Layers
Chapter Twenty Two
By: Brenli and Jael
The cries came through muffled, dulled under a persistent ringing in his ears. The kind of ringing that came to him when his rage narrowed down onto one person, the man at the other end of the blade. Pierced. Run through. Just like what had been done to his son. Just like what he'd said he would do...
Michael glared and glared, peering at Azrael's eyes, wanting to watch the life slowly seep out of him and all over the concrete. Somewhere in the midst of the fight, Uriel had shown up, yelling the expected commands to stop, to pull back, to spare the man. As if Azrael deserved to be spared... Uriel's pleas had only made him all the more ruthless in his attack on the leader of the Uprising. Repeating the same name over and over... Celestiel something... Celestiel this... Celestiel that...
For every time he heard that woman's name, he hit Azrael hard across his face, until his nose broke. He'd get to Celestiel. He would. He'd give her the same treatment he was giving this man. But Azrael came first. Azrael had something he needed!
… Until, when he'd roared once more his demand to be told where Nema and Nathan's bodies were, a command to be given them back, Azrael laughed. Some bold, reckless thing that had made Michael wonder if he'd been driven mad.
And then he told him that he'd burned the bodies to ash and had them scattered for good measure. Laughed over how sick and sad it was that the Fire Angel's wife and child would be burned into nothing, unsaveable.
That was when the ringing began.
"Michael...!" Uriel tried yet again to reach his fellow Elemental as he watched him, standing over Azrael's body, Fire Sword stuck in the man's chest. Both of Michael's hands gripped onto the pommel, and he leaned all of his weight onto the weapon. Staring. Waiting for Azrael's soul to pass... But it was too soon. Far too soon! "What have you done? We needed him!"
"You know how badly we need this sack of shit, Uriel?" Michael's voice cut as sharp as the glare he turned toward the Earth Angel, and he twisted the wide, terrible blade in Azrael's chest.
Uriel's mouth dropped open in silent, shocked protest.
Michael pulled the sword from Azrael's body and stalked toward Uriel, ignoring the sound of dying moans. "When he's done dying I'll burn him to ashes and scatter them in Celestiel's fucking face."
He knew that Michael was too hurt to listen, but God, he needed to be reached! "He's the only one who could reason with Celestiel!"
Michael laughed a terrifying, cruel kind of murderous cackle. "Reason? With Celestiel? That's not how this going to work! We are going to fucking destroy her, because she can't be reasoned with! Some people are too fucking twisted to be reasoned with!"
"Like you?" Uriel found himself yelling back... and it actually, albeit briefly, silenced the War Angel.
"... Who's fucking side are you on?" Michael snapped. "Are you hearing yourself?"
"Side...?" Uriel felt his breath leave his chest in an angry rush. "Don't you see that this isn't about sides anymore?" Uriel didn't wait for Michael to answer. Michael was so blind, he couldn't see that this fight wasn't something that could be won with a sword. He was so angry at the War Angel that he couldn't even stand to look at him for another second. He grabbed Michael's shoulders and shoved him aside, his long legs eating up the distance to Azrael in just a few short strides. "Azrael...!" He said, taking a knee beside him and lifting his broken body enough to prop him against the remnants of a wooden crate.
Oh, the man was done for...! The Fire Sword had left a gaping wound in the center of Azrael's chest, and Uriel could only marvel at the fact that he was still conscious. If conscious was what one could call it... Azrael's bleary red eyes focused on Uriel, looking somewhat vacant as death creeped up on him. Uriel couldn't explain it, but in that moment the chaos of the situation seemed to fade right along with Azrael's life... dwindling by the second. And in the absence of the chaos, Uriel felt... something shift. He almost wanted to think that he felt pity for the man, maybe even a kinship.
Perhaps Azrael felt the same way, because he smiled, and spoke softly. He spoke with the quietness and weight of a man who knew he was done for. "You and I," he said. "We love two very different women. But I fear the woman you see in her... is the only one who truly exists."
Uriel didn't know the right words to respond to such a statement. And for a brief moment, he forgot what he wanted to ask Azrael. When reality came rushing back, Uriel grabbed the dying man's hand and clenched it between them. "Azrael, I need you to stay awake. I need you to tell me what happened to Maya."
"Maya..." Azrael whispered the name like a prayer, his fading eyes brightening slightly, as though he remembered something beautiful. "I haven't heard that name in so, so long..."
"What happened to her?" Uriel repeated the question, gripping Azrael's hand a bit tighter and giving the man a gentle shake.
"Centuries ago... when the White Wings started hunting us for sport... Celestiel found out she was pregnant with my child after a single night we had spent together... So she fled to Assiah. They killed her. Our Maya..." A tear trickled down Azrael's bloody cheek. "I should have been there... I wasn't there to... They killed Maya right in front of Celestiel. She was only two months old."
From where he stood a few paces away, Azrael's dying words were so soft that they were only barely heard, lost in air that felt dry, in the remaining ringing in Michael's ears. He wanted to understand, yet somehow he just couldn't. He couldn't understand why Uriel actually attempted to make the man comfortable, couldn't understand why a long-dead child named Maya mattered. Couldn't understand why it hurt. The name and the barely-comprehended story just fueled the inferno running so closely beneath his skin. Rabbit Hunting. Slaughtered children. Things he had gotten roped into down the line. And things that had been done unto him. It sat inside him, directionless, threatening to end him and all he could think of was his own child, his son, and the whispered, dying words, 'I should have been there.'
