This world is twisted but it is also balanced because of two beings who interact with mortals as hands of the creators of yin and yang. They're called angels and demons.
They balance each other.
Without the angels, there would be no demons and without demons, the balance would fall and descend into chaos, causing the end of everything.
There is one main angel and one main demon; they hold the most sway and power above other of their kin and mortals.
The main angel and demon are the right-hands of their kings but the demon is formally known as the Left-hand while the angel is known as the Right-hand. Not out of choice, but of birth.
Whenever they meet, they clash, and when they do it is rumored that the kings wait for the outcome and every kin falters. If the light surpasses the dark, or the dark drowns out the light, it is determined a universal tragedy will occur and the world soon after falls silent for the angels and demons until the other is born again.
It may take centuries, it may take years or even a day's notice. This is the outcome of how they walked among the mortals, how they were and what they could have done or became. When the other who has fallen has risen again in the cycle, stains from an old life carry over into the new one. And when this happens, everything breathes again and the mortals notice a shift. While the angels and demons cry in joy or scream in hatred of the returned.
It is forbidden for a romantic love to be formed between the two beings. For if such a thing happened, the angel would lose its spark and the demon would defy its nature causing an imbalance which the Right and Left hand would have to correct.
If the Right-hand and the Left-hand, the main angel and demon, were to fall in love, everything will fall and crumble beneath their feet, turning the realms into a blur and the universe into chaos.
However…
There was a time when a demon loved an angel and an angel loved a demon. It is called the Void Century and all the records for this time are lost, not even the mortals, demons, and angels know what happen. But there are stones engraved with this lost history which only a trained eye that has the 'touch' can translate.
May I tell you this tale so the pieces might perhaps be connected? This isn't the story of the elusive angel and cunning demon. This is another story where another forbidden love is forming, and this time...
The storm can't be hidden
An unnatural silence holds the world, choking it of color. The secrets the shadows usually whisper are scared whimpers as they cower in fear over the Right and Left hand. The skies seem dull. The air doesn't feel as refreshing.
Nothing moves, nothing seems to breathe to Ace. Even the mortals notice a pause. But everything is still moving, it still has color and air. But to the demons and angels, they know what's happening.
"Ace, I'm scared" Luffy's voice breaks the silence from the alleyway's corner as he hugs his knees to his chest, feeling the pressure on his back and feeling the warmth spread through his veins at seeing the red in Ace's eyes which the freckled man forces back. He's trying to hold back but Luffy knows they aren't going to be able to in a few hours, maybe even seconds.
"I know..." Ace says lowly, his voice not shaky like Luffy's, but not as loud and confident like it's supposed to be. To Luffy, it sounds like a fact too hard to swallow. To Ace who feels his blood hum and mind hiss, telling him to do things he wouldn't do to the other in a million years -like it did back then- it sounds weak and pathetic. It sounds like an angel or worse, a mortal.
Another wave of pain washes over him, causing him to press his fingers to his temples and grit his teeth. His inhuman sharp teeth gleam against the dull night, making Luffy nervous and his mind chant things he doesn't want to do to Ace ever again.
Luffy keeps telling himself 'Ace is good… He's your brother... You don't have to be scared', but the chants are getting louder in his head. He knows that it's only a matter of time, but he keeps telling the side which glows – 'This is Ace… This is your brother… He won't hurt me', yet the other part chants 'Kill him… he needs to be purified and erased from this earth in the name of – '.
Luffy shakes his head, tears starting to form in his eyes and trail down his face. The pressure on his back getting worse and worse…
A hand – Ace's hand is placed on his shoulder making him jump slightly and the voice is shouting 'Stab the demon filth! Kill him! Don't let – '. Ace, sensing the animosity in the other, holds back a growl and has to fight back his thoughts as he pulls his hand away after feeling the other flinch at his touch.
'He's weak right now, kill him, stab him… send his corpse to his beloved – ' A whimper leaves the angel which he reminds himself is Luffy, his little brother. That thought holds back the voices as he grabs the other's hand and looks into his eyes.
Tamed
"Everything's changing." Luffy whispers, looking into brown eyes and feeling the thoughts die down as the balance settles. It's not reformed or evened, but it's enough for now. It should make him sigh in relief, but he knows that it's far from over and it makes him want to remember everything about Ace.
"I know." Ace does know. He feels and hears it more than the others, feels and hears it like Luffy does. They hear the earth's sorrowful whispers, hears the skies questioning, hears the grass sing for what is to come, feels the shadows cower and whimper in fear, feels their kings waiting and judging.
Forgotten
"It's my fault." Luffy whimpers out, and all Ace can think is that Luffy looks so little right now but Ace knows what's in his soul and the power that radiates underneath that lip splitting smile and warm soul. But Ace is still his big brother. He wants to say 'It's not your fault' like when they were little when the other would wake up screaming in the middle of the night about what happened in the past and how it could have been different.
