Neah Needs a Hug//shot

Her breath came out in short, agitated bursts as Lenalee looked upon the scene before her. Littering the ground were scores upon scores of music sheets, each one bearing the telltale signs of incessant, almost manic revisions.  The air tasted stale and unwelcoming in her mouth. The white walls of the room burned in her eyes.

Moments before she had been tearing through a dark forest after an ephemeral figure ahead of her—one she knew well. Its glowing white light had been the first thing to catch her attention in the ominous wilderness.  Its shock of matching white hair had been the second. Without a thought she had bolted for it, the world suddenly stilling as if someone had frozen everything aside from herself and the beacon before her. It was stopped, its back to her, in a clearing just ahead of her. With several quick sprints she entered the open area as well, her heart feeling as though it were lodged in her throat. She slowed considerably as she broke through the last bit of brush on the outskirts of the clearing, but she wouldn’t stop. Hesitation had stopped her last time—and she feared it would do so again.

The figure didn’t stray closer to her from its spot, never turned to face the girl. She had the feeling it did this with great reluctance.

When they were mere feet from each other, the young female exorcist’s legs began to buckle unsteadily, but she urged them forward regardless. At last, when she was nearly close enough to reach the nearly tangible light, she halted in place. There was a dangerous air to it, and the warning sirens in her head had come to life, warding her away from further action.

“Allen,” she whispered, saying the name with a plea for confirmation.

The figure gave no response, but the girl could almost feel the tension building behind what she could see of its masquerade-like façade. Her throat was dry as she reached a trembling hand toward her former friend. If she could just touch him, she would know he was real. That it wasn’t an illusion.

But with her motion, the world seemed to flare back to life. Its frozen stupor was gone.

The figure, too, appeared to have noticed the breaking of the spell, for it began moving quick as a flash and as though whatever invisible restraints binding it in place had broken on command.

“ALLEN!” she screamed ahead.

Her voice tore through the night, scattering the nocturnal inhabitants of the woodlands into a frenzied panic, but the light before her didn’t falter. Lenalee dashed after it. Her body was on fire. It felt like every cell was being engulfed in a steadily burning flame. Yet even with all her energy, she couldn’t catch up.

As the chase grew longer and longer, frustrated tears pricked the back of Lenalee’s eyes as she locked them onto her target. It had to be a nightmare. It had to be! No matter how fast she ran, the figure remained out of reach. The sturdy legs she normally relied on soon began felt inadequate beneath her. Her greatest strength gone. She choked back her disappointment, knowing it was a losing battle.

However, even with that knowledge she persisted. Lenalee wasn’t the type to give up. No exorcist was. And so she continued careening through the brambles and branches of the trees without hesitation. She hardly noticed how the air began to hurt as it scratched down her throat, or how the wounds she’d received earlier that day were opening up again. All that mattered was the glowing form before her.

Seconds felt like hours. Minutes like days. All the while, Lenalee’s pursuit never ceased, and the shape before her never stopped fleeing. Eventually, though, her physical limitations conquered her. The world, already dim because of the tree canopy above and the lack of stars in the night sky, steadily grew darker around the edges of her vision. It was during this period that she tripped, and it was during this time that she finally allowed herself to think about their past.

Four years.

It had been four years since she’d seen her rogue comrade.

Four years since she’d heard his voice.

Four years since he’d cast aside his life and friends out of some misconceived, altruistic ideal.

She cursed her luck. Of course their reunion had to be on a day when her body was weak from a mission. God loved making accommodators suffer, after all. The innocence, the Order, the hardships she’d faced because of His Holy War all confirmed it.

The pricking behind her eyes grew as she regained her balance, but no tears came. Pushing her broken body past its limits, she activated her crystallized Dark Boots, and the blood gushing from her stigmata drained her further. The innocence completed the repairs she hadn’t allowed it to finish earlier that day.

In the end it was Lenalee’s determination that allowed her to catch up with her friend. With her last spurt of energy, she pushed herself close to the Ark’s master as he dashed toward another unnatural light within the forest. He had called upon a gate—one which she had pushed herself through just barely as it shattered in fractured light around her, sealing Lenalee in the universe unique to the Ark.

Her entrance could have gone better. That much she would admit. Lenalee had stumbled in half dazed with exhaustion, lost her balance, and ended up with her face pressed against the stark white floor of the piano room. When she lifted herself from the ground, she did it with no aid. None had been offered. The figure she’d followed in remained at his spot by the piano, his face turned down and away from his former comrade.

Once she had found her footing Lenalee glanced at him, no longer sure of what to do. In all the rampant scenarios that had plagued her mind after his desertion, she’d never expected their meeting to feel this… awkward.

She’d expected emotion. Whether it be hatred, sadness, amnesty, forgiveness—she’d planned for the emotions to come without any prompting, to flow out as naturally as water falling over a cliff. To manifest with the same intensity too.

But all she felt was the coiling of her tensed muscles; the tightness in her shoulders; the dizziness as she glanced around the bleached out room, its expanse like a blank canvas opposed to change. It unsettled her. How could Allen live in a place so bare?

Her violet eyes turned toward the white haired boy, but just before reaching him they stopped on the mirror opposite the piano. In it she could see his face. His eyes. She gasped.

Golden. Noah.

As the realization came over her, Lenalee could have sworn her innocence gave off an aggressive air, rumbling ominously like thunder within a cloud container. But she wouldn’t let it out. Instead she purposefully walked across the room, her boots crackling in anticipation for battle.

Alle—Neah—never looked up as she approached. Sweat beaded down her back. In an odd way it made her heart ache to know that even if he had raised his eyes to her, she wouldn’t be met with the same cool gray of four years ago. But perhaps it was best he never acknowledged her. It gave her time to gather her courage.

She closed the space with no malice in her heart. Her trembling arms eased around the figure with surprising ease, but more surprising was the fact that he had allowed her to get this close at all. When he did little besides tense, Lenalee brought herself closer, embracing the shell of her old friend. He was still warm, she thought, a single tear finally falling from her eye.  

The two stood there for what seemed a long time, folded in a moment of time where the war no longer existed, in a time where they were two people only. Two humans. There was no exorcist or Noah or villain here. They were the gray area encompassed in unerring white walls. Pure.

Finally the boy in Lenalee’s arms moved. Ever so slightly, and with more gentleness than she’d ever expected, he turned toward her. The eyes were still gold, but a part of her wished to see the gray-eyed boy reflected there, the one her comfort had truly been extended to.

When he used his voice, she noticed it was smooth as silk and much deeper than she remembered. More melodic. It was haunting.

“I doubt that was meant for me,” said the Noah of Destruction, his eyes finally meeting those of the female exorcist, “but thank you. I needed a hug.”