Suddenly Michael jabbed the blade of his sword so hard against the concrete that it split apart and sent cracks going every which way around him, breaking apart like how he knew he was breaking apart. He didn't want to have sympathy for the man who'd dismantled his family. He didn't want to! He didn't want to pick out pieces of a sad story and hold them up against his own; he refused to! "Are you done bonding with that dying fucking maggot yet? You're fucking disgusting, Uriel!"
"Shut up, Michael!" Uriel snapped, feeling the very last of his patience starting to fray. He turned his attention back to Azrael. "Azrael... I'm going to call Raphael. I'm going to make him fix you up, okay?"
"The Hell you are!" Michael cried.
What happened next, happened so quickly Uriel barely had time to register it. He heard Michael stepping forward. He rose to his feet, with the intent of stopping Michael before he could cut into Azrael again...
"Get away from him!" The shout came from nowhere, and Uriel felt a blast of astral energy so intense, he had to shield his face from it. Something hit him in the chest, hard enough to knock the wind from him. In another instant, he was on his back, gasping for the air that had been ripped away.
Michael was caught off guard, as well. The astral blast made him squeeze his eyes shut. An unpleasant surge of electricity made him drop his sword and let out a yell of pain and surprise. He felt like he had shoved a fork into an electrical socket…! Then a knee to his stomach made him hunch over, and a fist to his jaw knocked him to the floor. How the fuck…?
Coughing and sputtering, his green eyes looked up to see Serissa standing over him... her blue eyes blazing with anger, and black smoke rising from her clenched fists.
Where the Hell had she come from? And what did she do to him?
So many questions and curses buzzed in the Fire Angel's mind, but fizzled dead in his throat as he struggled for breath and glared.
Once Uriel and Michael were down, Serissa turned and rushed to Azrael's side. "Az...! Oh my God, no...!"
"What are you doing here?" Azrael said, pressing a hand over his wound, blood bubbling through his fingers. "You should be at the computer, by now..."
"I didn't want to go without you." Serissa said weakly, dropping to her knees beside him. "We started this together... we need to finish it that way...!"
"I can't go with you, Celestiel."
Serissa let out a sob, reaching forward to press her own hands over Azrael's bubbling wound. "Don't... You can't leave me now." She felt like someone had driven an ice cold spike through her chest. Azrael, her best friend, father of her long-dead child, was dying right in front of her eyes. This couldn't have been happening... it couldn't be real! Life couldn't have been so cruel as to let Azrael die like this. Bleeding... in pain.
"Celestiel... We both knew this was how it was going to end." Azrael put a shaky smile onto his pale lips. He reached out with a bloody hand to pull her closer... to let his red eyes pierce into hers. "Finish this. You know what you have to do."
Serissa watched with horror as the light in Azrael's eyes began to fade. "Azrael..."
"I'm going to see my family again, Celestiel." He smiled as his hand dropped away from her face, leaving a trail of blood on her cheek. "I'll give Maya your love... I'll tell her you'll be seeing her soon."
"Azrael...!" Serissa grabbed his shoulders and gave him a soft shake, watching with a growing panic as he slipped away. "Don't...! God dammit, don't...!"
So he was gone. Azrael, the leader of the Uprising, the man who had caused Nemaelle so much grief and ultimately taken her life… was no more. Michael wanted to laugh. To cheer, even though the weight of his loss still pulled hard on his heart. But he had only just gotten his bearings from that immense astral blast of crackling energy, only just been able to stand. He settled for a smile as he took a deep and welcome breath. A sneer that turned into a cruel-hearted chuckle. Azrael was finally dead…!
Uriel had never gotten up, after Serissa had knocked him down. He started to, until he froze and watched Azrael die. Then he watched the look on Serissa's face. As life slipped away, panic and emotional pain twisted her face into something Uriel didn't recognize. He wanted to reach out to her, to comfort her in some way... but he knew he couldn't. The woman he loved suddenly disappeared behind a different kind of mask. A mask of pain and loss that was too familiar to her. He watched as those unfamiliar blue eyes turned on Michael, giving him a glare that could have punched a hole through his fiery red head.
"How could you?" Serissa screamed, her voice cracking. "Are you happy now? Has killing him like this cured you?"
No, no it hadn't, not really. Sure, it made him happy, but Michael had never thought this would be a cure-all. Even so… "I've never felt fucking better! This was a long time coming!" At last the laugh bubbled out of his throat, a terrible murder cackle that made his fists shake.
"People like you disgust me, Michael. You're twisted and you're evil! You think that spilling blood will solve problems, and you are oblivious to the sorrow and pain you leave in your wake. I've tried... I've tried to be reasonable." Serissa grabbed the lapels of her jacket and stripped it off, letting it fall to the ground. "But now I see that there's only one kind of language you truly understand..." She pulled her Spear from the holster behind her back.
Uriel felt the tension crackling between Serissa and Michael... between Celestiel and Michael. It made him feel sick with dread and worry. "Don't do this...! This isn't the answer!"
"Be quiet, Uriel." Serissa snapped at him, never taking her murderous eyes away from Michael. "Chiyo was right, all along. You deserve to be punished. You deserve to bleed." Serissa took a single step back, changing her posture into the most relaxed, nonchalant fighting stance. She raised a hand and crooked her fingers at Michael... beckoning him closer.
