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“Number 2 have you come to bring me to the castle?” I said as I saw the Little D. approach me.
He nodded wordlessly and I followed after him.
“When I got Lucifer's call he said it was important and to come immediately. Number 2, please promise me you aren’t taking me to another ‘We Missed You’ surprise party. You know the last time they did that it had only been a week since I saw everyone last?” I laughed. “But seriously, this time I was in a very important meeting with a particularly bigoted angel and I was starting to make real progress with him. I'm afraid a lot of that progress got ruined today. ’I came all the way to the human world for you to just up and leave in the middle,’ that’s what he said to me.”
It had been some years since Diavolo had decided to bring me to the Devildom, since The Ring had decided to give me my power, and since Solomon had decided to take me on as an apprentice. Well about a year ago I felt it was time for me to make some decisions for myself and I established and lead the Three Worlds’ Peace Alliance. A big part of what we do now, while we are in the early stages of our organization, is meeting with and convincing powerful beings in each of the three worlds to join our cause.
My new role has allowed me to learn more about the Devildom and the human world, but more than that I got the opportunity to learn so much more about the Celestial Realm, which until the last year had been the world I knew the least about. I was surprised to find out that while from the outside the celestial realm looks like sunshine and rainbows (literally), the inside held a darkness to it and the Angels wore warm smiles that hide unease in their hearts.
My meetings with the Angels usually went well, especially when Simeon accompanied me. Many angels, even the high ranking ones that we usually met, were curious to know what the Devildom was like and about Simeon’s experiences there. It was unexpected, since Lucifer had once warned me that Angels were wary of Demons and the Devildom, when he would recall his own past views. I suppose a lot has changed in the thousands of years he’s been gone, most Angel’s seemed curious and open to a little change, well except for my most recent challenge.
I remembered that Solomon and Satan were in the Devildom meeting with a demon noble, as my human and demon representatives today as well. I hope they had an easier time than I did today.
“Number 2, are Satan and Solomon at the castle as well?” I asked now that I had thought of it.
The Little D. gave another wordless nod.
“Number 2 you’re awfully quiet,” I quickened my pace so I could look at Number 2’s face. “What’s wrong? It’s rare to see you without a big goofy smile.”
Number 2 just shook his head.
I frowned, worried, “it’s that serious, huh?”
“I’m not sure what’s going on,” Number 2 finally spoke up. “All I know is that everyone is very upset. Oh, and I heard Mister Barbatos say something about Simeon arriving.”
I furrowed my brow, “Simeon? I see…”
Simeon was supposed to be doing some important work with Michael today, it’s the reason he wasn’t with me for the meeting with the angel. So I was urgently called to the castle, in regards to something to do with Simeon, who should be in the Celestial Realm, but was suddenly in the Devildom, and everyone is very upset about it. My mind landed on the darkest conclusion.
“We’re here,” Number 2 said, opening the castle doors and leading me to a lounge room where the demons and Solomon waited.
Everyone wore grim expressions as they glanced at me entering the room. Most shifted their gazes back to the floor unsure of what to say to me. Barbatos was the first to approach me.
“This way,” he led me to a closed door to the next room over. “Simeon is-”
I put my hand up, not ready to hear the words, “I think I understand. I will see for myself.”
Barbatos opened his mouth, but closed it again. I looked around the room once more. There was no doubt in my mind that in the next room would be the newest fallen angel. Simeon had always pushed the boundaries and played on the edge when it came to the rules for Celestial beings. It would be a lie to say the possibility of him facing the repercussions of his behaviors hadn’t crossed everyone’s mind at some point or another. Even so, everyone stood speechless with horrified looks on their faces. The darkness in the room seemed deeper than just the fall of the angel in the next room.
In the center of the room Simeon sat with his wings stretched out and curled around the front of him and his face down. I closed the door behind me and he looked up.
Simeon lifted his head to look at me, tears streaking down his face. Between sobs he said, “Rin… I’m sorry.”
There was an unexpected shame in his eyes, not the expression you’d anticipate from someone who was receiving an expected consequence for their actions. That’s when it dawned on me… Simeon's wings were still white and since they were out so was his halo. Fallen angels don’t keep their halos and if they do keep their wings, they turn dark. So if Simeon hadn’t fallen, what could possibly have everyone so worked up.
The answer was soon clear as Simeon started to pull back his wings. The first thing to become visible from under the feathered shield was blonde hair on top of a quivering form and from between the strands of blond hair extruded two black horns on either side of the little one’s head.
“Luke?!?!” I gasped as I hurriedly knelt beside them.
Simeon fully unfolded the wing on my side and placed the hand on the same side on my shoulder as if to pull me into their safe little huddle. As I touched Luke’s arm he flinched and turned towards Simeon’s wing that still shielded him.
