Chapter 1. Massacre Melody

They were walking side by side in silence, there was too much noise from the street to be able to speak. The pavement was crowded, even though it was not rush hour. People kept bumping into him, not seeing him because of his petite stature, nudging him to continue their march. They were quick to apologise for what had happened and, afterwards, glared at him because they saw his inhumanly bright wings and halo. Angel, hoping not to be pushed again, gradually moved closer and closer to Aki seeking protection, given his height, which was greater than the average Japanese.

Tokyo was like that: always full of people walking the crowded streets at a brisk pace, moving from place to place, as if just losing a second could drastically and negatively affect their lives. The city was not the place for Angel, at all; it was so far from everything he valued. Tokyo in particular. From what he had been able to eavesdrop, in the time he spent there and from the chatter around him as he took slow walks, Tokyo was the place where everything converged and where it was possible to realise all one's dreams and desires. It was true, the metropolis offered so much and he could clearly see that: endless events, restaurants, clubs, parks... anything he could have imagined, he was sure existed there. Yet Angel could not help but notice that, behind the façade of that wall, there was much more. The more he looked, the more he could see the beautiful wallpaper peeling away, showing more and more of the crumbling plaster behind it. It was a scam, Angel thought, with the promise of giving everyone what they wanted, it actually shattered all the hopes people had placed in that life. They arrived there thinking that their moment had finally arrived, but then as the years passed they realised that they were nothing but a drop in an ocean of people, all with the same illusion. There, the hectic life was killing them with fatigue and, at a certain hour, the shutters of the shops closed, the workers went home and the whole hard-working city slumbered, leaving room for the wickedness of the nightclubs, which everyone stumbled into sooner or later, whether occasionally or never being able to leave that circle. Inevitably stuck in that miserable life, made up of a well-established rhythm that left no freedom for people who, without even realising it, lost sight of themselves.

Angel knew that Aki was one of them, thrown into that lethal trap. He, too, came from the countryside and perhaps, underneath it all, his heart was still there even after all that time, as was Angel's. If things had gone differently, if he had not been blinded by his desire for revenge, he might not even have arrived in Tokyo. It was the only place where he might have had the slightest chance of getting what he wanted; despite the fact that it meant living such a hard life, working an underpaid job that was sure to prove fatal, in which every day, when he set foot outside the house, he wasn't sure he would be back there, at night. His story with the Devil Gun was common knowledge, it was one of the first things Aki mentioned about himself, perhaps the only thing he really opened up about with everyone, as if he wanted the seriousness of his intentions to be made clear. In the end, however, nobody at Public Security really knew him. In their eyes, he was just the craziest one because, not only did he belong to Division 4, the team where everyone refused to work, but he had a hybrid and a fiend living in his house, and a devil who was always clinging to him like his shadow. He had overheard that from the rumours in the offices of Public Security: they said that he had surely sold his soul to some unholy being because no normal human could endure and accept all of that. Sometimes they threw those words right back in his face; more rarely, with not so veiled insults at him and the 'wicked beings he associated with'. Aki ignored them, thus shutting them and their pettiness up. Then, when Angel and him were alone again, Aki would make sure that their words had not offended him: the devil. Aki said that he didn't care about their words; he got used to them in any case.

No, they didn't know anything about that human and his hidden goodness that almost made him look like a fool, Angel was sure of that.

The roaring engines of the cars began to fade away, giving way to the murmur of chatters of the passers-by, especially of the men dressed in suits; a sign that they had arrived at their destination. In front of him, in the square of light-coloured tiles, adorned with benches and green flowerbeds, full of colors and tall trees, stood the completely windowed building of the Public Security Offices with its unusual and perfectly geometric shape. Everything was so disproportionately large. There was no doubt in Angel's mind that all that occupied space wasn't really necessary, as if whoever had designed and built that place had wanted to make it clear, instantly, the importance of that institution but, above all, the superiority Public Safety had over its enemies. Aki and Anegl walked along the square, passing first between the large grey pots, from which squared shrubs sprouted, and then through the massive round stone columns of the portico. They arrived in front of the large dark windowed doorway with its triple entrance. It looked huge even next to Aki. He pushed open the door and, once inside, held it open for Angel as well. The spacious square room with large green marble tiles opened up before him. On either side, left and right, there were the office doors used by citizens to press charges. There were so many doors and they were all identical, lined up one after the other. They put him in awe each time, setting off an alarm bell in Angel's instincts, although he could never understand what the reason was. They walked through the room quickly without stopping, arriving at the bottom and climbing the four steps that led to the lift area, to their right. Although there were several people waiting, when it arrived at the ground floor, no one entered the cubicle with him and Aki. With a nervous gesture, Aki pressed the button for the seventh floor and then the one for the fast closing of the doors.

"Are you nervous?" Angel asked him. He was aware that he was a good observer and could confidently say that, after months of working together, he had learned to understand Aki but, when they were in the offices, it almost seemed like he turned into a different person.

"No... it's just work."

The lift continued to rise with its cadenced noise, the LED was marking the fifth floor.

"Do you already know why Makima called us?"

"She has a work for us, but she didn't tell me what it is."

