Author's Note: So...this is my first fanfiction. Like most people who watched Devilman Crybaby, I had a lot of feels, and I had to write them down. Just a warning: I have not read the original manga or seen the 1980s OVA, so the depiction/explanation about Satan's physiology is just my own headcanon. This story came about from the observation that we never actually see God in the series, so I thought it would be interesting to see how a conversation between Ryo and Him would play out.
Love does exist. And with it, sorrow. He realizes this now.
The angels are raining down over him now. He doesn't care. Sanity slowly returned to him for a moment, only for him to realize what he had done; then it slipped slowly through the sieve of his mind as he held the half of Akira's body that remained to his breast.
His breasts…he remembered the moment they appeared on his body. He had stood before Him, sitting on his glided throne, and conjured them out of spite. He had known of His plans to someday create man and woman, but he would one-up him by combining the two into something more beautiful and powerful. He had designed his body to reflect his views on beauty and power. His beauty came from his female breasts and male genitals: his power came from having no tear ducts. Two-thirds of the angels in the throne room turned away in disgust, the other third leered lustfully at him.
After he stated his purpose-I am God now, get up and leave-he was thrown to Earth, having underestimated His power. He bore his breasts and lack of tear ducts proudly until He struck again, destroying most of his demons, depleting most of his power and destroying his memory. Then, he was forced to blend in with the humans. His body must have known it was not safe to grow breasts before his mind did.
Somehow, his human body had allowed for tear ducts. He never used them.
Crying was weak; not only was it a sign of weakness, but it literally weakened the body. Dehydrated it. There was no practical or beneficial purpose to it.
Satan wanted to cry right now, but he couldn't. He wanted to feel the dampness of tears, but he couldn't. He could only wail at the sky as he held Akira…no, Akira's body, in his arms.
Akira cried whenever someone got hurt. Akira had never cried for him.
Akira was the only one strong enough to withstand Amon in his body.
Strength in weakness, weakness in empathy, empathy as a result of love…
Love. Soul. Soul. Body…
He had always coveted Akira's body; small and lithe as a mortal runner, strong and powerful when merged with Amon. He often wondered why he wanted Akira before his transformation: he was not excruciatingly handsome, but he wanted him. Even more often, he wondered why he never just took him: got him drunk or drugged at a nightclub, bent him over a bar and took while everyone watched like at the Sabbeths.
He realizes why now.
With only half the body and no soul in his arms, Satan feels both full and empty.
The angels are destroying what little remains of the Earth around him, giving him a wide berth on his little charred island. He pays them no mind; they do not matter to him. They're churning around him, singing with the sounds of bells and cymbals and exuberance; the End has come, and they now have something to do again: create. He pays them no mind, refocusing his attention on the fallen warrior in his arms.
Akira begins to disintegrate.
Ryo panics, clutching his arms around his friend even tighter. "No, no, Akira, no! No, stop!"
Akira disappears completely, leaving Ryo's arms wrapped around his own torso.
"Akira!"
"I must admit; I was not expecting this."
Satan looks up to the peak of his island. That voice…like a hundred all in one…
Him.
Satan does not recall what He looked like before, but now, he appears as a cloud of seven concurrent silver circles.
He sees red.
He screams his throat raw in the matter of seconds it takes for him to lunge, only to be knocked back down by a spray of silver. Ryo can feel Him holding back, and that infuriates him. He gets back up, only to be knocked down again. He tries again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
"Please stop, you know you can't win," He finally says. There is no malice or mockery in His voice, and that only makes it worse.
"Damn you; I hate you!"
"You damned yourself for hating me."
Satan is shaking with unrelenting malice. "You damned me! For standing up to you!"
"You make it sound like I punished you for doing something noble. What you did was selfish, and you know that," He retorts.
Ryo narrows his eyes, an ugly twist forming on his mouth.
"I hate you."
"I know."
"And you hate me, too."
"No, I don't."
Ryo blinks.
The brightness surrounding Him appears to dim. "You-more than anyone else- are deserving of my hate, but I do not hate you. I pity you. I cry for you."
I would like to cry for you…but my tears have all dried up.
Ryo's mouth trembles. "Bring him back."
"I will not."
"But you can!" Ryo shrieks.
"I can, but I will not. Akira made his choice to fight you, to die for the good of man, and I must respect that."
Ryo laughs; unhinged, unbalanced, unwell. " 'The good of man! And what exactly is that worth?"
"A lot more than you know," a new voice intercedes.
Ryo looks behind him.
Akira.
