudden idea that it was odd how quiet Desires was being. 

  Not going to fight back, you prick? He thought with clenched teeth, not going to argue, or lash out?

  "Is there something wrong?" Sheril heard Miranda ask, and fought to separate his jaw.

  "Let's go look around, please," he forced himself not to sound breathless, "I just need time to... mentally prepare."

  Nodding solemnly, Miranda followed as he clutched her hand and led her back over the gate.

   He knew she had to feel how sweaty his hand was as they passed the woods and stopped in front of the villages little church. 

   The bell from the tower had fallen, and lay cracked in the dirt below, almost blocking the door entirely, but that wasn't where Sheril was taking them.

   Skirting around the corner of the building, Sheril laid eyes on the multitude of gravestones that surrounded the holy monument and sighed deeply. 

   "It's possible Road could have come here and destroyed the relevant markers," he squeezed Miranda's hand tightly, and she squeezed back, "but if she left them alone, we'd be looking for the name 'Mikk'."

   "Tyki's name?" Miranda questioned him softly, "you changed yours to Kamelot?"

   "To Road's name, yes," he looked down at her with a painful expression, "and I think, even if I knew everything I know now, I'd still do the same."

   He finally let her go and moved out amongst the gravestones, occasionally stopping to glare at the few visible names, many of them having worn down with time. 

   Treading carefully, Sheril felt like this was going to be a lost cause, and he cringed at the idea of disappointing Miranda. 

   No, even worse; I might laugh in her face, his thoughts nearly boiling over, if this turns out to be a farce, I don't know if I can control myself. 

   Just when he was about to sit down, cradling his head in his hands, he heard Miranda calling out to him, "Sheril, over here! I think I've found something?"

    Scanning the area, his eyes grazed over Tyki leaning against the gate, and when he spotted Miranda, he stomped in her direction

   Noticing the large stone Miranda was crouched in front of, under the shade of a large tree, Sheril waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloom.

   When he could see again, he got down on her level and read what he could from the carved stone. 

   "Silvio and Jacinda Mikk," he muttered, then sighed when he found the rest of the engraving unreadable, "and these are the only Mikk you've seen so far?"

  "Yes," Miranda answered shyly, "do you want to keep looking?"

   "It's not worth it," Sheril looked at the names, but nothing came to mind, "let's look in the church for the village records, if any survived, of course."

   "And if not in the church, one if these homes would have belonged to the head of the village," Miranda pointed out, and Sheril smiled at her before standing and helping her to her feet. 

   "Oh yes, you're absolutely right," he lavished her with praise, hoping to make up for the painful silence of their journey, "we're going to make a very thorough investigation, you and I!"

       ~*~*~*~

   After an hour searching the church, they walked around deciding which house was the home of the village head, finally settled on the one directly next door. 

   It wasn't until they had spent another hour scouring the house that Sheril realized he hadn't seen Tyki since the graveyard.

   "What do you think he's up to?" Sheril asked when he pointed this out to Miranda, "trying to find his memories in his own way, maybe?"

    They were hauling up two crates of what appeared to be parchment paper and envelopes, hoping to glean some information from them.

   "But what would his 'way' be?" 

   "Probably wandering around that little wooded area," Sheril said, passing around the church and entering the graveyard, "he would have been around that age where small boys play in places like that, I think."

   Settling his crate in a sunny spot where he could still see the Mikk's marker, Sheril smiled to himself and began riffling through the paperwork.

   "Should we go look for him?" Miranda asked with a tremble in her voice as she placed her crate next to his and got to work.

   "He'll be fine, I'm sure," Sheril looked into the woods just beyond the stone fence bordering the graveyard, "he's more mature than anyone gives him credit for."

    He thought it was funny when Miranda didn't respond to this, and they both worked silently until Sheril had another thought.

    "Miranda, I'm sorry, but if this doesn't work," he swallowed, trying to wet his suddenly dry throat, "then this is over."

   She looked up at him with a thick sheet of yellow parchment in her hands, "over?"

   "We have to go our separate ways, you know," he sighed and opened an old envelope and ran his eyes over the contents, "if this doesn't work, you have to give up on me, return to your friends."

  Watching her lip quiver as Desires screamed, No! You have to kill her first!, Sheril felt the migraine returning full force. 

  God, you were so blessedly quiet, he retorted as he spoke lowly to Miranda. 

   "I know this hurts," he said a little sadly when she didn't look up, "but if I can't get my memories back, then this situation will be far too dangerous to continue."

    Miranda nodded frantically, as though she was afraid to actually say anything, then she crumbled the parchment in her hands and spoke up anyway. 

   "You know, I appreciate, in some ways, that your confidence has rubbed off on me," she said seriously, and the look she gave him made his heart skip a beat, "what I mean to say is..."

    Miranda hesitated and looked back down at the papers she was reading through, then cleared her throat. 

   "I'm taking this crate to the barn on the hill," she pointed towards the house she insisted was the Mikk family home, "I want you to follow me there. But please, give me a minute or two?"

   The blaring alarm of the headache caused by Desires was cut through by a different sensation, a sudden warming of his blood when he understood what Miranda was implying. 

    Is she really saying...?

   "Of course," he answered, "I won't keep you waiting long."

   Letting out a ragged breath, Miranda stood and hauled up the small wooden box, taking it with her as she exited the graveyard and turned left towards the fenced-in hillside.

   As his body overpowered Desires' influence, Sheril felt himself vibrating with excitement, and fear that he might have misinterpreted Miranda's intentions. 

   Please let me be right and it's not just me being creepy, his thoughts raced as he picked up his crate and began walking slowly to the old house, please let me be right! 

Chapter Text

  Road tried to keep her composure as she strutted in big platform doll shoes around the Ark.

   She was still deciding who take with her to snatch Sheril and that woman from the village in Portugal, and she didn't have much time left for deep thinking. 

   I can't believe I have to do this again, Road seethed, dammit, Sheril! 

  She thought back to her treatment of Sheril over the years, and almost regretted it; not only did delaying his training for so long turn out to be a bad idea, but the sexual nature of her torture must have been too much for his fragile psyche. 

   "And I thought he had such a good body and mind for Desires," Road mused out loud, "whatever that woman did to him, she deserves to be punished."

   At first it was cute, letting Sheril have a little bit of fun that would inevitably end in bloodshed. 

    It was an expression of his love, after all, and Desires, amongst all the Noah, still had a soft spot for humanity. 

   "I should have crushed that out of him a long time ago," Road gritted her teeth in exasperation. 

    But she knew, in the deepest part of her, that she couldn't help but feel as though every member of her precious family was cute in their way, even if she didn't always express it.

    The Earl was cute when he defended the family with all of his might, or got a little obsessive over his perceived enemies.

  Tryde was cute when he argued that what Sheril had done should be considered tantamount to The 14th's betrayal years earlier. 

   Tyki was cute when he ran off, or shrugged and acted like he didn't care about the current argument. 

   Sheril was cute when he craved something that wasn't his to have, and especially when he made it his anyway. 

    Wisely was cute when he subtly got on people's nerves, whether through their minds or by passive-agression.

   Fiedla was cute when he sat in silence, going unnoticed as he watched people and drew their portraits in secret. 

   Mercym was cute when he shared new tea blends with the family, or played with the small children who adored his gentle presence. 

   Poor Skinn, who she missed dearly, was cute when they shared sweets together or went on long walks. 

   Jasdero and Debita were cute when they played pranks, screaming as loud as possible, or sat and played card games.

    Lulubell was cute when she turned into a little cat, or went crying to Sheril whenever something went wrong. 

   Mightra was cute when they shuddered and hid from the sunlight, or developed a new spell for the family to use.

   And she still thought Nea was cute; he was one half of the original Adam, after all. 

   Her beloved Adam, who had taken charge during the disaster of the flood. 

   Road's memories of the flood were a little hazy, and so heavily corrupted in some spots that she was sure they were entirely wrong. 

   The Ark being an actual wooden Ark instead of the city of splendors suspended over a dark abyss was the thing that confused her most.

   "Maybe we rebuilt it? No, that can't be right..." 

   In earlier years, she would have asked Mightra, but now she wasn't sure that they would remember, either. 

   "What the hell is going on," Road shrieked into the empty air, "is fucking with Sheril making me lose my mind, too?!"

   She wasn't sure what to make of it, her memory suddenly slipping so badly she felt disoriented, not even sure where she was. 

   This is love, though, intoned a voice she hadn't heard in a long time, the soothing dulcet of the original Road, this is love.

   This is love.

   Shut up.

   Shut up.

   SHUT UP.

   Road screamed, not sure what the voice was even referring to. 

  Was it the pain of separation, was it the flash of a long knife? Was it the inexorable passage of time? 

   Something was love to the Noah, but that love was slipping away as fast and suddenly as her memories, and Road felt as though it was left to her to find it again. 

   This is love.

   This is love.

   Pulling herself together, Road continued to stomp through the city that was their fomerly hallowed home, on her way to summon the family members she had selected for this terrible task.

   She knew she had to finish this, one way or another, and she hoped that by the end of it, she could remind all of them, but especially Sheril, what love was to the Noah.

Chapter Text

   Miranda's nerves were almost to their breaking point as she screamed at herself, what the hell am I doing?!

   Did I really just ask him to meet me in the barn? What's the plan here? What am I after?

   Taking in the sight of the fenced-in land she was sure was Sheril's home, Miranda sighed and opened the barn door with her hip.

   It was large enough that it could have been home to at least two cows, two sheep, and a goat, if her estimates of the sizes of each pen were correct. 

   Setting the crate down in the middle of the area and sitting down on a square bale of hay, a foul smell suddenly hit her nostrils, and she noticed that the smallest pen still contained the long-dead corpse of a female goat.

    Getting back up from her seat, Miranda grabbed several fistfuls of dry, crackling straw and covered the body with it, which did nothing to help the smell, but at least she could no longer see the thing lying there. 

   Poor thing probably starved, she thought as she seated herself again, I wonder what happened to the others?

   She didn't have time think about it when she heard the barn door to her right creaking open, and Sheril carried in his crate with a charming smile. 

   Silently placing his crate next to hers, he crouched down to continue rummaging through it, occasionally holding a new envelope or piece of parchment to his face before putting it back down. 

   He must be as nervous as I am, Miranda tilted her head curiously, even though he exudes such confidence. 

   I don't know what I even asked him here for! Do I want him to touch me? To... make love to me?

   Miranda felt her face heat up with embarrassment, only made worse when she heard Sheril hum to himself before speaking up.

  "What are you thinking in that brilliant mind of yours, my dear?"

   Their eyes met now, and Miranda felt as though she knew exactly what she wanted. 

   Sitting up straight on the bale of hay, Miranda whispered, "could you please... come here, for a moment?"

   She squeezed her knees together as Sheril stood up and walked over, kneeling on the straw-covered floor before her and lightly resting his palms on her thighs. 

   "What is it?" He questioned her tenderly, "are you alright?"

   Swallowing a lump in her throat, Miranda replied, "I have no idea what I'm doing, so please, bear with me."

   He nodded with a smile, and Miranda noted that he was currently in his human form; pale skinned, purple eyes that were slowly darkening as she watched, no Stigmata or other markings to speak of.

    In combination with his fairly normal traveling clothes that brought out his resemblance to his brother, Miranda could imagine herself remaining with this man for a lifetime. 

    But that couldn't be, and she knew that. 

    One moment would have to do. 

    Strengthening her resolve, Miranda swallowed a lump again before moving her knees apart gently so Sheril had room bring himself up between her legs.

   No longer sitting on his heels, Miranda could feel his body flush against hers, and she closed the gap between their lips of her own volition. 

   She was surprised when he moaned first, the vibration causing her to lose control of the sounds she was holding back, whimpering in return. 

   When she felt the little lick of his tongue begging for entrance, she stopped for a beat, not sure what to do, until Sheril pulled back to look her in the eyes.

   "Only if you want to, of course?"

   Miranda realized she was sweating, the heat in the barn intense, the stench of old death making her nerves boil over.

  Nodding carefully, she pulled him back towards her, and as he touched his reddening lips to hers, it was a bit more delicate than the first, more serene. 

  Humming at the sensation, when he licked her lips this time, she opened her mouth slowly and gasped at the feeling of his tongue touching hers.

   It isn't exactly unpleasant, like I thought it would be, becomes the last thing in her mind as she felt Sheril run his tongue across her teeth. 

   Her own confidence jolts her when she suddenly tries moving past his lithe, pink muscle in order to feel his mouth in return. 

   Feeling his grin against her lips, they both moan when he lets her her pass to tentatively swipe at his front teeth.

But she found herself unable to last, and it became difficult to breathe, so she reluctantly separated from him, chest heaving deeply. 

   The beaming smile Sheril gave her made Miranda smile too, and he leaned back on his heels to give her some space. 

    Looking at him, glancing down and recognizing what his body was going through, Miranda finally acknowledged the aching throb between her legs that began when he asked for permission to enter her mouth.

    With trembling hands, she reached up to undo the buttons of her traveling dress, discarding the top coat on the floor and reaching around to pull the shirt out from the high-waisted skirt.

   Immediately Sheril's hands were underneath the flouncy white fabric, fingers grazing the skin just above the edge of the skirt, making Miranda close her eyes at the sudden feeling. 

   Opening one eye when she felt his hands retreat, Miranda whispered a small, "I'm sorry?"

   "No, that was my fault," Sheril returned with an equally small voice, "I rushed in too quickly."

    His hands were still under the shirt, but no longer touching her directly, and she put her hands over his to push them down until he grazed over the buttons on the front of her skirt.

   Taking her hint, Sheril slowly undid these, but before he could try to shuffle the skirt out from underneath her, she stopped him.

   "I just wanted to get more air," she told him, and he nodded, patiently waiting for her next move.

    Miranda reached her own hands up to untie the ribbon at the neck of the shirt, then began slipping each small pearly button through their holes.

    Letting the fabric slide to her shoulders, revealing the little black top the Orders scientists had developed for her to wear as support under her uniform, she shuddered when something dark flashed in Sheril's eyes. 

   He hummed again, a low rumble, and his hands on her hips traveled up to pull the edge of her skirt down, just low enough to dig in underneath the bralette until his manicured nails just brushed the underside of her breasts. 

   Miranda resisted the urge to giggle as Sheril tilted his head and asked, "how do you remove this? It isn't a corset, but it isn't something I recognize, either."

   "Oh, uh... the Order makes them," Miranda mumbled shyly, "they tie in the back, like a normal corset."

   A sly expression forming on his face, Sheril asked through his teeth, like a hissing snake, "do you mind if I...?"

    Miranda nodded, and Sheril lifted himself again so his sharp chin rested where her neck met her shoulder, his face dipped towards her collarbone. 

    His arms wrapped around her and felt along her back for the tie keeping the thing together, and once it was loose, he pushed it up and let her breasts bounce, their support now gone.

   I didn't know they would do that, Miranda thought in a haze as Sheril's hands returned to gently massage just below the soft flesh, seeming to take no issue with the fine sheen of sweat forming there. 

  Feeling her body break out in goosebumps, Miranda shivered despite the stifling heat, wetting her lips when Sheril pulled himself higher to place his face in between her breasts. 

    His hot breath on her tender, untouched flesh was shocking, and she nearly jumped in surprise when he laid a small kiss there before leaning back again, looking up into her eyes. 

    "You are something else, you know?" He slowly blinked his eyes like a luxuriating cat.

    "I'm not sure how you mean?" Miranda countered with a wistful sigh. 

    Sheril lowered his head to his chest, breathing shallowly, before raising it again and clearing his throat with gusto, "you see, Miranda, with you, it's as though-"

   A sudden crunch of straw near the barn door grabbed Miranda's attention, but it was too late.

   The gunshot that ripped through the air made her scream, and then it seemed as though time slowed to a crawl.

   The bullet went through cleanly as it made contact with Sheril's left temple, splattering blood on Miranda's face and exposed breasts as his body fell to the side, his face hitting the straw.

   Finding herself unable to get up from the hay bale, Miranda turned her head slowly, trembling in utter terror as she caught sight of Road with a rather large gun of some kind she couldn't name.

   The girls face was rather stoic, and when she glanced over and made eye contact with Miranda, she sneered, "he'll live. This kind of thing is only a minor inconvenience for the Noah."

   Recalling her first encounter with Road, where she had hit herself with Allen's Innocence and only lost a few layers of skin, Miranda turned back to the body and watched. 

   She knew she shouldn't look away from Road, but she had to see this.

   "Can you damn cover up, at least?" She heard Road retching and pulled her bloodstained white shirt back together. 

    It didn't take long before something started happening, making Miranda want to retch herself as the wound crackled with the sound of Sheril's skull restructuring itself, blood bubbling from the hole as the skin stitched itself back together. 

   Groaning loudly, Sheril lifted himself into a sitting position, hands resting on the floor as his gaze trailed up from Road's feet to meet her face. 

  An eerie silence washed over the three of them, and Miranda wished that Sheril would say something, anything, but it seemed as though, paradoxically, he was even more terrified of Road than she was. 

     So she slowly began doing up the buttons of her shirt, ignoring the feeling of her skin on fire and the dulling ache between her legs, and asked quietly, "have you finally decided to kill me yourself?"

   Road blinked, as though she wasn't expecting such a forward question, and shook her head.

   "Nope! We're going to do something way more fun!" The little girl cheered, her face gleeful. 

    Miranda and Sheril glanced at each other, and then he opened his mouth to speak, "Road, darling, what could you possibly mean by that?"

    Rolling her eyes, Road scoffed, "first of all, I saw you look at each other just now! Second of all... you'll see what I mean soon. For now, I need you both to go to sleep."

   Miranda held back a gasp as several Noah she didn't recognize entered the barn, the sudden dread chilling her spine and making her heart twist.

   And not in the comfortable way that I was enjoying with Sheril either, she thought at the last possible second before everything went black. 

Chapter Text

   Adam wasn't sure how long he was out when he finally woke up on the Ark. 

  He only knew the immediate facts; that the family gathered around him were still crying and screaming, as were the animals, the smell of which were rank and overwhelming. 

  Struggling to pull himself up, he turned to the first person his mind registered the presence of. 

  Little Road was hovering over him, face in her hands. 

  "Road?" He rasped out, "Road, what happened?"

   Her eyes peeked out from between her fingers, fat tears rolling down her face, and she sobbed heavily before answering, "Shem, Ham, and Japeth didn't make it. Fiedla is on the bottom layer, with his mother."

   Adam recalled the events immediately before he passed out, Fiedla's mother being on watch in case they were discovered, the arrow that pierced her chest, Noah's sons attempt to retrieve the body.

   It was then that he realized the deep bellowing sound he heard over the other voices was Noah shouting curses at God. 

   Adam tried to tune it out, but he couldn't help but feel the same as his grandfather did.

   God promised that his family would live, that everyone they loved would make it aboard. 

   But one mother and three of their mothers husbands were gone, and Adam felt the sting of bitterness from a promise broken. 

   Shaking his head, he asked Road, "what about the others?"

   Rubbing her eyes and leaning closely, so her head laid on his shoulder, she began, "Wisely and Mightra are comforting Fiedla, Joyd and Desires are trying to get grandfather to calm down, the rest are helping put the animals where they belong."

   "And the Angels?" Adam asked further, not seeing any sign of their fathers, their protectors. 

  "They were called back to God," Road whispered, voice weary from crying, "their leader- your father, I mean- said that they weren't allowed to stay, only to see us to safety."

   And they hardly even did that, Adam thought, and he lay back on the floorboards of the Ark, dragging Road down with him.

   God had lied, on multiple counts, and Adam felt dread thoughts fill his head, their God was a phony, a fake, a cheat, and a liar.

   "What do you think, Road?" He asked into the darkness of the Ark, focusing on the brilliant mass of her hair. 

   She squirmed around to face him, looking into his eyes with her own, bright yellow and shining like fire.

  "I don't think we should forgive God," she said lowly, and Adam felt a shiver.

   In the back of his mind, he was reminded of the snakes that often slithered through their camp at the Oasis, but he couldn't put that thought into words when Road asked him, "don't you think?"

   Adam nodded, then lifted himself to his feet with Road cradled in his arms.

   "We'll go around asking the others," he nodded, "and then we'll get together and make a plan."

   With Road's arms coiling around his neck, Adam set off on his search through the Ark to hear the opinions of his fellow angel-spawn.

        ~*~*~*~

    Despite being the ones to calm Grandfather Noah, Joyd and Desires were quick to agree that something had to be done about God.

   "He promised everyone would live, after all, and we don't break promises," Desires said grandly, and Joyd nodded. 

   With the two of them in agreement, the others soon followed, and when they had time a few days later, they gathered in the bottom of the Ark, where Fiedla was still sitting silently with his mother.

    "You gotta throw her over," one of the twins grumbled, and the other loosed a high-pitched laugh, "yeah, she's starting to smell!"

    "Don't listen to them, Fiedla, take all the time you need!" Road glared at the twins from where she sat next to the mourning boy, relieving Mightra of the duty so they could return to a solitary corner. 

    Clearing his throat, Mercym, who had often needed to tell the others to focus, asked Adam, "so, what is this plan of yours that you feel is so important?"

    Adam looked around solemnly at the friends who had become his closest family.

    At Tryde, who judged who was correct when an argument occurred. 

   At Joyd, who cheered both the loser and the victor, and Desires, whose hugs were warm and comforting.

   At Wisely, who seemed to know things he shouldn't, and Fiedla, whose quiet manner hid an emotional intelligence. 

   At Mercym, who was stern and yet forgiving, and Wrathra, who was constantly fighting some burning anger.

   At Road, whose dreamy lightness sometimes verged into something terrible, and the twins, little terrors themselves. 

   At Lustol, perching on Desires lap in the form of a spoiled black cat, and Mightra, who slept by day and only worked by light of the moon.

  Adam looked again at Fiedla, tear-streaked face hovering over his mothers corpse. 

  He thought about the lies and broken promises that brought them here, to this stinking place with screaming and crying people, the bellowing of grandfather Noah still in his ears.

   Adam locked eyes again with each of his family in turn, and announced, "we are going to kill God."

Chapter Text

  When Miranda came to, she was laying on a soft and cozy little bed, her blouse still laying open and the travel jacket hanging off a chair nearby. 

  She could hear the sound of a woman weeping, and was convinced for a terrible second that it was her own voice, having gone back in time, to the dark days before meeting Allen and Lenalee and activating her Innocence. 

  Maybe that wouldn't be so bad, compared to what is happening now, she thought before shaking her head. 

  No, no matter what, anything is better than that time of my life.

  I'm not going back there, I won't! 

  But her clothes and the state they were in were enough to indicate that she wasn't the same Miranda she was then, so she rolled from the bed and stood on wobbly legs, taking in the room.

  It was mostly plain and unadorned, besides the bed, a dresser, and a vanity, the chair from which had been pulled close to the bed to hang her jacket over.

   Miranda hurriedly began buttoning the blouse, not bothering to tuck it in the skirt before grabbing the jacket and putting it on, and buttoned that as well.

   Then she took a few cautious steps to the door, testing the knob to see if it was locked. 

 Finding that it wasn't, Miranda opened it and gingerly stepped out into the hall, looking left and right in fear that someone had heard. 

  But all she saw was a grand staircase to her left that led down into the large foyer, a beautiful place for greeting guests of the lavishly decorated mansion.

   Treading carefully across the carpeted floor towards the foyer, Miranda heard the sounds of a woman crying and sniffling get louder, until she was sure they were coming from below her.

   Peeking over the bannister, she saw a woman sitting at the bottom of the stairs, her hair white in the light of the hall, arms held tightly around herself as her shoulders wracked with sobs.

  Sheril sat to her left, seeming not sure what to do, momentarily lifting a hand to pat her shoulder before placing it in his lap again, defeated. 

  This must be his wife, Miranda realized, I believe her name was Tricia?

   Just then, Sheril's eyes flicked up in her direction, and they shared a gaze for barely a second before Miranda determined to walk on, intent on stepping down the grand staircase and pleading forgiveness. 

   But before she could lift a booted foot over the first step, something dashed across the backs of her legs, making her squeal loudly, and by the time she turned around, whatever the cool, damp creature was, it was nowhere in sight. 

   When Miranda turned back to the foyer, Tricia had stood and was looking up at her, Sheril rising silently behind his wife. 

   She could tell at once that Sheril wasn't lying about her being sickly, but that was perhaps mostly the affect of her eyes being red, her face streaked with tears.

   What could possibly be keeping her here? She must have no other family to return to, or else she genuinely loves them, these people. 

  What lies does he tell her to keep her here?

  Shocked from her reverie by Tricia's approach, Miranda felt her throat dry when the other woman inquired, "Miss Miranda Lotto? Am I to understand you are having an affair with my husband?"

   Her voice and expression were unreadable to Miranda; there seemed to be no blame, no loathing, just blank, unmoving, like a stone statue. 

   If not for the trails of wiped-away tears, she would have hidden her sadness well, but Miranda recognized the same kind of sadness within herself, and sympathized with Tricia greatly. 

   I have to say something, but what? What would she even believe?

   Stuttering in embarrassment, Miranda began to defend herself, "I-I'm sorry, it isn't what you th-think!"

   From behind Tricia, Sheril looked at her with an equally stone-faced expression, but the glitter in his eyes made it seem as though he found this very funny.

  "My deepest apologies, but if not an affair, then what is it?" She heard Tricia asking, "of course, I'd hate to accuse you both, but from what I can see, this all appears very... disappointing."

 Feeling that this wasn't quite the word she wanted to use, Miranda braved a few steps down the staircase, the words stuck on her tongue momentarily before she took the plunge.

   "You see, your husband is possessed by a demon I was attempting to exorcise," Miranda said gently, finding herself saying something mostly truthful, "it's my job to do things like this."

   She refused to turn and search for the source of the giggle behind her; she was too focused on Sheril doubling over, hand on his stomach as he held in his laughter. 

   Miranda couldn't tell if it was him who found it funny or Desires, but when Tricia looked at him too, her feelings were clearly hurt, though she was too polite to say so.

   It's like looking at a mirror of who I once was, Miranda trembled as she took another few steps down, I wish there was something I could do to help her. 

   But before she could attempt to drag her story out, Sheril interrupted, turning his wife's attention to him.

   "Oh, Miranda's always telling stories, dear," he put on his most placating voice, "let me take the poor thing home, then we can talk privately about my momentary lapse in judgment, and I promise this will never happen again."

  Miranda knew she should be under no illusion of the status of their relationship, that calling it an affair would be the honest truth, and Tricia had every right to be angry.

  But being referred to as a 'poor thing' and a 'lapse in judgment' was just a little insulting, and she stepped down the stairs until she was close enough that she could have tapped the woman on the shoulder if she wanted. 

   "It's true! Don't let him play with your feelings, the demon is influencing him to-"

   "Miss Lotto, you seem like a very kindly person," Tricia cut her off, seeming embarrassed that she had to do so at all, "but I'd be more inclined to believe you if he didn't bring you here in the state you were in."

  "He didn't bring me!" Miranda blurted out, and before she could control herself, she went on, "it was your daughter! Your whole family is possessed, every one of them that Road has introduced you to-"

  Her own mouth falling open when she realized what she had said in her excitement, Miranda watched Tricia's face and expected her to get mad, but instead, she backed away slowly and turned to her husband. 

   Miranda, left a bit perplexed, could just barely make out what Tricia whispered to Sheril, and felt her face turn red.

   "This is beyond 'telling stories'! Don't you think she needs help?"

   Another giggle from up the stairs told Miranda that whoever was up there heard the same whisper, despite the distance, or maybe Wisely was reading their minds and relaying their emotions to Road.

   "Please, if you would just listen, Tricia-" Miranda cried in desperation, the situation quickly becoming overwhelming. 

   "Miranda, please," Sheril beseeched her, looking as though he was finally taking this seriously, "just give up, get home safe, we can forget about this-"

   "I don't think we can! Your wife knows now, even if she doesn't believe me about the possession," Miranda took in a sharp breath and yelled, "that doesn't make her an idiot, Sheril, that makes you an convincing liar!"

   She watched the gears in Sheril's head turn as he decided what to say to this, and Tricia looked back-and-forth between the both of them, justifiably confused. 

   "Miss Lotto, if there's anything I can do-", Tricia began, and Miranda felt more terrible for interrupting her, but she was compelled to fear for the womans safety. 

   "I'm sorry, but you need to get out, right away," she was a little hurt when she stepped forward and Tricia stepped back, but Miranda kept going, "I have reason to believe there isn't anyone you can trust here, especially not Road or the Earl."

   Her heart hurt at the sight of Tricia's face, looking on the verge of tears again, as she whispered, "I'm afraid this is the only family I have left, Miss Lotto."

   Trying not to meet eyes with Sheril, Miranda attempted to console her, "I'm so sorry, Tricia. Do you mind my asking what happened?"

   It was at the sound of her soft, patient voice that Miranda thought Tricia's eyes widened with a sudden clarity, and she had to step closer to hear her answer. 

   "It was just before my marriage to Sheril," her voice wavered, "it was a freak accident, I lost everything, everyone... are you saying it might have been his doing? Or Road's?"

   What do I say to this? Do I pin the blame on Road, try to save Sheril's skin?

  No, I can't be dishonest!

  I can't protect him from his own actions!

  "I don't know for sure, but there's a huge chance that might be the case," Miranda didn't like how the words sounded in her voice, spilling from her mouth like an overturned tea pot.

   On the edge of her vision, Miranda saw Sheril turn his head away, and despite the crushing feeling of her heart at the sight, she knew that this was the right thing to do. 

  She wasn't sure when the air had become so suffocating, her vision swimming before her as Sheril looked back in time for their eyes to meet again. 

   Vaguely hearing the sound of Tricia asking, "what do I do now, Miss Lotto?", and her own voice answering, "come with me to the Order, they'll protect you," Miranda grabbed her hand through the fog of her own mind and made for the front door. 

  Hell, now I'm lying, Miranda thought, there's no way the Vatican will see her as anything but a Noah collaborator, no matter how much she claims to know nothing. 

   Bumping into the large double front doors without even noticing that Tricia was trying to prevent the collision, Miranda tried the handles and found that they were locked tight. 

  "Who could have done this?" Tricia sounded far away by now, but the anxiety in her voice reached Miranda loud and clear, and she struggled to get a word of warning out to her.

   "Tricia, don't look, turn towards the door and don't look!"

   She didn't stop to see if her warning was heeded, turning back towards the stairs, knowing full well what she would see behind her.

   There he was, right hand up, fingers in a deadly dance, dangerously handsome, a look of grim foreboding on his face.

   "I'm sorry, Miranda. You could have just told her it was an affair, and left it at that," Sheril's voice dripped with a malicious aura she hadn't heard since the day they met, "I know it's not your fault for getting poor Tricia involved, but something has to be done about this, you understand."

   Miranda swallowed a mouthful of air, feeling her lungs not quite filling, and stuttered, "you wouldn't k-kill me in front of her, would you? She would k-know, she would remember!"

  Feeling Tricia shudder beside her, Miranda knew that the woman heard and understood what was happening. 

   "Fortunately for us, we have ways of making people forget," Sheril said solemnly, "it's too late for you, I think, but Tricia shouldn't pose a problem at all."

   Miranda's vision was getting worse, and she felt her knees buckling beneath her, and just barely caught the sound of Tricia beginning to cry again. 

   Before finally succumbing to whatever was overpowering her mind, Miranda stepped towards him, summoning the last of her strength to ask, "you would want me to forget? After everything we've done, you'd close off those memories from me? The way Road did to you?"

   She didn't see his reaction, or if he even reacted at all; as soon as the last word left her mouth, everything went black.

Chapter Text

  Tyki was surprised how disturbed he was by Sheril's actions in the foyer below. 

  Am I getting weak? Why is his casual cruelty bothering me so much? 

  Slouching against the banister, he watched as Tricia went against Miranda's warning at the sound of the woman hitting the floor. 

  "Miss Lotto?" He winced as her frail voice floated up to him, "Miss Lotto?! What happened to her?"

   Directing her question to Sheril, it came out as an accusation, and he shrugged his shoulders in the way he did that often had people commenting how effectively dismissive it was.

   Kind of like the way I roll my eyes that people tell me is really mean.

   I guess we're really good at being passive-aggressive, maybe even condescending. 

   "My apologies, Tricia, my dear, but you're going to have to come with me," Sheril sighed, momentarily forgetting his fake-gentle voice he usually used with her.

   Tyki looked at each of them before settling on the woman crouching by the unconscious Exorcist on the floor. 

   Swallowing her nerves, Tricia looked up at her husband and asked, "she was telling the truth? You wanted her out because you knew she would tell... but why bring her here, unless she was telling the truth about that, too?"

  "That my dearest Road brought her here as a prank against me?" Sheril's chuckle chilled even Tyki, "be that as it may, I don't think any of us could have predicted she would be so... intense about it."

   Frantically looking around her for any signs of help, Tricia spotted Tyki at the bannister and pleaded, "Tyki? Was Miss Lotto telling the truth? Was this all a lie?"

   Finding that he couldn't meet her eyes, Tyki looked down the hall towards the room he knew Road and Wisely were hiding in.

  She'll campaign to have Miranda killed, Tyki thought of the malevolent little girl, not that I should care.

  So why do I feel so sick?

  Maybe it was the cold, dismissive tone with which Sheril said, "come dear, we have to pick those memories out of that pesky little brain of yours."

  Or the heartbroken way Tricia replied, "the same way Road has done to you, according to Miss Lotto?"

   It could be the flash of anger from Sheril, who seethed out between his teeth, "you do not understand the gravity of what you ask."

  "She said you weren't a demon yourself, but a man possessed," Tricia responded, not knowing what wound she was poking at, "can it really be removed? What can be done for you, for the others?"

   Tyki wished he could see Sheril's face from there; looking at his back, his brother had deflated slightly, his haughty shoulders sagging as he shouted.

   "Nothing can be done! Miranda and I tried, but it was in vain, it was pointless, pointless," from the sobbing choke at the end of his sentence, Tyki supposed that Sheril had temporarily wrested control from Desires, "I'm sorry, dearest, but if we don't erase your memory soon, Road will opt to take more... drastic measures."

   A shudder rippled through Tricia, and she edged closer to Miranda, still out cold on the floor. 

   Before anyone could say anything more, a door slammed open, getting Tyki's attention. 

   Hanging onto the door frame was Wisely, accompanied by the twins, who Tyki had no clue were even there. 

  Wisely cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted over to Tyki, "incoming!"

  Blinking in confusion, it didn't take long for Tyki to understand what he meant when several windows of the Manor foyer shattered into glittering dust, and several of his least favorite faces flooded in.

   The first was Allen Walker, who flung himself in towards the chandelier with such force that the ceiling shook, before using his momentum to target Sheril where he stood. 

  From the left and right, Lavi and the Lee girl pinned Sheril in, leaving him nowhere to dodge when Allen made his attack.

  By the front door, Arystar Krory and the man named Noise stood defensively over Miranda and Tricia, just as Jasdero and Debita swept in from behind Tyki to join the fray.

   Tyki felt a presence behind him, and didn't have to turn at all to know it would be Yu Kanda, and on the other side he saw that Inspector Link and a turquoise-haired kid had cornered Wisely. 

   "Well, this will be fun, at least," he muttered before patting his pockets, pulling out his smokes and a lighter.

   "Don't move," he heard the gruff man mutter behind him, but before Tyki could reply, a sharp scream rung out from the top of the stairs a few feet away from him. 

   "I have had enough of this!" The shrill voice of Road Kamelot stopped everyone in their tracks. 

   They all looked up at her, Exorcists and Noah both; the ones who were trying to flatten Sheril, the ones protecting Miranda and Tricia, the ones behind him and Wisely, the twins, everyone frozen.

   Curiously, Tyki noted that she was holding one of her beloved hand mirrors from a collection Sheril had bought her.

  "You're all idiots and fools, and I can't believe you would put yourselves through this, just for her," Road's voice boiled with a dark rage, and Tyki wanted more than anything else to be somewhere else at the moment.

   "You know, you're lucky! Lucky I'm so 'jealous' over her!" The girl barked out a harsh, unfeeling laugh, "if I had helped him seduce her, this would have ended in her bloody death a long time ago!"

   Then in one swing she brought down the hand mirror on the bannister at the top of the stairs, breaking it in two and sending glass and gilt flying, some of it landing by Tyki's feet.

  Uncharacteristically alarmed, Tyki held his hands out and tried to placate her, "Road, I don't know what you're doing, but-"

   "Whose side are you on?!" She wailed, waving the now jagged and deadly mirror in the air, "I want them dead! I don't care if you include Tricia, too, I don't care!"

   From somewhere below them Tyki could no longer see, Sheril shouted, "Road, darling, you don't have to-"

   "No! A mind wipe just doesn't cut it any more! Look what it did to you, after my meddling!" Road interrupted him, "it's my fault you turned into this, and now I'm going to lose you too!"

   Cautiously stepping towards her, Tyki saw the tears winding down her face and almost gave up. 

   What is this heartwrenching feeling at the sight of her tears? That happened before, after Sheril got taken. 

   "Road?" He called her softly. 

   Her sobbing was worse than Sheril's, tortured and violent, and she started screaming, "now I've ruined it ruined it ruiNED IT RUINED IT-!"

   He heard the scream from Tricia before he felt the sharp pain of glass in his itching scars.

   I thought regular weapons didn't work on Noah? Tyki thought as he looked down at the hand mirror sticking out of his chest, and why stab me, anyway? She loves her family. 

   Maybe the force of her emotions is stronger than the Noah immunity, he mused as he tipped over and hit the edge of the bannister hard, driving the breath from his lungs.

   Looking down at the crowd below, he decided he was ready to take a chance on something utterly stupid. 

  I don't know what's wrong with Road, but something has to be done before the Noah are eliminated, too.

   With the last bit of air before he passed out, Tyki gasped, "Walker! Take Sheril and the women, and go!"

  "Why him too?!" He heard Allen and his friends gripe, and the twins started cheering and whooping with joy as they renewed their attack. 

   Tyki didn't hear anything more; he thought he saw vague shapes and impressions, and maybe the sensation of someone dragging him backwards into another room, and the sting of the mirror being removed, and soon after, he lost consciousness. 

Chapter Text

  Sheril knew if he opened his mouth now, he'd be in trouble, no matter what he said.

  Not only did several Exorcists forcibly bundle him out of his home, but the big man was carrying an unconscious Miranda, while the vampire was very kindly and heroically helping his wife keep up.

  The fact that they made it out with the twins leaping about, shouting obscenities and shooting indiscriminately, was a testament to their luck.

  Luck that will run out one day, no doubt, Sheril thought as he ran, penned in on multiple sides by the teenage Exorcists. 

  So they dashed through the streets of Lisbon, where Sheril could still hear a commotion behind him, most likely police being summoned to investigate an incident at Kamelot Manor.

   Road would be weeping pitifully as she explained that her politician father and sickly mother were abducted by dissidents, or foreign terrorists, whichever she thought was more likely to inspire panic in Portugal. 

  If they didn't get to the Ark Gate in time (somehow there was one in Lisbon, right under his nose, damn that Walker kid,) it would prove difficult to leave the country undetected. 

  Keeping his mouth shut, knowing he was on thin ice and not wanting to start an argument, Sheril blindly followed the Lee girl, who seemed to know where they were going more than Walker did, despite the fact that he was the one with control over the Ark.

  Trying to keep Desires from taking over his body was causing him severe pain, but he had no choice but to exert the effort.

   He could barely see through the excruciating headache, the burning in his joints and over his skin, but he held fast.

  I have to, he thought to himself, so much is riding on this.

  Everything is ruined and it's all my fault. 

  He almost didn't notice in time when the group slowed to a stop, Walker, Lee, and the young Bookman in front of him, the rest behind. 

   They were in an alleyway in the oldest part of the capital city, rugged ancient walls looming overhead like those of a mausoleum.

   Walker had turned to look at him, and the look of both scorn and pity on his face made Sheril want to lash out.

   Instead, he made an equally as scornful face back, and waited for the boy to say something. 

   It didn't take long.

   "Where did you take Miranda when you left the train?"

  How much of the truth do I think these Exorcists will believe?

   "We went to see if she could return my human memories," he eventually decided on mostly the truth.

   Tilting his head thoughtfully, the boy asked, "did you find the right place?"

   "Miranda seemed to think it was, but the only significant discovery was a grave marker bearing the name 'Mikk', mine and Tyki's family name," Sheril explained, somewhat miffed that Walker chose now to ask him questions. 

  "So Kamelot is Road's name?" He clarified. 

  "Yes," Sheril replied in a low, cautious voice. 

  Allen looked somewhere past him, presumably at Inspector Link, then asked another question. 

  "Why are you so willing to do this? To get your memories back, to fight your Noah?"

   Sheril wanted so badly to look behind him, to glare stubbornly at the man carrying Miranda on his back, to say something witty and profound about the world and their places in it.

  He couldn't bring himself to say anything nearly as interesting as that. 

  "I'm in love with her," he cleared his throat and spoke again, "with your Miss Lotto, I mean. I would do anything, I would risk death at the hands of Road, would kill myself if it would end this nightmare, I only haven't because it would upset dear Miranda if I did so on her account."

   Swallowing bile, feeling tears well up that he couldn't control, Sheril struggled to get the truth out, but the whole and entire truth was only fitting.

   "It's a constant battle with my Noah memories not to hurt her, not to savage her, but I want you to believe me, I'm fighting it with all the strength I have!"

   He hated debasing himself like this before the enemy, hated the fact that he was crying bitter tears, and in front of Allen Walker, too, but he had to make them understand how truthful and how desperate he was. 

  And poor Tricia has to hear this, too, he thought, after the royal ass I made of myself at the Manor, if she wanted to slap me across the face, I'd deserve it. 

   He watched as Walker met eyes with the others, gaze sliding past him and over his head, and nodded, before beckoning the crew to follow him down another alleyway and through it to a small church.

   Sheril didn't appreciate his declaration being ignored, his tears unacknowledged, but he bit back his scathing remark anyway, focusing on not puking at the idea of bearing his heart to these people. 

   As if you still have a heart.

   He couldn't tell if that was his own thought or Desires', and he didn't care to examine which was which at the moment. All he knew was that he had to hold down what little food he had eaten since their escape from the train.

   Trotting up the church steps, the Inspector gave some sort of code to a priest, who let them go one at a time, and Sheril couldn't resist one smart remark. 

  "Not risking another train incident? Couldn't you have done this the first time?"

   Someone prodded him in the back to get him up the stairs, and he hoped his own body would burst into flames as soon as he was over the threshold. 

   But he didn't, and he had to suffer the Walker boys stoic answer, "this time, it's an emergency."

   "How pragmatic of you," Sheril replied, trying to act as unruffled as possible.

  He was a little taken aback by the Lee girls renewed glare of hatred as soon as they were all inside. 

  He didn't have to wait long to find out why.

   "Why hasn't Miranda woken up yet?" She asked him seriously. 

   He resisted the urge to turn and look, to check on her wellbeing, and answered, "I don't know. Either Wisely knocked her out with his mind, or the exhaustion of our travels finally overcame her."

   No one looked like they believed him as they began stepping through the Ark Gate, Sheril in the middle of the group so that he couldn't try anything funny. 

   Why won't they believe me? Heartfelt, hurt.

   You know why, bitter, lonely. 

   Will they ever believe you?

           ~*~*~*~

   When they were all through, Walker and the Inspector went back to tell the priest they were shutting down all the Portuguese gates, and several in Spain as well, then they came back and split off to do just that.

   The rest of them traipsed along the whitewashed streets of the stolen Ark, Sheril looking around at familiar places he no longer felt were warm or comforting. 

   Desires had pulled back his attempted takeover, but Sheril knew there was a specific reason why the Noah would do that.

   To let me embarrass myself in front of Tricia, he seethed.

   He could hear her behind him as the vampire and the man carrying Miranda answered her questions, and the boy child bounced around excitedly at the thought of a successful mission. 

   "So Miss Lotto was being truthful about my husband's possession?"

   "I'm sorry, Mrs. Kamelot, but yes," Sheril heard the lanky man, sounding deeply sympathetic, "along with the entire family, including the Earl."

   "Is that why they would disappear for months at a time?"

   Thinking back to what Miranda had said made Sheril shudder, and he had to fight to suppress a laugh from Desires. 

   'That doesn't make her an idiot, Sheril, that makes you an convincing liar!"

   How could I have been so blind?

   To Road's terror, the plotting and scheming that painted him into a corner?

   Was it because of Desires' whisperings? That strange, eldritch silhouette that convinced him that violence was love and sex was power?

  That shit-eating grin that made him feel like himself until it suddenly didn't?

  Could have it have been the loss of Skinn, the complaints of Lulubell after her failure to retrieve the Akuma Egg?

  The description of his inner world, and the discovery of a Valley Miranda was convinced was a match?

 All of Sheril's mistakes, the murders, the abductions, the weeks of travel on foot, he couldn't bring himself to regret them totally, no matter how much he knew it would help the situation. 

   I guess I'm just fucked like that.

