Chapter Text
When they woke up, Alma Karma was chained to a bed and all alone. Their chest grew tight at the feeling of captivity, and the lack of memories that made any coherent sense. (Yuu, but older now, his hair lighter, a blade in Alma’s chest. Alma, but larger, with anger in every part of their body, and feeling so violated . A person with white hair, demanding to know why they wouldn’t just talk--)
The chains were too tight. No matter how Alma looked at their freakishly elongated limbs to try and move them, the chains were too tight. But a moment of looking around explains to Alma why--
There’s some kind of talismans on the walls, and with Alma’s limited life experience, they can only assume one thing--that they belong to a CROW, or something even worse that worked alongside the Earl, and Alma’s a prisoner.
It’s the only thing that makes any sort of sense.
Vaguely, they can hear muffled conversation in the background--some voices he doesn’t recognise, with voices too deep (adults? Maybe. One’s vaguely familiar, and it’s louder than all the rest of them) to be anybody Alma knew.
Alma tried to listen in, they really did--but this was hard enough to try and keep calm, this situation considered, so making out the words that were being said was too hard as it was--because they were barely audible, over the din of noise in Alma’s own head.
Finally someone else entered the room. They only seemed vaguely familiar at best, a person Alma couldn’t place (like Yuu , but older, more sorrow and bitterness than should have ever been on his face), but Alma could swear they knew somehow.
It’s not until they say Alma’s name, that Alma realises with a sorrow that seems to encompass their entire body, who this person is.
“ Yuu .”
“Alma.” Their name repeated by his lips.
“Yuu, what… What happened? What did they do to you? To us?”
Yuu sits next to Alma, looking at him with a gaze of incredible melancholia. Alma didn’t know such bittersweet sadness could exist in the world, or that, when Yuu looked at them like that, Alma would feel the same bittersweet sadness in their own core.
Alma’s tail moves to wrap around Yuu gently, Alma’s eyes filling up with tears. “ Yuu … Answer me.”
“We syncronised.” Yuu says, his tone so apologetic that it wounded Alma’s heart. “Alma, I’m sorry--I know you don’t want this but--”
“We--we did?” Alma cuts across in horror, slowly pulling their tail away from Yuu. Their brain, their thoughts, running at millions of miles per second, seems to halt, a train crashing, leaving Alma with almost no recollection of their words. “No… That can’t be right. They were going to destroy you, Yuu--I, I tried to destroy you. I would have destroyed you.”
No smile of Yuu’s should have been that sad . And sadness seemed like such a weak word, but Alma didn’t know any stronger, to explain how sad Yuu looked.
“You didn’t.” Yuu murmured, slowly pushing messy bangs out of Alma’s face. “...What do you remember, Alma?”
“...Us, as we should be,” Alma murmured, “that horrid realisation of the truth--but… then you, but as you are now. And we fight--and someone interrupts us, and everything goes dark and--”
Alma looks away. “Something warm. Something that feels like home, nestled in my body.”
“Yeah…” Yuu sighs softly, clearly unsure of what to say. It takes a long moment for him to say something, only for it to be cut off.
“Fuck.” Alma swears uncharacteristically. “Fuck, fuck! I didn’t want this to happen! We’re supposed to be dead!” Their body begins to shake in the restraints. “We’re supposed to be dead, to fuck the Order, to be away from them at last.”
Alma’s words break a bit, and Alma breaks into sobs. Their entire body seems to shake with the effort of sobbing, because they’re unable to curl up. Alma tries to flinch away from Yuu, but to no regard. It’s just a matter of sobbing, and sobbing--until they feel like no more tears can come out, but they do, oh, they do. Alma’d give anything to stop their sobbing, but they can’t, as much as they’d like it to.
“Alma,” Yuu murmurs, and Alma’s suddenly aware that their cuffs are gone, that Alma’s being held close as they sob. “Alma, it’s… I won’t say alright, but you will be well. I promise. I won’t let the Order hurt you. Never again.”
“You--you said we synced.” Alma hiccups, snot coming out of their nose as they find themself hugging back, not questioning how Yuu got them out of their shackles. “We can’t escape the Order. They’re never going to stop hurting us. Ever.”
Yuu swallows uncomfortably. “Alma…”
“What?” Alma asks, wiping at the ugly tears and snot that have seemed to encompass their entire being.
“...We’re not just pawns to them anymore.” Kanda swallows, not quite meeting Alma’s gaze. “In fact, I’ve… Agreed to stay here. In exchange for your life.”
Alma feels like their world shatters beneath them. So much has gone on, and it’s so confusing to them--like everything all at once is breaking, that the world they grew up in has no resemblance to this one, except for the fact that Yuu is alive.
So they do what the only thing they can think of is--they push Yuu away from them, shaking their head. “You… No. Take it back.” Alma’s voice shakes, in a distant, numb, unreal sort of way. “Take it back. We-- you have to take it back!”
