To avoid chaos, the lord and the devil are both forbidden from directly laying influence on this world. But it is still possible for them to channel their influence indirectly through their subjects, in the form of angels and demons existing secretly among man in this world. In their respective realms – heaven and hell - these subjects follow the lord and the devil as eternal beings. Whereas in this world, while still eternal and with magical powers, they’re also susceptible to injury and death, abiding by the laws of every other being of this world. These subjects have always watched over man through small sub-factions of heaven and hell they created to hide within civilization. There, they’d adapt to civilization’s progress over time (language, technology, culture, lifestyles…) and blend in with this world better, so that they could enter it to secretly enact upon man either good or evil, thus engaging in a constant, eternal, unbeknownst-to-man struggle to either protect or destroy…
* * *
“Don’t give away our position to it, everyone stay put and only attack stealthily…”
A group of angels were huddled behind a large rock in the middle of a forest, gazing on a creature nearby. Its appearance resembled that of a dog, except no dog on earth was as big as a cheetah, had fur rougher than sandpaper, yellow eyes radiating malice, and teeth as sharp as razor blades.
It was a Hellhound, no doubt summoned by a demon for it to wreak havoc in the nearest populated area, which was the city located right next to the forest. Thankfully a sub-faction of heaven secretly located in that very city had detected the anomaly of a beast from hell’s abrupt existence in this world and sent several angels there to take care of the problem.
“It’s still a good thing that Hellhound isn’t anywhere near the city, or else things would have been way messier…” Another angel right behind the one in the lead muttered under her breath.
“Whoever summoned it probably wanted to be sneaky for some reason. Funny, because it’s not like they give a darn about drawing human attention.” A third angel wondered aloud quietly.
“That’s beside the point here Makoto, just have your bow ready – same goes for the rest.” The angel in the lead whispered, and everyone else did as they were told. Silently they all summoned their weapons by running their hands down their forearms, where crossbows of a brilliant bright-blue color would appear attached to them. But as they were getting ready to take aim at the Hellhound, a small noise was heard that turned both their and the creature’s attention in another direction.
A rabbit somewhere on their right had broken a twig while moving, making a snapping noise. The Hellhound turned to see what made the noise and upon seeing the rabbit, it sprung into action.
Seeing the Hellhound chase after the rabbit, the angel named Makoto exclaimed, albeit still quietly to not draw its attention to them, “It’s getting away! What now?” but then another voice from the back of the group piped up, “I got it, I got it!” followed by the swift sound of an arrow being fired.
“Kai, wait! You can’t-“ The lead angel started, but the arrow had already missed its mark and hit a tree instead, making the Hellhound stop and turn its head towards the noise of the arrow. This, of course, resulted in its evil yellow eyes spotting the angels now in full view of it from where it was.
Before Kai, the angel who had opened fire without thinking, could so much as comprehend what he’d just done, the Hellhound pounced and ran straight towards him and everyone else, its mouth wide open to reveal its sharp teeth in all its menacing glory and let out a sinister series of barks.
There was nothing else for it. The lead angel shouted, “GO!” and spread her wings to fly upwards with the rest of the group, simultaneously opening fire at the beast with the crossbow on her own arm. At this, the Hellhound momentarily leapt back to get out of the way of all the arrows raining down onto the ground, before digging its claws into the nearest tree thick enough to hold its weight and climbing at the same speed it ran earlier. From there, it lunged again at the group, this time managing to catch itself onto the left wing and right side of Kai, who was hovering the lowest.
“Argh!” The sheer weight of the Hellhound clinging onto him, added with the white-hot pain of its claws piercing his wing and side, sent Kai plunging to the forest floor with a thud and rustling of dead leaves. There was nothing Kai could do to defend himself with the Hellhound holding him down as it got ready to maul him to a bloody demise, but then the other angels began coming back down to the ground in a circling position to surround the beast, crossbows at the ready.
The Hellhound froze on the spot like it sensed defeat, and at first that seemed like the end of it. But then the beast leapt up onto another tree just as the angels shot their arrows at it. Thankfully none of the arrows hit anyone, but they all still had to leap out of the way to avoid getting injured.
As for the Hellhound, just as it was about to pounce onto the nearest angels from the tree, it heard a voice whisper triumphantly from somewhere above, “Gotcha.” And the next – and the last - thing it knew, it felt an arrow pierce through its skull and its body fall limply off the tree onto the ground.
“Finally!” The lead angel sighed, who’d been hiding up in one of the trees, knowing the Hellhound would try to dodge their attacks by heading somewhere high again. She then called down to the others while flying back down, “Anyone else hurt?” to which everyone including Kai answered no.
