Archive of Our Own

"I’m taking you to a bed," Power informed Aki with a calmness in her voice that was in stark contrast to the eternity devil’s anguished shrieking and Denji’s unhinged, sadistic cackling.

The moment Aki was stabbed, a sense of staidness overlaid the blood fiend. She was even level-headed as she appraised the gruesome battle of attrition which occurred below. The human hunter thought the fight would have excited her, with her passion for blood and violence. Then again, he was bleeding, and she had not expressed any delight in his pain.

It was unexpected for her to be so steady and poised when chaos was havocking down the hallway, but it was a blessing. With her this composed and confident, Aki knew that Denji would pull through.

"Okay," he rasped.

"Won't moving Aki worsen his injuries?" Himeno asked, a wild, terrified look in her eyes. "Can you stop his bleeding when you’re carrying him?"

"Have more faith in me, human," Power spoke, and there was little hubris in her voice, "I’ve coaxed his blood to clot around the wound, and I can monitor his state as long as I’m touching him. ‘Tis a versatile ability, no?"

"...yeah." Himeno agreed tiredly, slumping against the wall before moving to get up, intending to aid with the move.

"Wait—" Aki stopped, took a breath and forced out, "Stay here."

Himeno blinked, momentarily taken aback, before nodding. "Okay. Look after him for me, Power-chan."

The blood fiend bared her teeth at the eye-patched female. It was a look that reminded Aki of the blonde devil-teen.

He lifted an arm, calling out, "Power."

Power immediately looked away and shifted to his other side to pull the limb over her shoulders. She supported him as he stood up and ended up bearing the brunt of his weight when the action left him drained and light-headed. She barely batted an eye, and the hunter remembered that despite her lithe, unassuming frame, a fiend was still a fiend and that Power was inhumanly strong.

Getting to the bed was a gradual, agonising progress, but being able to lay in a comforter was worth every second of pain.

"Thank you," Aki told the blood fiend sincerely.

Power looked down at him and uttered in a tiny voice, "There’s no more food."

He knew what she was getting at. "I’ll live." He raised a hand and gently patted her head. "Rest. You’ve done what you can."

Aki watched as her citrine-crimson gaze went from the empty space next to him to the wound on his side. She pursed her lips, turned to the other bed and unceremoniously flopped herself on top.

***

"Hey!" Aki roused quickly at Power’s voice. He forced open his leaden eyelids to see the pink-haired fiend looming over the bed, arms crossed and glaring accusingly — not at him, but at Himeno, who was sleeping, snuggled into his side. "What do you think you are doing, human?!"

Himeno whined and shifted, the movement accidentally pressing against his wound.

He hissed involuntarily.

Lightning-fast, Power’s hand shot out and yanked the eye-patched woman onto the ground.

Himeno yelped as she collided with the hardwood floor and, thankfully, did not leap into a counterattack.

"Ow," she said groggily, rubbing her shoulder, and looked up at Power, "What was that for?"

Power harrumphed. "There’s no use explaining to a feeble-minded human like you."

"Power," Aki warned.

The blood fiend hunched slightly into herself but remained defiantly unrepentant.

At that moment, the door was flung open, clashing harshly against the wall, and Denji was strolling in, bloodied but intact.

His gaze cut to Power — who gave the blonde boy a firm nod — and then to Aki.

"Haya-pai," he drawled, voice hoarse from all his bellowing and howled laughter, "can we go now?" He held up a veiny bullet with a sharp, triumphant grin. "I got the piece of the gun devil."

"We’re done here. Good work," the hunter said, pushing the blanket off himself. When he tried to get up, his vision swam dangerously, and he was forced to admit, "I may need some help walking."

"I’ll do it," Power asserted, and no one argued.

[ii]

The sight of Topknot drunk was pathetic.

Weak-limbed and pliant, his usual icy composure melted down to a cloying openness; it chaffed at her, this vulnerability, made her want to bare her teeth at anyone who bore witness to him.

Makima had left once she realised that Denji had disappeared with the eye-patched human. Good. Without the need to stay on guard against her eternal rival, Power was free to focus on Topknot.