Yuu slowly reaches out for Alma’s hands, only for Alma to push away once again, their hands going to tangle in their short, multi-coloured hair. “You have to take it back!” Alma screeches, curling up a bit, the actuality of this world beginning to set in.
They were trapped.
When Alma is finally released from this room, they’re given a set of clothing that Alma knows, without ever seeing it properly, is the exorcist uniform. It’s a pair of pants, a black tank top, and a jacket, which Alma fits over akuma extensions as best as they can, letting their tail roam free behind them, despite the fact it should be politely tucked away.
Alma finally gets to look at themself in a mirror.
Despite the hair being the cut they remember it being, it’s shades of blue and purple all throughout. Long blue marks trace down their face, and they’re paler than a corpse--with elongated teeth and ears to help throw their appearance into the uncanny valley. Their shoulders seem to have settled into a more slender frame, but every bit of colour stays on Alma’s body, with a pair of crosses that seem embedded stuck in their wrists.
Alma doesn’t quite look human anymore, and as they leave the jacket unbuttoned and follow their CROW escort out of the room they’ve been trapped in, they can’t help but wonder what’s become of the Order, in their long years of nothingness.
Alma catches the sideways glances people make at them as they walk behind the CROWs. Alma tells themself they don’t care, as people whisper ‘akuma’ and ‘monster’ and other, less politically correct words.
(Alma does care, a bit, but doesn’t dare show it.)
The room they enter has many members of the Central Organisation inside. There are some Exorcists as well--people whose uniforms are gold-marked to Alma’s red-marked, so Alma can only assume they’re either people who’ve been here for a long time, or people who haven’t been there very long at all.
It’s disconcerting, to see Yuu in the same gold, unwilling to meet Alma’s gaze as it stops on him.
“Alma Karma,” A tall man with slicked back brown hair, with a toothbrush mustache says Alma’s name. He’s not wearing an exorcist uniform, Alma takes note, but his uniform looks like the other members of the Central Organisation.
Manners, manners, Alma tells themself, but they’re unsure of what to say--so instead, they settle for a blunt, “Yes?”
It’s the wrong answer, Alma knows. They’re supposed to be politer than that, but all Alma wants is to see the Order burn, see this entire war burn. Alma cares not for politeness.
“No manners, I see.” The man comments.
“They don’t teach you manners when you come out of a hole.” Alma half snaps.
There’s a beat, before one of the gold-uniformed people--a tall man, with deep brown skin, with spiked hair and sharp teeth, and milky-white eyes--slaps Yuu on the back and says in a loud, boisterous voice, “I like your boyfriend, new kid. There’s fire in them.”
Alma feels his body under the collar grow a little hot. But he keeps his gaze on the man sitting down. “So what’s with the uniform?”
“Yours, or mine?”
“Mine.” Alma answers, disliking how their questions are answered with more questions.
“You’ve a friend in a rather high place,” the man says. It doesn’t go beyond Alma, how his eyes drift to Yuu, before back to Alma once more. “One who is willing to trade his freedom away to keep you alive, and us from executing you as the monster you are.”
“Malcolm,” an older man, in the same black-and-gold uniform cuts across, “There’s no need to antagonise Alma. I’m sure none of us actually want to fight them.”
Alma grips their hands into fists. “Listen. Pretend I’m barely a year old, altogether. Explain to me like you’d explain to a kid , minus the condescension of the part where you don’t actually care about what happens to me, so long as I don’t turn around and join the Earl.”
“You’re an exorcist now.” Yuu speaking. Alma turns to face him, a slightly alarmed look on his face. “Do you want the long story, or the short one?”
“Short one. I’m afraid too many details are going to make me trigger happy.”
Again, not the best words to say. Alma doesn’t ignore how the people in black-and-gold tense up a little, or how one of the CROW draws a talisman.
“Alma…” Yuu sighs. “You’re an exorcist. They needed another General. In exchange for my agreement--you became an exorcist. Your Innocence syncronised with you, this time without any complications. You’ve been unconscious for about two weeks, your body recovering from our fight.”
“So that’s it then?” Alma feels a great pain within them, as if their heart is being ripped out, shoved through a meat grinder, and then back into their chest. “We’re exorcists?”
“Yes."
Alma doesn’t remember much of what happens after this--only that things seemed blurry, and Yuu ends up pulling them outside, and Alma’s crying now. Alma’s crying and they don’t know why. They don’t know why and that’s the scary part, just that they’re crying with no need to be.
“Yuu, I--I don’t understand. Why would you do this--why not just die?” Alma’s hiccupping now, feeling like they’ve said it a million times. “ Why would you do this?! ”
“Alma…” Yuu pulls Alma into a hug. This is weird, this is out of character, and Alma knows that, so much, but they just hug back, sobbing into Yuu’s shoulder.
“We could have punished them,” Alma whispers.
“Life doesn’t work that way.” Yuu whispers back.