   A memory rose unbidden to his mind, a day that felt like an eternity ago; in the cabin, when he had removed one of Miranda's gloves, despite her protests.

   I don't regret that, either, he thought, just another aspect of my total mess of a seduction attempt. 

  Lost in his own brooding thoughts, he again failed to realize that the group had stopped. 

  He could hear chattering, but he was blocking them out, head down and eyes following the lines of the cobblestones, until he looked up and understood that they were waiting for Walker and the Inspector. 

   The door they stood waiting in front of had been shittily painted with a black rose, somehow even worse than Road's terrible paintings, one of which he could see from here.

   It was splattered with loud, over-bright shades of green and orange, pierced through with rough lines of black and white, and someone- two someones, actually- had glued bird feathers and silver studs to the surface. 

  The door handle was an elegant piece of metalwork shaped like a gun trigger, and some maniac had tied a bell to it, dangling on a long red string that jiggled when you opened it.

   This was the room claimed by the twins when they first arrived, and Road had helped them decorate it within the first week. 

  The inside was decorated, too; dress forms and fashion mannequins they kept their clothes on, a wide collection of weaponry like knives, daggers, swords, and guns, including an antique musket that belonged to a former Bondom and a shashka that had belonged to a long-ago Desires.

   Sheril let them have the sword because they had seemed genuinely interested when Road showed it to them, and several others of their family had done the same with their heirlooms. 

   There was also tub full of dianthus flowers he had given them, which they had splattered with a few garish paints. 

   When Sheril found out, he had lectured them for hours about the mistreatment of gifts, and they repaid him by kicking him in the shins and running away screaming. 

   It was weird that, despite the shit they gave each other, Sheril felt that when worse came to worst, he would miss the twins a lot more than he would miss some of the others.

   Oh, something really is wrong with me, he groaned inwardly, to be missing those hellions! 

   It's because they are your kin, Desires intoned, devious, charming little rogues, scrounging in the dirt and reveling in the mires of blood they cause.

   A flash of the day their Noah had awakened; Sheril went to find them in a small American hellhole with a population of less than two thousand.

   That population had dipped to about two hundred by the time the three of them left the area.

   He brought them home and did the same thing Road had done for him.

   They bathed, had any clothes they wanted, and ate like heathen princes, then roamed the Ark for a room they liked well enough to sleep in when they weren't murdering their way across their home country. 

   I was so elated to have some company, until they turned out to be little teenage assholes. 

   Or maybe I actually enjoyed having someone to challenge me daily?

   No telling, now.

   I can't go back to that life. How I loved it so, but something else is more important now.

   Broken out of his reverie by someone shouting, he looked around and found that the two young men were back and hustling the group to the gate that would take them to the Black Order. 

   Willingly letting himself be moved along, it was just before he stepped into the gate that he heard the pure, warm voice of Miranda asking, "oh no, what happened? Where are we?"

   He didn't hear a response; one second, he was there, the next, he was gone.

Chapter Text

   Adam wasn't sure how long the storms and the flooding lasted, but he still heard Grandpa Noah cursing God over the din anyway, sometimes out on the deck where he would have to be dragged back.

   In the meantime, the children struggled with their plans on how to kill God.

  It seemed to Adam as though each of them were slowly becoming twisted, his friends gradually becoming unrecognizable. 

  Tryde's judgment was becoming harsher, more irrational, blinded by favoritism and grudges. 

  Joyd became distant, apathetic, his only cheer was in biting remarks to others.

  Desires' care for the animals became an obsession with their mating, and he would spend hours watching their rutting with interest. 

  Wisely suffered terrible headaches and was frequently feverish, claiming that the roiling thoughts on the Ark were entering his mind unbidden. 

   Fiedla finally agreed that his mother's body was making those aboard the Ark sick, and began using leftover charcoal to draw her portrait on the walls, asking that the body not be moved until he was done. 

   Mercym took charge whenever Adam or Desires couldn't, using his deep, booming voice with authority. 

   Wrathra began lashing out to family and friends in anger, not caring who got hurt or in who got in his way. 

   Bondom did much the same, running around frantically and not caring for the harm they did others, never apart, never alone.

  Lustol wanted everyone to praise her, to tell her how pretty she was and how gorgeous her sleek black form was when she used her powers. 

  Mightra continued to work on the Ark in darkness, shunning the light and making friends with the smallest animals aboard. 

  All the while, Road just laughed, or encouraged their strange behaviors, teasing them relentlessly with visions and dreams. 

   Adam couldn't understand it; his friends were entirely different from the people he remembered, and he struggled to get them to their senses. 

   But some days, as he caught sight of the malevolent twinkle in Road's eyes, he felt the terrible urge to just give up. 

   Slowly, he stopped talking to anyone but grandfather Noah, who had also changed, the once warm and caring old man now frothing with unconcealed hate, who told Adam that he had a God-killing plan of his own.

   When Adam first heard this plan, he was frightened of his grandfather, but he still shared the idea with Road.

   Her face broke into a smile so gleeful, Adam nearly regretted sharing, but that night, she gathered all their friends in the area of the hold that housed Fiedla's mother. 

     ~*~*~*~

    They started with a bunch of straw, string, and discarded fur, and let the twins play around with the stuff until they had made a little doll in the semblance of a person. 

   "Look, look! It's fat, like Lustol!" They shouted together.

   "Hey!" The little girl pouted. 

   "Hand it to Adam, quick!" Road laughed. 

   Adam clutched the scratchy thing, looking at the crude drawing of a star on its face in charcoal, then looked at the body and asked, "what am I supposed to do?"

   "Wasn't this grandfather's idea?" Tryde pointed out, "shouldn't he be here?"

   Joyd scoffed and responded, "why are we trusting his mad ramblings, anyway?"

   "Because if this works, it'll be really funny," Road giggled. 

   They all turned to look at Adam, who grumbled, "we don't even know if that's what my powers are?"

   But they all looked so excited, especially Road and Desires, so Adam held the straw doll tightly and imagined it alive. 

  Imagined it with the face of Fiedla's mother. 

  She had been odd, like her son, and kept to herself while being very observant, and would often remember what someone else had said even when they had forgotten it themselves. 

   The few times Adam had spoken to her, just the two of them, she had been fun, and had a talent for making pottery. 

   Holding the straw doll, he imagined her soul inside of it, her clay-stained hands, her wiry black hair, her gap between her teeth.

   He didn't think about the gray body beside him, didn't think about the arrow in her chest, he didn't think about them even when he opened her mouth and began shoving the doll inside, much to the shock of his friends. 

   He heard his name called, shrilly by Desires and hoarsely by Fiedla, even as Road laughed and laughed. 

   But when he had gotten the doll as far as it would go, it started to move by itself, and a peculiar drumming in his veins made it hard to hear anything else. 

   The doll soon disappeared entirely, and for one gut-wrenching moment, Adam thought nothing had happened. 

   Until he heard Road scream with delight as the body sat up and stared, wild-eyed, at its own hands, and turned to him to ask;

   "Adam? Where are we?"

Chapter Text

   Sheril didn't get to see the inside of the Black Order headquarters for long; the instant he stepped over the threshold, he was doubled over, clutching his stomach in pain.

  He heard someone shouting nearby, and something that sounded like the grinding of machinery, and footsteps before and above and behind him. 

  He thought he heard Miranda and Tricia as they came through the gate.

  He tried to tell them to look away, tell all of them to back off, don't touch him, but all he could do was hiss and whine through his clenched teeth. 

   Then someone lay a hand on him to straighten his back, but the burning of their touch was so severe he thought he would have a hand-shaped mark on his skin later.

   He couldn't see through the mist of red covering his vision, and he was struggling not to lift his hand and use his powers against the uniformed guardsmen before him.

    Feeling himself being gently directed by someone, he tried to submit to this, but Desires disagreed, and tried its mightiest to lash out.

   But Sheril kept one thing in his head that proved more powerful than the Noah memories. 

   I can't disappoint Miranda. 

           ~*~*~*~

   He woke up later on a stone floor, blessedly cool on his skin, though he didn't appreciate being bound with whatever tools and techniques they could come up with to subdue him.

   His mouth was mercifully free, but there didn't appear to be anyone around to talk to. 

  Why the hell are you worried about that? He asked himself, a little perturbed. 

  We are very chatty, after all, Desires whispered, always the most talkative one of the family. 

  Or next most talkative after Bondom, the voice amended. 

  And then Road after me, I'm guessing?

  No response. 

  Okay, be that way! Sheril huffed. 

  The memory didn't seem to want to talk about Road right now, so Sheril sighed to himself and watched as a droplet of water ran down the stone wall from some unseen crack.

   He was sure that Desires was subtly manipulating his body, because even a little droplet of water was arousing.

  Panicking over the sudden pressure in his guts, Sheril tried to close his eyes against it, but that didn't help; a lovely vision of Miranda was there, overtaking his mind. 

 Tears from her eyes, drool from her mouth, streaking down her face just like that droplet, leaving wet trails that Sheril would kiss and lick, cooing and praising her for being so good for him.

  Moving down to that slender neck, laving it with kisses and bites, sucking large, dark marks onto her skin, encouraging her to return the favor as she gasped in delight. 

   The Sheril left in the cell moaned loudly, and hoped the door was left unguarded, and if there was someone there, that they didn't care to check on him.

  He knew he shouldn't do it, that it was risky and could have disastrous consequences, but he was so tired, so defeated, that he couldn't help himself.

  Sheril stopped resisting and let Desires show him what it will. 

  Coming to your senses now? The scornful entity growled at him, even as it escalated the imagery it was showing him.

  The playful bite marks became bruises left by his squeezing fingers, and as he moved from her neck to the lovely breasts he glimpsed in the barn, he felt himself getting harder.

  He held her by the upper arms, more tightly than he wanted, and the look in her eyes slowly slipped from adoration to fear and her gasps, once ones of excitement, became pained.

  Roughly taking a nipple between his teeth, he rolled it with his tongue and sucked it, listening to her groan that was touched with confusion, as if she didn't know whether she was supposed to enjoy it or not. 

  Alternating between fingers and mouth, he gave each breast equal attention, until both where wet and covered in his own drool, and then he began pinching and massaging her ribs and waist.

  Occasionally she would try to hold back her noises, and he would tell her not to worry by making loud, bold sounds of his own.

  Sheril was so hard the restraints he was left in where starting to hurt, and he wondered what the hell he was locked down with that would do that.

  It was then that he realized that, as much as he would love to look further down Miranda's body, Desires was in control of the vision, and was teasing him by stopping right there. 

  You think you deserve it? The memory taunted, after all, you were supposed to do this, and then kill her!

   Sheril moaned with his mouth open and tried to move his body to get some friction against the floor, but the restraints had him flat on his back and tied down there.

  Damn Exorcists, how did they get strong enough to hold down me, of all Noah?! He fumed internally, an embarrassing whine in his throat. 

  It's because you stopped caring, Desires asserted, even as it continued the vision of Miranda that wouldn't go below the waist, it's because you're worried about this.

   At the last word, Desires raised the intensity, and in the vision, Sheril ran a hand up Miranda's arm and didn't stop until he had his fingers around her neck. 

  Stop, she's not ready for this! Sheril pleaded as though what he saw before him was real. 

  His other hand was poking, prodding, clutching until his nails left tiny half-moon prints, in some places strongly enough to draw blood.

  Miranda's eyes widened as the hand on her neck squeezed, but Sheril never got to find out what Desires was going to do next, the vision dissipating as soon as the door to his cell opened. 

   Eyes clenched shut, he refused to look at whoever it was, and when they spoke, it was a man whose voice he didn't recognize. 

    "You sick fuck."

    Yeah, yeah.

   "I deserved that," Sheril acknowledged. 

   "Oh, so you know what's wrong with you?" The man asked. 

   Sheril swallowed a lump in his throat, "it's hard to explain."

   "Maybe you should try though?"

   Tilting his head towards the wall, away from the door, Sheril asked, "how much have you heard from Miranda and Tricia?"

   Footsteps treaded lightly into the cell, then the man leaned against the wall to the left of the door. 

  "Miss Lotto thinks there's some good left in you, and you're trying your best to find it," the man told him, "at least some of the rescue team were... impressed by your confession."

   Sheril felt Desires rumble, and warned, "you might want to make this quick."

   "So you can get back to what you were doing?" The voice dripped with sarcasm. 

   Huffing out a ragged sigh, Sheril complained, "I'm being tortured by my own mind down here."

  "And again, I ask, what is wrong with you?"

   Oh whatever, I'll fucking tell him.

  "I am the Noah of Desire, of base instincts, of petty obsession," Sheril knew he sounded like a huge creep, and this wouldn't help his argument that he was in love with Miranda, but he was past caring at this point. 

   "Much to the chagrin of Catholic society, I can't help but be horny most of the time," he ended with a sly grin even though he kept his eyes closed, "mostly when Desires wants me to cooperate with it, though."

   "And how does it get that cooperation?"

   "Assailing me with arousing visions, or barring that, exerting so much physical pressure I suffer the indignity of terrible stomach cramps," Sheril explained. 

   Silence, and then a condescending slow clap.

   "Well, that is a stupid way to make a point, but..." the sarcasm made Sheril seethe, "Miranda, despite her anxiety, has always been realistic, so if she trusts you, I guess I can help."

   "Oh good, I can't wait to hear what you have in mind," equally sarcastic. 

   "I'm bringing you a fresh set of clothes, and don't bitch about the quality," Sheril heard the man pace across the room, "I'm also assigning you an Exorcist guard, so you can leave the cell. We're going to need you to-"

   "What part of 'arousing visions and debilitating stomach cramps' did you not get?" Sheril was sure this man was an idiot, "if I try to move from this spot, Desires will make me look like a fool up there!"

   "He's making you look like a fool now."

   Outraged, Sheril finally opened his eyes and turned to look at the man speaking. 

   White uniform, white beret, floppy black hair, and bottom-framed glasses, Sheril thought the man's purple eyes looked vaguely familiar. 

   "You wouldn't happen to be related to the nice Lee girl, would you?"

   "Her name is Lenalee," the man huffed, "I'm her older brother, Chief Komui Lee, of the Black Order's European Branch. If I find out you've touched her-"

  "She's kicked me in the ribs once, actually," Sheril readily admitted, "which I definitely deserved."

   Komui Lee kept his face neutral, then lifted his fist to his chin in thought, "so we have to suppress Desires somehow..."

   "Good luck with that..." Sheril knew he didn't sound genuine, but the chief turned and left anyway, locking the cell door behind him.

   Laying there, not knowing what to do, Sheril practiced shutting out Desires himself, exerting his will over his own body.

   Even though it would be so tempting to...

   No! I have to do this! I have to fix myself!

   I have to get this under control! 

   So he lie there and thought about anything else besides how much he wanted to make love to a certain woman Exorcist.

Chapter Text

   Jasdero was wandering around the Manor, crunching broken glass under his boots and thinking about food. 

   He thought about his favorite meal that the Earl cooked (American style hamburgers), which made him vaguely recall his hometown, even though it was a disgusting shithole.

   He thought about his favorite food that Sheril cooked (rissóis with beef filling instead of shrimp), and how it was his own idea to substitute the shrimp.

   Sheril had been skeptical at first, but the idea had gone off without a hitch, and Jasdero and his brother often asked for batches of thirty at a time.

   Jasdero thought about not having beef rissóis anymore, and the idea filled him with a sadness that was indescribable. 

  "This sucks, hee~" he muttered just loud enough for his twin to hear.

  "Yeah," Debita mumbled back, kicking things aside as they went. 

  Jasdero frowned at him, and when Debita made the same face back, he twisted his face into a goofy expression that got a little bit of a laugh. 

  Looking around at the shattered windows of the foyer, Jasdero felt weird, like something was going horribly wrong, but he didn't know how to express it in words, so he asked his brother quietly; 

   "Is it strange that I miss him?"

   Debita didn't answer immediately, so he went on. 

   "He's really gross and mean," he sniffed, "and good at pretending to be a stuck-up rich person."

   Sighing, his brother added, "the kind that hates the kind of people we are?"

   "Yeah!" Jasdero nodded vigorously, aware that crying would ruin his makeup, "he's so terrible, hee~! But we can't let the Exorcists have him!"

   Debita looked like he wanted to agree, but then he sneered, "then he shouldn't have ruined his life flirting with one!"

   Jasdero looked down at his feet, trying so hard not to let the tears fall as he asked, "do you think he would like us if we met without awakening as Noah?"

 "There's no way we would have met, dummy!" Debita laughed again, but he didn't mean it to be hurtful, "he would have been in his Portuguese backwater, and we would have been in our American dump!"

   "Okay, but imagine we did?" Jasdero insisted, "we're good at imagining, remember?"

   Debita grumbled and kicked a vase off its stand before muttering, "but we don't know who he was. We don't even remember who we were."

  Leaning against the bannister where Tyki had been standing, Jasdero offered, "I remember that town, hee~"

   The town they awoke in. 

  Sheril had shown up, dressed-up all dapper, and told them what was happening, where the mind-splitting pain was coming from, and that they now had powers normal people could only dream off.

   The first day they had known Sheril, he made them feel special, so special, and they had adored him, for a moment. 

  Especially when he demonstrated his powers and guided them to unleashing theirs. 

  But then they got comfortable, and began behaving the way normal teens not living in oppressive little shitburgs do, which Sheril didn't seem to appreciate. 

   "But Road says controlling people is how Desires expresses his love, hehe!" Jasdero pointed out, "so maybe he does like us, really?"

  "I wish he had a less annoying way of showing it!" Debita raised his voice, but before he could go on, he whipped his head in the direction of footsteps from deep in the house. 

  It was Fiedla, in his human form with his orange hair in a beaded headscarf, shaking his head as the twins opened their mouths. 

   "And Road shows her love by encouraging us each in our own perversions," his voice was monotone, "Tyki gets to have human friends, Sheril gets to play house, you two get to wipe a few American towns off the map."

   "But Sheril ruined his own 'house' by having an affair!" Debita's volume went up again. 

   "Unless that's part of his idea of playing 'house', hee~!"

   It looked like this was the last straw for Debita, who screamed, "that really fucking sucks! I don't care what happens to the Exorcists or his stupid wife, but what about us?!"

   Fiedla just blinked his eyes separately, like an owl, and asked, "what about us?"

  "Tyki told the Exorcists to take him, so they can do who knows what to him!"

  Jasdero still felt some strange sadness that was way different to his brothers anger, but he played along, "yeah! That makes Tyki a traitor too, hee~!"

   "And we're the ones left behind! To cry over him like we did for Skinn!" Debita dredged up that memory, and Fiedla finally changed expression, slightly startled, "I'm not crying over that bastard!"

   "Yeah! He stinks and he looks gross, hehe!"

   "So we're taking charge!" Debita declared, puffing out his chest, "the first thing we're doing is talking to Tyki, even if Wisely has to go in his mind to do it!"

   Ready to execute his plan immediately, he barreled past Fiedla, Jasdero not far behind him, even though in his heart, he was scared of what might happen if they got too closely involved. 

  He felt his part of the Bondom memory stirring, clutching at him, already mourning the loss of Desires, even if it didn't know quite why.

Chapter Text

    Miranda tried to scuttle down from Noise's back to follow where the guards were taking Sheril, but she didn't make it far before he put a hand on her shoulder.

   Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Krory offering a similarly gentle hand to Tricia, and suddenly felt guilty.

   She didn't have to be involved, Miranda thought, but it's far too late for that.

   Road must have involved her a long time ago.

   Or it was Sheril's fault.

   "Either way..." she whispered, not realizing she had said it out loud until she heard Noise speaking.

   "Miranda, you should go to your room," she felt another stab of guilt at how friendly he was being, "you might want to wash and change."

   She was about to thank him, despite the feeling of shame, when she saw Chief Komui approaching.

  "What happened?" He asked with equal measures of concern and excitement, "is anyone hurt?"

   "Besides emotional distress?" Lavi quipped, and got an elbow from Lenalee, who answered, "Komui, this is Sheril Kamelot's wife, Tricia."

   Respectfully taking off his beret and bowing low, Komui introduced himself, "Madam, I'm Komui Lee, Chief of this branch of the Black Order. I imagine you have a few questions about the situation at hand?"

  Stepping forward with Krory's support, Tricia replied, "it would be very appreciated, Mr. Lee."

   Lenalee then took Miranda by the elbow, and she let herself fall into her friends shoulder, knowing Lenalee would hold her weight, "I'm taking Miranda up to change before anything else. If you don't mind the wait, ma'am, we would like to be there when you ask your questions."

   "Of course, I would like to hear Miss Lotto's side of the story," she said, not in an unkind way, and Miranda did her best to nod before being led away.

    ~*~*~*~

 After a short bath and a quick look around her room, Miranda realized with no small amount of terror that she didn't know when she last saw the Time Record.

  I know I had it with me in Sheril's village, so where is it now?!

  If anyone else finds out, it will be a total disaster!

  I'll probably be forced to leave the Order, or maybe even executed by the Vatican!

   What am I supposed to do now?!

   Rushing to put on a spare uniform, Miranda felt her her head aching and her pulse beginning to rise, and as she exited her room, she accidentally slammed the door behind her.

   This got Lenalee's attention, and she asked gently, "are you okay? That was kind of forceful."

   "I'll be fine," Miranda tried to brush it off, but she knew her nerves had to show on her face and in her voice.

   "You know it's okay to tell me anything, right?" Lenalee had walked away so quickly Miranda couldn't see her face, "not that I'm accusing you of anything! But we want to help you, even if that means cooperating with this Noah."

   "I'm sorry, it's just..."

   Just what, Miranda? That you're a fool and an idiot?

   That you deserve to turn into a fallen one for everything you've done?

   You've lost your Innocence somewhere, and for someone who might not have a normal life, even if you get rid of the Noah memory?

  Who is he? And who are you, in fact?

  "Lenalee..." Miranda hesitated, and her friend stopped to turn on the stairs with tears in her eyes.

  "If I turn into-"

  "Don't," Lenalee tried to say, but she couldn't let anything stop her.

  "-a fallen one, I need you to kill me."

   Dashing back up the stairs towards her, Lenalee wrapped Miranda in a rather crushing hug, and she felt the tears on her shoulder even as her own began spilling out.

   "That won't have to happen," her friend sobbed deeply, "it won't, I promise it won't!"

   Miranda recalled what she had been told of Allen and Lenalee's attempt to save the Exorcist Suman Dark, and returned her tight hug with one of her own.

   "I know, I know, but... j-just in case?"

   Sniffling, and then, a small voice questioning, "what is happening, Miranda?"

   How do I tell her? What do I say?

   "I've fallen in love with an utterly disturbed and deranged man," Miranda confessed, "when we're alone, he's so sweet, if still a bit strange! And before you say anything, yes, I know he could just be manipulating me!"

   The sound of Lenalee holding in a laugh, and then, "I was about to say that, you're right."

  "I know, I know," Miranda sobbed, "I really shouldn't make excuses for his awful behavior, but I just can't sit idly by while he suffers."

   Squeezing her tighter before backing off, Lenalee asked, "do you want to go talk to his wife?"

  "You're making fun of me for being the 'other woman', aren't you?"

  "Just a little, because it's just so 'you' to end up in a situation like this!"

   Miranda couldn't help but laugh, even though it was wildly inappropriate, and followed Lenalee quickly down the stairs to find out where this meeting was taking place.

        ~*~*~*~

   They found Komui and the entire rescue team in one of the headquarters lounge rooms.

   This group sat close by a fireplace with a tea service being provided, and Tricia had been allowed to pull herself together somewhere, nice and neat and dignified.

   If Miranda didn't know her already, she would have assumed this was snobby, but she knew that couldn't be further from the truth.

  Letting her arrange her loose hair and dust off her clothes was for her comfort, Miranda thought, not for her to look impressive.

  How did she end up married to Sheril? Was I right to suggest that he murdered her family?

   She was brought out of her reverie by Komui announcing their presence.

   "Miranda, Lenalee, I'm glad you could join us," he stood as he spoke, "in light of recent events, our guest is choosing to go by her maiden name, so may I introduce Miss Tricia Harrow?"

   Miranda wanted to turn and run, go back to her room and hide under her covers, but she stood rooted to the floor, not giving away that she felt anything about this information.

   "And since she's been introduced to everyone else, we're ready to begin," Komui went on, "if there's anything you would like to ask, we'll do our best to answer, Miss."

   Slightly shaking, Tricia put her teacup down on the tray, and it was then Miranda realized this woman couldn't be much older than herself, only appearing as she did due to some strange illness.

   Did Sheril choose her because of this?

   A throat clearing.

   "Am I to understand it that my husband's entire family is possessed?"

   Nodding carefully, Komui answered, "not only that, but as far as I'm aware, he's only truly related to the one called Tyki Mikk."

   Tricia nodded back, "oh yes, I was there for Road's adoption, and Wisely's, just recently... those poor dears! Is it possible to help them?"

   Shame written on his face, Komui answered, "we're not entirely sure. We're hoping this discussion might shed some light on the issue."

   "Do you know how long they've been like this?"

   Komui turned to Allen and said, "we have reason to believe that Road has had the same appearance for over thirty years, correct?"

   "I think I recall overhearing that somewhere, but I could have been concussed at the time."

   "Allen!" Lenalee covered her mouth in shock, "when was this?"

   "Not important right now!" Komui tried to reign in the conversation.

   "Thirty years?" Tricia's voice filled with concern, "does that make her the oldest? Or is the Earl still older?"

  "We don't know that for sure, but we can guess," he turned to Allen again.

  "I get the impression Road is the oldest, but I could be wrong."

   "How many of them are there, do you think?" Tricia asked next.

   Komui glanced at Allen again before saying, "we know there's at least thirteen of them, but how many did you meet?"

   "Oh, thirteen? I met twelve of them, I believe?"

   Miranda couldn't control herself this time when she asked, "then you know Fiedla?

   Somewhat doubtful, Tricia replied, "he's a very quiet young man, if a little strange. Sheril presented him as an estranged cousin."

   Lavi quickly jumped in, "is that the one that drew those pictures of Minister Kamelot for you?"

   Miranda thought he brought this up maliciously, but she couldn't say anything now without starting an argument.

   She could tell from Tricia's face that she wasn't impressed, but before she could defend herself, Allen stepped in.

   "What about the twins? How often did you see them?"

   Tricia took a moment to think before speaking up, "Jasdero and Debita? They were always giving Sheril grief, but they seemed like normal young men to me..."

   "They fought Krory here," Komui tilted his head to the Exorcist behind her, "to a draw, I believe."

   "I won," Krory muttered, and no one argued.

    Falling silent, Tricia looked at her hands and didn't speak up for some time.

    "A-and poor Lulubell, and... and Skinn! They told me he had gotten a job that would take him far from home for a while," Tricia started at a whisper until her stress caused her to raise her voice again.

   "Wasn't that the big guy Kanda fought?"

   Before anyone could answer, Lenalee warned them, "guys, stop saying such worrying things!"

   The meeting lapsed into silence again, and Miranda started to get fidgety.

   What do I say? Is there anything I can say?

   I don't want to ruin this for everyone, and Tricia looks so sad.

   But before Miranda could decide on a course of action, Tricia spoke up again.

   "Road, darling Road... she introduced us! She presented him as the man who would be adopting her!"

   "Miss Harrow-" Komui began, but she just kept rambling.

   "They were both so sweet, so kind and caring, courteous to the maids," Tricia lowered her head into her hands, "and he was there for me when my family was all found dead, soon after!"

   Looking back up at Komui with tears leaving tracks down her face, she asked, "and you think it was them? The demons possessing Sheril and the others?"

    Komui turned pale, and he was solemn as he asked, "I'm sorry, Miss Harrow, but in order to confirm that, I would need to know the exact method of their deaths."

   "Oh, Sheril handled all of that for me, he said the details were too gruesome for my delicate heart to take."

   It was then that Lavi blurted out, "you know, this guy sounds like he's kind of a jackass?"

  " 'Kind of'? We've met him enough times now to say he's definitely a jackass," Allen added.

  "Guys, focus!" Komui warned them, but there was no need.

   Looking right at Miranda, Tricia asked in a trembling voice, "Miss Lotto? Are you... in love with my husband?"

   Not expecting to be put on the spot like that after Allen and Lavi's remarks, Miranda wished the floor would open up underneath her.

   What could she say? 

   Yeah, I told Lenalee I loved him, but being asked that by his legally married wife?!

   Assuming their marriage is legal...

  God, you're so stupid! Just say yes, just say yes, just say yes!

  Feeling like she was about to be violently sick, the footsteps of someone running into the lounge were a welcome relief from the oppressive pressure she felt.

   "Chief Komui! The prisoner is awake!" The guardsman announced hesitantly, "...and he's being kind of weird?"

   Groaning impatiently, Komui stood and beckoned to Miranda, "wait for me in my office, if you don't mind? I'm going to have a serious conversation with this man, and then I'd like to ask you a few things."

   Miranda bowed politely, deliberately avoiding Tricia's eyes as she followed Komui from the room.

   Stomach in tortured knots, she went up to Komui's office and sat miserably in one of the chairs set aside for visitors, wondering what it was the Chief wanted to say to her that required such privacy.

   Am I being locked up again? Am I being kicked out?!

   Ugh, why can't I be as confident as Sheril, as self-assured?

   Suddenly, Miranda thought back to a conversation they had a long time ago, a she felt such a heart-wrenching twist that she almost couldn't breathe.

   You only see what you want to see.

   Your expectations of someone else aren't always what they really end up being.

   She couldn't stop herself from crying this time, tears dropping to the floor and leaving dark spots on the shiny wood.

   How can I figure out who's lying and who's telling the truth? And what about Tricia's family? If we find out Sheril really did that, then how do I continue to justify my feelings?

   Even if we could remove Desires, the law would still consider Sheril guilty, wouldn't it?

   Ugh, come on! You're getting too far ahead of yourself, Miranda wanted to shout, but she was so afraid of what would happen if she opened her mouth that she stuck with her thoughts, take this one step at a time!

But what to do about Tricia? About her friends?

   She was about to begin sobbing in earnest when she heard the creaking of the office door behind her, and she dreaded what could be happening now. 

Chapter Text

       To Adam's confusion, the rest of the family felt it unnatural that Fiedla's mother had been awakened from the dead.

     They welcomed her with open arms, made her comfortable and warm, because they knew her from before, but behind her back they shuddered in fear, or sneered at Adam for what he had done.

  Suddenly, it was as though Adam's loving family, his mother and the mothers of his friends, the handful of lawful husbands of those women, who sided with them, were no longer as caring as they once were.

  He didn't understand what he had done, and he didn't feel a thing even as a slow, seeping bitterness entered into his soul.

  The only ones who didn't see the problem with the resurrection were grandfather Noah and all of his fellow angel-born friends, who were delighted by this turn of events, especially young Fiedla.

   When Adam tried to explain his fears to Road, she fixed him with a hard look that sent a shiver down his spine.

  "Don't worry about them," she spoke as though a sour taste were on her tongue, "if they aren't going to side with us, the true inheritors of Noah's will, then the flood may as well take them all."

   Adam was slowly finding Road to be a very frightening person, but he didn't want to let anyone down, so he kept it to himself.

   But it wasn't long until everything began to go terribly wrong, and their downfall started on the day a newborn sheep didn't make it an hour past its birth.

         ~*~*~*~

   The twins had taken to making straw dolls for just such an occasion, and when Adam asked them for one, they both smiled gleefully and handed one over.

   "You didn't have to make that much," he said as he eyed the pile of little straw bodies.

   "There's one for every man, woman, and child here," they announced in one voice, "and the animals!"

"Tell Desires to stop watching them mate!" The more excitable of the twins giggled with a bit of malice.

  Not wanting to get into that topic of conversation, Adam only answered, "I'll see what I can do..."

   As he left, a quiet Road trotted behind him while clutching the edge of his tunic in her fingers.

   Making their way to the animal pens, Adam was dragged backwards by Road coming to a dead stop.

   Looking back at her incredulously, he dared to ask, "yes? What is it?"

   With a barely concealed look of malevolence on her face, Road looked up into his eyes and questioned, "what do you think is wrong with Desires?"

  What is wrong with any of us? Adam thought, and why does she look so elated to be asking me?

  Does she really have that much of a grudge against God?

  I hate him too, but Road...

  "Adam, you are standing there with a vapid look on your face!" Road laughed meanly, gently pushing him towards the pens, "come on, let's get on with it!"

   He ignored the stares from their mothers and their mother's husbands as they walked around to the pen containing the dead lamb.

  Across the way, Desires was also there, looking terribly upset at the death of the dear, sweet newborn.

  Noticing their arrival, he turned up his face to Adam and asked, "are you going to try what you did to Fiedla's mother?"

  Adam only nodded solemnly and opened the gate so he could step into the pen.

   The floor was covered with straw and sand in order soak up the blood and shit involved in animal care, and in the middle, the two adult sheep packed onto the Arc still licking and crying over the corpse of their baby.

   Adam didn't care about getting dirty, just as he didn't care about the dirty looks from those who got up to watch.

   He cooed and soothed his way in between the two sheep, and when he was close enough, he lifted the body's head gently and tried to imagine it alive.

   Pure white and frolicking in green grass filled with wildflowers, stopping only to suckle from its mother's teat, laying its head to rest at nightfall protected by a farmers dogs.

   Then he did what he did to Fiedla's mother and began pushing the straw doll into its mouth.

  It didn't take long for Adam to realize that something was amiss.

  The doll refused to go any further, and he heard the two parents around him start to react with fear over his actions; they were hurt and concerned by what he was doing to their baby.

   As he tried to shove the doll further, the sheep became erratic, but he refused to move, and eventually, he was being shoved around, himself.

   "Adam, get out of there!" He heard Desires plead, but he wouldn't move, and soon enough he felt the father of the lamb start to use his horns against him.

   Adam kept both his hands locked over the mouth of the lamb, but nothing was happening, and he cursed under his breath before he was suddenly lifted into the air.

   He knew what had happened immediately, and twisted his head until he locked eyes with Desires.

   The younger man had his fingers splayed out, pointed right at him, and was walking his way around the pen to the doorway, dragging Adam with him.

   "Desires, what are you-"

    "You know, I personally don't care, but you were starting to looks insane," Desires said kindly as he towed Adam to the deck of the Ark, Road following behind, "I just didn't want you to be humiliated in front of the family."

   'Insane' and 'humiliated' sounded like new concepts to Adam, but he didn't want to ask Desires, who was known to give long answers to simple questions.

  So he let himself be put down gently by Desires, and the three of them looked up at the brilliant blue skies above them.

   It hadn't rained in days, and grandfather Noah had been letting the birds go out, confident that they would return whenever they wanted to nest.

   He was out there now, tired old hands shaking as a pair of hawks lifted off from his fist, making room for two nightingales to land.

   Desires approached him slowly, holding his hand out for two hummingbirds, and Noah turned to acknowledge his presence with a nod.

   "Adam's ability doesn't work on the animals, Grandfather," he informed the old man solemnly.

  Adam and Road moved forward to stand beside Desires, and Adam bowed his head nervously, "I'm so sorry, Grandfather."

  Noah said nothing, looking intently towards the vast oceans that covered their world.

   Adam couldn't tell what it was, but something seemed different that day, as the lapping of waves against the hull of the Ark reached them up on the deck.

   Finally, old Noah launched the nightingales into the air and opened his mouth to speak.

  "I didn't expect it to," he sighed, "it is said that only us humans were granted true souls by God."

   The three of them flinched, and Desires made an indignant sound, before adding, "and who gave them the right to determine who gets a soul and who doesn't?"

   "No one but themselves, I suspect," Noah sighed again, even deeper and more ragged than the first.

   Then Little Road piped up to remind them, "And to leave us floating here, without our Angels and without telling us how we shall live?"

  Adam knew she had a point, but when Desires looked at him as though he should have some input, he only shrugged his shoulders.

   Being the oldest came with a lot of responsibilities Adam wasn't sure he was capable of, and he could tell by the frown and shaking head that Desires didn't think so, either.

   Rolling his eyes, Desires looked at the Clan patriarch and asked, "so what do we do now, Grandfather?"

   A silence began to stretch on, and Adam could tell Desires was growing impatient, but then the old man lifted a finger and pointed out across the vast floodwaters.

   "Look there," he mumbled, and the three of them turned to see a white-gray bird flying towards them, carrying something in its beak, its partner close behind.

   As they approached, Adam realized they were doves, but he couldn't make out what the leader was holding until they landed on Grandfather Noah's raised fist.

   "Ah, a twig from an olive tree," Desires said out loud, "and baring fruit, as well!"

   Noah delicately plucked one of the olives and handed it to Desires, who sniffed it before taking the tiniest of bites from the flesh.

   Road laughed as Desires made a sour face and said, "well, they're fresh from somewhere."

   "You should have known better than to bite into a raw olive," Road pointed out.

   Adam thought about her words, recalling the olive grove he once stumbled upon when he had free time with Joyd and Desires.

   Eager to bring home a new food source, they spent many hours trying different preparations of the hard, black-and-green fruits, but the ones that tasted best had been left in a pot to soak for days.

  Road was right; there was no need for Desires to bite into an olive he knew would be bitter.

  Before Adam could think harder about the changes affecting all of his family and friends, Desires asked a question.

   "What does this mean, Grandfather?"

   The older man cleared his throat, and Adam felt something stirring inside of him at the sound of the patriarchs answer.

   "It means there's land somewhere," his voice was loud in Adam's ears, though it was so low it should have been drowned out by the waves, "it means that Gods flood is finally receding."

Chapter Text

  Miranda was shocked to see Sheril being escorted into the office by Komui and several very irritated looking Order guards. 

  He was wearing rather ragged looking brown trousers with a crisp white shirt under a brown vest.

  The look was finished with a pair of black boots, but the overall effect was that of pieces borrowed from other men who wear different sizes than him.

   He was still bound by Link's Feathers, and looked somewhat put out by the entire ordeal, but Miranda couldn't help but feel that his grumpy face was just a bit charming.

   Focus, Miranda, now is not the time for frivolity! 

   Leading the way, Komui walked up to his desk, turning around to lean against it, watching Sheril with a keen eye as he sat in the other chair. 

   "I'm going to be honest, I'm still not entirely sure what to do about this guy," Komui began, clearing his throat, "according to several reports, he's being polite by allowing it to look like the CROW Feathers can hold him."

  "It's absolutely true, ask Miranda," Sheril said with a gleaming smile. 

  Wincing at his glib attitude, Miranda confirmed, "I wish I could tell you otherwise, Chief Komui."

   "But according to you, your behavior is mainly a matter of whether or not Desires is either offended, or planning something," the chief continued, "this memory of yours cooperating now, is it?"

  Miranda noticed as Sheril chanced a glance at her, before answering, "marginally."

  "Meaning?"

  "Meaning it could be set off by anything, at any moment," Sheril's smile was less glowing, "there's always the baseline irritation just from being here in the first place, and the intrusive thoughts, if course."

   Catching the hint immediately, Miranda dreaded finding out how much Komui knew of the kind of 'thoughts' Sheril had.

  Concentrating with his chin on his fist, Komui looked at the two of them and hummed before asking, "what if we distract him with something interesting? How does Desires feel about the gathering of knowledge?"

   "Oh, we both love to read and memorize things," Sheril confessed, "what was it that you had in mind?"

          ~*~*~*~

   Even from across the Orders large main library, Miranda could tell Sheril was, if not exactly happy, then at least close to it. 

  Every Exorcist and several of the more experienced Finders were there, keeping an eye on him just in case Desires decided to act.

  A huge team of researchers, especially those with a preference for history, was pouring over every single book, scroll, and embossed skin of leather in headquarters, trying to glean anything they could from millennia of writing.

   The basis of their search was two-fold; some searched for the Valley of Sheril's birth, focusing on records of suspicious activity in Portugal.

  Others searched for murder methods, organs removed with no external damage, manipulation by invisible strings, weapons in places and times they shouldn't have existed yet.

   Taking into account the fact that Road could potentially be the same little girl no matter when or where they looked, someone had given Allen paper and pen and asked for sketches of her.

    Which was the first of several disasters. 

    "But Allen can't draw for shit!" Lavi burst out laughing. 

   "He's the one whose seen her the most!" One researcher tried to argue.

   "Will you two take this seriously?!" Reever yelled from where he was hunched over an ancient tome, "just ask her sleazy father figure!"

    Sighing over a thick German text, Miranda knew Sheril wouldn't resist saying something back.

    "That's juvenile! Don't talk about me as though I'm not here!"

    This set Lavi off, and he reached for the Hammer in his thigh holster and shouted, "you started it by stealing the heart of our Miranda!"

   It was like the air was sucked out of the room, every breath the gathering took thundering in her ears, but before Miranda could react, Sheril kept on arguing. 

   "Oh, 'your' Miranda? Since when was she 'your' Miranda?" He taunted gleefully, "what, does the Order not allow her to be her own person?"

   She wasn't sure what came over her then, but something about the yelling and the whispering and the sight of other people about to open their mouths sent her over the edge. 

   Without thinking, Miranda slammed her hands down on the table where she was working with Lenalee and Komui, standing so quickly her chair clattered to the floor, and screamed, "don't talk about me as though I'm not here!"

   Heads turned, and she realized with a start that she had said the same exact thing Sheril had.

   The silence was nearly absolute except for the ruffling of paper and old scrolls, and Miranda thought she would collapse under the weight of it until Link cleared his throat and said, "you two, come here."

  Assuming he meant herself and Sheril, Miranda picked up her skirts and made her way to the table Link sat at with Allen and two scientists. 

   Sheril had done the same, and when they both stood awkwardly behind the Inspector, he winked slyly at her, as though he were proud of her outburst.

  She didn't know how to respond, so she leaned over Link as politely as she could and asked, "what is it?"

  Link held up a file of loose pages, and it took Miranda a moment to realize she was looking at a hand-drawn and labeled map.

   "Ah, the valley," she heard Sheril whisper, and she peered closer still before she finally recognized it.

   The labels were in tight, precise handwritten Portuguese that was unreadable to Miranda, but she recognized what should have been the large wooded area, the church, the headman's house, and the Mikk family farm. 

   "It's from a land survey made twenty years ago," Link explained in a neutral tone, "there's even a census from that year."

   Miranda couldn't help but notice Allen eying them as Link handed the rough-looking file back to Sheril without turning around, but she tried to ignore the staring as he flicked through the pages.

   "Why does the Black Order have this in the first place?" Sheril asked as Komui and Lenalee approached the table. 

   "Someone must have thought it was important," the Chief answered, "stranger things have turned up in random places around here."

   "We still don't know who shelved a book of vampire myths with a book on botanical gardens earlier," Reever reminded them as he joined the group.

   Miranda had no clue what he was talking about, so she leaned in where she could see what Sheril was reading. 

   She thought she would at least be able to tell what was a name and what wasn't, but the handwriting was impenetrable to her. 

   She was trying hard not to lean directly onto Sheril while she could feel the rooms eyes on her, but seeing his face and hair and hands so closely was giving her goosebumps. 

   The silence went on for so long that Miranda began to fidget, the warning bells blaring in her mind.

    What's going on, is it the wrong census? Is he struggling with Desires? It's eerie when he's this quiet! 

   But before she could pluck up the courage to ask him directly, Komui beat her to it.

   "Engaged in combat with yourself over there?"

   The way Sheril's lips curled while he kept his eyes on the file made Miranda flinch, but he only responded, "not at all," and continued down the neatly ordered lines.

  A minute of awkward shuffling later, Sheril surprised Miranda by leaning into her and pointing at the page, "look here. Seem familiar?"

   Shaking her head, she responded nervously, "I can't make any sense of this at all. "

   Clearing his throat, Sheril began, "well, these are ordered by the total value of the property they owned, least valuable first and ascending as you go."

   "And we're assuming your family had the highest value, since it took you so long to find it," Allen scoffed, not afraid to look the Noah right in the eye.

   Miranda looked back at his black polished finger, where it pointed at a name that started with an elaborate 'S'.

  Recalling the gravestone back in the Valley, Miranda asked him, "does this say Silvio?"

  "Yes, this says 'Silvio Mikk, aged sixty-four, and two sons, Sheril Mikk, aged fourteen, and Tyki Mikk, aged seven'," sticking his nose up, Sheril sounded defensive, "and actually, we only had the third highest valued property."

   Incredulous look on his face, Lavi guffawed, "Wow, Tyki's a real person!"

   Miranda saw Sheril open his mouth to react, so she quickly got his attention by pointing near his finger and asking, "what does this note here say?"

   Looking back at the page, Sheril hummed and answered, "this says, 'late wife Jacinda Mikk, passed seven years ago."

   Miranda watched as something changed behind Sheril's eyes, but she couldn't make out what it was before his gaze left the file and went up to where Tricia was walking towards them.

  "Then it is true, the only real thing you told me?" She questioned him in a weary voice, "about you and Tyki being brothers?"

   Miranda didn't know where to look; not at Tricia, not at her friends, and certainly not at Sheril. 

   Something was wrong, it was too calm, too silent, like Desires had relinquished control to let Sheril flounder in the dire awkwardness of this meeting. 

