damned_institute | Day 35: Bus 3 (Return Trip)

It was a great relief to Allen when she seemed to drop the flirtatious teasing, if that's really what it was. As long as it meant she would keep her distance, he could try talking to her like a civilized person. Even if she was from a different world, it was difficult to trust an Akuma. However, the things she asked about were things an Akuma would know easily.

"They're already dead," he said quietly, not meeting the intensity of her red eyes. "I can't kill someone who's already died."

Dead. Hmm. To Falis there was dead and dead-dead. Not too much of a difference, but a difference altogether. If someone was just dead, they had still been killed. And Allen wouldn't meet her eyes. Either he didn't believe what he was saying and knew she was right, or he really was that scared of her. She wondered how scared he'd be if he knew her name given that everyone in the place pretty much knew that Princess Alita Forland had killed that alien creature.

"Really now? Already dead..." She hmmed a moment. "Before the soul is set free do they breathe? Do they bleed? Does the body react to things around them?" She paused and her voice lowered a little. "So they feel pain?"

He'd wondered that himself for a while. How could he destroy something that looked human? Even if it was just a shell, it was still awful to think about.

"They don't bleed," he told her, slowly looking up to meet her eyes. This was a point he'd come to learn after many hard-won battles. "They don't have to breathe or eat or sleep. They're not alive," he said firmly, convinced of that fact. "They're cold and empty, just like dolls."

He hesitated, drawing a slow breath. "The ones here though... some of them are different. You look like one of them, but you're not cold like they are."

That was interesting. When he finally met her eyes she could see that he'd seen real battle before. That was something one could never hide in the eyes. The eyes told you whether a person was a soldier, a killer, or not. This boy... he was a killer, whether he believed it or not.

Falis smiled dangerously. "Alive or dead... what do you believe I am?"

It was difficult to tell what this girl's reasoning was for asking, though the question was hard enough to answer on its own.

"I don't know," he answered her honestly. And really, he didn't. He still had his suspicions and it was impossible to overcome the strange longing inside him that wished to destroy akuma, warm or cold. "My eye says you're an Akuma. But... you don't seem like one." Then again, Eliade hadn't seemed like one at first either. Things were far too complicated.

In response, Falis grabbed Allen's hand that didn't look like it's been chewed up and spit out, grasping it in a vice-like grip. Ignoring the resistance, as she knew she was stronger, the bounty hunter placed the hand directly over her heart and held it flush against her so he could feel her heart beat. She didn't say anything, but locked her eyes onto the exorcists.

For a flickering moment, her pupils changed to vertical slits before returning to normal, the change so fleeting it might have even been imagined. Falis was a monster, she knew this, but she wasn't the type of monster Allen was looking for.

At first Allen had thought she was trying another of those strange flirtatious gestures when she pulled at his hand and put it on her chest, but after a moment he realized she was trying to let him feel her heart beating. It wasn't a mechanical whirring or a clanking or cold at all. And the thought that Akuma could be warm and human-like was perhaps was chilled him the most.

Was his eye deceiving him? It'd never happened before. But then, no place like Landels had ever happened before. "L-let go," he said, though he didn't pull against her grip very hard. "I... what do you want me to do? Check every Akuma for a heartbeat before I try to save them?" What if it was all a trick? But then, what if he was hurting people he wanted to save? Neither one felt right.

"I don't want to hurt people. But being an exorcist is what I was born to do. I have no other purpose. I know I have to destroy them, but I also want to save them. I have to."

Falis released Allen's hand after stuffing her other side back deep down, unhappy it had decided to rear it's ugly head. She next took her nail and ran it sharply over the inside of her arm, drawing a thin line of blood for him to see.

"Regardless of whether an akuma is alive or not, destroying them, even to save the soul they supposedly devoured or whatever, is still killing. You may save the soul of the human, but you kill the akuma," Falis replied, wiping a finger across the light blood, smearing it on her arm.

"You are no different than me when you take away your naive righteousness. I am at least willing to admit that I am a monster, though I've become this way through survival, long before an accident forced my soul to switch into this body," she said, with a small snarl.

She might have human traits, but there was still something about her that didn't seem quite right. It was enough to make him doubt, even if he didn't have use of his eye. Her reasoning though, was not enough to change his mind. Akuma were not human. And destroying them was not killing. Akuma weren't alive. They were just the Earl's toys. Some of them might develop personalities if they evolved to a higher level, but they were still Akuma. Nothing could change that.

"You can think what you want," Allen turned away, not willing to listen to her speeches and justification. It would only make him doubt; make him wonder. It wouldn't be the first time someone had called him a monster. Even so, he couldn't change what he was.

