Original FanFiction started on May 3rd, 2010 | Rewriting started on March 7th, 2013

NOTE : This is a rewrite of my original SOTF fanfiction, which I have removed from this website. If you would like proof that I am the true author of SOTF, feel free to note me.

DISCLAIMER : I do not own DGM or any characters, plot-lines, sayings, etc, that are in DGM. Thing not mentioned in DGM, however, are copyright to me, unless posted otherwise. Chapter quotes that are completely uncredited are my own.

[ Chapter 1 ]

What the Storm Dragged In

"Calm? Calm after a storm? There's nothing calm about the mess a storm leaves behind. More like cleaning up to do. Lots and lots of cleaning up!"

An explosion rocked the earth, sending light and shadows dancing across the wheat field. A tall, red-headed figure joined the dance, flitting through the slippery, wet stalks of wheat, bloodied hands gripping onto a freakishly large mallet. Suddenly, a bulbous shape burst forth from the grain, cannons haphazardly placed around its body. A metallic screech left the machine, and it aimed its weapons. The stranger immediately skidded to a halt, sending up a wave of mud as he did so. Without a moment's hesitation, he let out a mighty yell through the pouring rain and roaring thunder and brought down the mallet in his grip.

Flames erupted from the wheat field, collecting to the center of the mallet's impact with the sodden ground and writhing upwards into the shape of a magnificent snake. Its ascent into the sky shed light all about it, revealing a mass of monsters above the crop.

The red-headed figure stumbled back as he twirled his mallet, urging his huge, flaming serpent to consume as many of his enemies as possible. However, the rain and his fatigue quickly took its toll. No sooner had he gotten rid of five of the damned machines above his head, his creation let out one last hiss and sizzled out of existence.

"How many more of those can you manage, Lavi?"

The addressed red-head whirled around, nerves on edge, only to lower his mallet as his one visible emerald green eye caught sight of who had spoken. A figure of glowing white had come up behind him, chasing the night and its shadows away with its presence. At first glance, he mistook it as something akin to an angel. However, upon closer inspection, the once-brilliant and billowing cape about the other person's shoulders was torn, blood and dirt-stained, and soaked, sticking to the frail body it graced. A sinister, black claw also marred the formerly angelic look, growing forth from the fellow's left arm, fingers like knives.

Lavi felt his gut plummet at the sight of that claw. At a time like this, they needed the boy's Sword of Salvation, not his Edge End[1]. Swallowing his rising dread, the red-head replied, "Depends, 'Sprout. How many Akuma are left?"

The boy let out an indignant sound at the hated nickname, but didn't get the chance to respond immediately. Due to Lavi's recent attack, the wheat around them had been near incinerated, leaving them out in the open to the Akuma hunting them. Said Akuma wasted no time in unleashing a volley of poisonous bullets upon their prey, and the younger of the two teens summoned his Crown Clown's cloak to plume out and shield himself and his hammer-wielding companion. Lightning shattered the sky as the attacks made impact, but the fellow's shield held strong.

"It's Allen!" he finally managed to snap before answering Lavi. "And it looks like-" the white-haired boy paused, looking up at the chaos above with his cursed eye. Lavi watched with untiring interest as his companion's one gray eye narrowed and one cursed eye refocused on the sky. A glittering, golden gear spun in the air half an itch from the boy's left eye, joined by a smaller gear near the top, which sometimes circled the bigger gear. Behind the almost glass-like front of the gears was nothing more than darkness accentuated by three bloody red rings, which acted as his pupil. The moment the eye was called upon to focus, sparks appeared across the glass before it, targeting Akuma.

"Thirteen Level Ones," Allen stated, his cloak whipping out from the sky and back behind him as the wind of the storm picked up. A particularly bright spark of lightning burst out across the storm clouds, once again lighting up their enemies through the rain as thunder followed it, shaking the earth beneath their feet. "The last Level Two and four Level Ones were defeated by your earlier Hi Ban[2]."

A flash of gold caught Lavi's eye, but the eldest teen ignored it, knowing it was just Allen's stalker. That man wasn't an exorcist, so it was good that he was keeping out of the way, aside from a few CROW moves to save their asses every once in a while.

"Maahh, thirteen's an unlucky number, Allen-chan[3][4]," cooed Lavi in reference to the boy's count. A grin split across his grime-covered face as his companion let out an indignant squeak at the "-chan" bit. "We need to fix this!" the red-head shouted, happily spinning his hammer about and preparing to bring it to the earth once again.