Ace's nightmares were as bad as Luffy's but he hid it better. Yet the angel always knew. The angel cried about hearing the voices telling him to harm Ace and saying bad things about the freckled child. He always sobbed into Ace's shirt until he fell asleep, with the freckled child threading his fingers through the other's hair, defying the voice, like the angel warm in his arms.
"I know." Ace says softly while looking into the angel's sad black eyes which feel like oceans drowning him with each breath as he speaks the truth that he can't change, can't ignore anymore. Like the good days, with the nagging voice quieter but never leaving, a constant reminder about what was to come.
Erased
"I love him." Something in Ace's chest aches at the confession from the angel, and his eyes widen from the way the dark oceans hide no lie and voice sounds so soft, as if begging. Ace turns away from Luffy, his own hands digging into the other's shoulders unconsciously.
"I know." Ace whispers, that fact hurts the demon more than he likes to admit. He can't look his angel in the eyes as his nails break through the tan skin gripping onto the immortal teen, afraid to let go, knowing the storm isn't dying down, only rising.
Changed
"He loves me." Luffy says, feeling the warm blood begin to trail down his shoulders like droplets of water gliding off a leaf, but says nothing, understanding his brother's pain as he speaks the truth. The storm builds up like the rising tides of revolution in a way the angel thinks 'Isn't this evolution?'
"I know." A distant memory from another time surfaces, like all the other times when Ace felt something not so brotherly tugging him toward the angel, making him release his nails and dig deeper into the shoulders. Luffy says nothing in response.
Fixed
"Why?" Luffy asks his voice questioning and broken, Ace freezes because there is no recovery from this question. No back up, no I'm sorry. There's too many questions and an answer Ace doesn't think he can stomach.
Luffy cringes when the pang of a different life surfaces through his mind, causing his breath to hitch and eyes to screw shut, blocking out the memory altogether, replacing it with Law, which in hindsight doesn't help the pang of sadness and so much anger from flooding his senses while too many thoughts cloud his heart of purity and belief.
"There's too many questions for one answer, Lu."
Ace buries his head into Luffy's neck, breathing in the unique scent and breathes his words through hidden desperation, knowing Luffy would catch it. Because Ace has never been able to hide from the angel whom made him breathe and gave him a purpose. In every lifetime, the angel has always known.
"It's changing." The words feel reassembled and old on Luffy's tongue as he looks at the questioning sky, seeming to ask 'Why?', making him close his eyes and causing Ace to fall silent against him. The words from a different time whisper in the demon's mind.
"Hiding... no, it can't be hid this time." The words glide off the demon's tongue like the blood on Luffy's shoulders, now running down the angel's back. Ace knows he's said these words before like they're automatic and he knows that they're the same way for Luffy.
"Too many things dividing." Luffy says absently as the words from another time begin rolling past their lips forming sentences broken into individual parts.
"Combining."
"Shifting."
"Blending."
"Here is now the lost age." Luffy says to the questioning sky.
"Here is now no colors." Ace replies to the singing grass.
"Here is now no line." Luffy informs the silence of waiting fallen over the universe.
"No difference." Ace says to the sorrowful whispers of earth.
"We're divided." Luffy says to his king through the empty air.
"We're together." Ace says to his king with his face pressed against Luffy's neck.
They both pause instantly, intertwining souls as their eyes meet. Obsidian and brown, like so many times before as they speak simultaneously to everything. But in truth, they speak only to each other.
"This is war."
Nothing can be normal again.
The silence is deafening to the angels and demons awaiting what is to come. Among them is an angel turned demon, with shaggy blonde hair and an obsession with hearts, watching a tall tattooed man who is clutching the white window, staring into the human realm.
"It's waiting." Law speaks into the quiet room, his face almost pressed against the windows glass as his father like mentor watches him with helplessness.
"It is." Corazon responds to the man he considers a son while a cigarette dangles from his lips, its smoke wafting up to the ceiling without the wind to scatter it.
"The demons are crying for blood." Law's voice, almost soft but forever firm in the face of destruction. Corazon looks past him to the window glass, into the human realm, knowing that this is it but not knowing the outcome.
"They are." Corazon says simply, having no comfort like he usually does. This hasn't happen in centuries and he never thought his boy would be one of the main causes of this chaos (although the demon side of him is proud of his son, almost envious, which he squashes down with irritation.)
"The angels are crying for peace." Law knows it, feels the angels' pure hum crying in agony and loss of balance. (Law wants to know where the main angel is at, as well as the main demon. Even though he can feel the power radiate off the Right-hand and the Left-hand from here, he notes that they're together, and something churns.)
