-Tethered-

-By: DeathHeiress88-

Summary: Something strange happened, something that rendered Allen unable to part with a certain Noah.

Disclaimer: Nope. Not mine. Only writing for fun.

Warning: I recommend reading first the preceding manga chapters of DGM before reading this fic, because you'll have a little difficulty in understanding what is happening. Spoilers up to chapter 205! And some things that aren't just for kids, so please beware!

Thank you for your reviews : Fan, Lalala, Kithren, 100thAngel, The Puppeteer Master, Colonel Lazy, The Final Horseman and mychemicalbitchbot

Hahahaha, sorry, I forgot to say it last time but this will surely be an irregularly updated fic.

Within this world that is deranged

With the one that is left estranged

Bond

Tyki couldn't completely say that he was surprised when the attack came jumping out behind the bushes.

He ducked out of the kick's way, quickly whirling around to face his assailant, which was, no surprise there, the Fourteenth's host. Tyki prepared for an Innocence-filled attack but he met the young man's fist instead.

Interesting, Tyki thought as he dodged another physical attack from the boy. I wonder why he doesn't use his Innocence? he wondered when Allen Walker sent another punch at him. The boy didn't seem to be willed to a fight, it looked more like he was forced into moving, if Tyki was right to judge the boy's trembling as uncertainty.

"Why are you so angry, boy?"

He couldn't keep the taunting tone out of his voice just as the young man couldn't stop panting in exasperation.

"Why are you taking your frustrations out on me, boy?"

The said boy didn't answer, but silence was the answer Tyki was expecting. It means he was right, that he was being treated as the scapegoat.

Tyki wanted to laugh but instead found himself irritated and a bit…confused. He shrugged the thoughts away, and just moved closer to the young boy. He raised an eyebrow when the fugitive exorcist took a step back.

"You're afraid."

Tyki don't know whether the teen was consciously cupping his left arm or it was an unconscious gesture.

Hmm…

"You cannot use your Innocence, can you?"

He took a step forward. The other took another backward.

"You're the one that attacked me. So, why are you running now?"

Tyki saw the indecision in the young man's eyes. The fear. The confusion. The sense of powerlessness.

Tyki felt disgusted.

"Are you still hopelessly dependent on that thing?"

The boy gritted his teeth but he managed to spat out, "Stay away!"

Tyki harrumphed then sneered at the boy. Instead of staying away, he strode forward.

Allen felt boiling anger as he watched the Noah approach him. He felt disgust at himself, for being helpless, for being powerless against the Noahs…and everything else. He gripped his left arm harder, aware that while it was still able to move, he cannot feel the Innocence residing there.

What did HE do to it?

He resisted the urge to look down and cry, blinking away the tears of disappointment that welled against his will. He tried invoking it earlier, he tried to do it many times but his Innocence did not activate.

He felt worse than the time he thought he lost his Innocence forever. Worse than when he almost lose consciousness while summoning his Innocence back at the Asian Branch. It doesn't respond to him anymore.

But he cannot, don't want, to believe that his Innocence cut him off. Yes, he had a moment of weakness but…

"You're a terrible poker player, right now, shounen. I can tell what you're feeling."

Allen snapped up, unaware that he looked down and that the Noah of Pleasure was now a mere foot away. His knuckles tightened in agitation and he can't help but lash out. "What did you do to my Innocence?"

The older man raised an eyebrow, an act that was getting painfully familiar to Allen. He looked to be on verge of saying something but the set of footsteps that seem louder than before froze both of them.

The Order.

Allen saw the Noah narrowing his eyes before turning to the source of the noise.

"Tch. Oi, take Road and run. I'll take care of the exorcists." The Noah didn't glance at him when he addressed Allen, he continued looking out the vast darkness of the forest.

Allen felt a wave of tension coming out of the Noah and this in turn triggered Allen's anger. "I'm still one of those exorcists you need to take care of, you know." He snarled out, Allen could feel both their tempers rising, yet he did nothing to ease it.

Tyki Mikk smiled that damned smiled again, the one he used just before he ripped Allen's arm off. He pointed at Allen left hand and said in a deceptively sweet manner. "Shounen, you still call yourself an Exorcist even when that doesn't answer you? Even when you are obviously being hunted by them?"

Allen couldn't find any retort to that, the implications of what the Noah said echoing in his mind. His nails dug harder on his arm and his teeth gripped his lips tougher than necessary. He remained still as that even as the Noah slipped again through the darkness.

He stayed silent and unmoving, confused and bewildered, until a soft voice murmured.

"Don't let this hinder you. Don't stop. Keep walking. Just like what Neah told Mana."

Allen turned to Road, the familiar words shocking him out of his reverie. "Road, you're awake!" he said, startled. She didn't answer him for a moment, simply smiling at him. He stared at her, her broken smile touching something inside his heart.

"Neah…He fought for Mana…"

Neah…Mana's younger brother…

The brother that Mana keeps looking for…

The brother he erased from Mana's memory…

The brother that's supposed to erode him in time.

"It's…a sec—secret…o…kay…?"

Allen stood shock-still as he watched light enfold Road's little body. Her words rang within his ears, her image, battered and weak, so unlike the Road he knew, burned on his eyes. She slowly dissolved into masses of white light, like a dream slowly fading away. She was completely gone, too late, when he had enough sense to stop her from disappearing.

His hand grasped at nothing, like a fool seizing a fantasy that was already worn from too much envisioning.

Allen stood there, amidst molten emotions and the hovering darkness, clasping air as he wondered what he should he do, unaware of the thin silver cord around his left arm.

