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All or Nothing
The world had no doubt become worse over the last few months, the collapse of society ever present on the edge of oblivion, chaos and war a constant in everyday life, and there was no promise that you would survive to see the next light. The city was nearly half-destroyed, and the remaining half was barely holding itself together, with constant black outs in areas where power was available, law enforcement either ineffectual if not outright turned into their own crime rings, and the government more or less throwing the people to the wolves to save itself. Devil attacks were more common than ever, monsters roaming the streets unopposed and free to slaughter as many people as they could while the few who were able to stand up to them tied in meaningless last stands that saved no one.
The battle to determine the fate of the world had been fought, and humanity had won, but it was a pyrrhic victory at best, and while their lives would not be snuffed out all at once, it was put on the path to a slow decline. One way or another, it was only a matter of time.
A corpse laid on the ground in the middle of a ransacked grocery store, large holes blown through its torso, a dismembered limb on the ground a few feet away while a pool of fresh blood grew underneath it. Such sights were rather common these days, death was honestly an expected occurrence and no one so much as flinched to see the violent ends to random citizens anymore because one’s own survival could feel as though it was determined by a coin flip. The constant onset of violence had made what should have been a tragedy nothing more than everyday life, something that people had gotten used to as devils more or less unopposed, and as people felt more and more powerless against devils, they took their fears and frustrations out on one another. How many salarymen and teachers who, only a few months ago, never raised their hand in so much as protest, now had blood on their hands for any number of reasons? It was impossible to know, and at this point did the reasons even matter anymore?
“This is your fault.”
“How is it my fault? You’re the one who shot him!”
No, it really didn’t, because in the end the result was the same, and the “reasons” only ever spiral around one another.
The two young women glared at one another, neither one of them willing to look away, a sign of their own defeat in this argument, but the body on the ground was hard to ignore. This hadn’t been the first time they had been in this kind of situation, fights leading to corpses, and they doubted it would be the last. Despite their desire, even their need to do something about the body, they both knew it would be some time before they relented in this fight.
“How about you see if there’s anything we can scavenge around here, while I take care of this,” one of the first said, green eyes glaring right at the person across from her.
“I think I’m best equipped to watch over him” the other girl said, dark brown eyes answering back, while her hair was in a messy set of twintails.
“Yeah, what he needs is another hole in his chest,” the first woman said with an aggressive roll of her eyes.
“If I recall, he was trying to talk you down when that happened,” said the second, her hand clutched into a fist, shaking.
“Obiovusly he must think you’re just too unreasonable to deal with, which is why he tried to talk to me first.”
“Me? Being unreasonable?” the other woman laughed. “All I suggested was that we go into the back and see if there was anything somehow still in a freezer.”
“I saw how your hands were all over him, so don’t play dumb with me,” the first one seethed.
“Oh, like I need a slut like you giving me that kind of look?”
Tensions rose, as this was not the first time an argument such as this had been brought up, and both were merely waiting for an excuse to escalate the confrontation even further.
Suddenly, despite all odds, the body on the floor began to cough up blood.
The two women react with surprise as the young man suddenly begins to spit up what little blood he could.
“Denji!” they both cried, and Asa and Reza quickly went to assist him, surprised that he was somehow still able to function with that much of his lungs missing.
They rolled Denji over onto his side just in time as a fresh gush of blood erupted from his mouth. “Reze… Asa…” he tried to say, but what little life he had was leaving him quickly.
Saving him should have been a simple thing to do, a little blood spared would have been enough to get him back into tip-top shape, but even now Reze and Asa couldn’t help but argue over who would give him blood. In the end, it was Reze who managed to give him blood, though it was not to some agreement between them, but rather him biting her wrists and shoving it into his mouth before Asa could do anything about it, and the glare she kept giving her made it clear she was not happy with this.
With a pull of his ripcord, Denji was revived and healed, though in some respect he may wish that he had stayed dead. Asa and Reze both helped him up, their hands gently on him as they carefully got him to his feet, asking if he was okay, making certain he was comfortable, and for a brief moment, he thought that things were going to be okay.
And then they started blaming his most recent death on one another. Reze said Asa was careless, Asa said Reze was a shank. Reze said Asa was dangerous, and Asa said Reze was trying to kill her. They kept arguing about the freezers in the back, and how they should have gone with him and every work is making his head and heart hurt more and more.