At first, Power had helped Topknot walk, but after the hunter tripped over his feet one too many times, she carried him on her back. She took him up the staircase to their abode before settling him down gently on the floor to search for his keys. With the door opened, she gathered him into her arms and deposited him onto her bed.

Power left Topknot to fetch a glass of water for him in the morning and to change and found him awake when she got back, glassy-eyed and smiling dopily at Meowy curled up and purring on his chest. A clumsy hand was carding through the thick fur on the cat’s back.

Power felt as something inside her softened.

Meowy must have come by to investigate, gotten worried with Topknot out of sorts, dazed and skin flushed pink from the alcohol, and even more concerned when she brushed up against him to find his skin slightly cold. The cat was probably trying to heat him up.

Power sat on the bed, and Topknot turned to direct the full force of his warmth at her. He reached out a hand, and the blood fiend deigned to let him pat her on the head. One second, he was beatific, and in the next, all the happiness vanished from his face, leaving devastation, an expression like an aching wound.

Alarm festered in the blood fiend’s chest, visceral and gnawingly unpleasant. She snatched his dropping hand and clutched on tightly, resting the back against her lap.

"Power," the hunter said, "Make two promises with me."

"That’s a dangerous string of words to utter around the likes of me, Topknot," Power cautioned. "I’m a fiend, remember? You’re one word from away from self-destruction, but I’ll hear you out."

"Don’t die before me," Topknot requested, blue eyes dead, suspended in grief profound, endless, and blackening, "I’ve seen many people die in this business. Strength and will don't matter. I don’t want to mourn more people than I do."

He looked away from her and stared out the open window.

He said, "I’m going to die in a few years. I’ve used the curse devil in exchange for my lifespan."

He asked, "Find a home after me, both of you."

***

Power was a fiend. A devil in human skin.

She loved blood, loved cutting through skin and flesh and bone, loved to watch as crimson flowed and spilled. She relished off the suffering and fear that brought, grew more powerful. It was instinct, an innate drive.

Power was a fiend. A devil in human skin and merging with a human body had changed her.

She learned the satisfaction of a full belly or a good night’s rest.

She learned of the gentle bliss that accompanied holding something warm, alive and breathing against her chest.

She learned to form attachments and that the sight of blood when it came from those she cared for distressed her.

Life was trivial before the vastness expanse that was the universe, before time, before death.

But to trivial existences like hers, life had weight.

When faced with Topknot’s mortality, her heart shattered.

***

The blood fiend curled around the human, tightly clinging so that she felt as his blood circled through his body with the steady thump-thump-thump of his heart. Her head was propped on his shoulder, and she watched as his chest slowly rose and fell as he breathed.

She did not sleep.

[iii]

Aki heard a footfall and tensed. The katana-man and snake devil contractor had gone, but that did not mean the danger had passed. When he looked up, Power was there, her upper body turned away, sweating profusely and face bloodless.

"You’re still here?"

The blood fiend flinched before she steeled herself, standing straighter, and turned to him. Her eyes widened, flooding with fear, and she made an aborted step forward. She pulled back, shifted in her spot and asked, "Can I stop your bleeding?"

Aki nodded, and Power instantly appeared before him, kneeling and pressing a hand firmly over the slash through his middle. Her face creased in concentration as she kept his blood circulating in his body.

Aki watched, feeling floaty and detached, as the blood fiend pulled out his phone and called for help.

Power seemed at the edge of falling apart and crumbling under terror, but they must’ve been safe. Otherwise, why would she be appearing here? Why was she so terrified? Belatedly, through the heaviness that slowed his mind, he figured out she felt guilty.

That she was afraid he would reject her and lash out.

"You did well," Aki said because that was true: Himeno’s choice was on only him and the eye-patched female herself, and Power’s self-preservation was the thing that allowed her to save him now. On that note, the blood fiend probably hadn’t even run that far. "You made a good call. It’s okay. You did nothing wrong. I don’t blame you. We’re okay."

Power leaned against him, forehead on his shoulder, and shook.

