A Kaleidoscope of Visions

Danny Phantom

Building Bridges (Good GIW AU): Main | Historical Halfas | Lore

Danny Crashes Into An Alternate Universe : 1 | 2

Vlad Being Normal About Danny

Full Ghost AU

DPxDC

Dead Serious Bodyswap AU: 1 | 2 | 3

No One Knows AU

Demon Twins AU

DPxDC: Round Robin

Danny Emails Superman

Prison Break

Danny As A Clone

Danny 'Sneaks' Into The Batfam

Meta Collar AU

Nanny Danny

Reddit, Am I A Bad Villain?

BOTW/TOTK

Heavenflower

Misc Crossovers

Danny Phantom/Phineas and Ferb: Now Hiring: Part-Time Lab Assistant | Lore

"Knowing the basic facts of your personal history is what will allow me to orient myself regarding anything else you share with me," Kazama explained, holding Allen's gaze with a serious look. "As I'm sure you're aware, it can be tricky to navigate deep personal conversations with people you don't know well, and we will be discussing intensely personal topics. It will help if I have an idea of what you have learned to expect from the world, what you're likely to be sensitive about, and the context of any events or relationships that you might bring up to me. Does that make sense?"

It did, unfortunately. Allen bit his lip. "I... don't suppose there is a way to discuss only the things which you absolutely need to know."

"The things you wish not to talk about are most likely the things I most need to know," Kazama told him, not unkindly. Allen lowered his head and sighed shakily. Ichigo had given him an Ichigo-style pep talk on the topic, once he'd gotten Allen to admit what he was stressed about, but it wasn't going to make this any easier. "Is there something in particular that you are concerned about, or are you afraid of how these memories make you feel?"

Allen sighed again, his breath huffing out so harshly that it was more like it was knocked out of him. "Many of these memories are so painful that I can't look directly at them, or I feel as though I cannot breathe," he told Kazama. "I'm worried that speaking of all of them together will tear me apart."

"Give me a moment to think on it." Dr. Kazama looked almost as though he really were trying to come up with a solution. Despite himself, Allen held his breath, feeling apprehensive. Ichigo had been... very insistent that he voice his anxiety to Kazama, despite Allen's protests. After a while, Kazama asked, "Do you take a lot of comfort in physical affection?"

Well, that was... "Ah, yes, in general, but..." Allen trailed off awkwardly, too polite to voice his discomfort with the idea.

Thankfully, Kazama snorted. "Not what you're thinking, I assure you. Are you familiar with stuffed animals? Or perhaps you know them as plushies, or plush toys?"

"Oh!" That was an embarrassing misunderstanding, but Allen felt relieved nonetheless. He straightened up. "I've seen them in shop windows. But they're terribly expensive, aren't they?" Belatedly, he recalled that Yuzu and Karin had several plush toys each, and Kon rode around in another. Allen had dismissed it as a function of how much both Ichigo and Isshin loved to spoil them, but- "...Are they not in this time?"

"Not at all," Kazama said. "And they're quite common therapeutic tools. I don't typically work with children, but some of the other people in this building do. If you think it may help, even if you're not sure, I can go and ask."

Allen was conflicted for a moment, not wanting to inconvenience Dr. Kazama, but his fear of the coming conversation quickly won out. "Yes please. Thank you very much."

While Kazama walked out to do that, Allen took another look around the office, placing the baseball back on the shelf. The books, he could see, were all academic, most of them with long and complex titles. The computer's screen showed that Kazama had been looking over the notes from the previous session, which Allen glanced at before hastily looking away, uncomfortable with the thought.

There were a few more items that had been strategically placed around the room, only some of which Allen could identify. There was a Rubik's Cube, and a Newton's Cradle, and a tiny globe. Allen picked that up and spun it, holding it up to closely examine the maps; those were some of the things that he'd found to be most different from his time.

He was still doing that when Kazama returned, and he jumped when the door opened, turning around sharply. Sure enough, Kazama was holding a large, cute plush bear, which he tossed onto the couch.

