Chapter Text
Aki once said he had never visited a beach when it was snowing, and Angel couldn’t remember the last time he went to the beach. The conversation happened against the backdrop of Denji and Power bickering over who had the right to eat the last piece of shrimp sashimi.
“Say, what if we bring the kids to the beach during the winter?” Aki nudged his ankle through their socks. Aki bought matching pairs for everyone in the household. They all had designs of snowbirds on them, like fluffy snowballs.
“This winter?” Angel held the teacup in front of his face and pretended he didn’t blush. He could hear the sad smile in Aki’s voice when he said, “Of course. You know I don’t have much time left.”
He couldn’t pretend he was not hurt by this, their inevitable separation through external force. “Then we’d better make it memorable.”
“Umm,” Aki thought for a moment. “You’ve got any ideas?”
“Let me sleep on it and get back to you.”
“Aww, so it’s not too much work for you?”
Angel put the cup down and stared directly into Aki’s beautiful eyes. They reminded him of a long-gone dream about the depth of the ocean; it could be so fierce and brutal, crashing every living thing on a whim, and it could be so kind, nurturing all forms of life.
“Of course, as long as it’s about you, I don’t mind it one bit.”
“I…” Aki flushed, and Angel felt accomplished. “I don’t know how to respond to that, Angel.”
“Then don’t,” it was Angel’s turn to nudge Aki through layers of fabric. “Just feel about it. That’ll be sufficient for me.”
Aki curled his arm on the table and laid his head against it. He was so cute like this. “I want to feel more about you, you know.”
Power’s victorious laughter echoed in their room, with Denji shouting “not fair”. Concomitantly, it sounded like something was broken. No, multiple things. But neither Aki nor Angel bothered to turn around and check on the kids. They would survive this farce as they always did.
Angel drank the rest of his tea and sighed deeply as Aki stared at his lips. He’d never felt so alive. “Yeah, I know.”
——
When he wakes up in hell, limbs intact and feathers silky smooth like a newborn baby, Angel knows. The noise of chainsaw cutting through flesh and bone resonates in his mind, invoking a revolting smell on his tongue. He gags, kneeling down on the expanse of darkness. For some reason, he doesn’t sink.
He thinks of Aki’s hand, callused and warm fingers grasping his slender, lethal wrist as if it’s a lifeline, now minced into cold little cubes, all over the earth. He recalls the upward twitch of Aki’s lips when he assumed no one was looking, which he dreamed about again and again until it hurt, and now the lips are slightly parted, stiff and no breath coming out of them. He imagines Aki’s dark blue eyes and their penetrating gaze, always laden with so much guilt and sorrow, now replaced by soulless, ballistic machinery.
His lips are trembling, sight turning red despite the nothingness that engulfs him. Then his cheeks become wet, his nose watery, a quiet sob escaping his throat.
He’s not crying blood this time. They’re proper tears, hot, salty, and ugly. He watches in astonishment as dim, tender light suddenly rips up the dark, forming an orange halo at the corner of his eye. He keeps watching, as the first drop of translucent liquid hits the concrete ground that was not here just now. It cracks. A seedling breaks through with a “pop”.
Within a few seconds, the seedling, fragile and quivering in spite of the still air, sprouts into a rose. The flower, scarlet red, is enormous compared to its calyx. It smells like moist soil before the storm.
I have to be hallucinating, Angel muses. There’s no way that a rose is in full bloom against hell’s heaviness. Or nothingness, depending on your perspective at the very moment. He wipes his tears away, closes his eyes for a moment, and opens them. The rose’s still there.
“So, you woke me up,” a woman’s voice rings in his ears. Angel winces. He gets up, rather clumsily, and looks around. The light remains, illuminating hell’s grotesque, indescribable textures. Not a single soul is here with him, not in the cakes of blood under Darkness’s fingernails, or deep down the fissures of the sword dangling on top of his head.
“Look down,” the voice instructs.
Angel kneels down again, this time on one knee. He squints hard, but it’s just a rose, no ghostly appendages or hidden eyes.
Yet it speaks again. “My appearance may deceive you, angel devil, but I’m the same as you.”
For the first time after he got back, Angel lets out a coherent thought. His voice sounds tired, alien, and faraway. “What are you, exactly?”
“I’m the karma devil. I was sealed here eons ago,” she sighs. “By Makima.”
Oh. That draws out a hollow laugh from him. “I’m here because of her, too.”
“And what about your lover? Are they here as well?” she asks, and Angel is taken aback by how quickly he thinks of Aki, even though they didn’t even have a chance to discuss what they were before everything went south.
He swallows. “I don’t have a lover.”
“I tasted yearning in your tears, of what could’ve been,” she says. “I’m sorry for what they’re not.”
“It’s ok,” he lies before he gives her a pillar of truth that fills his mouth with sourness. “If you’re talking about who I cried for, whatever form he took in the end, he’s human after all. Death can do us apart.”
Silence sets on his shoulders. He changes his posture by curling up his legs against his chest. He feels safe like this. It reminds him of warm arms holding him through thin fabrics. After a while, he feels comfortable enough to take a deep breath and asks the rose.
