A/N: Got art commissioned for the cover. Also, this is the last chapter to take place outside an episode. The rest will be episodic, but from Steel's perspective.

Enjoy.

Tinnitus. A constant perception of sound that has no source or origin, resulting in only one person hearing that specific sound, as a result of ear trauma from either loud noises or potentially constant infection or surgeries. Typically people experience it as a high pitched never ending ringing noise, alleviated by background noise such as a television or a fan. But Steel Strife didn't have tinnitus. He was an angel: he was immune to most permanent injury. But what he had was all the more deafening.

What Steel Strife currently had was silence.

Most people enjoy silence. It allows them to think, to recover, to relax and rest after a long day. Steel Strife enjoyed silence as well. It was befitting an assassin to be silent, and as such, whenever he could hear nothing in silence, he knew he was a good assassin. But this particular silence wasn't your typical silence, for Angels never heard true silence. Always in the back of their minds was the Song, the constant praise, worship, and elevation of the Creator to which all Angels owed their existence and all Angels bowed, even the half angel son of Lilith. It was this Song that gave the angels their mental fortitude, just as it was the Light that gave them their immense strength and physical resilience.

And now, with the Angel's Bane coursing through his body, he had none of it. It was only his incubus heritage and his sole soul prisoner. And that prisoner wasn't happy. Steel had tried numerous tonics and mixtures he'd managed to cobble together from the limited supplies and remedies in this literal God forsaken realm of non-existence. None had worked. He had tried meditation, mental practices, astral projection, soul searching, but nothing he'd done had managed to reach out to the thin streams of Light still present, nor did it enable him to hear the faint notes of the Song that managed to thread throughout this facsimile creation.

Currently he was trying his most desperate ploy: burn out the poison. He was using Nael's intense hellfire to try and destroy the plant based toxin that now raced through his blood. He did have almost full control of his body, after all: he knew where the infected portions were. But the process was slow, and without the Light, he couldn't heal as fast. Nowhere near as fast as he needed to. So every time he took the 'torch' to a section of his body, it was destroyed, and would be for hours. Hours they didn't have, with just how much he was incinerating.

It was after he felt Steel's bones begin cracking from the heat that he interjected.

Strife. He said sternly.

The Angel didn't respond, eyes glued shut tightly as he flexed his muscles. He knew it was futile: he was ignoring the main source of toxin in his heart, the organ having become steeped in the poison. And he couldn't burn that without killing himself. But he was certainly close to doing so regardless, the heat like a focused laser inside his body slowly cutting away at the toxic parts of his organs.

Strife. Nael repeated, this time more urgently. He could feel what the Nephilim was doing and he knew it was reckless, even for him.

But it still didn't matter. Steel was sweating, an already impressive feat for a being that had no sweat glands, but such was the fire he was playing with. He turned away from the heart and instead focused on his lungs, reasoning that since he didn't need to breathe, he could simply try to focus on saturating that tissue with the poison and then slowly remove it in a way that wouldn't kill him. If he could just—

STRIFE! Nael shouted within his soul, the heat disappearing entirely as he withdrew the power Steel drew on freely.

Steel's eyes shot open and he panted, gripping his chest as the heat that had been there dissipated immediately, leaving a powerful vacuum of energy and temperature differential that made his heart feel like it iced over. "What the fuck, Nael!?" He shouted, his voice nearly destroyed from the heat assaulting his lungs.

You were pushing yourself too far! Another few seconds and you could have caused irrevocable damage that could kill you!

"I'm dying already!" He shot back, standing and pacing the room. "Don't you get it, Nael!? I HAVE to be rid of this damn poison!"

I understand that! But your body cannot handle my power! You think you've just been scorching the infected parts of your body, but the damage extends beyond! You just can't feel it because you've burned your nerve endings!

"I don't care! I NEED to be free of this affliction! NOW!"

Why?! Why NOW!? What is so important that you have to risk life and limb?! Just because you can't hear that annoying song?! Because you can't feel some pitiful lumens?!

Steel clenched his fist and put up a sound bubble around the room. With a loud, inarticulate cry of pure rage and anguish, he let loose all of the pent up stress and frustration in the form of a lightning storm that scorched and torched everything in his room. It lasted for almost a minute, the sound barrier almost shattering, before it finally subsided and he fell to his knees.