“I’ll go check by myself!” he suddenly yelled, pushing the two of them away. “If there’s anything good back there, I’ll get it, you two just see what they go up front.” He was about to march away, trying to keep this image of him holding his head high with them, even for a short moment, but the moment that short outburst ended he felt all his bravado drain out of him, and his shoulders and head were hung low. “Just… just trying not to cause any trouble. Please?”
He walked away from, as quickly as he could drag his feet, and resisted the urge to look back at him because he knew if he did so then more exhaustion would pour over him, and with the day only having just started he simply didn’t want that.There was just too much to do today.
Left behind, Asa and Reze stood alongside one another, looking at Denji’s retreating back as they tried to ignore one another, but as much as they would have liked that, they both knew it wasn’t much of an option. Instead, they merely opted to not argue with one another, and chose to look in opposite sides of the store.
The day was going to be long.
000
When Reze was much younger she was ordered to kill a man with a knife, she did as she was entrusted, and slid the knife they gave him into his throat, and the blood poured from the wound and onto her hand. That man, who was bound and gagged, a mere took for her training, was simply the first in a long trail of corpses that followed in her wake, and today she felt like she had the same feelings she has that day: She didn't like killing people, but it was difficult to decide if she actually felt bad about it. That counted for something. Right?
Whatever she felt about that one aspect, as a whole she wanted out of that life. She didn't want to be a tool, a weapon, a thing that only existed to be leashes and locked up when not in use. She wanted her freedom, for the chance to be a person.
Denji showed her a lot that she never would have imagined even if he never intended to. She had been sent to foreign soil to kill him and take his heart, and she had been ready and prepared in that phone booth, but then when he pulled that dumb trick with the flower, something changed. She told herself she was only putting it off, delaying the mission for reasons she couldn't come up with, but then he beat her to the cafe, and the more they talked, the more she fell into his accidental trap. She eventually began to think that maybe she could have this life, that she could be happy, but it was a delusion that was fated to fall to pieces no matter what she wanted otherwise. She had to kill him, complete her mission, and so that is what she had tried.
In the end, she lost.
In the end, she let herself think she could dream of freedom.
In the end, she exchanged one leash for another.
It has taken her a lot to reach this point again, to find Denji when the world was on the brink of extinction. In the end, she managed to help in those final battles, though how effective she was could be argued, but in the end, she was here to help Denji.
But Asa was here.
Another girl.
It's not something she's exactly happy to see him have with him. Sure, she can understand that from his perspective they didn't have the best departure, and that maybe he would want to move on. She can “understand”, but there was still this ugly feeling building up inside her chest every time she looked up and saw her. She didn't want this Asa girl around, she didn't want to share what she thought should be hers, Reze's entire like was her looking for even the smallest crumb of affection and understanding, and this girl who basically caused the end of the world just gets to waltz on in and is just given what Reze had to suffer for?
Back on that hill, Reze had to admit that Denji turning her offer down to run away with her because he has “other things” to keep him there struck a nerve in her. Denji had people in his life, and he was rejecting her for them. Well she never had anything in her life, nothing that she wanted to keep, because her entire life were scientists, soldiers and other children who were destined to shallow graves in the Siberian forests. She never had anything in her life.
She might have taken a bit too much pleasure in hurting Denji, teaching him a lesson about how much he had hurt her with that refusal. She could recall smiling after she had bitten off his tongue, and the little sadistic thoughts going on inside her mind as she felt relieved to know he was hurting for turning her down.
After that, if she ever saw him again, she promised that she would protect him, something she had always meant to keep, but the moment never came. Until now at least, but now she has to share the same space as Asa and the devil she carried in her head. Reze didn't care if the War Devil was “under control”, it was a danger! Look at everything it had done! It was just waiting for the moment to strike and begin its havoc again! How anyone couldn't see the danger coming from a mile away she didn't know, but it would have been such an easy thing to take her knife, sneak up on her and plunge the blade right into her throat, separating important arteries and letting her bleed to death. Reze had some such things before, she would have no problems doing such a thing again.
But she wasn't allowed to.
Denji said he likes Asa. He said that he likes Reze. He found it difficult to simply pick one and throw the other one away, that it would be fair.
He said that he had simply lost too many people to feel as though he could just easily give up on one of them. There were not too many people in this world who wanted to be around Denji, who liked him for him, and as selfish as it sounded, he wanted them both in his life.