“What happened to you?”
“She tricked me, as she tricked you,” Karma says bitterly, “But not quite the same, I suppose. We…we had a history, back when I looked more or less human. I thought she wanted the same thing as I did, a just world for humans and devils alike.”
Angel huffs. “I don’t see justice in her ways of work.”
“Me neither. When she told me she would use Chainsaw to eliminate all evil, I was stunned. Humanity and devils are full of flaws and bad bits, and her goal would bring about the end of both parties. More importantly, there would be no karma, no payback, and no nonlinear relationship between a flap of wings and a hurricane. What kind of world is that?”
“You would be the first to disappear,” Angel realizes.
“I said I couldn’t accept that, and then she asked me for a kiss before we were supposed to part ways. Without using her power.”
“Let me guess. You said yes anyway.”
“I said yes,” Karma concurs. “Because I was a fool, because I used to love her. And her kiss sealed me into a seed at the depth of hell.”
Angel throws her a sympathetic glance. “Yikes.”
“Indeed. I should’ve known that she wouldn’t allow any viable dissidents to live another day. But it was too late. I was forced into a lucid dream of eternity until you.”
This piques Angel’s interest. “How did I break the seal?”
“Via your tears. You’re the first devil to shed real tears in hell. Others are consumed by their fear of darkness and can only cry blood, if they cry at all, that is.”
Angel wipes his cheek. A few drops of tear from earlier stick on the back of his hand. He was stricken with grief, sorrow, and anger, but not fear. It was the first time that the darkness devil posed neither a threat nor a concern to him. All he could bother to pay attention to was his memories of Aki. Darkness was no longer overwhelming compared to the mixture of bittersweet longing and fiery sensations embedded within his very being. In fact, unlike last time, he did not mind darkness at all.
As if on cue, Karma tells him, “Once you don’t fear darkness, light comes in. And with light and water, flowers grow.”
“You’re talking about karma,” Angel observes.
“I am,” she ends her reply with a chuckle.
——
The light doesn’t go out and it makes Angel sleepy. He has changed his posture several times, now simply laying on the ground. Before he decides to close his eyes, Karma clears her throat.
“I have a proposition for you.”
Angel shuts his eyes anyway. “I’m all ears, but mind you, we’re two lost souls in hell.”
“Not lost, stranded,” her rebuttal is firm. “You have a purpose, don’t you?”
“I’m too lazy for that, especially after death.”
“What if I tell you I can send you back in time so you may save your beloved?”
Angel opens his eyes and blinks twice. “What?”
“You heard me. Though I look like this, I still have enough power to manipulate time. After all, time’s a medium through which I manifest into people’s lives and absorb their fear to get stronger. Effectively, it’s part of me.”
Angel sits up and clenches his fists on top of his thighs. “What do you want in return?” No matter how she posits a sympathetic demeanor, he would be a fool if he believed that her motives are solely derived from pity. She’s a devil who embodies the balance between cause and effect. Therefore, everything she proposes must bear a cost.
“You’ll promise me to ensure Makima’s demise,” Karma says without hesitation. “Find a way to banish her to hell. Even if Control comes back, as they will, they’ll have to start from scratch. I believe you also have an interest in seeing her suffer the consequences of her actions.”
Snippets of recollection flash before his eyes, the tranquil, glistening water of Tigris, a young woman’s delicate fingers in his hand, and the smell of life rotting away. And the sea, so magnificent, stretching toward all directions endlessly, devouring Aki’s footprints along the shoreline. “I’m afraid you overestimate me. I can’t possibly resist Control, let alone defeat her.”
“You could always lie, you know, just so you’ll be able to get back and spend more time with him,” Karma sounds amused.
“I’m not being honest out of a sense of honor. If I don’t fulfill your wish, you surely will retaliate. I don’t want some crueler fate to fall on my back, or Aki’s.”
"He has a beautiful name.”
“He’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen,” Angel admits.
“I’ve made up my mind,” Karma declares. “I know you’ll kill her, because you want to have your happy ending with your beloved. But with her on the loose, you’ll never get that.”
“You’re betting on my desperation?”
She ponders for a moment. “I don’t think that’s the right word. I’d rather call it love.”
Angel almost laughs. “You’re such a hopeless romantic.”
“Says you, Mr. ‘he’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.’” Angel allows him to smile at that.
“So, do we have a deal?” Karma asks.
“It’s not a contract?”
“No, that kind of binding power requires too much work. In other words, you’ll try your best to defeat Makima, but if you can’t, I won’t make life worse for you.”
Angel knits his brows together and pouts. “I still don’t get it. It sounds too good to be true.”
“It’s not. As I said, with her alive, you can’t have your happily ever after. You may lose him again. That in itself guarantees karma—the failure of action or inaction leading to a fate worse than death.”
“And it’ll make you stronger,” Angel mumbles.
“Indeed. In the end, I may be the only beneficiary of this deal.”