   She felt as though she was waiting forever for someone to say something, anything, for Tricia to yell or cry, for Sheril to say something deceptive, or for herself to break down, hitting the floor like a bag of rice.

   But what was said next made her gasp aloud, forgetting to be worried that the room would find it weird. 

   "Have you ever felt like your life was ending, over what seemed to other people like a minor inconvenience?"

   Sheril had turned to ask her this so simply, so casually, that Miranda was almost knocked back by his earnest face.

   She knew what he was referring to; she had asked him the same thing, in the same exact words, at the hotel in Germany, after their traditional dinner but before Road had commenced her attack.

   I don't even remember what had me so heartbroken that I felt the need ask this then, Miranda thought, and I don't know why he's asking me now, in front of so many people. 

 Apparently not heeding the strangeness of his aside, Sheril had returned his attention to Tricia.

  Pulling in a long breath and shaking his head, Sheril began. 

   "I am... unforgivable, I know," no one moved a muscle, no one dared even breathe, "in fact, I'd prefer if you don't forgive me."

   "That is not some manipulation tactic, where by stating a preference for unforgiveness, you decide to forgive me anyway," Sheril hung his head in what Miranda thought could be perceived as shame.

  "I've been given far, far more leniency than I deserve for nearly two decades of political tyranny, duplicity, and murders numbering into the thousands," some of the researchers began whispering loudly at this, "all I ask of you is that you forget anything you ever loved about me."

   From the vein jumping in his jaw Miranda knew he was fighting against Desires, and very poorly, at that, but before she could say anything, she was beaten once again, this time by Tricia.

   "You can be sure of that, but you think this is over just by your say-so?" It seemed to Miranda as though she was also struggling to remain calm, "do you think, by giving permission to find you unforgivable, that absolves you of your affair with Miss Lotto?"

   Before anyone could jump to her defense, Sheril raised his head, "I don't want to be absolved of anything! I know what I am, something you seem to still not get."

   Tricia took a step back, and when Krory and Noise stood behind her as support, she shook her head.

    "I think I understand completely, Kamelot," the use of his last name clearly stung him, "I'm not an idiot, after all. I knew you had to be getting sex from somewhere, and that I was resigned to, because you were so kind and lovely and dazzlingly perfect otherwise."

    Miranda noticed many people in the room collectively wince at this, and for some reason, this made her uncharacteristically angry.

  Even as she moved to hide behind Sheril, she felt the need to defend both herself and him, and shouted without thinking, "but we haven't even had sex yet!"

  Oh no, what have I done? Miranda thought as Tricia looked even more startled than before. 

  Miranda chanted to herself, be brave, be courageous, be independent, but she found that she could not take what Tricia said next. 

   "I'm so sorry, I wasn't referring to you specifically, Miss Lotto," spoken with an air of embarrassment. 

   Her face heating up in shame, Miranda took a few steps around the table, head down so she wouldn't meet anyone's eyes, as she picked up her skirts and made her way to the door. 

   She heard the sound of people talking, the voices of her friends, some of them calling her name, but she didn't register a thing that was said. 

   Stepping out of the library's great doors, she picked up her pace, frantically running to her room as fast as her legs could carry her.

   "Stupid, stupid, stupid thing to say! Of course she could have been talking about anyone," Miranda ranted out loud, no longer caring about the salty tears running down her face, "there's no way I can show myself in front of anyone ever again!"

   Reaching out to open the door to her room, she was over the threshold in a moment, and slammed the door behind her before throwing herself against it and sliding to the floor. 

   Sobbing heartily, she groaned in frustration, "and I still don't remember where the Time Record is! This has been a total disaster."

   She continued to cry audibly until her throat began to hurt, then dragged herself up and began to search her room top to bottom in the hopes that someone had found and stored it for her.

  "And if it's not here, I'll report to Chief Komui quietly," she told herself, knowing it would be the worst report she'd ever have to make, "but hey, maybe I won't turn into a Fallen One if it's too far away?"

   But the thought didn't help, even as she was turning her room upside down in search of her lost Innocence.

Chapter Text

  Tyki Mikk felt the cold drizzle of rain on his face and felt as though he could genuinely cry.

  The last time he had cried was when Skinn died, and the time before that was lost to his memories, so long ago that he wasn't sure it had actually happened. 

   Or maybe he had blocked them out deliberately. 

   It didn't help that his brother was so emotional; Sheril teared up when Road did something cute, at the theater, or at home reading a book.

   So Tyki had to be the one who couldn't cry.

   Recalling what he had recently learned about his Noah's memories, he thought that was a little confusing. 

   The Noah of Pleasure should be a bit of a crybaby, Tyki thought, oh wait, Skinn wasn't the last time I cried!

  I cried when I told Road what happened to Sheril, he mused, I don't know why I felt so terrible talking to her about what the Exorcists did. 

  The Noah must hate the Innocence a lot if they feel the need to cry about it. 

 Underneath the gentle rain, Tyki finally decided to lift himself up into a sitting position, but he still didn't open his eyes just yet.

  Nothing felt right anymore, and it hadn't felt right in a long time, maybe even since Road had accidentally sent Sheril on an impromptu date with an Exorcist. 

  Destiny, or just odd coincidence, a voice that wasn't his own rang through his mind, and that was when Tyki finally opened his eyes. 

    He had absolutely no idea where he was, looking around him at the field of grass waving in the rain and salty sea breeze, the ocean about thirty feet from him broken by waves high from the wind.

   Rising to his feet, Tyki turned until he spotted the source of the voice. 

  Wisely was there, third eye open wide, sitting on an upturned mine cart that looked as though it had fallen from the cliff above. 

   Tyki looked higher, searching for the place it could have come from; he thought he could make out a dangling mine cart track, but he wasn't quite sure.

   "If you crane your neck any higher, it might snap," Wisely said in monotone, getting Tyki's attention again. 

   "I'm guessing this is my 'inner world', like Miranda keeps mentioning?" He asked the young man, even though he would rather not know. 

   Wisely remained stone-faced, "oh, she's become 'Miranda' to you now? Not 'Miss Lotto'?"

   Tyki scoffed, "is that what you wanted to pester me about so badly you'd get inside my head to do it?"

   Wisely got down from his seat on the mine cart and started walking, Tyki following behind in badly concealed curiosity.

   "We just have a few questions for you," Wisely began when Tyki caught up with him.

   "Who's asking? Is it Road?" He felt himself get nervous at the idea.

   Wait, she could be here herself if she wanted to interrogate me... At least, I think she does that?

  "Don't worry about the details, just answer the questions and maybe I'll be on your side when Road decides whether or not to kill you."

  "Oh good, such a generous offer," Tyki drawled sarcastically, "look, I don't know what's going on anymore than you do-"

  "Why are you helping Desires?"

   Tyki ignored how much he hated that name, as around him the rain fell harder and louder, booms of thunder now going off in the distance. 

   "I wasn't always 'helping' him," Tyki confessed, "some things I did on Road's orders, like alerting her when we got to the Valley so she could bring a gun."

   Wisely didn't look surprised at all to hear that Road had known where the Valley was, or that she had used Tyki this way, "so you're a snake? What about the times you were actually helping?"

   Ignoring the snake comment, Tyki said cautiously, "Because he's my brother?"

  Tyki knew he wouldn't take that answer, and wasn't shocked at all when Wisely said, "nuh-uh, try again."

  What else could it be? Tyki thought seriously. 

  He's ridiculous, annoying, overdramatic, a bit of an egomaniac and a huge pervert.

  And a murderous politician without a single care for his people.

   "He deserves to get out of this," Tyki muttered his way through a reasoning that sounded insane, even to him, "whatever happened in that Valley when we were kids, it wasn't his fault."

   "Are you sure?" Wisely went on in a low tone Tyki could hardly hear over the wind and worsening waves, "this isn't just about what happened to that poor little Valley, this is about afterwards."

   Tyki wracked his brains, but try as he might, he couldn't remember an 'afterwards'; he had a vague vision of head-splitting pain and seeing Sheril hovering over him, before waking up in an orchard with his head in his brother's lap. 

   And he knew Sheril was his brother, even with everything else gone and Road screaming about how blood relations never become Noah unless they're Bondom.

 His brother, older and much changed, but Sheril, still.

   Or maybe he hadn't changed at all. Tyki had no memory of the Valley to know, and maybe he was always this overbearing, this disgusting, this interested in murder and sex?

   Tyki hadn't realized that his gaze had turned to the ocean as he thought, and he didn't bother looking at Wisely as he answered, "I wish I knew, kiddo, I really wish I knew."

   "So you're still supporting him? Trying to 'get him out'?"

   Tyki felt the push of the wind as it began whipping his hair as roughly as it whipped up the waves, and lifted his feet, stomping towards the beach.

   But he somehow still heard Wisely from behind him as he goaded, "why, even after the dire situations he has put you through, are you playing your hand for someone who might not even be salvageable?"

   Tyki had a sudden idea that it might be fun to play strip poker with Sheril, maybe humiliate him in front of a huge group of people. 

  Nah, even if he screams and complains at first, he might enjoy having that many people looking at him.

  Recalling the serious conversation he once had with Sheril, about regrets, resisting their Noah's memories, and the fact that Tyki never got an education, he picked up the pace until he was running full tilt, as though the memory was hot on his heels.

  But which memory? The Valley, Joyd during the flood?

  An image flashed before his eyes of a body hitting the water, then a body drained of the color of life sitting upright in a pile of straw.

  "Don't start fucking with me now, Joyd!" Tyki yelled even as his feet touched wet sand, then the waves nearly swept him away as soon as he entered the water.

  The water was so icy, so wild that Tyki eventually slipped and got pulled under, so when Wisely's voice entered his head unbidden, he almost couldn't pay attention.

  Trying to drown yourself in your own mind? It doesn't work that way, you know.

  "Shut up!" Tyki tried to scream, but the water entering his lungs felt so very real.

   Hearing the sound of a long sigh coming from nowhere, Tyki braced for whatever Wisely had to say next.

   And even if it works and Desires gets out of this with no consequences or repercussions, what are you going to do about yourself?

  Probably fucking die, Tyki thought in frustration as he floundered, the weight of the water shoving him downwards against his will.

  You're the one decided it was time for a dip, Wisely sounded like he was becoming impatient, you don't get to say it's 'against your will', moron.

  Forcing himself to relax, Tyki felt the churning of rough waters around him, and as his vision began to dim, he vaguely heard Wisely complain that he was taking the 'easy way out'.

   But what if there is no way out at all? What if I die without knowing what the point of all of this was? 

   In the black edges of his vision, Tyki thought he saw a shape that reminded him of the Earl, or maybe it was Sheril, but whoever it was, trying to reach out to them was an effort in vain.

   Tyki knew the darkness of the ocean he was embraced by was all in his head, or someone else's from long ago, but he let it take him anyway, knowing the outcome of Sheril's actions was out of his hands.

Chapter Text

   Even though he understood the reason why, it still stung Sheril when Miranda left his side to deal with her embarrassment. 

  After all, no amount of newfound confidence can make you feel better after saying something like that in front of your friends, he thought to himself before returning his attention to Tricia.

  What can I say? This whole thing is going down in flames, and there's nothing I can do.

  Nothing to even salvage, not my self-esteem, not my relationships.

  Sheril gritted his teeth and didn't move from where he stood as he announced, "well, as you must have heard, my name isn't actually Kamelot; it was Road's idea that I take her name."

   He was disappointed in himself for not being able to read the expression in Tricia's eyes, and it drove him crazy that the two taller Exorcists were behind her, as though they knew her, as though they were friends. 

   He felt Desires start to grumble at the thought, so he tried to put the presence of the Exorcists from his mind. 

  "So Mikk is your true name, like Tyki's?" She asked him, a cautious tone in her voice, "you said so as we were escaping Portugal, but..."

  "It would appear so," Sheril looked down at his feet, irritated at the mismatched sizes of clothes he was wearing, "I'm not surprised, personally."

   Eerie silence filled the room once more, even though Sheril could tell out of the corner of his eye that Lavi was just dying to say something. 

   Ugh, I want to goad them so badly!

   Say it, dammit! Lay into me, let me have it!

   Straightening his back all the way and glaring directly at the young man, Sheril asked loudly, "what are you seething for?"

   The room drew in its collective breath and Allen jumped from his seat to grab at Lavi, but it was too late.

   The redhead had drawn and activated his Hammer and swung at Sheril while screaming violently, and the entire crowd braced as Reever shouted, "Lavi, not where you might hurt people or equipment!"

  But Lavi had stopped short quickly when he realized his target wasn't dodging or defending. 

  Iron Hammer about an inch from the side of Sheril's head, Lavi looked at him like he had lost his mind, and he looked back with a grin that might prove him right. 

  "Go on, hit me! Back up a bit, wind it up again," Sheril tried to encourage him, "really let me have it!"

  Taking a step backwards, Lavi scoffed in disgust, "what, trying to martyr yourself? Well now I'm not doing it!"

  "Oh, it's not going to kill me, you idiot!" He sneered, making Lavi square his shoulders, "I just need a good wallop right now!"

   "Why would we wallop you just because you want to get hit?!" Allen charged in behind Lavi, Innocence activated so he could point the Crowned Clown's sword at Sheril, "even if you do deserve it for what you've done to Miranda!"

  "Clearly you want to, since you're waving that thing around!" Sheril yelled back, his mood getting worse, "and she asked me to touch her last time!"

   A variety of sounds going off around him let Sheril know that several other Exorcists had activated their weapons, but before he could say anything to raise more ire, the library door creaked open very slowly. 

  Sheril was surprised to see that it was Miranda, slightly disheveled, and when she flinched at the sight of all eyes turning to her, he felt a flare of sympathy. 

   It seemed as though she was breathing heavily, and he could hear the rising panic in a her voice when she asked, "Chief? C-could you c-come here for a m-moment?"

   She's stuttering so badly, and her accent is coming out, Sheril thought as he watched Komui glance at him and then head for the door.

  As the Chief passed by Tricia, he could see that she was looking at Miranda, also sympathetic, though he couldn't fathom why.

   When he reached the door, Komui stepped out with Miranda, shutting the door behind him, though Sheril could still hear her sniffling and distraught whispers. 

   Then the door opened just enough for Komui to look at him and ask, "hey, you, what do you want to be referred to by?"

   Stupid ass question, Sheril thought, and then expressed as much, "is this relevant? Whatever the fuck you want, then."

   "Okay, asshole, come here for a second," Komui waved him over, annoying Sheril greatly even knowing it was at Miranda's request. 

   He felt the evil eye of everyone in the room on him as he stepped out of the library, closing the door behind him.

   And immediately realized something was wrong when he saw the look on Miranda's face. 

  "Is something the matter? Besides, well everything?" He tried to be as soothing as he could without physical contact, "has someone been rude to you?"

   Miranda looked so ashamed it was heartbreaking, but Sheril knew there was a possibility he couldn't help at all.

   After one thick, throaty sob, Miranda answered, "I don't k-know where the Time Record went! I thought I had it in the V-valley, but so much has happened I can't remember!"

   Sheril knew where it was, but he felt like being a little spiteful, despite the stress written all over Miranda's face. 

  "Oh, I might know where it is," he snickered when Miranda froze in shock, "but I want something from your Order, first."

   He directed this statement at Komui, who narrowed his eyes and asked, "and what would that be?"

   Bowing at the waist with an air of incredible smugness, Sheril answered in his most oily politician tone, "I want to fight."

          ~*~*~*~

  When he said 'fight', Sheril had expected to be taken outside, where he and the Exorcists would go all out, no-holds-barred, utter carnage and destruction. 

   He didn't expect to be taken to the tailoring department, where a squirrelly little stub named Johnny outfited him with a tight, sleeveless black shirt, white pants with a rather normal belt, and knee-high black boots.

    When Sheril grumbled, the poofy-haired fool answered, "I don't know why Komui had me do this either?!"

   Then he was escorted to a little indoor sand pit that obviously served as a sparring arena.

   Sheril was a little irritated to see that the outfit was apparently the Exorcists exercise clothes, albeit with some personal preference involved.

   It cheered him immensely to see Miranda in her variation, with detached sleeves and boots similar to his, and her hair in a messy low ponytail, to top it off.

   But he couldn't savor it for long, as the gathering crowd swallowed her up, even with the Exorcists lined up around the edge of the pit.

   The whispered insults and muttered jibes of scientists and housekeeping alike made Sheril grind his teeth, and then Chief Komui rose his voice so he could be heard over the din.

   "Now, we can do this one of two ways," he directed to Sheril, "either you blindly pick your opponent, or you go in order, according to our calculations."

   Sheril pouted, "I really wanted this to be a free-for-all, though."

  "What, you against-" Komui stopped to count, "-eight Exorcists?!"

   Scanning the group at the edge of the pit again, Sheril said, "by my count, you have twelve Exorcists here."

 "As you very well know, Miranda is a non-combatant," Komui sighed as though he was dealing with a bratty child, "and we're not letting you fight the Generals."

  Another smug look plastered on his face, Sheril boasted, "what, afraid I might kill someone important?"

   The muttering of the crowd started up again, and Lavi stepped forward to loudly proclaim, "I can beat his ass if no one else is volunteering!"

  "You wasted your chance in the library, let me have a go!" Allen shouted behind him.

   Mood becoming more and more foul as the discussion went on, Sheril raised his hand and dragged them both into the pit with his strings, "I don't care who's down here, I just want to hit and get hit!"

   He vaguely heard the Chief says something else, but the Hammer hit him so hard and so fast that it left his ears ringing. 

   The hit from his left sent him crashing into the wall to his right, and he let himself lean there for a brief second before leaping away, dodging Allen's holy sword.

  He knew he had blood gushing from his left ear, and he heard a muffled yell from the Lee girl.

  "Allen, don't actually cut him!" She sounded rather frantic, "what if the same thing happens to him that happened to Tyki?!"

  Tyki? Oh yeah, the Earl had returned from copying the Ark with Tyki slung over his shoulder, after a gruesome encounter with the Exorcists that had caused his inner Noah to go berserk. 

  It was kinda sexy, Sheril thought as he kept bouncing from foot to foot, putting distance between himself and the two teens, what would happen if I got cut with that thing?

   Tired of being on the defensive, he let Lavi get as close as possible before manipulating his strings around his ankles and flinging him into the ceiling, full force. 

   Then he felt something around his feet, and looked to see that Allen had him entangled with those strange white ribbons, and in seconds he was flying towards the ceiling right after Lavi.

 "Oh, good," Sheril mumbled and flipped in midair just in time to see the giant Hammer slamming into his chest, sending him hurtling into the floor where he had been standing. 

   Lifting his head and brushing the sand from his face, Sheril heard the crackling sound of whatever injury he had sustained in his ear healing itself, just as a thumping noise told him that Lavi had landed behind him.

   In front of him, the Walker kid had stuck his sword in the sand and stood with his free hand on his hip in an overconfident pose, "ready to give up yet?"

   "Nope, just... thinking, is all," Sheril hoped neither of them would notice his hesitation, but to his displeasure, he was immediately called out by Lavi.

  "Thinking? About what?! How much of an idiot you are?"

   Trying not to raise his voice any higher than he had to, Sheril argued, "I'm thinking of the best way to brawl with you without it ending in your death!"

   They both launched themselves at him at the same time, yelling inarticulately as they swung their weapons wildly. 

  Sheril tried to empty his mind, to not think about the incessant throbbing in his head, the dire situation they were in, what he would say to Miranda or to Tricia or to anyone at all.

   It's really too bad I can't kill anyone here without upsetting Miranda, Sheril thought as he absorbed a blow from the flat of the holy blade, it would certainly relax me a lot.

   Hitting the ground hard again, he heard shouting from the sidelines that turned out to be the Chief.

   "-as I was trying to say, this was supposed to be no Innocence and no Noah abilities!"

   "That's against the point!" Sheril shouted back, madness almost consuming him.

   Sounding exasperated, Komui went on, "so what was the point?!"

  Good God do I have to look stupid now, Sheril told himself, what can I really say to this?

  The point is that I'm... remorseful? That I regret everything, that can't even stand myself, that I deserve to get beaten to a bloody pulp for this?

  Feeling his stomach beginning to cramp from his thoughts contradicting Desires', Sheril could only croak, "I'd like to try 'catholic guilt', if that's okay with you."

   "You're asking permission now?" Allen sounded like he was liable to collapse at any moment. 

   "Look, I've explained myself as much as I can, to any of you!" Sheril staggered to his feet, annoyed at the amount of sand he was covered in, and he stuck a finger in his healing ear to remove some of the blood, "I don't care what you do and do not get! I'm tired of simpering apologetically!"

   "You weren't fooling anyone!" Lavi's temper flared, "how do we know what's the truth and what isn't? You're a huge goddamn liar most of the time!"

  "We even know who you are!" Krory joined in, "you're that politician who staged his own assassination to keep a war going!"

  Sheril could see Tricia's shocked expression from this knowledge and tried not to get irritated. 

   Growling from his throat, Sheril pointed a finger and said, "you have a way of finding the truth, unless you don't even trust your own friend?"

   But before anyone could turn to Miranda, Lenalee defended her, "stop, this is just a rehash of what happened in the library!"

   Feeling like he was getting dangerously close to the breaking point, Sheril walked back to the edge of the pit and looked up haughtily, "how is this in any way similar?"

   The Lee girl turned pink, which was immensely funny, and refused to respond, while Miranda became a bright red and hid behind her friend.

   Sheril felt his ribs mending themselves, and a few other breaks and bruises were also healing, and he felt something poking the back his head that might have been the Hammer, but he ignored that. 

   Instead, he turned to Chief Komui and raised a sly eyebrow. 

  The Chief only looked at him like he was something on the bottom of his shoe, "are you satisfied, yet?"

  He glanced at Miranda again, looking mortified at the direction the conversation was going. 

  So Miss Lenalee thought the discussion might turn to physical intimacy again, Sheril thought curiously, I wonder why?

   But what actually came out of his mouth in response to Komui was, "not quite," and he reached behind his head grab whatever was poking him and yanked it from his opponent's grasp before turning to resume the battle. 

Chapter Text

   The next morning, Adam woke up with the alarming feeling that they weren't going to make it to dry land. 

   At first, he wondered where the feeling could be coming from, until he realized he could hear the sound of screaming from somewhere on the Ark.

   And it certainly didn't help that Road was there, hovering over him, grinning manically when she saw he was awake. 

   She didn't even give him time to process what was happening when she asked, "notice anything weird about Fiedla's mother?"

   "Uh..." Adam was too dazed to think, the sound of screaming making his head pound, but Road stared at him persistently until he suddenly realized something. 

   "She hasn't been eating recently," Adam said, "I just figured she was letting others eat her portion, since we're running out of supplies."

   "You need to stop expecting the best of people and start looking at the deeper meaning instead," Road scoffed and left the cabin, leaving Adam to change into his usual tunic.

   When he opened the door, Road was gone, and the screams got louder and more frantic as he made his way through the Ark.

   Picking up the pace, Adam barreled through the door to the room with the animal pens, stopping short when he saw the carnage that had been wrought there.

   The light wood walls were dripping blood, the straw spread over the floor strewn with more than just the usual piss and shit, dead bodies crumbled and oozing where they lay.

   He wondered for a moment whether one of the meat-eating animals had grown impatient, until he saw his mother, Japeth's wife, trying to crawl through the muck towards him.

   Adam looked at her curiously; the loss of his father Angel had made her gray and dull, though he still loved her dearly, and the sight of her bruised and battered form made his blood boil.

   "Mother? What happened here?!" He rushed to her side to see if there was anything he could do.

   But the eyes she looked up at him with were cold and empty when she whispered, "it was her, Adam... she seemed so angry..."

   "Who, mother? Who was angry?!" Adam sobbed, the force of his emotions uncontrollable, "we all love each other here! Don't we?!"

   But his mother had stopped moving, and the last thing he heard was, "not that one... Adam, not that one," before she finally expired, face down in filth and foul disease. 

   Tears streaming down his face, the stench of the room became overwhelming, but before he could move, the sudden sound of footsteps startled him.

   "Well, this is something," Desires said, sounding entirely unmoved, which made Adam even more upset, "I guess your powers involve making corpses into murder weapons."

   Rising to his feet, Adam grabbed Desires by the collar of his tunic and stared him straight in the eyes.

   "Desires, for once, I am begging, please say what you mean in exact words."

   Desires tried to look unfazed, but a little bead of sweat dripped down his temple as he answered, "Fiedla's mother is slaughtering everyone."

   "Except you?"

   Laughing nervously, the younger man clarified, "except those of us with Angel blood, and grandfather."

   Adam threw him roughly into the wall and stomped from the room, heading to the top deck, and he heard Desires scramble to keep up. 

   He knew Desires was going to ask a question, so he preempted him with an ask of his own.

   "What is wrong with you?!"

   He refused to look back at him, knowing he was probably gaping, open-mouthed, as he responded, "me?! I'm not the one throwing people around! Not now, anyway..."

   "What about you watching the animals all hours of the day and night?!"

   Desires caught up with him at the top of the stairs and shouted, "I just think sex is pretty neat! But, you know... there's really no one here I can do it with?"

   Adam knew 'sex' was how they were created, but he wasn't sure what was so 'neat' about it in the first place. 

   Shaking his head roughly, he yelled, "forget I even asked! There's no time for this now!"

   Opening the hatch to the deck, Adam stepped outside and saw that all his Angel-born friends had a single woman surrounded. 

   Grandfather Noah was there, keeping his eyes on the horizon, and Joyd was standing closest to him.

   The woman was soaked in blood, from head to toe, her black hair bedraggled and coarse, leaving little dots of red behind her that stained the wooden deck of the Ark.

   Fiedla had his hands raised in a placating manner, trying to soothe his obviously tormented mother. 

   Adam approached slowly until he could finally make out what was being said. 

   "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Fiedla's mother was weeping, a weary tremble shaking her entire body, "please don't hurt me."

   "It's alright, mother, it's fine," Fiedla hesitated to touch her, which Adam thought wasn't helping.

   Squeezing behind his friends to get to the side where Grandfather Noah was standing, Adam nodded at Joyd before asking, "what do we do, Grandfather?"

   The old man didn't respond, just continued to stare out to sea, until Adam was nearly convinced he had died on the spot.

   "Grandfa-"

   "Isn't it about time you made decisions on your own, Adam?"

   He expected this, recalling the conversation yesterday after he failed to resurrect the lamb.

   Noah turned to him, a solemn look on his face.

   "I've lost my sons, I'm losing my family, and I'm afraid I never actually had you kids," he intoned deeply, "I love you like I have loved my own, but you're all so..."

   "Strange, otherworldly?" Joyd offered, and Noah hesitated before nodding in agreement. 

   "Look at you! Unnaturally beautiful, cunning, and powerful," he went on, "nothing like us humans, so fragile and easy to break."

   Adam turned to look at his friends, at Desires who was now helping Fiedla, at Mercym and Tryde who were heading under to search for survivors, at Road and Lustol keeping the birds inside their home on the deck.

   Wisely, Wrathra, and the twins were watching them, waiting to hear what the plan was.

   Adam swallowed a lump in his throat and nodded at their Grandfather. 

   "I have an idea, but you're going to have to trust me."

   Noah nodded, but before Adam could continue, a sudden jagged, crashing noise like splintering wood and sharp thunder sounded around them, and the rumbling sent all of them falling to the deck.

    Pulling himself up, Grandfather Noah looked around until he figured out what had happened, and turned to shout, "it'll have to be quick, Adam! We've landed!"

         ~*~*~*~

    The floodwaters receding had left them stranded on top of a rocky plateau with olive trees sticking up out of it, and just enough room for them to climb down and stretch their legs.

    But there was much work to be done, for those aboard the Ark who had lived were in agreement with Adam's plan.

    Or as much of his plan as he was willing to tell. 

    They agreed that those who lived should leave the Ark, taking the non-meat eating animals with them.

    There was enough room for most of the pens to be moved outside, and despite the rough terrain, there was grass growing that would last until more land became accessible.

    So while those able enough to work took what they could to rebuild the pens, Adam spent several days on his part of the project. 

    Using the straw dolls to resurrect those killed by Fiedla's mother. 

    When he had guided his mother down to the lowest area of the Ark, where she had been brought to life the first time, he finally got an explanation out of her. 

    She had claimed that she was hungry, but the thought of fruit and vegetables didn't appeal to her.

    "Oh, I know that it's wrong, but..." she had trailed off, the implications clear.

    Adam didn't want the survivors to be alarmed, so they had to be kept secret, and in all, seven bodies had souls returned to them.

    But Adam had been in a rush to get them back, and to his surprise, he found that the souls had not returned to the bodies that matched them, which caused them to behave rather oddly. 

    "They're kinda stupid," Bondom said in one voice, watching as the bodies milled about, sometimes bumping into each other. 

    "Not that it matters," Road grinned, "we're going to use them to kill God!"

   Joyd eyed the things joylessly, and argued, "I don't think they're smart enough for that."

   "They don't have to be smart, they just have to do what Fiedla's mother did," Road pointed out with a malicious giggle.

    "And do you want them to do that now, or later?" Desires asked, matching her glee.

    Adam was still rather scared, but he thought about Road, about his friends, his family, how his whole world was collapsing around him, and the sight of so much blood...

   "We'll do it now," he announced boldly, "we'll just get this over with."

    But before he could turn to leave, a nervous Fiedla raised his hand and asked him, "are you sure? What are we going to do when there's no humans left?"

   Adam opened his mouth to speak, to ask what he meant by this, but he was interrupted by Road.

   "Oh, don't be silly," she chided him for his mistake, "we're better than weakling humans, remember?"

Chapter Text

 Sheril wasn't sure how many hours later it was when his body finally gave out on him.

   He had been fighting nonstop, eventually challenging every Exorcist that wasn't Miranda or a General, even the little turquoise-haired shit introduced as Timothy. 

   Good grief, they have child soldiers? He had thought to himself at first, before the kid turned out to be pretty formidable. 

   But now he was aching, joints creaking, blood streaming from ears and nose and dribbling out of his mouth.

   I'm lucky none of them knocked my teeth in, he mused as he felt around inside his mouth with his tongue, Especially that Lee girl, goddamn.

   Looking at the Exorcists on the ground around him, breathing ragged and chests heaving, Sheril waved up at their Chief and shouted, "I think we're good down here!"

   And then he let himself collapse, hitting the sand with a boneless thump, and heard the clamor of the crowd as he passed out from exhaustion. 

     ~*~*~*~

   And then he was opening his eyes again in confusion, still in the pit, sighing when he saw that Miranda was sitting peacefully next to him.

   Or as peaceful as she can be, poor dear, Sheril tried to smile up at her, but even that motion hurt.

  Noticing that he was awake, she frowned and asked him, "well?"

   "Well what?" He rasped before he realized, "oh, your Innocence? Give me a minute."

   Then he closed his eyes and continue to lie there.

   This is nice, except for the sand...

   Hearing the sound of his bones restructuring and his wounds stitching closed, Sheril winced, and when he felt like he could trust his voice, he asked her, "how are your friends?"

   "Hospital wing, a few broken bones, but they don't look nearly as bad as you do," she said nervously, as though she expected him to be insulted that he wasn't taken there as well.

   And he was, but before he could express as much, a voice he had never heard before boomed from somewhere above. 

   "What exactly was the meaning of this little exercise, Chief Komui?"

  Attempting to drag himself upright, Sheril hissed, "who the hell was that?"

   Miranda looked mortified, like she would rather be anywhere else, and she couldn't decide whether to shuffle closer to him, or further away. 

   "That's Inspector Lvellier," she whispered, clearly terrified, "he's from the Vatican. Lenalee's afraid of him for some reason?"

   Craning his neck to see if he could catch a glimpse of this man, Sheril murmured, "do you want me to offend him, perhaps?"

   "No!" Miranda tried to keep her voice low, "he's constantly offended by Allen and Lavi, and sometimes Chief Komui, and all of the science department but especially Johnny and Gigi-"

   "This guy sounds sensitive," Sheril laughed and stretched his legs out before standing up and dusting himself of sand, "let's leave this to your Chief."

   He tried to walk in the opposite direction from the obnoxious voice, but before he could get very far, he heard a shout, "stop right there!"

   Turning on his heels in the pit, Miranda quickly ducking behind him, Sheril looked up and saw the source of the voice, Komui standing beside him. 

   A gruff, uptight looking man in his fifties, who reminded Sheril of his most persistent political rivals, stood there with his hands behind his back.

   Sheril mimicked his pose perfectly, and felt Miranda brush his hands with one of hers, the both of them hoping the Inspector wouldn't notice. 

   The silence ran for a frankly irritating amount of time before the Inspector boomed again, "you brought a Noah into this place? Into our Order?"

   Komui coughed before arguing, "well, yes, but you see, this one is very interested in removing the Noah influence from himself!"

   "And you expect me to believe that?"

   Before Komui could say anything else, Sheril interjected, "fortunately, I don't have to explain myself to you, sir."

    He felt Miranda flinch behind him, and Desires' anger flaring at the same time, making him wince again, but he stood straight up and looked the man right in his beady eyes.

   "Unfortunately for you, we don't make deals with Noah," Lvellier growled, "I should have you locked in a stone coffin and tossed into the bottom of the ocean."

    "Yeah, that would only work at keeping me away for a year, at best," Sheril pretended to inspect his nails, the black polish rather chipped by then, "and besides, you'd never get the Time Record back from where I've hidden it."

   Narrowing his eyes at him, Lvellier intoned, "no surprise you've managed to take it from that useless woman."

   Feeling Miranda stiffen up behind him, Sheril's own anger, a separate entity from Desires', burst out of him more forcefully than he intended. 

   "Excuse me? She's one of your own Exorcists!" He shouted up at the man, "don't you dare call her useless!"

   "She's been nothing but a bumbling idiot since she got here!" The Inspector raised his voice, "her incidents with you, the wasted resources, the wasted time! What has she done but cost, and cost, and cost?!"

   Sheril could tell that Komui wanted to round on the man in Miranda's defense, too, but whether or not he would do it, Sheril couldn't guess. 

   So he walked over to where he could use his strings to pull himself up the wall out of the pit, then gently brought Miranda up after him.

    Then he turned to Lvellier and scoffed.

    "You know, it's awfully weird that I have to defend one of your employees to you, isn't it?" He said smugly, "I'm supposed to be the enemy, here, but I seem to appreciate her more than you do."

    "Because every single thing she ruins only furthers your plans," Lvellier piled on, making Miranda seem smaller and smaller as she hunched behind Sheril. 

    "Our plans are on hold actually, seeing as my little Road is insane with jealousy over Miranda and I," he pointed out in a twisted tone, "so these so-called 'incidents' have been to your advantage."

    "I don't think several thousand murders is to our 'advantage'," Lvellier countered.

    Komui finally decided to break into the conversation, though he clearly didn't want to draw the Inspectors ire, "please, let them prove it then! When they bring the Time Record back-"

   "If they bring the Innocence back," the Inspector cut him off, "but this will be her last warning. If this operation is unsuccessful, there are no more chances."

  Sheril nudged Miranda gently with an elbow, and she rasped out, "I w-will, sir."

   "Good of you to join a conversation about you, even at the last minute," Lvellier seethed before turning on his heels, but he didn't walk away just yet.

   "Don't bother asking your friends, they are to remain here until you return," he added, "If the Noah are as distracted as this man claims, then there should be no crisis of Akuma attacks, shouldn't there?"

   "I should be so lucky," Sheril muttered, and then focused on Komui, "so, how do we prepare?"

      ~*~*~*~

   Before they began serious discussions about their venture, Sheril was allowed to wash himself of sand, dust, and blood, then dress himself in better fitting clothes.

   After that, he ate in the cafeteria, empty save for Miranda, Komui, and himself, where he was surprised by the Order Chef's skill in a wide variety of cuisine. 

   "Ah, in another time I would love to talk food preparation," he sighed over a plate of bacalhau.

   "Maybe you'll still get your chance," Komui didn't sound very reassuring, head bent over the plans he was drawing up.

    After being given a travel case and allowed to pack more clothes and essentials, then getting a slightly more merciful sleep in an unclaimed bedroom, Sheril awoke the next morning to find they were taking the train.

   "Through Europe back down to Portugal?" He asked incredulously, as the waited at the headquarters docks for the boat that would take them to the mainland, "wouldn't it be far easier to let us use the Ark?"

    "Well, a huge part of my planning was preempting every single condition Lvellier could make," Komui shrugged his shoulders, "that was the first thing I thought of, and what do you know, he approached me this morning and listed the exact conditions I knew he would!"

   "Fuck that guy," Sheril said loudly, and Komui raised his hand to hide a grin, "and fuck you too, actually."

   "Hey, what the hell?!" Komui protested, "I'm trusting you on Miranda's word, you know? Don't make her look like a liar."

  "I know, I know," he grumbled, "I'm in a terrible mood, alright? Just because I'm acting flippant doesn't mean I'm not under immense pressure here."

   Komui looked off into the distance, and Sheril wandered what he was possibly thinking when they both turned their heads at the sound of booted footsteps down the stairs. 

    It was only Miranda, and when she spotted them there, she gasped, "oh, I hope you weren't waiting long! I couldn't find anyone to say goodbye to, it's like they disappeared!"

   Sheril could hardly form a thought at the sight of her; she was wearing traveling clothes that were clearly tailored to her, carrying a case of her own.

   Her dress and jacket matched in a lovely, rich shade of green, so alluring, so natural that that Sheril concluded to himself that mother nature was as sexual a creature as he was.

   The ensemble included ankle-length boots in charming brown suede, and a similarly colored hat secured to her hair with a silver-and-green hat pin.

   It matched the brooch over her left breast, the emerald leaf set in silver that she had selected before their failed duel on the Ark.

   And it was all tied together by the rapier she wore on her right side, the brown leather of her sword belt pairing elegantly with the green of her dress.

   It was all very innocent, very put-together, and Sheril felt just a bit strange for thinking of it in such a sexual way, dressed as shabby as he was, in a plain brown suit and his heavily braided hair hidden under a flat cap.

"Nonsense, you got here before the boat did," he stuck out his elbow for her to hook her arm in his, and she did so without a second thought, just as the boatman was pulling alongside the dock for them to board, "and you look absolutely stunning, by the way."

   Miranda turned bright red, making Sheril feel a bit better.

   Looking at Komui one last time, Sheril hated the expression on his face, and he felt the ridiculous need to say something else, anything that would get these feelings out before he exploded. 

    "I don't want anyone's trust, or forgiveness, or sympathy," he began as he helped Miranda into the boat and handed her their luggage, "even if we can remove my inner Noah, I've committed many a dreadful crime, and I have no excuses."

   "So what's the point?"

    Sheril rolled his eyes, even though he couldn't do it nearly as hard as Tyki could, "ugh, we went over this during the sparring matches! The point is that I feel remorseful! Kind of."

   "But you don't want to be forgiven?" Komui raised an eyebrow. 

    Irritation mounting, Sheril only rolled his eyes again and scoffed so hard he spit, "it's difficult to explain, but-"

   "Oh, so you do understand what 'catholic guilt' means! I thought you were joking yesterday," Komui clapped sarcastically as the boatman finally shoved off, sitting at the oars and beginning to row.

  "I'll be back, you dumb bastard!" Sheril shouted over the lapping waves, shaking his fist.

   Silent through their conversation, Miranda waited until he settled down before asking, "I think you'd get along with everyone, if not for... everything else?"

   "Miranda, darling, you wound me!" Sheril was half playing offended, half genuine, "some of your friends are truly, truly the most annoying people I've ever met. And I meet politicians!"

   "Okay, maybe just Jeryy then," she smiled at him gently. 

   "Was that the Chef's name? You're right, he'd be interesting to talk to."

   So they spent the trip to the mainland talking about food and eating habits, places he could take her to try the best regional cuisine, and play-acting they were a normal couple on an average romantic journey, and not going on a mission whose failure could result in pain of death. 

Chapter Text

   Out of all the strange dreams he was constantly having, the Earl thought the ones where he was leading a charge of thirty against the Legions of Heaven were the most interesting. 

   He knew intrinsically, as you do in dreams, that the leader of the Legions was his father, a great and powerful Angel whose blood ran through his veins. 

   The Earl wasn't sure how this was true; he didn't even remember being born.

   All he truly knew, through all the uncertainty and despair, was that he was looking for someone that meant a great deal to him.

   In his war-like dreams, his tiny band of warriors were also his closest friends, even though their names and faces were lost to time.

   At least, I think they are? He blinked when he realized he was awake, the dream fading away before his eyes, Let's see- Desires, Joyd, Tryde...

   Road- wait, which Road is which? Those two little girls are entirely different! 

   Or are they? Oh bother. 

   Untwisting himself from the comforter and climbing out of bed, the Earl looked around at his room.

  Usually when he was having a stressful sleep, Road and Wisely were there with him, but today, he was mysteriously alone.

  "Road? I have something to ask you, dear," he opened the door and shouted into the dark hallway of his home on the Ark, "Road?"

  The utter silence that greeted him sent a shiver down his spine, a sensation he was no longer used to.

  I haven't felt a fear like this in a long, long time, the Earl mused, what could be happening out there, I wonder? 

    Deciding to leave the Ogre-like visage behind for now, he went back into his room to change into a brightly multicolored suit of orange and pink and seafoam, and a matching top hat covered in seashells.

   Satisfied with the dazzling look of his color choice, the Earl left his home and began wandering around. 

        ~*~*~*~

    Eventually the Earl found Tryde and Mercym, waiting outside of Road's usual home with the pumpkin painting, rivulets of orange and green and dark brown running down its gruesome face.

   Always so creative, he thought before clearing his throat and asking, "Tryde, Mercym? Where is everyone?"

  Mercym made a motion deferring to Tryde's opinion, remaining silent. 

   The other man looked up into the skies above the Ark and began, "Desires has turned traitor for the Innocence and is trying to leave the family."

   Feeling his hands beginning to shake, the Earl lifted his top hat to scratch the back of his head, "Desires is-? Are you sure?!"

  "He was taken from his home by the Exorcists, along with that wife of his," Tryde explained further, but this just left the Earl more confused. 

   "That doesn't mean he's siding with them, does it?" He felt himself getting agitated, and he wasn't sure why, "he could have just been..."

   He didn't want to say it, he knew it wasn't right before Mercym even pointed it out. 

   "Taken? Are you suggesting that they could take Desires, that maniac?" He said this with deepest affection, making Tryde huff.

   "No, no, it's just," he hesitated a moment, "we had several conversations, him and I, about this Exorcist woman he was infatuated with-"

  "Was?" Tryde interrupted.

   The Earl blinked, and then amended his statement, "is? Well, that explains a lot."

   "It certainly does," Mercym agreed.

   Tryde shook his head though they were both totally wrong, and asked the Earl, "you were looking for Road?"

    "Yes! I have so many questions to ask her," he laughed as though something was immensely funny, "odd, the last thing I remember, Desires was throwing a teapot at me and swearing profusely..."

         ~*~*~*~

   They found her in a dark basement room filled with rotted straw dolls and remnants of plastic frames.

  The Earl recognized the plastic, but the straw was a lot older, and stank of refuse. 

   The plastic was cast-off from the Akuma factory, their mass-produced soldiers of death.

   Without a functioning Egg, it was hard to make more, and their attempts at recycling the old frames had resulted in shoddy work. 

  Road was on her tiptoes reaching for something in the ceiling, but the Earl couldn't see what it was.

   He struggled to decide what to ask her first, so he cleared his throat for attention, hoping something would come to him if he looked her in the eyes. 

   Road didn't even give him so much as a glance, occupied as she was with the ceiling above her.

   So the Earl stepped forward and grabbed her by the waist, lifting her up onto his back, where she climbed even higher until she was wobbling, one foot on each side. 

  Grabbing the thing with an "ah-ha!", Road settled back down until she was seated across the Earl's shoulders.

  Swiping his hat with a flourish so she could look down at him, she pouted, "I could have done that."

   "So why didn't you?" He asked.

   Road just looked even more grouchy as she said, "I'm tired and I'm angry and I'm trying really hard not to cry right now."

   The Earl reached up so he could pull her down into his arms and carry her from the room like a princess. 

   "I was just going to ask you what was going on," he told her as she snuggled into him, "for some reason, my memories of the last few weeks are very fuzzy."

   He listened closely as she whispered from the fabric of his suit, "you had a little scare with Desires, on his birthday."

   "And what time is it now?"

   "End of February," she giggled. 

   The Earl puzzled over this, not sure how he could have lost so much time. 

   He looked behind him, where Tryde and Mercym were following him from the house, then back down at Road, where he spotted the thing she had taken from the rafters.

   "What is that, Road?"

   "Doll," she answered in a dull voice, wiggling the straw toy so it could be seen, "Bondom made it, a long, long time ago."

   Despite being featureless, except for a pair of beady little eyes and some black thread for hair, it looked like Desires, but somehow not, and the Earl swallowed a lump in his throat, "how long do you mean?"

   "It doesn't matter," Road muttered and drew it closer to her, falling silent again. 

   "I think it matters a lot, Road," the Earl chided her, "what if it provides us a clue about Desires' strange behavior?"

