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—gruesome. Even in death, the devil’s corpse remains a battlefield of torn-off limbs and pieces of meat and skull, of boiling skin and acidic green blood. Where it hits the concrete, it leaves craters. Where it hit Angel’s sword, it sizzles and eats through all five layers of steel. With a sigh, he disposes of it. One hundred years of human life, gone to waste because of some acid.
Over the devil’s remains stands Aki. His chest is heaving and sinking with every painful, audible breath, his pupils blown wide. The suit and shirt over his left side is completely ruined, as is the skin beneath it, most likely. A sword is buried in the devil’s chest, splitting the ribcage in half, and Aki’s hands are clutching the hilt so hard that his knuckles go white.
But he isn’t looking at his work. He isn’t looking at Angel either, he’s just—staring. At a wall, technically, but Angel has a suspicion he’s looking right through that, too.
“It deserved to die,” Aki says, finally, and sounds like he is talking to the wall, or maybe trying to blinking his way back into reality. Empty, but with the last remnants of blood thirst and unfiltered hate still flickering through him. “It killed dozens. It tried to kill us. It’s a devil, for fuck’s sake.”
Angel stays silent. This, for some reason, seems to distress Aki much more than the corpse at his feet. He’s looking at Angel now, eyes piercing. “Say something.”
Angel shrugs. “I’m not disagreeing with you. It tried to kill us first.”
Aki seems thrown off by that, though Angel can’t begin to fathom why. He is a devil hunter just like Aki, hired by Public Safety just like Aki. The fact that he is a devil contributes remarkably little to his overall stance on the subject as a whole. Devil first, angel second, yes, but this matters quite little, Angel found out quickly, when he is tasked to kill a rabid devil. Better to get used to rules fast.
He kicks the dead devil’s disintegrating head. It quite literally falls apart, and Angel pulls a face. He’s glad he won’t have to be here for cleanup. “We’re done here,” he says to Aki, only Aki is not really looking at him again. “Can we go now?”
For a moment, he thinks he’s not going to get an answer at all. Then, Aki lifts his head like he is waking from some sort of trance and looks at Angel like he sees him for the first time. His eyes widen a bit, his lips part but no sound leaves them. For a moment, there is an odd tension between them, as Aki’s eyes hush across his face, his wings, his bruised knuckles.
“Yeah,” he says, and finally pulls his sword out of the ribcage. It crunches awfully. “Yeah. You’re right. Let’s go home.”
Angel doesn’t correct him. He just trails along when they leave, and wonders what the poor devil said to make Aki this angry.
They walk in silence for a while. What a pair they must make: Aki, suit full of acid-induced holes that must hurt like hell, a sword with green, sticky blood clenched like it’s a lifeline, and Angel with his wings and halo. Devil Hunters they scream for the world to see, and from the disgusted-curious eyes that follow them all the way back, the world very clearly watches. Angel, though, is too exhausted to deal with any of it. Let the world see, he thinks, and let them think whatever they want. He did his job. That has to be enough for now.
Unsurprisingly, it’s Aki who breaks their silence first. “I’m going out to an izakaya with Power and Denji tonight,” he says. To Angel’s pleasant surprise, he sounds less like he’s talking against a wall, and more like he’s talking to Angel. Angel likes that a lot more than he’ll ever admit. “Do you want to come with us?”
Oh. Angel is still not used to this—something like friendship, something like dancing around something else entirely. It changed with Makima’s death, he thinks, the invitations for dinner and occasional too-long touches, and their general lack of hostility, replaced by a feeling Angel refuses to call heartache.
Maybe it would be the polite thing to decline—it is a family outing, after all. But Angel doesn’t like the quietness his flat tries to suffocate him with, and the thought of returning to an empty home. Besides, going out with Aki means he won’t have to pay. It’s good that Angel doesn’t have a polite bone in his body.
“Mmn,” he says, too exhausted for formality. “Sure. Where are you going?”
For the first time in a while, he sees Aki smile. “I’ll send you the address.”
All showered up and caffeinated despite the hour, they meet up at the izakaya almost an hour later. Angel made an effort to dress down from the usual suit-and-tie-uniform. Now that he’s got his memories back, he actually has a reason to, so he wears a white t-shirt and black pants. There are the gloves, too, of course—not mandatory by any means, because Aki isn’t that kind of person, but Angel is smart enough to adhere to unspoken rules, and wears them anyway. They’re nice, so he doesn’t really mind. Even if Angel has his powers under control these days, there are worse things to be stuck with.
He meets the others outside the izakaya. Power and Denji are so caught up in arguing with each other that they barely notice his arrival, but Angel prefers this, anyway. Tired as he is, seeing how Aki’s eyes quietly light up when he sees him is enough to make him wide awake again.
Aki is wearing that brown leather jacket he so often puts on when he doesn’t pretend to have a noble and elegant taste in clothing for work. The leather is soft and worn down, color scratched off at multiple points from many years of use, but it doesn’t take away from the overall charm. There is a metaphor hidden somewhere in between too-long sleeves and the way it doesn’t quite fit around his shoulders, always a bit too loose, a bit too big on him. like somehow, despite how tall he is, aki never learned how to fill it out. he always looks lost in it, somehow. There is a metaphor in it, Angel is sure, but he is too tired to spell it out.
“Hi,” Aki says, breathless even though Angel’s the one who just arrived.
“Hi,” Angel echoes. “Are you ready?”
