What with him being greatly outnumbered, Mion couldn’t so much as exit the alleyway he was hiding in before it was surrounded by angels all over. And flying out of there wasn’t a desirable option either, as the alleyway a bit too narrow for him – let alone any of the angels - to move their wings properly for flight. Not only that, Mion feared that if he did fly, he might escalate the situation into something like a hassle which he wasn’t in any position of coming out on top.

Cautious murmurs were exchanged between the angels with all their eyes on Mion, as if they too were just as nervously unsure of his intent as he was with them. A few were even drawing their weapons and hiding them from sight just in case, which worsened Mion’s uneasiness. Why would they do so unless they recognized him as a demon even without his demon wings visible? And if that really was the case here, then Mion figured he was most unlikely to walk away from this okay.

Then on one side the angels slightly parted to make way for the one who looked to be the leader of the bunch. She walked right up to Mion and said, “We know who you are.”

Mion’s heart didn’t just skip a beat at those words, he felt it jump almost up to his mouth. This was it, he thought, after everything he and Kai tried in the face of the wrench that was unexpectedly thrown into both their lives, it turned out to not matter at all in the end. Kai’s burnt feathers being found at a scene of blood and destruction screamed out bad news in every way, and here he was too, about to see for himself what all angels did to all demons.

Mion stood defeatedly surrounded by barriers of angels and gray concrete walls, braced for the worst. But instead of sharp blades and arrowheads piercing his flesh to wipe his futile existence off this world, he heard Inori’s voice speak again, “Before you can jump to conclusions as to what we intend to do with you, there’s something we’d like you to tell us. That’s all we ask of you for now.”

This came so out of left field for Mion that his state of mind went from doom-awaiting despair to perplexed shambles, and all he could utter in response was a near unintelligible, “Wait, what?”

Inori continued, “Back then on the bridge, you told Kai the coordinates to your own sub-faction, which in turn prompted us to take the whole thing down… we’d like to know the truth as to why you did it, and what you had between you and Kai.” Aside from the strange conflicting tone in her voice, Mion was perplexed even more as to how Inori and the other angels knew about the bridge incident, and couldn’t even utter any audible words at all over it this time.

“And please don’t complicate this for yourself by trying to either bend the truth or fly away.” Makoto added. “We have a way of knowing whether you intend to do so or not.”

Mion took a good few minutes to take in the situation and gain the composure to find his voice, during which Inori told him to “explain from where it all began” if he didn’t know how to start.

With that out of the way, Mion did explain; beginning from when he used to live life as a lesser demon in his sub-faction because of his failures at every evildoing his other folks succeeded at, he explained how he first met Kai as well as his initial motives with the angel, which over time changed to the point of him completely changing his ways, then transitioned to their unintentional identity reveals, what his sister and two others forced him into upon finding out, and the reasons for what he did on the bridge that lead up to the events of the past few days.

Once he’d gotten all of that out, Mion thought, “NOW this must be it, they got that truth they wanted from me, there’s no reason for them to spare me anymore…” and his mind filled again with the dread of impending doom.

That dread grew like an inflating balloon when Inori came even closer with a completely unreadable expression on her face. Not knowing what she had in mind for him scared Mion badly, yet for some reason he was unable to look anywhere but her face as she seemed to stare right through him.

Then the moment came to an end when Inori leaned down near his ear and muttered in a whisper, “Your fear is understandable considering the track record between our kind and yours… that said, the Lord’s say is our rules…” She let out a deep sigh after that as if she couldn’t believe what she was saying, yet was still willing to stick to it as it was not only their kind’s ideology, but also their life’s duty. “And the lengths you went to turn your life around isn’t an act to overlook…” She added with the tone of a guilty person admitting to an undeniable piece of evidence at a crime scene.

The balloon of dread inside Mion popped immediately at these words and he felt all the strength in his legs disappear, prompting him to collapse to his knees as Inori announced to all the angels, “As baffling as it may sound, I sense his penitence is one of genuineness… he is not an enemy.”