"You can start when you're ready," Kazama told him, disregarding Allen's flustered embarrassment as he quickly returned the globe to the shelf. "As a reminder, I expect you to give me a rough overview of what you consider the major events in your life - anything that had a significant impact on you, or that acted as a turning point in your life. If I need additional details, I'll ask for them."

Ah. Yes. That was still to come. "Thank you."

With a heavy, trembling sigh, Allen sat down and picked up the bear, hugging it experimentally. It was soft, at least, and felt nice in his arms. He lingered over that for a moment, then turned so he wasn't facing Kazama directly, and forced himself to start talking.

Even that was difficult.

"I told you about the circus," he said at last, tucking the bear against his chest. It was nearly as large as one of the throw pillows, and plump enough to give some resistance when he squeezed it. "Aside from the one exhibition and the ringmaster's... demonstration, there really weren't any significant events there, just the day-to-day drudgery. I don't remember when I started, so I don't know how long I was there before I met Mana." He exhaled shakily and dropped his head to press his cheek to the bear's ear. Soft... "That was around Christmas, in 1888; he came in as a seasonal worker. And, ah..." He shut his eyes. "I'm sorry. I know you've clarified this a lot. How... how much detail?"

"As much as you feel is necessary for me to understand how this affected you."

Allen nodded without opening his eyes and took a deep breath.

Ichigo had suggested pretending that it was him that Allen was speaking to. Ichigo had been there for Allen as he found out half of this, and the worse half at that. Ichigo would never judge Allen harshly for any of this.

Ichigo had never judged Allen harshly for anything.

"There were a lot of things about this time that I would only learn much later," Allen said to Ichigo, his heart pounding painfully, like it was trying to escape his body. "The most important... was that Mana was a Noah. And the memory of his brother, Neah, had already been planted inside of me."

Allen was thankful that he'd explained the Noah, the akuma, and Innocence at the end of the previous appointment. It meant that he didn't have to do so now, and Dr. Kazama understood almost immediately.

"Did Mana know that?" Kazama asked. Allen exhaled, letting out a long, shivering breath across the plush bear's fur.

It would be easy to lie. Painless. He could smile and shake his head, and tell Dr. Kazama that Mana hadn't been aware enough for that, and Dr. Kazama would never know otherwise. It would be soothing, compared to the truth.

But lying would waste all their time. Kazama's, and Allen's, and Ichigo who had spent so much time coaxing Allen into this, and who was waiting at the café across the street, expecting Allen to do his best.

"Neither Master nor I know for sure," he said instead, quietly. "He did some things that suggested he did, and others that suggested he didn't. He told me soon after we met that he was looking for his brother, and ran after someone he thought might be him. But also... sometimes, when he was especially unwell, he would call me Neah."

"What do you think?"

Ichigo, he reminded himself harshly. He was talking to Ichigo, who always seemed, somehow, to understand, even the first time he had reached out, so soon after these connections had started to come to light.

Allen turned around sharply, facing the wall and turning his back to Kazama. It probably wouldn't be allowed in future sessions, but if all he needed to do was to get through his detestable life story, he could at least avoid looking at Kazama as he bared his shame.

"I have to believe that Mana loved me," he told Ichigo, hugging the bear tight against his chest. "If Mana did not love me, then I have built my life on sand. I... there is nothing that proves that he did. That will have to be enough."

He could ask Adam, if he wanted. While Adam had been distant with him since fusing, he'd also dropped the hostility of the shattered Earl. The few times they'd run into each other since, he'd even been cordial.

He didn't want to ask. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"Only you can decide how to make peace with this," Kazama said calmly, making it very difficult for Allen to pretend he wasn't there. "You said you discovered this much later. What happened when you met?"

It was as though Allen had been stabbed through the chest. He shuddered, squeezing the life out of the bear, and then forced himself to relax, his sigh more like a moan of pain. Tears started to trickle down his face, far too early. They very well may not stop for the rest of the hour.