Akira stands, looking as he did before: smaller, wide-eyed, baby-faced. Clad in white with silver trim. Miki's earring is missing. He looks at peace.
Ryo smiles, sobs. He can't move. He feels full.
"Akira…" He begins.
Akira looks behind Ryo, addressing Him. "Please, let me speak to him. Just for a moment."
Ryo does not turn around to gauge His response, gaze riveted on his friend. After a while, His voice replies: "Very well."
For just one moment, Ryo does not hate Him with everything he has. Because everything he has is right in front of him again.
Satan dryly sobs into his hands, peeking through his fingers to keep Akira in his sight.
"Ryo…you're crying, too."
Akira himself is not crying, but the manta from the boys' childhood is not lost on Satan.
He lifts a hand to his face, only to have it come away dry. He gave the weakest chuckle he ever gave in his eons of existence. "Well, I'm trying too…I…I don't have…"
A weak sniffle.
"…tear ducts."
He bursts out in manic laughter, folding in on himself. His hands clutch at where his human heart would be.
Akira gives a small smile. "Are you crying just for me?"
Satan's head snaps up, his response immediate. "Yes, just for you."
Akira's smile slowly vanishes, his eyes downcast. "Then you still don't get it."
Satan's eyes furrow. "What do you mean?"
Akira closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and repositions himself. Akira's posture becomes similar to when Satan would teach a class as Ryo: ram-rod straight, eyes forward and leveled directly at him. A pose that said, what's coming next is important, so pay attention.
"Why cry only for me?"
"I love you." Ryo's response is immediate; in the back of his mind, he knew He could take away Akira at any time, so best get it out now.
Akira's eyes soften, but in a way that suggested sadness. "Why do you love me?"
Satan was taken aback at the bluntness of the question. "Your physical beauty, of course…" that was directed at Akira, but he levels a hard gaze behind him to the cloud of silver, daring Him to object to his confession. He only remains silent; Ryo tries to contain his disappointment by redirecting his attention to Akira. "But mostly, your kindness and empathy. And….you tried to understand me, even though I was different and…even I didn't even understand me."
"Those traits aren't only applicable to me," Akira replied.
Flashes of young Miki and Miko and a baton flash through his mind: Miko passing on to Miki, Miki onto Akira, and…
"But…no, you were special. You were the only one able to get close to me…"
"The others tried."
"But they failed! And you were the Devilman…"
Akira raised a hand. "I was a Devilman, one of many strong hearts who could withstand a demon's influence."
"But you withheld Amon, the strongest of all of them! You, Akira, were the only person in the entire world who could do that! I should know, I looked. Fikira looked. I came back to you because you were the only one, and I loved you for it!"
His last declaration echoed between the empty stars around them.
Ryo opened his eyes when he felt a soft hand on his cheek, one that was not entirely solid or alive, but there nonetheless, for this one moment. He looked up to see Akira's pitying expression.
"What you don't get is that all humans had the capacity to control Amon: yes, most of them couldn't, but the possibility was always there for each and every one of them. That's what you don't get: I'm not the exception, I'm just…human."
Ryo felt himself begin to realize what Akira was saying.
"So, all humans are worthy of love, worthy of protecting…that's what you're saying."
Akira smiled; he had begun to cry. Satan hoped those tears were for him this time.
"Yes, that's what I'm saying," Akira responds.
Ryo recalled the bloodshed, the torture, the rape, the random gunshots fired into the air and at anything that moved in lieu of his declaration on the television. "You believe that after all that happened…after they…foolishly destroyed each other out of fear."
Akira nodded his head. "Yes. Even after all that, that is what I…"
Ryo surged up, crushing his mouth to Akira's, embracing his now significantly smaller body against his own significantly larger, powerful, true form. Akira was soft and shimmery against him: there but not entirely there. He felt the kiss echo throughout the entirety of the universe.
"You idiot! You beautiful, kind, crybaby idiot! Only you would believe that! Only you…"
A slap against his face is his answer. Pitifully weak by physical standards, but the worst blow he ever received. He staggered back, Akira standing over him now.
"You still don't get it. You'll never get it, because you don't want to. You'll never believe that I wasn't the exception."
Ryo continued to look up at the tiny human who somehow managed to tower over him, in every sense of the word that mattered. His mind was only focused on one thing through the pain.
"Do you love me? Did you ever love me?"
Akira glowered at him. "That's not what's important here."
"Answer me, damn you!"
Akira closed his eyes against a new rush of tears. "I…might have. I think, before everything, I did. I think…if things could have turned out differently…if you hadn't destroyed everything…."
