Advance of the Fool

Exorcist

Above the large shrine, Kurisuta Hikawa floated, struggling against an akuma. Her pentacle necklace was spinning like crazy. he sensed someone in the ruined shrine.
"Someone...has come here..." Kuri said weakly. "I must banish them! Quickly!"
She tried to get her hands together to preform the spell, to no avail. Instead, she set the shrine ablaze.
Kuri watched as the boy, wearing a hood and gloves, emerged, coughing, from the shrine. He looked familiar, tho she couldn't place it.
"R-U-N!" Kuri cried, sending fire after him.
The boy held up his arm, and a cross glowed within it, growing his arm into a massive claw. "I am Allen Walker. I must bring salvation to that poor akuma's soul!"
Xxx
"Please!" Kuri flew out of his reach. "Let me stay with her! I feel her in my heart! Please Allen! Don't destroy my mother!"
A look of understanding crossed the young exorcist's face, then it was replaced with shock. "You feel her? You are empathetic?"
Kuri flew down and put a hand on his cheek, indicating his eye. "Allen you see. I feel. I am a priestess after all. Even before these—" she pointed out the wounds on her arms and legs, looking to be caused by innocence "—appeared, I had empathy, and could see into the future and past, and create barriers, and purify. It is possible that akuma have been brought here by patrons and I have been purifying them all this time." She looked at her hands. "When I do it, they return to the form they once had. They apologize to their loved ones for their selfishness, and they say farewell. Then they vanish..."
Xxx
Allen stared at her, wanting it to be true, but the truth causing him great pain. If this could be done, where was she when he had to kill Mana? "If that's true, why don't you purify your mother?"
Kuri smiled, touching the akuma wrapped around her affectionately. "I think it might be too late. We are joined too closely. A-and..." she wiped a tear away "...I don't think I can live without her."
Incensed that this priestess, who had the power to take away the pain of Akuma, was refusing to live and share her power with the world, Allen turned on her, losing his cool. "If that's the case, then become an exorcist! You're a priestess, aren't you! And if I'm not mistaken, the rede says that you must use your power for others and not yourself! You can't be selfish! Don't let your mother, father and everyone else you have saved be for nothing! Don't mock them! Come with me!"
Xxx
The priestess began to cry. Soft, hacking sobs. Allen didn't know what to do, how to comfort her. He remembered Mana, and how his death had ripped Allen apart, stealing his identity and making him into a new person, a stronger person, who could survive what he had done—an Exorcist.
Allen opened his mouth to cajole her once more, only to watch everything end.
Kuri's tears fell onto the pentacle. The innocence! It spun and Kuri whispered an incantation. It sucked in the akuma that was her mother. The light that ensued was terrible, so bright it blinded his akuma seeing eye.
Xxx
When the dust settled, the priestess landed in front of him. Her hakama was ripped on the arm, where the akuma had been lodged. She looked so familiar.
"You didn't see," Kuri said. "But she thanked me, apologized, and said goodbye."
Her sorrow faded into the past like it had never happened. A smile broke out on her face. "I'm Kurisuta Hikawa." She bowed. "And I'm an Exorcist."
Allen bowed back. "Nice to meet you."