"I always do," Falis replied, leaning back into the seat again, wiping the blood on her finger off onto her pants. "I am human despite what you may think. Try and destroy me if you feel the need to, just keep in mind, when you do that, you're going to be trying to kill a human."

"Someone who destroys monsters are still killers; the deaths are simply justified. It sounds as if your King God places bounties on the heads of these akuma in your world," Falis continued, nonchalantly. "If that's the case, we would have been on the same side in your world. Wrap your mind around that."

Allen looked at her skeptically, not liking the feeling of being lectured, especially from someone who was doing the same things he was. "Then why do you want to destroy your own kind? Why are you having me look for others like you just so you can try to destroy them too?" It didn't make sense.

"It's not killing if it isn't alive in the first place. Akuma are just puppets that the Earl uses. It's not my fault if people here look like them. I can't change what my eye sees." He fidgeted in his seat, baffled by her talk about King God. "They're not... bounties, that's not it at all. I don't get paid for destroying them, I have to destroy them before the Earl uses them to destroy all of humanity. It's a war, it's not just mindless destruction."

Falis shot a nasty look at Allen. "I am human. I am a human soul that happens to have been forced into a human body that's not my original one. I am not hunting my own kind," she stated. "I hunt the things that threaten people enough that others want them dead. Vampire, warwolf, goblin, dragon, demon, cyborg, witch... it doesn't matter to me. I'll even kill humans that threaten my kingdom and those I hold dear to me. I am not someone who shows mercy."

She flashed her teeth again. "Besides, I love a real challenge and there are so few around anymore."

"So here's a question... why are you killing the dolls instead of killing the source?" She leaned over toward Allen. "Or is this Earl human and you're too much of a pussy to try to kill him?"

Allen had a very difficult time trying to understand how this girl thought. Even if she was a bounty hunter, she didn't have to classify him like he was one. And of course he'd fight the things that threatened his friends. He just didn't think there was a need to kill other humans. It wasn't necessary. It was also much too hard.

"The dolls are his army," Allen said, not bothering to answer the part about her monsters and goblins and other creatures that didn't exist in his world. "It's difficult to reach him. I've tried to kill him... but he's strong. He got away last time. I won't let it happen again."

"I see," Falis replied, leaning back again. She started examining her nails in a relaxed, yet feminine, manner. "Don't tell me you're going after him with a balls to the walls tactic. If he's the head, you must use means other than a frontal assault to reach him and take him out. I doubt you're as strong as I am, so you need to be more cunning than direct."

The girl had a lot of weird phrases, but Allen thought he sort of understood what she meant. Allen wasn't much for tactics though. He threw himself at each obstacle with everything he had and kept at it until either he or the obstacle was gone. He wasn't a strategist, he was a weapon.

"When I find him, then I attack, that's all there is to it. We found out where his base is, so before I ended up here, that's where we were headed." Allen sighed, frowning at the blonde girl. "And I'm a lot stronger than I look. This place limited a lot of my power, but that doesn't mean I can't fight."

"I never said you couldn't fight; I can see it in your eyes," Falis replied. "And I don't really feel like getting into a 'who's got the bigger dick' contest right now, so I'll pretend you just didn't get defensive about your current strength. if you ever decide to carry through and kill me, you'll learn then."

"The better thing to think about is HOW you fight your Earl. Do you simply throw yourself at him, hoping your strength alone is enough or do you use your mind as well, grasping a hold of every advantage presented to you?"

Just talking with the blonde girl was tiring. Everything felt like an argument or some kind of innuendo! "I'm not going to try to kill you," Allen said with something like a sigh. At least, he would try to keep from it. Sometimes he couldn't control it and it was happening with more and more frequency.

"What's wrong with fighting strength for strength? If I'm meant to win, then I'll win. If not, I've done my part."

Falis was tempted to slap Allen across the face for his idiocy and she had to restrain herself from doing just that.

"There's nothing wrong with fighting strength for strength if the point of the fight is to prove who's stronger," she spat back. "There is no 'fated' bullshit about who was 'meant' to win or anything like that. We make our own damn destinies and if you think there's some great power out there manipulating your strings like a dancing doll then you're an idiot and your King God isn't any better than your Earl."

"Use your mind, boy. Do you think your Earl is just going to use his pure strength in a battle? Fuck no. He's going to use every little trick he possibly can and a whole lot of dirty tactics. Evil doesn't have honor. Evil just wants to destroy with the power of Angst in one hand and Woe in the other." Falis glared. "You're a sitting duck if you just rush him head on without using cunning or your terrain or any semblance of tactics. You will die then and your Earl will laugh." And so would Falis if she was in the Earl's place.