Next to them, Power yells as she wins whatever argument she and Denji were having. She whirls around, unkempt hair flying. “What are we waiting for?” she asks, then abruptly looks at Angel. Her eyes widen. “Oh, hi!”
“Hi,” Angel echoes, but Power has already turned back to Denji, so Aki gently takes her wrist and drags her behind them as they enter. The izakaya swallows them whole with its soft noise of chatter and laughter, and it is exactly what they all seem to need after a day like this. Angel disagrees, personally, but he politely tucks himself into a corner of their table and waits for their food to arrive.
Dinner passes in a flurry. In between small glasses of sake and the dozens of plates Power and Denji order, it’s easy to get lost and forget your surroundings for a moment. Angel lets himself get dragged away by it all: their laughter, the alcohol, Aki’s leg leaning firmly against his under the table.
At some point, Power stands up, legs slightly wobbly, and proudly proclaims that she’s going to vomit. Angel hasn’t even seen a devil move as fast as Aki and Denji, who jump to their feet at lightning-speed, basically dragging her outside before she even has time to react. Angel strolls behind them, less out of a desire to help and more because he hates being left behind at their table, so he watches from a safe distance as Denji loudly complains how gross the whole thing is, and Aki gently brushes Power’s hair out of her face despite his visible annoyance.
“Hey,” Power says suddenly, darting her head up. “I’m feelin’ much better!”
Aki’s face lights up. “Than—”
She retches again.
Angel wrinkles his nose and looks away from her green face. His eyes land on Aki’s hands, flying back into Power’s pink hair. They are spotless and soft as they comb through Power’s hair, and Angel can’t help but compare them to white-knuckled ones on the hilt of a sword. This Aki is from a different world than the one that fought the devil, and yet the hands are the same, even if they don’t look the part.
Aki’s eyes wrinkle with disgust, then badly hidden amusement, and Angel absently thinks how they will never wrinkle from age. Maybe it should shock him, the way he so casually accepts reality, but that’s being a devil for you. Whenever you feel like an angel, you can always rely on your innate cruelty to deal with uncomfortable facts for you.
His stare gets caught by Aki, of course, who looks at him questioningly. Angel shakes his head, nodding instead to Power. Isn’t there someone else you should pay attention to?
Aki pulls a face, but turns his attention back to Power. She seems to have recovered completely within the last 30 seconds. A devil’s blessing, maybe. Angel never drank enough to find out and, looking at Power, decides it’s an experience he can live without. His thesis is supported once Power tries to climb Denji’s shoulders to get Aki’s attention. “We want ice cream!” Denji shouts, and Power echoes “Ice cream!”
Faced with the sheer force of their one combined brain cell, Aki sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Let me pay first,” he says, with the voice of a man who knows he has lost the battle and the war.
They erupt into cheers.
Five minutes later, Angel’s breath forms small clouds before his lips despite the season, hands shoved deep into his pockets, as Aki re-emerges from the restaurant. “Ready?” he asks, looking at all of them like some sort of mother hen. When his eyes meet Angel’s, Angel’s heart skips a beat.
“Ready!” Power yells, excited. She drags them along more than they walk, down the mostly empty streets. The moon’s high, and off the main streets, barely anybody stops to turn and look at the strange combination they make. Power and Denji are chattering about something, but Angel can’t be bothered to pay attention, not when Aki is walking right beside him.
Finally, Aki tries to turn into another street, off from the route that Denji pre-picked for them. The reaction is immediate: “Where are you going?” Denji asks, absently tugging at Aki’s sleeve. “Ice cream parlor’s that way.”
“You’re old enough to buy your own ice cream,” Aki says, that brave soul. “I’ll walk Angel home.”
Denji scrunches his nose. “You sure you don’t wanna come with us? It’s ice cream.”
Something unspoken passes between him and Aki. A moment passes, then two, and finally Denji turns away with a sigh.
“Alright, alright, I get it,” he proclaims, so loud that both Aki and Angel flinch at the volume. “Come on, Power, let’s go get that ice cream.” With his back already halfway turned towards them, he suddenly whirls around, pointing an accusing index finger at Aki. “You’re paying, though!”
Wordlessly, Aki hands him his credit card. For just a moment, the glee in Denji’s face takes unreal dimensions. Then they bounce off to get whatever sweet abomination they happen to come across first.
“They’re the worst,” Aki sighs and Angel allows himself a tiny smile because he knows Aki doesn’t mean it.
“And yet you’re still playing babysitter,” he says, reaching into Aki’s pockets to fumble out a cigarette and a lighter. Bad habit. Maybe it’s the sake getting to his head, but if Aki notices the rare teasing undertone in Angel’s voice, he doesn’t say anything. “Could have fooled me.”
“Well, somebody has to take care of them,” he responds, nose wrinkled like he’s not hiding his own laugh. The lighter clicks once, twice. A small flame, and a rush of nicotine hits Angel’s lungs in half-burns, half-relief. “Imagine them taking care of themselves. They’d burn the house down in less than a week.”
Realization hits him the same moment it hits Angel, and all the nicotine and smoke gets gut-punched out of Angels lungs right away. Awkward silence settles between them. Aki swallows, turns away, looks away at the curbstone, his feet. “Well,” he says after a moment-too-long pause of hesitation. “I guess they’ll—well. They’ll learn how to take care of themselves eventually.”