   She looked up at him, but didn't say anything, and it broke his heart to see her expression, so sad and forlorn. 

   "Are there more? How many did Bondom make?"

   Sniffling and holding it closer to her chest, she wheezed, "so many, so, so many, most of them lost, now."

   Holding her tightly as he walked around the Ark, no longer sure where he was going, the Earl formulated his next question. 

   "Where are they? Are these the original vessels of the Akuma?"

   Road laughed, but the Earl didn't think it sounded happy; it was painful, and very far away, as though she were somewhere else. 

   "Yes, that's right," she said slowly, "there are others, too, made from clay, or twigs, or silk stuffed with cotton fluff, but I always liked these straw ones especially."

   The Earl nodded in agreement, "because they were the originals."

   "Uh-huh," she said, and then she reached out so suddenly he almost dropped her, "there! Let's go inside."

   Following her pointing finger, the Earl recognized one of Desires' favorite houses, the door painted with a beautiful red pomegranate and a handle made of black iron in the shape of curling vines.

   Hopping out of the Earl's arms and stomping roughly on the ground, Road grabbed the handle and opened the door with a forceful pull, indicating that the three men should follow her in.

   The Earl was startled by the brightly colored decor, in sharp contrast with the dark door, probably some sort of meaningful symbolism a former occupant had come up with. 

   Road opened doors as she passed, and the Earl peeked into each one; pastel blue sitting room, lilac purple study, peony pink dressing room, before they found the kitchen, white and beige with hints of summer green.

   It still smelled vaguely of the last time it was used, fishy and fruity and Christmas-y baked goods.

  "This is the one Sheril used to cook for the woman?"

   Wait, Sheril? They were talking about Desires, weren't they?

   "Road, dear? I'm afraid I'm lost again," the Earl moaned and sat down at the table in the corner of the room. 

   Mercym approached the stove and began putting on a kettle for tea, perusing the selection Sheril asked him to keep stocked, while Tryde attempted to decipher the multi-cultural snacks.

   Road went and sat with the Earl, folding her small hands on top of his and sighing loudly, "I know, me too."

   "There's something wrong, isn't there?" He asked her, "something Desires, or Sheril, has done?"

  She only sighed again, looking into the distance, but what she said next made no sense to the Earl

   "A contradiction of the memories in my mind and the facts I know; where did this city come from if I remember an Ark made of wood? Why do the Akuma look so much like our Angel fathers?" Road mused aloud, no longer mindful of who was around her.

  A quizzical eyebrow raised, the Earl asked her, "what do you mean? Whose Angel fathers? Is that who I keep Dreaming about?"

   "I'm the only one who remembers, the only one who knows," she reached up with one hand and scratched his bearded face, "what do we call you when we need to pretend you're human?"

   "I- I'm Adam," he hesitated to answer, though he wasn't sure why.

   "Good, good," she finally started to look a lot happier, "Mercym, I want cinnamon tea!"

   Leaping up from her seat to climb onto the counter and search the cabinets, the Earl's eyes followed her, but he was thinking of something so deeply he wasn't actually paying attention. 

  Something is wrong, definitely wrong, he knew in his heart, even if he didn't know what, what could it be that has gotten me so confused? 

  Why don't I know who Sheril even is? Am I thinking of Desires? Something isn't right with my memory!

   The Earl was so lost in thought he didn't notice when Road laid a teacup and saucer in front of him with a little tear running down her face.

Chapter Text

   After an hour, the conversation lapsed, the thick fog surrounding the new Headquarters making it hard to speak without feeling weird.

  Soon after, they connected to the ferry that would take them to the mainland, where they were assigned separate cabins for the duration of the trip.

  Not sure whose idea that was, Miranda grumbled internally as she took her hat and sword belt and hung them on a hook by the door, it's not like we'd have room to do anything. 

   Wait, why am I thinking about that at a time like this? she thought, laying on the narrow bunk, still sore from her embarrassment at the library, but I wonder why...

   Thoughts swirling aimlessly in her mind, Miranda slowly drifted off to sleep, dreaming of a dark hand drifting towards her, intentions unclear. 

    ~*~*~*~

   When she awoke to the sound of the ferry hitting the dock, Miranda realized she hadn't slept well at all in the past few weeks. 

   Especially not after I was knocked out at the barn, she mused, probably the same way they did it at the inn in Germany. Even sleeping in my own bed at the Order didn't help! 

   Hearing the call of sailors and the chatter of a seaside market, Miranda neatly pinned her hat back on and buckled the belt around her waist, gathered the rest of her things, and headed to the deck.

   She spotted Sheril leaning against the railing, still dressed in shabby brown that made his striking features stand out even more, with his borrowed case in hand, waiting for the ferryman to lower the gangway.

  "Good morning," he waved as soon as he saw her, "is my lady ready to disembark?"

  "And good morning to you," Miranda returned, hoping her curtsey appeared graceful, "have you figured out where we are?"

   Sheril looked around at the harbor and answered, "appears to be France, if I'm looking at that flag in the distance correctly."

  Miranda turned in the direction he was facing and spotted the tricolor of blue, white, and red, wondering why he wouldn't have seen it 'correctly'."

   "You wouldn't happen to need glasses, would you?" She asked him, meaning the question innocently enough. 

  Clearly surprised, Sheril stammered, "n-no, that kind of condition is eliminated when we become Noah! I think I might have needed them before, though..."

  This blew her next question right out of her head, and replaced it with a new one, "really? What else can becoming a Noah heal you of?"

   "Well, Tyki's lungs had to reconstruct themselves after years of smoking," he grimaced, but before he could go on, they were both startled by the shouts of the ferrymen lowering the gangway and waving them off.

   Miranda stepped across nervously, not looking at the water below her until she was safe on the harbor side, and gazed curiously at the signs. 

   The harbor had a few market stalls and some bigger shops, but she wasn't sure what any of them sold, besides the ones that smelled of fish, and there were a variety of larger buildings further along. 

   When Sheril appeared at her side, he informed her, "I think we're in Northern France, though I'm not sure exactly which port."

  "There has to be a train station nearby, or else why leave us here?"

  "You know, I'm starting to be concerned by the logic of your Order," he whispered conspiratorially to her, "I'll ask around, my French should be fluent enough."

   Following him closely while he spoke to anyone he could get to pay attention, Miranda tried to remember what she was going to ask him before. 

  He distracted me when mentioned the Noah healing factor, she thought while trying desperately not to get separated, but I was going to ask him something important!

   "Sheril, let's stop for a moment," she reached for his hand and confused herself briefly when she realized she hadn't worn her gloves.

   He turned to her, equally as shocked by the skin-to-skin contact, and looked at her wryly, "is something the matter?"

   "Well, I'd like to stop and look in my case," she felt herself becoming frantic, "and I would like to ask you another question."

   Smiling cheerfully at her, he pointed to a cafe table and indicated that they should take a seat.

   And so they sat, Miranda opening her case to search for the gloves she knew she had packed while Sheril looked in his own, and sighed, "did the Order give either of us traveling money, or are we expected to survive on our own?"

   "I'm not sure? I spend my salary on German sweets and knitting materials, since I don't usually have the option to travel on my own," Miranda explained to him.

   "Oh, good, I'm glad you get paid enough to enjoy yourself," Sheril said genuinely, "in the meantime, what do we do now?"

   Miranda found herself staring at him, taking in his high cheekbones and fascinating eyebrows, intense purple eyes that seemed to look right through her, the hat with his black hair hidden in it, and sighed. 

   With him staring back at her, she felt her face redden, and she almost hesitated to speak, but she knew she couldn't let this go unsaid. 

   "I'm sorry for my embarrassing statement at the library," Miranda confessed, "I shouldn't have said what I said."

   Sheril's eyes widened briefly, then he shook his head, "oh no, there's no need for that! It was totally understandable that you took offense to Tricia's accusation."

   Miranda looked down at her hands; she had found the gloves, but for some reason, she wasn't sure she should put them on, "but was she right? Have you really...?"

   Does it bother me, the idea that he had already cheated on Tricia?

  I have no right to be jealous, do I?

   "You're afraid of something, aren't you?" He asked, making her jump, "afraid that your feelings might take a turn for the dramatic?"

   "It's just that, I have no right to feel that way over a legally married man?"

   With a bright smile that took Miranda's breath away, Sheril laughed and said, "ah, I feel the same way. I very much have no right to your love, darling Miranda, after everything I've done."

   Swallowing the lump that formed in her throat, she asked again, "but was she right? I won't be mad, I promise."

   Sheril seemed to shove down some emotion of his own, for just a brief second, before responding, "sometimes I wish you would be more angry with me! But no, I was perfectly fine with providing my own... entertainment, while married to Tricia."

   Miranda knew her face had to have gone beet red, and she asked him at a whisper, "did you correct her, after I had left?"

   "I didn't see the need to," he explained, "I'm trying to separate her from all of this, and the most effective way to do that is if she only thinks terrible things about me."

   Nodding her head, because she knew he was right, Miranda still didn't feel very comfortable with this, and was about to say so when he exclaimed, "ah-ha!", while looking through his travel bag.

   "It appears I have been given some money by your Order! I'd say this is enough for a vacation from here to Portugal, indeed," he laughed again, decidedly more light-hearted this time.

  Looking up at the glorious orange sunset, Miranda asked him, "what do you want to do now, in that case?"

   "Hmm, let's see," he hummed in thought, "the nearest town with a train station is a day away from here, according to the locals, so it might be best if we get a dinner and a room somewhere for tonight."

  Thinking back to the realization she had on the ferry, Miranda added, "neither of us have had a decent sleep since just before our last train ride, I'm assuming."

   "You're right, let's get a meal and a full night's rest, that would probably help tremendously!"

    So she put the gloves away and packed her case again, while he did the same for his, and then they reached for each other's hands and proceeded to ask the locals their opinion on food and lodgings. 

           ~*~*~*~

   They spent the night in individual rooms, unsure of whether or not they were being tracked by the Black Order. 

   Despite the chill of loneliness, it was the best sleep Miranda had in weeks, and she woke up feeling fresh and clear-headed.

   Incredible what a good night's sleep will do, she thought as she dressed in her traveling clothes and packed her things again, this time with her gloves on.

   When she finally left the room, she spotted Sheril emerging from his and trotted to catch up with him, the two of them leaving the building arms looped into each other's. 

   Outside, the sun was just working its way up over the horizon, and it was warmer, less misty than the day before. 

   "Looks like a good day for a walk," Sheril suggested, using a hand to shade his eyes from the sun, "if we grab something at the cafe, we can get an early start and be there by nightfall."

  "Wouldn't it be more efficient to rent a cart?"

  Sheril blinked, just a little stunned, "well, yes, but a walk is more romantic, don't you think? Besides, in the case of bandit attack, we'll be able to defend ourselves more effectively if no one is there to see."

   With a shudder, Miranda recalled the man he had murdered on her first journey through the German woodlands.

  He didn't deserve that, I'm sure, she thought about the mans behavior and his gruesome death, yes, he was definitely insulting, but...

  Miranda couldn't help but remind herself of who she was traveling with, and even though it seemed as though he truly was trying to redeem himself, the seed of doubt was still there. 

   She began praying in ernest that nothing would happen on the way to the station that would give that seed what it needed to grow.

Chapter Text

   On that bright, sunny day some time later, God would awaken to shouts and screaming, and would look down from their favorite dozing spot at the sight of terror and bloodshed. 

   They hadn't thought about humanity since deciding to restart their growth by flooding the earth and leaving them to die.

   The plan was to wait it out, build a new Eden with a new man and woman, so when they saw what was happening below, they summoned the head Angel to explain the situation. 

   When the Angel stood before them, God asked, "what is happening down there?"

   The Angel seemed suspicious and shady, an ability God didn't remember giving them, and finally, it answered, "I have failed you, my lord, for I did not want our children to die, and now they are rebelling against you."

   God glanced down at the Earth, where the minor Angels of the Legion Of Heaven were fighting a ragtag band of warriors.

   "Who are they?" God asked the Angel, who pointed at thirteen blood-spattered people in turn.

   "Our children with the human women," the Angel sighed, and God watched as the warriors transformed into beastly creatures and sought to do harm to the Angels. 

   "So you engineered for them to survive the flood," God couldn't divert their eyes from the tragedy, "and rather than be grateful, they feel they are avenging an unkindness?"

    The Angel quailed, and then confessed, "they are convinced the deaths that have occurred are your fault, along with everything else."

   Rubbing their temples, God asked, "and they cannot be dissuaded?"

   "I'm afraid not, my lord," the Angel hesitated briefly, before going on, "my son has proven to be quite spiteful, despite his gentle countenance."

    God remained silent, transfixed by the battle below, so that they barely heard it when the Angel added, "the other warriors are the corpses of the dead with their souls returned, barely a parody of their former selves."

    God flinched, wondering why and how one would do such a thing, but what they said next was, "is that why they appear to be unkillable?"

   "A blessing you did not extend to the Legion Of Heaven," the Angel said bitterly.

   "Then I must give the Legion a weapon to fight back with," God intoned deeply, "and the next batch of humans will be taught to use these weapons as well, in case your child's spite continues after he is gone."

   The Angel nodded and bowed, waiting and listening as God put their face in their hands and thought long about what could be done. 

    ~*~*~*~

    There once was a silence that stretched on into infinity, an unending absence of sounds, an abyss that everything fell out of and back into, forever and ever, amen.

    When Adam first realized he was no longer in this silence, he was a child of four, and he didn't think it was strange that humans don't realize they're out of the abyss for so long until he was in his twenties. 

   But once he thought about it, he started to feel hurt, betrayed by their lord.

   At four, when he recognized that he was out of the abyss, at twenty, when he understood that four was a long time to be out of the abyss without noticing, during the battle with the Legion Of Heaven, when he realized with startling clarity that he was going back into it.

   When he saw that God had given the Angels a weapon against them.

   He saw Fiedla go down first, blade sticking out of his stomach, and then a spear pierced the heart of Lustol.

   A rain of arrows struck through Bondom, a hammer knocking Tryde to the ground and crushing him.

   They had been winning, we had been winning, Adam thought, screaming at himself, but suddenly something had happened, someone had told on him to God.

   "That's juvenile," he heard Wisely behind him, and knew the boy had read his mind, "it was going to happen anyway, so what does it matter how we were found out?"

   "But I really thought-!" 

   What did he think? That they were strong than their fathers? 

   Stronger than God?

   "This was just the first battle in what will turn out to be a war," Wisely grabbed Adam's wrist and dragged him to the bit of repurposed Ark Bondom had been sleeping in, and took something out of a pile to hand to him.

   It was the straw doll the twins had made to look like him, soft face and long flowing horsehair. 

   "They meant for you to have it, for all of us to have ours," Wisely held up a ratty straw doll with a little white sheep wool puff for hair, that he had tied to his waist, "everyone had theirs but you."

   "So it's rather a charm of bad luck than one of protection," Adam sighed, looking at the thing that had caused them so much grief.

   I shouldn't have brought back Fiedla's mother, he mused before shaking his head, no, nothing would have changed. 

   "What are those things they're using to attack us?" Adam changed the subject. 

   "Don't know," Wisely shrugged his shoulders, "Desires managed to get away with a gash in his side, said it hurt like nothing he'd ever felt before."

   "Where is he now?" Adam dreaded the answer, but he knew he needed to find out.

   "Died," a low, solemn voice in the gloom of the shack, "wound festered quickly. Something about those weapons is especially effective against us."

   Adam peeked out of the door and saw utter carnage filling the space of the island. 

   It seemed as though only Angels were still standing; he could see Joyd slumped against a tree, olive leaves still shaking from the branches, he saw where Desires had stopped dead, laying in the dirt with hair in disarray. 

   He saw his father, holding a blade of sick and strange design, and as he tried to exit the shack and sneak to the remains of the Ark, the Angel turned to him.

   The silence that rippled between them was almost as deep as that of infinity, almost as dark, but this quiet was interrupted by the heavy breath of fear and stink of death.

   Only after Adam thought his blood was going to pour from his ears at the pressure did his father finally announce, "you have become clever, Adam, as well as corrupt."

   Swallowing a lump in his throat, Adam replied, "I was only avenging the deaths of my family."

   The eyes of the Angel were overly large, and it had small wings and a black tongue, but not much else differentiated it from the humans Adam had known. 

   They had the same hair, deep black and flowing gently, like waves, and the Angels gray palor tinged his brown skin.

   "Adam, could you ever forgive your lord God for this mistake?" It asked him in a darkly warm tone, but he didn't feel as though there was any real emotion in it.

   "What is this that you have murdered my friends with?" Adam ignored the question with one of his own.

   He heard a strangled sound behind him and turned to see that an Angel with a knife had taken Wisely by surprise and cut him across the forehead, the wound blooming with red blood as he fell to the ground.

   "The Lord calls this Innocence, that it may purge the corruption that has seized yourself and your friends," the Angel told him, but this only filled Adam with fury.

   "You think we are the ones who are corrupt?! You see this, these bodies around you?" He swung his arms wide, "you destroy your own children! You destroy the last of humanity!"

   "You have grown wild with rage, Adam," the Angel said coldly, "you were meant to be replaced, my son. Someone has whispered falsehoods in your ears, like a snake."

   Adam no longer cared, and he raised the makeshift sword Tryde had crafted for him, springing to attack the Angel. 

  But it was to no avail, and he was swept aside easily by a stroke of the Angels weapon.

   He found that it did hurt, as Desires had told Wisely, and knew it was no use struggling. 

   This for nothing, all of this for nothing, his thoughts bubbling up to the surface, I can't forgive them, I can't forgive God!

  Never forgive, never forgIVE NEVER FORGIVE 

  He thought he heard Road's voice and wanted to open his mouth and beg for her not to be harmed, but as he fell into that eternal silence, he held his heart of vengeance close to him and heard something else in the silence, light and rhythmic.

   He knew about music, about drums and flutes and strings, but this wasn't like any of those, and he knew his human soul would not rest until he followed it to the source. 

Chapter Text

    The walk through the woods did little to calm Miranda's nerves, despite the pleasant conversation and warmth of his hand through her glove.

  Every time they walked through the woods like this, something seemed to happen, and the prospect of some disaster made Miranda shiver, even under the light of the sun. 

  In the meantime, Sheril was telling her everything he knew about every flower, shrub, and tree he saw, and for a while, she was convinced he didn't notice her shakes and flinches. 

  It was only after a particularly fierce shiver, as he explained how hydrangeas get their color from a specific quality of the soil, that he turned and asked, "are you alright? You can tell me if you need to stop."

  What do I tell him? She thought, twining her fingers even tighter into his, and sighed, "it's just... I'm still so nervous?"

   He squeezed her hand back, and said something completely unexpected, "me too, actually. There is any number of ways this could go wrong, after all."

  "Oh dear, you think so? I mean, Road could have stationed someone at the Valley, in case we come back," Miranda began rattling on, "or an agent of the Inspectors could be following us, or-!"

  "Miranda, dearest, those things can be handled with ease, I promise you," Sheril moved to release his hand and put his arm around her shoulder, "I'm more worried about being recognized by someone. I haven't seen the news since the incident at the Manor, but I'm assuming Road spun some sort of abduction story out of the chaos."

   "So it would be bad for the both of us if someone knows who you are?" She reached up and patted the hand that was now resting on her shoulder. 

   "Most likely, but hopefully there's a crowd at the station we can blend into," Sheril smiled down at her, and they continued their walk in that position, the arm over her shoulder keeping her grounded. 

        ~*~*~*~

   Several hours later, Sheril turned out to be right about the crowd at the station; Miranda was a little bewildered about the amount of people, and by the time they made it to the ticket booth, night was already falling. 

   As he ordered for the both of them in French, she tried to look as though she belonged, and when the man handed over their tickets, she let herself be led by Sheril onto the boarding train. 

   She expected to stop in a public car, at a booth where they would sit facing each other, amongst the other passengers traveling this way.

   But Sheril walked on, passing through the public cars, smoking rooms, and dining cars, until they finally stopped at a private cabin.

   Luxuriously decorated in navy blue, mahogany wood, and the gleam of polished gold, the cabin boasted overstuffed armchairs, tables and a vanity, and a bed closed of from the rest of the room with damask curtains. 

   Miranda felt herself start to sweat as she asked, "there's no way we could have afforded this with what the Order gave you?"

   Sheril smirked and answered, "You're right, but it wasn't all that difficult to convince the man at the booth that we're a Lord and Lady traveling discreetly for... private reasons."

   Putting her luggage down on one of the armchairs, Miranda began wandering around, running her hands over the fine furniture and upholstery, "that isn't necessarily untrue in your case, but what if someone finds out?"

   "Oh, how I so love your curiosity," Sheril sighed wistfully, before explaining, "we're only staying in this car until they come to check tickets."

   Miranda had taken her gloves off to feel the curtains, and now turned to look at him, "what do you mean?"

   Looking smug again, Sheril said, "as beautiful as the room is, we only here to hopefully divert anyone who might be following us. After the train is asleep, we're sneaking out."

    "Do I want to know what you're thinking?"

    "Just go ahead and rest, I'll handle everything else, then let you know when it's time to go," Sheril winked, and Miranda got the idea he found himself very clever. 

    But she did as she was told anyway, removing her hat and brooch and putting them in the bolted-down dresser by the bed before lying above the covers and trying to clear her mind. 

       ~*~*~*~

   "Miranda, dear, it's time to go," she felt herself being shaken awake.

   Opening her eyes, she felt as though she were on a fast moving cloud, before realizing the train was in motion. 

   "I'd put your hat inside your case, if it will fit," she heard Sheril advise in the dark, so she carried her hat with her to where she left her case on the armchair. 

   There he stood, tall and appearing confident despite the clothing that wasn't to his tastes, but Miranda shook her head and told herself, he's just as scared as I am. He's just better at hiding it!

   Opening the case and securing the hat and pin inside, she closed it and made sure it was locked tight before pinning on the leaf brooch, "what do we do now?"

   "Simple! Remember our last train ride?" Sheril grinned and opened the door between cars, "just follow me, my dear."

   Miranda swallowed the lump forming in her throat and nodded, but remained silent, fearing what would come out if she opened her mouth. 

   His case in one hand, Sheril used the other to pull himself onto the roof of the opposite car with his strings, and then turned to lift Miranda behind him.

   At first she was scared she was going to be swept away by the wind, until she felt the sensation of Sheril's invisible threads wrapped around her waist, and as he began to walk, she followed along close behind. 

   Focusing hard on her own feet, still under her control, they reached the next car, and Sheril floated her over the gap before hopping across it with ease.

  They crossed five cabins this way, finally reaching one with a hatch that opened from the top, which Sheril began to slide open. 

   Miranda was afraid to ask, just in case the wind swallowed her words, and when the hatch was wide enough, Sheril jumped in.

   Whatever he landed on made no sound, she thought with concern, and all she could see was his face glowing in the moonlight as he beckoned her with an open hand.

   Screwing her eyes shut, Miranda leaped after him, screaming a little before realizing her landing was soft and warm.

   "Hopefully no one heard that," Sheril teased as he let Miranda see where they were.

   Eyes sweeping over the waves of yellow straw, Miranda could see that the canopy was so deep and thick that it could hold up both of their weights. 

   "How did you know this was here?" She asked him as she lowered herself down, hugging her traveling case close to her chest.

   "I saw it from the outside as we were boarding," he shut the hatch over them, so that the only light was provided by thin gaps in the walls, then lowered himself into the piles of straw, "it's not common for trains to have both passenger cars and farm transport, but I guess we got lucky."

   Giving the air a sniff, Miranda was taken back to the barn in the Valley, the same sharp scents filling her nostrils, but rather than the smell of decay, of decades of rotting death and putrid corpses, the car smelled alive with vitality and new growth. 

   Should I initiate something? What if that wasn't his plan, what if he's trying to be respectful? The thoughts rattled in her head as Miranda felt several things heating up. 

   She threw herself back into the straw behind her, and thought she could see Sheril raising an eyebrow in the dim light. 

   "Penny for your thoughts?" He asked at a whisper over rustling straw.

   Without pausing, Miranda accidentally let the next thought in her head out of her mouth, "I really don't want to associate the smell of barns with sex."

   Sheril's laugh came out as an undignified snort, and when she realized what she had said, she lifted herself on her elbows, "wait, no! That's not what I meant!"

   Grabbing him by the arms to pull herself up, Miranda shook him lightly, but he just kept laughing, "Sheril, hush! What if someone hears?!"

   Forcing himself to stop laughing, he suddenly wore a serious expression, catching Miranda off-guard when he asked, "is that really what you want?"

   For a moment, she was silent, seeing his face only through brief flashes of moonlight that almost convinced her she was looking at Desires, his Noah memories. 

    But then he smiled again, not a full grin, but something honest and true, and instead of asking him if he had his inner Noah under control, like she meant to, she pulled herself higher and kissed the corner of his mouth. 

   He lifted his hands to take hers, gently removing them from his upper arms and then taking off her gloves.

   He moved her hands higher, towards his neck, and she took the hint, rising so one hand could remove his hat and the other could run down his back.

   His own hands were now unbuckling her sword belt and putting it aside, then returning to her waist, just as she was trying desperately to run her hands through his braided hair. 

  Their lips made contact gently, smoothly, and they moaned in unison from the feeling of both mouths and hands, before Sheril laughed again. 

    Miranda leaned back to look at him, and he apologized, "sorry, sorry! It's just that you were tugging on my hair."

   "Oh, I didn't hurt you, I hope?"

   Reaching up to undo his hair, Sheril shook his head, "not all, it was just... unexpected, I guess."

   Watching the black coils begin to tumble down his shoulders, Miranda confessed, "I love your hair."

  Sheril froze for a moment, but before Miranda could take it back, he whispered, "thank you, Miranda," and shook his head with a flourish, his hair spilling down his back and over his shoulders. 

   The flicker of lights through the gaps in the walls didn't illuminate much, so Miranda had to imagine the waves like midnight, dark and mysterious, and the memory made her face heat up.

   At least he can't see that, or anything else, for that matter, she thought as she reached a hand to the collar of his shirt and brought their lips together again. 

   This time, she only hesitated for a second when his tongue asked politely for entrance, and when she opened up, she gasped at the feeling. 

    This might be our last chance, the thought reverberated for a moment, and then she was slipping her tongue over and around his own, clumsy at first until she felt Sheril's body stiffen under her touch.

   Separating so she could catch her breath, Miranda asked, "are you okay?"

 In the warm darkness, she felt his lips on her cheeks, her nose, her forehead, and felt his hot breath as he mumbled at her neck, "something about you is so... captivating."

   I still don't understand how he got that idea, she mused, but what she said was, "I feel the same about you."

  And then she felt teeth worrying the skin of her neck, not too roughly, but just enough to startle her, and she jolted.

  "Oh Miranda, my apologies! I didn't mean to frighten you!"

   She put a hand to her neck in shock, but there was nothing wrong with it that she could feel, and she looked at him through the dark and laughed, embarrassed at how girlish it sounded, before moving her hand down to the buttons of her travel coat.

   Miranda saw a motion from Sheril that could have been the swallowing of nerves, and she felt her skin tingling as she took the jacket off, then struggled out of the layers of her skirt, until she was left with just the small black undergarments invented by the Order's tailors. 

   Then she laid back, the straw scratching against her bare skin as she watched Sheril do the same. 

   His were a lot easier; a few buttons, and gone was the waistcoat, then the crisp white shirt underneath, and then, after he removed his trousers, he asked, "should we remove our shoes, or would they be too much of a hassle to put back on?"

   Distracted by her thought of I wish the light was better so I could see-, Miranda didn't register the question, and could only stutter, "I, uh..."

   "Or did I ruin the mood by asking a silly question?" Sheril chuckled. 

   Shaking her head, Miranda responded, "no, you didn't! I was just thinking about something."

  "Lovely," Sheril breathed hotly, making her shudder, "I'd love to find out the paralyzing thoughts you're having, but that can wait until later."

  She felt the shuffling as he removed his shoes and stockings, then came forward again to do the same for her. 

   With more and more of her pale flesh exposed, the feeling in the pit of her stomach grew, the pulse in between her legs driving her mad.

   Miranda nearly shrieked when she felt a kiss on the heel of her foot, laughter tickling at the cut-off sound, then wetly trailed to her ankle. 

   She started breathing heavily as the mouth touched all the way down to her knee, the cool air making the wetness stand out on her skin, then she gasped again when the kiss moved to the other leg and did the same, heel to knee.

  When his lips met her knee this time, he moaned loudly, failing to cut the sound off before it left his mouth, and Miranda felt him go rigid again. 

   Leaning up slightly and reaching out, fumbling blindly, Miranda tried to ask, "are you sure you're okay?"

   Making contact with warm skin, she heard Sheril hiss in her ear, and almost backed away when he replied, "oh, I'm far better than okay, sweetheart."

   Under her hand, she felt his fingers, and touched them lightly, one by one, until the hand she was exploring turned over to take hers, shaking as Sheril pleaded, "my dearest Miranda, you torture me."

   Her thoughts went back to a moment ago, when she wished she could see better, and she asked, "is there... somewhere you want touched? You've done so much for me, after all."

   Another sharp intake of breath, and then a little movement, a shuffling as he got closer, and then suddenly she was pulled up where his mouth could meet hers.

  She was now sitting on his lap where she could feel something stirring, their undergarments still between them, her hand still wrapped in his.

   The kiss was enjoyable, though she felt a sudden rumble in her mind that she wasn't being allowed to make decisions for herself. 

  So Miranda took the hand Sheril wasn't holding and put it on his shoulder, feeling him rock against her when she slowly drifted it down his chest, over his abdomen, and finally, after a brief hesitation, his covered manhood. 

   It was still scorching hot despite the underthings concealing it, at least to her, and the hissing sound that issued from between Sheril's teeth seemed to support the idea.

   But Miranda didn't move her hand except to begin gently rubbing, not knowing what else she was supposed to do. 

   "Oh darling, there's no need," he tried to tell her, speaking mouth to mouth, which gave Miranda another jolt of that feeling she was beginning to savor.

   "But I want you to feel-"

   Feel what? 'Good too'? Miranda thought, that's so weak, isn't it?

   "I want you to feel loved," she concluded, and she felt something damp as his manhood throbbed under her hand. 

   He breathed in again and moved closer to her ear, "but I wasn't even done with what I was doing for you."

   Miranda knew that the leg kissing probably wasn't it, but what else was there to do but to get down to it?

   But she laid back down anyway, not surprised when Sheril started at her heel and worked his way to her knee again. 

  What was different this time was him pulling her legs apart further, showing off just how skinny they were, and when she tried to force them shut, he spread them farther and kissed higher. 

   By the time he reached the edge of her little black underwear, designed specially by the Order to not impede her movement or feel uncomfortable while wearing her uniform, Miranda was sure the things were sopping wet.

   Something Sheril confirmed by rubbing them with his thumb, a sensation that had Miranda jumping again. 

   She could tell he wanted to ask what they were made off, but he didn't dare ruin the mood. 

   Instead, he hooked his long fingers into them and started pulling, and Miranda made a mousey sound but didn't move to cover anything. 

   "Proud of you," Sheril praised before putting his hand over her mound, "feel that? It's hot."

   Nodding anxiously, embarrassed by the hair there she had never thought of before, Miranda had no clue what his next move was going to be. 

   Until he got down on his stomach in the hay and stuck his head between her legs.

   "Sheril?!" She spluttered, head spinning from her awareness focusing on the single point of his mouth on her skin.

   He didn't respond, and she felt his breath as he licked a wet stripe up her slit, either not heeding or not minding the hair. 

   Not just her face now but her entire body was burning, she could feel it on the back of her neck, her breasts, in the throbbing that was now centered where Sheril was groaning with pleasure. 

   She felt a similar sound bubble up from her throat that turned into spirited gasp when he finally parted her folds with his tongue. 

   Miranda didn't have it in her to ask what he was doing that time, no longer cognizant of the noises she was making. 

   She couldn't comprehend it, the awestruck feeling that left her weak as her world shrunk around her, dialing down into one point below her stomach, hidden from view by thin frame and skinny legs and arms.

   She hadn't been ignorant by any means, but this was nothing like she had heard of, and she let her mind be taken and drawn out of her, like thread. 

   Every few licks he would move closer, one hand pinching thigh while the other joined his mouth, and Miranda felt her curiosity awaken as she watched with eyes that were starting to blur.

   She couldn't even ask herself what he was doing when she felt his tongue run over something swollen, shooting a dangerously sweet sensation into her limbs and making her mouth water.

   She suddenly couldn't get enough air to breath, pulling in lung-fulls that felt as though they were disappearing instantly. 

   Then everything stopped, the tongue, the hands, the gratified moaning, and Sheril asked her, "are you okay?"

   The echoing of her words entered Miranda's brain, and she began to breathe normally again, feeling tears wetting her cheeks, "yes, I- uh... was that normal?"

   "The act of cunnilingus? Or your reaction to it?" She knew he had to look smug.

   "Both?" Came her honest answer, and Sheril laughed. 

   "The act itself is absolutely normal, my dear," he began lowering his head again, "but you might want to try breathing a bit, it might help."

   Weighing her options, Miranda decided she would rather hold off on the main event for just a minute longer.

  So she lay back again, heart pounding in a rhythm she tried to breathe to, despite her body thrumming all over with a nervous energy that was hard to counteract. 

   This time, when Sheril reached that place inside of her, Miranda breathed more easily, and wasn't as surprised when she felt one of his fingers slide towards her entrance. 

  Moving himself so he could continue swirling that swollen bud with his tongue, Miranda registered what was happening as he gently entered inside her, and she gasped at the tightness squeezing his lithe finger. 

   A moan sounded like it was rolling out of his chest like thunder, and she felt the vibration all the way through her body, and she began clenching, trying to stay still.

   A hand patted her side before sliding underneath her rear, and she felt Sheril briefly disengage to say, "don't hold on too tightly, just let it out."

   And then his mouth was on her again, and she tried her best not to seize up so much, but this just made her shake so badly she thought she would hurt him.

    Then she saw the lights in her eyes.

    They began as a sparkle, then a bright flash, then she heard the sound of herself whimpering and calling out Sheril's name as her mind unwound again, emptying of thought and dignity, deciding she could no longer feel her bones.

    All the sensation she could feel was soft lips and wet skin, and Sheril taking one last long lick before finally heaving himself up.

   Even when she opened her eyes, it took a long time for her vision to adjust, and when she saw him in the flickering lights as they passed, she didn't know what to think.

   That was incredible, and it wasn't even something I knew people did, Miranda thought, what else could there be that I don't know?

   But she had no time to ask then, because Sheril had hung his head and asked, "are you sure you want to... what about the risk of becoming a Fallen One?"

   Miranda nodded, then, not sure he could see, answered, "yes, I'm sure. I think, if I were to become one, it would have happened already."

   Shaking his head skeptically, Sheril crawled over, so he was hovering above her, and then kissed both her eyelids, and either side of her temples, before kissing her lips lightly, delicately. 

   She kissed him back with slightly more fervor, not displeased by the taste of herself, then he was gliding his fingers underneath the black bralette and ghosting his hands over the peaks of her breasts. 

   Not sure what to do with her own hands, she ran one through his hair, bringing a fistful of lovely curls to her face so she could smell them, while caressing the other across his skin towards the edge of his underthings. 

   "Naughty woman," Sheril cooed, and she felt the throbbing between her legs return with renewed vigor, "I can guess what you want."

   He took that hand in his and guided the fingers to the edge, helping put her hand in between the fabric and his skin, where it felt hotter and hotter until she finally felt his manhood rest in her palm.

   It was heavier than she thought, and harder, and he seemed to have no hair in the area, but she couldn't judge the size of it, having nothing to compare it with. 

   Together, they pulled down the barrier between them, and he looked her in the eye as best as he could, and said, "you can still change your mind."

   Miranda shook her head wildly, desperate to make him understand as she answered, "I would like to make a decision for myself, for once."

  "You've made plenty of decisions on your own, since we've met," Sheril countered, but Miranda wasn't in the mood to argue. 

   So she wrapped her arms around his neck, and brought him down to her.

   She felt his member lay across her slit at first, then felt Sheril's hand as he reached down to maneuver them, separating her folds with it and aligning with her entrance. 

   "I'll go slow, I promise," she heard him as though at a distance, and she nodded, even when he said, "it might still sting, of course."

   Then she felt a little push, a bit of pressure, and the sting Sheril mentioned made her gasp for air, then no further. 

  She felt him moan and shake above her, and she was shaking too, then a little movement that felt like something inside her was stretching. 

   "Sheril..." she whimpered again, and then she felt a soothing hand at her lower back. 

  "I know, I know," he cooed, waiting a moment before moving in just a little more, "you let me know if it hurts, okay?"

   And it did, just a bit, but she was determined not to quit now, so she begged him to move forward with a ragged moan, "please?"

  She felt them throbbing almost in time as Sheril inched closer, dragging sounds of desire from their mouths that were almost too lewd for Miranda. 

  And then she became so warm that she thought she wouldn't be able to breathe again, but she looked down and realized it was because Sheril was all the way inside of her.

   "Comfortable yet?" He asked in a cheeky tone, and she nodded. 

   "Yes, it's..."

   How do I describe this? Flashed before her mind.

  "I feel so full," she whispered, moving her mouth from his lips to his neck, "I feel like this is a sin."

  "It probably is," he hissed as he began to draw out, not too fast but not as slow when he entered, "for multiple reasons."

   To this, she couldn't respond, feeling the empty sensation that brought tears to her eyes, but he didn't pull all the way out. 

  He was faster this time as he pushed back into her, and they both felt the wetness becoming slicker, Miranda's body more malleable as he picked up the pace.

   "Oh, God..." Miranda tried to hold it in, making Sheril laugh. 

   He wasn't just moaning now, but panting like an animal, worrying Miranda a little, but she couldn't keep her mind together long enough to care.

   The slight pain at the beginning was giving way to something new, something pleasurable, and Miranda could feel herself squeezing around Sheril's cock as he began to thrust a little deeper, a little harder.

    Wait, did I just think of it as a cock?!

    It was all coming loose in her mind, words she could say, things she could do, but she knew once she left this cabin, that her mind would pull them together and lock them all up again. 

      So say it now! Say it!

    "Sheril, I-" she choked out, not really sure what it was she was meant to say, "I want you, I want you so much."

   She had begun to sob at some point, she was only dully aware of Sheril slowing down, "no, don't! I want you to-"

   "Miranda, my love, you're not making any sense," he said while trying not to lose focus.

   "I know, I know I don't, I don't make sense to me, either!"

   "You want me to... keep going?"

   "Yes!"

     This was it for Miranda, who felt the same thing as she had after Sheril had done what he planned to earlier, the boneless feeling that made her numb yet impossibly happy. 

   The flashes before her eyes were even brighter, and she was sure she had let out a long, breathless scream that definitely would have alerted anyone nearby if not for the muffling quality of their bedding.

  Then she lifted her legs as well as she could around Sheril's waist, feeling the shuddering of his body as he tried to pull away from her. 

   "Miranda?" He asked through a quavering voice. 

   "I'm sorry, I hope it's not weird, being my first time and all," she felt another orgasm, now she knew she could call it that, building up as Sheril thrust again, unconscious of his body's actions, "but I want to feel it at least once."

   Miranda gasped as both of his hands lifted her rear for more leverage, and he slowed his pace considerably, almost driving Miranda to complain before he steadily picked back up again. 

   "Oh, Sheril," she moaned in a high, airy voice she didn't know could come out of her, and when she started shaking, her legs jiggling where they hung over Sheril's shoulders, everything was blocked out except the sensation of something in the pit of her stomach finally snapping loose.

     When she regained her senses, Miranda was suddenly aware of something warm and wet between her legs, and the warm, sweaty body laying beside her, and the sweat of her own skin.

   Looking that way, looking at the shaft of moonlight glowing across his luxurious face, Miranda wondered whether he had fallen asleep in an instant. 

   Is this what men do? She wondered, but then she saw an eye opening, looking at her with an expression she couldn't read.

   "You are so wonderful," he whispered soothingly, "smarter than you think, and more beautiful, too."

   Feeling the tears well up again, Miranda turned to him, "and you're not a lost cause."

  "Oh dear," Sheril sighed, which turned into a yawn, then covered himself in straw, "you know, I wish I had known you before all of this?"

   "I wish I had known you," Miranda repeated in the haze of sleep, yawning deeply, then grabbing some straw and covering herself, leaving the mess of their clandestine cabin for tomorrow.

Chapter Text

   The morning Miranda and Sheril were set to depart, Lenalee had been woken up early by her brother, Komui.

   "It's not even light out yet," she blinked out the window of her sumptuously decorated bedroom that Komui insisted she keep feminine and pink.

   "Don't worry about that!" Komui hissed in the dark, "just go wake the others and gather at the docks as fast as possible! Tell them to pack whatever traveling gear they can, but be quick about it!"

   Hearing the hurried tone of his voice, she swung her legs over to sit on the edge of her bed and asked, "what are we doing?"

   "Defying Lvellier," Komui answered, shushing her gently, shoving things into her usual traveling case, "he's gone too far this time! You need to be as quick and discreet as you can."

   Registering what he said, Lenalee shook herself awake and asked, "you know I agree with you, but don't you trust Miranda?"

 Taking in Komui's look of stone-faced determination, Lenalee listened closely as he explained, "it's not about my trust in her, it's about the danger of the situation she's in."

  Lenalee thought back to the encounter at the Manor, which had gone by so quickly, the only thing she really noticed was Road's anger, the worst that she had ever seen, even compared to Miranda's duel with Sheril.

  "You're right, anything could happen at the Valley in Portugal," Lenalee agreed, "anything could have happened, in fact."

  Placing the travel case on the edge of her bed and handing her a uniform to change into, Komui turned his head and asked, "what do you mean?"

  "Well, Miranda is pretty insistent that she was shown the Valley in a vision, by the Noah Wisely," Lenalee went to her door and listened to make sure no one was in the hall, "if it turns out to be true, then something terrible happened there, a long time ago."

   "I'll check the records Link found," Komui joined her at the door, "grab whoever you think is willing to do this, and I'll meet you at the docks."

   "Anyone not willing to help Miranda is getting hurt," Lenalee raised a fist and nodded, and Komui nodded back and left so she could change into her uniform.

          ~*~*~*~

    The group Lenalee managed to come up with consistent of Allen, Lavi, and Link, plus Krory and Noise, Kanda and Bookman, and a very exhausted Timothy.

   "You're sure this is enough?" Komui asked as he joined them at the docks, but before she could answer, the look on his face made Lenalee stop short.

    "Are you okay?"

    Letting out a ragged breath, the distressed Chief held out a thick sheath of papers, and everyone gathered around to see.

   "This is a map of Portugal with the location of the Valley pinpointed," he handed to Lavi, who could somewhat read the language, before pointing at the next page, "this is the census from twenty years ago that Link found."

   He handed this to Link and took another deep breath before handing Lenalee another page, placing his finger on it lightly and explaining, "this is another census, from fourteen years ago."

   She recognized the name Silvio Mikk from the library yesterday, when Sheril had read his family's names from the twenty years ago census, and his late wife's name, Jacinta.

   Still grouped under their names was Tyki Mikk, now aged thirteen, but Sheril's name had been moved to its own box.

   "Sheril Mikk, aged twenty, and wife Estella Mikk, aged eighteen..."

   Lenalee's eyes widened as she read, and then closed tightly, while she whispered the final word, "... expecting."

   "Oh god," Krory murmured into the dead silence of the docks, before the quiet threatened to absorb them all.

  "Is there any evidence of what happened to Estella?" Allen asked cautiously.

   Looking down at the rest of the papers he was holding, Komui said, "I actually had to ask Bookman for this record, but it seems that certain areas of Portugal were ravaged by marauding soldiers at that time."

   "Had I known there was a connection, I would have brought it to your attention earlier," Bookman added.

   Understanding her brother's distress all too well, Lenalee took a deep breath herself and asked, "so you think the Valley was one of the victims of these soldiers attacks?"

   "If Kamelot awakened then, it would explain how he survived," Lavi speculated with chin in hand.

  "And if Road got to him first, that would explain a lot about their relationship," Allen stated, and everyone nodded, immediately seeing his point.

   As two small boats arrived to escort them to the ferry, Komui crouched down to speak to the men, "remember, I'm paying you two huge bonuses to get these Exorcists to the mainland so the ferry can be back quickly."

   The men nodded enthusiastically, and as Lenalee and friends boarded the two boats, she looked up to ask her brother one last question.

   "Are you going to tell Tricia?" She felt her eyes mist over and blinked hard to counteract the tears, "about his wife, or the baby?"

   Running a hand over his face and taking a breath that made Lenalee regret asking, he finally said, "if I'm being completely honest, I'm not sure what the right thing to do is in this situation."

   "I wouldn't," Lavi scoffed, "he's not looking for sympathy, remember? Informing Tricia of his loss might improve her opinion of him too much."

   "I wouldn't have worded it quite as harshly as Lavi, but yeah, what he said," Krory joined in.