Akira opened his eyes again, the last of his tears running past his chin. "I could have," he finished.
Ryo smiled, the heat in his eyes overwhelming. How could he be both sad and overjoyed at this revelation? The fact that they could have had anything at all, if not for…
If not for him.
Ryo felt all his energy give out. "You're not crying for me right now, are you? You're crying for a me that doesn't exist."
Akira began to turn away. "I'm crying for a you that could have been…" Akira began to walk up the slope towards Him, dissolving into a silvery mist all the while.
Ryo reached out. "No, please, don't, don't go with him! Stay here with me!"
Akira lowered his gaze. "I can't. You killed me. I have to go forward."
Akira's body starts to fizzle in and out of focus. His eyes look up one more time. He's not crying.
"I did love you, and you love me….but that is not enough."
And then he's gone.
Akira…beautiful Akira, kind Akira, perfect Akira, gone.
Because of him.
No, because of Him.
Ryo screams.
The earth beneath him shatters. The angels overhead flee in terror for the first time in eons. Supernovas are created and destroyed, created and destroyed all over again in the span of seconds.
He remains stoic.
"Fuck you! Fuck you," he roars. He flies over to wear He remains perched, hovering over an abyss, radiating silver light in the jet black darkness. "Bring him back, BRING HIM BACK!"
"You love him," He replies.
"Of COURSE I love him!"
"There's no "of course" about it; I thought it highly unlikely you could even feel love."
Ryo stops. He had thought it was impossible.
How did this happen?
He was Satan; the Morning Star, the most powerful and beautiful of all demons. Akira was…was…
Human.
Flawed, but still capable of great good.
Just like…just like the rest of them.
That is what Akira was trying to tell him…
…..But after everything that happened, does he actually believe that?
He feels himself flicker, his energy flowing through the sieve of his soul.
He still has a soul…
Ryo closes his eyes. He does not want to reopen them for a long time. He feels a presence on his cheek, warm and solid.
He thought he remembered Him being colder.
"You are trying to understand, because of Akira. He got through to you where I did not….where I could not."
Ryo smiles at that: half vindictive, half out of joy. Not full of either.
"You still killed him. You're still so full of hate. Everything is gone. But there is still hope; for you, of all creatures," He says.
Ryo's eyes are still closed. Silver sneaks through his lashes. He squeezes his eyes tighter.
"Maybe," Ryo replies. "But I don't think I will ever love you as I once did. You will never be my Father again. My heart will always only belong to Akira."
Somehow, he feels more empty than full having admitted that.
The presence at his cheek leaves.
"Well, there will always be time to change your mind. We have eternity, after all," He supplies.
Ryo opens his eyes. They are both hovering in the abyss. The angels have given them a galaxy of space, hovering around in a ring.
"So…there is hope, after all," Satan states. It's not a question.
He begins to glow even more than before. Satan has to shield his eyes. When he looks back, an eighth circle has joined the other seven of His presence.
"Yes, there is hope."
Satan closes his eyes. "Will…will I ever see Akira again?"
He lets a pause linger. "If you do, you will both be beyond any feelings of romantic love."
Satan grimaces. "I don't want that."
"I know. But hopefully, one day, you won't mind."
"But his love…and my love for him…it made me feel…..empathy. Is that not good?" Ryo asks this with no hint of irony.
"Yes, it is a stepping stone. But like Akira said, it is not enough."
Silence.
"But it is an excellent start."
Satan gives a sarcastic smirk. "Even though we're both men?"
He is ready with a remark. "That is not ideal for me, no. But you never played by my rules anyway, did you?"
Satan sighs. "No, I hated your rules. I wanted to make my own rules."
"Better rules?"
Satan slumps. "No, just….my rules."
He is so tired.
"I want to cry."
The presence at his cheek is now at the center of his head. He feels the warmth melt down his body. He feels wetness on his face.
He looks down. His breasts and wings are gone. He is once again in the form of Ryo. It feels so much better, and also slightly worse.
He cries. He cries for himself and Akira. Maybe someday, there will room for tears for others.
But not right now.
"I want to rest."
"You do not deserve to rest," He replies.
"I know."
The eighth circle reaches out of His orbit, encircling Ryo.
He is Ryo, not Satan. Satan would never cry. Could never cry.
"Rest," He says.
Ryo does.
Author's Note (again): So, this was kind of rambly, but I wrote it right after the final episode, so...yeah, that's my excuse. Please let me know what you think!