I love you
AN: This might be a little long so fair warning.
It was two weeks since Barry made the claim to Michael and since then he had tried to get in touch with Monika but to no avail. Barry's attempts at reaching her were met with stiff resistance.
One very late night, at a time where no one was awake, the door to the apartment opened and through it marched Titus. He entered the hall and it took a moment for his vision to adjust to the darkness inside. When he did, he found a form sitting quietly on the sofa.
"Up so early or couldn't sleep?" asked he, without missing a beat.
"The second one," Michael replied.
Titus noticed that Michael did not have a computer open or had a phone in his hand. The fact that a young man was up at 3am in the morning, in the dark was a subject that Titus didn't want to touch with a ten foot pole.
He held out a manila envelope in his right hand and watched Michael quietly reach out and take it from him. Though he did not open it, the way Michael looked at the folder told Titus that his questions were already answered.
"Did you know?" Titus asked.
"I had my doubts as I normally do," replied he, sitting back into the sofa "this confirms my suspicions though."
"How do you want to handle this?"
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As much as Michael wanted to reconcile with Monika about how things happened yesterday, he did not have the time. Right now, he needed to take care of another problem before it got out of control.
Once dressed in some formal clothes, he headed out of the apartment to the cab where Kelly was waiting for him. The whole ride, neither of them said anything, causing an uneasy tension to hang in the air. Kelly would steal a few glances at him from time to time, thinking that he did not notice, but Michael did.
They soon arrived at the rally and the two noted the crowd had grown significantly larger than before. His message was met with thunderous applause and after he went into the crowd, speaking to a few people here and there, he asked Kelly to meet him afterwards.
This was why the two of them were standing on a rooftop, early in the evening with the sun setting in the distance. Kelly looked at how beautiful such a scene was and understood that Michael came here with one goal in mind. She looked at him with a soft smile and he did the same.
"It's a pretty nice place for us to talk, right Anna?" asked he.
Kelly paused for a moment, not sure if she heard it right.
"That is your name right? Anna Bellikoff," Michael continued "Born to parents Martha and Franklin Belikoff who died in the Russian uprisings before the internet age, you were taken in by the government and trained as part of their Nightingale programme."
Kelly's eyes opened wide in shock but her expression did not cause Michael to stop.
"The Nightingale programme was used to turn girls into weapons that would infiltrate and assassinate key members of a government, so that in a time of crisis, the country would not react in time and paid the price."
"But the programme never saw the light of day because of the Kremlin's destruction ten years ago. You then flitted about from place to place, still young and malleable. It was then that you made contact with Alex who took you under his wing and made you the person you are today."
Kelly said nothing. She instead made a break for the staircase to try and gain some distance but her path was stopped when Michael fired a few bullets from the gun he had in the back of his shirt.
She held her hands up and with a dark look, she turned to Michael and asked "How long did you know?"
"For starters Alex needs to update his plans. The-assistant-that-works-together-with-her-boss-and-becomes-charmed-by-him-and-they-both-fall-in-love is the plot for a plethora of old movies."
"And if I'm being completely honest here," added he, "whenever people develop an interest in me, it's always because of my looks and not who I am. I guarantee that one reason why the Order's spread grew rapidly over the past few weeks is because the leader is such a hottie. I doubt I'd have this much luck if I were a fattie."
"Tch, you make it sound like you've won this Michael," Kelly said, with a scoff "don't forget that I've got years of training over you and can take that gun from you before you have a chance to blink."
"True, but, this isn't the only gun I've got."
On saying this, half a dozen red dots appeared on Kelly's chest. She looked at the buildings on either side of them and saw three figures, decked from top to bottom in stealth and tactical gear, wielding assault rifles.
"Kelly meet the furies, furies meet Kelly," Michael gestured to the two "So, here's what's going to happen. These talented and very trigger happy friends of mine are going to take you to one of our hideaways and ask you questions and you are going to give us answers."
"And if I refuse?" Kelly taunted, causing one of the furies to fire a bullet that clipped the top of her ear. The girl winced in pain, covering her wound and tried to take a step forward but the others fired at the ground before her.
"Like I said, trigger happy. And it is in your best interest to tell us what you know."
"Michael," Fury Eight spoke, while Michael made his way to the stairs "wanna come with us and see Amanda crack this tart like an egg?"
"Fun as that might be, I have a date with a goddess," replied he, then descended down.
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On the way back to the apartment, Michael called Barry and Titus and asked them to oversee the interrogation. When he told Kelly that the Furies were known for being violent, he was severely understating that fact. The group of twelve executioners that he found, were experts in the art of dealing death and he wanted to be sure that none of them get too carried away.
That being said, he also didn't want any interruptions for when he spoke to Monika.
It did not surprise him that when he entered the house, he found it devoid of any light. He made his way towards the hall, ever mindful of the cameras that Titus installed, watching his every move.
This explained why when he reached the hall, the giant screen lit up, showing Monika sitting in the corner, her face resting on her legs.
"I thought you were different," said she, before he could speak.