Now that their enemy was finally dead, the angels could take a moment to breathe and wrap things up, which was to dispose of the Hellhound’s corpse by sending it back to hell and tending to the wounded – that frankly being no one else but Kai. And it looked like they had to hurry too, because the sky above was starting to quickly darken with what were unmistakably storm clouds.
While bandaging his side and his wing to keep them from bleeding before she could perform some healing magic on them, the lead angel told Kai, “You should have known better than to act alone, even if you had good intentions of not letting the beast leave our sight.”
Kai sighed, “My deepest apologies Inori sama, I should’ve indeed not let my impatience cloud my judgement-“ then he winced as the healing magic took effect, to which Inori said, “It won’t take long, and you won’t have trouble flying back to our faction.” She took a moment to look up at the storm clouds and briefly added, “…just so long as it doesn’t rain on the way.”
“Thank you for your assistance.” Said Kai gratefully to Inori, before she went off to inspect how the others were handling the dead Hellhound. A second later another angel knelt down next to Kai and asked sympathetically, “Pretty scary back there when the thing got on top of you, wasn’t it?”
He nodded and said, “But it’s fine Hikasa, since it all ended well despite my irresponsible slip-up.”
“I’m also relieved to hear you’re fine.” Hikasa patted Kai gently on the back to say, “And don’t let such slip-ups get you down or anything. Everyone has to start somewhere to polish their skill, right?”
“Just preferably not life-threatening situations like this.” Makoto added, also sitting next to Kai. And when Kai made a guilty face at that, he said, “No one’s mad at you mate, we just don’t want you to put yourself in danger like this. As much as I like you Kai, as your senpai I still have to advise you to compose yourself better because frankly, you’re far from qualified for these things yet.”
Kai was about to say something in response when they all saw lightning flash across the sky, followed by the very close rumble of thunder above their heads. Inori called out, “Best be off right now, even with uninjured wings it’ll be a hassle to fly through extreme weather such as this!”
All the angels scrambled to their feet and spread their wings to fly off just as the first few raindrops began to fall. Kai followed suit and found his wings did indeed allow him to fly with no hassle like Inori had said. That is, until the raindrops intensified along with everything else.
The more they flew Kai found himself getting pushed more and more to the back of the group, and unfortunately for him the extreme circumstances were giving the other angels a very hard time as well, having to fight their way against, as well as see properly through the strong wind and rain. As much as Kai hated to admit it, the storm was making the situation every angel for themselves.
“Dammit!” Kai cursed to himself as he could do nothing but watch his group fly further and further away from him as the storm continued to push him backwards and downwards. But he couldn’t give up now and keep his group needlessly waiting when they were safe back at their faction. With that in mind, he tried to fly through every obstacle the storm threw at him with all his might.
…and that was when his still-recovering left wing finally gave way.
“AAAAAAHHH!!!” Kai desperately flapped his right wing in an attempt to stop himself plummeting to the ground like the raindrops around him. This was only half effective, which to Kai was still a miracle, as it did mostly break the fall but not without a rather painful landing onto the forest floor.
Luckily no other body parts seemed to be injured, so Kai was able to pick himself up and walk with his wings above his head to shield the rain. Not that it really mattered since he was already drenched anyway, but he still felt the need to keep himself as dry as he could.
“I really hope I don’t have to walk all the way there…” Kai muttered. As if he wasn’t feeling enough like crap already, the thought of making his way to his faction on foot in this kind of weather was adding insult to injury (pun not intended). In fact, it was enough to make him feel so down to the point where he even began to regret ever volunteering to come out here in the first place.
As Makoto had said, Kai was still a young and very inexperienced angel who was nowhere near as good as the others at almost everything they did. Though he was a good student and always kept in mind the things he learned from his superiors like Inori, the problem came when he tried to put such knowledge into practice, as seen from his performance earlier.
And it wasn’t like he was unwilling to improve himself out of fear of failure or rejecting help out of shame either. He wasn’t afraid to seek help when he needed it, and also believed the best way for him to become better at his job was through trial and error, hence why he’d volunteered to join in fighting the Hellhound. Of course, those who knew him well like Makoto and Hikasa initially declined the offer, saying it was for his own good (only now he could see they were right). But upon him insisting he wouldn’t be able to grow if he wasn’t let in on any action, and some others saying they could use an extra hand due to how fierce Hellhounds could be, they had reluctantly agreed.
The more he thought back to these things, the more he felt his self-doubt grow like a poison tree inside him. What would he have to do to become better at his duties as an angel? Or was he just not good enough to begin with and all his efforts were for naught?