The War Angel scoffed at the two-faced snake of a woman who stood before him. "Oh, you wanna try and make me bleed, huh?" The light played off of the bloodsoaked metal of the Fire Sword, the big, heavy blade leaving little drops of red on the concrete. "Here's your chance, bitch!" He wasted no time in charging at her, fire licking across his sword like a terrible, burning banner. He'd wanted this fight, too. He'd wanted this fight since she'd laid her hands upon his wife and tore her power from her…! Nema might have been utterly unable to be saved, but damn if he couldn't make Celestiel pay for what she did! For what she planned to do!
Her weapon was nothing more than the head of a Roman spear, completely dwarfed by Michael's sword. When the two weapons clashed, the resounding clang made Uriel's teeth chatter. The force behind Michael's blow seemed to disappear when it struck the Spear, the strength of Serissa's hand never wavering against it. And Uriel watched with ever growing dread as the two exchanged blows. As angry as he may have been at Michael for what he had done, he was afraid for the man. His blows were wild explosions of emotion, all rage and pain. But Serissa's... she blocked each swing with the hard look of malice on her face never changing.
Michael was outmatched. Uriel never thought he would live to see that day... but Michael was outmatched.
As Michael's blows only met unwavering resistance, his frustration grew, and with his frustration, the temperature rose. What the…? How the…? In all the years, decades, millenia of his life, his Fire Sword had been utterly indestructible…! No, no this wasn't about simple indestructibility. His blade had gone against tough enough weapons that he couldn't cut through. This was about a strange and utter lack of the power that made him who he was. Her weapon was small and frankly, he should have snapped that metal in two by now. Broken through the Spear and swung straight through her body and ended her life! But he didn't have the time to wonder about this… When yet another parried blow felt more like lifeless metal on metal, and less like the usual burning blade on weaker materials, he pushed hard against the crossed weapons and spread his stark white wings, backing away. Not in his nature, but he just didn't understand this…! "That's a strange little needle you have for a weapon, there!" But even as he taunted her, his green eyes were piercing hard and analytical. If he couldn't figure this out, he'd have to find a way to get that weapon away from her… Yet he dove in with a blow meant to disarm her, and she worked her way out of it. She simply moved too fast. "Wanna quit playing and actually fucking fight me, bitch? You owe me that much!"
"I owe you? Is that so?" Serissa replied as though she were bored with him, the only real emotion she showed was the look of hatred in her eyes.
With a curse, Uriel was on his feet and grabbing Azrael's lifeless body. Why he took him, he wasn't quite sure. It only felt like the right thing to do as the concrete below them started to crack open.
Their fight was literally tearing the place apart.
Uriel ducked into an alleyway as the sound of crumbling concrete and banging metal tore through the empty streets, and the sound of Serissa's voice rang out.
"I was expecting more of a challenge, Michael." She said, her heels tapping along the pavement as she walked down the street. Michael had disappeared, taking to one of the building rooftops around her. No doubt to try and get a better angle on her. She scoffed. Let him try. "Turns out you're just as pathetic as that useless wife of yours."
Serissa knew just what to say… Like clockwork, a terrible stream of fire burst through the air straight for her face, giving away Michael's position. In the half-second it took for Michael to note his error, he'd embraced his decision and leapt from the rooftop with wings spread wide and threatening. "That's easy to say when you're not actually fucking fighting!" Oh, he was useless, was he? Oh, Nema was useless, was she? Michael let out a warcry as he swung in wide arcs that met the Spear with a dishearteningly simple metal ting. "You're fucking wasting my time with this shit! Blocking me and taunting me; this is boring!" Again, he pushed away from their constantly clashing weapons. "Don't think I don't know that's what you're doing! Bringing up Nema, as if you have the right to say shit about her." Of course, mentions of Nema would be the biggest and most obvious verbal blow to deal to him. He wasn't surprised. That didn't make it hurt any less… and that hurt made him roar out like a wounded lion. "You have things to say about Nemaelle? Let's fucking hear 'em! You're so fucking predictable, Celestiel. Tell me more about how weak she was! Remind me of how you stole her power from her! But you know what, you psychotic fucking bitch? If Azrael hadn't killed her, she and I would be tearing you to ribbons; that's a fucking promise!"
Through all of Michael's ranting, Serissa's face just curled into a soft smile, as though she were listening to the tantrum of a silly child. "I love listening to this. I love listening to you trying to act so tough, when you feel just as impotent as you actually are..." She took a single step back and ran a finger over the flat side of her Spear. "I don't want this to be over quickly... I want you to wallow in what you feel, right now. I want that feeling to seep into your bones before I break them." Serissa leapt forward to stab the blade of the Spear towards Michael's heart, metal meeting metal once more before Michael swiped at her again... his blade meeting air. "I know exactly how you feel. I felt the same way when evil fucking men, like you, killed my daughter right in front of me! And the best part of all this, is that you haven't you figured it out, by now. So let me spell it out..." Serissa said, spreading her arms as she looked at Michael, a terrifying madness in her eyes. "Azrael didn't kill your precious wife and son. I did. How does that make you feel, Michael?"
