Chapter Text
One September night, in Raphael Cemetery.
The cold place enjoyed a serene tranquility under the crimson moonlight; not even fireflies were present, as if they didn't want to disturb the eternal rest of the dead.
Except that wasn't the case for everyone.
"Feeling guilty?"
In front of a recently occupied grave stood a young adult with a scholarly air, Klein, a Nighthawk—or rather, an ex-Nighthawk.
Why wasn't he one anymore? The answer lay in a grave on the other side of the cemetery.
[Klein Moretti] was what that cold stone said, but what lay down there, his false double, had already dissolved hours before, while the real one lay outside, free, untouched, and breathing. Unlike everyone else here.
Ah— and the person in front of Klein, but He didn't count, because He wasn't human.
That malicious smile widened at his silence. A comical, fake empathy flickered through the darkness as venomous words spilled from His mouth. “Little cat.”
Klein fought hard not to clench his fists.
At all times, now? Why did He, especially Him, have to appear now? Klein didn't need to hear His sharp voice on the second-worst day of his life. And yet, he said nothing, as he always had. It wasn't about being the mature person; it was about survival.
The being, resembling a human magician, glanced with little interest at the graves before focusing on Klein again. “I warned you.”
Of course He did.
“And you still did it, didn't you?”
Everyone warned him.
The magician took several steps forward while Klein could do nothing but watch as He closed the distance to less than a meter away.
“How touching~”
No, it wasn’t for Him.
But Klein didn’t want sympathy right now, much less poorly acted sympathy. All he wanted was to get away from there, from the captain’s grave. And the obstacle? A sequence 2 angel with eyes as black as the void abandoned by any ray of light.
Klein didn’t move, nor did he look at Him directly. He simply waited for Him to lose interest while, deep down, begged for a way out.
Several seconds passed until—
“Merlin.”
For a moment, all the colors became saturated, and when Klein realized it, a tall, tanned man stood behind the magician, looking at Him with annoyance and emanating an aura of warning.
Merlin’s eyes flickered, His smile changed, and He turned to face the other sequence 2. “All yours.” He simply said. No more comments or elaborations, just mockery and disinterest before He vanished.
Klein immediately released the oxygen he'd been holding, glanced at his life guard, and whispered, failing to sound steady, "Mr. Azik..."
Azik Eggers nodded to his student before giving a quick look at the nearby graves and saying, "Let's go."
Heart heavy, Klein turned toward the captain's final resting place, and after a few seconds, said gruffly, "Just a quick visit."
His mentor didn't press him, simply nodded and let Klein walk to two other graves on the far side of the cemetery. Upon arriving, he knelt on one knee and caressed both slabs of stone, icy to the touch, his eyes devoid of brightness and on the verge of sinking into something that terrified him.
When did his descent begin? When he used that amulet in the heat of battle? When he was given the mission? When he touched that notebook? When he was rescued? When he opened that bloodstained book?
No, it was much earlier, when his interest in studying history began.
Klein was just an introverted young man curious about an ancient past hidden in the river of history. The second-year history student was aware that some things in ancient history didn't add up. His teachers and classmates said it was due to a lack of records, but for Klein, that was just a simple and boring explanation.
There were many others like him; he wasn't special. And yet, not being special didn't mean he wasn't unlucky, and in his case, he had a very unfortunate encounter.
He searched and searched, perhaps too much, definitely too much, until, by chance, an old book fell into his hands. It looked normal on the outside, but when he opened it, he discovered that most of the pages, scribbled with nonsense, were spattered with dried blood. Klein was horrified and wanted to get rid of the book, but with a quick, careless movement, he ended up cutting his finger on the paper.
What bad luck, he thought. A minor accident, just like any other.
Right?
Or so he would have thought if, to begin with, the book disappeared the next day, and then Klein started feeling like he was being followed. No matter how many turns he took through the streets or inside the university, that gaze seemed to be in every shadow.
“Klein, are you alright?”
And apparently, his constant state of alertness was noticed by a professor.
