Title: The Wiped Slate

Pairing(s): No pairings planned for now, but this may change.

Summary: More than a century later, no one remembers the danger and the ancient war. They think he's going mad.

Disclaimer: I don't own DGM, quite obviously.

"In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost."

– Dante Alighieri, Inferno

(The 21st century)

Sometimes, Allen Walker thinks about killing himself. He wonders how it would be like to place a knife against his throat, cold blade breaking soft skin, and then to feel the rush of blood out his jugular vein with every faltering beat of his heart. Other times, he thinks about swallowing death, and going in silence to his long sleep.

No one remembers the past, now. No one remembers the danger. He is the only one left in the mire, his very existence a living hell, one foot in the present and another in the past.

When sleep comes to him, he dreams of red dawns and sorrowful sunsets, of ashes and dust. First, there is darkness, and then the sky blinks into view, fading into a silent night.

Then there is mist, and then there are monsters, rising from the valleys and the moors, their silhouettes dark against the full moon, these strange creatures wrought of steel and iron. He can remember the pain, the agony – the distorted souls calling for help, the searing pain of the Akuma bullets, the grey, crumbling skin of the dying and the ashes that paint the sky a dreary empty-black.

And then he wakes, bathed in the morning light, drenched in sweat, his heartbeat erratic and fast.

These are nightmares, Lenalee tells him. Why don't you visit a psychiatrist? And she should know, for she works under the auspices of a distinguished mental health provider. But Allen says, no, no, always no, for who could understand such twisted dreams? Who might understand how real the dreams are, how he wakes with terror in his blood and the nightmares that waking cannot chase away, still coursing through the routine of his daily life?

He knows, though he cannot bring himself to say it – he knows that these dreams are parts of his past, things he experienced ages ago, when they were still – no, he still cannot say it.

For there was a war. The dreams tell him that much.

There was a war, and he had fought in in it, lifetimes ago. Was it lifetimes ago? It seems right to believe so, and yet Allen cannot shake off the feeling that he is still in the same lifetime, still the same person who fought those metal monsters in the streets of a Victorian city. And yet, how could it be? After all, he lives in the twenty-first century.

Then one day the answers come in the prism of his demented sleep. In the midst of carnage, he stands outside the destroyed headquarters, watching as the blood-red moon shivers in the grey dawn. The crumbling towers reach into the firmament, gothic and broken, and the Earl bears down on the host of the church.

Lightning flares – the Earl raises his sword – the battlefield disappears.

So, the story is this: one day, more than a century ago, Allen closed his eyes, and woke up the next day, a hundred years older and yet none the wiser.

Two years after he awoke in this strange world, with its fast automobiles and its tall glass buildings, with its cold people and surreal landscape, he still has no idea how he ended up in a strange century, with no Akuma in sight. Where are the monsters hiding now? Where is the blood, the bullets, the death throes of a rotten world?

No one else remembers.

None of his friends – Lenalee, Lavi, Kanda – heed his warnings about the impending battle.

But can't they remember the blood, the toil? Can't they see the ghosts of the past, closing in with every night? Can't they feel the tentacles of the Earl around them, his very guile? Can't they see the faces, the tears, his fright?

The dreams are more vivid now – they paint his nights red, drawing blood and gnawing away at his memories and his sanity. Soon, one day, the Earl will rise again, and they will be doomed to a land of depravity and sin.

Lenalee looks at the sleeping figure beside her. "You sure about this, Lavi?"

Lavi shrugs. "This is the only way, Lena."

The drugged figure in the back seat bounces slightly as Kanda rushes the car over a tall road bump and finally coasts to a rough stop. "Here," Kanda says. "Now get out."

"Get a wheelchair, Lena," Lavi says. "I can't carry him, and Yu won't."

Lenalee grabs the nearest wheelchair; together, the three friends wheel an unconscious boy into the Noah Hospital situated at the outskirts of town. They are met by a tall doctor with a flirtatious smile and a head of curly, dark hair.

"How can I help you?" the doctor asks.

Lavi glances at the man's badge. "Ah – Dr Mikk? We're here with our friend… he's a little not right in the head. So we thought we'd bring him to be evaluated."