His immediate reaction… was to laugh, and he couldn't be sure why. Maybe it was too unbelievable. Maybe it was stress forcing irrational reactions out of him. But everything in her voice and her horrifying conviction pointed toward honesty… And try as he might to shut out the truth, it cut its way through his head and his heart and turned the laughter into outraged silence. He almost dropped the Fire Sword. He caught something in the lower peripheral of his vision, looked down and saw the blood gently blooming across the fabric of his shirt. The cut itself… superficial, laying over his heart, but it hurt far worse than it normally would have. Symbolic enough that he felt ready to rip his own heart out and be rid of it. He stared, and clung onto his sword, and tried to get his head in order...
"You killed the wrong person, you stupid son of a bitch. If you had bothered to learn the truth, instead of killing first and asking questions later, you wouldn't be in this mess, would you?"
He had been played… toyed with… read like a children's book, entirely too easily. They created his pain and sharpened it for him and pointed it where they wanted it to go, robbing him of control all this time… That was the last of any conscious thought from the War Angel. It shut off. The ringing began all over again, and he charged, and swung, and stabbed, and said nothing. Some animal-like yell. Nothing more...
Serissa knew she had triggered some kind of mindless beast within Michael's head. And all it did was make her smile turn into a wide, psychotic grin. For each one of his wild blows, she dealt one right back, finally putting strength behind them. "Your wife begged for her life, you know." Serissa said smoothly, using lies as a weapon to cut at the already bleeding Michael. "So did your son. Your wife died quietly, but that son of yours? He cried like a weak little girl. Some man he would have been, huh? You should thank me for saving you from the shame of it." Serissa spouted one lie after another. Nathan had died bravely... so bravely. Picking up his mother's katana to try and avenge her death...
Some little voice in Serissa's head screamed that this wasn't like her, at all. But she couldn't stop, she couldn't help it. She wanted to see Michael in pain... she wanted him to reflect hers. She wanted to hurt him the way he had hurt her... Even if it meant lying about how his wife and son had died.
And oh, how she was hurting him… Cutting into him in every way. Verbally, physically… Somewhere in the upset it occurred to Michael that she might not have been telling the truth. That her spear kept finding its way past his frightening but currently weak and sloppy sword to his flesh, and the wounds seemed to split all the wider with lies, not honesty. Yet that rationale disappeared under the flood of primal hatred running hot beneath his skin. He couldn't think. He couldn't think. His sword was frustrating against her spear. He was bleeding and she was not. He was sluggish in all his pain and she moved with a finesse that would have made him proud if she was an ally… But she was the enemy and she… she was besting him. The realization took shape with a clarity that proved useless to him. He struck at her with a desperate battle cry and could feel the strain of their meeting weaponry rumble through his arms and into his chest. Useless...
And in one single moment, the world suddenly grew quiet. They stayed with their blades locked together, Serissa's cold blue eyes clashing with Michael's wavering green ones. Serissa cut the silence with a single word: "Enough."
The word was like a blow in itself, and suddenly, Michael's Fire Sword shattered. It shattered into what seemed like a thousand tiny shards of steel as useless as Michael was. The shards blasted backwards and cut through Michael's flesh, leaving superficial little wounds across his body. The shock… the utter dismay… both things were too deep for him to adjust to. His sword… the weapon that shaped so much of his life, his identity… Indestructible… broken into pieces. What was this weapon, this Spear she used like a short sword? Who was this woman… who'd broken him down into nothing?
Michael felt pain rip through his shoulder, a pain so intense that it matched the emotional pain he had felt since the moment he knew Nema was dead. He screamed with agony... seeing that accursed Spear sticking out of his shoulder as he fell backwards. Why didn't she strike his heart...? She was good enough. She could have killed him instantly with such a blow, and yet the Spear sat directly above the heart that caused him so much pain, and Michael realized with increasing despair... that she was still toying with him. After she had literally and figuratively shredded every inch of him, she wouldn't put him out of his misery. "... No." The word was as shattered as the fragments of his sword, some piercing his skin, some strewn about the concrete all around him as he laid there in… defeat. "No... Do it again." His eyes bore into her, straight through her. "End me…" He waited. The terrible Spear of Destiny still rested in his shoulder, content to stay and to mock him. He took a deep, hurting, stinging breath. "End me!" He roared the command from the very core of his beaten down spirit, and it took far too much energy to do so.
Serissa only chuckled, just to mock his desperation and pain. "I'm not going to kill you, Michael." She stepped up to him, reaching down to roughly grab the handle of her spear, once more. "I'm going to let you watch." She unceremoniously ripped the Spear from his flesh, letting his scream of pain drag on before she grabbed him by the front of his tattered shirt, lifting him so her eyes could blaze into his. "I'm going to let you go back to your daughter. I'm going to let you hold her as the clock runs out. So the last thing you'll ever know before I burn this whole world to ashes, is that I was the one who took everything from you. I was the one who made you return to your only living child as the failure you truly are..."
The bitter and dead part of the Fire Angel wanted to say out loud, 'Of course.' Of course she was going to be this way, of course she was going to give him a slow death, the more pitiful death. Even so, he kept staring as though that would be enough to make her change her mind. He mouthed his plea to her… "End me…" Even if he knew she would never be so merciful.
"Soon," was Serissa's verbal reply. She clenched her spear hard in one hand and turned away. To leave Michael to his sorrow and defeat... to leave him to bleed.
She didn't feel like herself, anymore. And that much was so painfully obvious. She put the bloodied Spear back in its holster and stared at the red smeared over her hands. She never thought she would see those hands coated in so much blood, ever again. Michael's blood... Azrael's blood.