Kai looked up at the stormy sky and wondered aloud, as if the lord could hear him somewhere up there, “I want to be a good subject to you of this world like everyone else, or even half as good, so why is it that everything I do to prove myself worthy, I always mess it up?”
Of course he got no response to this, just another flash of lightning that momentarily made him clench his eyes from the brightness of it. Though this did result in one good thing amongst all the bad, as when the lightning illuminated the dim surroundings for a second, Kai noticed something in the distance which he recognized as an old abandoned barn of some sorts.
He muttered to himself, “Not the answer I was expecting, but thank you anyway for showing me a place to shelter myself from the rain…” followed by, “…for however long, I don’t know…”
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He ran to the barn and wasted no time entering through the slightly ajar door. But just as he was about to squeeze the water from his shirt and jeans for drying, a voice called out, “Who’s there?”
* * *
Minutes before Kai entered the barn he was in, Mion was having one of the worst days of his life. That was saying something, seeing how as a demon, the days he lived were practically countless.
“Seriously I can’t even be the slightest bit cautious with what I do to make sure it goes right?!” He complained. After storming out of the sub-faction of hell he resided in from being unable to stand the constant insults the others threw at him for his so-called incompetence, Mion headed to the forest to cool his head off for a while before deciding to give his fellow demons a piece of his mind.
“I’ll show them, I’ll show them all what I’m capable of!” He had muttered to himself as he drew a demonic magic circle on a clear patch of the forest floor. Despite having been looked down on and pushed around like this for all his life because all the other demons in his faction were better at everything, it didn’t change the fact that it angered him beyond words. But what else could he possibly do about it other than polish his skills himself and try to get better? It wasn’t like anyone could help him in such a quest either, since it was natural for a demon as a force of evil to only care about themselves and not others, even if said others were its own kind. After all, how would they enact all sorts of heinous acts on man if they actually gave a damn about others’ well-being?
Perhaps it was this anger fueling him from the inside, but by the time the circle was done drawing, Mion found himself summoning the Hellhound from it better than expected. Once the summoning was done, he erased the circle to cover his tracks in case any angels found out about this.
“That went well.” Mion said in a way of patting himself on the back, then turned to the Hellhound and cautiously tried to interact with it in the same manner of a human getting a new pet dog.
That was a mistake. The Hellhound had perceived Mion’s caution as showing weakness and lunged at him like he was its prey. Luckily for him Mion managed to get away from it far enough to lose it, but not without a few injuries on places such as his wings and leg. He had to both clumsily and painfully fly across several miles above the forest before his wings couldn’t take any more flying and forced him to take a break in an abandoned barn he ran across. And to make matters worse, just as he was beginning to find relaxation from the pain of his wounds, it was pouring outside.
“So even nature hates me, huh?” Mion grumbled at his bad luck. “No surprise… why would anything have a reason to be in favor of a force of evil, regardless of his sheer incompetence?”
He could see it now, what his fellow demons would make of him returning not only empty handed, but also soaking wet and with injuries from something of his own doing. He’d be bullied more than when he left the place earlier for this failure, further proving how useless he was. Just as he was thinking about if he even wanted to go back when all that awaited him if he did was nothing but sheer humiliation, he heard footsteps entering the barn, and he instinctively called, “Who’s there?”
* * *
“Oh, do excuse me…” Kai timidly replied to Mion’s voice – as the barn was pitch dark due to the absence of any lights so neither of them could see the other – and stopped where he stood. “I only came in here to take shelter from the storm, had no idea someone else would be in here too.”
Thinking he might as well take out his anger from how utterly bad today was on this random person unfortunate enough to stumble across him, Mion answered, “It’s fine, we might as well share the place for a while…” to let the other’s guard down as he got to his feet to get nearer. But in all the thoughts he let himself get lost in until Kai’s arrival, he’d almost forgotten about his injuries and so when he stood up, he instantly fell back down with a painful, “Urgh! God dammit!”
Alarmed by this sudden expression of agony, Kai asked, “What’s wrong? Are you hurt somewhere?” and cautiously made his way over to where Mion’s voice came from. Sure enough, a couple seconds of blindly searching around later, Kai found Mion’s arm and gave him a boost to help him move over to the barn’s door where the rather dim light from the stormy outside filtered in.
Normally Mion would’ve refused such help from anyone, especially a human whom he was planning to let his anger out on soon. But his injuries were hurting again too much for him to care at the moment, so he tucked away his wings for now to make himself look like a regular human and just went with the flow, thinking to himself, “If only I had successfully mastered healing magic for myself…”
Kai also hid his wings to give himself the illusion of a human while he carried Mion to the barn door, thinking, “Poor human, what did he go through to be left injured in the forest, all alone?”