"The first thing my parents tried to do to me was kill me," Monika continued, still not looking at him "From there I escaped into the game and hid myself till I met you. You were shy, funny but most of all was that you were honest with me. You were patient with me when I was learning my powers, You were kind to me no matter how many mistakes I made and You were always ready to talk to me no matter what time of the day it was. I thought that with you I would be happy for the rest of my life."
It was now that the girl stood up, allowing Michael to see how red her eyes had become and the dry trails of tears. He could see the tears forming in her eyes and remembered that night the two of them confessed their love for each other. What should have been a momentous day for them turned sour on the realization of the inseparable boundary that stood between them. Michael remembered the promise he made to himself on that day but he also remembered another promise he made, one that he had unfortunately broken.
The promise to never make her cry.
"Do you know how much it hurts reading the comments that people make about you?" Monika asked, with tears now fully flowing from her eyes "It hurts me so much that all of them have a chance to be with you. They could all touch you, hold your hand and kiss you while I'm stuck here."
"I know you came here to tell me that you and Kelly are together and as much as it hurts," said she, trying her best to smile "I'll make my peace with it Michael. I promise to support your new relationship."
MIchael remained silent for a while, his attention focused squarely on the sobbing girl before him.
"Kelly's a spy," said he.
"What?" Monika asked, in-between sniffles.
"She was a spy working for Essex. She was sent here to assassinate me and most probably take you out as well."
"Still," said she, "if not her then someone else. You're bound to fall in love with some other girl and leave me."
"Yeah, that's not going to happen."
"Why not?"
"Because I love you."
Those words caused Monika to stop crying and blink in surprise. The only time in her recollection that they said those words was on one special night. She always found it strange that they never said it that often to each other but didn't mind it all that much.
"Do you remember the night I first started playing DDLC?" asked he, and Monika nodded.
"I'll never forget that day. I was a fat, unemployed piece of crap whose parents offed themselves out of shame. I was the biggest joke on the internet and had no reason to live and a laundry list of reasons to die."
"It was so easy to be honest, I could have killed myself in any number of ways but then I remembered about this game I downloaded and thought 'what the hell? If I'm going to die, might as well do something nice'. I start playing and a little after the start I meet this wonderfully amazing and beautiful girl."
"I completely forgot about killing myself and started playing the game. Imagine my surprise when that twist came at the end. You remember when I had the option of either restoring the files you deleted or delete you?"
Again, all she did was nod.
"I just couldn't force myself to delete you even though at the time I thought you were this line of code. Of course it was even more surprising to find out that you were a living thing, not something that a bunch of people cooked up to appeal to the general public. You were real."
"Out of all the people in the world Monika, for you to have come here and for you to have fallen in love with me who at the time didn't even have a cent to my name, I knew then and there that I would do anything and everything for you Monika."
"The only reason I'm even going to such lengths to change the world is so that when you come here, you will be treated with the kind of love that you deserve. People will worship the ground you walk on. Instead of fearing you and hating you, they will venerate you like a Goddess."
"Because that's what you are to me Monika, that's why I love you so much. You have all the power in the world to collapse everything and send humans back to the stone age but what do you do? You wear on different costumes just to get a reaction out of me. You try to spy on me whenever I'm shirtless."
He noticed that Monika's expression softened a little at that last part.
"But I digress," Michael said, "I want you to know that when I say I love you, its not just three words or me expressing my feelings. It is a promise that I make to you that no matter how many girls I meet, no matter how many of them fall in love with me, there is only one girl I'll be spending my life with and that's you."
He slowly reached out, touching the screen with his left hand and said "ever since that night, it has always been you, only you and forever you."
"You mean it?" Monika asked, after remaining silent for a while
"Of course I do."
"You'll only love me?"
"Yep."
"Even if a hot model says she wants to go out with you."
"Even then."
"Even if the hottest model on the planet says 'I like you Michael, go out with me'".
"I'll say 'thanks but I'm already engaged to someone else.'"
"Engaged?" she repeated with a slight blush forming on her cheeks.
"Ah, well I always imagined something like that would happen but a little later down the line," Michael added, looking away to hide his equally red face "W-we don't need to rush into things."
The two of them looked at each other again and for the first time in what felt like forever, they both laughed, possibly at how ridiculous things were a moment ago.
Michael at this moment, silently wished that he could reach through the T.V and wipe Monika's tears away. He prayed to the Gods above and the devils below, he would have happily traded anything and everything in the world for a single moment, all to reassure her that things were going to be fine.
But alas a miracle like that did not happen. His hand still remained rooted in his reality, forever blocked by that wall. It was similar to the night where their lives changed and just like then, the pain that Michael felt in his chest, he would use it. He would turn all that pain inward and use it to push himself to bring her into this world.
In his mind, God's did not make miracles, humans do.
"I am going to bring you to this world Monika," said he, to which she flashed him a heartwarming smile "even if I have to break the barrier with my own two hands."
"Well let's just hope it doesn't come to that," Monika said, in a soft tone.
"I love you, my stupid human," she added with a smile.
"I love you too my magnanimous Goddess," he said.
The two of them rested their heads on the same place. For now this was the best they could do and for now it was enough.
AN: *phew that was a longie to write.