Only an hour, Ichigo had promised him. He'd only have to speak for an hour, and then even if he wasn't done, their time would be up.

"Mana was a clown, a good one," Allen said to the wall. Ichigo always made the funniest faces when Allen talked so fondly about clowns. It made Allen smile to imagine it. "Good enough that the ringmaster was talking about kicking Cosimo off the roster and offering Mana a full-time position. And Mana had a dog that he performed with. So... Cosimo beat the dog to death. And that was how Mana and I met, was over that dog's grave."

Allen reached up to dry his eyes. Kazama didn't interject.

This was... incredibly difficult.

"This is what will make me feel better, yes?" he asked, unable to help himself. "This is what will make existence feel less like a prison?"

"This is an important step in that process, yes," Kazama agreed quietly. "Carrying so much weight around on your own will eventually crush you, even if that weight is emotional." Pause. "You don't want me to know these things at all, do you? You want to get better, but you hate feeling exposed."

"Sorry."

"Stop apologizing. I want you to try something. Step back from this memory for a moment, and think about getting better. What do you think that would look like for you? Specifically, what do you want to gain from this?"

"Ah..." Allen hadn't really thought about it. He tilted his head back, studying the ceiling with a frown.

What did he want? Last week, it had been a struggle just to find his own motivation, rather than continuing to attend simply because Ichigo had asked him to. All he'd identified was the weight in his chest, which sometimes made it difficult even to get out of bed.

What would life without that look like?

He thought, fleetingly, of the way his soul had withered under the scolding of Ichigo's friends, how his mind had twisted itself into knots until it seemed like he had no options left but to erase himself, quietly, where no one would be able to stop him.

Except Ichigo, apparently, who bowed to no logic but his own.

"I... would like to feel normal about it when I am reprimanded," he said at last, soft and hesitant. "Even very gentle scoldings make me want to throw up... and bad ones make me want to claw my heart out of my chest to make it stop hurting. It's... not supposed to feel like that, I think. Can... can you fix that?"

"We can work on it. Even if we can't fix it completely, we can reduce the effect so it's not so overwhelming." Dr. Kazama still sounded unfazed, as if nothing Allen told him was abnormal. "I want you to hold onto that image. You are going to be honest and open during therapy, because you want to be able to hear criticism without flinching. You want to feel confident and comfortable with yourself."

"Right. Yes." Allen took a deep breath and straightened up, shifting his grip on the plush bear. "I want to take criticism without flinching. I want... to make mistakes without feeling like I should die. A-and for that, I need to tell you why I can't do that. Or else you can't help me fix it. R-right?"

"That's the long and short of it."

Allen took another deep breath. "Has anyone ever told you they killed someone?"

"You'd be surprised. On purpose. On accident. Through neglect or poor choices, or for revenge." Kazama's voice was unexpectedly even. Allen supposed he had experience hiding his reactions.

Allen hugged the bear again and settled his cheek on its forehead.

"Mana and I spent some time together after that," he said, forcing himself through the mire of his early memories. It would be worth it, he told himself, to stop flinching at the first sign of disapproval. "He played with me, and talked to me, and made me smile. But then..." He huffed, his chest spasming on the verge of a sob. "When we got back, Cosimo had told everyone that I beat the dog to death, and they turned on me."

"So easily?"

Allen hiccuped. "Most people have a... visceral reaction to my arm, and I had nothing to cover it then," he told Ichigo, who had never reacted that way, only appraised the limb with mild interest, and was offended by even the idea of rejecting someone for something so stupid. "They would complain that it was demonic, or diseased, or monstrous... some people threaten to put me down like a dog the moment they see it, or strike me for daring to come near them. And that never stopped. I never go anywhere without covering my arm."

"Ah. So you feel that they were just waiting for the chance?"