Once they could see each other a bit better in the dim lighting, Kai inspected Mion’s leg injury to see it didn’t look serious but still needed to be bandaged up for now until treating it properly later.
And speaking of bandaging, Kai also looked at his side where the Hellhound had hurt him and saw – as well as felt – it was pretty much back to normal, thanks to the effects of Inori’s healing magic.
“Your injury needs immediate attention from what I can see, so seeing how there’s nothing else for it we might as well use these.” Said Kai, unraveling the bandages from his body to wrap them around Mion’s leg. “Don’t worry, I’ve no need for these – besides, you need them more than I do.”
Of course, Mion wasn’t at all worried about Kai’s well-being or even what kind of injury he himself had sustained. That said, this act of kindness did suddenly make him see Kai in a new light, leading him to think twice about what he could do with him for his own benefit.
“He’s really offering his own bandages even though he also probably needs them? All for someone he’s only just met and barely knows? That’s kind…” As these thoughts crossed his mind, a sinister grin spread across Mion’s face while Kai was preoccupied with the bandages. “Too kind… ha ha…”
Using such a unique specimen just to release his frustration over today’s misfortune and leave him dead where no one would ever find him felt like a waste of a special opportunity. He could definitely find better use for this too-kind-for-his-own-good human than a simple stress reliever… maybe even something he could use as proof that’ll truly show the demons at his sub-faction he was just as capable as them at what they did and not the worthless baboon they always made him out to be.
If this person truly was being open-minded enough to the point of offering kindness when they could barely see each other’s faces right now, it would surely also make him much more susceptible to much more sinister demonic acts like possession if he did try such things. And if he succeeded at it to any extent, hopefully his perpetually miserable life would finally take a turn for the better.
Mion thought with another evil smile, “Guess today isn’t all bad then, when it’s given me the perfect victim to use to my heart’s content and show the others what I’m worth! They’ll see, they’ll all see…”
Noticing Mion smiling but mistaking it for one of relief rather than malice due to not being able to see it properly in the dark, Kai simply said, “I hope that’s better.” snapping Mion back to reality.
“He seems to be open a lot already, but I’ll still need to get pretty close to really begin…” Mion thought, and quickly brainstormed over what the best tactic to get on Kai’s good side easily and gain more of his trust would be. Luckily for him, he didn’t need to think too much for a good idea.
“I owe you big time for what you’ve done to me, it means a lot.” He started, to which Kai replied, “So you ARE feeling better, that’s good to hear… and no problem; like I said, you needed it.”
“No really, it means a lot more to me than you think.” Mion continued. “See, my family and associates over at my place – if they saw me like this they wouldn’t treat me the same way you did… knowing them, all they’d do would be to scoff at me for my lack of caution or something.”
Kai couldn’t believe his ears. What kind of inhumane individuals could this person be surrounded with to say that? And that was saying something, seeing how as an angel, he’d witnessed many examples of human cruelty over centuries as much as that from his kind’s natural enemies from hell.
“That’s cruel, why would they treat a family member and friend in such a way?” Kai asked in disbelief, to which Mion replied, “I know, and it sucks.” While in his mind he was thinking, “I got him hooked now, only a matter of time before I win over his sympathy and then, hopefully more of his trust.”
Feeling confident in the first step to his dastardly deed, Mion continued, “In fact almost everyday of my life is just hell. Everyone back at my place lives like its ‘every man for himself’. No one cares about anyone’s well-being except their own. As if that isn’t bad enough, they all get a kick out of bullying me only because I’m inferior to them in every way. Worse, as much as I’d love to escape all that so I can live a better life, it’s not that simple either – I’ve nowhere I can go or nothing I can do out there on my own, so the life I have now is all I got. I’ve no other choice but to live with it.”
A deep sigh escaped Kai’s mouth. He never would have guessed this poor soul was forced to live with some of the worst scum humanity had to offer – at least, based on the descriptions – with no escape. While he had never seen purgatory with his own eyes, Mion’s life seemed like an accurate enough depiction of it, and he knew no innocent human ever deserved THAT. What made him feel worse was that he could actually relate to some of the things he heard, such as being the far lesser member of a group he had no choice but to be a part of forever. Except he was never ridiculed or pushed around for his inferiority and rather, was supported and assisted to improve himself.
