Archive of Our Own ^beta

you don't remember a life before yu.

that's lie number one.

you remember waking to whispers, plentiful and high in pitch like the chattering of birds — not that you know what birds are, not really, but you just know that's what they sound like — and a light in your eyes, a word for which you'll later learn.

(they tell you that the phenomenon is called 'morning,' and that it's your birthday.

they tell you your name is alma, made of the softest consonants and the toughest flesh.

they tell you you're an apostle, and that you're here to save the world.)

you remember the books they gave you, the paper cuts — easy to heal, as ever — on your fingertips from folding over the corners, the pictures in them of an outside you aren't yet ready to see.

you remember — and this is strange memory, because you've never heard or read it before — a line about lotus flowers, born from mud and growing towards the sky, making the world a fragrant place.

just like you, and the rest of your kind, if they ever wake up too. any day, now.

not that their silence dissuades you. much like you've done with the scientists and their books, you turn loneliness into your friend.

not that you know what it is. it's a phenomenon you never had a name for, until you see a stirring in one of the holes, the slightest refraction of light in the water. you can't contain your excitement so you let it escape in the tone of your voice and the smile on your face.

"i'm so glad! i thought i was all alone!" the rest of it tumbles out of your mouth, clumsy and eager like the child you are. "you know, they call you 'yu'."

and when you repeat what they once told you on the day of your awakening ("happy birthday, yu!"), you think of how fickle you must be, to replace loneliness so swiftly with someone else.

you must be stupid, to have blabbered on in front of him so unaware.

you must be stupid, to have relied on the advice of books when all you've ever had to talk to was yourself.

you must be stupid, to think that yu would have ever been your friend.

at least, that's how you feel, when he throws you against the wall so harshly that the back of your head resembles a bruised pear. unlike the pear, you recover rather quickly, but you can't say the same for your heart when he looks at you with such disdain, as if you were fruit rotting in his mouth and he's spat you out.

you respond the only way you know how: with violence and petulance in equal measure.

you must be stupid, for not understanding why.

maybe this is why you're far less concentrated than you usually are, the next time they put you in front of the innocence and tell you to synchronize. your spine hits the floor and the muscle in your chest surrenders to another death.

above you, they say things like 'cardiac arrest' and count down the minutes to when you can stand again.

but through all of it, all you can think is, 'are they hurting yu too?'

on the worst days, you both end up bloodied in conditions that have nothing to do with innocence.

on the best days, his shoulder brushes against yours when he shrugs you off, and walks away instead of leaving either of you worse for wear.

you didn't think it could get any better than that, and you're so happy to be wrong.

it starts with an exchange certainly unlike the pretend passages in those books.

"always smiling like an idiot," he says, punctuated with a kick to your middle.

you were never one to take an insult lying down.

"you're one to talk." this time he's the one on the ground, with you towering over him like a cathedral doling out damnation. "always scowling like a pessimist."

he tries to interject, but you aren't done.

"and here i was, thinking i'd made a friend." this time, there's more indignation in your voice than sadness. "too bad you're such a killjoy."

you never realized you'd be glad to be so spent from synchronization tests that any attempts to fight ends with both of you lying in puddles of your own blood, but here you are, finally, finally laughing with yu rather than talking to him with fists.

it ends, with both of you lying in the same bed to sleep, and waking under the same sheets when morning comes.

you never realized when he starts tagging along for when you greet the others, but it's reassuring to have him there, a promise fulfilled when you believed you'd always be alone. maybe one day, more of them will join you.

it would be nice to play with someone other than yu, though of course yu will always be your favorite.

you never realized just how much when you overhear what you do, ears pressed to the walls and heart drumming a war song against your rib cage.

if yu is defective, they'll put him to sleep.

if they put him to sleep, you might as well say goodbye.

if you say goodbye, it means that he will never come back.

were yu in your position, he wouldn't be thinking so much when he breaks you out. but you're not him, are you? you can't forget all the others still asleep, nor can you keep your eyes from burning at the thought of leaving them behind.

it's just that — "i've only got yu, and we've only just become friends."

breaking yu out of the medical ward, as it turns out, isn't the hardest part. they catch up to you soon enough, and one of your fears soon turns into fact: one of you will have to abandon the other.

you never let yu make the choice on his own.

