Chapter Text
The cellar has never been a place of fun, if not to say downright terrifying for the outlaws that will face their rightful punishment down here. For Sano Mikoto, the banality is unchanging but it’s not like there’s anyone who’s lunatic enough to actually like their millennium long job of inflicting savagery and being a sadist as he is, it’s tolerable to say the least, and mildly entertaining as frequent as a comet strike.
At the thought, the blond tightens his grip on the briefcase, dragging himself to the direction of his summoners.
Regarding perpetual insentience of stone barriers and exclusive usages for most untamable foes instead of mortal sinners, this special cellar isn’t as scorching as everywhere else of Hell, unforgiving in its own gelidity. Mikoto strides with placidity, bouncing the sounds of his footsteps off walls and rolling them into the darkness that ensconces all the cruelties that shan’t ever meet daylight. There is a stench of copper along with a few excruciating hollers from prisoners who still stubbornly have the strength to even announce their pains but Mikoto pays them no mind. He shall have his fair share of listening to cries and misery soon.
A few turns and the blond arrives before a thick steel door with two imps guarding it. So, it’s that case, the kind where normal torture wouldn’t suffice.
“Sir, that insolent thing is in there.”
A sentry reports to him, Mikoto doesn’t bat an eye. He’s here for that exact information, after all.
“I’m the exterminator this time. Open it.”
With chains and locks rattling, heavy metal mass scraping floor with grating stridors, and per his command, the door slowly opens, revealing scarcely anything but infinite murk and a sole stripe of light that pours in from where he stands. He takes a couple of steps further inside so that the sentries can let him have his privacy with his next victim.
His heels click evenly in the seemingly empty room, only put to a stop when the blond spots the distinctive illumination however weak it is. He instinctively grimaces at the recognition; those unmistakable white feathery wings and halo of archenemies have existed since long before the birth of the world and humanity.
The effects of immediacy are also discernible from the captive because he perks up and instantly quails.
“W-What are you going to do to me?”
The angel weakly squeaks out, his voice laced with anxiety. That brings a smile to Mikoto’s face as he drops his briefcase to the ground with a loud thud, takes a good look at the other party and begins the procedural interrogation.
“What I’m going to do to you depends on how you answer: what are you angels doing here?”
The angel in question pales. Even himself being hindered by the manacles, his body language openly expresses distress with futile squirmings around. Good.
“Like I have said, I’m not scheming anything. I just got lost.”
“And ends up in Hell? That’s a bit convenient, don’t you think?”
The angel redirects the conversation “But, why would I plan any harm with nobody else but myself in the den of iniquity anyway?”
Mikoto hums, wordlessly considering the foe’s confession but not generous enough to humour the seemingly convincing reasonings. He hunches down to fish out his tools from the case, selecting a modest knife. Simple, but efficient. He’s amused to find the angel panicking at the blade dangerously gleaming in his hold, trying to move his limbs to free himself from the unshakable gyves but that attempt only proves his idiocy to Mikoto. The blond closes their distance, calmly explaining.
“This piece of metal here barely poses anything too lethal to you angels, but it’s wrought iron from the most searing flames of Hell, so I can assure you what’s left of where it touches won’t be pretty.”
“How many times do I have to tell you? I have no ulterior motive,” the angel practically yells, tears starting to welling up in his eyes. Mikoto doesn’t bother to conceal his contempt for the shameless display of mawkishness.
“Overused. Try something new.”
“Why should there be a novelty when there’s no other truth I can offer?”
“Thousands of your kind said the exact same thing, only when they were unknowing to the pain.”
Seeing that his tormentor is holding the knife high and aiming at the face, the angel desperately squeals, his urgency to escape escalates by seconds.
“Eek! Please have mercy.”
That’s some admirable asininity, given an angel begging a demon for mercy. “Three.”
“You are counting!?” Vermillion eyes flooded by aqueous horror whilst blood drained from his visage as the captive struggles against the imprisonment of his limbs, “For the umpteenth time, I just got lost!”
“Two.”
“Please, think! You wouldn’t want Heaven and Hell to clash over a misunderstanding, right?”
“One.”
The captive screeches out when the knife sinks right next to his ear with a clangorous echo throughout the cell. Though, the actuality right now and minutes of pregnant silence later is that the blade is a hair breadth away from his flesh, not yet touching. Maybe not ever for that day.
The demon withdraws his weapon with a sigh, already feeling the pity for wasting a chance to paint agony over this creature's insufferable face after only minutes of meeting howling in the depth of his soul. Whether the angel’s points persuasive or not, it’s indeed that hastily marring one of the Heaven’s toys is tantamount to catalysing a meaningless war, which is why although through the hands of Mujina and Akisame before him and their urge to just beat the stuffing out of their nemesis, the pipsqueak is mostly intact.
“You angels really have pathetic screams, huh.”
At Mikoto’s dry comment, the angel blinks, trying to comprehend the situation.
“Uh, aren’t you going to end me?”
“What, do you want me to continue doing so?”
“No no no, thank you so much for sparing my life,” the angel laughs nervously as his captor unchains him for relief to slowly pervade his entirety, releasing it from the rigidity of fright at supposedly imminent doom. Before he can have any funny thought, the blond grabs him with a force strong enough to bruise, knocking him out of breath by one swift motion of pinning him to the wall.
“Just so you know, if you dare to run out of my sight or mean any hostility towards anyone down here, your demise is non-negotiable, understand?”