Maybe he was an idiot, like she said, but he couldn't help the way he was born. He couldn't help the Innocence that was embedded into his flesh or the blood that called to destroy Akuma. It was his place, his calling in life to be one of the Black Order's pawns because he was a weapon. Of course it was fate, why else? Why him?

"What other way is there to fight? If I do as you suggest, then I'm simply sinking to his level. I just have to be stronger, that's all there is to it."

"The righteous never win," Falis growled. "There's a saying that goes All's fair in love and war. You're in a war, so keep that in mind."

"Strength is never enough. Strength also comes from places unsuspected." Falis was getting very frustrated but managed to keep her words calm, her voice low.

"To win a war with a definitive victory, one must dirty themselves with the tools of the enemy. Use whatever is available, take every advantage possible and find your victory. War is not nice and to win war you must harness the monster inside you and use it to destroy your enemy." She paused and held Allen's eyes for a moment. "And when it's over, when you're victorious, you cleanse yourself of the filth and the darkness you've taken into yourself to be the thing, the weapon, the force, that was needed to fight to win."

Her expression got distant and wistful. "And you find someone to ground you... to remind you who you were before so you can return to that when it's time to lay your arms down."

"Don't be absurd!" Allen returned, starting to get frustrated. "Good always wins over evil." Why would God make them fight an enemy they couldn't defeat?

"I will never stoop to his level, not even for an advantage. My strength alone should be enough. And if its not, then someone else was meant to destroy him, not me. There's no way to just stop being what I am, even if I live to see the end of this war, a weapon is all I am."

"And even if she-" he started, but cut himself off before he got any further. He shook his head, "We don't think in terms of before and after. There's just the now. The enemy we have to defeat before we can continue on to the next. As nice as it would be to believe..." He stopped again. "Maybe... maybe it's better if we talk about something else," he said quietly.

Falis was quiet as hr eyes refocused and that momentary soft expression left her face. "You are a sad, pathetic, naive little boy if you believe all that. You will never defeat your Earl. You will die at his hands and place your people in danger if all you think of yourself is as a weapon," she said in a tone that could almost have been considered sad.

"Your King God is a cruel ruler if this is what he has demanded of those that serve him. A proper leader, commander, warrior thinks a minimum of five steps ahead of the enemy, not in just the moment. And she," the blonde said, latching onto Allen's slip-up, "will cry for you before she too dies because of your inability to do what must be done to kill your Earl."

She shook her head, disgusted. "If you do not think of your future, a vision of something you desperately want - something to accomplish that means more to you than life itself - other than the immediate defeat of your enemy... what reason do you even have to fight? You aren't even using half your strength without that."

Why was it sad? He was working to save the human race. Even if he lost his life, there were others to replace him. Every Akuma he defeated made a difference. Bak was the one that said his body was an Anti Akuma weapon and it was true. He could feel it, that was all his body wanted was to destroy them. Maybe that was sad, but it meant protecting his friends too.

"I do believe that," Allen said, though the strength behind his voice had diminished. He'd made a promise to Mana that he'd keep going, keep walking until he couldn't anymore and that was what he intended to do. "And I have my own reasons to fight. I want to save the humans and I want to save the souls of the Akuma. That's why."

Falis did not waver, her tone did not change, nor did her eyes as they searched Allen's. Well, searched the one that wasn't lighting up like a magical torch. "You have no personal investment in your fighting. You want to save humans, you want to save tortured souls, and that's all in good, but that has nothing to do with you. Everyone on your side of the war fights for that."

She was beginning to pity this poor boy that could be an amazing warrior but simply chooses to be nothing but a rusting blade. "There's nothing unique in that. It is nothing more than empty words to comfort the people, because you can't save humanity. Once your Earl is defeated, another will arise to pick up where he left off. One person cannot accomplish something so large. You need to scale it down to something that can be won and kept safe. That's the key. Find a personal reason to fight, something that means something special, unique, to your heart. Use that along with your mind and not just idiotic teachings that take away your self identity."

She narrowed her eyes a little. "Then you'll find real strength. Then you won't get her killed nor will you make her cry." Falis kind of wanted to know who this 'her' was.

While some of what she said did make sense, Allen had a difficult time taking it to heart. Why did it matter to her how he fought?

"I don't understand what you mean," he said bluntly. Of course he fought with the same goals and ideals as the other exorcists. Why was that bad?

"But... I don't want to save just one or two people. I have to save everyone I can," he frowned, completely missing whatever it was she was trying to get through to him.

"Her... look... that's..." It was hard not to remember the dreams he'd had. Seeing Rinali crying alone in that fallen tower. But they weren't tears for him. "it's not what you think."

Day 35: Bus 3 (Return Trip)

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