"run," you say, with that idiot smile he so detests. you hope he gets the message — everything will be fine.

that's lie number two.

they underestimate you, and that's their mistake.

it's not your strength they don't anticipate; it's your desperation.

you'd do anything to get yu out of here for good, far away from the people who want to dispose of him because he's broken. you'd splinter your bones so they can pass through shackles, grit your teeth through the pain when they poke through skin. you'd tear apart the facility in search of your innocence, once your bane and now your only salvation.

you do just that.

"i'm going to save yu." your faith could've made the saints cry.

and your hate, when you see what they've been doing — what they've done to you — would've made the devil smile.

(lotus flowers are quite the sham, aren't they? in the end, they'll just wither and drown into the mud, won't they?)

'apostle' is what they call you.

an abomination is what you see in front of you.

what if both of them are true?

you'll fulfill their prophecy, you decide. you'll be the one to save the world.

and you'll start by cleansing it of the black order.

one sin at a time.

when the noise has died down — the screams, the pleas, the crunch of flesh being pierced — yu's voice cuts through the din like an church choir, reinforcing the holiness of your mission.

he came just in time.

"i'm happy to see you, yu." you are, the way a sheep farmer would be happy to come upon the perfect sacrificial lamb. "but i've got to kill you now."

and yu looks just like one, shock and confusion painted across his features when he sees the killing blow.

he doesn't understand yet, but he will. you'll help him look past the fact that a sacred massacre is a massacre all the same.

yu fights back, and you expected this. he's synchronized with his innocence too, which is a surprise only in the timing. it's nothing short of what yu can do.

he's amazing; that's hardly a secret. but how much of that is yu himself, and how much is the monster they'd created?

"day after day, i kept wondering why i was alone as i waited for my friends to wake up. i kept wondering why they wouldn't wake up. there's no way they'd wake up, right? they wouldn't want to wake up, would they?"

there's self-loathing in your laughter that wasn't there before, and it grows tenfold when yu points out your hypocrisy. of course, you've known it with the first person you killed — you're not any better than an akuma, punishing those you see fit.

you turn your blades upon yourself, and yu, blessed yu, still asks after you.

"i couldn't stop it. no matter how many times i tried to destroy myself, it wouldn't let me." maybe it's your hatred keeping you breathing, which leaves you at a loss now, doesn't it? there's no way you can stop it, not with everything you've discovered. but maybe, if there was someone else beside you, so you wouldn't have to to endure this alone, you could succeed.

there's only one other person left, only one other person it could be.

"let's die together."

impaling yu brings you two closer than you've ever been.

"as long as we're alive, the humans will never repent. to win to holy war, they'll continue to use us as tools forever. there's nothing worth protecting anymore."

the moment you think you've convinced him, he slices through the dream, and through you.

"i'm sorry, alma," he says, and blood spurts from your mouth in place of 'why?'

"but i want to live." haven't you said everything right? "even if it means destroying you."

he tears into you like he always has — all emotion and no hesitation — but there are tears in his eyes that make you want to ask, what else is there to live for?

yu kills you without killing himself, and as red bleeds into your vision you wonder how, how could he do it without you?

you don't remember a life after yu.

this time, it isn't a lie.

this time, you're the one who wakes up to yu's face.

you don't remember the past decade, and the information you're fed to rationalize why that is so pales next to the irrefutable: it wasn't much of a life without yu in it.

realization dawns slowly and painfully, a chest wound that takes twice as long to heal. your whys and hows from so long ago are answered, but they're too difficult to hear, much less digest in your blood.

your veins resist it; hatred runs through them instead.

"i had a dream. i finally know the reason you betrayed me." each step that takes you closer towards him is a crack in a fault line, inching towards corrosion. "me, and only me."

your body malforms into something even more inhuman, and you welcome it like an old friend.

"because you lived, the humans didn't mend their ways. because of you, i've become an akuma."

yu fights back, and you expected this. he says, "i'll destroy you," without an ounce of regret, and there's no surprise there either.

he's cut you down once; he's capable of doing it again.

