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degenerateshinji · 7 months

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(timeline: international assassins arc)

"Where are we...?!"

"Ah..." Atsushi's eyes widened in fear.

"We're here..." Akutagawa quickly mumbled, though Atsushi was already aware of it himself. He recognized this place somehow, distantly. "...This can't be good."

He looked over his shoulder to the rest of division four all checking on Denji, but he was too preoccupied with himself to bother doing the same. He could feel himself begin to tremble.

"I'm human." He uttered. "I am human. A-Akutagawa, will you protect me?" He feebly said, and he felt tears begin to well up.

"I'll do what I can."

Atsushi looked over to notice something wrong with the rest of the fiends. They also seemed to be panicking like he was. But for the sake of keeping his cover, Atsushi tried to ignore the gradual buildup of sweat all over his body. He was shivering, too.

"Angel! Do you know what this place is?" Aki shouted, and Atsushi felt a chill travel up and down his spine.

"We're finished. This is hell... It's hell's scent." He said. Atsushi started screaming when he heard the word, and Akutagawa bent down beside him to comfort him. The others turned their heads, but also started shouting themselves, and had no time to check on him. He heard some of the fiends on the enemy's side begging to be killed, and he honestly felt some of that same fear himself, too.

"Ah! Someone's coming! Something's coming! It's here!" She screamed, and everyone looked up in fear as one of the doors hanging above them opened with a low creaking sound. "The darkness devil..."

A small speck of pure black hit the ground with a splash. The severed bodies of multiple astronauts lined up in a perfect path for the devil to walk through. Atsushi calmed his screams, with Akutagawa's arm around him.

"Akuta-"

Ribbit.

He violently felt both his arms being ripped off him in one go. When he looked around, he realized the same had happened to everyone else. But he couldn't process anything.

The devil stood right before them.

"My arms...! M-My...!" Atsushi choked out. The rest were also mumbling something similar to him. Akutagawa sat down beside him.

"I am the doll devil." Another one of division four's enemies knelt down before the powerful devil that had appeared. "I've brought you chainsaw's heart as per the contract." He continued, looking over at Denji. "Please give me the power to kill Makima."

Makima? It always comes back to her, doesn't it?

In outrage, Denji shouted, asking the man his intentions. The sound hurt his head.

"..shi. Atsushi." Akutagawa's voice came right into his ear. "Won't you bleed out? You're alright, right?" He sounded concerned. Atsushi looked around in fear, only to see that just about everyone, all his friends, had the exact same expression as he did; a terrified concern for what was to come next.

"I'm fine." He mumbled. "I won't die. I promise."

He heard a crumble from beside him. One of the men assigned to protect Denji had turned to stone. He turned to where Denji was, only to see the shark fiend trying to feed him his blood.

"...Right..." Atsushi pushed Akutagawa to the ground and poured the blood from where his limbs were severed into Akutagawa's mouth.

"What...?"

"Protect us, Akutagawa. You're powerful, so please..."

"I can't!" He angrily shouted as he took Atsushi's blood in and regenerated his body. "I can't, because you'll get diseased, and I can't heal humans! You'll all die!"

"You're the only one who can-" He stopped as he saw the shark fiend get sliced up into tens of pieces. "Ah...Ah...I'm next, I'm...!" Atsushi backed away in fear.

One of the enemy assassins, despite everything, ran towards the devil, but she was met with the same fate. Every devil and fiend among them was cut through, injured viciously, Akutagawa being no exception. His limbs were harshly twisted into something unrecognizable, and though it seemed painful, his expression didn't change. When the devil made its way towards Atsushi, though, it halted.

"P-Please... I just want to live..." He pathetically cried, before feeling a chasm-shaped hole where his heart was meant to be, and all over his body.

"Atsushi!" Akutagawa shouted from the ground next to him. His voice was pained, and louder than he'd ever heard it before. He nudged up next to Atsushi and forced his arms back into place to grab his shoulders to lay him on his lap. Atsushi saw that he had many wounds, he was bleeding, but he was still in better condition than himself now. "What do I do? Wh-What can I...?" His voice was broken.

"My blood." Atsushi muttered. "Drink my blood. Heal. Get me out of here."

"..."

"I'm not alive, Akutagawa. I can't be - You can heal me if I get diseased. Trust me. Do it."

And so, after briefly looking at the rest of the group and deciding Atsushi was the only one he could bring himself to care about, he carefully licked around Atsushi's wounds, trying to take in the blood to heal himself. Then, he transformed himself into his devil form and dragged Atsushi down with him into the puddle of liquid which formed. Atsushi felt himself being engulfed by it, and shut his eyes tight. He felt warm, which is something he didn't feel in Hell.

"Atsushi..." Akutagawa woke him on a rooftop. "It's only been a few minutes. The others made it out okay thanks to Makima, you don't have to worry..." His voice sounded broken again, and Atsushi wanted to reach out to grab his face, when he realized he no longer had the means to do that. "You promised you wouldn't die, but..." He was near tears.

Atsushi suddenly felt a horrible guilt wash over him.

"I-I don't know what to do... Atsushi, please..." He knelt down and stared directly into Atsushi's eyes. As he came to more, he started to hear the sounds of the commotion down below. Maybe Akutagawa brought him to a rooftop just to get away from all that, just so that Atsushi wouldn't have to hear it.