   "It's your call, Chief, but maybe wait until we find out for sure?" Noise added sensibly, and Timothy gave him a thumbs up while Kanda rolled his eyes and said nothing.

   "And besides..." Lenalee began, and then hesitated, feeling that she couldn't control her tears.

   Everything was too much, the mystery of the Noah, the prospect of going out into the war-torn earth and seeing the consequences of one person's dragged-out personal war, the fallout of what happened in that long-ago and far-away Valley, all of it making it hard to hold on.

   "Besides, we have to tell Miranda we love her," she said at last, and let her tears flow freely at last, "just in case something happens to her."

   Komui nodded vigorously, likely to hide his own tears, and the Exorcists divided between two boats rose a cheer in agreement as well, and when the boatmen kicked off, they waved back all the way until the Chief was only a figure fading into the mists.

Chapter Text

     The next morning Sheril woke up to an abundant warmth so invigorating he felt he didn't deserve it, and slowly opened one questioning eye to find the source; a still naked Miranda had tangled them both together in her sleep.

   One arm under his and wrapped up his back, the other underneath his neck so it bent awkwardly to accommodate her, leg thrown around his waist so he could feel his own come that they should have cleaned up last night.

   Maybe sneaking into the farm transport was a bad idea, he thought languidly, in a normal cabin we would have been able wash afterwards.

   I did mean it honestly when I said we were doing this to shake off anyone tracking us!

  How was I supposed to know she would be so bold?

   Not that I'm not supremely proud of her, I just expected to make it to Portugal first!

  Looking around very slowly, he saw the other source of the warmth was the bright sunlight filtering in from the slats of the train car, hitting the straw so that it absorbed heat and turned a brilliant yellow color.

   Growing tired of the light in his eyes, Sheril buried his head in Miranda's shoulder and took in the smell of sweat, straw, and something like Earl Grey tea.

   Does she wear bergamot as a scent? Or maybe maybe it's in her clothes? How very like her, to wear something so subtle, yet earthy.

   And just like that, he felt himself getting hard again at the thought, feeling the touch of Miranda's inner thigh against him in places that made it difficult to concentrate.

   Well, damn, there goes my self-control, Sheril resisted a groan as he felt the slow, encroaching thoughts of his Noah memories beginning to stir.

  A flash of Siberian countryside in flames, a blade in his hand...

   Gone as quickly as it came, what was left behind was a blinding pressure, an excruciating headache that throbbed at his temples and the back of his neck, along with a wordless scream reverberating in his skull like the vibration of a drum.

   Even before Siberia, as a Greek soldier in the endless wars against the Turks...

   His grip on Miranda tightened as thousands of myriad voices began screaming, the ones he understood saying kill her, kill her kiLL THE EXORCIST

   Before Greece, the last citizen of a country that no longer exists is desperate for a way to end his accursed loneliness, incapable of processing the idea of being left behind...

   A small and trembling voice begins to cut through the rest, a voice from outside of his mind reaching his ears.

  He didn't realize what he was doing, or even that he still had a hard-on, until he heard the sleep-weary tone of Miranda asking, "Sheril? A-are you okay? You're squeezing me r-rather hard."

   Swallowing dryly, he wasn't sure if he could even control his mouth to speak, making matters worse when she shuffled slightly away so she could look him in the eye.

   She glowed in his blurring vision, not just from sunlight but from her open concern mixed with the dregs of last night's joy, last night's fervor of an introduction to lovemaking, the splendor of a woman who has finally felt a mouth on her.

  Miranda didn't even glance down when Sheril's cock started weeping pre-come on her thigh, Desires' conflation of sex with murder making it difficult for him to drown out the voices screeching for him to make the kill.

   "I think we should part ways here," he began slowly, trying to train his voice into the familiar coo he employed for seduction, "please, allow me to divest you of this burden."

   Before Miranda could say anything, he wagged a lithe finger at her, "oh no, don't act like I'm not. I know what I've done to you."

  "You won't let me decide even that?" She whispered, the crease between her brows deepening in thought.

   Grabbing hunks of straw and flinging them away before raising himself in a seated position, Sheril sighed, "I'm sorry, darling, I truly am. But this isn't just about decision making anymore."

   In the utterly terrifying silence, the rustling of straw moving, stabbing a man with a bayonet in a place continents and centuries apart, voices screaming kill hER

   "Now that we've done the deed, Desires wants you dead, and with renewed vigor," Sheril confessed with a shameful grimace.

   Having sex, no, roughly fucking a Bavarian noble lady while her husband argued politics with the men downstairs...

   "What will we do? I don't want to..."

   Her trailing voice was joined by more shuffling of hay as she lifted herself to sit next to him.

  Miranda moved to wrapped her arms around him, making him hiss through his teeth as she accidentally brushed his throbbing member.

   It was then that she looked down at it, and Sheril knew from her reddening face and chest that she never actually saw it last night, dark as it was.

   A destitute Irish man with nine children by seven different women, and he was feverishly working on the tenth at the moment...

   "My head is filled with-" he whispered, cutting himself off as Miranda gently moved her hand around his cock, "-visions, strange visions."

    "Would this help?"

    Laughing even though it pained him to do so, Sheril answered, "Dear sweet Miranda, I absolutely want to say yes, it would most certainly help! But I don't think it would."

   A man from the Netherlands lusts after the subject of his painting, heedless of her tender age and disregarding his legal wife's jealousy.

   "Can you tell me about these visions, then?"

    They came faster and fuller, more colorful, more real, and Sheril winced, glancing down at the angry red head Miranda was delicately keeping her fingertips on, as if she could clear his mind through his libido.

   A man in Romania, pale as a sheet, who did what he wanted with village girls before throwing their bodies into the Danube.

   "I think Desires is showing me other people he used to be," Sheril looked back up and tried valiantly to separate his mind from his body.

   "Did you know he could do that?" Miranda asked in her more usual, very worried tone.

   An Edwardian man drawing Glyphs of Power on a woman he had just fucked and killed, using her own blood and his come as the medium.

   "This asshole is always coming up with new shit just to spite me!" Sheril spat, dully aware of his irritation spilling out onto Miranda.

   She seemed aware of it too, and finally she nodded, "if you think it best, then maybe we should part ways. But we'll meet again in the Valley, when you've had time to cool down."

   Sheril blinked at her as she rose up, digging for her garments in the straw, and slowly putting everything on, picking yellow bits off as she went.

   Figuring it out quickly, Sheril used his threads to open the hatch, and then they looked at each other in the bright sun of the morning, and she cleared her throat.

   "Hopefully I can make it to the private cabin before anyone notices," she said with a weak laugh, "I'll do what I can to clean myself up in the washroom there."

   "You think you can make it without me?" He asked, half startled by the fear he heard in his own voice.

   "I'll try my absolute hardest not to f-fall," Miranda stuttered in response, "and I c-counted how many train cars we passed, so I should be able to find ours."

   A man so convinced of the existence of a soul that he thought cutting a womans chest open while fucking her throat would prove it.

   "Which is insane even for me," Sheril muttered, knowing he did look crazy.

   But Miranda still smiled, making his heart hurt, and when she leaned down to lay a sweet kiss on his forehead, he sighed, nowhere near contentment.

   Then he extended his threads and lifted her just enough for her to pull herself out of the hatch, sitting on the edge so she could Dust off the last of the straw, before finally walking away, slowly and very cautiously.

   Leaning back into the golden yellow expanse, Sheril closed his eyes and breathed in, following the lingering of Earl Grey on his skin.

  Without waiting for the throbbing pain in his skull to subside, he began snaking his hand towards the other part of his body that was throbbing.

  A man in a Roman bathhouse watching the women there and masturbating furiously, wanting to be caught, reveling in the idea.

   "That's not me..." Sheril attempted to argue, even through a moan, his hand now in a fist around his member, "this isn't me!"

   A German doctor getting off on making his female patients scream, hardly waiting for them to be gone before taking his cock out.

   "They aren't me!" Eyes squeezed shut, avoiding eye contact with no one and everyone, hundreds of Desires' going back several millennia and acting out the base, depraved instincts of man, "these men are not me!!"

   The familiar feeling in his stomach, the tightening, the harsh, rigid feeling of knowing his hand wasn't good enough.

   In one last effort to force Desires away, he supplied his own vision, a memory in his brain so truthful and clear that all the others became washed out and lifeless.

   It was Miranda, and not only as a sex object; that was part of it too, but not the totality of it.

   He saw her in green, on the boat, in the black of the order uniform, in the white sundress of the day they met.

   He saw her embarrassed by her scarred hands, or the things she said when she allowed herself the privilege of speaking her mind.

   He saw her in tight, body-hugging clothes as they dueled in the Ark's orchard, he saw her explaining to him what Wisely had shown her.

   And yes, he saw her underneath him, writhing at her first taste of pleasure and making delicious sounds he felt rushing down his spine and through his navel to settle at his cock.

   Which was currently on its way from red to purple as he kept stroking, knowing exactly what he liked and how to do it, even though it wasn't as good as precious Miranda's first little pained wince as he entered her.

   "Ah, fuck me," Sheril muttered, gasping at the power of his own thoughts in combination with his expert hand.

   The memory of that place inside her, the near-fetishizing levels of guilt at his undeserving that made his heart feel like it could beat from his chest, the echoed sound of panicked breath and feminine vocalizations made his own breath kick up into his throat.

  Before he had time to even decide where to come, it was happening, up onto his stomach and running over his hand, along with the vision of last night's spend still running down Miranda's leg in the morning.

   "That's not me," he was still muttering to himself, heartbeat still pumping, using his other hand to clump together straw and roughly clean himself off, "those people, those places, they aren't me."

   But he hung his head in shame as he cleaned himself as thoroughly as possible, before gathering his clothes and putting himself back together.

   Okay, that did help clear my head, but if I had let Miranda do it, we would have risked Desires attempting something, Sheril told himself, despite the overwhelming feeling that what he had done was disturbed, that it had been wrong. 

   Planning on stationing himself somewhere on the train where he can still help Miranda, even if he couldn't bring himself to enter the private cabin, Sheril looked up at the open hatch, into the blue sky with minimal clouds, and wondered again how they were ever going to get through this mess.

Chapter Text

    The first thing Tryde realized as a conscious human, with thought and will, was that betrayal was everywhere.

   As a child, these betrayals were petty and small-scale; an adult paying more attention to another angel-born, not getting his favorite food at meal times.

 But as he grew and matured, he came to understand that those were the tyrannical demands of youth.

   Soon new betrayals become known to him, the acts by their God that left them stranded, fatherless, and slowly losing their minds in the confinement of the Ark.

   And so, judging these traitorous acts, Tryde went along with Adam's plan, and fought valiantly against the Legions Of Heaven sent to eradicate them.

   But his ability to turn anything he touched into a weapon was not enough, and he fell to an Angel wielding a hammer taller and wider than he was.

  The doll held by a rope on his waist bore a strange resemblance to him, well-developed arms and frizzy black hair, as did all the dolls Bondom had made for the Angel-born.

   The last thing through his mind was the twins incessant cackling as they handed him the doll, and then he closed his eyes one final time and wondered what it was that could have defeated him so decisively.

           ~*~*~*~

   Separated from its body, the soul of Tryde entered a new state of being, one it didn't understand and made it feel sick, disgusted with itself.

   It could only watch and wait, a vile churning within its framework that told it of suffering, told it of pain and waste and toil, and as his soul wandered it deteriorated under these hellish whisperings.

  The only comfort was some kind of music, deep and resonant, that he could not figure the source of, and he was sure he had never heard before.

     And then Tryde opened his eyes again.

     ~*~*~*~

   And there was Road, everyone's favorite little Road, their darling friend and sister who shared everything, from joyous peals of laughter to bitterest hatreds.

   He didn't know how he recognized her, or knew so much about her, but he couldn't bring himself to ask when she smiled so endearingly at him.

   "Tryde?" She asked in a delicate voice, a mournful tone, yet still brimming with hope.

   "Road?" A hoarse voice asked in return, "where am I?"

   He didn't understand a word she told him- that they were once again the first people on earth, but the culture was rather different- all that mattered was that someone familiar was here, a presence that soothed the pain of his souls wanderings.

   He didn't notice the blood-dripping line of open wounds on his forehead until she helped him wash later.

   The new world he had just been born into was very different, more so than he understood from Road's attempt to explain.

   The oceans had receded entirely, and the world was developing anew, growing and changing rapidly, it seemed to him, for he had no idea how long he had been gone.

   Road pointed out things to him, trees with unfamiliar fruit that they plucked and ate, odd animals Road hunted with bow and arrow.

   The method by which she killed awakened a memory, and Tryde asked her, "how did we fare after the battle?"

   Sighing deeply, Road's face soon became awash with tears, "oh Tryde, it was awful! Not even Adam could survive it! I only managed to escape by being small and swift."

   "But where could you have escaped to, on that freshly-revealed mountain?"

   "Simple, silly," she wiped her face with her hand roughly and laughed, "I hid myself amongst the dolls until the Angels went away."

   Tryde did not understand how she could have done this, but he didn't dare ask her.

   Instead, he held his hands out, requesting the bow and arrows, and she handed them over, trusting in his expertise with weapons.

   He caught several of the strange animals and followed Road to her camp, where she skinned and cooked what she could, and then set up a pile of furs for Tryde.

     ~*~*~*~

   In the morning, Road took him to a nearby stream to clean his face, and explained to him what the scarring meant.

   "I believe that God has attempted to curse us for our crimes," she began.

   "But is it not God who is the criminal in this case?"

   Road shrugged as she walked back towards the camp, "eh, people are inclined to see their side of the story as the truth. What matters is that God proved to be more powerful than we are, which is why we had all perished in battle."

   "Except you," Tryde pointed out.

   "Except me," Road grinned, and he looked at her face intently, finally noticing something he should have already.

   "You bare the same wounds," he said in a low voice, feeling an odd chill come over him.

  "It is the mark of our grudge against God," she cooed lovingly, "but the new humans he made and gave the Innocence to wield are easily tricked, and they aren't as imaginative as we are, either."

   At the sound of the word, Tryde felt himself beginning to tremble, he felt he didn't need to be told what she was referring to.

   He knew, like he knew Road and he knew about the disastrous battle, what the Innocence was.

   So instead, he asked, "what are you planning on doing?"

   Clearing her throat, Road smiled again, "first, we're going to use our minds to disguise our foreheads, and the gray cast of our skin."

Then her smile turned twisted, joyful in a crude, conspiring way, "and then we're going to join their human clans and mate with them."

Chapter Text

    For the next few days, Sheril fell into a routine; making sure the staff of the train were caring for Miranda's needs properly, keeping her room well-supplied from a distance, before finding some place different to hide every night. 

   Desires often tried to quarrel with him, convince him that her and every single human on the train must die, but as long as Sheril found some way to pleasure himself at night, the roaring voices of revenge could be quieted to a dull murmur. 

   Had I known that would work, I would have been doing it the entire time, Sheril thought to himself before changing his mind, nah, it's better that I waited this long, any earlier would have been embarrassing in front of Miranda. 

   Or is it still embarrassing, but she's too polite to say so? Ugh, relationships are difficult...

   Then again, she was very quick to make a move after she realized how very fun and powerful sex was, Sheril grinned to himself, hand already traveling south with salacious intent, or maybe she genuinely wanted to help, and that just happened to be the most effective way at the time?

     I mean, it did help, tremendously in fact.

     But I can't let her be corrupted any more than she already has!

    It's bad enough I've already most likely taken the poor womans maidenhead, but then she offered me more!

    I feel terrible for having to brush her off like that, but I'm trying to prove myself a normal person, and I can't do that while she's tempting me with her new-found sexuality!

    Oh, this is so, so confusing, Sheril thought without stopping what he was doing, maybe she's right about letting her make her own decisions? 

    Oh, quit talking to yourself, you ninny, he heard Desires as if though a thick fog, and Sheril began to hope fiercely that this signaled the connection between them breaking down.

   But it was no use; even after Sheril finished himself with a rough groan, he still felt the Noah memories lurking in the back of his mind, sated but not necessarily satisfied.

   So he cleaned himself with whatever he could and made his hiding place comfortable before willing himself to sleep, heart palpitating at the thought of what could happen in the morning. 

      ~*~*~*~

    Making sure he had all of his things packed safely away, Sheril left the train by himself, thinking he could wait at the station entrance for Miranda to appear. 

    So it came as a nasty shock to see the Walker kid and the Lee girl standing there as though nothing were out of the ordinary. 

   "I was wondering why Miranda said she couldn't find you to say goodbye," Sheril drawled, a skeptical eyebrow raised, "let me guess, your Chief sent you out here, early that morning, to protect her?"

    He wondered briefly what could possibly be the matter that made Lenalee look away from him, a pained expression on her face. 

    "Look, I know you're you, but try to be somewhat grateful, okay?" Allen looked at him and scoffed, making Sheril's face burn while thinking he should be the one scoffing, "Komui thinks it would be to our advantage if your Noah could be exorcised."

   "He would think that, that prick..." Sheril muttered, and if either teen heard him they chose to ignore it.

   "So, where's Miranda?" Allen as after a moment that seemed to stretch far too long to Sheril. 

    Only slightly bothered that Lenalee was apparently refusing to speak to him, Sheril answered haughtily, "we decided it would be safer if we weren't seen traveling together. She should be off the train soon, unless something has held her up."

    Before he could say anything else, Lenalee swept past him, finally saying something, a rather strained, "I'll go look for her."

    Turning around to watch her argue with station staff about searching for a friend before they finally let her on the train, Sheril looked back at Allen and said, "far be it from me to say so, but it seems like you two are the ones being weird today."

    Shocking Sheril by looking a little guilty, Allen only replied with a simple, "sorry," and turned his gaze away, as Lenalee had done. 

   Do they suspect something happened between us, and are acting like embarrassed teens about it?

   No, that can't be it, they'd have to be a couple of little pervs to assume anything like that had happened...

   I mean, it did, but they don't need to know! 

   After waiting for longer than he thought, he finally heard the sound of booted footsteps, and Lenalee's voice calling out to them, "I've found her! She's okay!"

   Then suddenly, there was a hand wrapping around his arm, heedless of their audience, and a soft voice asking, "how about you? Are you alright?"

    Sheril looked down at the hand gently settled into the crook of his elbow, then his gaze travelled upwards, following the line of the arm, to the shoulder and the place he knew the collarbones were hidden.

   Then the column of the neck, despite the layers of her traveling clothes, and finally, the untamable curls of brown hair and the warmth of her woodland brown eyes, the hat that made sure only he could see them, with pin matching the brooch over her breast. 

    Finding himself unusually tongue-tied, Sheril could only answer back, "excellent," and she smiled infectiously, so that he grinned back. 

   Hearing the sound of someone clearing their throat, he looked up and asked, "do you two have a plan, or are we on our own?"

    Again, Allen took it upon himself to answer, and Miranda looked suspiciously between the three of them as he answered, "the others are waiting just outside of town. We have a map to the Valley we can follow."

    "Others? Oh goody," Sheril sighed as they left the station and began following them through the town, "I guess I shouldn't be surprised by that. I am glad to hear we have a map, though, since I get the impression your sense of direction is... lacking."

    "Do you ever stop talking?" Allen asked, voice dripping with equal sarcasm, "Miranda, how can you stand this?"

    "Um... I quite like it, actually."

    Allen and Lenalee both looked back at her, but said nothing, which Sheril thought was immensely irritating, but Miranda only laughed and patted his arm.

    I always forget how much I hate her friends, he thought as they went on in silence through the crowded little Portuguese town, they are being even more loathsome than usual today. 

    As the buildings began to thin out, so did the crowds, and then they entered into some farming fields, then those began to thin as well, and then they slowly became surrounded by trees, which grew taller and taller as they went. 

   And then Sheril spotted the group of Exorcists and groaned in annoyance. 

    "All of you?! Isn't this excessive?"

    Sheril swept his other arm across, still holding his case in his hand, in a grand gesture, and said, "let me guess, you're expecting Road to attack while we're out here?"

    "Uh, yeah," Lavi answered, not surprised by his attitude, "that's exactly what we're expecting."

    Lowering his arm in thought, Sheril eventually nodded, "good call," with a terrible grin.

    He knew Lavi wanted to say something else, but there was a strange sense of foreboding in the air that Sheril didn't notice until even the redhead looked away from him.

   What the hell is happening? They're all... pitying me? And the Lee girl looks like she's been crying.

   Did something happen the morning we left? What could be making them look at me like that? 

    Cutting through the silence without enthusiasm, Sheril stepped forward, Miranda keeping pace with him as he asked, "well, are we getting a move on, or what?"

    Highly entertained by the fact that no one was apparently going to argue with him, Sheril tried to suppress his glee at their expressions for as long as possible. 

        ~*~*~*~

      The odd happiness didn't last long when Sheril asked who had the map and was directed to Lavi, who smirked but otherwise didn't argue about showing it to him.

    Keeping his thoughts to himself, Sheril leaned over to look as the redhead slowly and delicately spread the dusty old map out and pointed to a spot in the north of the country. 

    "Taking into consideration the age of this map, we've compared it to one in Bookman's collection," the older man Sheril had yet to meet nodded, "and decided we should be about here."

    "The Valley was marked by one of the census takers," Bookman took up the explanation, "multiple Valleys are marked, in fact, but we know which one is yours because the peculiar name matches the one in the census records- 'Vale De Quijo Fino', or 'Valley Of Fine Cheese'."

   Hearing this, Miranda perked up, "oh, the Mikk family must have been dairy farmers! One of the houses in the Valley had a large amount of fenced-in pasture, maybe that was theirs?"

    "If the census lists it as the third largest property after the church and the village headman's, it stands to reason that they'd be one of the bigger suppliers of cheese," Link opened the twenty-year-old census and flipped to a particular page, "this lists the Mikk property as three cows, one sheep, and one goat."

    "That explains the barn- one of the bodies was still in it," Miranda added.

    Sheril felt her shiver and noticed her face turning red, and he didn't know if it was from the memory of the dead body, or of something else that happened in that barn.

   "Anyway, how long will it take to get there, by your estimate?" He returned his attention to the map.

    Looking at it thoughtfully, Bookman answered, "anywhere from two to three days, if we don't stop to rest at any point; with rest, maybe more."

   "Then I suggest we make the occasional stop," Sheril then bowed his head respectfully, "though I defer to your opinion on the matter."

   Nodding again, Bookman announced, "we'll see how we feel at sundown," and turned to continue down the forested trail, Lavi following behind. 

   Sheril ignored the staring of the others, especially the short kid and the tall, bald man, and kept walking with Miranda's arm looped in his, as though nothing were the matter at all. 

    But I will find out why they're acting so strangely eventually, he thought, equal parts outraged and curious, if it was just Walker and the girl being weird, that would be annoying, but every single one of them?!

     This is so completely aggravating! 

     Trying to hold it together, Sheril paced himself so he and Miranda would fall in line, just behind Lavi and the Bookman with the others following them.

Chapter Text

   Tyki woke up shivering fiercely, for a moment thinking he had actually drowned and this was the cold, unforgiving afterlife. 

   It took several minutes for the shaking to subside, after which he finally realized he was in the Noah family's Scottish keep they used for the occasional vacation.

   "Uuuuuugh," he groaned out loud as he grabbed the blankets and bundled himself tightly with them, hoping to block out as much cold as he could. 

   It was freezing as hell in the keep, as usual, which wouldn't have typically bothered Tyki, but today he felt more than a little frightened by what was happening to his family, and the chill seemed to seep into his bones. 

   Waiting for the rest of his body to catch up with his seething brain, he turned his thoughts to the keep.

   He wasn't paying complete attention when the Earl explained how they had come to be the owners of a place so beautiful yet so fraught with danger; Tyki assumed it had to do with Sheril's political position, but he couldn't be sure. 

   He remembered the trips to this place from long ago, the secluded keep a favorite destination due to the Noah preference for solitude 

   Up here, where it was very likely no one would ever see them, the twins could run around with their imaginary wolf pack turned very, very real with their powers, and Lulubell could hunt sheep as a dark, slinky black mountain lion.

   Tyki was suddenly craving a smoke, and felt around within his blanket cocoon until he realized someone had taken his current pack and box of matches out of his pocket. 

   All he had was the prison card with Cell Roron in it, its inhabitant either escaped or long dead, but Tyki didn't care enough to check for sure.

   I thought I ditched this thing ages ago, the musing fluttered through his mind, dammit, now I have to get up...

   Forcing himself into a sitting position, Tyki shuffled his covers until he could see out of a small hole, scanning the room for the presence of any of the other Noah. 

   He didn't see anyone, but that didn't mean they weren't somewhere nearby, lying in wait for him to make the first move. 

   So he sat, letting the stillness of the room go on for as long as possible.

   It was his room, he noticed, so similar to all his other rooms, the one he kept in Sheril's manor, and the ones on the Ark, and the ones in the other vacation homes the kept across the globe. 

   Someone had cleared a path through the bottles of booze on the floor, and tried to organize the scattered articles of clothing.

   There were multiple ashtrays in different places, recently cleaned, and the one nearest him on the bedside table also had his current carton of cigarettes with it, along with his matches. 

   "Very nice, thank you," Tyki wheezed as he dragged himself to the bedside and extracted his arms from the blanket to take the carton and light up a smoke.

   As he stuck the cigarette between his lips, he froze, watching as the door creaked open, and the Earl slowly walked into the room. 

   He wasn't wearing the ogre suit, but his human face, the one that allowed him to ingratiate himself into Sheril's little family play-life.

   The face that let them convince Tricia that nothing was wrong. 

   Tyki winced as the Earl sat in the only available seat, a big old overstuffed armchair that he inherited with the room.

   Nothing was said between them for a long time, the silence becoming oppressive as Tyki finished that cigarette and lit another.

   After a while he was convinced they would be in a standstill forever, neither one of them moving a muscle or speaking a word from here to eternity, until the Earl finally spoke up. 

   "Tryde is convinced that Sheril has defected to the Order," he began, and Tyki looked down in shame, "but I am sure there is more to this story than meets the eye."

   Brushing the ash from his cigarette into the ashtray, Tyki took a deep breath and scanned the floor for a bottle that still had anything in it.

   Leaning all the way down, he picked up a bottle of some American liquor Sheril would have turned his nose up at, and started drinking. 

  Feeling the sensation of his Noah body immediately compensating for the burning of the alcohol down his throat and in his stomach, Tyki became a little irritated that he couldn't even rely on that to distract his mind.

   Still not looking at the Earl, he stared at the ugly label on the liquor and suppressed a sigh as he responded, "Road stabbed me."

   "You know how I feel about members of the family doing each other harm."

   Funny how things are forgotten...

  "You know, that's actually very interesting, seeing as Road stabbed me," Tyki reiterated. 

   "It was probably an accident, if there were also Exorcists in the room, as I've been told," Tyki didn't like the Earl brushing him off like that, but didn't want to argue, either, "let's return to the subject at hand, shall we?"

   Taking another gulp of liquor, Tyki tried to make the instant healing stop, but it was no use.

   He could only feel the disappointment at how long it took to get drunk with a body like his.

   "He didn't defect," he answered with a bitter laugh, "I told the Exorcists to take him."

   Raising an inquisitive eyebrow, the Earl asked, "And why would you do that?"

   Struggling to keep the scathing tone from his voice, Tyki said, "didn't I already get this grilling from Wisely, inside my mind? He should have told you already."

   "Why don't you tell me anyway?"

   Finishing off the dregs of the bottle he picked, Tyki began scanning the floor for another one, eventually landing on a bottle of Gin.

   After the first long drain from this bottle, Tyki gagged at the taste and kept drinking, finally feeling something of a buzz in his veins, and shuffled so his legs hung out of the blanket. 

  "I don't care anymore," he began, "Sheril's actions are out of anyone's hands now. The Lotto woman is certainly determined to rid him of the Noah influence, but whether or not it works, I seriously don't care."

   "It doesn't matter to me if Road is jealous, I don't care if Tryde wants to bash my skull in, I don't care."

   "I know you say you don't like family members harming each other, but I'm pretty sure you or Road would get rid of one of us when it suits you, otherwise what would be the point of Tryde judging 'betrayals'?"

   "If anything, I'd like to see my friends one last time before you have me executed, but I have the sense to understand that my chances of that are slim."

   At this, Tyki fell silent, head beginning to feel fuzzy and dark as he finished the bottle of Gin and stood to search for a third.

   "I don't think drowning your sorrows will be a huge help in your case, Tyki-pon."

   The use of the juvenile nickname grated on Tyki's nerves as he bent to sweep up a bottle of something made in Portugal he didn't know the exact name of. 

   "Can't a man drink himself to death in peace?"

   But even as he said it, Tyki could feel his body restructuring his lungs, his liver, and various other damaged parts, and he wanted to curse, despite the desire to keep his cool and not look too affected. 

   "You're not going to die, not today, or any day if we can fix what's been broken," the Earl looked at him with a deadly serious expression.

   Tyki vaguely thought that he had successfully gotten drunk, because he couldn't return his gaze when the Earl went on, "I just need you to explain to me exactly what the woman Exorcist thinks she's doing."

   Head swimming, Tyki's eyes roved around the room until he found a forth bottle, but before he could get up to grab it, the Earl suddenly stood and blocked his way.

   "What are you trying to achieve by drinking yourself into a stupor?"

   "He's my brother," Tyki drawled, willing on vain for his mind to empty, "like I told Wisely."

   "You both have a tendency to avoid your troubles by escalating them until the responsibility falls on someone else," the Earl grabbed a tipping Tyki by the upper arms and gently laid him back in be.

   "Shit..." Tyki muttered, but didn't fight back, bunding himself again with just his sweaty face exposed. 

   The Earl then turned to someone he couldn't see, and intoned deeply, "summon Wisely. I need to know what Tyki told him."

   "Wow, did you know he could get drunk like that?" A voice asked as Tyki's consciousness began to fade.

   "When he does want to do something, he's very determined," he heard the Earl through the fog of liquor, "how very like his brother."

   Tyki wanted to argue, about what, he didn't actually know, but he had no control of his mouth, and he finally drifted back into a fitful, restless sleep. 

Chapter Text

   After several minutes of slow and precarious travel, Miranda made it back to the private cabin with just enough time before someone checked in on her. 

    While attempting to communicate that her companion had gone to bring food, Sheril proved her right by appearing with a meal under a covered dish for her, nodding cordially before leaving the cabin with the train employee. 

   Miranda knew he was trying to seem like nothing was wrong, but his expression still made her feel nervous. 

    Oh, I should probably clean up...

   The luxurious cabin had its own little bath, so she went in and locked the door behind her before removing her traveling clothes. 

   As the layers came off, she noticed more bits of straw and more marks she hadn't seen before, up and down her legs and upper thighs.

   She felt her face flush as she took off her undergarments and felt the last few dribbles of Sheril's come, and began using water from the sink to wash it off.

    Miranda wasn't quite sure what she was doing, she just knew she had to get rid of it before anyone noticed. 

   Wait, who's going to notice?! Don't be so nonsensical, Miranda!

   When she thought she had scrubbed herself clean, Miranda put on the same traveling clothes and went back into the cabin, and sat down to eat, lifting the cover of the meal Sheril brought and digging in, finding herself starving. 

            ~*~*~*~

     Their travels went on like this for some days; train staff would deliver her a morning meal and remove the dishes from the night before, while Sheril would bring her something in the evening to check in on her.

    Sometimes he would bring enough for two, and they would sit and eat in companionable silence, despite the risks, and Sheril took the dishes back to the kitchens himself on those nights.

    It only relieved her anxiety at being confined to the car a little bit, and when she found herself needing some form of distraction, she would look into the full-length mirror bolted to the wall by the bed.

     She tried new things with her hair before putting it back to the way it was; when that got boring, she took off layers of clothing, in a way she hoped was surreptitious, peeking at her own body like it was detached from her mind.

    She wondered what was so fascinating about it to Sheril, the skinny frame, the arms and legs with a little developing muscle from her training, the breasts that were not much to speak of. 

   Looking down at herself then back into the mirror, Miranda raised her scarred hands to cup her breasts, noting that the skin of her face and neck was turning red and spreading downward.

   Is it really that cute? She thought seriously, the juxtaposition between her soft skin and her scarred hands startling her, I mean, it's unique, I guess, but is it pretty? Is it appealing?

   Sheril seemed to like it, so much that Desires took offense and urged him to hurt me, she remembered the events that occurred in the straw, no wonder he thought it would be safer not to travel in the same cabin!

   This led her to thinking about something else that happened in the same farm transport; the warm yellow bedding being the site of her first lovemaking.

   The feeling of Sheril's mouth lavishing her with kisses and sly licks of the tongue.

   His long, spidery fingers caressing her skin warmly, invitingly. 

   His tongue and his fingers inside of her, touching places she had learned about in books or from other women that she never really thought about in correlation with herself. 

   Feeling Sheril's member underneath her hand and then between her legs.

   The ecstatic power of an orgasm that temporarily drove her troubles from her mind, the tingling that went up her spine and through her extremities.

   Her breath heavy as she came down and saw Sheril looking her in the eyes, from between her legs, with an expression as though she were inspiring awe in him, not the other way around. 

   Miranda turned her head from the mirror, in fear of what she would find, the new knowledge of her body informing her of the changes she could feel. 

   She didn't want to tempt herself towards experimentation with her own hand, at the risk it would finally turn her into a Fallen One.

    I'm starting to think the information about Fallen Ones isn't strictly true, though, Miranda mused as she opened the damask curtains separating the bed area from the rest of the cabin, intending to walk to the bath, a strange burst of confidence making her unashamed of her nakedness. 

    It wasn't until she was halfway there that she realized her mistake and went back to gather her clothes, so she could dress again after taking a cold bath.

   Sheril must really be rubbing off on me, Miranda thought curiously, he seems like the type to walk around like this. 

    Retreating back to the bath with her clothes, she went through as much of her typical routine as possible in such a small space, then dressed herself again and returned to the bed, anxiously waiting for tomorrow.

             ~*~*~*~

    The morning they were set to disembark, while she was busy putting all her things on, Miranda was startled by Lenalee appearing in the private cabin and immediately embracing her in a tearful hug.

     "Lenalee? W-what are you doing here?!"

     As her friend sobbed into her shoulder, Miranda raised her arms and returned the hug, and she felt herself tear up as well, though she didn't know exactly why.

    "There there, it's okay," she patted her back, not used to being the comforting one, "do you want to tell me what happened?"

    Heaving one last devastating sob, Lenalee took a moment to answer, "I don't think I can."

    A little mystified, Miranda responded, "that's okay. Didn't having a good cry make you feel better anyway?"

     "Not at all," Lenalee sniffled again, "I should have held it together."

     "Oh... does it involve Sheril in some way?"

     Her friend remained silent for so long Miranda wasn't sure if they were ever going to move again, before Lenalee finally spoke up.

    "Komui sent us here early, in defiance of Inspector Lvellier," she whispered, "I suppose by now he's suffering the consequences."

     Miranda stiffened in shock; Lvellier had ordered she go to where Sheril had hidden her Innocence alone, with the help of no other Exorcists. 

      "How many of you came along?"

      "Oh, just a little crew of... eight people."

      That many, just to help me?

     "Komui thought returning to the Valley might spring another trap by Road, so he wanted to make sure nothing happened again," Lenalee explained. 

     "That's sensible to believe," Miranda agreed, and then Lenalee finally let her go, holding her at arms length so they could look each other in the eyes.

     Hers were red-rimmed, like she had been crying for a while now, and Miranda realized, if they had left earlier than her that very same morning, that it had probably been since that day, and she looked away in shame. 

    Something that could make her cry for that long, like the time they lost Allen in China and the Order sent me as his replacement...

    "You really can't tell me?"

    Lenalee shook her head and gripped Miranda by the arms, "it's not my right to say."

    Her 'right'? How odd, Miranda thought, but she didn't want to push the issue, so she continued to put on her hat and sword belt and followed Lenalee out to meet the others. 

Chapter Text

      The first thing that Joyd thought, as a conscious human with a will and mind of his own, was that being joyful of something was the best feeling in the world.

    As a child, joy was everywhere; in his mother's smile and vivid storytelling, in each of his friends as they were born and grew up together, and especially in the few simple music instruments they had.

   He was sure it was his idea to call it 'music', no matter what Desires claimed, and he thought about new ways to make it every day.

   But as things began to fall apart, as they decided Gods' actions were a betrayal that had taken everything away from them, Joyd began to feel newer, greater joys than before.

   His ability to pass through solid objects at will had helped greatly when building the Ark, but they didn't last long in the battle against the Legion Of Heaven.

   He wasn't even sure how he died; he thought he heard Desires scream, then both of the boys that made up Bondom, but he didn't see anything but the sword cut across his chest.

   Through eyes bleary with blood and sand, he saw his own hand holding the straw doll the twins had given him of himself, and touched the beady little coal-pellet eye with his thumb before taking his final breath with a mix of fear and melancholy.

        ~*~*~*~

    His soul adrift in an endless darkness, Joyd felt a sickening sense of separation, of being ripped from friends and loved ones that was his only fear in the living world.

    That fear was happening now, events come to pass that made his nightmares into reality; there was no one to hold, no one to comfort, and no one to do the same for him.

    No Desires to laugh with over mean things no one else found funny, no Wisely to carry someplace safe during one of the boy's dizzy spells, no Road to pester him to into saying how pretty she was.

   Joyd was alone, and he despised being alone.

   His only comfort was the sound of an instrument, but not one of any of the kinds he knew, made of bones and sinew and animal flesh cured and stretched over wood pieces.

   Whatever it was had a feeling that was light, yet sad, mournful, yet able to make one want to move.

   Joyd could imagine Desires appreciating it, and his soul followed the sound for several years, until it finally pulled him back toward Earth.

        ~*~*~*~

    When next he opened his eyes, he was surrounded by a crowd of whispering people as he awakened at the bottom of a sand dune.

   Joyd felt the wind whipping up grit into the air, grains of sand in his eyes, and something wet that appeared to be coming from his forehead.

   And then he heard the scream and meaty gurgle of blood gushing from someone's mouth, and turned in the direction the sound had come from to see a man and a little girl had begun stabbing people.

    When they slaughtered the group they had, it seemed to Joyd, been traveling with, the girl sighed and said, in a high, smug voice, "see, I told you!"

   The suddenly very familiar man looked at him, sitting up and struggling to drag himself out of the shifting dunes, and nodded, "you're right, it is Joyd," and reached out a helping hand towards him.

    Even though he didn't hesitate to grip it and pull himself up by the man's strength, Joyd still raised an eyebrow skeptically.

    "Do I... know you two?"

    The little girl had walked away to a traveling wagon with two camels hitched to it, and came back with a skin of water, handing it to him.

    "You are known by the name Joyd, aren't you?" She asked with a wicked smile.

   He realized with a start that she spoke the truth; his name was Joyd, and he appreciated pleasure like no other.

    "Road?"

    "Oh, sweetie, you remembered!" The girl squealed and wrapped him in an ecstatic hug, "I'm so happy!"

    He felt happy, too, and returned the hug in earnest, lifting her from the ground and carrying her back to the wagon, the man he now recognized as Tryde following behind.

   "What do we do now?" He asked, and Road pulled back from the hug to put her hands on the sides of his face.

   "Well, we had to kill our last group for witnessing your awakening," she explained, and he looked back at the bodies that were sliding down the dunes to be covered with sand, "we have to collect more people who are willing to go along with us."

   Quirking an eyebrow in confusion, Tyki asked her, "going along for what?"

   Road snickered, "too create more of us, of course!"

   Joyd didn't quite get it, but he climbed into the back of the wagon after her anyway, and watched as Tryde climbed into the driver's seat and whipped the camels into motion.

      ~*~*~*~

    It didn't take long for Joyd to figure out what she meant; when they found a village that they could integrate into, he found himself very popular with the women-folk there.

   It seemed pretty easy, at first, to have a few children with a woman until she inevitably died in childbirth, then move on to another village and another woman, as his body didn't age quite like a normal humans, so he could get away with it.

   Even when he and Tryde did eventually expire, they just awakened in new bodies, and continued the cycle of mating with human women.

    According to Road, one time when Joyd was a contortionist for a circus, this was exactly the reason why she had them producing babies this way.

    "The more we spread the Noah gene, the more bodies we have to incarnate into when we die," she explained as she was putting on his makeup before a show.

    "But you never die," Joyd protested as she drew a teardrop under his left eye in blue facepaint.

    She pouted in response but said nothing, concentrating on her work, and when she was done, Joyd looked in the mirror and saw the sad face she carefully crafted before every show, his blue and white suit that clung to his skinny frame, and sighed.

   "When is this going to be over, Road?"

    She didn't look at him; she was doing her own makeup, the mix of cutesy pink glitter and deep purple hues that made her look doll-like and charming for her freak show act as an adult in a child's body.

   "It doesn't take much to convince anyone of that," she had told him once, in her best 'mature' voice, "people who go to the freak show tents are eager to be convinced of something."

    Realizing he was being ignored, Joyd began practicing his maneuvers, twisting himself into a variety of shapes and positions.

    Once he had nearly gotten his head under his armpit, Road spoke up again.

    "Okay, maybe next time I'll let you take a break from baby-making," she scoffed as she got up from her poofy chair where she sat, "in the meantime, have you set your sights on anyone yet?"

    Joyd thought about not having to worry about Road's strange machinations the next time he awakened, "I think that one blonde acrobat has been open to me flirting?"

   "Oh she definitely talks about you when no guys are around! I say go for it," Road grinned and then turned to the mirror to make sure she hadn't smeared her makeup.

    A shout from the corridor let them know it was time for everyone to get into position, freaks at the freak show tent, animal handlers readying their animals, and all others to the main tent.

    Joyd would have been considered a freak, too, if he wasn't so popular with the high class ladies that paid luxurious ticket prices for him to be in the main show.

    So he got to stretch and bend for an audience that was probably thinking they were better than him, that they were in their positions over him by merit or destiny or some innate quality they possessed that he didn't.

   And that was the only thing that got on Joyd's nerves; people thinking they were better than him.

    But he ignored it, like he did everything else that confused him, even Road's late night visits with some of these rich people.

   She had told him once that "it's about making connections, Joyd! We might need these people in the future," but like everything else, that just went over his head.

    All he knew is that he really enjoyed it when he was allowed to make friends, place himself amongst unassuming humans, and take joy from their joy and pleasure from their pleasure.

    That was Joyd, getting to his place in line with the gymnasts, where they would go out in after the clowns, and he would listen to rich ladies abandon all propriety for a moment when he backflipped and somersaulted his way onto the stage.

    For an hour at most, Joyd would hear screaming and cheering and know it was for him, then the gymnasts would make room for the trapeze swingers, and he would wait for the blonde woman to join him.

   They would all step on stage again one more time for the encore, then he'd finally ask the woman out for a celebratory drink.

   He'd do as Road asked of him, because she was Road, and then next time he would take a blessed break from the cycle of seduction and death.

Chapter Text

   It wasn't just Lenalee; all of Miranda's friends were treating Sheril with some sort of strange deference.

   It wasn't quite sympathy, wasn't quite caring or understanding, but whatever it was, it made Miranda feel a cold chill run over her.

    As her friends listened to Sheril go on about Portuguese history, cuisine, and architecture, Miranda read the signs in their voices; they only politely kept the conversation going so he didn't suspect something was amiss.

   They don't understand he's way smarter than that, he probably knows what they're doing just as much as I do, he's just playing along.

    Well, it's also a fact that he enjoys having a captive audience, she mused, remaining silent, even if they weren't being strange, he'd be talking them to death.

   So she listened as Sheril talked about an island off the coast where they buried pots of stew in the ground near an active volcano, cooking the meat until it was juicy and tender, and imagined traveling the world with him to sample such strange cuisine. 

          ~*~*~*~

    They stopped at a few places to eat and rest their feet, but never for long; the closer they got to the Valley, the more a sense of urgency fell over them, though Miranda couldn't puzzle out why.

  Okay, I can see it being that important to retrieve the Time Record, Miranda thought about it after a while, but I feel like there has to be more than that?

   When she recognized the upward slope that was the beginning of the pass into the Valley, she began to sweat, and stopped paying attention to where she was stepping, face burning in shame whenever Sheril had to keep her from falling. 

   Everyone had grown eerily silent, even Sheril, and as the slope began to trend downward again, the tension became palpable, so the sudden whisper in her ear nearly made Miranda jump.

    "As soon as you see the church, I need you to run there," Sheril said to her in a low voice, "you'll find what you're looking for in the basement."

   Tilting her head upward to whisper back, she asked him, "you're not coming with me?"

  He shook his head and then indicated with a lift of his chin that she should turn her eyes to where they were walking. 

   She could just barely see past a bend in the rocky walls, as the slope finally met the Valley floor, and then there was the woods, the church, the headman's house, and the Mikk lands, with the filthy, muddy dirt road between them. 

   There was no time to get a clear answer from Sheril; instead, Miranda twisted, pulling her arm from his and running for the church, as he had asked.

   She heard several voices shouting behind her, and someone giving chase, most likely Lenalee. 