Allen hiccuped again, starting to stroke the bear's false fur without lifting his head. "That was... what I believed at the time." He took a deep breath. Tears were still flowing silently down his cheeks. It would be so easy to lie, and say he remembered nothing. But telling the truth was what would bring him closer to his friends. Maybe. He hoped. "I don't remember most of happened next. When I woke up later, I remembered almost nothing, and I've only recalled fragments over the years."

"I'm not surprised. It's normal for children to repress particularly traumatic memories."

Allen tucked that away for later. "What I do remember is that my arm activated, and..." For his friends. This was for his friends. "I... hurt Mana. Innocence is very bad for Noah." He shut his eyes, focusing on the bear's soft fur. Road had explained, later, some of what happened, but... "When I woke up, everyone was gone... and when I saw Mana again, he no longer remembered why he was traveling, or even that he had a brother at all." For his friends, for his friends, for his friends.

"His dementia had advanced?"

Allen nodded stiffly. "I didn't know it then, but I killed him that day. He died, very slowly, over the next three years." Allen's voice cracked.

"I'm sorry," Kazama said quietly. Allen hiccuped. "When did you realize he was dying?"

"He fell and hit his head about two years later," Allen said. It had been terrifying; Mana hadn't woken up for a few minutes, and when he had, he'd been more confused than ever. Allen had been too frightened to even look for a doctor, but the innkeeper had sent for one. Allen couldn't remember how much it had cost. He thought the doctor might have taken pity on them. "The doctor told me then."

"What happened then?"

"Then..." Allen sighed, his death grip on the bear finally loosening. He found himself breathing heavily, like he'd sprinted clear across a city. "I did my best to care for him until he died. There was nothing else in the world that mattered to me. And when he died, I slept for two nights on an empty grave."

"...Empty?"

Another hiccup, tears streaming down Allen's face. He squeezed the bear again. "When Mana's soul passed, the Millennium Earl awakened in his body, and left an illusion in its place. But... I wouldn't know that for a long time. And after two nights, the Millennium Earl came to me, and I called Mana's soul down as an akuma. He cursed me for it."

"Mana gave you your scar?"

Allen nodded without looking back. The bear felt nice, he decided. He pulled off his right glove and ran his palm over the fur. "The souls bound to akuma suffer greatly. It was... a terrible, unforgivable thing to do to him. As punishment, he cursed me to see the tortured, rotting souls of every akuma I come across... although that does have its uses, so perhaps he was still trying to help me after all."

"What do you think?"

"I don't know," Allen admitted, and then, softer, "He'd never been angry with me before, let alone struck me. To mutilate me so harshly... I have no idea what he might have been thinking. Perhaps it's too fanciful to imagine he still cared for me at all." Tears dripped from his cheeks, leaving the bear damp.

"It left a wound? I assumed, being a curse..."

"Yes." Then, not wanting to give the wrong impression, "It was no less than I deserved, I think, after everything I'd done to him. I'm not mad at him in the least. Still... I wish I knew what he truly thought of me."

"You hold Mana in high regard, still."

"Of course. How could I not? I think... I think I always knew I would one day do something he wouldn't forgive me for."

These things were easy to say. It felt important that Dr. Kazama understand how much Allen had already done wrong.

Instead, Kazama said, "Yes. Most children from abusive backgrounds assume that, once they're finally granted stable care." While Allen was trying to puzzle that out, he continued, "What then?"

Allen sighed, squeezing the bear tightly. "Then... my Innocence activated on its own again, and destroyed the akuma. Parasitic Innocence can, and often does, move on its own if its accommodator hesitates to act against an akuma, or if they're unable to protect themselves. It doesn't matter. Mana's soul went free."

"I can see why this left you in a state of shock," Kazama said quietly. "How did you end up with Mother and Barba?"

"Master took me," Allen said. He took a deep breath, let it out, and resettled, relaxing slightly now that the worst had passed. "He'd been following Mana for years by then, waiting for him to find Neah's vessel. That was why he took care of me. He knew, without a doubt, that it was me, and he couldn't afford for me to die."

"But you believe he loves you?"