As another wave of poisonous bullets joined the rain of the storm, Allen begrudgingly swallowed his agitation towards Lavi's nicknames and turned to the dark mass of clouds and Akuma alike, raising his claw and summoning Crown Clown to cover him, the intricate, clownish masquerade mask gracing his young face as the cape lifted him into the air and chaos.



A mile away from the exorcists' plight, a modest farmhouse stood alone upon a hill, creaking as the storm attacked its structure. Warm, yellow light filtered through two of its windows, revealing life within the home. Through the first window, located on the first floor, could be seen a dining room, an old man seated at the table. He seemed oblivious to the storm threatening his home, reading his newspaper with a warm cup of tea in his wrinkled hand. His only acknowledgement of Nature's fury was to keep away from the window.

However, unlike the old man, the second lit window, which was located on the second floor (basically, the attic), revealed a braver, or perhaps more foolish, occupant. A young girl sat behind this second window, her sky blue eyes observing the storm that shook everything around her. She was small, in her teenage years, and her black-blotched, Indian-colored skin was hidden shamefully beneath the covering of a black cloak. Lightning flashed from the thick mass of black clouds in the sky, chasing the shadows from her hood away from her sad young face - turning her dark skin ghostly white and her messy, dark brown hair silver. Thunder soon followed the flash, shaking the house almost as violently as the wind that roared just on the other side of the thin glass of the window. Storage boxes fell from haphazardly placed piles in the corner of the attic, along with the single light in her room, a lantern, which promptly fell and shattered, adding to the chaos of noise, light, and shaking.

The girl, who sat unafraid as she observed the dangerous thunderstorm continue its performance, was merely fourteen. Well, fourteen and a half, she'd tell you. She lived with her only family left, her grandfather, who was neither rich nor poor, in the attic of his modest country home somewhere in the farmlands of a certain 19th century England. She was, as gossiped frequently by the townspeople a mile or two away, cursed with ugly black patches of skin that marred her body.

Her name was Kira, Kira Renee Malcolm[6], and her only friends in the world were her grandfather, her cat whom she named Chikita, and any other animal life that happened to keep her company on the small used-to-be farm.

However, even with all the scorn, loneliness, and confusion she went through, Kira always saw the good in things. Perhaps, she could be considered silly in this aspect. When her father had disappeared, she had been rest assured that wherever he was, he was happy, whether with the Father in Heaven or still alive. When her last parent, her mother, was killed in a curious house explosion, she was content that her mother was with God and grateful that the Lord had presented herself with a new place to live with her grandfather. When a townsperson called her a diseased child, she would simply be satisfied that she was noticed and not ignored by those around her. When a dangerous storm broke out and stopped her from having a little freedom from the confines of her grandfather's house, she was just as happy to watch the power of the creation God had made that shook the foundations of her home.

It was a storm that showed that though humans ruled the earth, Nature still had untamed power.

So here she sat, watching the storm, her naive mind trying to wrap around the power of the wind, rain, thunder, and lightning. For her, it was truly fascinating.

However, her attention was abruptly diverted. At that moment, movement caught the corner of her eye, just inside her peripheral vision. Kira tore her gaze from the window and storm to concentrate on her surroundings. To her right (facing away from the window) was her "living area" so to speak. A twin sized bed with an acceptable mattress, simple white sheets, and a warm patch quilt situated up against the corner nearest her. At the foot of the bed was an old oak chest, holding a small amount of items Kira held dear inside.

Nothing suspicious over there.

Kira moved her sharp gaze to the left of the bed and found the old oak dresser that stored her clothes - mostly ones that hid as much of her diseased skin as possible. Next to the dresser was a full-length mirror, not against the wall, but diagonal to the dresser to create a sort of corner. On the other side of that large standing mirror, a wooden pole, one of four that helped support the ceiling, stood, a sheet tacked to it that spread across to the end of the wall that hid the attic stairs from immediate view. Kira had situated that area to give herself some privacy when she dressed, though her grandfather wasn't one to come up the stairs these days. Though that area was shadowed and blocked off by the sheet, Kira concluded there was no movement there either.

Kira's blue eyes narrowed from underneath her hood as she turned her eyes to the stairs. Facing away from the window, they were right across the room and behind her. Then to the left of the stairs, there were piles upon piles of storage boxes. This was an attic, after all. Some of them had fallen and spilled their old, relatively useless, contents; but nothing out of the ordinary was there either.

The young teen frowned as she turned to the last corner of her make-shift room, which was to her left (to the right, if you were coming up the steps). The corner there was sealed off, much like her dressing area, but with more sheets. That was where her bathing area was; the bathroom that had been set up here had been neglected for years before she arrived and never completely finished, so it had no walls to seal it off from the rest of the attic.