“I’m in,” Angel says. “If a chance is all I’ve got, I’ll use it to the furthest extent.”
Karma sounds delighted when she speaks. “That’s the spirit.”
“I’m curious. How far can you send me back?”
“The first time you laid eyes on him.”
Angel nods solemnly. Their first exchange amidst the battle seems as clear as day, having left an imprint between his ribcages. “Do we shake on it?”
“I would make a face if I had one, but no, I have no arms in this form,” she says with a flat tone. “Touch my thorn, give me your blood, and the deal is honored.”
“Regardless, that will siphon off some of your life force,” Angel warns her.
“We both know that life is of no use unless we reach our goals,” she says. “I intend to consider it a necessary sacrifice for the greater good.”
Upon hearing that, Angel leans forward and grabs a number of her thorns. The sting is nothing compared to the phantom pain he used to feel after losing his arms. He watches as a few drops of blood creep down her stem, as vivid as Karma’s petals.
The trail of blood soon disappears into her skin. Karma lets out a satisfactory sigh, which induces a shiver down Angel’s spine. He’s feeling a little dizzy.
“You may go now,” she says. “And good luck.”
Something begins to move above his halo, so Angel gets up and takes a look. The Sword of Damocles is no longer there. Instead, tidal waves that consist of human and devil faces flood over the upper part of hell, now descending fast.
Some of the faces are smiling, others furious, while most of them are fearful and freeze-framed in the last moments of their lives. They’re all speaking tongues, murmuring incantations that dig holes into his skin and bones. He’s dizzier now, his body light like a feather, as if his feet are treading on air. Angel keeps his eyelids open and welcomes the final push. Soon, he’s subsumed under karma’s harvest.
I’m coming, Aki. I promise to save you this time, no matter what it takes. Angel whispers in his heart.
——
When the dizziness fades away, he's standing amidst a group of zombies, a severed head in his arm. It stinks. He wrinkles his nose and lets it go subconsciously. Incidentally, more blood and gore spatter on his shoes. He almost jumps at that before he feels hairs on his neck prickle. He then raises his eyes and meets Aki’s, blue and bright like sapphires.
But just for a split second. Aki refocuses on the zombies surrounding them, wielding his katana elegantly. Angel wants to cry, but he has determined to make himself more useful in this round. He retrieves a sword from his halo and dashes into the crowd.
“Usage: five years,” he says as the sword slashes a zombie in half. He misses this, fighting with Aki. It’s their pas de deux, with their tacit cooperation and mutual support that render the whole battlefield their stage to shine on. Even though Aki back then (right now) doesn’t fully understand the quirks of Angel’s weapons and tricks, as he expects, he’s a good fighter, and he fights as if he has accompanied his partner for a long time.
The last zombie in the room drops down with a whimper, apparently too human-like to make Aki collect his katana without shaking. It’s almost invisible, but Angel’s a devil with superb senses beyond human comprehension, who happens to care about this man with his whole heart, so he spots his uneasiness with little effort.
“Hey,” he hates how raucous he sounds (must be the aftermath of time-traveling), but carries on anyway. “You got a handkerchief?”
Aki retrieves a piece of white cloth from his pocket and hands it to him. Their fingertips are centimeters away from each other, and Angel can feel the heat that Aki radiates. He indulges in the few seconds of their almost-touch and the smell of the handkerchief, nicotine, detergent, and fresh veggies.
“I’m surprised you’d get this close to me,” he tells Aki. “Though it’s safe through cloth, it’s always an option to throw that to my face.”
“Why would I do that? I don’t want to miss the target and let the handkerchief end up in the gore without being properly used,” Aki says matter-of-factly.
Angel swallows and puts the cloth in his pocket, now drenched with all sorts of liquid. As Aki looks at him in disbelief, he feels courageous. “You don’t seem to want to waste things. I’ll wash it and hand it back to you, so somebody can use it again.”
Aki opens his mouth, but before anything comes out of it, a man rushes into the door and aims at Aki with his gun. Alas, the moment is gone forever, Angel thinks bitterly. Before he pulls the trigger, Angel has already shielded Aki with his wing.
Watching Aki fight is as fascinating as fighting by his side. He runs toward the man as Angel packs away his wing and hits the man’s right arm with the hilt of his katana. The man makes a strangled noise before dropping his gun. Afterward, using full force, he punches the man in the stomach, then his temple.
“Devil! Move him outside.”
It hurts that Aki’s not using his name, but he can make peace with that. He has time, though not too much.
“Will do,” he replies. “And wait for me before you go to the snake girl.”
Aki visibly gasps. “I thought you hate fighting.”
“My reputation does precede me, huh,” he offers a weak smile as he drags the man’s body. “You know, human, devils are capable of making exceptions.”
When he comes back, Aki sizes him up, but not in the way he wants it. “Why would you make an exception for me?”
“I’ll tell you about that when the time’s right.”
A tentative smile is forming on the corner of Aki’s lips. “You devils are also capable of making promises?”
“Absolutely,” he says. “Don’t you forget about it.”