In an almost sad tone Kai replied, “I kinda know what that feels like, I too live in a group of family and friends where they’re all better than me…” to which Mion asked, “Do you?” Then trying to sound as friendly as possible for the sake of making Kai trust him further he added, “Sorry to hear that…”
“Don’t be.” Kai assured him. “If anything, I’m the one who feels sorry to hear about your situation…”
“You’re not the one responsible for my hellhole of a life, so what are you sorry for?” Mion countered, before adding, “That said, I am admittedly grateful to you for hearing me out. This is the first time I ever had someone be kind enough to let me freely vent my frustrations with an open mind. If I so much as tried this back at home to my family and friends, well… you can already guess.”
“Nobody deserves to be ignored, especially those in need.” Kai replied in a considerate tone. “If you want, you can tell me more. I’m here to listen, because I too am grateful that I could be of help.”
And so for several moments to come Mion continued to “vent his frustrations” to Kai, who took in every word with the utmost sympathy and understanding. And the more he listened, not only was Kai feeling proud to be of help to a troubled human in need, a thought also occurred to him.
As typical of an angel’s duty, he never asked to be rewarded for the things he and the other angels did. It was just simply their job, and they were glad to do it for the good of the world. But should he be able to keep helping this lost soul until he could at long last break free from his hellish life by any means, Kai was starting to think it would not only end nicely for Mion, but for him too.
Of course, Kai did genuinely want to help Mion, since as an angel he wasn’t one to ignore cruelty and injustice leaving the innocent scathed. But after ages of trying and failing to prove himself a worthy angel, this could also very well be a good chance for him to turn the dream into a reality. And unlike all his previous – and failed – attempts, this actually felt like it was on the right track; Despite them not even knowing each other’s names yet, Mion was already open enough towards him to tell him what kind of abused life he lived back at home. Such trust was a requirement if Kai did intend to help for however long it would take to achieve their final goal.
Mion, on the other hand, couldn’t believe his luck. He could tell how much Kai was open to him by now, after all the things he said that would bring pity out of anyone. Even better, he didn’t need to bother cooking up lies for it either, as lies could be exposed sooner or later. Real life pretty much spoke for itself already, all he had to do was keep Kai sympathizing with him through more tales of it for however long it would take for his soul to be left susceptible enough for possession. All the times he heard his fellow demons talk about their own crusades in possession, they always made it feel like it was no piece of cake. If he’d known it was this easy, he would’ve done it much sooner.
As both of them were having these thoughts, they also noticed something about their surroundings were off. Mion was the first to bring it up and said, “Is it just me or has things gotten… quieter?”
“Huh?” Kai looked around and not only realized things were indeed quieter than before, but the outside was much calmer, not to mention a bit darker. Upon a closer look Kai finally realized what was up and exclaimed, “Who would’ve thought, we actually waited out the storm in this barn!”
Even Mion had to express genuine surprise at this, saying, “Guess that’s now two things I’m grateful for the time we spent together in here… even though it took the storm until nightfall to finally pass.”
Kai opened the barn door wide and began to hurry outside. Makoto, Hikasa, Inori and all the others must be worried sick over his absence, so he intended to make it to his sub-faction as quickly as he could. Just then, he heard Mion call after him, “Hey, wait a minute!”
When Kai stopped in his tracks, Mion continued with a tone of fake timidness that went completely unnoticed by the former, “Excuse me if this may sound weird but, would we be able to meet again?”
Kai turned to face Mion with a grin and said, “Like I said, I’m also grateful I could be of help. That said, it’d be a crime if I never saw you again to be of more help when you most certainly need it.”
Mion spread a smile of fake happiness across his face as he replied, “Thanks so much… it’s kind of embarrassing to say but, after what we did while waiting out the storm, you genuinely feel like the kind of person I’d love to befriend, very unlike the so-called ‘friends’ I have back at home.”
“Thanks for thinking of me like that.” Said Kai, flattered. He then asked, “If possible, can we meet again tomorrow? I’m free all day then.” To which Mion agreed, “Definitely. You have a phone number?”
Keeping up with the times to blend in within human civilization also meant even angels like himself needed to have modern day appliances like cell phones somehow (however outlandish that might sound on paper), so Kai did indeed give Mion his number, and vice versa.
As for where and when they’d meet, they figured it would be best to do so at noon in a highly recognizable place in the city, which they agreed on as the city square.
“That’s settled.” Said Kai, getting ready to leave. “I look forward to seeing you again, uh…”
“Name’s Mion.” Mion replied. “Took us long enough to finally ask each other’s names.”
Kai laughed a bit in agreement, and told Mion his own name. They then eventually departed to head back to their respective homes, looking forward to what tomorrow, as well as many more days to come, would bring.