“Don’t look at me. Please,” Luke said through sobs.
I ignored his request and pulled him into my arms. The grim looks on everyone’s faces made so much sense now. Simeon’s fall would have been one thing, but this… In my time in the Celestial Realm I have yet to meet an angel as pure or righteous as Luke. He was the best angel any of us knew, so how in the three worlds could this possibly happen? This question was the true reason for the horrified looks on the faces of everyone who waited outside this room.
“Luke, what happened?” I said holding back sobs of my own.
“Rin, I’m sorry. You must be disappointed in me,” Luke said, tears streaming down his cheeks.
“What? No, never!” I cupped Luke’s small face in my hands, so he could see the sincerity in my eyes. “You could never disappoint me little ang- ah little one.”
The nickname came out of my mouth without my thinking. He leaned his face into my hand as if to tell me he understood my mistake.
“I’m not sure what happened,” Luke’s small face twisted in confusion. “I was bringing a tray of freshly baked treats to Michael and Simeon who were working so hard, when it suddenly felt like my body was burning up. The only thing I remember after that was pain and then waking up here, looking like… this!”
Tears welled up in the little one’s eyes as he said the last word and pushed his face to my chest. I felt the rage and confusion in me as I wrapped my arms back around his quivering form and allowed him to cry. I looked at Simeon, but he only shook his head, his tear stained face just as confused as my own.
“I was there, I saw it happen,” his expression was pained as he recalled the moment of Luke’s fall. “Nothing was out of the ordinary, I don’t understand what happened.”
Before I could say anything else, all three of us were startled by the sound of Simeon’s phone. As he lifted up his phone the name Michael could be seen across the screen. He pressed the answer button and put the phone to his ear. No sooner than he had, he yanked the phone away from his ear as his name came out loud from the speaker. Awful as ever with technology, Simeon had somehow answered on speaker phone.
“Simeon, are you there?” a voice I had become familiar with over the last year sounded from the phone. “You need to come back to the Celestial Realm right away.”
“I’m not leaving Luke here,” Simeon responded curtly. “Not now.”
Luke's face turned to Simeon’s, “Simeon, you shouldn’t talk to Michael that way. If you need to go then-”
“I’m not leaving you, not now,” Simeon placed his phone on the floor and wrapped his arms and wings back around Luke and me. “I’ll go back later, but for now I’m here with you.”
“Simeon, you don’t understand. If you don’t come back right away, then-” Michael’s voice was cut off as Simeon reached over and hit the “end call” button.
“Simeon!”
“It’s okay Luke,” Simeon said, tightening his hold around us.
As he pulled us in I felt the grip of his hand on my arm grow stronger until it was painful. When I looked up at Simeon’s face, it was clear he was the one truly in pain. He threw his wings back and stretched them out as far as they would go and I noticed the tips of his feathers blackening. Simeon released my arm, stood up, and backed away from us.
“I’m sorry, I really thought I’d have more time,” Simeon grimaced in pain as he spoke. “It really does feel like your body is burning up, doesn’t it?”
With a look of determination that I didn’t expect to see, Luke stood up and walked over to Simeon. He grabbed Simeon's hands and nodded. Luke wanted to be there for Simeon like Simeon had been there for him only moments before. Simeon tried to put on a brave face for the little one, but it didn’t last. He screamed out in pain as his halo shattered all at once. Immediately following, Simeon yelled out again as his feathers ruffled and the blackness at the tip of feathers quickly spread to the base of his wings. The pain was enough to take Simeon down to his knees and Luke lowered himself too.
As Luke helped Simeon through the pain he had experienced just a while earlier, I sat motionless, unable to do anything. The tears I had been holding back this whole time finally spilled over, as I watched paralyzed by my own anger.
It felt wrong to close my eyes to Simeon’s pain, so I watched as the final stage of his fall began. As I see horns twist out of the former angel’s head, I manage to repress the urge to look away, but I completely lack the ability to repress my anger anymore. Everything I had worked for over the last year seemed hopeless, if something like this could still happen. In the time I’ve spent in the Celestial Realm I’ve made friends and have even become close with some angels. Could I have to watch them fall one day as well? And maybe even for seemingly no reason, like Luke?
Simeon and Luke were calm now, but I was ready to boil over. Hot, angry tears rolled down my cheeks and I clutched my chest as if it could hold back the feelings that had already escaped. The two freshly fallen angels looked my way.
“Rin…” Luke reached out towards me.
I jumped up and stepped back, “I’m sorry, I- I just need a minute.”
As I turned to the door Simeon said, “Don’t worry, take your time.”
‘Don’t worry’? After everything these two just went through, they were trying to comfort me? And you want me to somehow believe that they deserved to be cast out of the heavens? It’s just not right!
As I entered back into the main lounge room all eyes turned towards me.