Unsurprisingly, every angel gasped and looked taken aback at this conclusion. Her being the leader, of their sub-faction and all, there was no fooling or getting around Inori’s ability to see through people, let alone a lesser demon such as Mion. So the fact that Inori’s final verdict was to spare someone like him - a being they had believed all their lives to be irredeemable evil - for genuine penitence was absurdly unheard of. It was as if they’d walked into fire and came back out frostbitten.

Inori was well aware of this too, because she spoke over all the other voices talking over one another, “I know what I said – and that’s my final say. Should I be wrong, I shall take full responsibility for it.”

More gasps and murmurs issued amongst more taken aback faces. Eventually Hikasa piped up by asking, “What do we do with him now?”

“What our kind has always done to repenting sinners.” Inori replied. “However, since this is unlike any case we’ve ever dealt with, there will inevitably be some changes to the procedure.” There was a moment’s pause in which she thought things over in her head, then concluded, “We’ll escort him back to our sub-faction’s designated area and discuss how to have him settle in the human world there – all while under our watch, of course. That remains the same.”

Orders were orders, so one by one the angels had to accept the fact that they were actually doing this and gradually got ready to leave the area and head back to where they belonged with Mion.

And speaking of Mion, he too began to return to clarity from an extremely shaken state of mind, eventually finding his voice again to ask Inori even as the angels were making their preparations, “How did you know about what went down on that bridge several days ago…?”

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Inori paused, told the other angels to continue what they were doing, and answered Mion, “As for that… I must admit, some of us including myself had been watching and listening to both you and Kai back then in an operation to catch you. We didn’t believe a word of what Kai told us about you, so we’d devised a plan to have Kai lure you to an area where you could be captured by us, as we needed the necessary information on your sub-faction…”

Mion stared at Inori wide-eyed, and the lead angel hung her head. “We should have known better… I should have known better… despite agreeing to the plan, Kai knew of the potential danger, as we warned him of it… but if we knew this was where it would all end up, we would’ve stopped him right there with no questions… only after the damage was done did we truly realize what we have gotten Kai into… only after it was too late did I doubt my judgement on the situation and decide to look into the coordinates we overheard from you… and now…” She somberly extracted something from her pocket, which turned out to be one of Kai’s singed feathers from the scene of the bloody wall and the exploded car, looking at it with pure regret in her eyes.

As soon as Mion laid eyes on the feather as well, his vision immediately blurred with tears. At the same time the last words Kai spoke to him last night began ringing in his ears, and he felt his heart wrench like mad. He uttered in a trembling voice, “How could’ve any of you possibly known that back then?” He shook his head and continued, “It’s my fault, I didn’t do enough to keep him away from danger… I didn’t do enough to stop him when he went out of his way to try and take care of our pursuers himself… He didn’t deserve this, It should’ve been me out there instead of him…!”

With that, Mion fell on all fours and broke down crying. The angels around him all stopped to try and get him to calm down, but at that moment Mion felt like nothing anyone could say or do for him would be able to make the pain inside him go away. The pain of being unable to stop his one and only friend - the one who HAD done everything, including giving his own life, for him – from doom.

What wouldn’t he do to change the course of the past events if it meant Kai could be safe, even if it also meant the same couldn’t be said for himself? If Mion had known this was how it was going to end, he wished he had knocked Kai out cold or something in the caravan just so he wouldn’t go. If he’d known this was how it was going to end, he wished he had gone all out against the demons watching him on the bridge and fought them to the death while Kai escaped. He even wished he had never met Kai on that night of the storm, if things were destined to turn out this way. But what was done was done, no turning back, and all he COULD do was just live with it forever…

* * *

Some many months after those unforgettable events, Mion found himself staring out the window of the small flat in the apartment where he now lived. A layer of snow was covering everything in sight, leaving the scenery in a slightly muted and brilliant white.

Once the angels who found him made their way back home and took him with them, Inori had a few of them assigned with the task of finding Mion a place to stay. What with Mion being a demon, it of course made no sense for him to make himself at home in the heaven sub-faction, as such places were naturally incompatible with such beings and were prone to repelling them, like a body fighting off an infection, after an extended period of time (at best only a week or so).