He was starting to feel nervous too. Makima always caused him a sense of anxiety. He never knew what she was up to behind that faint smile and those enchanting eyes. With that expression she could deliver either the most atrocious news possible or make a poor, unfunny joke. Her unpredictability was so strange and disturbing at the same time. Angel had also noticed how everyone, when they were in her proximity, became tense, more similar to her and her dissonance between what she was saying and the attitude with which she was doing it. It must have been because of the strong hierarchy that permeated those offices: she was the boss, all decisions passed under her hands and eyes, perhaps she was even the closest person to the Japanese Minister of Defence, from what Angel understood.

The metal doors opened and the two walked down the corridor. They arrived in front of the large ebony door and Aki knocked. The woman's gentle voice answered, inviting them to enter.

The first thing, of the woman's austere figure, that stood out to his eyes was the red hair gathered in a soft braid, lying on her back, covered by a very white shirt. She was looking outside the window, at the large square at her feet and at the whole horizon stretching behind her body. Makima's office, clear and uncluttered, without a single misplaced sheet of paper, was the highest in the whole building, positioned right in the middle, towering over the place and its surroundings.

"Hayakawa, you are here" she said, continuing to turn her back on them.

"Sorry we kept you waiting" Aki replied.

Angel looked up at the clock on the wall to their left: it was 4:01 pm.

"For real, human?" he thought. Aki hardly ever apologised, he was too proud of his righteousness, and when he did, it was because he really thought he had messed up. Angel didn't say anything though, he just thought about how tense he must have felt at that moment to be jibbering like that.

"Don't worry, Hayakawa, you are on time as usual. Today I have called you to discuss a very unusual situation, you must have already heard something" she turned and looked at both of them, squaring them slowly. Angel felt even more uneasy under that inquisitive gaze, especially since Makima was voluntarily cutting him out of the conversation completely, continuing his talk only with Aki. Not that he particularly disliked it; less responsibility for him. But it was the way she was doing it that annoyed him, as if he wasn't even in the room. As if he didn't exist at all, but at the same time she wanted to control him and wanted him to understand, in a subtle way, that she was under his control.

Makima began to walk slowly around the office, approaching the desk and them.

"Over the past few months there have been a considerable increase in murder and suicide cases. At first they were very few and were nothing different from the ordinary cases the police deal with. They are not difficult cases for them to solve, in fact they are very clear to analyse, but the amount of work is too much, and the work of the police district and the civil Devil Hunters alone is no longer enough. We have tried to contain the media and have more or less succeeded in that; what you see on TV or read in the newspapers is only a small part of what our officers discover. Almost every day new bodies are found. That's why we decided to give some of the cases also to the Public Security Devil Hunters" she locked her gaze on Aki.

"Hayakawa, you'll have cases like that to solve, but I want to give you another task in particular..."

Aki swallowed embarrassed: "Tell me."

Makima smiled at him, the corners of her mouth curved upwards, but her eyes did not follow that movement.

"There is something behind this story and, whatever it is, I want you to stop it. Also because if it continues like this and the true extent of the matter is revealed to the population, stronger devils might be born from fear. It's best to stem all the damage now so we can focus later on the Gun Devil case which has our priority, is that right?"

"Yes, of course" he replied obediently.

"Good - Makima clapped her hands gently together, a smile, a true one this time, made its way onto her face - You will be given reports in which you will find all the information we have gathered so far. I expect good results, you've always been reliable in the past and I know you won't be any less this time as well" she concluded her monologue, the smile on her lips melted away and, while Aki was too busy expressing his laboriousness, she went back to check sternly Angel with the corner of her eye.

He shuddered. Makima seemed to have some sort of personal grudge against him. She had always treated him with indifference, as nothing more than a pawn to be used: at the beginning, when she had taken him to the city and thrown him into the underground cells with the other captured devils; and then, when she had realised that he would not cooperate by making pacts with the Devil Hunters and had forced him to work, under threat of death. As soon as he had started taking part in Division 4 activities, he could not even understand where the spirit of self-preservation came from that drove him to continue working. His condition had drained him of all strength and the will to go on.

So why had he done it? What had compelled him to continue performing those tasks he hated so much?

At that moment, however, he had taken Aki's situation to heart and was not ashamed to acknowledge it. If his co-operation could have helped Aki not to throw his life away in a death, which would later prove futile, Angel would have helped him. So he had decided. Working with Aki wouldn't be so different from what he was already doing, but at least there was a valid reason for him to continue enduring. He was an angel, he had even told Makima so when they had taken down the Bomb Devil together and he refused to take Aki with him, despite the woman's order. On a second thought, it was after that incident that the woman had started to treat him more coldly.

Angel turned back to look at Aki who, having turned towards the door, was signalling him to come out. His face was slightly flushed; he always acted so strange when he was in that office, at times he didn't even look like himself. At least the meeting was over and they would soon return to their normality.

Author's note:

Hi, thank you for reading this far! ^^

A funfact: the titles of the chapter are from the manga and I had much fun choosing them. As we go on, the chapters are going to get longer and longer, the first 3 are probably the stortest in this story. Let me know your thoughts on this story, your opinion is very appreciated. See you tomorrow for the new update!