Ack! It's been almost exactly three months (it would have been exactly if I'd waited til tomorrow to post this) since my last update! Again, I'm sorry for the long wait. I had planned to get it up within a month but…well, time flies when you're procrastinating.

WARNING! If you have not watched the anime up to episode 27 then this chapter will not make a lot of sense, and will have some spoilers in it if you're watching the anime and haven't gotten that far!

…Innocence, please, activate!

That was the last thought I had before the world went dark, then, a bright white filled my vision and cape-like something that looked oddly familiar with a silver, black and gold mask, making a motion as if it were smiling at me before fading out. Then, just after the image of whatever that had been faded, other images began flashing through my mind as I could feel my body begin moving, my hand slashing at the Akuma trying to kill me, but I was not moving it of my own will.

I watched the seemingly shapeless and out of order images flash by for a few minutes as I continued to feel my body move without permission. When they finally settled into a coherent pattern, I found myself I standing behind a boy of roughly twelve, whom I now knew was me, playing cards with himself at a table in a restaurant, Cross was sitting in the background, sipping a glass of wine. I figured that this particular memory must have been during my training. Suddenly, a bunch of angry, burly men came into the picture and began to yell at Cross about a debt and money, getting my younger self's attention as well. Cross, who had stood rather calmly suddenly took off towards the door of the restaurant, my younger self and the men close behind him as he rushed out the door. I followed myself, wondering what would occur between Cross and the men.

"You take care of them!"

The sound of Master Cross' voice snapped me out of my thoughts. It seemed that while I was thinking, I missed something because now I was running beside empty space, I blinked, pausing for a moment and looking back in the direction we'd come from, I saw myself getting tied up by the men. I twitched a bit, but followed, knowing what was coming wouldn't be pleasant. A few minutes later, I was sitting beside my—currently tied up—self and staring at a Life Insurance policy, listening as the men said that they'd throw me into a river to get the payment Cross owed them. I twitched for the second time in the span of ten minutes as I ran off yelling for help. The scene faded as I ran alongside myself.

In rapid succession afterwards, I saw myself working hard nearly dieing several times, earning money, learning to play poker and gamble, cheating at gambling to make more money only to have all of it taken by Cross and blown on stupid unneeded things like booze and women. No wonder I had felt the way I had when Cross first appeared on the road. To think, I had actually thanked him after my first memory came back, no wonder Lavi and Lenalee gave me such strange looks. Right now, all I wanted to do was punch him. I quickly made a mental note to try if I was able to get out of that situation with the Akuma…

That thought aside, I refocused on the scenes that were still playing out quickly. I saw myself again, a little bit older this time. I was standing on one foot, speaking to another boy about the same age as me with messy brown hair as he regarded my ankle, prodding it here and there to see if anything was broken. I heard myself addressing him as Nalei before asking him to be gentle.

Again, the scene switched and I was talking back to Master Cross as he took the money again, asking how long I had to pay off his debts and saying I hadn't gotten any training. After a short pause, Cross smirked then tossed my younger self out into the street where a few Akuma were floating.

"I see, you want training? Now is as good a time as any. You go fight them."

He said, sitting on a bench to watch as I ran around, avoiding the bullets from the Akuma. Then, attempting to get my Anti-Akuma weapon working. I briefly mused on how the memory I was getting back, was the memory of back when I couldn't use my weapon when I needed to use the weapon. Again, as I had before when being attacked in the present, I wondered why the Innocence had activated when Mana's Akuma had attacked me but not when these Akuma were. After the futile attempt at getting the Innocence to work, Cross must have gotten bored with the game he was playing—or had actually wanted to keep me from getting killed, which I sincerely doubted—and destroyed the Akuma, stated that I'd have to earn twice as much money the next day. I felt my eye twitch slightly as a sat beside the younger me. I should have known. He'd saved me then because I was his only source of income.

The scene shifted, and I was standing behind Nalei, looking at his sister's—Mina's—body as it lay covered in a blanket and surrounded by multicoloured flowers, a look of shock crossed my face. He was kneeling in front of the coffin, a book in his hands, explaining what had happened to her and how he couldn't bring her back, how he was useless. Immediately, I knew where this memory was going, and I attempted to stop it but my voice caught in my throat, the same as the first time. Unable to speak, I simple watched the scene unfold, slowly shifting into the memory, as I had the first time. Now, I was seeing things the way I had back then. As I made a flower arrangement adorned with two candles in a basket and took the gift for Mina out to Nalei. We exchanged a few words, the awful feeling of knowing what was going to happen before it did growing in my stomach as the gift slipped from my hands, smashing on the ground.

I listened as Master Cross explained what had happened, giving me a name for the donkey-eared man that had turned Mana, and now Mina, into an Akuma. The Millennium Earl. I knew now who it was I fought against and why I needed to release the souls as I activated my arm, destroying Mina's Akuma. The memory faded abruptly as Mina's soul floated up and away, free of the bonds that held her to the Akuma's Shell.

As I came back to consciousness, the very same realization that had come to me then, when I destroyed my first Akuma willingly, came to me now. I also remembered the name that had been given to my Innocence, even if it had not been in that specific memory.

I needed to fight to free the souls trapped within the Akuma.

I would fight to free the souls within the Akuma. Using Crown Clown, I would fight against the Earl and I would win, to free the souls he'd trapped.

I felt a small, grim smile stretch across my lips as I remembered the purpose of my becoming an Exorcist. As I glanced around, I noticed the white bands wrapped around my arms and legs like puppet strings and the bodies of the other few Akuma that had been with the Snake that had been about to kill me.

I looked over the damage that I—no, that my Innocence had done using my body, to the Snake Akuma who'd threatened me. It was still alive, though not quite as good as new, it looked as if Crown Clown had attacked and injured it pretty badly. Again, a smile spread across my lips, this time a sympathetic one as I looked at the soul bound to it.

"Pitiful Akuma," I said, raising my clawed hand before slashing down at it. "May your soul find salvation…"

Next chapter, I'll continue this in Third Person with Lenalee. I felt like doing this one with Allen.

This has been sitting in My Documents gathering dust because I couldn't think of how to finish this chapter… I actually ended up rewriting all of what I had when I went back and rewatched a few episodes. As a result, it's much, much shorter than it originally would have been. Oops…

For all of those who didn't know what I was talking about with Mina and Nalei and everything before that and want to know, search up 'DGray-man 27' on Megavideo(dot)com to figure it out. It's a filler-type-thing that was only in the anime, and it'll probably describe things better than I can. I'm sorry if i managed to spoil some things for people too...

As for the Prequel I was writing, 'Relations', if you haven't already guessed, it's on Hiatus until this one is finished. Which could take awhile.

Please review!

~Star

PS: I'm going to be attempting--the key word there is 'attempt'--to make this a tri-weekly (every three weeks) to a monthly story. But I make absolutely no guarentees that I'll stay regular.