Allen nodded. "He was the one who finally told me most of this," he said, playing gently with the plush bear's ear. His tears dried, for now. "I can't imagine how difficult it must have been for him - first, to raise me, knowing what he did, and then, to finally look me in the eyes and tell me that I was going to die. But he did." He hesitated, debating with himself for a moment, and then continued, "I would like you to understand - this was a... complication of a plan to end the Holy War, and ultimately the Millennium Earl's desperate rampage. And... it wasn't supposed to be me."

"What do you mean?"

"In order to end the Holy War, Neah needed a vessel," Allen explained quietly. "His Noah memory needed to merge with both Mana and the memory of Noah's grief, to restore Adam's sanity. I'll get into it more later, but... originally, someone had volunteered to be the vessel, and it was only by unfortunate circumstance that it was me. When Master agreed to be part of that plan... he didn't expect it to be a child. He never wanted to raise a child to die. But he effectively had no choice. The war still needed to end."

"Yet here you are."

"Yes." Allen smiled softly, his back still turned to the room. "We... worked it out, you could say." Allen took a deep breath. "Anyway... I didn't know any of that yet. Once I was well enough to listen, Master explained to me what had happened, and what my arm was. And he told me about the Black Order. I spent two years with Mother, deciding whether or not my hatred of my Innocence outweighed my obligation to free akuma... and Master waited until I asked to go with him before he took me along."

"Is that unusual?"

"Very," Allen said. "Accommodators go to the Black Order, without exception." He decided he felt a little silly, still facing the wall when speaking was so much easier, and he compromised by twisting to sit perpendicular to the back of the couch, leaning his shoulder against the back of it. It was still too difficult to look directly at Kazama, and after a moment, he turned his head away, cradling the plush bear against him. "You must understand - there are typically fewer than twenty exorcists at any given time, to cover the entire world. They have been very desperate, for a very long time, and no one except Master would have let me wait for two full years before becoming an active exorcist, let alone the five before I actually joined the Order. One of my friends was taken from her family when she was six, and she was put on the field within months. Master made sure no one knew about me until I was ready to join them."

"Despite that, you speak of them warmly."

"Yes," Allen agreed, with another faint smile. "The only person at the Order who I have known to be deliberately cruel is Leverrier, and even he has his reasons. In the end we are all just victims of circumstance. It is not the Order that set the fate of the world on the shoulders of a dozen people, and they've done everything they can to help us. But above all else, the world must not end."

"You seem to be quite resigned to these things."

Allen shrugged. "I don't see how I could possibly hold it against them. No, exorcists cannot leave the Order, but everything that they do is to support us. I'm not sure how to..." He trailed off for a moment, then picked up decisively. "Actually... nothing else especially significant happened until I joined the Order anyway, so let me tell you. When I joined the Order, I got to eat as much as I wanted for the first time in my life. I got to pick exactly how my uniform was styled, including a hood and gloves, and demonstrate exactly how much range of motion I wanted. They asked me what training equipment I needed, and sent for anything they didn't have. I had my first ever medical check-up, and they gave me half a dozen vaccines over the next two weeks - a practice I'd never even heard of at the time. And Lenalee, the friend I mentioned who was taken when she was six, threw me a party to welcome me to the Order."

"I see. Because there are so few of you, each one of you is cherished. Is that right?"

Allen smiled softly. "Yes. It was a rather jarring transition, to be honest, but I wouldn't trade the Black Order for anything." He cleared his throat, straightening up self-consciously. "Ah... but I still have a year or so to get through, don't I?"

"That sounds about right, although I may have some follow-up questions."

Allen hummed absently in acknowledgment, thinking about what of the last year he absolutely had to hit. Then, with a deep breath, he kept going.