Angel doesn’t know what to say to that. Most of his life has been spent in the clutches of Makima and Public Safety. He went to work, killed devils, got ice cream if he did well. Crying faces were easy to ignore, and resurfacing emotions easily suppressed, if he just pushed them down hard enough. He’s not human, after all. Point is: Angel never learned how to deal with so painfully human emotions. Aki is staring at his own death, and all Angel can think of is reaching out and patting his shoulder. There, there. He doubts it would be appreciated.
In the end, he opts for a deep drag of his cigarette. It’s no good to waste gifts, after all, much less those you stole from the beginning. “They’ll miss you,” he says, quietly, awkward because he’s quite sure he doesn’t hit the appropriate tone for this conversation. To make it more authentic, more true, he adds, “I’ll miss you. When you’re gone. It won’t be the same.”
Something in Aki’s face shifts, like an unknown barricade suddenly shutting down. His mouth drags into a thin line. “Can we please not talk about that right now?”
Another drag, though Angel is getting sick of the taste by the second. He wants to blow the smoke into Aki’s face, get him out of that self-pitying state. He’s not the only one suffering here. Aki is facing death, yeah, but Angel is facing immortality without Aki. “That seems to be a recurring theme with you.”
“Well, yeah. People don’t like talking about their own demise, you know? Unlike you devils, we’re not immortal monsters.”
That stings. “So your solution is just to avoid it?” Angel asks. The words come out with more sneer than he wanted, and he cannot tell why, doesn’t want to tell why. Neither himself, nor anybody else. Doesn’t want to, quite frankly, and the knowledge upsets him so much he considers turning around and leaving this conversation at once. Aki is being stubborn again, and this conversation is leading nowhere again, and Angel has had enough.
Only a second too late does he realize that he might have gone too far with that one. Aki’s face shuts down in the way it only does when he’s so upset he doesn’t know how to act, and the tip of his nose goes white with poorly suppressed fury. “What does it matter if I start acting like it?” Aki snaps. “Everyone gets sad and I get a fucking empty shell of a life because I acknowledge that it’s going to end in, what, a few months? Cut me some slack, will you?”
“So you are ignoring it,” Angel fires back. “Great.”
“And what else I’m supposed to do?” Aki asks. “Make some magic devil contract that heals me up again? Sorry, those don’t come cheap. I’d rather I die in dignity, thank you very much.”
Angel’s heart sinks at the words. “Don’t—” he says, but doesn’t know how to continue. Don’t what? Don’t die? Ha ha. They went past that crossroad a while ago. With no words to stop him, he is helpless to watch as Aki turns at his heel, three steps ahead even before Angel realizes he is about to be left behind.
Yet he only watches him leave with dread. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he warns. Aki half-turns around, sneers.
“When have I ever?”
A half-burnt cigarette lingers between his fingertips. Angel doesn’t care to take another drag.
Call it intuition, or a gift from hell, but when Aki breaks into Public Safety’s headquarters in the middle of the night through an unsecured side entrance, Angel is already waiting for him. It’s not that he knows Aki’s plans, per se. Just that he knows Aki. Turns out, even that is enough sometimes.
HQ is armed to the teeth to prevent possible break-ins and break-outs, but apparently nobody accounted for the possibility of employees abusing their key cards. For once, Angel is glad for the clunky thing.
He makes no effort of hiding, but the halls are dark in the middle of the night, and so Aki only notices him when they almost run into each other. Aki doesn’t say his name, which is a shame, but even in the dark he can see how his eyes light up with sharp recognition. “What are you doing?” he whisper-hisses.
Sometimes, Angel doesn’t know what to do with this mess of a human. “Accompanying you, obviously,” he whispers back, though he finds the whole thing a little silly. There are no human guards around at that time, and the recording devices will pick up even the tiniest sliver of voice anyway.
Aki narrows his eyes, hand on the hilt of his sword. “I don’t want the officials to get involved into this.”
Angel feels actually hurt. He thought they were beyond that. “You think I’d tell anyone about this little plan of yours?”
Aki scoffs. “You don’t even know where I’m going,” he says, like it matters in any way. “And you still think I have some master plan?”
“I know you, Aki Hayakawa. And it’s fucking tragic that you don’t realize it.”
Aki presses his lips into a thin, white line. “Alright,” he says after a moment of hesitation. “I can’t stop you, anyway. Just don’t make any noise, alright?”
Angel gestures like wouldn’t-have-anyway, but it gets completely lost on Aki, who turns away with his shoulders set into a hard line. He follows Aki down the hallways, flashes his keycard when it’s needed, lies his way past the detection tests asking for an authentication and a confirmed visitation time. Aki doesn’t work with precision as much as determination, following some invisible goal Angel can’t see. Angel is good. He keeps quiet past the first gate, and past the second, and only when they walk down the long hallway leading to the first row of cells does Angel raise his voice.
“So,” he says, almost nonchalantly. Not because he feels that way, but because he assumes that this is what Aki needs right now. An anchor to keep him down. Angel has never been good at keeping anybody grounded, but now is as good a time as any to try. “Is now a good time to ask what we’re doing?”
Aki stops dead in his tracks, just to turn around and look at him. “I thought you realized by now,” he says, unbelieving, aching. “I thought you were pretending.”
“I most certainly didn’t. Will you tell me, or do I have to wonder about your motives the entire way down?”
Aki hesitates, then swallows heavily like he can avoid giving an actual answer if he just drowns the words for long enough. “The Time Devil,” he finally says, like every word is poison to him. Understandable. Angel’s heart, too, skips a beat. “It’s been held captive by the bureau for years, but nobody has successfully made a contract with it yet. Its demands are too—” he hesitates— “grave.”