Despite the arguments that she and Asa would get into, how sometimes they would turn violent, Denji refused to just pick one and leave the other in the dust. He always tried to get them to pick the middle road or some other third option, always wanting them to at least be civil with one another.
It would be easy to remove this threat without Denji knowing.
But…
He would know.
And if he decided that he wasn't happy with her, then he would…
Reze looked up from the boxes of cereal she managed to collect, and gleaned across the store to where Asa was looking for whatever fruits and vegetables she could find in the produce section.
She didn’t like her, but for now, she would tolerate Asa.
000
Fruits and vegetables are an important part of a person’s diet, and people should be able to eat at least some fruits or vegetables every day. Asa herself honestly preferred fruits over vegetables as vegetables tended to need more preparation to eat while it was easier to grab a fruit and eat it. After washing it off of course. There was no telling who might have touched the apples before she had brought them home from the store, and while she was certain that most grocery stores did prepare and clean the fruits they put on display, she doubted they did anything about the numerous people who came in and out, shopping for food. She didn’t like to think about all the people who touched any given fruit with their dirty and gross hands, because no one had the sense she had to simply not touch anything before she bought it. People really needed to have better etiquette, or the stores needed to do better at trying to maintain a level of cleanliness and-
“Can we just kill the whore and be done with it?”
Asa’s mind came to a screeching halt, the words inside her skull causing a brief ceasing of her body, and she nearly dropped the banana she had been holding. She had been looking through what was left of the produce section, and while she wishes there could have been more, a few bananas, some dry fruits, and several cans of salted peanuts wasn’t too bad.
“We’re not doing anything like that,” Asa mumbled to herself, looking to see if there was anything else.
“I don’t see why you’re letting her be around. You really should do something about her.”
“I’m not letting you out if that’s what you’re trying to get at,” Asa growled. “As far as you’re concerned, you’re in permanent time out.”
“I think that’s a bit harsh.”
“You tried to drop a nuke on Denji.”
“But I didn’t in the end, did I?”
That wasn’t even worth a response.
Despite her desire to ignore her, Yoru continued.
“Denji promised to make a world for you and him, and yet this other girl, his ex-girlfriend, just shows up and she gets to just be around?” Yoru sneered, and Asa could feel the War Devil’s presence pressing against her brain. “You’ve been through a lot, you’ve suffered a lot, and just when you find the peace and happiness you fought for, she just comes into our world like it’s nothing?”
Asa really wanted to throw it into Yoru’s face that a lot of the things she had been through were because of her, that so many of the things she had been through would never have happened if Yoru never entered her life. Nothing Yoru said had any weight or merit to it, it was best to ignore her, leave her alone in some forgotten corner of her mind and hope she one day got the message and stopped talking to her.
Asa looked down at her latest find, a couple of spoiled apples.
She hates that she’s actually agreeing with Yoru.
As hated that Denji was willing to take this girl into their group like some last minute plus one, and she hates that there’s a history between them, she’s not privy to all the details, but from what she’s gathered it was more messy and… intimate. That last detail is something that Reze had, on a few occasions, let her know, and it’s information that makes her blood start to boil. Asa didn’t like the idea that she’s having to “share” Denji, there are so few people left in the world that actually want to be around her, and the idea that after everything she’s been through, that some shank can just walk in like it’s nothing and just be around? It wasn’t fair, and she doesn’t like that Denji keeps trying to not choose between them, and that he keeps coming up with excuses for them to hang out together, always having them scavenge together, or leaving them together at the apartment while he does patrols or…
He really does seem to think they can be friends, but Asa has a hard time thinking that. The number of friends she’s had her whole life could be counted on a single hand, and she doubts she’s getting any more than that.
She just… she doesn't want to feel like this girl is just going to waltz in and give Denji things she never could, that the more time they spend together that he’ll realize just how awful she is, and that one day she’ll wake up to find out they left the apartment without a word. She doesn’t want to feel as though she’s not worth anyone’s time, that the one person in this world who wants to be around her will one day decide that he…
“Just kill her, take her head. It’ll be easy. You hold devils in a low regard, so you don’t even have to think of it as murder.”
Again, Asa tried to ignore Yoru, but the longer this goes on the less certain she is at how much she’s able to fully block her out. It shouldn’t be that hard to simply never listen to anything she has to say, but the longer Reze is around, the more she…
Asa glanced from the corner of her eye, and across the street she could see Reze staring at her, and when she caught on, she gave a sickenly sweet smile and waved a hand. Asa waved back too, an enthusiastic one, and a smile forced upon her lips.
