Chapter Text
Aki is not a man who is afraid. Sure, Aki is a man who worries, but his fear has long since left him. At least, that’s what he likes to think of himself. Likes to think that every Devil he comes across does not cause a shaking so deep in his bones that it pains him to breathe. He steps into the Public Safety Division Four main building. Four, like the name the Angel Devil called the Power Devil. Aki has no idea what half of that conversation was about, but he didn’t feel like asking at that point. Yet, confinement to the moon? Was that a moniker for something? The Angel Devil couldn’t have meant the actual moon. More likely, said moon is a codename for somewhere. Somewhere only Devils can access.
Aki likes to pretend he doesn’t care. He is fully under the impression that nothing is wrong with him dying in two years, at least according to the Curse Devil, the very thing that stole his years of life. No, that’s something he doesn’t care about, as long as the Gun Devil dies. But what he pretends not to care about, something that hides beneath his skin, is something that he feels literally hiding beneath his skin.
He almost wants to puke, with the way it twist his insides. His fingernails are starting to turn blue. That’s the thing he pretends to not panic about, the fact that the tips of these keratin structures are taking on a hue that mirrors a vibrant version of the paled Devil he had seen before in those industrial catacombs. He knows this is bad, hates it. But also feels something inside of him come alive at the feeling behind this bright coloring. The feeling that just beyond the grasp of his hands is a power untold.
Is this what Yoyleite means? The power of a soul so great that it shatters the mind of the one it holds, turning their lust for life into a lust for power? Perhaps this is why the Power Devil has never seen fit to make a contract before.
Aki stares at the gloves he is holding beneath the pads of his fingers. He had just bought them, under the impression that this biologically impossible coloring was not going to be going away anytime soon. He doesn’t want to cause a ruckus in public with the fact that he feels this blue creeping up his fingertips. For now, it just looks like a botched nail polish job, but that is going to change. He walks over to the man at the cash register, and exchanges for the gloves.
He puts on the gloves as he walks back to his apartment. It’s not cold outside, brisk at the worst. Spring leaves are blanketing the trees, and Aki knows something is behind his throat. Something horrid and heart-wrenching. Something that fills him with an emotion he thought long gone. Aki does not want to become something that is only a plaything for a Devil he so despises. Because he despises the Power Devil, plain and simple.
At least, he wants to think that. He does not despise the Power Devil in itself, instead what it stands for in this society. The fact that Devils like the Gun Devil pollute their world. The fact that the Power Devil is something turning him into what is no longer human. Aki wants to stay human, wants to live human. Further than that, he wants to die human.
He thought the contract was too easy, that something as powerful as the Power Devil would at least ask for his soul. So in the end, isn’t it fitting that the Power Devil instead takes everything that makes him Hayakawa Aki? He doesn’t try to follow this train of thinking, only for said train to hit him like, well, a train. He looks up to the sky, and before he knows it he’s standing outside his apartment’s door. The wooden article mocks him, and he hears a song of excitement just beyond, inside.
He opens the door, gloves muting the feeling of touch on the doorknob. He’s immediately greeted by screaming, the kind that is filled with excitement and mirth. Still pained, but more so annoyed than true screams of fear or anguish. He watches the scene his unwilling roommates in front of him unfold. Power (not the Power Devil, but the Blood Fiend, one that wilts in comparison to something as powerful as the Power she is named after) is screaming at the top of her lungs as Denji chases her with a flyswatter, and, according to the half-screeched words, she believes it is a weapon of mass destruction for blood-suckers like herself. This is a slightly truthful fact, see mosquitos, yet she is much too big to be affected, in her almost human body.
“Aki! The great Power requires you to fulfill your duties as my servant, and get rid of this weapon of mass destruction this fool thinks will hurt me, the marvelous Power!” She accentuates each word in a flourish, before hissing at Denji, reminiscent of an overgrown cat. Aki fails at choking back the urge to sigh with all of his disappointment.
“Denji, put the flyswatter down. Or I’ll hide the bread and jam,” This statement is much more threatening than one can convey in text, and it causes Denji to reluctantly put down the flyswatter with a grumble. He starts to walk inwards towards the apartment, but is interrupted by the feeling of Power pushing her head up against his gloved hands. He slaps her away, causing an outcry from said Fiend.
