No smut here. Just angst.

Azuko's life was saved by an angel. She was so close to jumping off the seventh story high-school building. She climbed the fence, the wind behind her back. She prayed that maybe, if she could not see her mother in heaven, she would see her father in hell. She missed them, very much.

Azuko took a step and heard a song.

She turned around and saw an angel with a guitar. Her golden locks were short and gleaming. The angel smiled a heavenly smile. It was as if her smile and song lift up her spirit, gave her peace and hope.

"Come child. You do not want to do this. You have so many love inside of you. Live on, for the hope of a better day…" she said. Azuko came to her.

In a split second, a black lance pierce through the angel's body. Azuko screamed as the angel's feathers turn to ashes. The centre of the would burns bright in fire. The angel's eye teared up as she muttered her last peace and love.

In a minute, nothing remains of the angel that saved her.

Azuko turned fearfully towards the direction the lance was coming from. She saw a terrible figure. A horned creature with black wings lunged towards her. He took her by the neck and slammed her towards the ground.

"You will NOT do stupid things like that EVER AGAIN !"

Azuko screamed. She called for her father.

The grip on her neck lessened. There she saw… her father.

"You are a demon!" she yelled. "W-why must you take that form ?!"

The demon in front of her tilted his head. He pulled out a smile, a smirk even. It scares her to think that his father's kind face could turn into such a scary expression. "Does this form displease you ? Good." he laughed.

"W-what do you want f-from me ?" she took a step back. Remembering that this demon has just killed an angel in front of her own eyes.

"You seemed to invite a lot of angels to watch over you. If I am near you, I can kill them all…" he laughed.

"Angels? I-is my father watching me ?" Azuko asked, getting up from the ground. The word 'father' made Shoichi falter from his facade. He almost looked… kind. Almost.

Shoichi put on his trademark smile. He pushed her back to the ground. Less forceful now. "There used to be an angel that begs to watch over you. If he had free time, he would. He would beg the other angels to watch you over whenever. He would always ask for your safety, your wellbeing."

Azuko's eyes were filled with hope. Her father was watching over her. She almost did something his father would be disappointed in. "Daddy... I missed you." she muttered on her own.

Shoichi laughed. "He will miss you too if I didn't kill him."

Azuko wept.

"Now now… you are not afraid of death a second ago. Is that tears really necessary ?" Shoichi chuckled. He took the girl's wrist and bit them hard.

Azuko yelped. Her red eyes flared and in her last defiance, she clawed Shoichi's face. Shoichi retaliated and growled. He lifted his hand almost summoning his lance once more.

He gasped.

His hands were shaking when he realized what he almost done. How can he even have the thought to obliterate his own daughter ? His mind rushed through a series of his own memories, frantically searching for a reason why would he do such things. He couldn't… remember.

By the time he woke up from his own musings, Azuko had ran away. Little did she knew he had marked her. He will know what she does and who she encountered. He is a demon now, he did not care of small things such as her consent.

Azuko look around cautiously. She would not like to meet that monster that look like his father. Her wrist hurts from the bite. It was bleeding before but now it formed a red mark. She tried washing the mark off but it stays. The mark seemed to be alive. She could have sworn the mark has a heartbeat on its own.

She tried to shake the feeling off. She opened the door to her house. It belonged to the late Azuma family but it was now hers alone. She had no family aside her grandparents. They lived out of town. She could always stayed with them but grandma recently went ill and had to be in a hospital nearly every day. Besides, she choose to live in the house. It has the remnants of the memory of her parents. She was assigned a guardian until recently. Now that she is seventeen, she was deemed fit to make her own decision.

She went in, took off her shoes to walk through the wooden tiles. Sometimes she wondered what happened in this house that fateful night. The police would not let her go into her father's room. She was too small that day to see his father hanged himself with a rope. The police took most of his belongings, and after a few years, she managed to retrieve them. His fountain pens goes on his desk, the photo of their family near the bed, the paperworks were unsalvageable. She didn't need them anyway.

She was in a hospital that night. He called her from his house phone.

"Daddy ?"

"Hello sweetheart. Daddy seemed to left his phone in the hospital…"

"It is okay, daddy. I will keep them save for you. Do you want me to read the messages ?"

"No...no… it is fine. I told them not to disturb me in the weekends."

"Okay daddy."

"Azuko…"

"Yes, daddy ?"

"I love you."

"I love you too daddy."

"Would you mind staying at grandmama's house this weekend ? She will pick you up tommorow. Daddy is cleaning the house. It is very dusty…"

"Do you get to catch the dust bunny ?"