She turned down an alleyway and stopped when she saw Uriel sitting on the pavement, leaning against the brick wall of a building. He stared blankly at the sky, his face so maddeningly unreadable.
"You heard all that?" She asked.
"Every word."
Serissa nodded with a frown on her face. "It's okay for you to hate me... I would, if I were you."
Uriel's tired green eyes turned to meet hers, and he honestly, truly didn't know what to say. In light of everything he had just heard, what Michael did and how she responded... he felt just as defeated as the Fire Angel. The only thing he really knew was that he didn't hate her... he couldn't. He didn't want to.
Uriel had rested Azrael's body away from the chaos Serissa and Michael had created. He laid him on his back, and gently crossed his hands over his stomach. Serissa didn't say anything, but the kindness the Earth Angel had showed her friend in death made her throat stick and tears pool in her eyes. She crouched beside him and gently gathered Azrael's limp body in her arms. "This is goodbye, Uriel. For real, this time."
Uriel wasn't so sure about that. He definitely didn't want it to be, but he let her go without saying a word. He watched in silence as Serissa carried Azrael's body away.
xXxXxXx
The hour was hardly proper, but there was so much going on that the Gehenna Vampire couldn't afford to rest. As soon as he was back in the safety of his parents' home, the calls flooded his phone. First, a call from Setsuna, stressed and informing him that Michael had left Isobelle in his care while he went off to hunt for Azrael. Second, a call from a weepy Jibril, letting him know that Michael had been found… gravely injured… with shards of his own Fire Sword embedded in his body. He'd sat in the living room and gently sought to calm the deep rolling waves of sadness running through the Water Angel, yet once he'd managed to succeed, she tearfully told him Michael had mumbled that Uriel had been present for the fight, but hadn't been seen, since…
Jinho couldn't begin to imagine the struggle Jibril must have been feeling, one fellow Elemental nearly dead, and the other utterly missing. On top of her daughter and her grandson being mourned… He could do little more than offer sympathies, and asked to be alerted if anything new came up. When he hung up, he felt a little pang in his heart when he realized this was what Nema had wanted from him. For him to not be a stranger. For him to remember to keep in touch… How terrible that he became more proactive in that, after her death…
He pinched the bridge of his nose, a soft Korean curse sounding soft as feathers in the silence of the sleeping home. He tapped through the numbers on his phone and settled on Uriel's…
A part of him didn't expect him to answer. He wasn't answering anyone else's calls, according to Jibril. If he wouldn't speak to a fellow Elemental Angel, why would he bothering taking the call of a Gehenna Vampire…? He nonetheless had to try, even if all he could do was leave a voicemail. Lord Lucifer may have fired him, but that didn't mean he was suddenly without his verbal charms. Maybe he could at least get Uriel to consider reaching out, if not to him, then to Jibril or Raphael… or Doll… or anyone who mattered to him. He dialed and waited...
On the other side of that phone call, Uriel stood and stared at his caller ID. He wasn't entirely sure why he answered... but he did. He flipped the phone open and pressed it to his ear. "Jinho...?" His voice sounded broken, frail and lost, and he hated it...
He couldn't help but pause, allowing himself the surprised feelings. "... I have heard that a lot has happened, in the time it took for me to return home." He wasn't sure how else to phrase it. He showed up, tried to make things right, came home, and found out that despite his efforts, everything had crumbled in on itself. All in the time it took for him to leave London and come to Seoul.
Uriel wasn't in the mood for Jinho's talking. "She's on her way to Atziluth." Jinho should have known exactly what that meant. Once she was there, she would download the virus and the world would just... disappear. All of them were on the verge of death, and there wasn't anything that could be done...
Suddenly all Jinho wanted to do was rouse his parents, Lilith, and just… be together. He even stood up to go and knock on their doors, and in that motion saw that Lilith had already woken up. An empty vial of the necessary tincture to keep her fevers at bay rested in one hand, a cup of tea cradled in the other. "... You really think she's going to do it?" He didn't wanted to voice what 'it' was… her just getting to the gate, even now with the dimensional road - the 'forbidden road,' he remembered the Hatter calling it - fully repaired, would involve either fighting or unimaginably clever sneaking.
"I know she's going to do it." Uriel said quietly. "Jinho, you should have seen the look on her face... If Michael hadn't killed Azrael the way he did then maybe..." Uriel felt his scarred throat close up, choked with emotion he had tried too hard to keep at bay. "I failed. We all did."
"We did the best we could." He reasoned gently, and when Lilith mouthed a silent, 'Who is it?' to him, he reached out and began to pull her close, meeting her halfway in the entryway to the hall. "We had no way of knowing things would turn out this way. The Prophecy was so vague…" The moment he said it was when the hurt flashed across Lilith's garnet eyes, and he could only frown and brush her hair behind her ear. This wasn't her fault, either… How could she have helped, with the ability to contact the Shinryu stolen from her? If it wasn't cruel to think it, he would have said that perhaps the Shinryu meant for this Prophecy to come to fruition. Not to have it diverted… "Where are you, Uriel? Everyone else has been trying to reach you…"
"I'm on my way to Atziluth."