[iv]

"After this, tell the blood fiend that you were the one to touch me," Angel demanded, "I didn’t mean to shave off two months of your life. I remember telling you not to grab me and that I was fine with dying."

Aki gave Angel a confused look. "Where is this coming from?"

"She said you only had five years left and threatened to torture me if I touched you," Angel disclosed flatly.

The fiend seemed perturbed. Aki, who had received several of Power’s death threats, did not understand.

"You’re afraid of her?"

"Well," the other shrugged, "She’s the blood fiend. If she says she’ll crystallise my blood and cause me unimaginable pain, I’m inclined to believe her. I may have a death wish, but I’m not a masochist."

The human hunter slowed to a stop. He was pretty sure Power was lying, and for her to go so far as to threaten the strongest fiend in the fourth division…

Angel eyed him, shocked. "I didn’t think you could make that kind of expression."

Curious, Aki placed a hand over his mouth and felt the upturn of a small smile.

[v]

After the darkness devil, Power was scared shitless of literally any shadow, no matter how small or faint. She clung to Denji practically every hour of the day, repeatedly asking him to check out the entrance and shaded places — heck, even the inside of her mouth — for the primordial devil.

Denji understood, so he was patient and accommodating. She was a scaredy-cat even before experiencing the terrors of hell, had sold him out to the bat devil, and constantly accused him of doing the crap she did — among other things — and he hadn’t resented her all that much for any of it. That wasn’t going to start changing now.

He and Powy knew each other as well as they knew themselves.

That’s why when Aki returned home, he wasn’t surprised by how she slightly calmed down.

It wasn’t because she was less scared — she was still utterly terrified of the darkness devil appearing, and having two people in the house didn’t really do much to remedy that. Instead, she was putting on a brave front.

***

Denji was forced out of his light doze by an elbow to the face. The blonde blinked his eyes open, pushing the offending limb away, and looked next to him. Powy was thrashing again, muttering nonsense fearfully in her sleep.

He shook her awake. "Power, Powy, you’re dreaming. Wake up. Power!"

The blood fiend jolted awake, sitting up. She looked around wildly, spotted the teen, and catapulted herself at him. She wrapped her arms and legs around the blonde, shouting, "He’s here! He’s here! He’s going to kill us! We’re all gonna die! He’s here!"

"It’s fine. There’s no one here but us," Denji reassured her as he reached around her for his phone. He dialled a number, and the call was declined on the second ring. The blonde relaxed and focused on the fiend.

He carded a hand through her hair as the blood fiend sobbed against him. "Calm down. There’s nothin’ here. Just us. We’re okay. No one to hurt us. Do you want me to check?"

The curtain was open, letting moonlight pool in the room freely and giving him enough illumination to vaguely see.

A shake of a head that was more felt than seen. "No, no, no."

The door opened, revealing Aki, long hair ruffled and somnolent.

At his arrival, the blood fiend poked her head up, and her sobs died down, her body becoming as taut as a bow as she surveyed the room herself.

Aki shuffled over to the bed and climbed in. Power draped herself over the other man once he laid down, covering him like a security blanket before her hand was seeking Denji out and tugging the teen on the arm, wordlessly telling him to come closer.

The blonde obliged, throwing an arm over the pair, and squeezing them tight for a second. The teen felt as Power relaxed, finding that there was no darkness devil to fight. He rested his head in the crook of Aki’s neck and felt the answering pressure of the man leaning his cheek against his hair.

Denji closed his eyes.

Nothing was okay. Aki lost an arm, Powy was traumatised, and nearly everyone they’ve worked with had resigned or was dead, but, with the two of them there, within reach, safe and undeniably alive, his morbid and incessant thoughts dispersed into blessed silence.

Denji drifted off into sleep, surrounded by warmth, as content as he could be.

***

Here’s the thing: Aki was intelligent, skilled with a sword and dependable, but that didn’t subtract from the fact that he was a squishy human. One good hit anywhere on his person, and Aki would be down. Dead. No amount of blood was going to reverse that.