Just as Kira began to turn away in conclusion that she was simply being paranoid, lightning flashed outside, flooding the attic with white light.


Kira spotted the slightest movement behind the sheets of her bathing area. Her eyes caught sight of a simple shadow, which was consumed by the returning darkness the moment the lightning disappeared.

And then the thunder came - a loud clap that split the air. At that moment, the creature of her curiosity burst from the shadows. Kira let out a yelp as something small and furry hit her square in the chest. The impact made her fall off her window seat and flat on her back on the old wooden floor, her hood flying off to reveal a large patch of black upon her right cheek and eye.

Regaining her lost breath, the fallen teen snapped open her eyes, scrambling to fix her hood. However, she froze when her blue eyes locked with a pair of bright, round amber eyes set into a familiar, adorable, black-furred face. Those big amber eyes expressed a comically triumphant look.

The defeated young girl couldn't stop the laugh that left her lips.

"I was wondering where you disappeared to, Chikita," giggled Kira, picking up the small cat. As the creature broke into a rumbling purr, the human that held her remembered her first memory of her little, furry friend.

"Grampy, how old is Chikita?"

She was seven years old and curiously holding up a certain black cat from underneath its furry arms.

"That's a mystery," smiled the old man, her Grampy, with a glint in his blue eyes.

A young Kira watched curiously from her place on the carpet as her grandfather stiffly rose from his reading chair, moving himself over to the small desk in their living room. He opened the drawer with shaky hands, pulling out two black and white photographs. They looked absolutely ancient, almost as if they'd turn to dust any second. After a moment of looking over them, her grandfather came over to her, pictures in hand.

Kira gazed with wide blue eyes at the images. She recognized her furry friend in each one, despite how faded and blotchy the photographs were. In truth, she would have thought the animals were all just different Chikita-like black cats that happened to be by her father and grandfather. However, the distinct white cross the happened to grace Chikita's chest appeared on each cat's chest in the photos.

"You and Papa sure are short in these pictures, Grampy," innocently observed the seven-year-old, holding up the images to her grandfather. "Chikita looks large next to you!"

Oddly enough, the old man didn't respond to her statement. Kira figured he didn't like being called short.

"Your great grandfather knew Chikita as well, though she wasn't quite fond of him," chuckled her grandfather after a moment, mirth glittering in his old eyes.

"But Grampy," spoke Kira, looking up at her elder with a confused expression, "how can that be possible? Cats don't live that long."

Grampy smiled and ruffled his granddaughter's short and messy dark brown hair, earning himself an early rebellious stage pout from the small girl.

"Now that, mitt barnbarn[7], is a mystery for you to find out. Remember though, little Chikita has always stood by us, the descendants of the Malcolm family. Keep her by your side no matter what, for she will always listen to you."

Kira stroked Chikita's lithe shape, not able to imagine that the small black cat could be more than a year old. However, the photographs her Grampy had shown her said otherwise, though just his word would have been enough to convince her. That being said, Kira couldn't remember a time when she didn't have Chikita, as if the creature had been with her her entire life.

The teenage girl moved her hand to the single white spot amongst all of Chikita's jet black coat, ruffling the white fur of the cross-like shape. It was almost as if her little cat had been blessed by God. Or something. Kira nearly laughed at that thought.

"How old are you really, Chikita?" she asked softly, looking at the white cross and then into Chikita's round amber eyes. However, all she was given was a begging purr for more loving strokes, though for just a moment - a second - she thought she caught a glimpse of something else in the cat's eyes.

Kira pet Chikita for a couple more minutes before returning her attention to the raging storm outside. It hadn't gotten any better. In fact, it looked worse than before outside. The wind was now roaring like a thousand lions, and the lightning was even brighter. It almost looked like explosions in the more distant masses of dark clouds.

Yes, just like explosions . . .

Kira narrowed her sky blue eyes, trying to focus through the pounding rain that concealed most of the meadow and corn field beyond her grandfather's house.

No. No, those were explosions!

The teen rubbed her eyes and looked back out, only to be greeted by the sight of more balls of fire farther off in the darkness. Clashes of red, white, and yellow - no, now purple - lit up the distant wheat field.

Fire. There's fire out in the wheat field.

No, there's fire here too.

Fire was everywhere.

Where was her mother?

The smoke was choking her.

She was screaming.

She couldn't find her mother.

She couldn't breathe.

She couldn't breathe!

A loud clap of thunder snapped Kira out of the horrid memory. As her eyes refocused, she found the explosions in the distance had gotten larger. In fact, they only looked to be half a mile away now, and young teen swore she could hear strange sounds being carried by the storm winds -

The lights disappeared.