Klein, pretending he wasn't trembling from the cold sweat on his back, smiled as best he could. “Yes, don't worry, Mr. Azik, I'm just nervous about exams.” With that, he politely said goodbye and hurried away.
However, Azik frowned. Klein, aside from looking as if he were afraid of his own shadow, was terribly pale and trembling. A quick check of his spiritual body showed that the student was deeply ill, so much so that he shouldn't even be able to stand. The lecturer had a bad feeling.
As Klein left the university, he decided to go to the police. He wasn't going to let whoever was breathing down his neck get near his siblings. But as he was about to turn onto a street…
Everything went dark.
The next thing that happened was a series of flashes of events. Hooded figures, distorted voices, terrifying words, the stench of blood, and a lot of pain.
Goddess, how his whole body ached. His veins burned, his organs twisted, and he felt an urgent need to vomit all his blood and internal fluids.
Klein's consciousness drifted between confusion, stuck panic, and utter terror. Everything in his body urged him to run, to scream, but each time he tried, he only drowned in his own blood. All his body could do was dilate his pupils when he felt a sharp object tear at his skin—
SPLASH!
More blood, but not his own, from the hooded figures. Their headless bodies hit the ground with a thud.
At that, Klein's confused and chaotic thoughts only grew more agitated. The only coherent thought that prevailed was that he just wanted to sleep.
“#####!”
Klein was half-deaf; his consciousness sinking again, this time threatening never to resurface. His numb sense of touch registered a cold hand gripping his cheek and shaking him by the shoulder. There was no reaction from any muscle; he didn't even have the strength to fully close his eyes.
Then, a cold liquid trickled down Klein's throat, but it was too late. The damage went beyond the biological; all the elixir managed to do was give him a few extra heartbeats and unclog his ears.
"Klein, please repeat after me." Said a heavy voice, latent with urgency and struggling to be soft enough to be understood.
With great effort, Klein managed to hear those words and, more unconsciously than consciously, repeated the sounds without processing them.
Immediately, a red light flashed before his blurred vision, and when he regained consciousness, he saw only gray, endless gray. Klein's ability to think returned to him with a jolt, igniting his panic and heightening his alertness. He stood up reflexively, but before he could move further, an enormous pressure anchored his knees.
Boom boom! Boom boom!
Tap… Tap… Tap…
The sound of Klein's heart pounding was accompanied by discreet, slow footsteps, as if the source had all the time in the world.
Klein's pupils dilated to the size of needle points as he witnessed a figure emerge from the depths of the gray fog.
It was a tall human figure dressed from head to toe in a black robe with a yellow lining. The feet were replaced by slippery tentacles covered in blurred patterns. And on the face, a porcelain mask, devoid of any expression.
Klein felt like he was going to faint, but he didn't have the chance when the mental shock vanished abruptly, triggering his instinctive alertness and fear once again.
"Oh my…" A voice that seemed to be composed of several voices echoed above the gray fog. "I'm sure I told my angel that human sacrifices aren't my thing."
Sacrifice?! Klein screamed internally, terrified, not even knowing how he got there!
…How did he get there?
As if a switch had been flipped, fragmented memories flashed through his eyes. The grotesque scenes made Klein want to vomit, but he had nothing in his 'body', so he could only gag while clutching his throat.
A few seconds later, the memories vanished, and almost immediately, the voice spoke again.
“Book, blood, kidnapping, curse, sacrifice, Aurora Order… What an unfortunate mortal.” The being before him commented emotionlessly.
Klein was too busy recovering from the aftereffects to have the mental energy to process those words. When he finally regained some control over his body and thoughts, he allowed himself the luxury of processing… everything else.
He was in an unfamiliar place after experiencing who knew what horrific event, and now, before him, stood a being beyond his comprehension. Klein was so overwhelmed with fear that he didn't dare think what it was.
“I'm a God,” The being suddenly said before letting out a self-deprecating laugh. “A miserable god.”
…What?
