The Real Me (D. Gray-Man FanFiction)

1 - Scared of Shadows

"So, you say the transition worked?" The man slurred.

Her father hastily nodded, "Yes, like a charm. The only side effect we've noticed so far is strange scarring on her back. However, it's nothing dangerous. We have reason to believe that the scars are just the dark matter converting inside of her blood vessels."

"You mean... it's rejecting her?" With the lip of his bottle, the man gestured to the opposite end of the table where his niece, resembling nothing more than pile of dust, sat in silence.

Her father shrugged. "I haven't a clue. After the tests and her physicals, strange black trenches appeared on her back. Almost like burns."

The little girl stared at her empty lap, hardly having the strength to keep sitting straight. She felt as empty as the room; covered in dust and shadows. Across the room, standing behind the chair at the head of the table, was her father whose eyes were shining with pride as if he had just discovered a precious gem. In a way, he must have found one, the girl began to think. This was the first time she had been let out of her cell in weeks and it must have been important enough to get a Black Order General involved as well. The general in question, who sat in the throne-like chair at the opposite end of the table as her, was her fathers older brother; General Cross Marian. Her father and his brother, as far as the girl understood, both worked for the Black Order in approximately the same division. But the brothers still rarely saw each other. Whether that was a choice or a coincidence was unknown.

"What about the other candidates?" Cross drank from his liquor, staring at the girl. She quickly dropped her eyes back to her lap before he had noticed her staring.

"Well," Her father sighed, "She's the only one who survived so far. If she dies from it, like the others, we have a few other choices, such as Lenalee Lee. She is in horrible health at the moment so we won't be able to benefit from our experiments on her anytime soon."

Cross laughed his booming laughed and grinned menacingly from behind the mask that covered most of his face, "And to think the project we've been working so hard to create is sitting right across the table from me; inside my very own niece." He and her father laughed and congratulated each other for a job well done. Their celebration made the girl feel like crying but she knew she didn't have enough liquid in her body to form even a single tear.

Timcanpy, Cross' communication golem, floated down from the girls drooping shoulder to her lap and looked up into her hollow eyes. She looked as dead as a corpse. Hardly ten years old, weighing less than 50 pounds, she was too weak to even lift her hand to pat Timcanpy's head. Tim flicked her cheek with his tail like little kisses, but the girl was too empty inside to smile at him. Everything was numb and her vision was blurred. Her breathing was hardly breathing at all, it was simply her mind telling her chest to rise, allowing air to fill her lungs then be quickly spat out in tiny bursts as her chest collapsed down again. Every part of her tiny body wanted to die. Death was blessing compared to how she felt now.

"Com'on, Tim." Cross clicked his tongue. "We ought to be leaving now." Cross looked at the feeble girl again, then looked at the being behind her. He nodded. "Hey kid, I will see you when you are strong enough to handle it." He gestured to the black mass that swarmed behind her like a fly.

He looked to her father, "And you, little brother, I'll see you at the order." Marian Cross picked up his bag and left for the door with Timcanpy closely following him. He held his bottle in the air as he walked out the house, "And thank you for the wine."

Chuckling while shutting the door, the remaining man turned to his daughter, "How rude of you not to see your dear uncle off after how much he has done for us, you ungrateful thing." He seemed to use his words as a jest, knowing the girl was too empty to respond. Her father waited a moment to gaze at the girl and the mass behind her, nodded, and then proceeded to the next room where he would continue drinking throughout the night. 

As far as she knew, her body was a scientific break though. Her veins coursed with the same dark matter that was found within the beings known as akuma, however, to some degree, she was still human. But the most amazing part of her tiny body was the ability to sync with innocence as well. It had taken years of rigorous effort and unbearable pain to even remotely come close to the product that she was. 

The girl shuddered, feeling her heart begin to ache as the normal pains of starvation set it. She grasped the old piece of fabric that hung over her chest, digging her nails into her skin as all the strength left her body and she fell from the chair. She lay on the cold wooden floor planks and stared up to the ceiling. There had been a fourth being in the room the entire night. Silently, it watched, waiting for a direction that would never come. It was nothing more than a shadow. Pure and utter darkness that scurried away from the candles lighting the room. It was a thin mountain of a creature whose arms stretched across the walls and ceiling like webs. This was the thing that had been the true cause of the scars all across the girls back. This was the thing that grew out of her shadow, kept in check only by the presence of innocence stowed in the girls holster. The shadow flicked its tongue at her, like a viper teasing its prey.

It was later that same year that General Marian Cross had found Allen Walker, the boy forsaken by God.