After five months, Cross said that he will go to a mission in London. Sarah asked to follow him.
“No” Cross said “You will stay here and help Meriam to read and write”
Meriam was an orphan girl, which they found her sleeping in the courtyard of the monastery. From that night, they made her part of the church, teaching and training her to become an exorcist.
“Alright” Sarah said accompanied Cross until the entrance. Timcanpy flew and sat at his owner’s shoulder. The man turned and leaved the monastery.
During a snowy night, Sarah and Meriam were sitting on the table of the monastery’s kitchen. The little girl was reading the bible and Sarah was observing her as she was writing a part, which she learned by heart, in a paper.
They heard someone knocking the door and Mother Rebecca opened it, seeing Cross standing in the entrance, holding a boy in his arms.
“Cross?! You came back! Who is that child?!” they heard from the kitchen, Sarah turned to Meriam “Stay here, I will be back” the girl knobbed and Sarah walked to the main corridor, seeing Cross holding a sleeping boy with white hair and swollen face.
“Who is that?” she asked
“He was Mana’s adopted son”
“Was?”
“Mana died, three weeks ago” Sarah lowered her head “Who both know that this is not truth” she whispered “Right?”
“I don’t know what he is planning to do” Cross said and approached his bedroom leaving the boy on his bed “But for now, I have to save him. The scratch on his face became infected and he has high fever” Sarah touched the boy’s forehead
“You are right. He is burning” she said
“Sister Sarah” they heard a girlish voice. They turned and saw Meriam standing some meters away from the bed “Who is he?”
“Just a son of an old friend”
“Can I help?”
“Bring me the botany book” the girl ran to the Sarah’s bedroom, where she had the books and took a green one. She ran back to Cross’s room and gave it to the nun. The woman opened it and showed a page to the girl “Do you see this plant? It’s called aloe, it’s for the swollen by wounds’ infections. I want you to go to the herb shop and take some” the girl knobbed and ran out of the bedroom
“She is learning quick” Cross said
“Yeah, she will be a great exorcist” she turned to the boy who had wet fabrics on his face, by Mother “What is his name?”
“Allen”
“So, Allen D. Campbell?”
“No. Mana changed his last name, after Nea’s death. He was going with Walker”
Sarah remembered the young man with the milky skin and the brown hair in a ponytail, turning to her smiling “I will not stop. I will keep walking” “How ironic” she whispered smiling.
After some minutes, Meriam was back with the aloe leaves. She gave them to Mother Rebecca, who broke them above a plate, taking out it’s jelly content. With a spoon she spread the content on the young boy’s left side of the face and wrapped it with gazes.
Meriam looked his face. Even if it was swallowed, it was still angelic like. His expression was calm and she would say that he was cute. She turned to Sarah
“Is he going to die?”
“No. Cross found him soon enough” Sarah said “The infection is only around his wound. So, he will be fine. Really, how did this infection happen?”
“Millennium Earl turned Mana into an Akuma and he scratched his face”
“That’s awful” the girl whispered “What is an Akuma?”
“I will explain to you when you will be ready to know” Sarah said smiling
“Alright” Sarah approached her and bend over, patting her head “Now, go and read the next chapter of Marcus’ Evangelion and when I will be done we will read the next together”
“Ok!” she shouted smiling and left the room, heading to the kitchen.
Sarah was in Cross’s room, taking care of Allen, checking his temperature and changing the gazes on his face. She heard him groaning from the high fever and whispering Mana’s name in his sleep. She caressing his hair and started muttering the music of Nea’s song. She saw that Allen’s expression became calmer and he fell asleep.
She got out of Cross’s room and approached the kitchen, where Mother and Cross were drinking. She stood next to the table and looked at them,
“His fever has fall”
“Good” Cross said and took a sip
“Tell me the truth, Cross!” she shouted hitting her palms to the table
“Don’t be so loud” he said “You will wake all up”
“Alright” she whispered “At least tell me what is going on with this child”
“This boy will be the Fourteenth’s host”
“Impossible!”
“Why is it impossible? We both know that if Millennium Earl don’t die, the Noah family members will be reincarnated again and again. Nea was a member too”
“And why this boy?”
“This didn’t make sense to me too. But then I thought about it again”
“And? Did you find anything?”
“Some days before Allen left, he was reading the Bible backward” Sarah opened her eyes wide and stepped back “You remember what are the results of this, don’t you? We read about it in a book of Black Order’s library”
“You turn back in time. You can change the past or your appearance with the past” she thought about it and then she turned to Cross again “This doesn’t make sense! Allen was blondie. This boy has white hair and before that he has… What was the color of his hair, again?”
“Red”
“Exactly, red”
“Maybe he is a reincarnation, I don’t know” Cross said and rested his head on his hand “Every time I am trying to find something, I find a wall”
“Why are you so sure about Allen? About our old friend?”
“Because, before Nea and Mana left, Allen asked from Nea to use his own body for the reincarnation” Sarah was shocked. She took a chair and sat down, trying to understand all the information that Cross said to her
“Why?” she swallowed “Why you didn’t say anything? Why did you hide this information from me for twenty-one years?”
“Because I never thought that Fourteenth’s host would be a ten years old boy”
“What happened, happened” Mother said “We cannot change the past, but we can make our future. This child is our future”
“One more thing” Sarah said “How are you so sure that this child is Nea’s host?”
“Because Mana was always with him. He was protecting him, like it was the most precious thing in the world”
“Well, it makes sense” Mother said and took one more sip of her wine. Cross and Sarah stopped talking. They lowered their heads and looked their eyes.