"you look so cool, yu." he does, from the strong line of his jaw, to the way he carries his shoulders. he's turned the conviction he had as a child into a weapon, and it becomes him.

"how was life? how did it feel to be the one to survive?"

he slashes you in half and in a fever you spit out, "do you have friends?"

the unspoken question hangs on a noose between the two of you: would you leave them behind too?

in the distance, a bargain is being struck. once again, you're nothing but a pawn in a a wider game.

"if you wish it," the earl says, gently pitying, "i'll erase the dark matter from alma karma—"

and this is the place on the page where you laugh, because you've never wanted to be a part of anyone's narrative but yu's.

"even if i get my old body back, it's not like my grudge will disappear." you impale him like you once did, all those years ago, and it's almost nostalgic. "all i want is for yu to die."

you became an akuma because of revenge.

that's lie number three.

allen walker didn't factor into your initial equation.

"why?" he asks, like he actually wants to understand. "why are you doing this? the noah showed me, so you should've seen it too! the reason why kanda chose to live nine years ago...!"

desperate and demanding, he says, "and yet you still can't you forgive him!"

"of course," you say, with a smile like something rotting. "how could i? as long as he's alive, i—"

you stop not because you're at a loss for words, but because the battle has caught up to your body. it's only a manufactured puppet powered by dark matter, after all.

"you've met your end, alma karma."

but you can't accept that. you can't die, not now, not before—

"don't get in the way. i don't have the time. as long long as he's alive, i will— someday, i will—" your palm is outstretched as if in worship, towards the only god you've ever known.

"this is it, yu."

your attack never attains completion.

allen walker's transformation blasts you two in different directions, but somehow you fall into yu's arms.

how strange, you think to end up here. strange, and sweet as a blaspheme.

allen walker exposes you for who you are.

'don't look at me,' says her soul — says yours, in its agony. in one last ditch effort to keep your secret buried like it should, you trigger your own self-destruction.

'nine years ago, you destroyed me and survived. but you did it to keep a promise with me.'

i'm sorry, you say, though you can't bear to do so aloud. 'i know you'll search for me for as long as you live. someday, you might realize that i'm the one you've been looking for.'

and you can never, ever let that happen.

after the explosion and within the wreckage, allen walker asks, "what about kanda? why couldn't he know?"

your answer, like the rest of you, is selfish and contradictory.

"if he knew, he'll stop searching for me. as long as he's bound by our promise, he'll always belong to me."

the only wish you have left is simple: "i just didn't want to lose him."

your desires have always been so erringly human.

getting to lie beside yu in death would've been too kind. it's a peace you don't deserve, so the universe doesn't grant it.

the dark matter takes you away, reaching for the sky like a lotus flower rooted in wet earth.

but then, yu's voice, ever the choir, says your name like a prayer and eclipses the sun — becomes the sun itself.

his arms are around you once again — twice more than you've ever touched as children — and he plants another promise into your skin, this time just between the two of you.

"let's get out of here, go someplace where there's no innocence, no order."

this time, yu says, soft and sincere, this time, we'll be together.

he knows, you think, and it sinks like a stone in your gut. he knows, and he's still here.

"you heard us talking?"

"i heard everything, idiot."

your tears are hot as they've always been, but this time they don't taste so bitter.

in some forgotten corner of the world, the walls are crumbling and there's nothing to breathe but dust, but there's no innocence, no order, and you have a clear view of the sky above you, bluer than you imagined.

just as yu promised.

it's a better place to die than the last time.

the confessions spill out like a snapped rosary, each more damning than what came before it.

"i still can't forgive the order." even now, you still tremble with it, an earthquake with nothing left to ruin. "i hate them. i hate them."

but just as forgiveness isn't yours to give, it also isn't yours to receive.

"i killed so many people."

yu, beautiful yu, doesn't absolve nor condemn. all he does is stay.

all he does is say, "i know."

all he does is swear, "i'll watch over you."

you believe in him like a lamb believes in the safety before a slaughter.

you close your eyes like you're starting a new religion, and relinquish breath like a hymnal.

"yu, i love you."

that's truth number one.