“But you want to do it anyway,” Angel concludes. From the way Aki looks away, hands gripping the flashlight a bit harder, it’s bullseye. “Why?”
“None of your business.” With his chin pushed forward and determination set heavily in his eyes, Aki reminds Angel more of their first meeting than he has in months. Hostility all the way down to his bones. Angel knows it’s most likely not personal, and he just happens to be the only one around to receive the full hit of his anxiety, but it still fucking hurts. Angel wants an apology for that. Later.
“Sure.” Angel shoves his hands into his pockets, always two steps behind Aki. He wants to say something else, something snarky that’s going to get him Aki’s full attention for once, but he is cut short by Aki abruptly stopping.
“Here it is.” The door before them isn’t anything special by any means; sealed like the others in steel and black lead, with a number place right in the middle. Angel doesn’t bother to read this one, because he knows exactly what it’s going to say.
Wordlessly, he follows Aki into the chamber. It’s hermetically sealed, of course, and once the door falls shut behind them, they are enveloped in complete darkness. Neither of them thought to find the light switch first.
Or—they should be. Instead of darkness, once their eyes get used to the light level, they find something else illuminating the room. Hundreds, maybe thousands of small spheres stick to everything around them, giving off a soft, yellow glow.
Aki makes one move, and they transform into countless eyes, twitching to look at him. He stops dead in his tracks.
“Time Devil,” he calls into the glowing mass. “I came to talk to you.”
For a moment, nothing happens. Then the eyes turn into mouths, speaking from every inch and corner of the room all at once—wooden like a puppet moving its limbs, sluggish like it hasn’t had the chance to talk in a very long time. “Who is sp-eaking?”
“A devil hunter,” Aki says. Good, he hasn’t completely lost his temper. He is still smart enough not to give a devil his name. “I’m here to make a contract.”
“A contract,” the devil echoes. “Wh-at do you want?”
Aki takes a deep breath, finger closing a bit tighter. Knuckles a bit whiter. When he exhales, he simply says, “I want more time.”
The yellow mouths and eyes drop down from walls and ceiling—slowly first, then all at once, until the majority of them gathers in a single figure on the ground, right in front of them. As they watch, it slowly takes a shape that vaguely resembles a human. But instead of skin, there are mouths and mouths and mouths, filled with too-sharp teeth, and eyes watching their every move. As much as Angel is a creature born in Hell, even his stomach turns with terror at the display.
“Time,” the devil says. “What ki-kind of time?”
“All the time you have,” Aki responds. “I want everything you can give.”
“E-ternal life.”
“Yes. If that’s what you’ll give me.”
Faster than any of them can react, part of the devil shoots closer, stopping right before Aki’s head. Dozens of eyes examine every inch of his face, only centimeters away from his skin.
“Your eyes,” the devil finally decides. “I want your e-e-eyes. And your mouth. And your te-eth and all the bones in your bo-ody. Give them to m-me, I’ll add them to my col-col-col-collection.”
Aki doesn’t flinch, but Angel sees something in his face shut down. He asked for the one thing humankind had never managed to achieve by itself, from a devil without mercy. He had to be prepared for whatever price he had to pay. Right?
“One eye,” he says, stone-faced. “But not more. You can add that to your collection.”
“That’s a b-bad deal, devil hunter,” the Time Devil says. “I won’t ac-cep—”
“And in addition,” Aki interrupts it, “I will free you from here.”
Cold, plain terror freezes the blood in Angel’s veins.
“Aki—” he starts the same moment the Time Devil explodes. Every single one of its eyes starts spinning, then focuses on Aki all at once. “Out?” it asks, twenty voices all at once, double the volume of before, a cacophony of panicked, ecstatic noise. Alarmed, Angel presses his hands to his ears, but it does little to lessen the pain that shoots through his head at its screeches. “You’ll get me out of here?”
Aki nods. “Fulfill the contract with me, and I will free you from here.”
As abruptly as it erupted, the room dies down. “You’ve got a d-eal, hunter,” the Time Devil says. “Get me o-ut of here and I will make a co-on-tract with you.”
Angel glances at Aki. With the composed set of his shoulders, the way he raises his chin, it might be enough to convince the Time Devil of his fearlessness. But Angel sees the way his eyes are torn wide open in barely suppressed panic, sweat pearling at his forehead. No matter his composure, Aki is throughoutly and utterly terrified.
This is not according to plan. It speaks volumes about the dedication of one Hayakawa Aki that, even after putting his life and Japan’s safety on the line, he doesn’t waver. “Deal,” he says, and opens the door.
The devil explodes.
Angel’s hands fly to his ears with lightning speed as the devil screeches its victory through the bureau, until he is sure the entire city must be deaf by its inhumane voice. And then, as abruptly as it started, it falls completely silent. A million eyes turn towards the walls around it, the soft fluorescent lighting, the exit. Angel holds his breath as it slowly opens and closes its eyes, examines Aki. Its stare glides all up and down his face, his suit, down to his shoes and then back up like it is searching for something.
“The contract has been ful-filled,” it finally croaks, something like glee in that horrible, rasping voice of its. And, more strained, almost longing, it adds, “It’s been so l-long. I want—I need blood. Fle-Flesh. Bones.”
Aki’s eyes fly wide open the same moment that the Time Devil reaches out with one gooey, desperately grasping hand. He stumbles backwards, hand flying to his katana, while the devil manifests hundreds of mouths, all with razor-sharp teeth—
And Angel takes a step forward, body moving between the Time Devil and Aki before he even knows what he’s doing. “Sorry,” he says, forcing himself to stay completely calm. “But you can’t have him.”