All on his own…? Jinho guessed from the way that Lilith's eyes narrowed that his shock was written plainly on his face. "You can't stop her... you're no match for her." That much had to be obvious. She always fought so effortlessly… the only reason Michael was still alive was because she allowed him to be. What made Uriel think he could best her…?
"I'm not going to fight her..." Uriel said. "I wish you all could see that fighting was what started all of this in the first place. No, I can't stop her... I'm not even sure I want to try."
The Vampire felt the dismay flood him. "Don't say that. Don't say that to me. You know we all have so much to fight for…" Was it too much to ask Uriel to at least consider everyone else…? Jinho had the sick feeling that no one else mattered to Uriel… "We have to try. We have to hold on to what we have-"
"No matter how fucked it is." Lilith said it in whisper, however firm in her conviction she was.
He opted to trade out the swear word. "... no matter messy it is. You can't let her give up…"
Uriel's frown deepened as Jinho's words echoed in his head. You can't let her give up...
He squeezed his phone tight in his hand. "Keep Lilith close, Jinho." He murmured slowly. "Goodbye, my friend." Uriel hung up the phone and tossed it to the side. He certainly wouldn't need it, anymore...
xXxXxXx
The crypt shouldn't have smelled like death. So many years had passed since a new body had been laid to rest there. But the faint smell of the freshly dead permeated the dark and cold space of Azrael's family mausoleum.
Serissa had always wanted to move Maya's headstone to the place where Azrael's wife and child rested. Yet she never asked. Somehow, it felt wrong. The child Azrael had with his wife was a child born out of love. True, unbridled love. And in that child, Azrael found his healing balm. The bandage to heal the hurt of losing Maya. After he lost that child along with the beloved wife, consolidating their memorials just seemed too cruel. As though she would have been willingly contributing to the monument of pain that twisted Azrael into a man Serissa didn't recognize.
Serissa carried Azrael's body into the stone building dedicated to his wife and child, wanting to lay him to rest beside them... Before she left to do what Azrael had died for.
She wasn't expecting to find Nema and Nathan's bodies there. She wasn't expecting to find their bodies washed and dressed in simple, elegant white.
As though Serissa's heart could withstand any more blows.
Perhaps accepting Azrael's death could have been easier if she believed that the Azrael she had once loved was gone for good. That he had been dead for decades... But seeing their bodies, knowing that even though Nema and Nathan were dead, Azrael wouldn't do them the disservice of going without a proper burial ritual...?
She dropped to her knees beside the stone platform he had rested Nema upon. "Damn you, Azrael..." Serissa's eyes couldn't shed another tear. They had all dried up. "You didn't deserve to die like this... none of you did. I'm so sorry, Nema. I truly am. It doesn't matter which side of a war finally finds victory... Everybody still loses. So I'm going to break this evil cycle our Father created. For you... for me. For everybody."
She had tried... so hard... so, so hard to make sure it didn't have to come to this. But everything that had happened in her sad, lonely... pathetic life had lead to this moment. This world she lived in was diseased and horrible, built to reward the wicked and punish the righteous.
And she held the cure in a little, gold-plated flash drive.
With a final, deep breath, Serissa left, sealing the mausoleum behind her.
xXxXxXx
Uriel knew she was already at the computer. That machine Raziel had used to reinsert YHWH - or, something very like YHWH - into the system. A machine that didn't have any form of intelligence… at least not the kind it used to have. The way to the computer had been cleared, the few guards Raziel had placed at the chamber entrance were gone. He didn't want to think about what might have happened to them.
And his indifference to their welfare alarmed him. But he had more important things to worry about.
The chamber was all white marble, some remnant from YHWH's former home. Huge vaulted ceilings of creamy white, only marred by the hideous and strange computer that sat where a throne would be. Placed there only to appease the more conservative members of Heaven. Its wires and pipes gripped the wall behind it like a mythical sea monster, tentacles disappearing into fissures in the marble.
Uriel spotted Serissa... Celestiel… hunched over the keyboard, her black hair spilling around her spine and hunched shoulders. Her head was bowed over, hands planted on either side of that keyboard… and a 'downloading' bar was flashing on the monitor in front of her, looming ominously on the overly large screen. The bar was slowly, steadily filling with green.
'Seventeen minutes to file execution'
The false, distinctly male robotic voice cracked through the air like a whip, and Serissa flinched.
Uriel didn't.
Seventeen minutes… He only had seventeen minutes left. As the Dead Angel, Uriel felt like he was on good terms with the idea of death. Because he knew that for all the human souls that passed through the Crucible, death wasn't the end. It was just the start of something different. But this… What Celestiel was doing, was the end of everything. The lights were about to go out, the plug pulled. He was about to sink into an abyss of nothing… along with everybody else.
And it was strange that he felt no fear. Only… cold. Pity. Yearning to comfort the woman who felt like this was the only option left. He watched her rapidly drumming those fingers, gently rocking back and forth, trying to vent all that pent up anxiety and fear… Until she turned to look over her shoulder, and saw him.
The look on her face nearly killed him sixteen minutes sooner than expected. Those eyes of hers… He was almost expecting to see tears in them, but he didn't see a damn thing. Just emptiness, hollowed out from all the things she had so recently suffered.
"Why are you here?" She said, turning to face him.
"I didn't want you to be alone." Uriel began the slow ascent up the polished marble stairs towards her.