   But Miranda ignored that for now, driving herself to her highest speed, a skill she had from living the same day for thirty days.

  The sense of dread and foreboding was getting worse, and that led her mind to two things. 

  Either an attack from Sheril's fellow Noah was imminent, or he was lying about the Time Record. 

  Both of those would be awful, but I really, really hope he's not lying about the Time Record!

  Miranda thought as she hit the door to the church at full speed, driving the breath from her lungs as she fumbled the door open, allowing Lenalee time to catch up.

  "What are you doing?!" Her friend asked frantically as she managed to swing the doors open.

  Huffing out several short breaths as they entered, Miranda moved to close the heavy doors behind them, gasping, "hoping the Time Record is where Sheril says it is."

   "You don't... trust him?" Lenalee asked her tentatively. 

  "I- uh... I'm just being realistic!" Miranda stammered, "while he's still possessed, it would help to proceed with caution."

   On this side of the door, she began to feel the soft green aura of her Innocence' presence, but there was still a chance something could go terribly wrong, so she couldn't tell Lenalee. 

   "That's fair," her friend said as they caught their breath and began slowly making their way towards the basement stairs.

   Miranda knew where it was as soon as she took the final step at the bottom of the stairs, rushing over to where she could detect that cool pulse, emanating from one of the file boxes her and Sheril had been searching through days before. 

   The fact that Road apparently hadn't searched for it herself puzzled her, but she sighed with relief anyway, and looped the strap over her head so the Time Record rested against her left hip, on the opposite side from her rapier. 

   Looking back down at the box of files that should have had relevant information on the village population, Miranda thought out loud, "why did the Order have the records that should have been here?"

   If Lenalee heard, she made no indication, and Miranda wasn't looking for an answer, anyway. 

   Ugh, if I think too hard about it my head is going to burst, Miranda finally turned away, but when she saw the way Lenalee was looking at her, she stopped short.

   Finding herself incapable of reading her friends face, Miranda instead asked out loud, though she was afraid of the answer, "are you sure you can't tell me what's wrong?"

   She wasn't used to Lenalee just turning away from her, and she had to lean forward to catch the tremulous whisper as she said, "come back outside. The two of you need to hear this together."

  Miranda shuddered, and ran her fingers along the surface of the Time Record to steady herself, feeling it's slight warmth against the sudden chill in the church basement. 

   Nothing more need be said, apparently, as Lenalee began climbing the stairs, and Miranda took one last glance back at the crates of village records before following her up, the chill following her even when they opened the doors into the sunlit Valley.

Chapter Text

  From the moment Komui was summoned into his own office he knew he'd find Inspector Lvellier there, at his desk, face full of barely concealed fury.

   Komui didn't feel like trying to grin and bear it, in fact, he felt equally as furious as the Inspector, maybe more, when it came down to it.

   So he decided, before Lvellier even opened his mouth, to do something bold, perhaps inspired by Miranda's recent boldness.

  "Spare me your lecture," he slammed both his hands on his desk, rattling his spread of ink wells and paperwork but not fazing Lvellier in the slightest, "I know exactly what this is about and I don't care what you think. If you intend to punish me, I'll take it."

  The Inspector leaned back, cool and stone-faced, driving Komui's irritation further when he refused to react at all to his statement. 

  When the silence had gone so long Komui thought he would have to repeat himself, Lvellier's face changed entirely, and finally he spoke up, sounding entirely too smug for his taste.

   "I was hoping this would work," he tilted his chin up, "for some reason, your Exorcists always seem more motivated when they think they're defying me."

   Standing there, stunned and unsure what to do, Komui asked flatly, "wait, what?"

   "You know very well what," Lvellier went on, "if I give an order, you, your Exorcists, and your science division always want to do the opposite."

  "So you told Miranda she and Kamelot were going alone, right in front of me, because you knew I'd send the others along?" Komui clarified, more than a little upset by what he was hearing. 

   "The only surprising part was you getting them to go so early in the morning," Lvellier said with annoying self-satisfaction.

   Sliding his hands from his desk and turning on his heel to sit in one of the seats, Komui removed his beret and ran his hands over his face. 

   Neither him nor the Inspector spoke for a long time; when Komui finally broke the silence, he couldn't keep the fear and distress from his voice, "you could be sending them into a death trap."

  "Why do you think I let them go? If the Lotto woman went with only the Noah by her side, her death would be guaranteed."

  Komui didn't move, not wanting Lvellier to see his offended face, "you called her useless, and a bumbling idiot!"

   "And she is, but because of her, we've made a fascinating breakthrough in the war against the Noah."

   Against his better judgment, Komui was intrigued by this, "and that would be?"

   Hearing the sound of Lvellier moving to stand, and the not-very-gentle stomping of his boots against the floor, Komui knew he had walked around the desk to stand in the middle of the office. 

   He still didn't look up, not even when the Inspector cleared his throat and spoke, "if all the evidence means what Miss Lotto believes it means, then it seems the Noah can be exorcised from their hosts."

  "Allen said he tried," Komui reminded him, his voice hoarse, "it just made it worse, according to him."

  "Then maybe the method was the issue," Lvellier went on, and then, when Komui had no response, "you know, your concern for the wellbeing of your Exorcists is commendable, but need to learn not to let your emotions control you."

   Without hesitation, Komui pointed out what was wrong with this logic, "if I didn't let my feelings control me, I wouldn't have sent the others to help Miranda."

  Lvellier let out a laugh, a harsh barking sound, and said, "you're right, in this instance, but there won't be another," and left the room, chuckling to himself. 

   Komui just sat where he was, wondering if there was anything he could have said differently, done differently, but there was nothing.

   The Inspector was himself, as always, and no amount of talking or words used were going to get through to him.

   Thinking about Lenalee and her friendship with Miranda, Komui knew they wouldn't want him to worry over them while he was in such a precarious position. 

   Standing to retrieve a tissue from his desk, Komui cleaned his face and fixed his beret, steeling himself to join the science division downstairs. 

   Together, they would continue their research into the Noah memories with the new evidence in their posession. 

         ~*~*~*~

  The longer Komui thought about what the Inspector had said, the angrier he got, until he was obviously seething as he hovered over several machines. 

   He was going over the documents in the Orders collection in every way he could possibly come up with; the chemical composition and production of the paper, leather, and ink, the languages written in, the changes made, the palimpsest underneath.

  Around him, every single scientist and researcher in the Order were pouring over ancient texts and scrolls, looking for the same thing. 

   Anything that indicated the existence of Road, of Desires, of the Noah, and of the Earl.

  Komui felt sure, down to his very bones, that finding out what they've been up to was the key to putting an end to this.

   Occasionally mopping the sweat from his brow, Komui ignored his colleagues pleas for rest, knowing that they could not stop until they had this information. 

  Even when he realized his body was about to give out, he powered on, and at the beginning of the twenty-fourth hour, someone finally made a breakthrough.

  "Chief! Chief Komui!" It was Gigi Lujon who shouted, "take a look at this!"

  He rushed over, carrying a rather thin file delicately in his hands, and opened it so Komui could see inside. 

  It was a penciled sketch of a young woman, dated fourteen years ago.

  It near-perfectly matched Allen's drawing of Road Kamelot, though leagues higher in quality, and her hair was a bit longer and her expression more grave.

   Looking closely, the parchment bore a phrase in Portuguese at the bottom. 

  "Reever, you're our languages expert, can you read this?"

  Approaching Komui where he stood, Reever nodded and read, " 'a little girl, serious face, leaving a cafe on her own', someone saw her in Portugal, around the time of the second census report from the Valley."

   "Do you think she caused whatever calamity lead to that village being destroyed?" Johnny Gil asked, joining them in their circle before another shout suddenly went out.

    "Chief, sketch of a young girl dated fourty years ago!"

    "Painting dated sixty years back, sir!"

    "Ink print dated one hundred years ago!"

    The room was in an uproar; hidden deep in the recesses of the Black Orders records, it seemed as though the secret of the Noah had been hidden amongst them all a long.

    But Komui didn't have time to reflect on why this was so, only how this information would help his Exorcists on the field. 

   "Okay, everyone," he clapped for attention, and the room fell silent, "let's focus now on figuring out exactly how each of these pieces is connected, where they were, when they were, and whether or not they were relevant to a Noah awakening in the area."

   "But not before we take turns with a quick break and return refreshed in a few hours, understood?"

   After several shouts in the affirmative and various salutes, the researchers discussed who should stay and who should have some rest, Komui himself choosing to retreat for a cup of coffee or three as he thought over what they knew about Road.

   He had to be sharp, he decided, or risk letting down Miranda, the Exorcists, and worst of all, let down his sister. 

Chapter Text

   Sheril wasn't surprised at all when Miranda's friends joined her as she exited the church, and even less surprised when she brought up the Time Records shields against him.

   It was the sensible thing to do, especially with what he was about to tell her.

  But as he walked to meet them, standing in front of the barrier he didn't dare to even touch, the Bookman raised his voice first. 

   "We have some new information the Chief believes you should know," the old man intoned from inside the glimmering green dome.

  This set Sheril's teeth on edge, but he tried to seem unaffected as he said, "ah, excellent. I figured as much! I, myself, have something to say I rather would have been kept between Miranda and I, but that seems to be very unlikely at this point."

  Ignoring the rolling eyes from the younger Exorcists, Sheril made a low bow and began removing the hat that hid his tightly braided hair, so he could begin undoing it and letting it flow freely. 

   Shaking his head to loosen up his hair, he continued, "so it probably doesn't matter who goes first; I imagine from your behavior that your news is meant to be particularly traumatic and earth-shattering, whereas mine will only be personally offensive to Miranda."

  He saw her as her eyes widened before looking down at her feet, then she covered the bottom of her face with her Innocence, and seemed to whisper something to Lenalee, who announced, "no, I'm pretty sure we're all going to find it offensive."

  Sheril shrugged, trying to keep his face trained to a stoic callousness, and sighed, "ah, suit yourselves."

   The narrow-eyed scrutiny of several people he didn't give a shit about didn't bother Sheril at all, but it hurt quite a lot to see Miranda continue shrinking as he spoke. 

   But he knew he had to do this; knew she had to remember him as a liar, as an untrustworthy snake. 

   "I lied to you, quite blatantly, when you asked me if I'd ever cheated on Tricia," he inched closer to the barrier to be sure she heard, "not only do I sleep with other women and men very frequently, but I often murder them afterwards, like I intended to do to you the day we met."

   Not at all shocked by the activation of multiple Innocence from his statement, he remained focused on Miranda, who was shaking slightly.

   He was about to say more when she spoke up, rather more loudly than he expected, to ask, "what changed? Why did you spare me, that entire time you could have done something, anything, and you let me live?"

   Her friends kept all eyes on him, and he raised his hands as though to show they were empty, even though they all knew his weapons were in his fingertips.

   He didn't know how to answer what she asked without saying some really dirty things in front of some very young people, so he did his best.

   "Because I found you charming," he began, struggling now to remain unfazed, "I knew you weren't who you claimed to be, I knew you were play-acting at something you weren't! After all, I am an experienced play-actor, myself, and I'm difficult to fool in that regard."

   "You love to hear yourself talk, don't you?" Allen interrupted, but Sheril ignored him.

   "You also clearly didn't even know you were in Portugal, not knowing the language or the etiquette, and a woman wandering about some strange country she didn't understand is always very obvious."

   Relieved to see Miranda beginning to stand straight again, he could see her marvelous mind at work when she asked, "and Tricia? You genuinely don't feel a thing for her?"

  "I don't," was all he said, and Miranda heaved a sigh that made Sheril look away, so he wasn't caught staring at her breasts. 

  When all fell silent except for the heavy breathing of the Exorcists and the- perhaps only perceptible to Sheril- annoying whine of their activated Innocence, he finally had to ask, "and what of your terrible information you must share?"

   At an odd signal from Bookman, Miranda lowered the barrier for a brief moment so he could hand over a file from the Order to Sheril, and then the barrier was returned. 

   "This contains something that is... rather relevant to you, and to this Valley as a whole."

   Sheril flipped it open; the first page was the same as he saw at the library that day, the census listing Silvio and Jacinta Mikk as the parents of Sheril and Tyki Mikk.

   Nothing had changed, the list still contained all of their birthdates and his mother's deathdate.

   He hummed in annoyance, turning the page to the map of the region. 

   There it was, clearly labeled, the Mikk lands up on a fenced in hill, where the barn animals grazed and the milk was made into cheese in a separate shed.

   It wasn't surprising to learn that they were the most well-off family in a village of cheese makers, and that they owned the barn he and Miranda had tried to make love in.

   A memory that made Desies twinge in irritation, so Sheril shoved it away and flipped to the next page.

   Through the barrier, he heard an angry shout from Lavi, "are we just going to glaze over him admitting to cheating on his wife?", but if anything else was said, he didn't hear it.

   The page he was looking at was another census, this one from fourteen years ago, still listing Tyki under the name of their parents. 

   But Silvio was no longer listed as the owner of the property.

   Sheril Mikk was in a box all his own, with the land rights and the animals and the earnings from the cheese they processed and packaged themselves. 

   And a wife.

   A woman's name was underneath his, marked with a symbol denoting a marriage and an expected baby on the way.

   The name given was Estella Mikk, and her name before marriage was Águas.

   As he read these words, over and over and over again, Sheril slowly comprehended their meaning and felt as though the universe was playing a cruel joke on him.

   A wife, someone who was there for him, someone who loved him enough to have a child with him, someone who was probably accepted by Tyki, too.

  Something had happened to her, happened to them, and whatever it was, he had easily forgotten it, easily let his mind be taken and twisted by Road.

  He couldn't see through the sudden onslaught of tears, but he didn't dare bring his hand up to wipe them away, either. 

  He just stood there, trying as hard as he could to keep Desires at bay.

  Sheril didn't know what to feel about this woman he had no memory of, but he knew what Desires felt. 

   The Noah memories inside him hated when something belonging to him was taken away, and Desires was applying that anger to Estella. 

   You didn't even know her, you don't deserve this feeling! He tried to argue, but it wasn't getting through to an infuriated Desires. 

   He didn't even register the shouting until he saw that the shield was down and Miranda was approaching, a look of open concern on her face. 

   He thought it was terribly bold of her to take one of his hands in hers and ask, "are you alright? Is there anything I can do?"

   Looking down into her earnest face, Sheril felt conflicted. 

  There's no way she can still have feelings for me after my confession. 

  After what I admitted to doing? After fooling her, after fooling Tricia?

   It doesn't matter, Desires broke into his thoughts again, you have them here, you should kill them all!

   "Miranda, darling, please return to your friends and restore the barrier," Sheril began patiently, "there is nothing else you can do for me, not with so many witnesses, at least."

   As she looked up at him, eyes shining with welling tears, Sheril felt some semblance of guilt, listening to her whisper, "you want me to hate you, don't you?"

   Swallowing a nervous lump, he answered, "it would be so much easier for the both of us, don't you think?"

   Lowering the file Sheril still held between them, Miranda's gaze didn't divert from his, "I'll decide whether or not to hate you after this is all over. For now, working together, however begrudgingly, seems to be our best option."

    "I doubt your friends agree, but I appreciate your good sense anyway," Sheril sighed wistfully and turned over the file for Miranda to read, pointing out the relevant Portuguese terms for her to understand it.

    "Oh... oh, Sheril, I'm so sorry," she gently took the file from his hands, closing it with a certain finality that made him shiver, "are you sure there isn't anything I can do?"

    What a strange creature she is!

    "Oh, how so easily you forget," he sighed and lifted a hand to cup her cheek, noting her confused look, "the murders, Miranda? The ritual slaughter of women in your hometown?"

   The confusion turned to hurt as she spoke, "I know! Don't think I don't know! It's just that... oh, I know you don't want to hear it, but you're a victim of this, too, Sheril!"

    He couldn't tell if his own mind refused to understand this, or if Desires was the one in denial, but Sheril felt compelled to argue. 

   "Is that what you're telling yourself to push for my forgiveness," he felt bad for the sneer he couldn't control anymore, "to maintain some sort of supposed purity in this relationship?"

   And then, finally, something took him by surprise when Miranda dropped the file into the mud and slapped him.

   It didn't do much, the contact had probably hurt her more than it did him.

   But the shock of it nearly sent him to his knees, and he reeled back, looking her up and down as though seeing her for the first time.

   She was breathing heavily, holding her hand in pain, and the expression on her face was a fascinating state in between sorrow and outrage. 

   "I'm sorry, but how dare you condescend to me about purity!" Miranda shouted, voice strained as she struggled to get the words out, "I was never pure! I went from useless child, to talentless woman, to raging alcoholic, to homewrecker!"

    "Those things don't mean-" he tried to argue, but she continued, interrupting him quickly. 

   "I know it looks bad! I know the things you've done are unforgivable, and I understand the risk of continuing to trust you!" Miranda was crying now, the sincerity of her tears striking against the idea she was arguing for, "So don't act like this isn't my choice! Even if I do decide to hate you afterwards, you can at least allow me to love you now!"

    The reactions of her friends the furthest thing from his mind, Sheril grabbed her by the upper arms and kissed her hard, feeling her stiffen from the suddenness before relaxing long enough to kiss him back.

   Then he pulled away and said, "my apologies, I must have forgotten how strong you've become."

   "Oh, um... it's okay, I know this entire situation must be very difficult for you."

   He laughed at her reaction, and went on, "if you really intend to stay with me until we fix this, then you have to be aware and ready to use the Time Record at all times."

   "Yes!" She held it up and then lowered it again when it made him flinch.

   "We have to leave the Valley from the other end," Sheril explained loudly enough for everyone to hear, "there's something I want to look for, but we have to get out, now."

   Miranda nodded and wiped her face with her sleeve before saying, "okay," before turning back to her friends. 

   Besides Lavi staring back incredulously, her friends were politely pretending nothing had happened, but Sheril didn't know how to feel about that.

  They can acknowledge or not, but the sooner they get over it the better, he thought to himself, on the other hand, it suits me just fine if none of them want to talk about it.

   And if it's just Miranda and I at the end, that's fine too.

   In fact, I'd prefer if this ends with the two of us alone.

Chapter Text

   When Desires grew to the age where he understood himself and his body, he knew all he needed was someone to love, care for, and have children with. 

  The aspect of making children was especially compelling, but at the time, there were severe limitations. 

  All he had ever known were his friends and their mothers, and by some way he understood intrinsically, they were off limits.

   So he settled for caring for them as best he could, without the promise of the deep, personal love a wife would provide. 

   He did his best, day in and day out, to treat them in the way a friend and brother would, but some days it still bothered him that there was no one in their little village he could call his own.

   As Desires got older and the jealousy over married couples began to seethe, he took to watching animals mate, but this just made him think inappropriate thoughts, and he knew none of the adults would listen.

   Before he could steel himself to address this with a trusted friend, however, disaster struck. 

  His ability to manipulate others on invisible strings wasn't enough to fight back against the Legion Of Heaven, and he fell in combat against an angel who slashed him across the belly just below his waist. 

   As he lay there in immense pain, he reached toward the little doll of him the twins had made of straw and deep black horsehair, the face they had managed to make into a twisted grin, and looked around for Adam one last time. 

   He didn't always like the way he made decisions, but Adam was his oldest and truest friend, and Desires took his final breath hoping that he would be able to get out safely. 

            ~*~*~*~

    The endless void Desires' soul wandered was so dark and black, he almost felt at home there, but the prospect of being lonely, in this endless expanse of space and time, forever, pulled him back.

    He wanted light, he wanted love, he wanted something that belonged to him and only him.

   Maybe that music could be it; he and Joyd were always bickering over who invented something or other, especially if it was something pleasurable, like certain foodstuffs or the devices they played their music on.

    The music heard by Desires' soul in the darkness was eerie, the click-clack of ivory horn counterpart to the mournful squeal, making it feel the semblance of a shiver, and it followed along as close as it could. 

   If it took any heed of the earth drawing closer, it didn't show it, and didn't realize it was being drawn in until it was already too late. 

           ~*~*~*~

    He awoke in his new form in the middle of a slaughter, a knife in his hand and a body lying on the ground before him.

    It only felt strange for a moment, and then the feeling passed, and he heard an impressed whistle from behind him. 

   Whipping around and raising the knife, he narrowed his eyes and appraised the the man walking towards him.

    It was a beautiful face, but not one Desires recognized, though he was aware something about it was drawing him in.

   The man turned his head slightly, shouting at someone further down the alley, "I think I've found him."

   Desires only stared, scrutinizing the man's face with narrowed eyes, until he was suddenly face-to-face with a little girl he didn't see coming. 

    "Hi there! Remember me?"

    Backing up as though startled, Desires looked at the dainty little girl and her scarred forehead, and put his free hand to his face, feeling the blood that seemed to issue from a similar series of scars.

    A flash of memory came to him, of a little girl that would brush the animals with him, and then help him brush his own hair afterwards. 

    Desires looked at the knife in his hand and the blood so red and shiny, he couldn't help but feel something in his body stirring at the sight, and uttered to the girl one single word. 

      "Road?"

     Her smile gleaming ecstatically, she cooed back, "hello, Desires," and grabbed his hand, now covered in blood from his own face, and led him down the alley, the other man turning to fall in line behind her.

   "Say hi to Joyd too, okay?" She added, and Desires looked at the other man, trying to remember who he was.

                ~*~*~*~

    It didn't take long to recognize Joyd after that, and Tryde as well, when they met up with him.

    He didn't understand what was happening at first, but Desires was more than happy to have a family again. 

    Especially when he learned what Road wanted of him.

    It wasn't hard at all to convince him to travel to different cities, seducing women, having children with them, and then leaving once the baby was at an age they couldn't be gotten rid of easily. 

    Once a womans womb started spilling out babies, Desires knew it was almost time to leave, mostly since Road's little troop aged so slowly it was crucial that they changed cities often.

    But one day, after a string of serial murders had struck in London, England, and the locals where beginning to suspect the family consisting of three grown men and a little girl, Desires was suddenly anxious, and didn't know who to tell.

    He didn't want the others to know about the sense of dread that fell like a veil over him, but before he could lift himself from his reading chair, Joyd had entered the room and stood there, cigarette dangling from his lips.

    "You're getting sloppy," he said, and Desires huffed and leaned back into his seat.

    "It's about time we leave here, anyway," Desires huffed, "the last child is nearly three."

    "It's creepy how you keep track of things like that," Joyd squashed his cigarette in a nearby ashtray and lit up a new one, making Desires wrinkle his nose.

   "Someone has to have a mind for these things," Desires pouted, making Joyd laugh. 

   "Better you than me," the younger man sighed, "but I still think your little murder spree could be a lot less... conspicuous."

   "Eh, maybe you're right," Desires shrugged and raised the book back to his face, shutting out anything else Joyd had to say.

   But the other man was not deterred, and he went on, "but hey, a new city, new women to seduce... don't you want to go somewhere they don't know you yet?"

   Desires thought about it for so long that Joyd had looked away before he answered, "the far east sounds fun."

  "Yeah, sure," Joyd nodded, the lit end of his cigarette drawing Desires' eye, "well, you seem to have a bug up your butt about something."

      "Who, me?" 

      "Anyone else in this room I could be talking to?"

    Rolling his eyes, Desires stuck a bookmark between the pages he was reading and placed the book on a side table before lifting himself from his seat.

    Joyd couldn't suppress his laughter as he began pacing the already worn rug in the middle of the room, discolored from days of rambling thoughts expressed in the exact same spot.

    "As much as I love doing what I'm doing, sometimes..." he hesitated, not sure how well his opinion would go over, "sometimes it would be nice to go home to the same house, the same woman, and have the same consistent love and devotion."

  It was Joyd's turn to fall silent, and Desires just kept pacing, looking down at his feet and occasionally puffing out a breath of irritation. 

    "It's just that-!" He began again before cutting himself short, making Joyd raise an eyebrow. 

    Desires hummed a note and continued his back-and-forth, overcome by a sense of restlessness that made him begin to tremble. 

    " 'It's just that' you've always been weird?" Joyd followed up his rambling, "you and your strange attachments."

   Desires stopped walking, right in front of Joyd so he could look down at him, "how am I the weird one for wanting to settle down, in one place, with a woman who understands me?"

   "Because, of the four of us, you're the most sex-obsessed," Joyd answered flatly, without malice, but Desires still took offense, "having just one woman would bore you to tears. You love the drama, the challenge of fucking multiple women without them finding out."

    Thinking about it, Desires let out another long breath, anger flowing out of him, and agreed, "yeah, you're right, I do have a lot of fun. But one day! One day I'll be free of Road's plans, and I will commit to one woman!"

    Joyd just rolled his eyes and smashed his second cigarette in the ashtray, but before he could light a third, Desires snatched the carton and the matches from his hands. 

    "That's it, no more of these! You can have them back tomorrow!"

    "God, you're so bossy," Joyd muttered, standing from the couch and slouching from the room, "in that case, I'm going to make a visit to one of my women."

    "Go to Agnes, you haven't seen her in two weeks!" Desires called back, and Joyd made a throaty laugh indicating that he had heard before walking out the door. 

    Then Desires went to open the window, looking down the street from their third floor apartment, disgusted by the narrow London alley they overlooked, and made sure Joyd had actually gone, watching him until he turned a corner out of sight.

   Looking down at the cigarettes and matches in his hands, Desires carefully took one out and lit it up, eyeing the little red dot before putting the other end in his mouth.

   It wasn't unpleasant, though he didn't understand how people got so addicted to them, unlike several other varieties of addiction that were totally understandable to him.

    Food, alcohol, gambling, opiates, sex...

    All those are so easy, so why don't I like cigarettes? 

   Realizing that the okay taste of the cigarette didn't change the awful smell, he stamped it out on the windowsill and threw it in the ashtray, then sat back down with his book.

   He knew this one by heart, and after a few more pages, Desires got bored with the narrative and skipped ahead to the good bit, a scene where a young virgin is nearly sacrificed by a cult, only to be saved by a man who will later deflower her himself. 

Chapter Text

   Leaving the Valley through the southern end, they followed the faded trail of carnage, the crackling of dead leaves and skeletal trees marking a path east.

   Here and there, signs of a struggle showed, even fourteen years later; bits of clothing, discoloration on the dirt that was likely from blood, the occasional human or animal skeletons that could be seen just underneath the bushes.

   The sight made Sheril's stomach churn, not because of the gruesome implications, or the way Miranda shuddered at everything she lay eyes on.

 His stomach churned because Desires was enjoying this.

  Every vile thought assailing him at once, through the evidence of raging fire and soldiers giving chase on horseback, the arrows sticking out of the trees, the stench of decay. 

   The fact that nothing grew here after fourteen years, as though the place was cursed.

   Sheril knew he should hate it, knew he should be disgusted, but Desires was focusing all of his energy into hateful glee and joy, and even a bit of arousal, at the sights around them.

   Glad that none of Miranda's friends were willing to look at him just now, Sheril fought back against Desires' terrible mood as best he could, dividing his attention between that and the place he was searching for with only a vague memory to guide him.

               ~*~*~*~

  Krory had led the way, with occasional observations from Sheril, so when he suddenly stopped, the others gathered around to find out what was the matter.

    Turning his head this way and that, he finally spoke, "this place... something is definitely wrong."

   Meeting eyes with Miranda, Sheril nodded before he walked on, creeping his way into the clearing. 

    That tall prick is right, he thought, something is wrong. 

   Shuddering slightly, he kept his pace slow, listening to the footsteps as the others began to spread out, even though they couldn't possibly know what they were looking for. 

   Assholes, he thought again and was about to start swearing out loud, but then he felt Miranda's gentle touch on his arm.

   "What is it that we're looking for?" She asked him sweetly. 

     She's always seeing something good in you, no matter what.

     Why can't you make her understand?

     He looked around him, at the arrows in the dirt, the spring growth on the trees furthest from the valley, and said, "I think I buried the villagers here."

   Apparently close enough to hear him, the Walker kid suddenly whined, "I'm not digging up graves again!"

   Sheril knew from her face that Miranda wanted to ask what he was talking about, but he cut off her question, "no, no one is grave-digging today. It's just-"

   He didn't know what to say, what they would understand, what he was willing to tell anyone that wasn't Miranda. 

   Besides that, his memory was too vague; he wasn't sure what parts belong to him, or to Desires, or which parts were real in the first place. 

   "I think..." damn, this hesitation wasn't like him! "I think the advancing raiders caught up with us here."

   In the middle of the clearing now, they had gathered together, and to Sheril's surprise, most of them were listening intently. 

   The image in his mind came to him like a fevered vision, a haze as though it was produced by alcohol or the smoke of a hookah.

  "I must have awakened in time for the rain of arrows to have no effect," he swallowed nervously, "I woke up some distance away, with Road hovering over me."

   Watching her pale throat as Miranda swallowed too, he barely heard her ask, "was there anyone else around?"

   "No, it was just the two of us for several years after that," he confessed, beginning to turn slowly so he could scan the open meadow again, "she taught me everything I know about high society, encouraged my pervesions..."

   If anyone had anything to say about that, they didn't dare speak up.

   Cowards.

   Even as he thought this, he remembered something. 

    "She got really mad at me for not wanting to kill women?"

    Someone snorted a laugh, but Sheril ignored them.

    "Like, not just mad, but fully argumentative, angry yelling at me about it," he recalled that day, in that countryside village, "she had been taking me to go meet Tricia for the first time, in fact."

   "That is... fascinating," Miranda responded, clearly a little bit concerned, "so you ended up folding to that demand?"

   "Clearly," Sheril answered before anyone else could, "there was little I could do."

   He wanted so badly to go to her, to take her hands in his, but he knew that the longer this was drawn out, the more his struggle against Desires would be in vain.

   "The obnoxious bastard inside my head makes it very difficult to resist anything Road wants," he knew that to the Exorcists, it would sound like he was making excuses, but it was the truth, "even now, I can't bring myself to have any hard feelings for the things she has done."

   Miranda nodded, and took a step towards him that he wanted to back away from, "she saved your life, in a way."

   "Like the Innocence saved yours," he smiled even as he shivered, Desires putting on the pressure. 

    Kill her kill her kill her kill he-

   There was no birdsong in the woods.

   There were no things of beauty except the one he couldn't have.

   There was no sense of belonging, no reign of the queen of time. 

   He didn't know what to say to these people.

   He could give up, he could just unleash Desires and let the memory do what it wanted-

  No, fool, don't let it convince you its terrible thoughts are your own! 

   Sheril fought back again in earnest, wielding his thoughts like weapons, until suddenly Desires used a technique he'd never used on Sheril's body before. 

   Without saying a word, Sheril turned and dashed into the woods, ignoring Miranda's cries behind him as he ducked around a tree and vomited into the dank earth he found there. 

        ~*~*~*~

    He had no clue how long it took, but eventually, when his stomach was empty and he was left dry-heaving, the assault came to an end. 

    "W-what... the fuck..." he drawled, mouth uncomfortably dry and acidic-tasting, and he shuddered again as he heard someone move on the opposite side of the tree.

   "Are you alright?" He heard Miranda's horrified voice, and then someone else behind her asking a question. 

  "Sheril, do you need help? We have water," she offered him kindly.

  Leaning his head heavily against the rough bark of the tree, he croaked, "please...", and then found himself startled by how quickly a waterskin touched his hand. 

   Taking a swig and swishing it in his mouth before spitting it out, Sheril then took another and swallowed this one, before picking himself up and dusting off where he had leaned against the tree.

   After one last drink, he turned to hand the skin to Miranda, who looked at him but didn't say anything as he rounded the tree.

   The Exorcists were looking at him, still not with sympathy or pity, but no longer quite as disdainfully, either.

   Sheril could only describe their expressions as some sort of begrudging respect.

   Throat still raw from his exertions, Sheril could only rasp, "my apologies."

   No one said anything, and that was well and good by him, and he waited until Bookman finally broke the silence.

   "What happened after you woke up to Miss Kamelot's presence?"

   Not expecting the question, Sheril blinked, thinking carefully. 

  "I think... I must have asked her to come back here and bury the bodies?"

  A flash of a womans face passed before his eyes, and he almost waved it away.

  "And where do you think you went after that?" He heard the old man ask.

  "We kept walking," Sheril answered, curious as to what he was getting at, "for several long hours as she lectured me on how to behave as a Noah."

   He recalled the torture, the oddly sexual behavior meant to appease Desires and keep him in line, and wondered where it all went wrong. 

   Was my family falling apart before Miranda? Was something about this not right, even then?

   Before he could even register that the Bookman had asked something else, Sheril suddenly felt Miranda's fingers digging into his arm.

   "Miranda?" He asked as he turned to look into her frightened face. 

  "It's Wisely!" She whispered harshly, "he doing that thing again!"

  He soon understood what she meant; he felt a head splitting pain shoot through his mind, and heard the scream and collapse of several bodies around him.

  Resisting as strongly as he could, Sheril could only mutter, "damn it, Wisely!" before the pressure brought him to his knees and his vision went dark.

Chapter Text

   Waking with a start, Lenalee felt the sensation of laying flat on uneven stone, and lifted herself up to take in her surroundings. 

    Her breathing hitched, feeling the poisonous beginnings of panic and confusion. 

    It seemed as though she was on the Ark again; the whitewashed walls, the white cobblestones she had been laying on, face down, the painted doors of varying quality. 

  But then she noticed something strange, something different, and while it didn't do much to calm her, it told her it wasn't where she thought she was. 

   After all, there was no way someone had managed to cover every available surface with dolls, at least Lenalee didn't think they could. 

   But there they were, on every bench, cafe chair, and flower box, in the hundreds, or maybe even the thousands. 

   Dragging herself up and walking around in a daze, she noticed how each doll was different, men and women and children, young and old, but all of them gorgeous, as dolls go.

   They were from multitudes of different cultures, but all of them were dark brownish gray, and had little stigmata across their foreheads. 

   They wore peasant clothes or the garb of nobility, merchants clothes or the low cut of prostitutes.

   They were men in suits or women in ball gowns, doctors and writers and kings and princesses. 

   The majority of them appeared to be Greek, or Hispanic, or Lusophonic, and bore striking resemblances to Tyki and Sheril. 

   But she didn't see any that reminded her of Road, and that worried her. 

     Are they-?

     Is this what I think it is?

    "Whoops, you weren't supposed to see this," Lenalee heard a familiar voice echo off the walls, "you'll be leaving now."

   "Wait!" She tried to argue, but the edges of her vision were darkening, "what is Road up to?!"

   But no answer came, and Lenalee felt herself falling to the floor, her eyes landing on a doll of a woman with long, flowing black hair and a light blue, hydrangea patterned kimono before she was fully unconscious. 

            ~*~*~*~

     When she came to, they were still in the clearing, where Sheril alleged he had buried his fellow villagers. 

      Do we really believe him, though?

     Lifting herself onto her hands, Lenalee shook her head and asked, "is everyone here? Are you all okay?"

    One by one, her friends all answered, but once they were all accounted for, Miranda's voice trembled with worry when she added, "Sheril's gone."

   The place where he was standing was empty, and there was no sign of him on the ground, either. 

   "Road came to take him back, I guess?" Allen suggested, "but why leave us alive, in that case?"

   "You know her and her mind games," Lavi reminded him with a shudder, "remember what she did on the Ark the first time we were there?"

    Lenalee didn't want to think about it. 

   "So she's messing with us now," Krory sighed. 

   "My head still hurts," Timothy mumbled, "and I don't get what's going on."

   Noise just patted his head and asked, "so, where are we going now?"

   They looked at Bookman, who reached into his pouch to take out the map of Portugal, but before he could spread it out, a loud boom went off in the woods, and a familiar gleeful cackle rang out.

   Immediately Miranda raised the Time Record, and the Exorcists all huddled inside its glowing green dome.

   Another explosion, then a third, followed by more loud, teenage laughter, then Jasdero and Debita were tearing out of the woods on an oddly green wolf that disappeared from underneath them as they approached the shield.

   "Wow, playing defense? You suck," Debita scowled at them from outside of the dome.

   "Yeah, this sucks!" Jasdero repeated. 

   They were slightly taller and more lanky than Lenalee remembered, but they were still the irritating kids she knew. 

   "Shut up, both of you!" Allen called out, "what's going on here?!"

   Jasdero made a motion as though he was zipping his lips as Debita said, "oh no, you told us to shut up, so we're not telling!"

    "Walker should watch his mouth, hee~"

    "Why you-!" Allen began what was possibly a threat, but Lenalee held him back.

    "Why are you here if it isn't to gloat about Road's terrible plans?" She asked them.

    Debita and Jasdero looked at each other before the black-haired twin said, "well, Road was really upset for a few days, but she's okay again now."

     "She came to get smelly Desires, hee~"

    Lenalee noticed Miranda flinch out of the corner of her eye, and asked for her, "what is Road going to do to him?"

    The twins looked at each other again, and Jasdero announced, as solemnly as he could, "she's erasing his memories of the skinny lady before unleashing him in these woods, hee~!"

    Under the dome, they all exchanged glances, eyes widened with fear.

   "So I'd drop the bubble and get going, if I were you," Debita suggested though he was clearly taking immense pleasure from the horror he and his brother inflicted. 

    "We promised Desires he'd get to be the hunter, so you can leave now if you want!"

    Miranda looked at each of her friends in turn, and they nodded in agreement, and Lenalee whispered, "we can do this. You know we can do this!"

   And then she turned to watch the woods behind the twins, keeping her eyes open for a familiar silhouette as the dome lowered and everyone took off running.

    She only caught a glimpse, but she didn't tell Miranda, knowing her friend had suffered enough heartbreak already. 

    She didn't need to know what form of monster was after them.

Chapter Text

          Miranda told herself, as she was pelting between the trees at full speed, that she couldn't let herself cry.

     She didn't know where she was running to, or whether her friends were still nearby.

    She didn't even know whether she trusted that the twins were telling the truth about Sheril.

    They could be lying, this could be a deception in order to separate us, she thought frantically as she ran, glad she had put on her uniform before leaving the train, they could fight us individually, pick us off one by one.

     But if they are being truthful, then our chances of survival are miserably low.

    After all, Sheril is pretty powerful, with those terrible abilities that make him particularly annoying.

    She felt bad for thinking of him that way, but depending on how much of his memory Road had taken, he might be in a more Desires-like mood.

   Miranda wished she had eaten recently; she felt sluggish, even though she had practiced running like this when she had relived the same day thirty times.

    I met Allen and Lenalee that way, she mused, still trying not to cry, and this is how I repay them for all their help! By attracting the attention of the most menacing Noah...

   Gunshots ringing out in the distance distracted her, and she tripped over a large tree root that sent her flying.

   Using her arms to protect her head and face, Miranda hit the dirt, her travel case exploding open when it hit the ground.

   Whimpering from the pain, she lifted herself into a sitting position.

   Feeling around, she didn't notice any breaks, just some tender spots, but her ankle hurt the worst, and she feared it could be sprained.

   Just my luck, she pouted as she gathered her belongings and threw them into her case before struggling into a standing position.

    Trying to pull herself together, she heard the sound of crunchy leaves behind her, and turned with the Time Records shield up.

   Despite the white uniform that seemed to be favored by the Noah, Miranda recognized the hair and face from her previous excursion on the Ark.

   "Fiedla?!" She called out, unsure of his intentions, "how many of you are here?!"

   As nonchalant as ever, he only answered, "can't say."

   "But the twins-" she cut herself off.

    I probably can't trust Fiedla, either, she reasoned, what is he supposed to say? Supposed to do?

   But she couldn't help but feel furious anyway as she asked, "were they telling the truth? Did Road do something to Sheril's memory?"

   She felt the tears begin to form, felt that sting in your nose when you know you're about to cry, even though she told herself she looked foolish, that she should control it.

   Fiedla blinked his eyes separately and said, "the twins are correct, in a manner of speaking. It's closer to the truth to say his Noah has fully awakened."

   Miranda thought for a second before asking for clarity, "like what Allen did to Tyki on the Ark? I never saw it, but the others described it as-"

   "As a monster," the artist nodded, "I'm going to get in trouble for letting you go again, but Jasdevi's 'fair warning' wasn't fair enough."

   Miranda didn't wait to hear if he had anything else to say; she turned and ran, not deactivating her shield until she thought she was far enough away.

    She thought about what she had heard from her friends who had seen Tyki 'fully awakened' form.

    Tyki was already very powerful, but Allen had admitted they needed assistance from General Cross to even survive the battle.

     But there's eight of us and-

     An awakened Desires plus possibly twelve others.

     Those odds are absolutely not on our side!

    Paying more attention to where she was going, Miranda jumped over roots and small streams, thinking about Sheril and Tyki.

   They are brothers by blood, the census confirmed it!

    Sheril Kamelot was born Sheril Mikk.

    His wife, Estella, was expecting.

    He had a life, a family, in a small little piece of the world so long untouched by the outside.

    And when the outside had pushed in, it was destructive, possessive, and had annihilated everything in its path.

    Miranda wanted to shout, to scream, to curse at God for ruining the life of a good man, but she feared even thinking about cursing God would rebound the curse onto her.

    But if God could read minds, there was no sign, and she did not turn into a Fallen One, even as she slowed to a stop in exhaustion.

    Leaning against a smooth-barked tree, Miranda focused on the sounds around her, keeping her ears alert for any signs of movement.

    Her mind was reeling; what could an awakened Desires look like?

   The others description of a Tyki possessed by Joyd was scary enough, and, if she was remembering correctly, he was actually high in rank than Desires.

   But from what she knew of Sheril's particular Noah, he was more dangerous, and more willing to resort to underhanded tricks.

   If he even had the mind to use them, since according to the others, awakened Tyki was out of his mind entirely.

      Oh god, did Fiedla mean monster literally?!

     Wrapping her arms around herself, Miranda slid down the tree and sat in between two roots, paralyzed by shame and fear.

     Did he know this would happen?! Or something like it?

     Is that why he wanted to go separate ways at the Valley?

     No, he would have warned me, he would have said something!

     He must have had no idea Road would do this!

     Miranda felt herself begin to hyperventilate, her breathing quick and her heartbeat far too fast.

     This is all my fault! If god had any sense, he would change me into a Fallen One right now, for everything I've put my friends through!

    Curling up into a tight ball, arms over her head, Miranda finally allowed herself to cry, hysterical sobs falling from her mouth as she was overcome with grief, unable to see the situation as anything but hopeless.

    He tried to tell me, but I wouldn't listen, she thought behind the tears, embarrassed that her nose was running, even though no one was there to see.

    We knew Road would be in pursuit, but erasing his memories?

    What am I supposed to do now?!

    Miranda didn't know how long she sat there crying for.

    When next she looked up, the sun was going down, the orange and purple of the sunset seemingly surrounding her.

   All was quiet, no sound of birds or shouting or even gunshots.

    Where am I? She asked herself, knowing she had no answer.

     But then her ears picked up something in the distance, though she didn't understand it at first, the longer she concentrated, the more it became clear.

     Is that... a mine cart on its tracks?

    Unwrapping herself and staggering onto her feet, Miranda began following the sound to its source.

    It didn't seem likely that the Noah would stop their attack with humans present, but maybe Miranda could get into contact with the Order, or board a train somehow.

    Steeling herself for whatever was next, Miranda muttered words of encouragement to herself as she went.

Chapter Text

   Wisely was a precocious child; he understood the world and himself far, far faster than any of the other Noah.

   He knew things children were never meant to know, about their human mothers and Angel fathers, the human husbands, his close friends. 

   He knew Joyd hated work and would rather eat or play music. 

   He knew Desires wanted a family of his own to cherish.

   He knew Lustol hated her physical form and would rather be an animal herself. 

   He knew Fiedla just wanted to be someone's most beloved artist. 

   He knew Road bore an ancient grudge that went deeper than just Noah and the flood.

  But that secret wasn't to be told for several thousand years, so Wisely tried not to think about it. 

   You never know when someone could be reading your mind.

   So when they battled against the Legion Of Heaven, and an Angel slashed Wisely across the forehead, his last thought was about Road, the sweet little darling with a dark presence in her eyes.

    I hope she lives.

    I hope she gets what she wants. 

       ~*~*~*~

    When Wisely's soul circled the earth for an opportunity to return in the body of another, it pondered the atrocities committed by the descendants of Noah.

    It thought of Tryde's definition of betrayal, of the twins utterly disturbed imagination. 

   It thought of Mercym being too swift to forgive others, and Mightra's aversion to sunlight so strong that they never left the Ark until the very end.

   But outside the soul and its thoughts, it also began to hear a little melody, the sound of sinew across threads, the hollow reverberation creating something solemn, yet easy to dance to.

   Easy to sway to, caught by the rhythm like a leaf on the breeze, the foundational stones of an empire of dark music 

   But who ruled that empire, none could say, not even the soul of the Noah of Wisdom as it began spiraling back down to the accursed earth below.

             ~*~*~*~

   When Wisely awakened in the body of a soldier defending his village against conquering Romans, he wasn't surprised when the swordsman in gold hesitated for a moment. 

   "Desires?" He called out to the man who was still holding the brutalized body of one of his former countrymen. 

   The man's eyes narrowed, and he let the body drop with a sense of finality, uninterested now that it was incapable of fighting back. 