“Your hands smell like zappies,” Aki has no idea what in the world Power is talking about, despite her highly accusatory and uncharicteristically serious tone. “Why do your hands smell like zappies?” She gets up into his face at this, seemingly searching for something. However, she doesn’t find it, and instead slinks away to behind the counter of his kitchen. She takes out a pot from the cupboards stationed there, before putting one on her head. Aki would be worried about her being able to breathe right if he let himself think he cares whether she lives or dies.
This inquiry from Power, of course, makes Denji become curious. He starts walking to Aki, and said Aki gives the worst glare he can give. What does Power mean, zappies? Another strange thing about the Blood Fiend, something that makes Aki want to fuse the gloves to his hands. Denji hums, contemplating. He walks up to Aki as he is deep in thought, before moving to take Aki’s hand into his own. Aki slaps Denji away as well, glaring before retreating to his room. He can’t deal with this right now.
-
The Angel Devil has never been passionate about anything. Not in the way humans are, blazing head-first into their cacoethes of love for an ability or interest. But he still feels the ability to breathe, however useless it may be for him in the long run. He still feels the sun on his skin, the dewy air between the feathers of his wings. He still feels pity, and still feels fear, no matter how muted. A mix of these two emotions is what he feels for Four. Fear and pity. Or perhaps pity and fear, for currently Four is more pitiful than fear-inducing. It’s times like these the Angel Devil is glad Four cannot read minds. They wouldn’t take that well, not well at all.
Which leads him to where he is now, under the strict supervision of the Devil Hunters as he stands outside the entrance to Four’s pointlessly fragile cage, compared to Four’s abilities at full power. From what the Angel Devil can see behind this pitiful metal is a sight for sore eyes. Four does not look healthy, nothing of the sort. But he does look better. Blue is slowly returning to his skin, and the chains around him have been loosened by a significant margin, something the Angel Devil knows is from his own ability and not anything the Devil Hunters have done.
“Angel Devil!” Four cries, scratchy voice portraying an almost childish glee. The Angel Devil nods to the hunter next to him, and said hunter begrudgingly opens the door to Four’s cage. The Angel Devil walks inside, knowing full well the strings they had to pull in order to get to where he stand now, in front of the so-called Power Devil.
“Are you here to put me back in the moon?” There it is, Four’s well-known ability to switch very quickly between happy and terrifying to anyone and everyone around him. The almost flat tone, fully flat if not for the jagged bite of the voice he holds beneath their throat. The Angel Devil shakes his head, slowly and languid, without a care to any passerby. “That’s great! I’m not going back,” Four grins, and the Angel Devil knows full well that it would truly be a task if anyone wanted to actually attempt to put Four back in the moon.
When the new moon arrived, the Angel Devil was skeptical, as one should be. It was back when the Angel Devil was first starting to gain power on Earth, when the moon was replaced. None of the humans noticed. How could they? It was a perfect replica. But the Devils knew what had happened, so the Angel Devil took the initiative to fly to the moon, not sure what to expect. He did not expect the fact that instead of the moon being empty, the Angel Devil felt a sense of dwindling hope beneath the surface. A dwindling hope that sucked out everything from anyone that came close.
It wasn’t too long until the Devils realized that the man in the moon, although it wasn’t truly a man in any sense, could steal their very souls, the source of their power. He called it Yoyleite, the power they held beneath their outward appearances, and for some reason he could take it just by touching a Devil. No more Devils started coming to the moon after that, no more Devils kept exploring. Except for the Angel Devil.
Eventually, the Angel Devil was dubbed as Four’s supposed warden. Truthfully it was and is more complicated than that. Four was what the Angel Devil had always wanted to be, always wanted to have. The ability to take, but also the ability to not take. Yet the Angel Devil never took Four out of the moon, instead coming up with excuses that Four bought every single time. The moon is too fragile, he didn’t know how to break through the moon, the other Devils are preventing them from freeing him. Excuse after excuse.
When the humans reached the moon, drilled into a spot where the moon was most fragile due to Four’s own interference, the Angel Devil frankly didn’t know what to think or feel. But he didn’t stop the humans from freeing Four, so he supposes that tells the populace exactly what they need to know about his opinion on this.
“Why did you make a contract with Aki?” The Angel Devil, in a matter true to himself, gets straight to the point of the conversation. Making a contract was something the Angel Devil expected from Four at some point, especially since he is in Public Safety’s ‘care’. But, what the Angel Devil didn’t expect is Four making a contract with Hayakawa Aki of all humans. All of the other Hunters given the option to make a contract with Four came out whining about why they were expected to make a contract with a seemingly powerless Devil, one that had a personality that refused to even acknowledge them.