"I didn't come to the Order with the intention of making friends, but over the next few months, that is exactly what happened," he told Kazama, playing gently with the plush bear's ear. "Eventually, this caused my Innocence to break down, and I suffered a significant injury that put me out of commission for nearly a week while I tried to restore it." He hesitated, wondering how much to get into this, and then pushed forward. "You see... initially, my synchronization was rooted in my desire to free the trapped souls of akuma. I protected humans because it was right, but the akuma were what I cared about most, knowing that each one was a person that was once loved dearly. As I grew closer to my friends, however, more and more of my motivation came from my desire to protect them. I wasn't able to restore my Innocence until I understood that those things held equal importance: both the humans that could still be saved, and the akuma that deserved to be set free."

He saw Kazama pause, considering that, and tilted his head in question, wondering what Kazama had caught on.

"Would you say that your Innocence rejected you until you had aligned yourself with its perspective?" Kazama asked at last, carefully.

"Ah." That was a fair enough question. Allen smiled softly. "Not exactly... though I'll admit, it certainly felt like that for a while, when I was trying to resynchronize. But no. If I did not truly feel that way, I wouldn't have been able to synchronize at all. I just needed to bring it back into focus." Kazama nodded, and Allen continued, "Once I had accomplished that, I was able to catch up to my friends. By then, Ichigo had joined them."

He paused again, organizing his thoughts. It felt... wrong, to move on without talking about Ichigo.

"Since it was during a confrontation with the Noah, I didn't have much time to ask about Ichigo right away, but he made an immediate impression," he continued, slow and thoughtful. "Despite having no personal stake in the fight, he'd placed himself in direct confrontation with the Earl... and the Earl was on the defensive. I had never before then seen the Earl bleed. And before very long, the Noah were in retreat." Another pause, Allen running his fingers down the side of the plushie. "Once we stopped to rest, I assured everyone that I was alright, and Ichigo and I were able to talk. And... the first thing Ichigo said was there's a lot of people that care an awful lot about you."

Allen smiled again, soft and pleased. It had been one of the last things he'd expected to hear from a stranger, and yet, it had filled him with such joy.

"Your friends must have been quite worried by your injury," Kazama said. Allen nodded.

"I came very close to death," he admitted frankly. "But I recovered well, even in that short time frame. There was no reason for them to continue worrying." He shrugged it off. "Ichigo... is a bit of a mother hen, in his way. I remember it stood out to me, how he checked everyone over as we settled down to rest... and when the Earl opened an Ark gate to kidnap Lenalee, he was one of the first people to go after her." He glanced up. "By then, I had encountered the Noah a few times. While I would eventually come to understand and empathize with them, at this point our relationship was strictly adversarial."

Kazama nodded. "What happened there?"

Allen sighed. "When we entered the Ark, it was in the process of being destroyed," he told Kazama. "So we spent the next few hours trying to escape." He smiled a little. "Ichigo was determined to make sure everyone got out alive. I'm not sure we would have been able to manage it without him. I was astonished that someone who had known us for so little time could care so much... but I didn't know Ichigo very well yet." He huffed a laugh, then sighed, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling. "In the end, Master had me reverse the destruction of the Ark, which... was the first I learned of my connection to Neah, although I did not yet know the full extent of it."

"And then?"

"Then... the higher authorities of the Black Order took issue with my connection to the Noah, and I was put under strict watch." Allen exhaled shakily, and decided to turn his head away again, shifting the plushie up. "Link and I are good friends now, but the terms on which we met were unpleasant. He was assigned to follow me constantly for the next few months; he even slept in my room. At the same time, my master was confined to his room, and I was not permitted to speak with him. But... I didn't have much time to linger over it. Less than a week later, one of the Noah took an army of akuma to invade headquarters."

"Considering all you've told me, I can't imagine that went well." Kazama's voice was grim, and Allen sighed, hiking the plush bear up against him and rubbing his knuckles against it.

"No," he agreed softly. "One third of the Science Department was wiped out, and there was a brief period where we thought we'd lost most of the exorcists as well, including all of the generals. Luckily, they were only buried under the rubble, but there was a while where it came down to myself and Ichigo against the Level Four that grew from the carnage... and I was so badly injured that my Innocence had to move my body for me." He exhaled. "But... we survived. The Black Order was not destroyed. After that, Ichigo decided to return home to ask for backup, and returned with four more shinigami, people so close to him that they agreed to help with little hesitation."