Aki whirls around to look at him at the same time as countless eyes turn sharply to stare at Angel. He extends a hand. “Five hundred years.”
The spear he pulls from his halo is so bright that it burns his palm. Any other time, Angel would have considered it a waste—but what more fitting to defeat a Time Devil with than time?
I’m sorry, he silently apologizes to all the people who can’t hear him anymore. But he needs to be saved.
Without looking away from Aki, he points the spear at the vaguely humanoid shape of the devil’s main body. “You will finish the contract you agreed on. We are getting you out of here, but you’ll leave Aki alone.”
The devil has to feel the power behind that weapon, Angel is sure, yet it doesn’t move. “Wh-who are you to decide this?” it asks, eyes flaring up wide. “De-evil or not, you will d-i-e.”
Angel scoffs. Does he look like so little? “Yeah,” he says, “I doubt that. I’ve been to hell and returned alive, I’ve encountered the Control Devil and survived, and I fought the Chainsaw Devil and won.” The burns on his palm grow worse as he adds twenty, thirty, a hundred years into the spear. Light bites through his palms, burns his skin, but Angel doesn’t let go even as it eats through his skin, however excruciating the pain gets.
He feels Aki’s devout look, lips slightly open in a perfect oh, more than he sees it, and adds, “So whatever little trick you think you can try, don’t bother. They won’t be any use.”
“Angel,” Aki says. For the first time, it sounds the way his name was always meant to be spoken—in awe, in worship, in godliness. Angel wants to hear him say it a million times more.
“I’ll say it one last time,” Angel says, eyes still fixed on Aki. “Let him go freely, and fulfill your contract. You won’t live to see the sun rise otherwise.”
Something in his voice must have snapped, because he hears his own words, icy in their stoicness, from far, far away. But the Time Devil hesitates, then slowly moves backwards. “You’ll re-regret this, Aki Hayakawa,” it says. If looks could kill this corridor would turn into a massacre, but Angel doesn’t back down. He raises the spear, ignoring the pain that shoots through his body at the motion.
Aki looks at it in disgust. “Even with a contract, you’re still a devil,” he says, contempt soaking from every word. “Know your place. Act out of line, and I’ll kill you without hesitation. I don’t need Angel to do the dirty work for me.”
Something in Angel snaps. The Time Devil laughs, says something robotically sarcastic in return, but Angel can’t hear it over the static in his mind. Know your place, devil, on repeat and repeat. Of course. He was stupid. Power and Denji are fiends and hybrids, not devils. What remains of their laughable little squadron are all humans. Amidst them, Angel stands out like a black sheep, and he doesn’t need anybody to point fingers at him, calling devil, to point out the difference.
Exhausted conversations after devil-hunting, small laughs, invitations over dinner and sake. Angel has never felt this empty before. Betrayal, he learns, tastes bitter.
In the here and now, while the weapon in Angel’s hands dissolves and disappears, Aki points the tip of his sword at the Time Devil. “Leave,” he says. “The contract is complete as soon as you step outside these doors. Next time I see you, I’ll kill you myself. Now go, before I change my mind.”
A moment of hesitation, and then the Time Devil wallows, rolls, crawls its way to the exit with a speed that makes it difficult to follow with a bare eye. Freedom is one hell of a drug, and within a moment, they are the only two living things in these halls. The Time Devil is gone, disappearing to wreak havoc somewhere far, far away, taking lives in their names, and they have nothing to stay here for anymore. Angel follows Aki up the stairs silently, up the elevators and sharp-turn corridors and hissing slide doors. The door hasn’t fallen completely shut behind them yet when Angel turns around to look at Aki.
He thinks about saying something, anything. The cold night’s air lashes across their faces, Angel’s burnt palms curl to fists in his pockets, and Aki’s eyes are so achingly empty that Angel wants nothing more than cross the space between them, hold him close, tell him it’s going to be alright. But hurt is a fickle thing, and it gnaws his heart into small pieces. Angel is petty, and Angel is bitter, and he wants nothing less than be fodder for Aki’s emotional turmoil. He prides himself on being many things, but collateral damage isn’t one of them.
So all he does it look at Aki for a long, long moment. And then he turns and walks away.
Ironically enough, it is in this moment that Angel remembers standing in Makima’s bureau, some few months ago. Before everything. He can’t remember the original reason he’s there, much less what they talked about, but one moment burned itself into his brain:
“Aki Hayakawa doesn’t have much time left.”
Makima folds her hands on the smooth mahogany desk, the perfect emblem of a marble statue. Something non-human in an uncanny way, though Angel certainly isn’t one to judge. Her eyes, when she looks at him are crystal-sharp. “So tell me,” she says. “When it all ends, what side of Aki do you think will remain? The one that hates devils, or the one that loves you?”
Angel’s chin is up, his wings are neatly tucked behind his back, and his hands are crossed, one palm at the other’s wrist. Yet when Makima speaks, his world looses footing, tumbles once over and back. His eyes, he’s sure, fly wide open. “The one that—” loves me, he wants to say, but doesn’t dare. It’s not the surprise that comes with the question, because it isn’t. Surprising, that is. Angel knows Aki loves him, though he won’t*act on it. That’s not the issue here.