"Nael… I'm an angel. I need the Song. I need the Light. What this poison is doing, it's cutting me off from HALF of ME. Not just my powers, but half of my very being! My ESSENCE! Don't you get it!? I will die anyway from this poison! Without my regeneration, your fires will consume me anyway! I'll burn from the inside out without even using them! Not to mention the fact that I'm already slipping! I'm entirely cut off from the Creator! That means my demonic instincts, my incubus heritage, will run rampant! And I might do something I can never come back from!"

Is that your concern…? Or is it something else?

Steel remained quiet, only his heavy breathing filling the room as the barrier faded. He knew what Nael was saying. "No… Nael, I'll die if I don't have the Song and the Light. But death doesn't worry me."

You'll die here. In the void, away from everything and everyone. But no, that's not your concern either.

"No."

Say it, Strife. Nael was not mocking. He was not judging. He knew fear was the mind killer, and a fear unspoken is a fear that couldn't be killed.

"… It's not that I'd die. It's that, to everyone I cared about, I'll just have… disappeared. That's not fair to them. My daughters, my sons, my wife. To die in this literal Creator Forsaken dimension is bad enough, but to leave them with no knowledge as to what happened is just terrible."

This is where you living among mortals for so long has begun to dumb you down, Strife.

"What the hell does that mean?" He growled.

I am Wrath. I am a Sin. I am fated, dictated by destiny, to survive until the End. I will grace the battlefields of Armageddon, that is set in stone. Therefore I cannot die in this place. And if I can't, you can't.

That alleviated Steel's concerns a bit. But only a bit, as the next part occurred to him. "Maybe. But we don't know what happens if I die, Nael. Do you get unleashed? I've no doubt your full power could get you a portal home. Or do you just go right back to the Mausoleum? Do you die with me? There are more things of major concern that this realization brings up." Steel sighed and moved to crouch, placing his hands on his head. "I am not filled with confidence. If this poison doesn't get eliminated, I will die. It's just a matter of time."

Then why is this coming out just now? Why did you not express these concerns earlier?

"I… Don't know." He admitted quietly, shifting backwards to sit, propping one arm on his knee. "I felt at peace. I was focused on something else and it put itself at the forefront of my mind. First it was the violence, then when I met Charlie, it felt like I met a kindred spirit, even before I knew of her parentage."

They aren't real, Strife. They are a mere copy of a world that already exists. All of them.

"I know that." Steel sighed, rubbing his face. "But it felt—"

Good. To have kinship with another. I am not what the humans call a 'psychiatrist' Strife but I think and feel that your soul feels innately drawn to hers given your 'shared' parentage. There was a sigh. Strife, I do not share your emotions in the slightest. But if it keeps you sane, if it keeps you from behaving this foolishly, then I suppose there's no choice.

"What does that mean?" Steel scoffed.

If they stabilize you, embrace them.

"They're demons. Even if I like one or two, their very presence irritates me. Especially with how unrepentantly sinful they are."

Then hate them. I care not. What I do care about is you pushing yourself to the point where you could die. As much as I'd like to be free of you, you still possess my power. To see you die would be to lose that power.

"Gee. Thanks. Here I thought you just liked me." Steel deadpanned.

You are, by definition, my grandnephew. While I typically care little for familial bonds, you are a promising warrior. I would hate to see you disintegrate for nothing.

He was about to retort when there was a knock on the door. "Um… Mister Strife? Steel? Mister Steel Strife?" Charlie's voice rang out, sounding nervous and obviously trying to find the right words to address him. "I smelled… burning? May I come in?"

He sighed and stood up, crossing the mostly charred room to open the door. He had on an undershirt and his sub armor trousers. "Sorry… I'm working through some things." He said, stepping aside to allow her to enter and see the room.

Her eyes widened as she stepped inside, looking around at the destroyed room. "That's, uh… that's a lot of destruction!" She said, putting on a fake smile and faux cheer. "T-There's a reason you're our head of security! But, um… don't you think that the security expert should… avoid destroying things?" She looked anxiously hopeful as she poked her fingers together.

"Yes, Miss Charlie. You are correct." He admitted with another sigh. "It won't happen again. I am… simply going through a lot right now."

"Well. Do you want to talk about it?" She offered.

"I did promise to tell you my story." He acquiesced. "Gather Miss Vaggie. I don't want to have to tell this story twice."

"Okay!" She said, cheering up. "Anything to help!"

As she practically skipped away, Steel rubbed his eyes. "Loathe as I am to say it, Nael… I feel like this might be my only option to keep my sanity."

A distraction is what you need, provided you don't get lost in it.

"Yeah. We'll see." He muttered, following the Princess. Maybe it WILL do me some good.