And she laughed, but there was no joy in it. "If you're here to stop me, it's too late." She pointed behind her to the monitor. "It's already downloading. Once it hits one hundred percent…"
"I'm not here to stop you." Uriel said, and a huge part of him was alarmed to realize that he was telling the truth. Sure, Jinho had told him that he shouldn't let her give up, and their entire future… everybody's future, was hinging on what he would say to her. He didn't want to stop her… if it meant her peace, he would have helped her set the whole world on fire. "I just… I need you to know something."
She sighed, looking so tired, so unbelievably tired. She let her arms drape helplessly at her sides. "What, Uriel? What?"
"I need you to know that I understand you so well, it hurts."
Celestiel's body stiffened as she was slammed hard by the memory those words stirred within her. She remembered once, kneeling between his knees as he sat on a couch… before she knew how much she would come to care for him. Back in a time when he was lost in his own pain and she was encouraging him to drown in it. She had spoken those same words to him that night.
And the soft, sad smile on Uriel's face said that he also remembered that night, in the same vivid detail she did.
"You and me." Uriel said, still slowly climbing the stairs. "We make quite the pair, don't we?"
"Just a couple of miserable fucks, huh?" She laughed again, a bitter, broken sound.
"Yes. And I mean what I say when I repeat what you once told me… I understand you. I get it. All of it. Why you've done this and why you feel like you need to. Why you feel like a black void is better than this… horrible world we live in. Believe me… I get it. So no. I'm not here to stop you."
"I'm… about to wipe… everything off of the face of existence. And you came here prepared to die?"
"Yes." Uriel said, his voice confident and sure, and soft as silk. "I can't tell you that living is worth it. I can't imagine what you've been through or how much you've suffered. So I can't tell you that this is the wrong path... I'm not so sure it is, myself. There have been many, many times in my life where I wanted to die. So if I die in fourteen minutes, I won't mind."
Slowly, steadily… emotion began to refill the life in her eyes, making them swim with tears. "Then why are you here?"
"I'm here to ask you... If this is really the end, then let me hold you one last time." Uriel stared hard into those tear filled eyes, and let his gaze only reflect what he felt in that exact moment - peace. Understanding. Acceptance. He was so close to her now, close enough to open his arms to her. "Please…"
"Why are you doing this?"
"Because I love you. And I'm not afraid to say it, anymore."
The confession hit Celestiel like a punch to the stomach. She had tried to take a step back… she tried. But when he proclaimed his true feelings, her knees buckled. With a sure grip on her wrist, Uriel pulled her towards him, and wrapped her in an embrace that felt so much more gloriously intimate than any time they had spent in bed together. He molded her to him, grasping the back of her head to cradle her in the unbelievable warmth and shelter of his arms.
"Do you hear me?" He murmured against her hair, his eyes pinched shut, to block out everything except her. "I love you. Celestiel, Serissa… it doesn't matter. I know your soul and it's the most beautiful damn thing I've ever known."
Celestiel's face had been frozen in a look of open shock since the moment he let his feelings out, but when she heard him say her name… her true name, and say that her name didn't mean a thing… that naked shock on her face twisted into an unrestrained sob. She clutched him, arms snaking around his waist.
'Nine minutes to program execution.'
His arms gripped her tight… like he was afraid she would suddenly disappear. "I want a thousand minutes with you, Celestiel. A hundred thousand. An infinite number of minutes. Damn it, you make every bad thing I've ever felt go away! I want to see your kids grow. I want to know what Chiyo is going to do for a living. I want to see her have children of her own. I want to see Aaron and June playing in the backyard with the autumn leaves. I want to see all of that… with you. If you stayed with me, I would take the bad. I would take it all." His lips found her neck and he breathed her in, holding her so close, like he wished they could melt into each other for these final moments. "But if this is all I can have, I'm glad you're the last thing I'll know. I love you. I love you… I love you." He repeated it, over and over again, each time dotting a fresh kiss on a new part of her neck, her cheek.
And Celestiel realized she was crying… sobbing into his shoulder like a fool as he told her all of this, as she listened to the near literal flood of emotion and words he was pouring onto her. She tried to think of what Chiyo would have grown up to be, what her kids would look like. What it would be like to sit on her back porch… with Uriel… and watch Aaron and June play with leaves. To hear them laugh with delight.
She wouldn't hear that. Not if she went through with this. Yes, she was protecting them from a potentially horrible future in an unfair world. But…
She was keeping them from everything else. From whatever good they may have been able to find in this mountainous pile of shit she called life. Maybe… Maybe they could.
With a great sob, Celestiel shoved herself away from Uriel and hunched over the keyboard once more. Punched a few keys…
'Abort sequence activated. Awaiting passcode.'
Again, Celestiel sobbed and Uriel looked on with open shock painted on his face. Her hands were shaking as they hovered over the keys. One passcode… a four letter word the computer demanded to stop the download. Four letters stood between a future of possibilities, and a literal black void…
A bullet ruined it all, speeding from the pistol… held in Michael's hand. Raphael had done a fine job in healing him, and yet he still seemed like he was on the mend. Like he'd been confined to a hospital bed and had only recently been allowed to walk, again. He saw the blood bloom across Celestiel's back and cruelly said, "Detain her." Other Angels, fellow Powers, fanned out from around him, ready to pull her away from the computer.