The guilt and confusion creeps in

As we pay for our unknown sin

It turned out that Tyki didn't need to 'take care' of the Order's dogs.

He stopped short, just as the Third Exorcist finished the ones chasing them. Tyki looked at the fallen bodies, the uniform of those beaten, or what bloody parts left of it, tell him that they were mere Finders.

Trevor, Trena or Trevak, whatever the name is, turned to him and bowed. "Please hurry and take Allen Walker, Noah-sama. I'm afraid but others seem to be coming soon."

Tyki eyed the hybrid. The Third could probably handle the Crows and Exorcists separately but both at the same time would be a handful even for her. His eyes fell on her arm, the arm made from Akumas. He finally nodded after a tense minute and started to walk back to the boy.

The Earl would be quite displeased if Tyki should lose a pawn this early.

After asking Tim to be smaller again, Allen called forth an Ark Gate. This would be the last time. The last time he would ask for help from the Ark, from the Noahs and from—

"Running away?"

Allen halted and looked back where the Noah of Pleasure stood. They stared at each other, gold probing at silver, breaths caught in their throats. A light breeze drafted, shaking the leaves of the surrounding forest and bestowing Allen a whiff tobacco hidden by rich perfume.

"I'm not running away. It's just that I don't belong here anymore." Allen whispered.

The older man remained silent, the act unreasonably fuming Allen's vexation but he was able to stomp upon the starting fires of uncalled for anger. Instead of dignifying the Noah with an answer, Allen turned back to the Gate.

"Think or do you want. I didn't expect you to understand."

"The Earl wanted you to come with us."

Allen stilled at that, unsure of what the other man wanted him to answer.

"…I…don't belong there either."

"You are the 14th."

"I won't give in to him."

"Being what you really are is not giving in."

The bottled feelings coalesced into fury, causing Allen to snap his head towards the Noah and stalked nearer.

"I am not the Fourteenth!"

"Quite the denial for someone—"

"I! AM! ALLEN! WALKER!"

Somewhere in his mind, Allen knew that he was being hysterical but a major part of his mind didn't want to admit that the Noah was right. That he was just a vessel for someone. That he was just an illusion made by the Fourteenth. That he was just a piece of lost music, a hanging note created and then forgotten.

That he wasn't the one that Mana really loved.

He whirled around and ran almost blindly to the Ark Gate. He felt his body crossing the Ark Gate threshold, felt the artificial wind inside the pure-white town; he smelled the sweet fragrance of scattered flowers, heard that piece of music he always hear inside the Ark.

Only to be tugged by an invisible force back to the forest, back where the leaves rustle nervously, where there was darkness, where there was this faint smell of tobacco overridden by perfume, where golden eyes peered down at him, shocked.

Where Tyki Mikk was.

It took a moment for Tyki's brain to register what happened.

He gazed down at silver eyes that were as dumbfounded as his, his mind rerunning the scene where the boy tried to embark the Ark.

Only it seems that life has other plans for the boy because the moment he step into it something yanked the boy back into Tyki's…feet.

The flabbergasted look on the boy's face turned into an uncharacteristic glare. The teen quickly got up, moving so fast it reminded Tyki of a feline that was scalded. The young man slowly backed away, baring his teeth in a snarl that made Tyki wonder whether the boy will purr in anger soon.

"What did you do?" the boy hissed, this time reminding Tyki of a cat whose tail he once stepped upon. Tyki cocked his head sideward before smirking, "Why did you jump out the Ark like a scalded cat? And to land at my feet of all places. Did you miss me already?"

He observed with growing satisfaction the way the boy flushed then stuttered. "Wha—what? I didn't do that!"

Tyki felt the wind caress his tumbling locks, the edges of his cape fluttering against his legs. The night breeze also tousled the boy's hair, messing up with the already disheveled hair. Another second ticked by and Tyki's eyes held on the way the white curls flail next to a column of white throat.

"—can't stop me. I appreciate the way you and Roa—"

In contrast to the dim way his ears pick up the boy's speech, Tyki's eyes found a sudden interest with the way the boy's mouth move. Golden eyes followed thin lips open and close, a tongue quickly went out, wetting the chapped orifice.

"—n't need your help!"

His relative consciousness returned as the sight his eyes were devouring vanished. In its stead was a silvery-white mass of hair atop a small set of shoulders. Tyki sighed in grief before realizing that the boy was saying that he didn't need Tyki's assistance, or any Noah's for that matter, and that he have a plan on his own and so on and so forth and started again towards the Ark.

Tyki opened his mouth to snap back, to say that if it weren't for them the boy would be now joined with that Apo-creep, to point out that he was using their Ark, to brag that the boy was limping now in fatigue and would soon need Tyki to carry him. He even got the first syllable of the retort out before something flashed under the moonlight.

The thread, or what looks like it, was slackly wrapped around the boy's blackened arm and continued downwards. His eyes traced the glinting path it made towards…Tyki's own left arm. He had the sudden foreboding about the thin, almost invisible, string. But his hands seem to have a life of their own as they gingerly felt the cord.

Tyki felt the younger man's heart skip a beat and heard his breath caught. His own heart sped up n apprehension, that was impossible because they were now meters away…

This is…

This time, his fingers tightly clasped the fine line and the familiar burn wiped his remaining doubts away..

Innocence...?

Could this forged curse be mended

To something like a sword wielded?

So this is Tethered's chapter two

Served quite late to you!

I'm sorry for the delayed update

But real life's keeping me up late!

Fuck my rapping beat that's off

I know you now try not to scoff

All I want to say

In this uniquely silly way

Was for my beloved you

To give me a review!

PLEASE REVIEW!