We screwed up…
For the Apocalypse Cleaners, their predicament was only getting worse by the minute, even after they had a brief spot of hope for a short moment. To them, it was almost as if they had hopped straight from the frying pan and into the scorching fire.
Having been bound by the powers of the Authority Particle, they were forbidden from doing anything with their bodies, let alone attempt to stop the fallen angel who had given the order to them.
As some form of consolation at least, they were somehow still permitted to breathe, observe and hear what was around them, but other than that, they were essentially mannequins.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Look at all this destruction,” Hikari clicked her tongue as she casually paced in a wide circle, stretching out her arms to the side to highlight the damaged town around all of them, “it’s truly a shame we had to start off like this. Although, given the circumstances, I doubt we could have met any other way.”
“AWKH!”
A loud, scratchy squawk shortly followed her snide comment, as the white crow that both Anten and Dauma had seen earlier and having vanished during the fight, came flying down from above before perching delicately on her index finger and looking at its master with obedient eyes.
“I believe that you have met Gabriel before. He’s a feisty one, isn’t he?” she continued as she softly stroked the bird’s wings before, in front of all their eyes, abruptly slamming her whole palm down onto its body.
It was almost as though she was crushing it; there was a loud crunching and snapping of bones, before she removed her palm to reveal that it had disappeared into nothing.
“…”
Her eyes frozen in place on her and unable to move, Anten was horrified at the sudden action, feeling a little sick and nauseous followed by a growing revulsion towards her brutality. However, what Hikari said next only made her stomach turn even more.
“I know what you are thinking, second one. I can see it in your eyes. You must think I’m a monster. But, what if I told you that this is the only way to safely return my ever-so-loyal scouts to me?”
“…”
“What if violence is the only answer to solve the problem?” she kept asking even though she knew no one was able to answer her questions, “what if I have to do what is necessary to win? What would you think about that?”
“M… m…”
“You’re angry at me, I know. Your glare tells me everything, and you don’t even have to say a word. I realize that you might not be interested in listening to anything of what I’m saying, and again, it’s truly a big shame.”
Taking the briefest of glances back towards her devil companion to ensure that he was still safe, she squatted down to Anten’s level, showing off her sharp facial features to her for the first time after having hidden them in shadow before.
Her eyes, giving a fixed and undoubtedly fierce stare, were golden as was expected, though they were both currently tinged with an darker orange ring around her irises.
“The show must go on though, and I have a lot of things to say to you before we leave. You can carry on doing whatever you’re doing, trying to stop or kill me, I don’t care. Your motivations don’t really concern me.”
“Y…” Anten struggled to protest, her eyes starting to water out of frustration more than dryness, but she was unable to stop the angel from petting her head like a child and speaking to her.
“I am going to tell you something. Something that you might have known about already, but you probably have not considered seriously, and that’s a bad thing. You see—”
“F… FUCKER!!!”
“Oh dear me.”
Putting on an expression of concern that looked to be completely feigned, she sighed before slowly turning her head towards the sudden disturbance and patiently assessing it for herself.
OUTPUT: 90%
“How… dare… you!”
“Hm, seems it’s wearing off quicker than I thought. That’s a problem for sure, though probably not too hard to fix,” she mused to herself.
As both Anten and Dauma had already been told, although the power of Authority that she had at her fingertips seemed incredibly strong on paper, in reality it still had a number of weaknesses that could be exploited.
She herself had found them out before, and she could now see it happening from the scene that was unfolding right in front of her, from the threat that she had already dismissed.
Slowly but surely, Blake was breaking free of her command, his fingers twitching and closing up into a fist, all the while having already regained the ability to speak. His eye and nose had also started to bleed again, but he did not appear to care about them.
He had only one objective in his mind, which he was going to reach as soon as he was able to overcome her control over him, a task that seemed to be incredibly painful and exerting for him with each part of his body that he was stubbornly willing himself to move.
“Just give me a second, second one.”
“I… swear…”
Hikari did not immediately begin heading towards him, or even pull out any weapon or tool to try and stop him. Instead, she simply pointed a finger straight towards him and gave another order.
“Look over there.”
“Ghk!”
With a merciless snapping sound, Blake’s head quickly followed her command and turned a full 180 degrees to look behind him, promptly shattering his own neck in the process. His attempted resistance against her influence was abruptly halted, and his limp, motionless body crumpled to the ground.