And the moment Celestiel's unconscious body slid to the floor with an unceremonious thud, Uriel snapped out of the trance he was under. Enraged, he whirled on Michael, and placed his body between the anonymous Powers and Celestiel. "Michael, what the Hell are you doing?" She was about to put in the code to stop it all, and he…!
'Six minutes to program execution. Awaiting passcode.'
"What the fuck does it look like I'm doing?" Michael had absolutely no interest in trying to make the Earth Angel see reason. Not now. Not after everything that had happened, and everything everything that was going to happen in just under six minutes. "I said detain her!" He barked to the Powers that had followed him, but they only fanned out just one pace more, eyeing the tall, imposing Angel who was suddenly their obstacle. No one wanted to be pitted between these two forces.
And it had been far too long since Uriel had truly, fully lost his temper, and his rage suddenly gushed out of him like a flood. "You idiot!" His false voice roared so loud, it echoed off of the marble ceiling. "She was about to put in the code to stop the virus! You've doomed us all!"
"Lies!" Michael snapped. "Lies on lies on lies! That's all this woman knows how to do, and you can't see it because you are drowning in layers of lies!" Michael whipped his head around and roared out, "Fucking detain her right now!"
Like Hell, Uriel was going to let them touch her. He dropped to one knee and slammed his palm against the marble floor. He spoke words in a language none of them could understand, and they tumbled out of him like a curse. He summoned vines and commanded them to ensnare the Powers before they could take a single step. Reflecting his anger, the aggressive green cords grabbed their bodies and yanked them hard to the floor, with enough force to knock the air from their lungs. Their collective howls and grunts of pain echoed. "You will not lay a hand on her!" Uriel's anger boomed through the hall, and he turned his back to Michael to crouch down and check on Celestiel.
She was still breathing, and Uriel's temporary relief slightly lessened his panic. She was unconscious, and her blood was soaking the space between her shoulder blades. He knew she would be all right... but only if she could give him the password.
"Celestiel, baby, you've got to wake up!" He urged, gently shaking her.
"No. She has to get down and stay down!" The War Angel was hissing in his frustration. It took entirely too much effort just to put his pistol back in its holster… because the urge to pump Celestiel full of bullets was so strong. He had to keep telling himself that one bullet was enough…
'Five minutes to program execution. Awaiting passcode.'
"Do you even hear that?" Uriel cried. "What's your master plan for stopping Armageddon, Michael?"
He didn't know, but then it was never in his nature to stand still because of uncertainty. Even as the seconds ticked down, the drive in him to bring down the woman who would dare to end existence was unstoppable, pounding through him. And now Uriel told him that the two-faced snake who would kill them all was also the only one who could save them…? "What's yours? For all you know she'll type in something to fucking expedite this fucked up countdown! You trust her so much? Where the fuck is your head, Uriel?"
"In a place not ruled by hatred and stupidity." Uriel snapped, and his frantic green eyes darted back up to the screen. Four grey blocks were displayed there, a blank space for each letter of the passcode. "Four letters…" He racked his brain, the panic making it hard to think. What four letter word would hold significance to her?
On instinct, he pressed his hands over the wound on her back to stop the blood flow, and a thought drifted across his mind, ringing as clear as a bell.
She had stripped her tattoo from her arm, claiming she was stripping away what made her 'Serissa', but there was a special tattoo he knew of, one that had nothing to do with her life as a Vampire. So he dug his fingers into the hole in her shirt, the hole Michael's bullet had left, and ripped it wider. There, between her shoulder blades was a tattoo he remembered so vividly, and he knew she could never scrape away.
Maya.
"That's it…!" Uriel murmured, and he popped back to his feet.
Michael sneered, "What's it?" There was the beginning of a sizzling, frying sound, vines growing gray and then black and shriveled, roasting from within.
"The name of the one who started this is the name that can stop it." Uriel said, and he punched the letters into the keyboard. And when he struck 'enter' with a final stroke, the sound of the computer powering down was deafening in his ears.
'Hydra program sequence terminated. Rebooting terminal.'
Uriel forced out a breath of relief at the sound of the computer's fans firing back up again. At the sight of the drive spitting Celestiel's gold-plated thumb drive back onto the keyboard.
It was done… Just like that. A little girl's name had stopped Armageddon…
As the bodies of the Powers all around Michael began breaking free of the burnt up vines, Michael's stance shifted, the tight anger in his face dropping flat as he tried to work through what was happening. Dumb luck on Uriel's part, or…? "Holy sh…" His voice softened, faded until he was mouthing to himself. "It's over." So much had been twisted beyond repair… but it was over.
Uriel pocketed the gold thumb drive and stooped over to gather Celestiel up in his arms. "It's done. No need to detain her, now."
That was all it took for the anger to come rushing back. "There's every fucking need to detain her after what she almost succeeded in doing!" He motioned with his hand. His men shuffled at best.
"You're not going to touch her. She's unconscious. Once Raphael tends to her, then I'll figure out what to do with her."
An ugly scoff left Michael's sneering lips. "Yeah, that's great, let's have you be the sole person to judge her, even though she's got her fucking claws in you so deep I hardly fucking recognize you!"
"Michael." Uriel said, his big body shaking with all of his restrained rage. "I need you to understand that the only reason I haven't killed you is out of a respect for your situation, and our history as friends. I'm warning you. Do not push me." The Earth Angel kept Celestiel clutched tightly to his chest and left, Michael staring after him with fists clenched tight, with curses churning uncomfortably in his gut.