"So I've heard." Corazon's tainted blood which used to be silver still quivers when something on the angels side shifts, an old instinct engraved only to be erased with too many scars from pure hands scarring in despair. If he was honest, he would say his stomach is churning and anxiety is seeping through his veins. But he's a demon now, and in sin there is no truth. (He knows that's complete bullshit though.)
"There's nothing left to hear." Law says and it's not a lie. There's no sound from anything. There's no breath to anything – the grass isn't singing, the sky isn't lively, the earth isn't whispering needless things and the shadow's aren't whispering hidden secrets.
But most importantly, in Law's book, there's no Luffy. And fuck, if the world's not ending, the fucking universe is for Law, which he will never admit.
"The demon will have to kill the angel." Corazon shifts his eyes to his son to observe the reaction his words bring, which unsurprisingly is nothing. Unlike when Law's frustration became clear after listening to the silence which has befallen the universe and realms.
"The angel will have to kill the demon." Corazon, years ago, would have winced at the morbid demeanor of Law. But now he knows when his son acts aloof and distant, he actually cares more than he wants to admit. Corazon knows Law doesn't just care about the angel (something buried inside of Corazon wants to smile at the fact his son is loved and loves).
"One always has to stand victorious at the end." The shaggy haired male says informing the other of what has to happen even though Corazon wants to rip the world apart and shout in desperation "They love each other! Why can't you leave them be!?" but he knows why and it kills him.
"This isn't always." Law says because this isn't. (A small part of him knows he wants to believe the blind reassurance he supplies, but he falters and chokes on the truth he can't mask.).
"If... they both die…"
Corazon almost wants to cry at the broken voice of his beloved son, but says nothing at the nails digging into the white window frame as the anxiety blends with so many other emotions in the tattooed man.
"Everything will fall." Corazon states it as the fact that it is, with the seriousness buried far inside that the man rarely lets through, peeks out into each word. And Law almost breaks the frame as denial flees and moisture burns in his greyish-blue eyes at the realization that this is happening.
"I love him." Law whispers, face pressed into the frame with moisture trailing down his cheeks and the realization he noticed a long time ago, (the angel's buried deep inside of him, rolling his hips into that spot which makes Law choke on an moan as Luffy's warm breath fans against his neck, showing everything he's forbidden to say, bringing a whimper from Law's throat) rolls off his tongue with force, as dread coils in his stomach, causing his stomach to lurch and that place in his chest ache.
"You do? I figured." Corazon smiles behind his hand, taking another drag from the cancer stick but his eyes soften at the fact while the demon side of him mocks in amusement at the forbidden love doomed from the start. (After Law came home with a distant look, did Corazon know his baby boy grew up and a mate was decided, though the Right-hand of the rivaling king was a surprise.)
"This is our fault." Law grits out through his teeth with the ever-present wetness trailing down his cheeks and dripping from his chin.
Corazon wants to comfort his son but he knows it's pointless. He knows lies can't always heal a hurt and solve a problem. (Corazon wants to barge into the gates on both realms and defy each king, wanting to ask "How could you do this to them! You've made them suffer their whole lives! But it's not enough, is it?!") But he's not that strong, he can't defy which can't be changed and it kills him with each injustice on both sides that make the universe and realms quiver and shake.
"It is." He tells the truth, it's harsh and something in him breaks at his son's reflection in the window, angry tears full of grief and sorrow trail down the tattooed male's cheeks and anger is churning in his eyes at the world, at the cold truth.
"There is only silence." Law says, voice harsh but broken. No trace of morbid questioning which makes Corazon falter and his teeth crush the cigarette in two. But he keeps his calm while the anger simmers at the king's.
"Like you said, it's waiting." The angel turned demon replies to the full-fledged demon who stares down into the human realm with a glare as too many thoughts filter through his morbid mind.
"My blood hums."
"You're excited by the chaos about to befall the world."
"My skin burns."
"Your true form wants to emerge in this time of uncertainty."
"I crave."
"Crave what?" The blonde asks curiously after the immediate replies falter and Law pauses trying to find the words to define the meaning.
"Everything..."
Law whispers into the window frame after the brief silence. His eyes trained onto the humans' realm, making the blonde haired man shift behind him. The clumsy blonde's shoes scrap against the floor tile, infiltrating the silence.
"Your sinful nature wishes to break through."
"My nails grow."
"You wish to tear and claw in the name of the Left-hand."
"My chest aches."
Law murmurs his hand touching his chest where no beat resides, he studies himself in the window. The clear strange liquid dry on his cheeks and his eyes flashing red from the foolish emotion the angel (Right-hand) caused.
"...I am unfamiliar with that pain". Corazon lies through his teeth. Law knows that it's a lie, knows the man he loves enough to call father loved someone long ago.
"It's my heart."
"We do not possess such a thing as I've told you time and time again." Another lie Corazon counts, fitting for an angel-turned-demon.