“There we go. Problem solved.”
“…”
“Or not,” she remarked as she suddenly turned back around to face Dauma, who had been moving towards Lucian’s body as sneakily as he could when she was not looking.
Her shifting focus on Blake had caused the great pressure the others had felt to be lifted ever so slightly from them, allowing their release from her previous command to be much faster than the young man had managed.
However, even if they could now move much more easily than before, that still did not stop the fallen angel from immediately noticing what they were attempting to do and responding in kind, as she promptly lifted another finger up towards Dauma before pointing downwards to the ground.
“Fall.”
As though a heavy weight had been thrown onto his body at once, he was suddenly flung downwards, crashing down into the paved street with a terrifyingly quick speed, forcing all the air to be knocked out of him.
“Gah!”
With that, he was pinned once again. He continued trying to move his body as much as he could, but eventually he went down like Blake as well, his energy already spent.
“Eep!”
Turning her head again and looking back as soon as she heard the spontaneous shocked cry, she could see Anten had also broken free and was currently attempting to flee away from her, heading towards one of the houses that had not been destroyed in the earlier fight.
“I swear…”
Covering her face with her hand and slowly shaking her head in response, she merely sighed again before going straight for her, catching up in the matter of just a few seconds.
“You—gahk!” Anten attempted to fight back, but the other angel was faster, grabbing her neck before the sentence could be completed and spreading her wings out.
In spite of the pained struggling, Hikari did not seem too concerned about her captive as she then took off with her in tow, soaring high up into the sky and far away from any other help.
“Hmm, here we go.”
Once the two of them had gained a certain altitude, where the town below looked like a bunch of small squares and rectangles, she promptly stopped her ascent.
Holding out her arm that was choking out Anten, she suspended her freely, evidently appearing as though she was going to release her grip and drop her at any moment.
“You remember when I said your group was interesting, second one? I find that to be quite the opposite now. Sad as it is to say, you lot are unfortunately boring me at the moment, no matter how many surprises you still have up your sleeves.”
“Ghk… ghk… gh…”
“I am of course referring to your group,” she remarked as she indicated downwards with her eyes and a quick jerk of her head, “I’ve paralyzed the rude one, and your other companions are all at their limits thanks to my pet, which leaves only you the only one left capable of stopping me.”
“Nngh!”
Using as much power as she could spare, Anten created an arrow in her hand before thrusting it towards her, but with another swift and painful grab by the fallen angel’s free arm, it was held in place without any difficulty as she clicked her tongue once again in disappointment.
“Is this really what he had to offer? You, him and some other weak strays? I’m shocked, unless… wait a minute.”
She pursed her lips in silent thought for a moment before abruptly letting out a loud noise that sounded like a disturbing mix between a laugh and a scream, all while her face broke out into a wide smile as she seemed to come to a quick conclusion.
“I can’t believe it!” she roared, all while her hand around Anten’s throat continued to tighten at the same time, “the last line of resistance against me, and that failure of a god still can’t trust you to deliver anything for him! This is great! Truly great!”
“W… h…”
“But I digress.”
Seemingly noticing that Anten was about to lose consciousness, she calmed down and loosened her grip, allowing her captive to breathe once again and ensuring that she was listening closely before she continued speaking.
“I have a proposal for you, second one, if you’re willing to listen. If you agree to it, this pointless, terrible conflict can stop. Wouldn’t that be great?”
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“W… w…”
“What’s that?”
“We… won’t… join… you…” it took a long while, but Anten managed to squeeze her determined words out between choked gasps as she attempted to glare fiercely back in response.
“Well… I figured you would say that,” Hikari shrugged and replied, “I know it might be hard for me to change your mind when you’ve already made it up. Then, let me simplify things for all of you.”
With that, she began rapidly descending back down towards the town, still keeping her hand on Anten the entire way as they forcefully landed in the middle of the pitiful aftermath scene once again, where Yuu, Blake and Dauma remained lying, unable to move or react but still able to listen to whatever she was about to say.
“Alright, listen carefully. Whatever I’m about to tell all of you is important.”
“…”
None of them could protest as she spoke, phrasing her words as though she was a motivational speaker giving a speech, even if her now-nonchalant tone made her sound more insincere and feigned than anything else.
“You lot may believe that you are on some noble quest to ‘fix the world’, but the reality is quite the opposite, in fact. You guys think you’re working your way to a happy ending, but you’re not.”
