A/n: MERRY CHRISTMAS! :3

The snow drifted down gently, twirling in uncaring circles as it landed softly on the still earth. A slight warm breeze wafted through the angelic field, causing stray twigs and layers of snow to dance across the meadow. The sun gleamed softly, giving the snow-covered Earth a sparkling sheen.

The silence didn't suit it. But it would always be silent, when he wasn't in the picture.

Or rather, he was there, but it wasn't him. He was not the same. But he was there nonetheless. Personally, I wondered if he had meant to deceive me, because he was doing a very poor job of. Did he really think I wouldn't be able to tell who was hiding in that little boy? But he was always a deceiver, a trickster. I certainly, had never known that he would betray me.

And now he sat underneath the cross, looking all too innocent from what I knew he was capable of. His grey eyes filled with sorrow, the brown haired boy looked sadly across the expanse of the grave. It was frightening how alike they looked. For a moment, I wondered if I could really kill him.

The moment quickly passed. I was the Millennium Earl after all, the heartless creator of Akuma. I exploited human emotion, and made a hefty profit off it. I hated that affection, that insensibility that came with being a human. It destroyed the world. They were so pathetic, those humans, and I was the one who was supposed to fix it. I was stern, even with the other Noah, and this boy should be no exception.

But… but I had dined with him, shared my opinions with him, spent long hours into the night listening to him play even. He was the musician, the 14th, my favourite child. The only one who understood me, whom I could hold decent conversations with, who would stay up late to wait for me… why had he betrayed me?

It was Christmas again, a foolish human holiday. A day to hope, a day to celebrate, a day to gain presents, even; it just proved how irrational humanity was. But I didn't mind it. No, of course not. It was after all, the date when the most suicides happen, and it would be only within a few days time that I would get a influx of precious Akuma. It was also one of the days, that I remember most clearly.

The 14th had surprised me then, when I had just gotten back from turning the foreign minister of Japan into an Akuma. Perhaps I should have seen it then, his uncanny love for humans. He had decorated the manor, and had somehow roped the remaining Noah into helping. I had come back to a peculiar scene, with lights blaring and decaying trees put up with little ordainments of death and destruction (courtesy of the 1st). I had been helplessly angry. We were not humans after all. And then he had come up, with a fluffy beard in one hand and a ridiculous red coat in the other.

"Will you be my Santa?" He had asked, smiling bashfully

That was all it took for my anger to deflate. I had agreed in my cheerful manner, and the rest of the holiday had turned out spectacularly. He had even written a Sonata for me as a Christmas gift. For once I could see the appeal to the pathetic human holiday.

Now I wonder if that was a sincere gesture, or if that was just another test to see how far I would let him go. I hated it, how I could not look back on my memories without second guessing the 14th. I hated how far I had let him go. I wondered… if I had been harsher, stricter, would he still be with me now? Would we be looking at this boy in front of me together, planning together on how to get him to create an Akuma?

I stopped that train of thought. No, even I, the Millennium Earl, had weaknesses. I knew that, but I couldn't let anyone else catch glimpse of it. Instead, I concentrated on the boy in front of me, the boy who was about to lose his life very soon. For a moment, I felt pity for the boy; after all, he was only going to die because the 14th was inside of him. The trickster, whom had deceived me for all these years, and then some more, by pretending that he was dead, deserved nothing less than a death sentence. But now that no one else was here, the trickster could not possibly be revived again.

I pulled out my sword, intent on swooping down like some fallen angel to kill the boy… but I paused. There was something about the boy, something I couldn't quiet put my finger on. Something about his untainted sorrow, something that was different from the way he lingered at the grave, something that all the others had lacked. Something the 14th himself, had lacked. I descended onto the grave, twisting around so I could get a better look at the boy whom the 14th had chosen to be his vessel. And then I realized it; his eyes were all too innocent. I couldn't stop the sudden wish that surged, the overwhelming hope that the one deemed the musician would come back to me. Perhaps, perhaps if the 14th stayed with this pure boy, he would finally realize… I put away my sword. Inwardly, I laughed at myself; wasn't this exactly what I scorned humans for feeling? Yet… yet I could not stop.

And so I uttered the fateful words.

"Do you want me to revive, Mana Walker? :3"