"They say only angels and mortals have such a thing." Law shifts his eyes to Corazon's reflection in the window, waiting for the blonde clumsy fool he calls father to answer.
"Only they do, we watch and witness the destruction that 'burden' has caused them." Corazon says, meeting the demon's gaze in the window. Law doesn't miss how the blonde gritted the answer out through clenched teeth, not to mention the bitterness.
"There's liquid in my eyes."
Law touches the now dry liquid on his cheeks, observing it, trying to find the word that human's call the strange liquid that spews from their eyes faster than the drop of a coin (some humans anyway.)
"You're crying." Corazon responds simply, almost carelessly at the obvious answer that the other can't seem to grasp.
"I'm a demon." Law said dumbly, turning his head to look over his shoulder, looking at the blonde male like he's the wrong one in this situation.
"I used to be an angel. My heart and tears haven't left me." Corazon admits with a frown.
Law turns his head back to the window and places his forehead against the cold glass while closing his eyes, "How can I cry for an angel?"
Corazon doesn't think he's asking anyone in particular, just hoping for an answer.
"You love him." Corazon says simply, crossing his arms and waiting for a reaction. He doesn't get a response so he takes that as a go ahead sign and continues, "Your heart aches because you fear not seeing him, not hearing him and not touching him. You fear losing him." Still no response.
"You cry because you don't know how you can change this."
"I'm angry." Is the only response he gets, but raising the usually cocky and laid-back male, it's better than nothing.
"At many things…" Corazon says with his lips twitching into a faint smile.
He continues, "You're a demon. That selfish side of you wants him to kill his brother without a second thought and come back to you. It wants him to only love you, to only serve you."
The smile long gone from his face as he finishes numbly. The silence reigns on with Law deep in thought and Corazon waiting for another go ahead sign.
"If I love him, why do I want to see him cry?" Law questions, his eyebrows slightly furrowed and his lips heavy as he awaits an answer.
"Because Law, you're a demon and you want to cause him pain, suffering and heartaches." Corazon answers dutifully at his son's confusion.
"Why do I desire him?" Law opens his eyes and whispers against the glass, fogging it as Corazon smirks but refrains from making any perverse comments. The angel is quite the looker, no wonder his baby boy went for him.
"You want to corrupt him, take that spark and have what we are not meant to touch."
"Why do I not like people touching him?" Law remembers that burning desire to rip anyone even smiling at the angel into shreds. Corazon can't stop a grin from the response and his son's possessiveness.
"You're a demon, and demons are very possessive over what they see as theirs."
"Why do I not want to touch and corrupt anyone else?" Law remembers how his lust for anyone else started to fade after seeing that bright smile turn flirty and those wide eyes roam over his body with not so innocent fascination.
"You're fighting against your demon lust." Corazon's grin stays in place remembering how his son stopped fooling around with mortals and demons after the angel came into his life.
"When you fight against your demon lust, it means you've found your mate for life." Law says to the blonde haired demon but keeps his head pressed against the cold glass while looking at the clumsy man out of the corner of his eyes in a side-way glance.
"You're right," Corazon nods in appreciation and continues, "But the thing is, I've always thought that the demon and angel are – ".
"Soulmates." Law finishes for the man and scoffs, "That's ridiculous Cora-san, and you've heard the rules that can't be broken."
"You follow rules now?" Corazon says with a raised brow, earning a glare from the tattooed demon.
"Just because the demon and angel haven't had any form of relationship doesn't mean it's not there, Law." Corazon says to the demon who just scowls in response.
Ignoring Law, Corazon continues with his speech "I think the demon and the angel have always loved each other in a sense, but they've always obeyed natures rules for us and the mortals."
"It's changing…" Law says back as he turns to look at the blonde-haired demon but still keeping his hands on the window frame.
"For them, the world speaks while we wait in silence." Corazon says, staring the other in the eyes, and trying to make the other understand the reality of this situation.
Law's eyes widen as realization sets in.
"But that means-! No..."
Law whispers in realization and continues, "This is war..." He finishes in disbelief while panic slivers into his thoughts. The tattooed demon turns back to the window wondering about what the hell he and Luffy have actually done, have actually caused.
"No doubt." Corazon answers back, looking past the demon to the window revealing the realm of humans that walk on carelessly unseeing to what's happening (a select few will notice the shift he adds as an afterthought, knowing that some humans are unlike their kin.)
The silence wears on until a spike in the air makes the wind pick up but the trees don't sway, makes the clouds grey and the skies thunder, makes the shadows hiss and grass sing an scattered song with too many melodies like someone scratching on a chalkboard. It makes the demons' blood rush through their veins and their twisted wings release, it makes the angel's wings release as well with their silver blood turning gold in their veins. It makes them both inhale sharply and turn to each other, eye colors clashing as they whisper simultaneously.
"This is now"
This is forever