“Who is Aki?” Four asks, and the Angel Devil knows that he genuinely has no idea who this is. The Angel Devil prevents a sigh that is very done (and also slightly fond. Is this what humanity means when they speak of their love for their families?) with this from gracing past his lips. However, the Angel Devil pushes onwards in this conversation, ready to gain what he needs from this exchange.
“I need a hand,” The Angel Devil casually states, before he backtracks almost immediately at the image caused by this. Four tears off his own arm, too clean to be an actual tear, instead as if the arm just popped off on its own. Four holds out the arm to him, as if this were exactly what was needed in the moment.
“Here’s a hand!” Four is way too cheery with this exclamation. The arm waves on its own, while still detached from Four’s body. The Angel Devil pushes the arm, which holds an extremely strange texture that all of Four’s body supports, back towards Four, as if to say that is not what the Angel Devil meant when asking for a hand, and Four pops the appendage back on with little fanfare.
“Aki, the human you’ve formed a contract with,” A small noise of understanding comes from Four, and the Angel Devil takes this as an opportunity to continue, “He’s beginning to feel the effects of the Yoyleite. You’ve been giving him too much of your power, and it’s starting to show,” The Angel Devil is not worried, as he knows that Aki can take care of himself, but he is quite concerned. Concerned at the fact that Aki is starting to feel the effects of the Yoyleite. He saw it at their meeting. Or, perhaps, more realistically, he smelled it. Devils have a much stronger sense of smell than humans, and the Angel Devil specifically has the ability to know what he’s looking for. He wouldn’t be surprised if Aki was starting to feel noticeable physical effects at this point. The Angel Devil remembers Four telling him about how those that use his power have their arms turn blue.
“He’s still weak,” Four says this as if it explains every part of the Angel Devil’s questions. But it doesn’t. It just makes the Angel Devil more curious. Why does Four care if Aki is weak or powerful? Especially since he can’t even be bothered to learn or even recognize Aki’s name? “To free me, he needs to be strong,”
“I didn’t think you cared about being free, all that time you never truly made a move to get yourself out of the moon in the first place,” This is a true statement, what the Angel Devil is saying. He has no doubt in his mind that if Four truly wanted to, he could free himself. Which was why it always pained the Angel Devil to give excuses as to why the Angel Devil couldn’t free him.
“I’m going to find X!” Four exclaims, cheery tone betraying nothing to his true feelings. The Angel Devil’s eyes widen slightly. Four mumbles something about finding contestants as well after this, but the Angel Devil doesn’t pay attention to this. He knows who X is, how could he not? The one being who could supposedly keep Four in control. The one being Four actually makes a point to care about, despite his very strange tactics of expressing that care. Expressions that have to do with cosmic scale, like brightening the sun or bringing dead and killed friends back to life.
“I guess I should wish you luck on that. I do, however, have an ask, as mentioned earlier. You need to stop giving Aki your power. The human species is fragile, he won’t be able to handle it in the end, not with staying as the human he is,” The Angel Devil knows that he cannot sway Four if his mind is already made up, but he also knows that this is something that is important to express. Aki must remain human. Although, perhaps this is the Angel Devil’s own bias.
Selfishness is something that the Angel Devil does not often experience. He is usually very monochrome, or perhaps even apathetic. But he’s become connected to the dying Devil Hunter, and he doesn’t want that connection to end so soon.
“Human is boring! Davids are too similar to each other,” …The Angel Devil has no idea what anything Four just said means. But that’s often the case with Four’s ramblings. After all this time, the Angel Devil still has barely any knowledge of Four’s perception of the world. Perhaps it’s because the Angel Devil tunes out Four when he talks, just enough so that they can zone out while Four is rambling. Four likes to hear themselves talk. But Four also loves stories, and maybe this is why him and the Angel Devil get along so well.
The Angel Devil is broken out of his musings by a banging on the door to Four’s cage. That means that the Angel Devil’s time is up. Hopefully they will get to talk again.
“My time’s up here. Think about what I’ve said,” The Angel Devil catalogues the opening of the door, before stepping out. The Devil Hunter who was banging on the door tries not to flinch away from him and his ability to take away someone’s life force with a touch. It doesn’t work, like usual. The Angel Devil gives a few parting words, almost as an afterthought. “I hope you find X. You talk about them a lot,”