Before anyone could speak I said, “No, I’m not ready yet. Please, just give me a moment.”
“If you would like to be alone the room here is vacant and it has a balcony if you need some air,” Barbatos motioned towards a door on the opposite wall of the one I had just come out of.
I choked out a thank you as I moved to take up the offer for some privacy.
“Rin…”
I ignored the concern in Satan’s voice and entered the other room.
❂ ❂ ❂
“She is not okay,” Satan looked to his brothers.
“Yeah man, you wouldn’t be either if you’d just seen what she just hadda see,” Mammon retorted.
From this room they didn’t see what happened with Simeon, but they felt it and they most certainly heard it.
“No, I mean she was really not okay,” Satan tried to convey what he felt. “I have never felt wrath like that from Rin in all the time we’ve known her.”
“Still, we should give her her space, shouldn’t we?” Leviathan asked.
“Normally I would agree, but right now I don’t think we should. She- I think she’s close to snapping, like truly going over the edge.” Satan shook his head. “Even now, I can feel her wrath increasing. Being alone is not calming her down, we should-”
“Did you feel that?” Solomon’s eyes shot towards the door to the room Rin was in. “That was some very powerful magic. What is she doing?”
Before anyone could react to what Solomon said a loud angry scream could be heard on the other side of the door. All ten beings rushed to the room, but before they made it the scream was cut short and the presence of magic disappeared.
Lucifer being the closest, entered first, “She’s gone.”
“It feels like teleportation magic,” Solomon said, looking around the room. “But she shouldn’t need that much power for a teleportation spell.”
“We heard a scream, what’s going on?” Luke’s small frame peaked around the doorway.
“Rin took off,” Belphegor started. “We don’t know where she went.”
“What are we going to do?”
“There’s nothing we can do if we don’t know where she is,” Diavolo pointed out. “We can only wait for her to come back.”
“You two should be resting,” Barbatos looked toward Luke and Simeon concerned. “Come, let's all rest in the lounge while we wait. I’ll make some tea for everyone.”
❂ ❂ ❂
Several cups of tea later and there was still no sign of Rin. Almost an hour had passed before finally something changed. No one could have quite predicted what came next, but prepared or not a blinding light lit up the dark room.
All eyes turned towards the celestial light that emitted from Luke and Simeon. In a moment the blinding light died down to reveal the two as angels once again. The change was instant, no slow transformation, no pain, just light. Changing from a demon to an angel was so different from the transformation of a fallen. No one would have known that, since it’s never happened before.
“What- how,” Simeon looked at his hands then down at Luke. “I don’t understand.”
Before he could complete the thought a strong teleportation portal appeared in the center of the room. Everyone looked to it expecting their favorite human girl and an explanation. Instead an angel with a stern face stepped through the portal.
Barbatos immediately jumped to the defensive, “How did you get here? Only a select few can create portals into the castle.”
The angel hardly bat an eye at Barbatos. She looked from Barbatos to the portal she had just stepped out of.
“That’s because this portal was created by God,” the angel shifted her gaze back across faces that watched her carefully. “On that note, all of your presence is requested in the throne room.”
Everyone’s eyes grew wide at the angel’s words. Their surprise was followed by a sinking feeling in their chests as they all thought the same thing. “Rin, what did you do?”
The room was still and silent. No one was quite sure how to move beyond their shock and fear.
“Well, I suppose we shouldn’t keep him waiting,” Diavolo spoke up first, leading the way for his friends.
Everyone stepped through the portal that connected the castle lounge to a large white and gold corridor with the highest of ceilings. Before them was a large door, one Lucifer knew too well.
“The throne room…” Lucifer reached his hand toward the handle but stopped, shocked by his own shaking hand.
Diavolo managed to tear his gaze away from the room around him and put a comforting hand on Lucifer’s shoulder, “Are you okay?”
“No,” Lucifer’s answer was blunt. “I don’t know what Rin did, but father is not easily swayed in his decisions. As angry as she was, if Rin went after father, there’s no doubt in my mind he erased her from existence. If that's true, I don’t think I’ll be able to keep my composure. I don’t see a scenario in which we make it out of this alive.”
“I won’t let the worst happen. If push comes to shove, I’ll have Barbatos use his power,” Diavolo gave Lucifer’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Now, go on and open the door. You have all of us beside you, there is nothing to be afraid of.”
Shaky hands pushed the door open. If anyone thought the corridor was bright, then the throne room was blinding. As their eyes adjusted they could see the only thing in the room, a large white throne and a figure that was much too small to fit in it.
Despite not being fully adjusted, everyone’s eyes widened, “Rin?!”
“Ah, I’m so glad you're here,” a gentle, but sad voice said. “Some… things happened. I suppose I’ll have to explain.”