The next day, Allen woke up, but this was not what they were expected. The boy was in shock. Cross was holding his hands as he was screaming, like he was possessed. Sarah took Meriam and went out of the monastery, so the little girl will not see the shocked boy.
When they returned, Allen had called down, but he was sitting at the corner of the bed, without talking or eating. He was just looking to the void with empty thought. Cross tried in vain to feed him. One noun, Sarah was washing the dishes and Cross was drinking his wine, as Mother, Barba and Meriam went to sleep.
“He hasn’t eaten anything, has he?” Sarah asked
“It’s because of his lament for Mana. He reminds me someone else, who wasn’t eating, because of him”
Sarah stopped washing the dishes and turned to him
“It’s not the same” she said “He is crying because he lost him, forever. I lost him because he betrayed me. Allen was an orphan, who found a home, a family. I was a nun, who had to leave with the word of God. I didn’t know what love meant, not like the way that Mana showed it to me. He loved me and I talked bad to him. He betrayed me, to protect me. Sometimes” she said and tears started appear on her cheeks “Sometimes, I still mutter the lyrics of his song, I feel like I still hear the music of the piano. I think that if I open the door and get inside the white room, they will be there, playing the piano and singing” her voice was cracked by the sobs “When I saw him again, after nineteen years, telling me that he remembered my last words to him, I realized how much I loved him. I should never fell in love, I am a nun, I asked for forgiveness from God, but it wasn’t enough…” she stopped crying, because the sobs had closed her throat “I sorry” she said and put her hands on her face “O promised to myself that I would never cry for him again, but when I learned that he died, I can’t…” her sobs became louder, she was thinking that she couldn’t breathe, that she wanted to scream
“Cry” Cross said “Put it out. This is what you need. Cry, weep, you need it”
Sarah raised her head and closed her eyes, she tried to control her breath, by taking deep breaths and crying in the same time. She finally felt that the weight, that she had on her chest, was gone.
During the night, Cross was sitting across his bed, reading his book and looked Allen. He inhaled, let the book next to him and turned to the white-haired boy.
“You know, there was a phrase which Mana used to say. I will never stop…”
“…I will keep walking” Allen said in the same time with him
He looked the boy, who raised his head and looked at him. His right eye wasn’t swollen from crying anymore.
“He is gone, isn’t he?” he whispered. Cross lowered his head and Allen turned and looked the void “I… I don’t want to stop… Not now”
Cross approached the kitchen, where the rest members of the church were sitting on the table.
“Allen talked”
“Really?!” Sarah shouted
“Thank God!” Mother said looking up
“But… But he doesn’t sound so much like Nea, but more like Mana”
“I see” Sarah said and lowered her head
“That means that I can go and talk to him, right?” Meriam asked “Maybe we can be friends!” Sarah turned and rubbed the girl’s hand, smiling
“We will go tomorrow and talk to him, alright?”
“Yes!” the girl shouted.
The next day, Sarah sat next to Allen on Cross’s bed. Meriam was standing next to the bed, looking them. The little girl was the one who spoke first.
“Your hand! It reminds me of Sister Sarah’s wings!”
“Meriam!” Sarah shouted. She didn’t want to make Allen feel bad
“Yeah” Sarah said and smiled
She stood up and turned her back to the boy. Her uniform changed. She didn’t have to open a zip and put out her whole back, but there were two special holes on the back of it.
“Innocent, activate” Allen looked her wings full of surprised. He approached his hand, but he pulled it back. Sarah smiled with his reaction “It’s fine, you can touch them, if you want” At first, he hesitated, but then he touched the blue edge
“They are so soft!” he whispered “You are like an angel!”
Sarah blushed, because this is how Nea used to call her. Maybe there a Fourteenth’s part in this boy. She smiled to Allen.
“They are called “The Wings of Gabriel”. I can help you activate and control your arm too”
“Yes, please!” Allen shouted, blushing.
Sarah and Allen were standing at the courtyard of the monastery. She opened her wings and was waiting for Allen to activate his too. The boy was looking his hand, but he wasn’t talking.
“What happened, Allen?”
“It’s just” the boy said “The first and last time I activated was when Mana turned to this monster and my own arm killed him. I was afraid to activate it again, I don’t want to hurt anyone else”
“Don’t worry, Allen, you aren’t going to hurt me. Just try it”
Allen looked his hand, he thought the words that Sarah saying when she was activating hers “Activate” His red hand became gray and bigger. It went out of control and approached Sarah. The woman moved her wings and Allen saw her flying one meter above the ground.
“You can fly too?!”
“Yes. I had similar problems too. My Innocence was never listening to me. When I was trying to fly, it drove me on the walls and the ground”
“How did you master it?”
“It is like a living creature. It has its own will, but it would never let its user die. So, I did one of the most dangerous ways to make it obey me”
“What did you do?” Allen asked with his eyes opened, excited to hear her story
“I felt from the belfry!” she said smiling and Allen was shocked
“From… The belfry?” he looked the tower of the monastery “This belfry?”
“Yep”
“I… I don’t believe it… Neither expected it”
“Of course I am not asking you to commit suicide just to make your arm obey you. I was desperate back then. I wanted to follow General Cross to the Black Order”
“The Black Order?”
“Cross didn’t tell you about the Black Order?” Allen moved his head negative and Sarah facepalmed “So, I will have to start everything from the zero”
For the next weeks, Sarah was training Allen during the days and they were reading books about the exorcists during the night. Cross was always looking at them, either from the window or from the corridor.