   "Wisely?" He sounded skeptical, "we knew you were here, but amongst the soldiers? I would have thought you were a serving boy..."

    "Do you plan to desert your army now that I'm here?"

    "Just awakened, and already scheming," Desires laughed, "hm, would it reflect poorly if we both deserted?"

   "Poorly to who? We only have to worry about Road," Wisely looked around, making sure no one would see as he approached Desires. 

  "She's safe on my side," he said, and Wisely wondered what sides there could be, but said nothing. 

    "I'm still not sure how she ended up in charge," Desires went on, "but she's been very effective in keeping us alive and happy, so I guess it's not an issue."

   "Is she? So you haven't seen Adam?" Wisely raised a curious eyebrow. 

     "Who?"

    This was infinitely fascinating to Wisely, but again, he chose not to comment.

    "Oh well, it'll be good to have more of the family around, if we can get around the whole 'enemy armies' thing," Desires smiled in a way that was far too shy for his sharp face.

    But Wisely just nodded, and they hunkered down behind the rubble of a destroyed catapult to come up with a plan.

       ~*~*~*~

    The plan, such as it was, was for Wisely to be enslaved by Desires as a prize for the victorious Romans.

   After months of hard travel, they made it to the villa where Desires lived as a rather important and decorated general, and Road played the part of his little princess. 

   He had several children with a procession of wives over the several years this charade had lasted, but Desires had wanted to participate in one more battle before they moved on, probably north to Germania.

   With a little arguing, Wisely became exempt from Road's population plan, which didn't actually bother her, she just liked to argue. 

     This was how it went for several years; travel, love, birth, travel, death, repeated in an endless cycle of faces recognizable and not, names remembered and forgotten, babies surviving and babies miscarried or stillborn or pushed out with the cord wrapped around their necks.

   And years after the current Wisely was dead, he would awaken in body spawned from Tryde or Joyd or Desires, or spawned from their spawn, or spawned from the spawn of their spawn, into infinity like a chain of bodies stretching back into the unknowable darkness of God's first mistake. 

    But Wisely didn't care about any of that.

    The only thing that bothered him was the question of where everyone's beloved Adam had gone.

Chapter Text

   It was fully dark by the time Miranda found the cart tracks, and this she followed to the mouth of the mine, huddling there until sunrise. 

  She didn't know when she had fallen asleep; she only knew when she was awakened by a gruff voice shouting, "hey, a woman!"

   "Is she lost?"

    And then a third, somehow comforting and nauseating at the same time, "huh? Miranda?!"

   "Wait, you know her?"

   She was soon looking up into the brightening sun as it haloed the wild black curls of Tyki Mikk, recognizable in an instant despite the shabby clothes and thick-lenzed glasses.

   "T-tyki? What are you doing here?" Miranda couldn't control her yawn as she questioned him.

   "Long and involved story I'm sure Sheril would love to hear," he smirked, and she knew it was because Sheril would hate the story, "is he with you?"

   Miranda couldn't help herself, even knowing she was embarrassing herself in front of men who seemed to be good friends with Tyki, when she began crying profusely, wailing, "no! He... oh, Tyki, it's awful!"

    I don't know what is safe to say in front of his friends! 

   But he took care of it himself, so swiftly that it almost made Miranda laugh through her tears.

  "Guys, this is my brother's new girl," he announced gladly, "you know, the poor, perpetually starving street musician I told you about."

  "Man, artistic guys get all the luck," Tyki's friend with the strong jaw mumbled and began walking off.

   "He can't get a normal job, like stocking shelves at a general store?" The man in the knit hat asked.

   "Nah, see, he likes to act like a huge snob, despite the terrible state of his finances," Tyki looked back when Miranda snorted at his ridiculous cover story, "what did he do this time?"

  He raised an eyebrow at her, and she tried to think of something to say that got her point across while playing along.

   It was simple, really. 

  "Your brother is a monster," she felt the tears welling up again, "an uncontrollable beast, in fact. It's as though he's forgotten everything that happened between us, and gone completely out of his mind."

  The man in the hat guffawed loudly, "arty guys are so temperamental! He's probably moved on from you and to his next woman."

   Miranda sniffled, preparing for another onslaught of tears.

   I know it's not true, and not right for me to be crying like this, but-

    Tyki's voice broke into her thoughts, suddenly serious, "was anyone else in the family involved? Was there a big, blow up argument?"

    "Man, how big is your family? You only ever mentioned a ditzy brother and a wacky uncle," the strong-jawed man said as he returned from their time-clock.

   "Well, you know what they say about poor people and big families," Tyki grumbled amiably and walked Miranda over to the three-walled room that contained a few benches and the miners time-clock.

   "I thought that only applied to the Irish?" The man in the hat joked.

   Miranda sat heavily on the nearest bench as Tyki took a rather ancient telephone off the hook and held it, as though waiting for water to pour out, and she closed her eyes against the garish light of day.

   Tyki turned to her, blocking the view of his curious friends as he asked, "was my dear niece whispering poison in his ear against you?"

   "Yes," Miranda answered immediately, and she could just barely see his friends exchanging glances behind him, "and your dearest nephews, too. Your cousin was caught trying not to have an opinion, as usual. The rest, I couldn't guess."

   "And did they... follow you out here?"

   "It's a possibility," Miranda swallowed nervously. 

   She couldn't see behind his glasses, but Miranda was sure Tyki had rolled his eyes, and he hung up the phone before turning and saying, "sorry, you guys go ahead. I have to deal with my family for a while."

   "Because they don't like your brothers new girl?" Strong Jaw asked incredulously.

  "Because she's the only one he's brought home that I kinda like," Tyki laughed as though this was a normal conversation about a normal family tiff, "and I'm the little brother, so my opinion matters most."

  "Man, does that mean you have a home you go back to? If you've been holdin' out on us-"

  "Nah, we live in this disgusting hovel that we pick up and place down wherever my brother pleases," Tyki waved them off as they walked back to the cart tracks, "not even worth talking about, honestly."

   His friends looked at him with the skepticism reserved for people you trust and care for when you think they're getting themselves in trouble, as Miranda pointed down the tracks the way she came.

         ~*~*~*~ 

   Miranda expected, when they got far enough, that Tyki would use his mind to change clothes, as Sheril did, but nothing happened, and Tyki Mikk remained workman's boots and baggy trousers held up by suspenders. 

   He did mysteriously produce a carton of cigarettes and a match, but those might have just been in his pockets.

   Lighting up quickly, Miranda stared at him until he pushed the glasses up into his hair and asked, "what?"

   Feeling her chin trembling, Miranda couldn't trust herself to open her mouth, a pathetic whine already straining out through her teeth.

   "That bad, huh?" Tyki lifted his chin so the smoke could drift up through the trees, "let me guess, awakened like Allen did to me?"

  "A-apparently? I h-haven't seen him, yet," she shuddered at the idea, "Fiedla told me, and I don't think he would l-lie, even to me."

   "Fair," Tyki was unusually attentive, eyes moving this way and that across the woods, "what were you doing out here, anyway?"

   Miranda was doing the same, keeping her eyes open as they went, "we were at the Valley again, trying to get back Sheril's memory. I think he must have regained something, because-"

    Do I tell him about Estella? About Sheril's wife, about the baby that should be his rightful niece or nephew?

   "Because Desires attacked him internally afterwards! He got really sick."

   "Oh, gross," Tyki muttered and then continued, "I didn't realize there was a mining station so close to the Valley."

    "Is that where you met your friends?"

    Tyki remained silent, puffing on his cigarette, for a few long minutes before answering, "nah, we met at a different mine, in a different country. I had already awakened; if we met before then, I would have forgotten them."

   "Awakening as a Noah makes you forget..." it wasn't a question or a statement, just a floating thought Miranda let inside. 

   "It does," Tyki mumbled, another floating thought. 

   "It fills you with their memories, their wants and desires, their family, their education..."

   "Eh, not so much their education," Tyki grimaced, "I don't know a damn thing, after all."

   "You don't?" Miranda asked, genuinely curious.

   Tyki waved a hand through the air, a strange motion she didn't get the meaning of as he said, "whatever we were in that village, I was only taught that one thing. I can read enough, I can write but my handwriting is a shambles, but you can forget poetry and certainly shouldn't approach me with math."

   "You speak very well, though," Miranda said before considering whether or not it was polite.

   "Oh, the Earl saw to that," Tyki replied as though he didn't mind, "and Sheril too, whenever he could."

   "He certainly tried to take care of you, though you would rather live the life of a vagabond," Miranda wiped her face with her sleeve the best she could. 

  "Yeah," he sighed deeply, then repeated, "yeah. Even when he had a terrible way of showing it, even when Road was pissed that two siblings that weren't twins awakened as Noah, he tried to take care of me."

    Suddenly, something came to her so clearly, so distinct, that she had to ask it now.

   "If the both of you could have done anything else, what would it have been?" She carefully kept the stutter from her voice, "you don't have to try to recall your destined career from the village, just how you feel now."

   Tyki blinked at her, wide-eyed at the strange question, then looked down at the carton of cigarettes, realizing the one in his hand was the last.

   When he finally spoke, it was with an open honesty that made her think of a much younger man, "I like to think we would have been pretty good musicians. I could sing and play guitar, he plays mandolin, fado, and accordion."

    She knew of the other two, but she was stuck on, "fado?"

   "It's a type of guitar used to play a Portuguese style of music also called Fado," Tyki explained, so happily that Miranda could see the resemblance between the two brothers and thought she might weep, "it's mostly about the sadness of being left behind."

   "Of course that's something he plays," she whispered, and Tyki nodded in glad agreement. 

   Thinking to herself, oh Road, how you have ruined so many lives, she finally registered something Tyki had said several minutes ago. 

   "Wait, Road was angry two siblings awakened without being twins?"

   A little startled by her question, he replied, "yeah, she said no other Noah are siblings, she was so mad at him for remembering me- we aren't supposed to remember-"

   He was starting to sound shaken, unusual for him, and Miranda changed her grip on the Time Record so she could gently pat his arm.

     "I don't know what happened after that," he breathed, "she was so furious, and he was so obedient, he was like a different man altogether."

   "Tyki, there's something I ought to tell you, but I don't know if it's my right to say..."

   Just say it, she thought, but before she could argue with herself, Tyki interrupted. 

   "It couldn't make things worse, I guess," he grimaced at the thought, "let me have it."

   Miranda took a deep breath before starting off with, "your parents were named Silvio and Jacinta Mikk."

   "Read that off the gravestone in the village, before you and Sheril even found it."

   Stumbling a bit, Miranda fumbled her next words slightly, "you w-were a family of cheese m-makers, and exported cheeses from the Valley."

   Tyki scratched the back of his head and said, "wow, I guess the big house on the hill was ours? I could smell the rotten cheese and abandoned milk."

   Taking another deep breath, Miranda held on tightly, surprised Tyki wasn't complaining about her grip on his arm, and braced herself for her own words.

   "Sheril had a wife, a woman named Estella," willing herself not to cry, "they were expecting a baby."

    "Oh," was his soft reply, then a curse, "shit."

    It was stone silent in the beautiful forests of Portugal, a country steeped in tradition, enclosed on two sides by luscious mountains and two sides by the treacherous sea. 

   Here was her history, here was her music inspired by the mourning of wives left behind as husbands went to that unwavering blue mistress, or left to fight off the encroachment of Spain, or left to ally with England against all others.

   Her mysteries were shrouded to Miranda, and would always be, forevermore, the high mountains enclosing like a tomb, shutting her back into her shell she had only just cracked open, no longer to have coffee or pastries or sex.

   She longed for that hand that plucked her from the sands as though she were a hermit crab wearing litter for its home, and had given her a suitable replacement that fit perfectly well, thank you very much. 

   But even that hand was far away, as far as if she been flung like a snail into the English channel. 

   She couldn't put all this grief and bereavement onto Estella and her baby; she was blameless, faultless in this entirely. 

   She couldn't put on God, though it seemed evident that whatever God was there hated her longed-for hands so passionately, so particularly. 

   She couldn't even bring herself to blame Road, even though those hands loved her still, still and longer and in a madness so consuming. 

   She wiped her eyes again, tired of arguing with herself, tired of making decisions and tired of the desperation and wanting to lie down in a field of mint that stretched infinitely in all directions, room for her to grow and to own and to share with one particular sheen of ink-black hair that brought lilacs with him.

   "Miranda? You went quiet for a while," she heard Tyki whisper and felt her shoulder being shaken, in the manner of a concerned friend. 

   "I'm sorry, it's just... it's getting to be a bit too much."

  "Let's stop and rest here, then," he looked around for a moment, "tell me which of your friends is in these woods, so I can look out for them."

   "Oh, uh... all of them?"

  He muttered something she couldn't hear, resigning to settling of the ground beneath a tree, holding her Time Record and her travel case tightly in her arms as she managed to fall into a fitful half-sleep. 

   She wouldn't remember in the morning, the dreamlike visions of herself as a mountain range and Sheril as an ocean, covered in gouts of blood and viscera as though they were the lands and rivers between them. 

Chapter Text

   Tyki woke shivering so fiercely he thought he was still in the Scottish keep.

   Please let me be in the keep, oh please, but he could tell from the soreness in his tailbone that he was laying somewhere steep and rocky, in a chill, late-february country somewhere on earth.

   Blast this accursed earth, he thought viciously through what felt like a hangover. 

   "I'm sure I can't get those anymore," he said out loud this time, mildly irritated. 

   He had a vague recollection of knocking himself out with liquor in the keep, which took a lot of effort, and people talking around him, about him, and now he was God knows where, in a ditch like a dumped murder victim. 

   Interesting being on this side of the relationship, Tyki thought, opening his eyes to the brazen sunlight shimmering beatificly into the stony ditch where he lay.

    Somewhere in the direction above his head he heard shouting, raucous men who must have seen him there and approached with well-meaning concern.

    "Hey, man, hey, are you alri-! Tyki?!"

   Bending his neck to look up, he saw Momo, his hat sticking out against the blue sky, and grinned, "hey, guys! What's up?"

   It took a lot of force to pretend to be jovial, Tyki discovered. 

   Crack and Eeze soon joined Momo at the edge of the bank, and the two adults slid down to haul Tyki up.

   He waved at the kid and said, "hey, little guy," and Eeze waved ecstatically back.

  "Where were you?" Crack asked furiously, "we haven't seen you in nearly a year!"

  "Was your last job difficult? We finished up at the Russian mine without you!" Momo asked, more calmly than Crack had.

   Tyki felt around and realized he was wearing the clothes he normally wore as a vagabond workman, including the stupid glasses in his pocket he thought he had lost on the Ark.

   Who did that, I wonder?

   As the three of them climbed out of the ditch back onto the road, Tyki tried to explain without giving too much away. 

   "There was a bit of a complication, so I ended up going into hiding for a while," it wasn't necessarily untrue. 

    Oh yeah, I was hiding alright. 

    "But you found us again," Crack grumbled, "you always do."

   "And you're mad about it?" Tyki's voice dripped with sarcasm. 

   "Nah, Crack's just mad we found you in a ditch," Momo laughed and elbowed the both of them. 

  Chuckling with amusement, Tyki crowed, "aw, you really do care!", and got put in a headlock by Crack in return. 

   When he was released, with a friendly scuffle of his hair, Tyki looked down to see Eeze holding his sleeve.

    Reaching down, he fluffed Eeze's hair like Crack did to his, and said, "sorry, buddy, no souvenirs this time. I'll get you something soon, okay.'

    The child nodded pleasantly, and the four of them walked on in the holy sunlight. 

                ~*~*~*~

    "Where are we, by the way?" Tyki asked as they walked up to a mining station he thought he recognized. 

     Besides the fact that they all look the same.

    "You seriously don't know where you are?" Momo countered with his own question. 

   Scratching his neck sheepishly, Tyki answered, "I spent a good amount of time drunk out of my mind."

   "Lucky," Crack muttered as Momo answered, "we're in Portugal, mate."

   "Oh, my homeland, then," he tried to smile, but it felt weak, "it's nice, isn't it?"

   The other men snickered, and Eeze just stared, and then Crack asked, "since when did you care about your homeland?"

   "I, uh..." what do I say that doesn't sound fake? "Actually, this wasn't important enough to mention before, but... I have a brother."

   "And it's important now... why?" Momo asked.

    Tyki waved a hand through the air and went on, "because we had a terrible relationship before, but it's been improving lately."

   "Let me guess, because you're an honest workman and he's the artsy type?" Crack sounded sullen, as though he'd seen this a thousand times. 

   "Well, yeah, we've never seen eye-to-eye on most things," Tyki laughed at his own little play-family, "but ever since he got this new girl who's been really good for him, we've gotten a lot closer."

  "That figures," Crack rolled his eyes as they punched into the time-clock and went off to get something to eat.

   Tyki was surprised to find his punch-card was in his pocket, and clocked in with the rest, following them to the mess hall.

   "So, how long is this job for?" He asked in the chow line.

   "Couple of weeks, I think," Momo counted on his fingers, "Portugal is in a war right now, so they're getting as many men as possible into the mines."

   "Any men who can't fight are diggin' coal and metal outta the ground, turnin' it into weapons, and sendin' those to the front lines," Crack's accent got rougher the angrier he got, "in order to tear some other guys apart."

   "Not in front of the kid, man," Momo grumbled and nudged Crack's knee with his boot.

   Tyki felt even shittier, knowing about the fake assassination against his brother as a ploy to start that war in the first place. 

   That was a year ago, and a month or two before they met Miranda. 

   Whose idea was it to leave my ass in Portugal at a time like this?

   Was it to make a point? Are they using me to make Sheril suffer?

   What the hell is going on?

   "Tyki, man, what's with the thousand yard stare?" Momo must have caught him thinking his morbid thoughts. 

       Speaking of morbid.

     "What did you guys hear about how this war started?"

    Crack and Momo looked at each other, and the latter answered, "some politician nearly got offed at a peace treaty and took it out on an entire country."

    "The dude on the Portuguese side, I think," Crack supplied what he knew, "which is why they're on the offense."

    "Defense, Crack, if their guy got shot first, it's defense," Momo corrected him.

   "Yeah, yeah," Crack just waved it away, "it's all war, no matter who attacks and who defends."

   Something about this made a chill run down Tyki's spine.

    He tried to ignore it, tried to shove that all down, tried to tell himself that maybe he was free, that he never had to see a single Noah or Exorcist ever again. 

    Never had to see the Innocence again. 

    But his own words rose up into his mind, unbidden, swallowing him up and making it difficult to breath.

    We had a terrible relationship before, but it's been improving lately. 

   "Shit," he accidentally said out loud, before he could stop himself. 

   "Not in front of the kid," Momo admonished, and Tyki nodded his apology. 

   I guess I'll have to go back eventually, he told himself, maybe something of us can still be salvageable. 

    Who 'us' was, he wasn't sure, but he made up his mind to throw himself into mining work until he could find out.

                 ~*~*~*~

    That was some number of days before Miranda had shown up at the mouth of the mine, with her Innocence and travel case, hair and uniform a mess.

   He wasn't sure how many days it was; he hadn't been counting. 

     I probably should have taken her to the mess and offered her food, he thought as he watched her in fitful sleep, I'm so stupid.

   Recalling what she had said, Tyki shuddered and tried to remain alert.

    Sheril, fully awakened? I wonder what that looks like, he wasn't sure whether the thought was made in fear or glee, whether it was from himself or Joyd.

     You all suck, he thought vehemently at his Noah memories, but nothing happened. 

    Joyd, whatever his deal was, remained silent. 

    Sheril told me once that Desires is constantly nagging him from inside his head, Tyki remembered a conversation that seemed so long ago.

   I wonder why Joyd doesn't speak? Sure, he exerts some will over me, but I've never heard so much as a whisper from these memories. 

    Oh well, Tyki shrugged and looked back at where Miranda was curled into a ball, head on her travel case, Innocence sandwiched between that and her chest.

     If she can exorcise the Noah from us...

    The thought caused a pressure headache to form in his forehead, just behind his eyes, so he stopped thinking it.

     So you do have an opinion, dumb bastard?

    Keeping his eyes and ears open, Tyki kept watching until just after noon, when he decided Miranda had gotten enough sleep and it was time to move on.

Chapter Text

   It started as an itchiness in his skin so deep he was ramming himself into rough-barked trees just to scratch it.

   He heard laughter, he couldn't tell if it came from inside or out, he heard gunshots he knew were being fired from inside and out.

   He knew it was Bondom, beloved twins who were so, so good to him, when they pinky swore he could have the skinny woman for himself.

      He had to find her.

      He had to have her.

      He would have loved to seduce her, to have her body for his own, to take her to the Ark and eat away at her bit by bit by bit when he was finished, until there was nothing left.

    But his own body was transformed, he could see it by looking at his taloned hands and feet, by feeling the stretch and strain of his muscles under the dread human flesh.

   The man whose flesh it was continued struggling ferociously underneath, occasionally making him hit the trees harder than he meant to, and he stopped to scratch his head so furiously with his claws that his scalp began to bleed.

    The blood running down his face and neck and arms was black, so very black.

    He couldn't control his thoughts, he wanted to crawl in the dirt, pull out his eyes, eat flesh, eat his own flesh, stop the pounding in his head and the sound of multitudes of voices screaming back at his screams.

   He sensed the presence of the other Noah, even Joyd seemed to be so tantalizingly close, but none of them had what he wanted, none of them were the Exorcist he wanted to rend and tear asunder.

    He was sick with obsession over her, her body as his claim, even though the man whose body he inhabited argued, twitching and twisting in his own skin as though he would be able to stop the Noah.

   Lowering himself to the ground, he sniffed, his powerful hunter nose searching for something, a memory, a way in, the smell of sweat and tears and lilac vigorously rubbed against mint and-

     Bergamot oil.

    There it was, the calming scent of a fruit itself inedible but the oil an ingredient in a quality tea.

    Normally he would consider an Exorcist untouchable, not worthy of his burning passion, his unquenchable lust that manifested as occult, as murder in the middle of fucking and fucking in the middle of murder.

   That manifested as a doctor making his patients scream.

   That manifested as a politician fucking other politicians wives.

   That manifested as a man pretending to be a god so he could receive sacrificial virgins in his bed.

   But no matter how one of the voices in head begged and pleaded and cried for mercy, he would not change course.

   The rest of those thousand voices wanted slaughter, wanted her eviscerated, and the feelings of many outweighed the voice of one.

   There would be violence.

   There would be torture.

   Her screaming would fill these woods, then silence would fall over the leaves and trees and dirt and nothing would be left of her, not Innocence, not even her bones, not even the scent of bergamot would remain. 

Chapter Text

       When Fiedla was finally old enough to become conscious of the world around him, he decided he wanted to be an artist.

     He had no actual concept of the word, but he saw his mother make pottery and others tan hides and others make dyes from crushed shells, and he knew he wanted to do these things, too.

    He tried everything, as many different tasks as he possibly could, to try and find that one thing he was looking for, that thing that would make the villagers proud and happy to know him.

    But one day, his powers made themselves known; his tongue grew to great lengths, and created floating eyes he could detach and send afar, so he could see all they could see.

   He only ever used this power to play with his friends, but the adults around him despised it, were disgusted by it, and he was soon no longer allowed to watch the tanners at work, or the dyers, or the pottery experts.

  Fiedla became so morose, so sullen, that his friends had begun to worry about him long before the death of his mother.

   He was unsure of Road and Adam's battle against god, but when he thought about what happened to his mother, he went along with it anyway, unable to think of a solution on his own.

    God had left his mother to die, and Adam had brought her back, so that must have meant something.

    Right?

    But when the Angels blade pierced through his torso, Adam's intentions ceased to matter.

   Everything seemed to be receding from him, further and further away, until all Fiedla knew was the doll the twins had made of him, beady-eyed and holding a stick like he would use to draw in the sand.

   While he closed his eyes for the last time amongst the others screaming, all he could do was draw his last breath with a sigh.

          ~*~*~*~

     As the soul of Fiedla lazily drifted through a peaceful, motherly darkness, it didn't think any thoughts at all.

       It didn't seek understanding.

       It didn't muse on the state of its friends.

       It didn't reflect on the pain of its death or the tragedy of that terrible plan against God.

     It only swayed back and forth as it followed the trilling sound of a reed flute, an instrument Joyd had crafted in a fit of inspiration and taught Fiedla to play.

     It was so relaxed, so unaware of anything around it, that it didn't even notice when it was being gently pulled back towards the earth.

           ~*~*~*~

     Fiedla awakened again on earth with the cry of a small child, followed by the cry of his mother when she turned and saw what was happening to her little boy.

    Then a man stepped into the room and looked around, eyes finally landing on the child.

    "Ah, I see," he murmured, and then, with a low, respectful bow, turned to the mother, "I'm afraid I must take this young man with me."

   The woman fell to her knees, tears streaming down her cheeks as she asked in a low voice, "what's wrong with him?! What is happening to my son?!"

    The man approached the child slowly.

    The boys once pale skin had a gray wash to it, and his forehead was splitting open, the bloody wounds in a pattern of crosses.

   His tongue was bloating out of his mouth, but his face remained placid, unfazed.

   Staring intently, the man finally nodded.

  "He's one of my people," he intoned in a voice so foreboding the woman found herself incapable of arguing, "I'll be teaching him to control his power, blend in with society."

     "Power? Blending in? He was already-"

     "Already perfectly normal?" The man sneered, "that's just what you want to believe, what you're going to keep telling yourself for years after this."

     "Then I'll never see him again?"

     At this, the mans brow furrowed, and then he leaned down to pick up the child.

    Despite being long past the age he should have learned to speak, the boy just stared at him, appearing as though the pain in his head had already dissolved.

    Sighing with the vigor of one who had the weight of the entire world on his shoulders, the man said, "I'll think about it," and carried the child from his home, away from his mother.

    Road was waiting outside, and as Desires fell into step with her, he sighed again.

    "Leaving her alive? You sap," she teased him with a sly grin.

    Desires couldn't explain the sudden twinge of sympathy he felt when he looked into that young mothers tear stained, panic-stricken face.

   Maybe it was because of Fiedla awakening as such a small child, maybe he just wasn't feeling himself that day.

   But the child in his arms was staring up at him with big, dark eyes, his tongue hanging from his open mouth, a little eyeball popping out on one side.

   Desires grimaced and whispered to the top of the boys head, "we'll start practicing your control as soon as possible."

             ~*~*~*~

     But no matter what he was taught, from how to speak to how to dress, it was impossible to get anyone to sleep with Fiedla.

    "Not in a sexual manner, at least," he said in the form a fourty year old Turkish man, a few incarnations later, "I get a lot of hugs, or people willing to share a bed on our travels."

  "I give up," the fellow Turk who was Desires moaned, "you are so uncute, you know that?"

   Fiedla shrugged; he really didn't care either way.

  "And he talks like he has a mouth full of dough," the Greek Joyd pointed out.

  "Rude," Fiedla enunciated clearly and sharply.

   They shouldn't have been meeting like this; they were mortal enemies, the Greeks currently revolting against Ottoman rule, not for the first time and, in Desires opinion, likely not the last.

   They were in a mountain garden, picking mulberry leaves to feed to silkworms.

   Joyd's Greek wife was making sure the heat was right, so the threads didn't break, and harvesting the complete cocoons, ready for the next step in the process.

   In an hour, Desires and Fiedla would have to leave, so they weren't caught colluding with the Greeks, and Joyd would actually be upset to see them go.

   It had taken some convincing, but Joyd's wife and daughter had come to love them, despite the terrible divide of warring countries between them.

  "Ah, if only we were rich and Turkish, we could buy a nice, pretty Greek refugee for you-" Desires cut himself off when he saw Joyd's glare.

   "Please don't speak of buying Greek women in front of my wife," Joyd said through clenched teeth, and Desires nodded.

   "Terrible idea, anyway," Fiedla mumbled as he carried a basket of mulberry leaves into the silkworm shed.

  "You're right, she might have an attitude," Desires added, earning another glare before he escaped with his basket of leaves.

    Joyd's wife was leaving as they came in, her job already done, so she could head to the kitchen and finish preparing dinner.

   All they had to do was feed the leaves to the larva, part of the process Fiedla found fascinating, especially when Desires squirmed at the sight of the crawling creatures.

    "They're just worms," Fiedla chided him.

    "They're gross little things that eat leaves and wriggle in the dirt," the man counter-argued.

    Picking a leaf out of his basket, Fiedla held it up to what he thought was the mouth end of the a worm.

   An immediate success, as he watched the worm start nibbling at the edge of the leaf.

   "Ugh," he heard Desires groan as he did the same.

   Soon, Joyd arrived with his basket and joined in, and once they were all done, any excess leaves were left in a nearby crate, and they left the shed to enter Joyd's house.

   They ate quickly, in a companionable silence, and when they were done, the men helped clean up as Joyd's wife put their daughter to bed.

   Then the three men sat on the front steps and watched the last of the sunlight fading, covering that side of the mountain in a deep, all-encompassing darkness.

   Joyd was smoking something that made Desires want to plug his nose, but his manners wouldn't allow him to.

   Eventually, when a few little stars began twinkling above them, Joyd whispered, "wouldn't it be nice if it could be this way forever? A little farm, on a mountainside, a girl you really like?"

   "Feeling romantic tonight? Tell your wife, not us," Desires laughed, standing up to get out of the smoke.

   "You're just mad you have to go back to the ugly Turkish women!"

   Fiedla stood to join Desires, but before he got far, he turned to Joyd and said, "no women are ugly, truthfully. Some are just... overbearing."

   Joyd laughed even harder, then cleared his throat loudly, and went on, " 'overbearing' is certainly the word one could use."

  "I agree with Joyd," Desires jumped in, then clarified, "not about the ugly women! That point goes to Fiedla. But the farm thing, and the lovely wife..."

   "And you accused me of being romantic!" Joyd pouted, and stood to enter his house, "this is goodnight! Try not to get caught."

   Fiedla and Desires looked at each other, then the younger man shrugged and began down the mountain, the usual route they took so no one would find them returning to their village.

   But Desires stared at the house, its three little rooms, with an outhouse and the shed for silkworms and silk processing, and the hardy dark fruit of the mulberry trees that surrounded it, and sighed deeply.

   Following Fiedla, he caught up quickly, and sighed again, a wistful sound that had the young man turning his head.

  "What would you do if we weren't doing... this?" He asked.

   Fiedla just shrugged again, a habit that had Desires seething, but it didn't take long for him to answer, "glassblowing. Or maybe crafting the brass parts of a hookah. Rug making doesn't sound bad, either..."

   "Just so full of Talents, aren't you?" Desires asked, somewhat grimly.

   Fiedla thought about it in several minutes of miserable silence, Desires slowly growing more impatient, not expecting what he was going to say next.

   "What about you? Besides your obsession with obtaining sexual partners?"

   Desires tried not to lose his footing, shocked as he was by the question.

   "I just want peace, of a sort," he hesitated before going on, "I would... appreciate a woman who has space for me and all of my flaws."

    Fiedla didn't ask him what those flaws were; he understood the general idea.

   "That's not likely to happen while we are still fighting back against humanity," Desires concluded, as though there was no more to say.

   "You call having as many babies as possible in one lifetime 'fighting back'?" Fiedla asked, with as much sarcasm as his bland voice could muster.

   He didn't know if Desires face went red from shame or something else, but he muttered, "we told you! We're spreading our bloodline!"

   Fiedla knew that was what Road had claimed, but he still didn't get it.

   "I'm going to ask for an exemption, like Wisely."

   They had made it to the base of the mountain, and went around the long way to the village, but Desires still stifled a laugh before saying, "you're going to need it."

   Unoffended by something he knew was true, Fiedla just shuffled along, following orders without much thought, doing whatever Road or Desires told him as though his mind was empty. 

Chapter Text

     The monster that was Desires heard whisperings in the woods, as though there were witches or worse, little girls, lurking behind the trees to strangle him.

    He wanted to be the strangulator, and him alone, and it made him vicious to think that there was someone stalking the woods that wasn't him.

   But the whispering had to be coming from outside, not in like the other voices, and that meant some one was nearby.

   Someone who would get in his way, either another Noah stealing his kill, or an Exorcist who would protect her, take her away from him.

   He put his nose to the ground again, scenting for bergamot and mint and pear, finding them again, coming nearer to his location.

   But something else was in the air, something like tobacco smoke and ocean spray, or the Akuma oil, or a sugary candy.

 Or the sickly sweet, somewhat sulfurous scent of an Innocence.

    It filled him with a burning disgust, the bile rising in his throat, to think that there were Exorcists in the woods, his woods, and he let out a bloodthirsty howl towards the darkening sky before getting down on all fours and renewing his search.

          ~*~*~*~

   He didn't know how far he had ran, for how long, but Desires was starting to get confused.

   It irritated him, not knowing what he was doing, where he was going, struggling to keep the scent of his target when so many more smells started entering the forest.

    He kept scratching his head, his arms and torso, making himself bleed and lapping the black blood with his blacker tongue.

   The voices in his head shouted, some eager for a death, a dismemberment, some pleading for leniency, and it bothered him, made him feel trapped, like a caged animal.

    He hated cages, he despised not making his own choices.

   He ran himself into a tree with his entire strength, hoping it would quell the blinding screams of hatred, but there was nothing he could do.

   He tried to cry out, but found his misshapen mouth incapable of human speech.

   Clutching his head, squeezing like that would ease the pain, Desires howled again, less in the ravenous manner of a starving predator, more like the wailing of the fatally wounded.

   And then he heard a gasp.

   Turning quickly to his right, the monster spotted through the trees the form of the one he had been searching for, the smell of bergamot making him feral.

   He began to seethe with a nauseous jealousy to see Joyd standing there with her, both of them wide-eyed, delicious faces of perfect fear, her wearing the terrible uniform of her kind.

    Noah and Exorcist, mortal enemies, there in his woods, together.

   Hiding from him.

   Supporting each other in the face of his ugly, inhuman form.

   His well-deserved punishment for the sin he was born from, his half-angel blood a curse that welled up from his self-inflicted wounds.

   The echoing his head, the insatiable memories of previous Desires' chanting kill her kill her kill hER KILL HER-

   He wanted to bellow foul curses, wanted to scratch and claw and bite, wanted to let blood rain and guts dangle loosely from torn holes in their bellies, and he fiercely, ferociously wanted sex.

   He felt the twisting feeling of petty human rebellion, the body he was inhabiting fighting against him, the voice ringing as though someone shouted directly in his ears.

    He almost didn't catch when Joyd did shout, "Miranda! Run!!"

   She didn't need to be told again, and Desires watched her sprint away in the opposite direction.

   Desires almost moved to follow, but suddenly, without warning, Joyd was directly in front of him, wearing a grim expression.

   "I don't know if you can hear me in there," he coughed into his clenched fist, "but you smell so, so bad."

       Another twist in his stomach. 

      Apparently, the man whose body it was had heard quite well, and had taken great offense.

    Desires grabbed Joyd by the neck of his scruffy shirt and shoved him against the nearest tree.

   "Oh yeah, tough guy?" Joyd sneered at him, and began phasing backwards into the tree.

   Reappearing on the other side, he taunted Desires with a beckoning hand, "try me."

   Launching himself into the air with a roar, he gave chase as Joyd dodged and weaved between him and the trees, using his powers whenever he was caught.

  Something in his body felt both panic and relief, anger and joy, and a thousand other different emotions all at once, but he ignored them, chasing after Joyd like a cat after a mouse.

Chapter Text

      When he hadn't seen anyone for over a day, Allen started to get antsy.

      It was becoming difficult to think, after not eating since just before finding the Valley, and being separated from his friends wasn't helping.

     Add to that the thing he knew was in the woods, and Allen felt their chances of survival were becoming abysmal this time around.

   The deathly quiet of the woods reminded him of his encounter with Tyki in the bamboo grove, and that only drove up his anxiety until he was shuddering.

   Shaking his head to dispel the thought, Allen caught sight of someone ahead of him and backed against a tree, peeking around it as slowly and cautiously as possible.

   He breathed a rough sigh of relief when he saw that it was Lenalee.

  Hearing his sigh even from a distance, Lenalee spotted his waving hand and began taking light steps towards him.

   "Hey!" He whisper-shouted when he thought she was close enough, "hey, have you seen the others?"

   Immediately wrapping their arms around each other, Lenalee whispered back, "no! You're the only one! Have you seen-"

   She hesitated, pulling back and looking at him, terror-striken, "have you seen that... that thing?"

   He knew what she meant.

   He hadn't liked the man much at all, even if he didn't hate him as much as he hated certain other people.

   He was nasty, he was manipulative, and he had somehow won the heart of one of their dearest friends.

   But it felt wrong, in some way, to dignify that monster with his name.

   "No, not entirely," Allen told her, "I saw a black shape from very far off, once, but not in detail."

  Lenalee swallowed an anxious lump and her eyes darted around, as though she expected something to leap out from behind a tree, "I did, I was close enough to see..."

    "But it didn't attack?"

    "I think... I think it's single-mindedly focused on Miranda," she swallowed again with the glitter of barely suppressed tears in her eyes, "it acted like it was sniffing the air, and then ran away. It was really, really fast."

   Allen shuddered again; if the thing was faster than Lenalee, it could be a problem.

    "Do you think it's stronger than Tyki?"

    As she opened her mouth to answer, they heard a sudden sharp, infuriated scream that made them both want to cover their ears.

   "Quick, up the tree!" Lenalee pointed up the thickest tree near them, and they started climbing, as high as they could get without using their Innocence, in case they were detected.

   Once he thought they were high enough, Allen looked down and was so surprised by what he saw, he couldn't decide if it was pleasant or unpleasant.

    Tyki Mikk was down amongst the trees, swerving out of the way of the attacks from an unimaginable beast.

    It heavily resembled Tyki's own awakened form in many ways, the strange helmeted head and flowing coils of black hair, the black patterns over its skin and black blood dripping from its wounds, spraying the trees with every motion it made.

   But this creature's helmet appeared to be a snake-like face with bulls horns, and it had long, sharp bird talons on its hands and feet.

   It had some strange material, like a mass of spiderwebs, wrapped around its waist, and an overall very spidery animation in its muscular limbs, twisting and twitching even as it slung its fists in every direction. 

    As they watched, it pursued Tyki relentlessly, punching and kicking and goring with its horns, occasionally spreading its talons to send out very fine, slightly visible threads from the tips.

      There was no mistaking it.

      The thing before them was Sheril Kamelot.

     Allen silently hoped that Miranda hadn't seen it yet, and looked at Lenalee, knowing they both wore the same expression of hopeless terror.

   "What do we do?" She mouthed silently at him.

   "Keep to the trees," he whispered back, "find the others!"

   Nodding solemnly, still unsure, Lenalee leapt from that tree to the next, and then another, until he could no longer see her.

   Fixing his eyes on Tyki and his brother, Allen followed at a distance so he wouldn't attract attention, hoping none of his friends stumbled into the path of the battle.

            ~*~*~*~

    Allen was shocked, almost crying with happiness, when he found Krory and Link sharing a tree a few hours later.

     Immediately, Link began questioning him.

    "Care to explain them?" He pointed a thumb behind him towards the duel on the forest floor.

   Allen looked down; Tyki was beginning to waver, while the monster was seemingly untiring.

   "Yeah, not sure what Tyki's doing here," he admitted, "he seems to be distracting it, though?"

   "Should we help?" Krory asked, his tone neutral.

   "Depends on what Tyki did to piss it off," Allen answered, not looking away from the fight just in case they had to follow them.

   Link scoffed, "how are we supposed to figure that out?"

   "Ugh, I don't know!" Allen accidentally raised his voice, and the three of them glanced down, but neither combatants had noticed the sound.

   "I don't know," he repeated at a lower volume, "but we should find the others. I already met Lenalee, she's searching too."

   "Any sign of Miranda?" Krory wrung his hands together nervously as he asked.

   "Not me, and I'm guessing you haven't either, since you asked."

   The both of them shook their heads, and Allen cringed, "this is so bad."

  "It is," Krory agreed, and then turned his eyes to the fighting, "you two go look around, I'll keep an eye on this. Allen will just make them both mad if he steps in, it'll be easier if I do it."

   Allen wanted to argue, but thinking about it, he knew what Krory meant.

  "Yeah, that's fair," he agreed before looking at Link, "you ready?"

   "As ever," he answered, and together the two of them took off through the trees to search for their friends in the darkening Portuguese woods.

Chapter Text

      By the time Miranda began to regret her retreat and decided to turn around and go back, it was too late.

    Tyki and the beast that was his brother were gone.

    She didn't want to think of it that way, but thinking of it as Sheril felt final, felt like the end.

   If she thought of him that way, it would be written in stone, an unflinching granite block that humans hundreds of years in the future would read from and know what had happened here.

   She couldn't let it be final.

   She wanted to be sick, felt her body going through the motions, but even when she hunched forward, face down and mouth open, nothing came out but spittle.

   So much for that, she thought, hoping that emptying her stomach would make her feel better and resigning herself to the nausea.

   Looking back the way she had came, Miranda couldn't see anything besides the thick coverage of the trees.

   Tyki had led him away quickly.

   She was still exhausted, and now even more bothered by her inability to make her own decisions.

   Tyki didn't even ask my opinion, she grumbled internally, he just took it upon himself to distract th-that... that thing.

  I mean, he could feel responsible, despite being the younger brother... but still!

   Okay, I probably would have let him do it, even if he had asked...

   No! She straightened her back and shook her head vigorously, I should help! I should...

   I should resign myself to fate.

    There's nothing I can do about that creature, she felt the tears bubbling up like boiling water, searing her own skin, if Allen couldn't even fight a fully awakened Joyd, what can I do about Desires?

   "You're so funny," she heard a terrible, familiar giggle, and jumped in fright at the sound of it.

   Miranda scanned across the trees with her eyes, eventually landing on a strange, stitched together doll that eerily resembled, "Road?"

   The little thing in a white dress, with purple hair and a black ribbon around its neck, nodded as though its head weighed more than it could carry, and said, "aw, you remember me!"

   "How could I possibly forget?" Miranda asked, voice plaintive as she spoke, "you've only been torturing me for well over a year now!"

  "Starting from that timeless town of yours," the dolls head bobbed on its shoulders again, "silly me! It's hardly my fault you fell in love with a monster!"

   Miranda flinched, trying to keep her voice calm and even when she asked, "but if you believe he's a monster, then isn't loving him punishment enough?"

   "Oh, Miranda, you're such a sweetie," the Road doll cooed before hardening her voice, "it's annoying."

   Raising her Time Record as much as she could, Miranda replied, "I know you don't like it, but please, just let him go for one more day, and I promise I'll stop seeing him, I'll-"

  " 'One more day'? What, so you can fuck one more time? How are you going to manage that with all your friends around?"

   "You... you knew?!"

   "Wisely says you and him both think very loudly about your diversion in the train car," the Road dolls face somehow twisted into a sneer, despite being mostly featureless, "he's tired of it, by the way."

   Miranda knew her face was flushing scarlett, and in an attempt to change the subject, she asked, "what about his memory? The twins said you erased it, but-"

   "They don't know the difference between memory loss and awakening, despite being there for the aftermath of Joyd's," she laughed, keeping it up until one of her giggles ended in a high-pitched shriek.

    And then Miranda thought of something.

   "What about their memories of before the Noah possesses them? Sheril and Tyki had their Valley, and a home, and-"

   "He's better off not knowing," Road laughed as she cut her off, "he's better off forgetting how ugly the people of that village found him, how disturbed they were by his face, his gangly body, his leering eyes."

   "Someone had to have l-loved him," Miranda felt embarrassed and terrified, in equal measure, when the tears couldn't be kept from her eyes, "h-his wife, or T-tyki..."

    The doll flounced around as though it no longer cared for this conversation.

   "His wife was a refugee from another attack, and ended up in the Valley by chance," she said crisply, uncaring, "she would have been kicked out if she didn't find a place to stay."

    "But they-"

    "And Tyki had already begun to resent Sheril, even then," Road giggled maliciously, "his brother's ugly face reflected poorly on him, in the villagers eyes', not to mention the fact that he never saw to it that Tyki be educated."

   Miranda recalled what Tyki had said to her, probably less than a day ago.

   "Whatever we were in that village, that's all I was ever taught."

   And he can't even remember that, she told herself.

   "Road, what is- what is the point?"

   The doll stood still and so, so perfectly silent, that Miranda had to ask again.

   "What is the point of all of this?! Of everything you put us through, of your war against God?! What has he done, what have we done?"

   Taking a deep breath that sent chill, late-February air streaming into her lungs, Miranda begged, "please, tell me? Tell me what we can do! We can fix it, we can-"

   Suddenly the doll unleashed a scream so pained, so sharp Miranda thought it would cut her like a knife, and ducked down, activating the Time Record in fear she was going to strike.

   Then the sound died away, and Miranda peered around, keeping her shield up.

   The doll was lying flat in the dirt, its stitched-on expression a mask of potent yet serene rage.

   "I've always hated him, this so-called 'God'," the doll that was Road Kamelot seethed, "from the very first day, he was, is, and always will be a dirty liar and a duplicitous cheat."