Kira held her breath as she desperately searched the stormy night for the explosions. However, there was nothing. Only rain, wind, thunder, and lightning.

"The Hell?" she murmured, holding a hand to her chest. Her heart was still pounding.

Suddenly, the girl's eyes landed on something. Through the pounding rain, a few shapes were slowly slinking through the dark, only two yards away from her house. Quickly, Kira burst into action, lunging across her room and flying down the attic steps to the bottom floor of the house, skipping down two to three steps at a time in her rush.

Grampy was at the living room table, sipping on some cheap tea whilst reading his newspaper for probably the third time - the words STRANGE CREATURES SPOTTED ONCE AGAIN blaring on the headline. Kira sprinted passed him and skidded to a halt at the front door to their home. Just as she put her hand on the bronze handle and Grampy opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong, a weak rap-tap-tap was heard on the door.

Kira froze.

Who - or what - could be on the other side? Maybe whoever it was had something to do with the explosions . . .

The hesitating teen nearly jumped out of her skin as something brushed her leg. Looking down, she found Chikita by her, gazing up with intelligent amber eyes. Kira, instantly reassured, took a deep breath, pulled her black hood over her head, and opened the door, against her Grampy's warning.

Immediately, the storm's winds exploded into the house, no longer blocked by the front door. Kira was about knocked off her feet, gripping onto the door handle to keep herself steady and keeping one hand on her hood to keep it on as rain and air rushed passed her.

And then, three figures collapsed right through the door, seemingly having been leaning against it. At once, Kira fought Nature's fury to close the door, blocking out the storm once again. The moment she succeeded, she crouched down to examine the storm-drenched strangers at her feet.

"Are you three mad?" she snapped, already fretting about their well-being and shocked by their entrance. "Only a fool would be out in this sort of storm!"

A muffled groan left one of the bodies. It was then that the young girl's eyes finally took in what she was looking at, and Kira felt her heart jump into her throat.

These men.

They were covered in blood.


"Maahh, thirteen's an unlucky number, Allen-chan. We need to fix this!" the red-head shouted, happily spinning his hammer about and preparing to bring it to the earth once again.




[1] Sword of Salvation is Allen's big ass sword, and Crown Edge is usually how his claw form of Crown Clown is referred to, from what I've seen (I believe Road referred to it as such in the Ark Arc).

[2] I'll sometimes refer to their attacks by their Japanese names, because they honestly look/sound cooler than their English translations, lmao.

[3] The number thirteen isn't just considered bad luck! The thirteenth mystery of the Tarot marks the uncertainty, the hesitation, the fickleness or again a transformation, the end of something (the death) and a renewal, a rupture, that is to say a very important change. I thought it would be a good number to use for the amount of Akuma left since because of their attack the exorcists found themselves at Kira's doorstep.

[4] Chan is a diminutive suffix; it expresses that the speaker finds a person endearing. In general, it's used, but not limited to, babies, young children, grandparents, and teenage girls and boys. It may also be used towards cute animals.

[5] Just for those who don't know; Crown Edge: A projectile attack which unleashes a barrage of crown-shaped rings from the clawed fingers on Allen's left hand. (SHINY FLYING MINI CROWNS PEW PEW -shot- ).

[6] "Malcolm" is her last name. She is not related to "Malcolm Leverrier (or however you wish to spell his name)." Reasons for this name will be revealed eventually! Also, "Kira" means "dark" in Gaelic; reasons for which will be revealed later as well.

[7] "mitt barnbarn" is Swedish for "my granddaughter;" I think I got it correct, or at least, I checked with my dad who is learning Swedish (my family is part Swedish), and he said it was accurate. (Correct me if I'm wrong!)

*Additional note: Kira, like most folks in England during this time, is a Christian. Therefore, there will be religious aspects used in writing out her thoughts and whatnot. It's your choice if you want to get your panties in a twist over it ;P

A/N : I would like to thank everyone who has followed me from my old Song of the Fourteenth FanFiction to this rewritten one.

So what do ya'll think? Is this an improvement from the first SOTF? Is there anything in particular you're looking for or forward to in the upcoming chapters? Suggestions?

All feedback, preferably constructive, is welcome! Also, any grammar/spelling mistakes? I'll be responding to all reviews through the next chapter :)

Don't worry, I don't bite! (Timcanpy does though, not that I'm threatening you. Or something. Nope, not at all!).

p.s. That blooper. Guilty as charged. I've always wanted Lavi to say that! xD