"Dust bunny ?"

"Yeayea ! They are bunnies made out of dust! They come when the house is not clean!"

Shoichi laughed. "Daddy will catch a lot for you."

"Daddy."

"Yes my honey ?"

"I love you."

"Daddy loves you too"

"...goodbye."

Azuko never expected that it was the last time they will ever talk to each other. She sighed. She felt… useless. She failed to commit suicide today at the very least she can eat ice cream for dinner.

She went to the kitchen, opened the freezer and took the vanilla ice cream tub.

"Ice cream for dinner ?" a chuckle came behind her.

She turned and saw the same demon came down from the stairs with… is that her father's shirt ?

"Huh? Is everything alright, sweetheart ?" he said. Azuko gasped. The demon spoke in the tone his father. His smile and gesture were also flawlessly similar. "Can I have some ice cream as well ?" If it weren't for the horns that was placed in his head, she could have believed him.

"Y-yeah…" she said automatically. She took another bowl and gave it to him.

Shoichi beamed. He leisurely took the ice cream scoop and scooped him a good handful of them.

"What do you want from me, demon ?" Azuko asked fearfully.

"I have a name." Shoichi said half licking the ice cream.

"Fine then. What is your name and what do you want from me ?" She didn't touch the ice cream at all after that. She could not believe anything this demon said nor do.

"Haha...my name is Shoichi. Nice to meet you." he said.

Azuko fumed. "That is not your name. Stop pretending that you are my father."

"I am not pretending. Unless, you prefer calling me daddy." he smiled.

That was the last straw for Azuko. She turned towards her room and locked the door.

"Hello. Locking the door is rude." He said sitting on her bed.

Azuko screamed.

Azuko frantically searched for methods of demon exorcism in the school library. Her friends would be laughing at her right now if she had any. The books she read had nothing to do with the type of demon that was sleeping in her house right now. Was there even a type of demon that weirds a blazing lance and eats vanilla ice cream for dinner ?

"Hello. This is Alex."

Gaaaaah!

"Azuma Azuko. I am Alex. I am a death god serving under the night. I also happen to know Shoichi." he smiled. For some reason, Azuko felt that he could trust him more than the demon. It might have been his smile, or his dazzling blue eyes.

"You know my father ?" she asked.

"No. I know the vanilla ice cream-eating demon. I also know how to get your father back." he said calmly.

"Get my father back ? I... I thought the demon killed him." she said sadly. She disliked the thought of his father dying twice.

Alex smiled. "More or less. I am not sure if it will be a cure for your father's sanity. I saw it just for a brief moment, but I had hope." Alex leaned beside the bookshelf, musing. "But I need you to make a promise."

"...What would that be?"

The death god chuckled. "I will tell you how to do it if you promised you would never verbally kick him out. I need to know where he is at all times, and with that I promise he would not harm you."

Azuko went home with a heavy heart. Considering what was waiting for her home was a demon pretending to be her father, she would rather be anywhere else.

"I am home." she said. She had no idea why she announced it anyway.

She smelled cooking. She turned to the kitchen and saw the demon-Shoichi, in an apron. "We are having curry today~" he smiled.

"Thanks." Azuko forced a smile and set up the table. She stood beside him, building up her courage to do what she was tasked.

"Shoichi."

"Yes sweetheart ?" he smiled.

Thump! Shoichi heart dropped. He didn't know how he would… should feel. His daughter, should have feared him by now. He had calculated his options, her reactions, acceptance was not one of them.

He shuddered.

He feared.

He would have screamed as if the very thing she did burned. His hand was ready to summon his lance and burn them all but he didn't. He returned the embrace as if it was something he longed for. It was not the terrible lust that he first felt when he turned into a mature demon. It was longing, but a different kind of longing. It was something he had been… forgotten.

He felt at home.

He felt safe.

"Uhm… yeah. That was it." Azuko said.

"I...I see." Shoichi said quietly. Almost wanting to speak more about what seemed to be missing. "Eat the curry. I will… stay in his room…" he said as he walked up the stairs.

"Dad?"

"Yes ?" he spoke almost automatically. He gasped at the response that came and seemed to not come from his composed mind.

"Thank you for the curry." she said.

"Not a problem." he rushed to his bedroom. He could not risk another misstep nor another flaw. He needed time to recompose himself and made sense of what he had done.

What was missing?

From the outside window, there was a calm death god staring at the scene. He smiled. He would say that his mission was accomplished for now.