The angel gulps with difficulty before frantically nodding. Mikoto steps back, letting his captive collapse on the hard stone tiles and wheeze for air, not an ounce burdened by the guilt at red marks forming on the other party’s smooth skin. At the warmth lingering within his palm still, Mikoto imagines it would be so easy to crush that delicate windpipe with his grasp alone, but quickly stashes the thought away for a more favourable scenario next time.
“Come. I’ll send you off.”
How ironic it’s for a demon to show an angel the way to Heaven but the sooner he can get rid of this nuisance to get back to his job of dealing with real blood and gore, the better.
When Mikoto knocks on the door for light to incise into darkness, the angel docilely follows suit, glancing at the two imps and the demon with round vermillion eyes that are clear telltales that their owner is an airhead who is brainwashed by the hypocritical preach of their Lord. The blond merely endures his disgust, taking the lead of guiding both of them out of the cellar and to the first floor of Hell, where they would be closest to the moron's desired destination. Though, before that—
“Can you fly?”
At the angel’s quizzical stare, he evenly rephrases, “That wound on your right wing, can you still fly with it?”
The angel indraws a short breath, perplexed by his observation and replies.
“I don’t think I can but I will try.”
The blond clicks his tongue, annoyed at his own traitorous absurdity as he says, “We’ll see a doctor firsthand, then, I’ll gladly kick you to whence you came from.”
The angel gasps, “There are doctors in Hell?”
“Surprisingly, yeah. Not sure if he knows how to treat an outcast like yourself or if he would let you go alive afterwards.”
Mikoto can see the other party shrink before his intimidation at the corner of his eyes. The angel catches him stealing glances, smiling timidly despite his visible agitation.
“Out of genuine kindness or not, thank you. You are not as scary as that death grip you had on my neck minutes ago indicates to be.”
What unrivalled audacity this little rascal has to place a devil and kindness in one line. Really, Mikoto should have resorted to the nails and drills he stored in his briefcase to silence the cretin’s loose mouth for good, lest being pestered by said cretin as well as irritation at his own mistake of showing leniency. However badly he wants to throttle the angel though, the blond turns around, inching back and undoing his cloak to mantle it on the idiot, tugging at the corner so that the cloth blanket over the white wings and suspending halo.
“One more word then it will be your last. Follow me and keep a low profile.”
Per his instruction, the angel maintains a steady pace and absolute quietness when they are out of the cellar to the ground level, where hither and dither are the exact definition of Hell with sanguinary bedlam and vices caused by lowborns and pests roaming around. Toridity is a constant here, but being a demon as he is, Mikoto has little to be concerned about other than the burns on the angel's soles that he has to undergo with each step on his foes’ territory.
Thankfully for the blond’s reluctant tail, they arrive at a place safe enough for the angel to remove his cloak without being killed right on sight by other residents of the netherworld. The building is anything but grandeur; its entryway takes a few reclusive alleys and turns to reach the interior of cobwebbed ceilings, dimly-lit halls and poorly ventilated rooms that malodour clogs their lungs. An illegal clinic, but it’s not like an intruder has a choice nor is anything strictly law-bidding in Hell.
They walk straight through a shady corridor with deteriorated chairs and wooden planks lay haphazardly on cracked tiles. When they reach the sole light seeping out of a door with a small opaque pane, Mikoto bangs on the door.
“Takahashi-sensei, it’s me.”
He doesn’t wait for a confirmation and invites himself in anyway.
Unlike the rest of the abandoned building, the room is more decently-looking with a faint smell of antiseptic and rather pristine furniture consisting of two beds and the bare necessities for a workstation. The demon sitting by the desk beams at the newcomers, standing up from his seat and leisurely stuffing his hands into his labcoat.
“What special occasion is it for Sano-kun to bring me a live sample? An angel nonetheless.”
The angel in question cringes and hides himself behind the blond’s back while he calmly corrects, “Regretful as I am, he’s a patient.”
Akira gawks at the younger demon and the angel, but soon recovers with an unnaturally wide smile.
“Alrighty!” He plods toward the closest bed, patting on the sheet and beckoning, “Come over here, strange fella. I’ll give you a quick and definitely painless check up as you two can tell me all the details.”
The angel shivers where he stands but Mikoto forcibly yanks at his arm, handing him over to the demon doctor, leaving no room for argument. The angel bites back a whine and bears with the maltreatment when the raven-haired demon pushes him down to the bed, tears threatening to roll down his face at the scrutiny of a pair of burgundy eyes.
The more he scans, the more fervid the blush and breathing of Akira become whilst the more fruitless the angel finds his ceaseless prayers to the Lord are. The demon doctor climbs up onto the bed, using his weight to hold his patient down with both knees digging into unruly arms and wings as he pokes at the blood-clotted wound lightly with his finger and bringing it to his mouth, eliciting a feeble shriek from the lab rat.
Mikoto isn’t unfamiliar to Akira’s uncontained and unhinged fascination in the slightest, hence, standing by and wordlessly watching whatever barbarity may befall the poor holy being there. However, when the demon’s doctor pinions the angel as if he has every intention to plunder vitality with how suffocating his bloodlust is, face red and mouth morbid, the blond raises his voice.
“Is there something wrong, Takahashi-sensei?”
It seems that his call is completely disregarded for the demon doctor only stares at the angel below, his focus so intense that it could cut open any creature it rivets on. To the utmost terror of his captive, he coos sweetly.
“Little one, what exactly are you?”