They’re not friends, no matter how desperate Denji wanted them to be, but…
She thought back to her mom, and what she said about her dad. To this day she’s not sure if she was actually telling the truth, or trying to make what she did more palatable or…
Denji was desperate to have them in his life, like it made him fragile, and Asa didn’t know what to do with that.
000
Denji stared into the freezer, his breath fogging in front of his face, which was a good sign, since it meant that, somehow, the power had remained, and that if there was anything in here, it would still be good. The lights were busted though, so it was dark and he couldn’t see too much, and he was left to feel his way through the shelves to see if there was anything, but he was disappointed to find nothing.
“Dammit,” he said, and looked down, the large bloodied tear in his shirt obvious to all who saw it. He’s gonna need a new shirt, so maybe they can ransack a clothing store on their way back to the apartment? Maybe the girls would find something there that they would like? At the least he hoped that maybe that the tensions could be smoothed over between them. Girls liked clothes and stuff, right?
He gently tugged at the ripcord sticking out of his chest, the end of it freely exposed.
“Hey, Pochita, am I screwing up?” He knew he wouldn’t get an answer, but he liked to think that Pochita was still listening. “‘Cause like, I’m trying to keep Asa and Reze together with me and stuff, and they fight a lot, but I don’t wanna get rid of either of them.”
Reze showed him a lot of things he never would have understood otherwise, he was willing to run away with her and leave behind the comforts he knew.
Asa was able to give him hope when he was at his absolute lowest, and he was able to get up enough to keep fighting because he wanted a new world with her.
Both of them make things complicated, give him a lot of conflicting things to think about and he’s not too certain that he knows how to figure it out. He’s not even sure if he can work things out between them, and maybe the smart thing to do would be maybe just cut one of them off? Just pick and choose so the other one can get lost and make things easier for him and whoever he picks?
Thinking about that doesn’t feel right, just the idea of it makes his stomach hurt. Sure, he and the one he picks might be happy, but he can’t help but think that would be unfair to the other girl. There aren’t many people in this world who like him, and getting rid of one of the few who do…
He lost Aki, and Power, and Nayuta and the dogs and Meowy. Beam was pretty cool, and Yoshida bought him food a few times…
He knows he shouldn’t, but he still misses Makima.
Asa likes him, so does Yoru, and Reze still likes him after all this time.
That’s three people left who like him, who want to be around him because they like him. He doesn’t want to lose any of them, even if it means the kind of situation they’re in isn’t exactly the best. They’ve fought more than a few times, and on occasion things have gotten ugly, but he’s always tried to smooth things out between them, even if it means he gets the worst of it. It’s not the first time he’s gotten killed in the crossfire, and he doubts it’ll be the last.
If he wants this to work, whatever this is, then he knows he’ll have to hurt and suffer for it. Getting shot and stabbed is only physical pain, it’s something he’s gotten used to by this point, but being alone? That’s something he knows he won’t be able to handle.
“Just gotta suck it up, don’t I, Pochita?” he said aloud in the empty, cold and dark freezer. “There’s gotta be something in here, something they’ll like,” he said, looking further into the freezer. “I got them into a bad mood, so I gotta be the one to fix it, I just gotta…”
Something Asa will like, something Reze will like, something to try and smooth things over between them. He’d be happy to cook something for them, make something, but any hopes of making something, anything at all began to dwindle with every passing second, all he wanted was for something to go right for once, that for him to have a reason he wasn’t making mistakes or screwing things up further than he already had. There was nothing on the high shelves, nothing on the low shelves, but it looked more and more that everything had been cleared out before he ever got here, which was just his luck. Nothing to cook, nothing to make the girls, nothing to make them feel like he was worth their trouble.
Denji leaned against the wall, ignoring the stinging cold against his skin, or the bloody pieces of his shirt that was being frozen to his body, and slid down until he was sitting down on the floor, and stared off into the cold darkness.
Two choices, that’s what the Fire Devil said before it fucked off. He’s never been good at choices, he always made the wrong ones, he just somehow makes things worse, and even when he thinks he’s doing good, it’s just some kind of set up for him to screw it up later. Asa and Yoru or Reze. Reze or Asa and Yoru. One or the other. If he keeps doing this, is he just going to end up alone anyway, was there even a way to make this work?
Can’t even find something to make dinner with. What good was he?