After a few days of searching and thorough preparations – during which Mion temporarily stayed at a nearby abandoned building under the angels’ supervision – the assigned group found him a home in the form of an apartment flat fit for a singular resident. With the help of the angels Mion moved in and had been living there ever since, all while the angels carried out their job of continuing to watch over him. Not that it was necessary, since all Mion did there was live out the peaceful life he desired. But Mion knew there were still some angels in the sub-faction who were wary of him, and so he simply let the angels do their thing to reassure them.

Today was no different, as seen when Mion heard a knock at the door and answered it to see two angels standing there, whom he greeted politely, “Hi Makoto, Hikasa, come on in.”

Makoto and Hikasa did so, with the latter asking, “Slept alright? It has been snowing all night after all, so just wondering if it was particularly cold or anything…”

“No, everything’s fine.” Mion replied. “Thanks for asking though.”

“Well, we do need to make sure your life here goes smoothly.” Said Makoto. “Been doing anything before we got here?”

Walking back up to the window, Mion said, “Not really. Just letting my mind wander while looking out there…” and went on to keep staring at the snowy streets laid out below.

The two angels joined him there, and Makoto commented at the sight, “Pretty view, isn’t it?”

“Probably one of the most peaceful days I’ve had in a while, if not forever…” Mion muttered, sighing.

“It’s still midday right now, but yeah-“ Hikasa agreed, before stopping herself. She had just noticed Mion’s gaze was strangely distant, even though all he was looking at was the snowy ground.

They instantly knew what this meant. Hikasa patted Mion gently on the shoulder, and Makoto said, “You reminded yourself of him again, didn’t you?”

Mion nodded. “I’ve never felt peace like this when I was still a part of that hell sub-faction, and, well, with the snow being as white as an angel’s wings, I-“

“It’s okay, we understand.” Said Hikasa when Mion failed to finish his sentence from fighting back a soft sob. “There isn’t a day that goes by in which we don’t miss him either…” She and Makoto then gave Mion some time to calm himself down with more gestures of comfort.

Initially, Makoto and Hikasa were also rather wary of Mion when they brought him to live here. But over time, as they saw more of Mion’s sincerity through their supervision of him, they learned to trust him properly. And because both of them had been close to Kai as well, they also gradually grew closer to Mion by bonding over the loss of their friend as a coping mechanism.

Mion wiped a couple of tears from his eyes and took a deep breath, then said, “Even though he’s no longer with us, moping over him all day everyday isn’t what Kai would want me to do with the life he gave me by sacrificing his…”

Makoto sighed alongside him. “I guess the best we can do for him is to always keep him in our memories, and make the most out of our lives…” He muttered, then with a little bit of determination, added, “That’s definitely what I’ll do… after the seemingly impossible miracle he made possible that is you, Mion, I think we can all look at the days to come with more hope than before.”

Mion couldn’t share that sentiment more. He had nothing but hopeful days to look forward to from where his life was at right now.

“And remember,” Said Hikasa with one last pat on Mion’s shoulder, “Whatever you might have to face in future… you won’t be alone for it. You’ll never have to be.”

Feeling grateful, Mion cracked a smile for the first time that day. “Thanks, you two.” He said. “For being here for me like this.”

“Don’t mention it, it’s what we do.” Makoto replied, albeit slightly flattered. “And honestly, we’re just as grateful as well for it.”

This pleasant talk of theirs helped lift their spirits over time, until it was time for Makoto and Hikasa to leave for other duties. Mion saw the angels off at his front door, then went to the window a third time to be lost in his own thoughts again.

Or rather, he’d went to close the curtains on the window when something that wasn’t there before made him get lost in his own thoughts again.

“Huh?” Mion muttered under his breath, noticing a color in the snow piled up on the windowsill that contrasted from all the white surrounding it. Said color was a slight shade of black, belonging to a singed spot on a feather as white as the snow it laid upon.

Mion opened the window and picked up the feather. He’d unmistakably seen something like this somewhere before, and one place only; In a different city far from here, between a wall sporting a great bloodstain and the charred remains of an exploded car.

He stared at the feather for a long while in confusion, then proceeded to stare out the window, out into the world that lay beyond, wondering whether this could possibly mean anything, and if it did, whether that very meaning was somewhere out there…