He remembers the hate in Aki’s eyes when they faced devil after devil, remembers the satisfaction of blood and death too vividly. Angel cannot imagine a world in which Aki doesn’t hate devils. He cannot imagine a world in which some part of him will not always hate Angel.
Makima smiles. “Consider it, will you?”
Angel usually makes an effort to avoid the places that tie him to memories he’d rather forget. Public Safety and all its connections are impossible, for obvious reasons, but he tries his best around the streets and corners of his city anyway. There are shops he’ll never enter again, because he had to kill somebody right outside their doors, and too many street names he has tried his hardest to forget, but have burned their names into his mind.
And yet, that same night, his steps lead him to the beach. He’s not foolish enough to try and set foot again where he knows Makima took control of what remained of his mind, almost killing Aki in the process—but a bit more down the coast, there’s a spot close to the harbor where waves smack gently against the concrete and sand below his feet. Nobody will find him if he doesn’t want to. With him, he carries a can of blueberry juice from the 24 hour store, and the weight of much more than he cares to admit.
It doesn’t stop Aki from finding him, of course. He never intended it to, and knew it would be impossible anyway. Try to keep Aki Hayakawa from reaching his goal, and all you’ll do is cause more collateral damage in the process.
Angel doesn’t look up when he hears the footsteps behind him. He leans against the metal railing, takes a sip, then lowers the can to the ground without taking his eyes from the crashing waves. Only after a minute does he look up. Their eyes meet with careful silence, one that Angel doesn’t want to give up by speaking just yet, even though he knows how much it must hurt Aki. Necessary evils, and all that.
Aki hovers awkwardly over him, like he isn’t sure whether he is welcome here. His eyes drill into Angel with uncomfortable intensity; not looking away, not looking through him. Just Angel. “Your hands,” he finally says. “They’re burnt.”
Angel looks down. Over time, his pain tolerance has grown beyond what should be possible—and, most likely, is healthy—but Aki is right. Where the spear had touched his hands before, melting through the gloves within seconds, it left blisters and open wounds, scars and the occasional charcoal-like piece of burnt, black skin. Now that he focuses on it, it hurts like hell, but all Angel can think about is how terrible it must look to Aki.
“They’ll heal,” he says, though what he really wants to say is I’m sorry, though what sits at the tip of his tongue is tell me you didn’t mean it. “I’m not human. I heal faster than your kind.”
Aki finally crouches down, settling on the concrete next to Angel, and Angel’s heart skips a beat when he takes his hand into his. Soft hands, young hands—forever young, now, and the thought twists something in his chest.
“You did that for me,” Aki says, his voice soaked in something Angel can’t place. Maybe it’s reverence. Maybe he is disgusted. Wouldn’t be the first time. “You almost burned off your hands just to keep me safe from that devil. Look at them now.”
“I just told you,” Angel says. The words don’t sound as harsh as he wants them, said out loud. “They will heal. They always do.” He wants to pull his hands from Aki’s hold, keep their touches non-existent, themselves far away from each other. A safe distance between two things that should never have been allowed to touch in the first place.
Angel doesn’t move.
It’s Aki that lets go, then, just a moment later. Before Angel’s heart has a chance to sink, though, he realizes why: Aki digs through his pockets, in frantic search of something. Angel doesn’t have to wonder for long, because a moment later, he draws out a knife.
“No,” Angel says. “No.”
But he doesn’t stop Aki from cupping his palm over it, jolting it over the blade with one quick, abrupt movement. His teeth clench and dark red drips from his hand. Angel watches with horror as Aki holds it out to him.
“Here,” Aki says. “Blood will make you heal faster, won’t it? Take it. It’s yours.”
“You’re insane.”
“And your hands are burnt to hell and back. Just take it, alright?” Aki pushes his hand towards him, almost antagonistic in his force, and hell—who is Angel to refuse a meal, when it’s being presented to him on a silver plate?
Aki’s hand almost falls as he reaches for it with the desperation of a wild animal, but Angel’s clutch on it, once caught, is iron-tight, and Aki’s blood smears his lips red. Within seconds, Angel feels the pain lessen, the skin regenerate over everything that’s been burnt and scorched off, but the sensation pales to Aki’s skin so close to his own. Close enough to make his head spin. Close enough to make Angel think things he shouldn’t, and dangerously close to saying them out loud.
But there is only so much Aki can give, and Angel forces himself to exercise restraint for the first time in his gluttonous life. His lips disconnect from Aki’s skin and Aki shudders. He moves back slowly, trying to immortalize the taste of Aki’s blood on his lips, but doesn’t let go of his hand. Stray trails of blood smear his skin. For a long, long moment, they don’t speak. Angel stares out at the way the moon reflects in the sea, how it has almost set in favor of the first pink rays of sunrise. He doesn’t want this cruel, strange night to end, and yet he can’t wait for morning to come. “Why?” he finally asks without elaborating. He hardly needs to, with Aki’s blood still red on his lips.
Aki takes an unsteady breath. “I realized something, a while ago,” he says. He speaks slowly, deliberately. Considering every sentence before it leaves his mouth like a single wrong word may cause the end of the world. Silly, Angel thinks. The world has already ended. We are living in its ruins.
“And?” he asks after it seems like Aki won’t continue by himself. It takes a long, long moment for him to look up; even longer to meet Angel’s eyes. When he finally speaks, Angel wishes he would have stayed silent.
“I think i’m in love with you,” Aki says.
Just like that. Angel stills. Aki’s hand in his feels impossibly heavy. “Don't be ridiculous.“
“It’s the truth.”
