Author's note: Just to give you a heads-up, this chapter contains mentions of blood and violence.
Season Two Day Two: Heaven/Hell
One Candle Still Flickers
Scorching heat. Blistering cold. Air that burns the lungs and tears at the sensitive tissue in the throat until even screams of agonizing pain become an impossible feat. And oh, does he scream.
Compared to even the foulest depths of Meliodas' wretched hellscape of a home, the Demon Realm, Purgatory offers a charming hospitality no one can withstand for long. He tries, of course. Tells himself that he overcame worse pain, that the frostbites on his arms and the iron taste of blood in his mouth don't compare to all 106 times he watched Elizabeth die, and that the shredded skin on his fingertips is an illusion summoned by his father.
After all, only Meliodas' emotions roam the desolate canyons.
The weakest part of himself trapped in the cruelest part of the world.
Somewhere in the smoke-heavy clouds, obscured by the constant ash rain from volcanic activity, the Demon King laughs. Meliodas spits out a lump of blood and sends the towering frame of his father a humorless grin. At least one of them is having fun.
The next step costs him more energy than he has to give, and Meliodas falls to his knees. More ash under his fingernails, another lungful of distillated fume eager to kill him. The searing pain while his illusory organs devolve to embers for the thousandths time almost entices a begrudging respect for his father out of him. He has defied the scorching heat and the blistering cold since the end of the Holy War, and he still has the liveliness to laugh at Meliodas' failed attempts to escape.
For how long have they played this game now? How many years, decades, and eons have passed since the curse pulled Meliodas into Purgatory?
He doesn't know. The creator of this ugly fusion between a glacier and a volcano hasn't bothered to install a clock.
Ash flakes tumble from above and leave black scars on the back of Meliodas' hand. The forefinger twitches in a desperate struggle to hold onto life, hope, anything that will help him stand again.
"Elizabeth…" he whispers.
"Will you die with the witch's name on your lips too?" The Demon King's voice thunders in Meliodas' head, and a fiery eruption from the nearest volcano punctuates his words.
Meliodas pushes himself on his forearms. "You made sure I can't die, remember? You're getting rusty, old man."
"Your insolent tongue is just as worthless as the entirety of your emotions. They only hinder you from becoming my successor."
"I'll gladly take my insolent tongue over a world where I become like you."
The Demon King points a finger the size of a grown man at Meliodas. "There is no stopping it now. As we speak, my loyal subjects are gathering the Ten Commandments, and your body will soon fuse with their magic. Then neither the Seven Deadly Sins nor your dear goddess will be able to stand against the reborn Demon King."
"Then I guess I just have to find the exit before that happens."
The Demon King's laugh rings for a long time between the twisted rock formations. Meliodas climbs to his knees, but his shell of a body refuses to support the weight of his worries. More ash under his fingernails, another lungful of distillated fume eager to kill him. Another century gone by without a glint of success, without a glimmer of hope.
Purgatory may never kill him. But to survive in this world is to endure endless suffering where despair gnaws at him with every step until he loses himself in shapeless shadows, destined to wander the lava riversides and blizzard-coated mountain peaks for the rest of time.
Meliodas takes another step.
For her. Elizabeth.
He has to return to Britannia before the Demon King can reach his horrid claw around her. Before the curse claims her life anew.
Her face, in the variant as princess of Liones and all the incarnations before her, keeps Meliodas upright and pushes him to scale another cliffside, even as his field of vision shrinks and the shadows at the edge take over.
Golden Warmth. A liberating breeze. Puffy fine-weather clouds as far as the eye can see, an entire ocean of them. And in between these white waves float islands with alabaster towers and grass so eternally green it can only exist in a place far beyond all destructive influences. An endless summer sun caresses his neck.
Meliodas digs his fingers into the ground where he fell, although he hardly feels the sharp pebbles anymore.
Why do the memories of the Celestial Realm return to him now? Elizabeth, the very first incarnation he fell in love with, took him to her home once. They played a dangerous game of hide and seek with the countless Goddess warriors there. If even one of them had seen through Meliodas pathetic disguise, at least one of the parties involved would have lost their head. Despite the threat of discovery, Elizabeth dragged him to all her favorite places with a cheer she rarely allowed herself to show. A vast field of golden wheat hems. The top of an abandoned tower, half destroyed and seized by ivy tendrils.
Amidst the bloodshed of the Holy War and despite the feud that divides their clans, Elizabeth offered Meliodas a hand. With nothing but a smile and her belief in the good in others, she pulled him out of hell. Shoulder to shoulder with her, he saw heaven for the first time.
"Elizabeth," Meliodas says. He hardly recognizes his voice. "I let you down again. If it's always ending like this, why'd you take my hand that day? Why didn't you give up on me?"
The warmth of her presence is so very far away. Where she used to stroke his arms, only freezing numbness remains. Where she used to kiss him, his lips only taste the burning aridity of Purgatory.
But even if she is so very far away, an incarnation of Elizabeth is still out there, alive. Maybe she is standing amidst the chaos of magical and hellfire explosions and leads the war against the cruel fangs of darkness as she always did. Maybe she is gazing into a star-sprinkled sky and waits for his return. Maybe she still believes he will fulfill his promise and free her of her curse.
A blood-red vail has overtaken Meliodas' vision. When he struggles out of the dust to his feet, he has lost his humanoid shape. A shadow stands in his place, a perversion of the dragon creature with which he shares the name of his sin. Wrath.
Somewhere hidden in the smoke screens, the Demon King triumphs. At last, his son's emotions have given into hopelessness.
But in a place deep in the insides of the shadow dragon, Meliodas keeps a flame alight. Elizabeth's face kindles the spark, her gentle hands shield the candle against the hurricanes and hailstorms, and her voice, filled with tireless encouragement, nurtures the beacon.
She fought for him during the Holy War. They fought for each other against the overwhelming might of gods. Even if she is so very far away, Meliodas will fight for her.
As the shadow to her light.
Scorching heat. Blistering cold. Claws that dig into the most treacherous slopes carry him forward, step by step. He tears through Purgatory's pitiful inhabitants and shreds any creature that hinders his search for the exit. For a moment, he may lose himself and taste this senseless wrath the Demon King wants him to dissolve into. But the flame inside endures.
Years, decades, and eons go by, glaciers melt and magma chambers freeze, while Meliodas fights. For her. Elizabeth.
The dragon creature which serves as Meliodas' shell roars and bares its teeth. His current opponent is of the nasty type. He doesn't yield. Neither does Meliodas.
They slam each other into the rock formations, break each other's bones, and throw themselves at the other as though this brawl is all they've ever known and all that ever mattered.
Meliodas should hate his opponent. After all he, aside from the Demon King, stands as the only one with the power to deter his escape. And yet… this gritty, pesky bastard he crushes and is getting crushed by has the air of familiarity to him. Meliodas knows his fighting style. Furthermore, he knows all too well the flame that convinces his opponent to strike blow after blow until they collapse into a heap of limps and shadows.
They both feel the exhaustion in each haggard breath. And yet they both won't die.
Meliodas' opponent mumbles something. His words have never quite reached through the shadows clogging Meliodas' senses, but they gain a new clarity now that the frenzy of battle flees him.
"…holding out for you in the land of the living," a familiar voice says. "And I… want to see the woman who means the world to me."
Yeah. I do too.