His eye then caught something, sitting in the corner, just behind the shelves, and he crawled over to what he saw, pulling the shelves away from the wall to better reach it and was rewarded with several packages that were laying there, likely having fallen from above at some point.
Three packs of frozen beef.
Denji felt relief, like finding frozen meat would fix all his problems even though he knew it wouldn’t, but it was a start, and he needed something to hang onto.
If he didn’t have something to hold onto, he didn’t know what he would do.
000
There are many ruined buildings in the city, places that had been touched by the destruction but were somehow still standing despite everything. Lots of people lost their homes, and the people who survived were quick to try and claim whatever places they could find, and in most cases people were too wary or afraid to share with other people, so finding a safe place to call home was difficult. The first couple of weeks they spent sleeping in whatever dumpsters and ruins they could find before having to move on, always moving on because things were becoming too hostile, between both people and devils, and they wanted to keep a low profile because they knew that there were still people after them. Walking away from the end of the world wouldn't be a simple thing to do, and they knew that for one reason or another, that people would be after them. For the moment, they were settled in an apartment building that was only partially torn down. There are several other groups of people here, and there is a strong tension between everyone when they come across one another, but for now there have not been any altercations, though they're all still wary.
The apartment they have is on the top floor there is no electricity, so whatever food they get needs to be kept at room temperature, nothing that can spoil, but they are fortunate enough that gas still seems to be working.
Today's hunt for food was good, they managed to find beef, fruits and vegetables, as well as cereal and snacks. They even got some new clothes on the way back, so they're set for the time being. The kitchen has spices and herbs and shit, and Denji is going to cook it up so tonight they can eat like royalty!
But they need to wait for it to defrost a bit more before he can properly cook it, which means they need to occupy their time until then. The apartment has stuff like movies and video games, but the power is out so that's a no go, but there are books that Asa has taken to reading, while Reze spends a lot of time sitting on the balcony, watching the city remains. Most of their time together is filled with a strong awkwardness that they had trouble dealing with because they didn't know what to do with it. Denji wants them all to get along, he wants them to bond on something, but it's hard to think of what they could all play together.
He managed to raid some of the other apartments, but he managed to find some board games.
“Anyone want to play whatever this is?” He asked, holding up a box and giving it a shake, the pieces inside rattling about.
Asa looked up from her book, from where she was sitting on the couch. The couch is where he sleeps, since the girls get the two bedrooms. “What is it?” she asked.
“I dunno,” Denji shrugged. “I think old people play it.”
“It's mahjong,” Reze said, poking her head from the room she had claimed.
“You know anything about how to play it?” Denji asked, walking over to the coffee table in the middle of the room, and dumping the load of dominos onto the surface.
“My old boss from the cafe said he played,” she said as she walked into the room and knelt down next to the table, which got Asa’s attention. “Never played it myself before, so I can't say I know much.”
“It can't be too hard,” Asa said, closing her book and placing it down before she got up to sit at the table too. “It can't be too hard to figure out, it has instructions after all.”
“Oh, are you going to explain the rules to us?” Reze said, and thankfully the venom from earlier was absent. Mostly. It was more playful this time around, which was good, he hoped.
“Just watch me,” Asa said in a challenging tone.
Reze and Asa seemed to pick up the game much better than he did, and they seemed to have a better grasp on the rules than he did, though he's not really paying much attention to the game as he's more focused on making sure Reze and Asa get along. They're doing fine, they're paying attention to their respective dominos sets, just playing the game.
It's honestly nice, it's like the usual tension isn't there, and he would have liked to stay longer, but the sun would start to be getting low soon and he needed to get dinner started. As he cooked up the meat, hoping to make burgers with the bread they found the other day, he listened to them from the other room and he's happy how things are going.
Yeah, maybe this could work.
Before he could finish, he could hear their voices starting to rise, and by the time he made it back into the room they were already in another argument.
Well, so much for that peace…
000
That night, each one tried to sleep in their respective beds, though failing in doing so, their thoughts too focused on the day they had, and the troubles that had come with it. They were each aware of the group’s dysfunction, how it was always at odds with itself, and never seemed more than one or two bad arguments from breaking apart, but despite this they still persisted. It would be easy to push the subject further, to force a choice to be made and to force someone out of the group, but no one wanted to do that in fear of it turning out wrong for them. So they stayed like this, a constant tension with all of them, every step a potential landmine with no way out.
It was either be miserable in a group, or miserable alone.