The earth, Angel knows, spins at almost 460 meters per second. But for a moment, in which all air leaves Angel’s lungs, it stops.
And when it speeds up—when it speeds up again, it’s into the wrong direction. The sun will rise in the west tomorrow, and it’s all Aki Hayakawa’s fault. Angel is terrified down to every bone in his body. All his instincts are screaming at him to run away from this, from danger, get far, far away before Aki can do as much as try to hold him back. Aki is in love with him: Angel has known this for a long time. But hearing it spoken out loud gives his words a gravity Angel is not ready for. Makes it so painfully real, something he will never be able to escape from.
But instead of running away, Angel leans forward a bit. A bit more, bridging what little distance remains between them. Rests his forehead on Aki’s shoulder, with that damn leather jacket, like he has to carry the weight of much more than just his own gnawing thoughts.
“You can’t do that,” he says, so quietly it almost disappears into the warmth of Aki’s jacket. “You’re not allowed to.”
“Why?”
“Because you keep forgetting what I really am. I’ve seen the way you look at devils, Aki, I heard the way you talk about them. I don’t want to be any of that.”
“You’re not,” Aki protests. “You never were. Angel, to me, you’re nothing like them.”
“You say that now,” Angel argues, moving a few steps back. Away from the comfort of Aki’s touch, far away enough that he can avoid Aki’s eyes. “but who knows what you’ll think in a year? In two? In five?”
“Angel. I made a deal with the devil for you.”
“No. You made a deal with the devil for yourself.”
He’s growing more desperate, Angel can tell. This is not how Aki envisioned this conversation to go, but Angel, shaken up and terrified out of his mind, won’t let him have the satisfaction of getting what he wants.
“I’m—” Aki says, but doesn’t continue. Maybe he doesn’t know the words in his script, or maybe there are no words. It makes no difference in the end, because Angel stands up and draws his hand from Aki’s.
“Bye, Aki,” he says, keeping his voice carefully neutral. “Don’t let Public Safety catch you.”
“Angel.”
“I’ll see you around.” And with disgrace, with awkward rage bottled up all the way to this throat and blood still on his lips, Angel takes his leave.
In a feat never before heard of, Aki Hayakawa manages to escape the bounty hunters for almost an entire day.
It’s only to be expected, since he is, technically, still one of them. He knows their in and outs, their strategies, where they look and where they forget to. In the end, it only makes sense that Angel is the one to find him. He’s the only one to pick up on the carefully laid trail of breadcrumbs, the subtle signs directing him to where Aki is hiding right now.
Despite everything, it makes his heart ache.
The fact that Power and Denji haven’t been at this place yet tells Angel that Aki must have talked to them—a battle plan, maybe, or a list of instructions how not to burn down the kitchen. If he leaves, he will take them with them, this much is sure. If he stays, they will fight for him, even if it means facing Public Safety. There is no conversation to be had about this, and no need for them to find him in the middle of Tokyo’s biggest manhunt.
And so it is only Angel who climbs the final few stairs of a fire escape, leading right on one of those forgotten rooftops right in the middle of Tokyo; where the wind rips at your hair in bad moments and the view is amazing in all others, where nobody will look for you if you want to be alone, and where you want to say goodbye to a city that has been nothing but ungrateful to you.
Unlike Angel expected, Aki’s back isn’t facing the door. Instead he stands a few meters away from the railing, arms crossed, and his eyes light up once he catches the motion of the door. It falls shut behind Angel, and then it’s just them. Judging by the small pile by Aki’s feet, he has smoked his way through eight cigarettes already, and is halfway through his ninth, but now it hangs forgotten at his side. When he looks up, his eyes meet Angel’s.
“Say something,” he finally says, an admission of defeat. “Just—say something. Anything.”
Angel gives him a look. “Hello again.”
Relief washes over Aki, so clear that Angel almost feels bad for leaving him hanging for so long. “Hi,” he says. He falls silent, waits for Angel to continue, but Angel won’t do him the favor. They stay like this for a moment, with this awkward, painful space between them.
Only when Aki takes a heavy breath, too loud to Angel’s ears, he accepts his fate. He is about to say something, something Angel probably doesn’t want to hear, when Angel cuts in:
“I don’t get you.”
Aki’s eyes go wide, his lips fall silent. “What?”
“I don’t get you,” Angel repeats. Now that he has started talking, the words come to him in a rush. “You’ve made your peace with dying in two years, I know that. You told me. Even if I’m sick of people dying before me, you seemed content with it, so I never—” Oh. Angel is drifting into dangerous territory there. Things he doesn’t mean to ever acknowledge, much less say out loud. But they’ve been said now, and it’s impossible to take them back.
“But then, shouldn’t you be happy?” Aki asks back. He doesn’t sound challenging, begging for a discussion like he did before. Just desperate. “It means more time with everyone. It means more time with you.”
And that’s it, no? That’s the whole fucking problem they’ve been dancing around this entire time. It’d all be so easy, if Angel knew how to find his words, and Aki didn’t fight to misunderstand him. They ache and ache, because they want to be close but feel like every time they try, they hurt each other more.
“How can you be happy?” he finally asks. “When you’ve sacrificed so much for a devil? After everything, you keep saying that you hate them. And yet—and yet.”
A smile crosses Aki’s face. Somewhat tragic. “You still don’t believe me?” he asks. “I really did it for you.”
