AN: A quick warning that there are graphic images in the chapter. Proceed at your own risk. [I am not sorry.]
(Publishing this chapter earlier than planned, due to busy school schedules...)
Jade
It was clear what had happened before Hikari had even reached the second floor. The smell of chocolate wafted through the open door, apparent from all the way down the hall. There was something more sinister about it, though. Because under all that chocolate, there was a sterile scent of ammonia. He couldn't help but run the rest of the way, the moment he could sense it. But nothing could have prepared him.
Hikari choked as he entered the room, as soon as he spotted the tiny crowd that had amassed in the corner.
That could not be what he was called here for.
Agri.
Agri.
Agri, lying face up, too perfectly arranged, with one bloodied hand reaching out in the direction of the windows, and the other bent and placed across his chest in a clenched fist. And then there was the rest of his body, which Hikari found horrifying and yet for some reason, he could not look away.
His body, a mess, an art. Tucked in every bleeding gash in his stomach was a multitude of chocolate candies, wrapped in translucent paper; every vein, every not-quite-healed scar, every open cut was meticulously outlined in what must have been caramel sauce, pooling at the floor beneath him. Mixed with the puddle of blood and caramel forming at Agri's side was more and more melted chocolate, eventually thinning out to form a delicate trail pointing towards the door. More of the chocolate sweets were scattered across the floor, and a small one was resting in the palm of his open hand, with a slightly crumpled, jade-green wrapper.
Hikari wished they'd left his face alone, serene in the hell around him that was too much to bear, but that would have been too much to ask. The Landick angel's lips were curled upward, forced into this unnaturally wide grin for someone dead, the only indication to the bloodstained teeth and jellybeans overflowing his throat. And his eyes were open, absolutely untouched, the only part of this body that was still...Agri.
Moune let out a small sob as she spotted Hikari, slipping out of Chiaki's hold on her shoulders and falling to her knees beside her brother. "God…" Hikari could hear her whisper, even from the far end of the room. "I saw him just a few hours ago."
While he'd never actually seen Moune cry, he could tell she had been, and he could tell she was damn close to starting again. He stuck to a little further off than the others, lingering by the dining table to observe. Yet another pair of eyes to keep an eye on Agri's sister, the young angel starting to shake in shock.
"I swear...whoever did this...is going to pay," she murmured, her hands hovering over his brother's body, over his opened chest, so close to clutching his bloodied jacket and yet so far, not wanting to touch the tangled, chocolatey mess. "Oniichan," she whispered, finally placing a hand on his shoulder and shaking him slightly. "Oniichan."
They'd all seen the elder Landick angel not a day ago. He'd talked. Laughed.
After a while, Hyde leaned down and tugged at Moune's arm, pulling her to her feet, whispering in her ear. "They're going to have to clean all this up. Let's get out of their way."
She stood and whipped to face him, sending a sharp slap across his cheek. "You sound like he wasn't Agri. Your friend. My brother. You sound like he wasn't alive, old man."
Hyde's gaze softened, and he took her by the elbow. "They have to do something about cleaning him up, Moune."
She didn't resist as he led her out of the room, and the others spent a few more moments staring at their fallen comrade, before beginning to work.
Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One, two. Why, then, 'tis time to do 't. Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.
— Lady Macbeth, Shakespeare's Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 1 —