   " 'From the first day'? Road, were you... were you there?"

    But the doll just scoffed, lifting itself from the dirt and dusting its dress with its stumpy, sackcloth arms.

   "So you see, ripping its own lover limb from limb is a fitting punishment for a monster!" The doll Road cackling with open delight, not even hiding its terrible glee before running off into the ground cover and disappearing.

    Watching the spot where it had gone, Miranda waited for a moment before wiping her face with her uniform sleeve and muttering, "no, no I don't see, actually!"

    Then she turned and started back the way she had come from.

             ~*~*~*~

     It was becoming difficult to remain alert, even though Miranda had trained to go sleepless for several days at a time.

   I guess I've been spoiled in that regard, she thought as she kept her head up as much as she could.

   If I trusted myself to be able to climb a tree, I would, but the consequences of falling would be disastrous.

    But she began scanning the trees anyway, just in case her friends had the same idea, and that was how she discovered Lavi and Bookman some time later.

   Startled to see her beneath them, Lavi extended his hammer so she could step onto the large head and let him lift her up.

    Settling her on a wide, thick branch so she could sit with stability, Lavi asked, "you okay? See any of the others?"

   "I spoke to Road," she answered up front, "she seems to be even more out of her mind than usual."

    Without taking his eyes from the forest floor, Bookman asked, "how so?"

    Miranda swallowed her nerves and went on, "she... well, she was a doll? And she had a lot of things to say about God that were all very... violent."

    With a surprising patience that Miranda appreciated, Lavi whispered, "and what about... him?"

   "Well, he's, uh..."

    Tell the truth!

   "He's really scary, I mean, completely-filled-with-abject-terror scary," she admitted in a low voice, "but Tyki Mikk is helping, kind of?"

   Lavi looked like he wanted to argue, and then suddenly remembered, "hey, yeah! Last time we saw him, Road had stabbed him at the Manor, so maybe he's under 'black sheep' status with the Clan?"

    "That would be a fascinating turn of events," Bookman added.

    "I'm not absolutely sure about that," Miranda mumbled, "he distracted the thing so I could get away, but I don't know if he's up to anything else in the meantime."

   "We'll take advantage of the situation anyway," Bookman nodded sternly, "look, Kanda approaches."

   Miranda and Lavi both looked in the direction he pointed and saw Kanda hopping from branch to branch towards them.

   Everyone is so much more skilled than I am, Miranda thought morosely as the swordsman stopped at a tree opposite theirs.

    He wasn't quite as polite as Lavi was.

   "Have you seen that thing?" He directed at her with clear disdain.

   Miranda could feel herself getting choked up, and only nodded, her chin quivering from holding back tears.

   "We can worry about the what later, for now we should focus on getting to safety," Bookman raised his voice in a manner that told them to be quiet, and Kanda grimaced, "have you seen any of the others?"

    "I was with Noise and the kid," Kanda huffed, crossing his arms, "we found a train station with a telephone. Noise is using his golem to contact the Order."

    Sighing in relief, Miranda leaned against the tree and sobbed, hurting her face when she continued to hold back tears.

   Please make it, please send someone, I know I don't deserve this saving grace, but please-

   "I came back out to see if anyone was still alive," she heard Kanda go on, and Lavi snorted indignantly but didn't say anything.

   "So we're missing Allen and Lenalee, Krory, and Link," Bookman counted out loud, "splitting up at this point would be bad, so let's-"

    Say it, say it, say it, Miranda thought to herself as he had listed names, just say it!

    "Tyki and Sheril."

    Kanda sneered as Lavi looked at her, uncovered eye wide open, "Miranda? We understand how you feel, but-"

   "Do you? I'm so sorry, really I am, but," Miranda interrupted him like she did Bookman, "you're the one who's been complaining the most since this whole thing started."

    Lavi's mouth hung open, and then he wrinkled his eyebrows in anger as he nearly shouted, "because you fell for the enemy! The enemy of all humanity! He's a liar, a cheat, a con man! Sure, he seems genuine some of the time, but what about when he's not?!"

    It struck Miranda suddenly, that Road had said the same thing about God.

    "A dirty liar and a duplicitous cheat."

    Lavi looked like he was going to go on, say something else, anything else, but Miranda leaned precariously forward on her branch to hand him her traveling case.

    "I know, I know, okay? And, please forgive me, but I'm tired of talking about this."

    Heaving another deep sigh, she went on, "he's absolutely terrible. Loathsome, in fact, and disturbing to look at."

   "I meant all the time, not just right now!" Lavi somehow brought himself to laugh, and Miranda smiled.

    "Just trust me, okay? I have an idea," she laughed herself, hoping that this would make sense and her friends would agree to help.

            ~*~*~*~

     When they finally found Tyki and the beast again, Miranda thought they were back in the clearing where this had all started, but she couldn't be sure.

   It had taken a while, with Lavi and Bookman having to help her through the treetops, but this way, they had managed to find Krory, still keeping watch, and Allen, Lenalee, and Link arrived soon after.

    "So, uh..." Allen began hesitantly, "what are we doing?"

   "Well, I hadn't figured out the finer points, yet, but," Miranda began, hoping her voice was clear, "but Kanda is going back to the station to lead Noise and the Order to us. He claimed he could get there and back, and I trust him."

    Allen nodded, then tilted his head at the fighting below, "and them?"

    "Well, from experience with Tyki, we think that the Noah can be snapped out of their awakened states, I believe?"

   "Yeah, but the Earl had taken him away, and by the next time we saw him, he was semi-normal," Allen explained, "and before that, he was fighting Cross, and we don't have a General here."

    Miranda looked back towards the fight.

   It was still going, and she was starting to feel bad for Tyki, who now had a long claw mark on his arm.

   It's not bleeding too badly, so maybe the Noah can't hurt each other that much, Miranda theorized, it's probably making it difficult to dodge effectively, though.

   "We don't have time to signal to Tyki what we're doing," she went on, "we just have to keep his attention long enough for Kanda and Noise to bring the backup from the Order."

   There was silence, the kind of quiet accompanying deep thought and the facing of a terrible situation, before Link finally asked, "and we're doing this instead of escaping with our lives... because?"

   "Because Tyki helped me," Miranda said, loudly, clear as crystal, she hoped before she moved to climb down the tree herself.

   But she found herself gliding downwards instead, and glanced around to discover that Allen was using the ribbons of his Innocence to carry her down.

    Miranda nodded her thanks when her feet touched down and she stepped into the clearing.

   Her knees knocked together as she watched the thing move, decidedly Sheril but most definitely a disturbing creature from a nightmare, the manifestation of desire and how even that emotion could turn into humanity's worst fear.

   It hurt to look at, until she thought she would really be sick this time, and she clutched her stomach briefly before balling her gloved fists and bringing them to her sides.

   Filling her lungs with sour air that tasted of blood and tar, of spoiled berries and left-out milk, Miranda shouted, probably the loudest she had ever been in her life, "hey, ugly!"

   For a split second, she saw an incredible glee on Tyki's face, as he stopped to laugh, but he was soon blocked from view by the thing in Sheril's body turning its head to look at her.

  Its helmeted head, narrow and snake-like with a pair of bulls' horns, was directed at her, and she shivered.

  Its eyes were covered, but she got the impression that it saw her very well indeed, as it took a step towards her on taloned feet.

    From what she could see of its chin and jaw and mouth, it was still Sheril in there, but its teeth were so long it must have been in pain, and apparently incapable of speech.

   She wanted to cry, wanted to help it so very badly, and there was only one thing she could think to do.

     "Yeah, you! You disgusting brute!"

    The thing hunched down into the dirt, looking like it was going to launch itself at her, but then Allen dropped down from a tree to its left.

    "Hey, you're gross! You smell bad!"

   It whipped its head in that direction and growled, but before it could take action, Lavi dropped down on the opposite side.

"Big, ugly, disgusting, unwashed freak!" He shouted at the thing.

   Every time it turned, someone else shouted, and it clutched its head, trying to shut out the yelling, and Miranda felt terrible, seeing it in pain like this.

   But Sheril should be fighting back, she thought proudly, he didn't appreciate Tyki telling him he smelled bad, so maybe if we make him mad enough, he can take control?

    She couldn't tell whether it was working or not, but the awakened Noah was curling up like a dying spider.

   She thought they would make it, that they could get away in time so the others wouldn't have to come back.

    What Miranda didn't expect was to suddenly hear one of her most hated voices in the entire world.

"Kill it now, Walker!" Came a shout that could only be Malcolm Lvellier, "use the sword of exorcism!"

    He was behind her, she knew it, she saw at least a hundred Finders surrounding the clearing, but she couldn't bring herself to turn and argue.

     But Allen did.

    "No way! Not only did it not work on Tyki over there," the Noah waved cheekily when he heard his name, "it pissed him off even more than before!"

      Lvellier didn't flinch.

      "You will do as I say," the man intoned, a voice deep and foreboding, "or not a single one of you will return to headquarters after this."

     It was then that Miranda noticed something strange.

     Where have any of the Noah gone? Why aren't they here?

    They could get away with killing all of us off, even an Order executive, but they aren't here!

   "Allen!" Miranda yelled, but she didn't know what to say.

   Allen looked at her, waiting for her opinion, her decision in the matter.

   Tyki, standing behind the thing and waiting for her signal, said loudly so she could hear, "I hope you know what you're doing, woman."

    She thought about the day she met Sheril, at the cafe where Tyki had called her a 'twiggy woman with no personality', without knowing she was sitting right there.

    I was so frantically hoping they didn't notice me, she recalled.

   Oooh, the hazards of love, she moaned to herself before giving Allen a grim nod.

    Bracing himself, he activated his Innocence, grabbing his own wrist and pulling, his arm turning into a sword as he did so.

   Seeming to detect the Innocence, the awakened Desires swung that way, and was partially blocked by Tyki moving to distract him.

   Miranda covered her face, not wanting to look at what happened next.

   She knew it was terrible when she heard the blood-curdling scream rising up, up above the trees, an awful keening that went on for a long moment before dying down into a sound made by more human lungs.

    No longer caring that Lvellier was there, Miranda rushed into the middle of the clearing.

   "Miranda! He could still be dangerous!" She heard Bookman cry, but she didn't care about that, either.

   The monster lay there in the bloody dirt, one arm slung over its chest, hand on heart, deep gash across its waist starting from the right hipbone, its abdomen moving with each labored breath.

    As she approached the thing, she thought she saw some change occurring.

   Its claws and teeth had receded a bit, and she thought she could see some color returning to it, only to be drained away again.

   Miranda kneeled near to its face, listening to it cough and gasp, and she asked as softly as possible, "Sheril? Are you in there?"

   Silent except for the gasping, the airy lungs and bubbling blood.

   "Sorry for calling you ugly," she apologized quietly, "I didn't mean it, really. The others probably did, though."

     A laugh.

     It so small Miranda wasn't sure she heard it, until another quickly followed.

     "Sheril?"

     She didn't expect what she heard next.

     "I'm sorry I couldn't show you the world," came words in a dry, raspy voice so chilling she thought, that's what spiders would sound like if they could talk.

   "Don't say that like you're dying, please," she took the hand that was over his heart and squeezed, "we can still go, we'll start in Spain, and go north then south back-and-forth until-"

   "Oh, I'm definitely dying, but at least it's with witnesses," he coughed again, "don't let Jasdevi find out how pathetic it was, though."

   "You're not dying!" Miranda tried to reason, tried to argue, "okay, we cut Desires a little. Tyki still has Joyd, though, so why should you be any different?"

    Sheril reached his other hand to try and pull the helmet off, but it wouldn't move an inch, which was apparently part of his point.

   "I'm the Noah Of Desire, my love," his breath began rattling in his chest, "I think, all things considered, it would be better for you if I were to expire right here and now."

    "That has nothing to do with anything! Why can't you live, why can't we-"

   "I appreciate your concern, undeserving as I am," he smiled, and what little she could see of his face seemed warm, serene.

    Miranda dropped his hand and reached to try prying the helmet off herself, but it was no use.

    It was stuck tight.

    She felt herself becoming furious, and she leaned down to ask through clenched teeth, "why can't you just be yourself?"

   "Oh, I am so many things, aren't I?" Sheril was apparently feeling poetic in this moment, "The Noah of Past Loves, of the brutal centuries between us, of sweet purple grapes."

   "The Noah of the first brothers, of the first mother's broken heart, of the love I swear to you on my deathbed."

   "That's too many things," Miranda argued with him through a torrent of fresh tears, "why can't you just be you?"

   "The Noah is what I am," she had the impression that he was closing his eyes as he said this, "I thought we established that."

   "I hate it," she whispered, "I hate it so much."

   And then she ignored the blood and teeth, ignored the helmet, ignored the witnesses, and kissed him on the mouth before pulling away.

   "Well," he sounded smug, even through a coughing fit and rattling lungs, "do me a favor and leave before you see me draw my last breath?"

   But she was already standing, defiantly refusing to wipe her mouth, and she looked up at Tyki as he walked over.

   "I'll do something about him, not sure what though, just..." he hesitated, and then added, "if anything changes with Road, I'll find a way to get a message to you. Presuming Mr. Pricky-pants over there doesn't lock all of you behind bars."

  Miranda laughed and said, "for once, I'm not worried about him. Thanks for the help, Tyki. I'll... appreciate any updates."

   Saluting her in an entirely sarcastic way, he leaned down, and Miranda couldn't force herself to watch.

   As she began walking to were Lvellier was standing impatiently, she found herself surrounded by all of her friends, including Link.

  "You don't think you'll be in trouble?" She asked him, and only got a shrug in return.

   She looked down at her uniform, felt the blood on her face and the tears making tracks there, through the dirt and flaking tree bark, and nodded, looking at each of her friends in turn.

     "Do I look like too terrible a mess?"

     Someone patted her back, and as they took a step forward together, Lenalee was standing next to her with a beaming smile, and said, "you look the way I remember you."

   "You're always a mess after everything we go through, but isn't that a sign you're still living?" Allen clapped her back as well, and then dug into her hip pouch she had somehow forgotten, handing her one of her own mint candies.

   "Ready to go face the music?" Krory asked.

   She thought for a moment that it would be disrespectful to face Lvellier with a candy in her mouth, and promptly ignored that, unwrapping it and putting it in her mouth, placing the wrapper back in the pouch.

   "Let's do it," she said firmly, finally, with a strange spark in her heart that told her this battle wasn't over, that her actions wouldn't be in vain.

Chapter Text

      By the time Mercym had grown to adulthood, he began to realize the mysterious power of forgiveness.

    He had grown into a physically formidable man, and had helped build the Ark by carrying large piles of materials from place to place, but he didn't often engage in typical activities for his build.

   He liked food, he liked tea, he liked music, but he would rather sit and watch as the others ran races or practiced with weaponry.

   If he need to fight, he used his fists, if he needed to separate a fight, he lifted the two combatants into the air until they stopped, if he needed to talk someone down from an angry moment, he used his words.

    Mercym kept the peace, Mercym fostered friendships, and despite his tough exterior, he wasn't a fan of Road and Adam's plan.

   But when the battle against the Legion Of Heaven commenced, he found himself incapable of just abandoning his friends to die.

   So when something sharp and jagged removed one of his arms, he felt as though, through the immense pain of a sudden death, he found something he couldn't forgive, not even in the depths of his soul.

    He held with his other hand the doll the twins had made, larger than the other but not as large as Wrathra's, and smiled, one last time, before he breathed no more.

        ~*~*~*~

    In the unending darkness around it, the soul of Mercym wandered, finding it peaceful and warm just where it was.

   Nothing could come to harm, nothing could argue or take sides in petty tiffs, and Mercym thought he liked it, appreciated the silence.

   As it drifted on, it heard some kind of music, the kind the villagers made by stretching animal hide over a wood frame and beating it with a stick.

   The rhythmic thump-thump-thump was soothing, something to sleep to, or dance, depending on the size of the frame or how taut the hide was stretched.

    Mercym's soul moved with the beat, at times dancing and other times, taking a rest, and in this way, the soul was pulled back down into a body without realizing it.

          ~*~*~*~

     When he found himself awake on earth again, Mercym had taken the form of a poor man in prison, apparently for a crime he didn't commit.

    It didn't take long for someone to find him; a prison guard who patrolled the rows of cells on the night shift went wide-eyed when he saw Mercym that night.

   It was subtle; the man continued his patrol, then he was summoned to the warden's office in the morning, much to the humor of his fellow prisoners.

   But when the same guard as before opened the office door, and the warden sat smugly behind his incredibly large desk, he recognized them both before they could offer explanation.

    "Tryde, Desires," the man nodded curtly to them both.

   The prison guard scoffed while the wardens smile became gleaming, almost menacingly.

  "Thank goodness we don't have to explain," he cooed, "Mercym, I'm presuming?"

   "That feels about right," his voice was deep and low.

   "So you understand what we're about to say to you?" Desires asked with a grin.

   "You're either breaking me out of here or releasing me lawfully, whichever is easier for you."

   Desires steepled his fingers, elbows on his desk, "oh, as soon as Tryde saw you last night, we began drawing up the paperwork. You'll be free as a bird in a matter of hours."

   "Much appreciated," Mercym nodded again.

   "Of course, we'll be smuggling you out through a back way, so no one sees what happened to your face."

   He pointed to the right, and Mercym turned to look.

   There was a mirror hanging on the wall there, and Mercym saw the face of a young, yet well-built Mexican man with a row of Stigmata on his forehead.

              ~*~*~*~

    But even all-forgiving Mercym couldn't stand the thought of the Innocence that defeated them in combat all those years ago.

   "Good," Road would giggle when they had their little chats over tea, and the subject would come up, as it always did, "Innocence is the enemy, God is the enemy."

    He wished he could remember what it was that made her hate God so vehemently, but it seemed as though sometimes his memories weren't all there.

   It was worrying, watching Joyd withdraw from the family, watching Desires care about the family even more intensely, watching Road's hatred consume her, while there was nothing he could do.

   He could only make tea, listen to the fears and hopes and obsessions of the others, and hope for the best for everyone, no matter the outcome. 

Chapter Text

         Miranda held it together on their return to the Order long enough to hand over her Innocence for inspection, get a medical check, and write a report on the entire mission.

     All of her friends were told to do the same, but instead of joining them in the cafeteria afterwards, she went upstairs to her room.

    Throwing her case down on the floor, Miranda jumped into her bed and lay face down on her pillow.

   She waited a beat before beginning to scream.

   Keeping herself together the entire way home, in the same train as Lvellier, never having a moment alone for a single second, had compounded the stress and the heartbreak until she nearly couldn't take anymore.

      Sheril was gone.

      She didn't even want to know what Tyki was doing with the body; she wasn't sure what the Noah tradition was.

      I hope I at least freed him from Desires' control in his last moments, she thought, and her screaming renewed.

     Crying sour tears and wailing into her best pillow, Miranda went on for longer than she knew before a hot wash of shame told her to stop.

    Oh, what do I do, what do I do? She asked herself as she hoisted up from the bed and picked up her traveling case to empty it out.

   Making it to the bottom of the case, she noticed the two illustrations made by Fiedla, one page full of doodled expressions of Sheril's, the other a lovely portrait of the man sleeping soundly, unworried.

    She didn't even remember packing them, on her first trip or the second, and she wished she had known, so she could show him Fiedla's handiwork.

     But he's never going to see them.

     He's never going to lay his head in my lap, or mine in his.

    Tears welling up again, Miranda placed the art safely in the bottom of her case, threw her traveling clothes into the proper laundry receptacle, and then stripped herself of her uniform and put that in the special basket designed for it.

   She had only just made it to the door of her private bath before realizing what she had done.

   Well, I'm already here, she thought as she turned the knobs to run her bathwater as hot as possible.

   Miranda went through her usual routine, the soaps and scrubs and shampoos usually bought by others in shades of green that smelled of mint and vanilla.

   She didn't give herself time to relax, or even think about her body and what she put it through this time.

   That would lead her to thinking about Sheril, and then to sex, and then that way back to Sheril, and she'd be stuck in a loop again, just like when her Innocence first activated.

   She thought about what she excluded in her report, and felt her face redden.

   Well, at least the medical check wasn't invasive, she thought and got out of the tub so she could drain it and dry off.

   Wrapped in a towel, she went back into her room and looked around, deciding whether to go to bed or get something to eat.

   In the end, she chose to eat, so she dressed for a public appearance and went to go join her friends.

               ~*~*~*~

     If her friends were surprised by her presence, they didn't show it, nor did they bother her about choosing to mourn privately.

    She was asked by Lenalee, "are you okay?", and that she did appreciate greatly, even if her answer was less satisfying.

    "I think... it's going to be a while before I can say that I'm- over it," she said with a shake of her head.

     "Hey, take your time," Krory said with an understanding tone, "it takes a while, but you'll be fine. You don't even have to get over it, not entirely."

   Against her better judgment, Miranda couldn't help but laugh at his phrasing.

   "He's right, you know?" Allen joined in, "you just have to not let it get you too down."

   Lenalee nodded sagely and patted her arm before pulling her into a side-hug, "you know we're here for you, no matter what."

   " 'No matter what' being the Order execs taking all of our reports together and deciding whether you committed high treason or not," Lavi said loudly, and Bookman smacked his head when Miranda's eyes widened.

    "She didn't need to know that yet!"

    "They're doing what?!" Miranda nearly screamed, serene moment gone.

    Shaking his head, Noise told her gently, "I don't think there's anything in those reports they could use as evidence of treason."

   "They asked for one from each of us, right?" Miranda asked, terrified by the lie she was about to tell, "I only wrote everything as it happened to me, personally."

     "And that's all they can expect," Noise nodded.

     Miranda sighed in relief and continued to eat, grateful for Jeryy's skills in international cuisine.

    Listening to the bickering between Allen, Lavi, and Link as the expected background noise whenever they ate as a group, Miranda was finishing up her meal when she suddenly heard Chief Komui yelling for their attention.

      "Hey, guys! Is everyone finished eating?"

     Allen stared pointedly at his usual mountain of food, blocking his view, alongside a smaller pile in front of Krory and a third in front of Timothy.

    "Oh yeah, you were gone for a while, haha..." Komui laughed awkwardly, "anyway, as you're all here, I'd like to debrief you all on another mission I have for you."

    "Already?!" Lavi raised his voice, and the others agreed, either loudly or with muttered curses.

    "You're not being sent immediately, especially as your reports are being assessed," this made Miranda cringe, "I'm sure a week of recuperation wouldn't be too detrimental."

    Komui waved off their complaints with one hand and then waved the newspaper he was holding in the other, handing it to Miranda.

   The headline was in Portuguese, but she saw the picture and felt she could piece together exactly what it meant.

    " 'Minister Of Foreign Affairs And Family Abducted, Home Left In Chaos'?"

    "Exactly," Komui answered, "we don't know if this fabricated by Road, or if something else behind the scenes is happening in Portugal, but you're being given the opportunity to investigate, with the chance they might ignore any evidence of treason in your reports."

     Miranda looked at the picture on the front page.

     It was probably taken some time before they adopted Wisely, she mused, it's just Sheril, Tricia, and Road.

    It was hard to tell in black-and-white, but the three of them appeared to be standing in front of the Manor, framed by two very handsome rose bushes.

    Sheril was wearing light, summer-y colors, she could tell just by looking, and so was Road, who gleamed with a smile of genuine laughter.

   Tricia looked tired and a little bashful, and Miranda thought she would look better in color.

   Without looking up, she asked the Chief, "what's the point of waiting for the reports to be looked over if they're considering forgiving us any crimes?"

   She felt her friends attention turning to her but didn't back down.

   "I don't know, Miranda," Komui sighed, and she felt as though she knew the feeling, "I'm on thin ice, myself."

   "It isn't your fault Lvellier is an asshole," Allen offered, then focused on Miranda, "what do you think? Wait a week, go earlier, go later?"

    The Sheril in the picture was good at faking happy, she thought, or maybe he was happy.

    I have no way of knowing.

    I have no way of ever knowing what truly made him happy.

   He told me he liked reading, and had a garden, and a dog, but are those what made him well and truly happy?

    "We'll leave tomorrow," she stood and handed the newspaper to Komui, "we should be fine with a good night's sleep and another big meal in the morning."

   Looking a bit startled, he asked the table, "alright, who's agreeing to this?"

   She almost didn't want to turn to look, but when Miranda did, she was surprised to see that they all had raised their hands, even Kanda.

   "We can't ask you to go alone again," Allen spoke for the table, "with Road behaving the way she is, this affects all of us, and all of humanity too."

   "If the Kamelot Manor holds a clue, we need to take a look," Lenalee added, "even if it just helps us find out who the other Noah are."

   The others nodded, some without a word, and Miranda turned back to Komui, "can arrangements be made for that early?"

   "Good question! I'll see what I can do, but you might not be leaving until tomorrow evening at the earliest."

   This was just fine for Miranda, and she said goodbye to the others who were going their separate ways or staying to eat and chat.

    She went back up to her room and went into her wardrobe to change into her exercise clothes, grabbed the Time Record, then went down into the Exorcists training area for the first time in a long while.

            ~*~*~*~

   For the rest of the day, she used various equipment in the training area between intermittent bouts of crying and sniffling.

    Our duel got ruined, so Sheril never got to see my rapier technique.

   As Miranda worked, lifting the smaller weights or concentrating on her Innocence, she began feeling a sadness welling within her so complex, so wordless and indescribable, that her friends words of comfort stretched further and further away from her.

   It pained her, it hurt as though she were the one bleeding out, on her back in the dirt, but just when she thought she would have to escape to her room to scream her lungs into soreness again, she heard a soft voice calling.

      "Miss Lotto? -no, Miranda?"

     Lowering her shield and opening her eyes, she saw Tricia standing there, looking concerned.

    Tricia Harrow, she told herself.

   "Oh, it's okay! Humans can pass through the barrier at will," she explained, then realized that wasn't what the woman was worried about.

   Stepping forward, Tricia delicately lowered herself to the floor where Miranda was sitting, and asked, "am I to understand that my hu- that Minister Kamelot is dead?"

    Miranda lowered her head; she could still see it, behind her eyelids, the dark vision of Sheril, strange and misshapen and still strikingly handsome, at least in her opinion.

   But then she noticed something odd about that memory.

    "I never actually made sure," she said aloud, "he requested I look away from him, and I was so devastated I didn't want to look anyway, so I don't know."

    Tricia looked scared, but hopeful, and asked, "so there's a chance he's alive? Is he still... demonically possessed?"

    Miranda wasn't sure why she was so interested.

   "If he's alive but the demon is gone, then he's currently in the clutches of those still possessed," she explained, thinking it was at least sort of the truth, in a way.

   "Miranda, I..." here it comes, "I am divorcing that man, don't you worry."

   Miranda wanted to sigh thankfully, but decided it would be rude.

   "I've come to the conclusion that he's really a terrible person, not good for anyone, but," Tricia herself sighed, and somehow it made her younger in Miranda's eyes, "if you think he's good for you, I don't have the right to stop you."

   She wasn't sure what to say, so she let Tricia go on.

  "You seem like a bright person, and a bit stubborn, if you excuse me for saying so," she lowered her voice, "but several of your friends have told me this is a positive change for you, so who am I to judge?"

    Miranda laughed at this, and then quickly added, "I wasn't very good at sticking up for myself, or anyone else, for a very long time."

   "Then he does bring out some more confident side in you?"

   Miranda thought about it, about the strange adventures, journeys that were admittedly a struggle, across a few different countries, about Sheril's fight against the thing inside of him, about him being inside of her, and she smiled.

       "Yes, I think so."

     Tricia appeared as though she didn't know what to make of this, and at first Miranda feared she had read her mind, but then she smiled, and she appeared to be younger still.

    "Then, if you find him alive..." Tricia swallowed, "help him. Even if I'm never informed of his fate, of either of your fates, should you disappear together, just... help him."

    "That's terrible," Miranda laughed again, and then was taken by surprise when Tricia leaned forward to wrap her in her arms.

    "Oh, I know, but-" Tricia held her tightly, and Miranda felt her face turn pink, "but I did love him. It's hard to forget that, despite everything."

     "Tricia, I'm so sorry, I really am!"

     An even tighter hug, "no, don't you apologize! You don't have to say anything in his stead. If I see him again, my heart will break, is all. It's better if he and I never meet again."

    "Okay, I... I won't argue. But you should find somewhere to go, just in case I have to bring him here."

     Tricia laughed a bit, finally pulling away, "oh, your Chief Komui has an idea, don't worry."

   "Good, good," Miranda resisted wiping her face with her sleeve, "uh, come up to dinner with me?"

   Tricia nodded, and Miranda helped her off of the floor so they could walk to the cafeteria together.

    Is it possible? Is he alive, and if he is, is Road being mean, is she torturing him right now?

   Something has to be done about her, but what?

   Can we get to the root of her battle against God?

   What could be the cause of a conflict that goes back for several thousands of years? 

Chapter Text

  Jasdero and Debita were pretty upset at the results of their last encounter with the Exorcists. 

  Not only did Road take over before they got to make their own plans, but all of those annoying bastards made it out alive anyway. 

   They just didn't understand any aspect of Road's apparent 'plan'.

  They didn't get why Tyki's friends were subtly guided to Portugal, why he was artfully dropped where they would find him.

  They didn't get why Desires was let out into the woods by itself, and why it was so easily defeated by insults. 

   They didn't get why they were the ones babysitting Sheril in the Scottish keep, red-faced and shuddering from an awful fever, like a child.

   But these were all Road's decisions, and it irritated them that they felt the need to follow them, despite their complaints. 

   "It sucks~" Jasdero fidgeted over the sumptuous bedspread in Sheril's room of the keep.

   He was already overwhelmed by the space, the wildly expensive-looking gold and purple decor patterned with some exotic flower he didn't know.

  It was on everything, the comforters, the drapes, the chairs and couches, the carpet, and it was driving Jasdero crazy.

   He wished some of them were pink, or maybe orange, to break up the repetition, but no luck.

   So he and his brother were stuck, watching over a dying man, taking turns going into the private bath to run cold water to soak the rag on his forehead, or going to the kitchen to bring snacks and attempt to feed him.

   It was funny for the first few minutes, watching Sheril suffer like this, but it didn't take long for it to stop being funny and start being really sad.

  "It sucks," Jasdero repeated, "I wish we weren't so mean to him~"

  "Eh, we could have been meaner," Debita scoffed, but his face told Jasdero he was just pretending. 

 "I mean, he was always the one starting it, so we should have been the mature ones," he said as though it was true, though they both knew they were equally as antagonistic to him.

   Debita scrunched up his face in anger and hissed, "he's so gross! He's a terrible creep and a pervert! He should do us a favor and just die!"

  Jasdero was going to say something else, but he found that for once, he had nothing. 

  He wished he could shed a tear, but until Sheril actually died, he couldn't force even a single one to come up. 

   He could feel the pressure behind his eyes, the tingling salty feeling in his nose, the painful throat and wobbly chin that came with the onset of tears, but nothing would happen until he actually passed on.

   That was the way of the Noah, the way it happened with Skinn, and presumably with each and every death of a Noah before that.

   "I miss Skinn," he said suddenly, "he'd be here, bringing us sweets."

   Debita nodded, "he'd be grumbling like we are, but he'd be here, probably."

  "Remember the first time we stayed here? He and Lulubell and Tyki were all scary at first, but..."

  His brother looked like he didn't feel like reminiscing, but it was too late.

  "Sheril wasn't here because of some political bullshit, but he would have been scary, too, I bet."

   Jasdero thought of Sheril's powers and shivered, "he's like if a spider and a snake had a disgusting baby together~"

  Debita snorted, and Jasdero was happy to make his brother laugh, "ew! That's nasty!"

  "Hee~" Jasdero giggled, "but it's true!" 

  Then they fell silent again as they watched Sheril twitch and shudder in an uneasy sleep. 

   Debita was the one to speak up next, "if he makes it, do you think there'll be something wrong with him- more than usual, I mean?"

   "Hmm..." Jasdero looked at Sheril, coiling black hair plastered to his sweaty skin, which was abnormally drained except for his red face, mouth slightly open so they could hear his rattling, battered breathing, in and out. 

   "Maybe? I don't know enough about near-death experiences to say!"

   "Me neither," Debita frowned, then muttered, "whose turn is it to grab a snack?"

   Neither one wanted to be alone in the room by this point, but they were both hungry, and were about to suggest they rock-paper-scissors for it, when the door behind them suddenly opened. 

   It was Tyki, wearing denim trousers and a black shirt, carrying a small basket of cheeses and dried meats, and a jug of crystal clear water.

   "Olá, sobrinhos!" He greeted them, seeming jovial despite the air of the room.

    "The hell? You speak Portuguese now?" Debita asked incredulously, "you better not have said something insulting just now!"

   But the twins gratefully grabbed the basket anyway, and Tyki stood with his hands on his hips.

   "Is that a problem? And no, I just called you my nephews."

   Munching on a strip of meat, Jasdero asked, "so Road let you out of jail, hee~?"

  "I was never in 'jail'," Tyki raised an eyebrow, "I was lectured and forced to take a very long bath, though."

  "Same thing," Debita complained with his mouth full.

   Tyki just rolled his eyes, in his way that the twins found annoying, and grabbed a piece of meat before wandering around the room. 

   Finding two glasses in the basket, Debita poured them both some water, and they both had some cheese, occasionally peeking at Tyki or at Sheril. 

   Tyki had stopped in front of a frame on the wall, one with no glass in front, containing an oil sketch Fiedla had done of him and Road, her cheerfully hanging around his neck with both arms.

   Then his eyes turned to a smaller frame next to it.

   Sheril had tried his own hand at art, but it wasn't quite as nice as anything Fiedla could do; it was muddy and dark, like he had used too much black and smudged it with his fingers.

   According to him, Desires should be an artist, too, but obviously the skill didn't translate well.

   It was still clearly, definitely Tyki, but the awful quality had lent him a menacing air that the real thing couldn't be sure was deliberate or not.

   And then Tyki spotted something that had him laughing so loudly and unexpectedly that the twins both jumped.

   "You lunatic!" Debita yelled at him, "don't do that!"

   "Hey, look," Tyki called for their attention, "he has a portrait of you in here!"

   Eyes meeting with the same look of skepticism, the two of them got up to see.

   Tyki was pointing at a picture on the wall, slightly below the others. 

   The wood frame had been painted black, and the portrait inside was a grayscale piece of the twins with their faces in profile, facing each other, Jasdero on the left and Debita on the right.

   They both wore the same sour expression, like they were being forced to sit still while the artist worked.

   "It's... okay," Debita said at the same time Jasdero squealed, "I like it, I like it!"

   "Neither of you remember sitting for this?" Tyki asked in confusion. 

   "Nope!" The two of them said in one voice, breaking into another fit of laughter. 

   Tyki looked at it, hand to his chin I thought, before finally saying, "I can't even tell who drew it. It certainly wasn't Sheril, but it doesn't look like one of Fiedla's many styles, either."

 Jasdero glanced back at Sheril on the bed, the mans breathing so labored the he felt his own breath hitch in his throat. 

   He still couldn't cry; something wouldn't let him.

   "If we haven't cried yet, he's still alive, right?" Jasdero whispered, "he's still here?"

   Tyki looked over at him, an eyebrow raised curiously, "yeah, that's what Road said, anyway."

   At this, Jasdero grinned, and Debita looked at him like he was crazy until he said, "Tyki, if I give you a list of stuff, can you bring it here?"

   "Sure, I can do that," he looked past the twins to his own brother, "what do you want me to get?"

   As Jasdero listed his things, Debita realized what he was doing and joined in, adding some more to the list, and before long, Tyki had left them again with the promise that he would return quickly. 

   "You'd better!" Debita jeered after him, and Jasdero added excitedly, "yeah, you'd better!"

   The two of them grinned, and Jasdero felt a lot better about their chances of Sheril waking up.

Chapter Text

    He wished he could see where he was, but everything was total darkness around him, and he was so, so very cold.

   He felt as though he was far away from his body, becoming incorporeal, a castaway, adrift at sea.

   A woman would sing Fado about him, it would be deeply profound and romantic, and his soul would ascend to the heavens in a sort of melancholy peace. 

   And then he briefly wondered what Fado was, and something sparked in his mind, and he realized he was in his body again, and opened his eyes.

   Sheril Kamelot thought he was so fucking cold his entire dick and balls were going to freeze off.

   "Please, no, not the marriage tackle..." he muttered out loud and rolled over.

   Someone in the room shouted in fear, then said loudly, "great, he would wake up and scare the shit out of me talking about his dick."

   He thought the voice was Tyki, and while he was very glad his brother was attending his deathbed, Sheril just wanted to get back to his dream about being a formless spirit in space.

   But now he was shivering badly, the cold seeping through the thick purple comforter, so he turned towards the voice without opening his eyes. 

     "Tyki?"

     "Yeah?" Came the short answer. 

     And then, "keep your eyes closed."

    Sheril was fine doing as he was asked, but made a request of his own, "is there another blanket?"

  The sound of someone rummaging through a room, and while he was searching, Sheril asked another question, "I'm assuming from the cold that we're in the Scottish keep?"

    "Better the Scottish keep then the Scottish Parliament," Tyki said as he threw another blanket over him, making Sheril laugh so hard his ribs started to hurt.

    Sheril had said this to Tyki when he obtained the keep in the first place, and hearing it repeated at him was the height of hilarity. 

    "Oh, Tyki," he sighed and then tried to suppress a cough, "what did I do?"

   "Well, you fell for literally the stupidest trap ever," his brother informed him, and he winced, "like, seriously so stupid."

   "I don't remember it, so it didn't happen," Sheril pouted, and Tyki snorted, "can I open my eyes yet?"

   "No," Tyki said sternly, making Sheril laugh again. 

   Instead of complaining, like Tyki probably thought he would, Sheril asked him something else. 

   "Would now be a good time to tell you I love you without it being weird?"

   "Uh, no, it would still be weird!" Tyki argued, but Sheril moved to get up, so he scrambled to the bed and held him down by the shoulders, "no, don't move! You could still die!"

   Grinning like a madman with his eyes still closed, Sheril cooed, "aw, you do care! Get in here and warm me up!"

    "Ew, no thanks, pervert!"

   Before Sheril could start whining in earnest, the door on the hallway side opened, and he heard Debita, in his usual loud teenage voice, "ugh, what is he up to now?"

     "Ew, so creepy~" Jasdero chimed in.

    They stomped into the room, and Sheril tried to move, but he felt a hand clap over his eyes, and heard Tyki say, "keep 'em closed, don't move," before pulling away again. 

    Sheril wanted to keep complaining, but he got the sense that something very interesting was happening, and he did as he was told.

     This strange, but for some reason... very comfortable, he thought to himself. 

    Being the one being cared for on his sickbed is nice.

    Sickbed? Or is it deathbed? Oh, whatever! 

   Listening to the clang and clatter of whatever they were doing, Sheril began drifting back to sleep, even though he knew he'd be freaking out about this normally. 

   Amazing what being ill does to your sense of self, he thought as he dozed, until suddenly there was a hand on the comforter above his shoulder, pulling it away from him.

   "Oh come on! It's so mercilessly cold in here, Tyki!"

   He felt himself being pulled into a sitting position, flinching when his bare feet touched the stone floor. 

   "None of you could have put socks on my feet, at least?" He whined as Tyki directed his head straight forward. 

   "Hey, open your eyes, doofus," his brother laughed. 

   Skeptically, Sheril opened his eyes.

   The light from the fire and the torches hurt at first, but once his eyes got used to them, he could really take in the sight standing before him.

   One of the more masculine dress forms from the twins' room had been brought down, and it was wearing a bathrobe. 

   The twins' sense of fashion usually bothered Sheril; he preferred suits, tuxedos, or nothing at all, while the boys clothes were ripped, shredded, or covered in strange objects he didn't understand. 

   But their attempt at making a bathrobe had been an apparent meeting of the minds, the floor-length fabric being a strange mix of whatever they had that was purple and black with the occasional spot of white.

   It seemed to be silk in some places, linen in others, and it had some sort of thick lining that looked so deeply, impossibly cozy.

   It was garish and mismatched, but Sheril could still recognize the effort they put in to make something appealing to his tastes, and he felt as though he would weep.

   "It's lovely," he whispered, and then cleared his throat, "I mean it. I really like it."

   Jasdero beamed as Debita scoffed, "good, we were burying you in it if you died. Figured you'd be buried in a suit? Fuck off."

   Chuckling at the crass language, Sheril responded with some of his own, "you two are irritating little fuckers, you know that?"

   The two of them gaped at him, never having heard him use stronger words than 'hell', and then laughed so hard they were doubling over.

   Sheril tried to get up from the bed to try it on, but found that he could hardly move. 

   Before he could say anything, Tyki grabbed his shoulder and told him, "hey, don't look down just yet, okay?"

   The utter concern in Tyki's eyes made him want to look, but he trusted his brother with his life, despite their arguments. 

   "You look fine, you're going to be fine- alright, besides a big ugly scar on your waistline, but it doesn't look any worse than mine," Tyki pointed to his chest and upper arm, and the scar Sheril could see on his wrist. 

    This didn't sound very soothing at all, but Sheril listened as he went on, "we think Desires is just being a prick, which is so utterly baffling and unique to you that no one understood Road's explanation."

    "Oh, so he can just-" Sheril didn't even know what to say, after everything he had gone through dealing with Desires, "he can just make it so my bottom half doesn't work?"

   "Nah, just your right leg, on the side Allen hit you with his big fuck-you sword."

   Now that he thought about it, he did feel rather numb on that side.

   "So why didn't you want me to look down?" Sheril asked, "don't tell me my apparatus is missing?!"

   The twins both made faces of disgust, and Debita said, "we'd rather not be here if the conversation is going this way!"

   "Yeah!" Jasdero agreed. 

   Tyki just dismissed them with a wave, "knock it off! It's there, okay, just chill out!"

   Sheril's lip wobbled like he was going to cry, but then Tyki grinned.

   "I was messing with you, you can look," he clapped Sheril on the shoulder. 

   Finally looking down, he saw that Tyki was right; between the silk shirt and pants someone had wrangled him into, he could see the edge of what was sure to be an awful mass of scar tissue. 

    Walker had missed his dick by barely an inch. 

    And then he felt something and didn't hesitate to voice his thoughts.

    "I have to piss so bad."

                 ~*~*~*~

    That had started an uproar, and Tyki had to gently guide him to his private bath, where he took the time to freshen himself up as much as possible while still feeling deathly ill.

   Holding onto whatever he could so he didn't fall down, he managed to shuffle back into his room on his other leg, which seemed to be functioning just fine.

    When he made it back to his room, the twins had gone, leaving Tyki and the darling bathrobe to greet him.

     Sheril made it to the dress form and clung to it tightly, feeling sweat bead up from his efforts to walk on his own.

    "Need help?" Tyki asked, his fingers twitching as though he was eager for a smoke.

    Sheril looked down and felt that Tyki had lied to him; maybe it wasn't going to be fine, maybe his leg was permanently fucked up. 

     But then he remembered Tyki's scars.

    He didn't lose the use of arm and wrist, so maybe I'll be fine, after all.

    Moving around the dress form, he undid the tie around its waist and carefully lifted the robe from the body, dramatically swooshing the fabric around his shoulders and pulling his arms through the sleeves. 

     Tying the belt with a graceful knot, he searched the front and found that it had three pockets, one over the left breast and two at the waist, and smiled proudly. 

     "Those two could become exceptionally talented designers," he tried turning to Tyki and found himself wobbling on his feet. 

    His brother went to his side and clapped him on the back again, "want to get some grub in you before your expiration comes up?"

    Sheril wanted to nod, wanted to agree to food so badly, but instead, he felt the strange pull of sudden tears coming to his eyes.

    "Tyki, I... why am I here? I should be dead, deader than dead, I should be shattered into a million tiny little pieces, pierced full of holes, I-"

      Miranda. 

      Miranda Miranda Miranda. 

     "Does Miranda... does she know I'm alive?"

     Silence. 

     A rough and terribly dishonest silence. 

    "Tyki?"

    Oh God, why such all-consuming silence? A reminder of the time before you made the earth?

   "I'm sorry, it was-" Tyki began, then hesitated briefly, "it was Road's plan."

   "What was? What was Road's plan, Tyki?!"

   An uncharacteristically nervous gulp from his younger brother. 

   "To convince Miranda you were dead," he said finally, "you'll have to lay low, stay out of the limelight. Portugal thinks the entire family has been abducted, which could work to our advantage, according to her and the Earl, I guess."

    This news rattled in Sheril's mind, and he coughed before asking, "and what if I don't want to?"

   "You'll have to take it up with Road, not me," Tyki sighed, "look, you know I don't get it either, right? I'm just relaying what was explained to me."

    Sheril nodded, knowing it was useless to even question his brother for details. 

    "You... still want food?"

    "More than anything," Sheril answered, even though there was plenty he wanted more, a million other things that sounded so much better than food.

   "Okay, let's see what this place is stocked with," Tyki took his arm and guided him with an adorable, stone-cold seriousness across the hall and down the stone stairs.