“What.. do you… mean?” Anten sputtered out.
“I am saying that you are being lied to. By none other than him. You know who I’m talking about of course.”
To illustrate her point, she pointed up to the sky using her free hand, all while she wore a smug expression on her face, as though she was sardonically ridiculing both them and the being she was pointing at, one that she was sure they would immediately have known.
“I need you two to understand… that thing doesn’t deserve your respect and obedience. Whatever he promised you, he won’t deliver. All you are to him are his tools, his playthings, created to only fulfil his own selfish agenda. You all have to realize that.”
“What the hell are you saying?” Dauma responded, still pinned onto the ground from her command and unable to do anything save from lifting his head slightly up and opening his mouth to talk.
“Then I’ll explain it to you, other devil,” she raised one of her eyebrows before clarifying, “what do you think your purpose is in this world?”
“… to—”
Without waiting, she finished it for him, “… to gather all the Particles, yes I know. Why else do you think I’m here as well? But… that’s not all I want to ask.”
She turned her head and looked down at Dauma, slowly narrowing her eyes until they were half-shut before using a sickeningly nice and motherly voice to speak to him.
“Once he’s done with you, what do you think will happen to you and the second one, or Anten as you know her? What exactly do you suppose will happen? Hm?”
“…”
“Perhaps you think you two can kick back, relax as the world slowly ‘heals itself’, or perhaps you think your ‘good deeds’ will make you ascend to Heaven to live like kings alongside him. Is that what you pictured?”
“…”
“Or perhaps…”
“We will die.”
That surprising answer had come from Anten, her face darkened, who had managed to suck in her breath before uttering it all out in one go, causing Hikari to turn back towards her with renewed interest.
“Well, well. Seems like we have someone who has already known everything. Or did you figure that out based on what I have just said? If that is the case, I am still disappointed in you, second one. I thought you would be smarter than this.”
“…”
Anten said nothing back in defiance, but her expression seemed to be gloomier than before as the atmosphere around them only grew much darker and heavier with her answer.
“But yes, you are correct,” Hikari continued, “that’s the right answer. Once you’ve gathered up all the Particles, he would have no need for you two anymore, so you can kiss your lives goodbye.”
“…”
“No more antics. No more frolicking. No more personal talks with each other. There will be nothing that welcomes you. Everything will be gone before you even realize it. Zero, gone, nada. You won’t ever get to see your efforts come to fruition, and you will be lost to time. Forever.”
“…”
“Unless you’re a nihilist or even a pessimist, I don’t see how any of you would find that thought enjoyable. I’m sure you wouldn’t want that, would you?”
“… no…” Anten softly muttered, her head lowered and her face hidden, causing Hikari’s smile to widen.
“There, you see? In the end, none of you would want to die a needless death. So, why don’t you join—”
“You’re wrong…”
“I’m sorry, what?” Hikari abruptly stopped her offer before asking the angel she was still currently choking out, seeking a confirmation to what she had just heard come out of her mouth.
“It’s not… true…”
“I might be mishearing you, second one,” she remarked as she loosened her grip a little, allowing her to speak more clearly, “can you repeat what you said, and make it as loud as you can so that everyone around us can hear?”
“We… we make a difference!”
“Oh my.”
“You won’t ever understand it, but what we have done has made a difference!” Anten declared as soon as she was able to breathe normally again, “even if we are gone, even if our efforts may be meaningless, we did something to change people’s lives for the better! That can’t be denied!”
“Huh, that’s an interesting statement you certainly have made there. Are you sure about that?” having acted slightly surprised by her stubborn insistence, Hikari quickly recovered from the retort and remarked in a casual tone.
“Of course I—we’re sure!”
“Then… would you say you have made a difference to Mahu Village?”
That question, the one that came out of the fallen angel’s mouth, made Anten freeze, and her determined expression began to waver once again as she continued rattling off the list without pause.
“What about the Silver Foxes? Edelweiss and Mayor Julian? The Church of Enlightenment and Simon Bailey? Would you say you have changed their lives for the better? Or is that just an excuse for your reckless actions that you perform for the sake of ‘cleaning’? Huh?”
“I…”
“Perhaps we are more alike than we thought. We both try to do things that serve the greater good of the people after all, no matter how many lives we have to sacrifice along the way. Truly, we work well together.”