They’re back here again, with their cat-and-mouse game without start and end. They’ve chased each other around this topic over and over again, but Angel is having none of it today. Chin pushed forward, wings tucked behind his back, he says, “And what proof do you have?”
Aki surprises him by stepping forward; cigarette fallen from his fingertips to the ground where it absently burns to ashes, hands free to take Angel’s and lead them to each side of his face. “This,” he says. “Even with my contract, you could probably absorb my life span if you wanted. I’m putting my life into your hands.”
He couldn’t. Angel knows instinctively that this, now, is a life he can’t take, and the knowledge disrupts something deep in him. But in this moment, Angel makes a choice. Up until this point, Aki’s life was in his hands, but now he puts his in Aki’s.
“But why?”
Aki seems to struggle for words. For a moment, Angel thinks he isn’t going to get an answer at all, that they will be right back at where they started. But then Aki takes a deep breath and, in a rush, says, “Because it’s you”.
Somehow, that’s enough.
It’s not everything. It’s not even the beginning of something, and yet, somewhere, it is enough. Angel leans a bit further forward, pulls Aki down so their foreheads bump. Like this, barely a breath separates them, but he doesn’t close the distance. There is so much he wants to say, but now isn’t the time for that. It will come soon enough.
So he takes a sharp breath, then draws back. Aki leans forward, like he wants to chase Angel’s touch—but for that, too, there will be time later.
“I never wanted eternity,” Angel confesses, so quiet he half-hopes Aki can’t hear him over the rush of anxiety. “I only wanted you.”
And then, a bit louder, a bit more confident, he steps away and adds, “They’ll probably be here soon. You should leave before they catch up.”
Aki gives him a look. “You’re not coming with me?”
“I still have a job to do. We didn’t all make illegal contracts, you know?” Angel gives him the hint of a condescending smile, but he’s pretty sure his expression gives him away. Heavy as a promise, he adds, “I’ll see you later.”
“Yeah,” Aki echoes with a dumb smile. “See you later.”
They’ll be fine.
The Acid Devil shouldn’t pose a big challenge. Even as they run through the streets, lungs burning and feet heavy, Aki thinks that it is overkill, sending Angel to tag along with him—but then again, he won’t complain, either. It helps to have a reassuring presence at his back from time to time, covering his blind spots. It helps to have Angel with him, too. Missions without him feel dull nowadays, like there is something missing in this devil-induced lethargy. Aki doesn’t like to think too much about the implications of that.
He slides to an abrupt halt at the end of an abandoned alleyway. They are surrounded by brick walls on both sides, reaching so high Aki can barely see the sky, and the few scattered windows seem vacant. It’s perfect*.* If only that damn devil could actually show up—
The wall to his side crashes. Aki jerks to the side not to get hit by debris, and barely dodges an acid-covered fist flying at him. Jackpot. He draws his sword, blocking the next hit, and the next, feints and hits and blocks again. The devil has the audacity to grin at him, so Aki spits at it. It’s petty, but it deserves it.
“Oh, you’re a nasty one,” the devil taunts in between dealing blows. Aki stumbles back with the sheer force of them, and he hasn’t even started worrying about the acid yet. “You think you’re so much better than a devil, don’t you? Even though you’re little less than a dog. Just doing what someone tells you. Have you ever thought about that?”
“Shut up, devil,” Aki tells him coldly, bringing some distance between them to catch his breath. “You’re going to die today. Don’t make yourself any more pathetic than you already are.”
The devil laughs. A wave of acidic stench hits Aki square in the face. “I can smell the rot of death on you,” it says and Aki’s blood freezes in his veins. “You might kill me here today, but you’ll die soon after, no? And unlike me, you won’t be reincarnated.”
The Future Devil silently cackles.
“Fuck you,” Aki spits out. “At least I’ll choose my own destiny. I’m going to use the time I have left wisely.”
The Acid Devil laughs derisively. “Wisely, like going berserk and killing every devil in your way? I’d much rather go to hell and back than waste my time doing what somebody tells me.”
Too late, Aki turns around—and the hit catches him across the stomach, sending him flying against a wall. All air leaves Aki’s lungs. Black spots dance across his field of vision as his chest heaves and sinks for a breath that won’t come. His world spins for a moment and acid burns its way through his suit everywhere. The Acid Devil cackles.
Then it turns into a choke as a spear impales it right through the chest.
Under flashes of pain, Aki forces himself up to get up, just in time to see Angel floating behind him: another spear in his hand, halo burning so bright Aki has to look away, long, red hair forming a crown around his head. Dangerous, deadly. Ethereal. All at once, Aki realizes that the Acid Devil is wrong—there is one devil he will never want to kill.
If he has to waste his time, he’ll gladly waste it on Angel.
Angel gracefully lands on his tiptoes. “Are you alright?” he asks, and Aki forces a nod. With a swift motion and a blur of red and gold, Angel dives forward, attacking their foe, drawing another hole into his chest. The devil screeches and writhes in pain at the same time as Angel flinches back, hissing and shaking his wrist. Aki glances at him, concerned, and sees a spot of acid burning deep into his skin.
It’s not a serious injury by any means, yet Aki sees red.
“Don’t—” the devil tries to force out, but Aki is beyond listening. In a last motion, he gets to his feet, all pain forgotten, and raises his sword. It impales the devil, from sternum to spine. It gargles and twitches for a long, horrible moment before it stills, but it doesn’t give Aki the satisfaction he thought it would. Only after a long moment of heavy breathing, trying to re-calibrate himself into this reality, does he take a step and look at his work. The body is—