When it came to Aki, neither he nor Power was under any illusions; both were aware that the man would probably bite the dust sooner than they did. They worked their asses off to prolong the inevitable and keep him around.

That was why Powy was acting courageous. Because she was protective. Because she refused to lose Aki prematurely without a struggle — not even to the devil that turned her into a quaking, paranoid, barely functional mess.

[v + i]

Part of working as a police officer was acting as the eyes and ears of Public Safety. When something went wrong, from a theft to a murder to a devil attack, they were the first to know, and, in the last case, they relayed relevant information directly to Public Safety to be dealt with.

Satō Yamato was a policeman. He had never fought a devil directly, but he had seen the aftermath of their work. The destruction that they were capable of. The way they swept through streets, leaving death and torment and grief.

He was a victim of that.

Six, when his mother left to go grocery shopping and never returned. The hammer devil had appeared, blocking the way home, and turned her into a mere smear on the road with not even a finger left to salvage. Her absence had shattered his family, left them concaving into nothing. His father and brother had become strangers to him.

His story was nothing special. Almost everyone he worked with had been devastated by devils in some way.

And then there was Aki Hayakawa.

Eighteen, when Satō first met him. Young enough to have softness still clinging to his cheeks but burning with fury and with no one left to lose. Eighteen, when he was first dispatched as a Public Safety devil hunter on an elimination mission. To Satō, Hayakawa was a dead child walking headfirst into total oblivion.

And he was a good kid. Reserved, well-mannered. He had a few screws loose, sure — his sense of self-preservation, for example, was clearly utterly shot — but he was kind, soft-hearted, even after being hollowed out by the atrocities he faced.

One other thing about Hayakawa — he had enough hatred for devils put the entire forces’ to shame.

It was no secret he was out for revenge, that he was aiming for the most infamous one of all: the gun devil.

Everyone knew he would die for that goal, and they prayed for him regardless, as they did every other hunter that did the same.

Presently, Satō was apprehensive.

For the first time he was going to meet a fiend, a devil that had taken over a human corpse. The process was weakening, but a fiend was an existence that should still be feared.

"Yamato-san," said a familiar voice in greeting. Satō turned around to see Hayakawa behind him, flanked by a spiky-haired thuggish young man and a teenage girl with pink hair. For a moment, the policeman was stumped on who the fiend was, until he noticed the uncanny vibrancy of the girl’s eyes and the red horns that adorned her head. "Is the devil in there?"

Hayakawa was indicating at an abandoned apartment building that served as a popular squatting spot for the homeless. Well, it had until a devil spawned there.

"Yes," Satō answered. "Good luck in there. The devil was spotted somewhere around the third floor."

Hayakawa nodded. "Please evacuate the scene. You can trust us to handle the rest."

Satō moved, planning to go, but halted last second. "Hayakawa-san, can she be trusted?" He was referring to the fiend.

Satō was expecting a spiel about the measures in place to exterminate her if she turned on them, but unexpectedly, Hayakawa answered, "Yes. She may look like this, acts like a bratty snob, and be prone to reacting inappropriately at times—"

"Understatement of the fucking century," the blonde muttered.

"—but in crises she can be trusted. I assure you."

Satō blinked, reeling.

That Hayakawa was vouching for a fiend? The one who made his life purpose in eliminating devils, fiends included?

Satō scrutinised the dark-haired devil hunter and found certitude.

Holy shit, the world was ending.

Satō was shaken out of his shock by boisterous laughter.

"Hear that, Denji? Topknot says I’m reliable!" The fiend crossed her arms and looked down at the spiky-haired punk with blatant smugness.

The other clicked his tongue in annoyance.

"Yamato-san," Hayakawa continued, unfazed and clearly used to her raucousness, "Please don’t be concerned. She won’t be a harm to anyone other than devils."

Satō really had to concede there. "Since it’s you that’s saying it."

He left, mind at ease.

"Haya-pai," Satō heard as he walked away. "You’re really renown for hating devils. Funny that, huh?"

"Shut up."

A snicker, and then Satō was too far to hear.