“Damn you!”
“Oh?” she looked back at Dauma once again, who had suddenly chimed in with his own shout, “do you have anything to add, other devil? Do you also want to object to my point?”
“You… can shut the hell up and stay away from her!”
“Interesting choice of words,” she replied, “I guess you have not yet fully grasped the gravity of the situation, other devil. Maybe I should demonstrate it to you then. Release.”
Upon her command, the heavy weight was lifted off of his body, giving him the opportunity to move again, but before he could even lift himself from the ground and attack, she gave another order almost immediately.
“Come.”
“Ghh!”
Like a puppet walking on a string, Dauma felt his limbs being controlled by something invisible, a force that spontaneously began to push him towards her against his will.
No matter how hard he tried to resist, attempting to push both his feet down into the street and grabbing onto anything he could reach with his hands, he still found himself slowly walking towards her, into her outstretched hand.
“Stop. Here we go,” she continued in a mildly amused tone as soon as he reached where she wanted him to, and without warning, she proceeded to grab onto the side of his head, with her thumb directly in contact with his forehead.
“You…”
“Zip it. I know what you want to say,” she filled in the blank as he was left tongue-tied and unable to respond to her remark once again, “and I fully understand. But… I won’t be able to convince you, and you won’t be able to listen to me if you are not willing to understand yourself.”
“Mmm…”
“Now that I think about it, you certainly have an interesting story to tell, but you yourself don’t even know it. To think that he is too cowardly to give you the answers you need, what a tragedy.”
“…”
“Shall I unlock your mind and show it to you then? Speak.”
“A… ARRRRGHHHHHHH!!!”
Almost as soon as she gave her command, Dauma let out a loud scream. Uncharacteristic to his usual stoicism and bluntness, the noise he let out was filled with all sorts of emotions that anyone in the nearby vicinity could hear and subsequently feel.
Anger. Fear. Sadness. Worry. Pain. All of those hidden feelings that he had barely revealed to anyone before now came out in a torrent of noise, all seemingly coming from whatever she was doing to him, with her thumb forcefully pressing against his forehead and her eyes closed in concentration.
“Dauma!!! You!!!”
Of all the people who had heard that scream, Anten naturally began to shout in panic. Although she was still held tightly by the throat with no possible way to escape, she immediately responded to his apparent agony by attempting to punch and kick her, trying to find any way to stop her torture of him.
However, the fallen angel was not budging, and Dauma’s screams only continued to become even more pained and prolonged as he stood helpless under her palm with his mouth open, appearing to be in a trance-like, frozen state of being.
“H… HIKARI!!!!”
Dropping her polite and formal speech in an instant, Anten roared as her desperation grew much larger the longer she struggled. In her mind, she only had one thought left: To save him, no matter the cost.
To that end, she was willing to do anything, and with that mindset, that belief in her head, the white orb attached to her left breast began to glow, sending a sudden surge of power running through her, a power she knew she had to use in order to overcome her weakness and to do what she needed to do.
“HAHHHHHHH!!!”
Utilizing the abilities of the Belief Particle to her advantage, she powered up her own fist, filling it with the full strength of her belief, before sending it into the back of Hikari’s head, smashing through it in an instant.
“Oomph!”
That deliberate action caused the other angel to break out of her focus and instinctively let go of the both of them at the same time, all while Anten continued to yell in rage and worry.
Without wasting a single second, she then dove towards Dauma, grabbing onto him as quickly as she could before the both of them rolled down the street away from Hikari, back towards where the motionless body of Blake was.
“Yes!”
As the Particle still glowed on her breast, she used the opportunity to grab onto Blake’s body as well, using the remainder of her energy to begin healing his broken neck and curing him of his total paralysis, all while ensuring that Dauma was also recovering in her arms as well.
“Heh…”
Turning and looking back in caution as she heard the dry laugh, she saw Hikari, who was staring intently at her, with the back of her head caved-in by her punch and profusely gushing out blood by the gallon as a result.
“Well, well, well… looks like you can fight your way out of a scrap after all. You… definitely have the potential now, I can see that. No one… has ever harmed me like this before.”
Anten narrowed her eyes in suspicion and tensed up, but the fallen angel did nothing else to attack them. She did not give out any more orders, start going towards them, or even move.
Instead, she simply stood in place, watching them with the usual interest she had and continuing to speak, though in a slurred, slow tone as a result of the extreme damage that was done to her brain.