"And how did things go after that?"

At last, Allen relaxed enough to smile.

"I can't express how much things improved after that," he told Kazama. "While shinigami can't physically harm akuma, they're fast and powerful enough to contain them. And Urahara is a brilliant man, that is also from over a century in the future, and well-acquainted with spiritual powers. The tides turned." He paused, considering the last few steps. "Soon after that, Master revealed to me that I was Neah's vessel, and that Mana and Neah were brothers. That was when Ichigo and I started to become closer, as Ichigo was once in a situation that was not so different." Allen smiled a little. "Unlike my other friends, Ichigo doesn't really wait for permission to help. He tends to insert himself whether his presence is wanted or not. Which meant, in this case, that I was going to receive support in my situation regardless of my own wishes."

"It sounds like your feelings have changed since then."

Allen nodded. "I'm not sure how I would have gotten through all that without him," he admitted. "I was already overwhelmed with all I was starting to learn, and it would only get worse over the next few months. Ichigo provided a lot of stability for me during that time. But, ah..." Allen grimaced, and decided to orient himself halfway toward the wall again, doing a poor job of hiding his discomfort. "Initially, talks with Neah went poorly, due to the complications I referenced earlier. Despite our best efforts, I started to lose control of my body, and... at one point, Neah took control and injured Ichigo."

"I can't imagine you took that well."

"No," Allen agreed softly. "While Ichigo's friends were able to heal him quickly, they were extremely displeased with me, and I was personally distraught. That was the conflict that resulted in me trying to end my life, although Ichigo found me before the overdose took full effect." He exhaled, dropping his head to press his cheek to the toy bear. "He wasn't pleased about that, either."

"Is that your main regret?"

Allen pursed his lips and didn't answer. "Fortunately, things improved after that. For one thing, Neah understood that if I died, he would no longer have a vessel, and so was forced to compromise with me. Between that and Urahara, we were able to figure out what happened to me, and we learned more about the Noah Clan and their circumstances. It was Neah that explained to me that the Earl existed in Mana's body... which I'm not particularly in the mood to discuss. But, with all of that information in hand, along with the additional strength provided by the shinigami, we were able to make peace."

Clinician's notes:

What have I gotten myself into?

After receiving an overview of Allen's personal history, I have been able to identify several ongoing patterns, both in how he reacts to others and how he interprets the world as he knows it.

First, the way he speaks about himself. Allen habitually treats his most basic needs and wants as if they were an unforgivable imposition on others, up to and including being cared for as a child and his own desire for autonomy. Thus he is incredibly reluctant to make requests, assert boundaries, or seek additional support of any kind. Converse to healthy patterns, Allen seems more reluctant to 'impose' these needs on others the more he cares about them, although he won't reject what is freely offered as long as his consent is not requested at any point during the process.

Second, the way he speaks about others. Allen seems to view most others with compassion and radical acceptance, with the lone exception of Cosimo. He goes to significant lengths to understand the behavior and inner lives of others, and seems to have no trouble empathizing with those whose experiences and value systems are very different from his own. Even when he disagrees with someone, he makes sure to speak of them kindly.

These two tendencies intersect in the fact that Allen forgives any wrong done to him without restriction, to an extreme that is unquestionably dangerous to him. Mutilation, intimate betrayal, and attempted murder are not enough for Allen to sever contact with someone, or indeed to even damage his opinion of them. This disregard for his own well-being is not only a certain contributor to his current depression, but also an alarming risk factor for future abuse, not just from an intimate partner, but from anyone that cares to take advantage of him.

There are several unanswered questions about Allen's exact history and circumstances, but given the immense strain it caused him to explain as much as he did, I have chosen not to press for additional details. When we have developed more trust, perhaps I will ask again, as the particular details missing are likely to be emotionally significant.