The self-proclaimed ‘miserable god’ began walking toward Klein, who froze, only able to tremble and watch as the being came so close to his face that he could feel ‘Its’ breath. But the being didn't breathe.
Klein unconsciously closed his eyes, unwilling to see the two black holes in the porcelain mask.
Time seemed to stop for an eternity.
“Hehe, and don’t you have something to ask?”
Klein slowly opened his eyes. The God was no longer as close as before.
“Well?” The tone was now playful, yet ‘Its’ body remained as still as a statue. “Did those fanatics cut out your tongue?”
Klein swallowed. Despite being terrified, he couldn’t simply ignore a being whose mere presence made him want to lose his mind. It was only out of pure instinct for survival that he opened his mouth to ask. “…Where am I?”
“In my domain, of course.” The God answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“How did I get here?”
“You recited my honorific name.”
What did I do?? When?! I don't know… A feeling of dizziness joined Klein’s already rich symphony of emotions. However, he immediately tried to ignore it. He needed to get over this; he needed to go back, so he asked with some urgency, “What must I do to return?”
There was no response for a few seconds until the being pointed to the mortal’s chest. “You are dead.”
Klein’s heart skipped a beat.
“The instant your eyes opened here, your heart in the earthly world stopped beating.” The God explained as if describing the color of the sky.
How was that possible?! Although Klein might be malnourished, he wasn’t so bad as to die out of nowhere…
Suddenly, a series of memories were returned to him. They were fragments of his experience of having a body that was eating itself from the inside out. Klein wanted to gag again, but he forced to control himself and process the new information, which was too unreal.
Was it biologically plausible that he would become so seriously ill after cutting his finger?
“A curse.” Again, the God interrupted his thoughts. “That book absorbed your blood and put you in the sights of a bloodthirsty cult, who kidnapped you and were about to use you as a human sacrificial ingredient.”
Klein felt his blood run cold while his head spun, and as a countermeasure for the shock, he entered a state of denial. No, no, no… that couldn’t have happened… Real curses? No way!… no… that... But his struggle to maintain his worldview was overwhelmed by the vivid memories that still made him want to vomit.
It only took a few seconds for something to break inside Klein, perhaps his spirit, maybe his sanity, but of one thing he was certain: he wanted to go home; to lock himself in his room and collapse on his bed, with the sound of his siblings opening the door and whispering so as not to wake him, and when they were both asleep, to silently shed tears.
“So you do have a big reason to go back.”
Klein looked up abruptly, finding himself staring down at the porcelain mask from above at an angle impossible even for a tall person. This was because, at some point, the being had used 'Its' tentacles to rise to twice Klein's size and crouch down to within 20 centimeters of his forehead.
Klein couldn't help but fall over in fright.
The being slowly tilted 'Its' head without changing position. "You can revive," 'It' said. At that moment, the tentacles, previously still, began to move vigorously as the mask's lips began to rise. "With my permission,"
Klein's heart might have stopped beating right then and there if it hadn't been in the form of a soul. The once mysterious and unfathomable presence was now replaced by a pure vision of horror: a figure more squid than human, 'Its' arms behind 'Its' back, managing to maintain 'Its' balance even though 'Its' entire human portion hung at a 320-degree angle. And if that weren't enough, 'It' kept tilting 'Its' head until it reached an impossible rotation.
That image was the most terrifying thing Klein had ever seen.
"And my condition." The God extended 'Its' hand.
Klein didn't answer, but his wild eyes moved from the mask to the raised gloved hand. This could easily be the equivalent of making a deal with the devil.
"..."
However, at Klein's lowest point, after having experienced hell on earth and having literally died, he felt that he couldn't sink any further into the abyss if he took this opportunity.
He just wanted to go home.
Musing on his courage, Klein finally stopped trembling and looked back —but not directly— at the God. "I have only one petition."
The being nodded. Klein took 'Its' hand and stood up.
"How should I address you?"
The God returned to 'Its' previous size before answering. “Call me Mr. Fool.”