“I guess… I have to congratulate you, second one. You’ve proven… to be a surprising enemy, but as for whether you’re worthy to face me… that remains to be seen. You… still have a long way to go, after all.”
“You better stay back!” Anten threateningly warned in response, “I swear, once Dauma and Mister Blake are all healed up, you better get ready to eat your words!”
“I can believe that,” Hikari replied, her speech slowly returning back to normal as her head automatically began to fix and heal itself, “what a shame though, if only you could have used that strong conviction to believe me.”
“…”
At that harsh accusation, Anten went silent and looked down for a few moments before opening her mouth again and countering the fallen angel with a swift, charged response.
“You know what? I don’t give a damn about what you say. All the deaths, all the unavoidable mistakes I have made… they were all a result of your own actions! You were the one who caused the world to decay, to be ruined even further, not me! So, don’t pin the blame on me when you have done nothing to fix the world!”
“… huh,” Hikari let out a loud snort before remarking, “that just shows you still know nothing about him.”
“What?”
“Think about it, second one. Why do you think I willingly deviated from my original mission in the first place? Why do you think I have done what I have done, that you two had to come down to try and stop me?”
“I…”
“I’m not going to explain myself, since you probably won’t believe me, so why don’t you ask him what happened? After all, you still trust his words without question, don’t you?”
As she continued to craftily tease Anten, she began to move once again, walking towards her downed devil companion before taking hold of and hoisting him up onto her shoulders, all while making sure he did not fall to the ground again.
“I’ll leave you two to think about it. Until then, we’ll be taking our leave first. See you later.”
“Wait!” Anten angrily shouted as she hurriedly accelerated her healing, fully intending to charge at and attack the two of them again as soon as possible, but try as she could, she had run out of time.
“Well, good luck with your ‘clean-up’, you’ll need it,” Hikari bid her an insincere farewell before quickly adding, “oh, and you might want to keep a close eye on your devil pet, somehow I have a strong feeling that there may be something wrong with him.”
“Huh?”
And just like that, as soon as Anten was distracted by her comment, the fallen angel unfurled her majestic wings before, holding onto her unconscious companion much more securely, she took off, leaving nothing behind but a cloud of dust, sand, and papers that had come loose off the houses’ walls in the middle of all the chaos.
“For god’s sake!”
As she watched her disappear high up into the grey clouds above, Anten had a brief impulsive thought of dropping her healing and chasing after them, but she soon stopped that train of thought as she felt the slight movement beneath her arms, indicating to her only one thing.
“Dauma?”
“Ugh…”
“Are you awake? Are you OK?”
“… h… AGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
As soon as he opened his eyes, and swiftly made eye contact with her, he suddenly screamed again, causing her to flinch in surprise and allowing him to break himself free from her arms before getting up and rapidly moving away from her.
“…”
The expression on his face as he frantically looked away seemed incredibly strange to her. It was a mix of revulsion and horror at the same time, and his complexion was pale and clammy, looking like he was about to puke.
“They’re gone, Dauma. We can rest for now.”
However, despite Anten’s reassurance, he did not seem calmed by the lucky news in the slightest. In fact, it was almost as though he was focused on something else besides the enemies that they could barely beat, something that was affecting him way more.
“Dauma?”
“No… no, no, no…” he repeatedly mumbled as she slowly stood up and attempted to approach him once her healing of Blake was complete. However, as she got closer, he took even more steps back in response, seemingly maintaining his kept distance away from her as much as he could.
“Is… there something wrong?”
“Don’t!” he suddenly yelled, causing her to instinctively stop in her tracks, “don’t come any closer to me! Just… don’t! I’m warning you!”
“Huh?”
Something seemed terribly, terribly wrong to her. This was not the Dauma she knew, especially not for someone who had been incredibly concerned about her since the very start of their journey.
“… wait…”
There was only one logical explanation for his sudden change in personality, his sudden revulsion, his sudden extreme reaction to her presence.
“What… what did she show you?”
“No…”
“What did she show you, Dauma?!” she repeated her question with growing worry, her voice cracking as she began to fear the worst based on all her prior knowledge of him.
It must be…
“I… I…”
For what the fallen angel Hikari had shown him in the few tens of seconds before he was finally released from her control, the devil Dauma was having great difficulty putting his proper response into words for the angel Anten.