"You're looking for the psychiatric department," Dr Mikk says. "Take that elevator, and go up to the thirteenth floor. Dr Kamelot will examine him shortly."

The three wheel the unconscious boy away, and Dr Mikk allows himself one feral grin before he turns back to his work.

(The 19th century)

A sword against his throat, a pain in his side.

Allen takes a deep breath and looks the Earl in his eyes. "You're lying."

"I am not," the Earl says simply.

The Earl withdraws his sword. Allen allows himself to relax for a moment, allows himself to breath freely, allows himself to lower his own sword to the ground.

Then the Earl raises his sword to the sky, and Allen braces himself for the next blow. It doesn't come. What does come is a flash of lightning, splitting asunder the fabric of the grey sky.

In that moment, when everything sizzles white-hot, Allen sees Lenalee sprawled on the ground, struggling against Lulu Bell's talons; he sees Lavi and Fiidora face to face, with Lavi writhing against Fiidora's hold. Kanda too, is bleeding from wounds Allen cannot see. He swings Mugen, and Tyki Mikk meets the sharp blade with ease, allowing the sharp edge to slice through his momentarily non-existent flesh.

Then the Earl laughs. The lightning kisses the tip of his blade, and Allen waits for the Earl to char and fall.

But that is not what happens.

What happens is that the light becomes so blinding that Allen cannot see, and so he closes his eyes. Nothing comes after. There is no smell of something burning, none of the cascade of terrible yells that usually accompanies bloodthirsty fighting. There is no more pain, no more wind, just an abyss of darkness. That is Allen's last thought.

Then the world winks out.

(The Saga of the Sleeping Warriors)

Once upon a time, in a land and time unknown, a strong and hardy folk took their last stand against a race of monsters. After centuries of warfare unending and deaths unnumbered, the defenders were tired but unyielding.

Then came the day when the invaders brought their host to stand before the crumbing walls; archers pointed their bows upwards, and catapults loaded like serpents waiting to strike.

The leaders of the defenders came to the fore to the succour of the soldiers, their dark cloaks flapping in the angry wind. They stood on the heights of the broken walls, looking down at the strange men who had come to harry them and destroy them.

They called upon their ancient magic, their lore of wood and of stone, their love for the trees and the animals and the empty plains where a man could ride a full day and not see another village. They prayed and thought of their fears of being hemmed in and oppressed by ones who did not understand them, and they called upon their ancient gods to rise from deep sleep and endow them with magic unencumbered.

The tide of the battle turned. The defenders were winning. And in that hour, the victory would have been theirs.

However, the chief of the invaders stepped forth just when his host was being decimated at the greater rate. Casting back his hood, his curls flying free, he cursed the land and the ancient gods and brought forth a greater power of destruction.

He killed not, for he would not dirty his hands, but he cast the defenders into a deep sleep from which they were not to awaken. The lands he took, and the ordinary folk, and soon the memory of the defenders passed away like a whisper in a gale. No minstrel's tale spoke of them, no bards sang of them.

The brambles grew thick over the abandoned fort, and the warriors slept on through the spiralling years. The clouds were always grey over that land, and birds sang no more in the nearby forests. The fort became a place of sepulchral splendour, a decaying town where the river of time no longer flowed. It was a thing of beauty, and a thing of tragedy, a cairn for those lost in a miasma of enchanted sleep.

At last, when three whole centuries had passed, the spell passed, collapsing in on itself, and the warriors awoke. Again they donned their armour and sharpened their weapons, and set out to hunt their enemies, their ancient enmity still unforgotten despite the long intervening years.

When asked, they would say, a war is never over until the last of the enemy lies buried under the soil.

And so, they hunted.

AN: The premise of this fic: The Earl moves the war through time. Basically one moment they're fighting in the 19th century, and the next, they're living in the 21st century with no inkling of their past and nothing in their minds but manufactured memories. This is not a reincarnation fic. This scenario was inspired by EulaliaGal's fic Yearn (which is a beautiful read).

I hope you'll enjoy this. Thanks for reading, and con-crit is always welcome.