"I can heal if you give me blood." Atsushi started, anxiously. "It's, uh... It's part of my devil contract. So if you give me your blood, then - "

"You'll die."

Atsushi sighed. "Akutagawa, I'm going to die regardless, please just listen to me..."

"I can't!" He cried out. "I can't be the one to kill you!"

"I won't die if you give me your blood. Just, please, don't wait too long..."

Akutagawa stared at Atsushi's face, still, for a second, silently, before coughing with his mouth closed. A near inhuman sound came from his throat as he brought a hand up to cover it. Atsushi could smell blood coming from him as he continued to cough up more and more into his mouth. He leaned down and kissed Atsushi, passing the blood from his mouth to Atsushi's, who grunted as he took it in. He couldn't feel himself regenerate, though.

Akutagawa pulled away and Atsushi stared at him, heartbroken. He chuckled a bit. "Sorry. I guess I'm not immortal like some of the others... I'm just a fiend, after all. But you tell everyone I'm a human, please. That I died a human."

"You are human." He sobbed.

"Good. Kiss me again. It's the last thing I'd like to do."

"You can't leave me..."

"I don't mean to, Akutagawa. I do care for you. Please grant me my last wish."

Akutagawa, trembling, leaned down and picked Atsushi's head off his lap gently to kiss him. Atsushi wanted nothing more than to swing his hands around Akutagawa's neck, but he instead laid static.

"Thank you." He weakly said.

"Atsushi... Atsushi..." Akutagawa pulled him up and hugged him tightly as he could feel Atsushi's heart rate steadily increasing against his own chest. Atsushi opened his mouth to say something once more, but he couldn't seem to form words. He let out a choked cry before dying in Akutagawa's arms. Akutagawa tightened the grip even more when he felt his heart stop. He was convinced that if he embraced him tight enough, Atsushi would simply come back to life.

He screamed.

"Akutagawa. There you are."

Makima walked over the rooftop and towards him. The sky had cleared, and it was night. He thought he smelled burning a bit ago, but he lost all perception of time by now. He just knew he was still holding Atsushi, and he progressively got more and more cold as time went on.

"...Makima." Akutagawa recognized her voice and greeted her. He didn't turn around.

"I've been looking for you. Is that Atsushi?"

"He's dead."

"It's been over an hour, Akutagawa. You're still holding onto him?"

Akutagawa tightened his grip again as he buried his face into Atsushi's shoulder. "What do you want?" He shut his eyes tightly and imagined Atsushi was hugging him back.

"It's late. You have to get back to your quarters. I don't want a devil running rampant at night." Makima reasoned with next to no emotion in her tone.

"I don't want to go back. And I won't be running rampant, either. I won't move from this spot. I just want to sit here a bit longer."

"You can't. You have to go home now. It's the rule. I can't help that." She continued.

"You mean I'm breaking the law, right? Kill me. I'll be with him." He dully said. "I'll be..." His voice broke again as he buried his head deeper into Atsushi's neck. He couldn't feel him at all, and it was more than just unsettling.

"This isn't punishable by death, Akutagawa." She sighed as if he were being ridiculous. "Besides, Atsushi was the tiger fiend. If he did die, then the tiger devil's back in Hell now."

"He was human."

"I know he liked to tell you that, but he truly wasn't. I'm sorry he lied to you." She knelt down by him. "Can I have his body? I'll bury it somewhere nice, I promise."

"I don't want you to do that."

"You can't hold onto him forever. Haven't his limbs gone stiff by now?" She reached out to touch his shoulder, but Akutagawa pushed her hand away.

"Kill me now, and you can bury us together." Akutagawa proposed, which got Makima upset.

"I get it's unfortunate he died, but you can't throw your life away just because of that. You're a devil, Akutagawa, you're meant to fear death." She stood up.

"I feared for his death. I don't care much about my own life anymore now." Akutagawa shifted as he laid Atsushi's body down on the floor. He stared at his corpse, and noticed it was starting to rot. It must've been the result of his blood, and he felt even worse. He could feel tears welling up once more, but Makima lifted his head to stop him from looking at it.

"Get home. I'll discuss this with you in the morning."

"Heart."

Makima stumbled back as she suddenly felt her heart beat slower and slower. "...My..." She mumbled as she dropped to the ground. Akutagawa did, too.

"If I kill you, I'll be executed as a devil, right? Have I yet overstepped my boundaries?" He sounded pained, yet furious at the same time, unlike Makima, who was rendered speechless as she tried to gasp for air. Akutagawa turned his head to watch her as she entered cardiac arrest just like him. He felt a slight pain when he realized Atsushi wouldn't be there to heal him this time, so he began slowly healing himself.

"It's a shame, Akutagawa. You were one of our strongest. One of our best. I suppose next time I'll have to make sure none of our agents die, in case this happens again." He heard Makima's voice from right behind him and frantically turned his head towards her.

"W-What? How?" He asked in shock now, in fear. "Wait, you're...!" Akutagawa cut himself off.

Makima knelt down and propped him up to his knees, too, before whispering into his ear. "You'll go home, you'll get a good night's rest, and you'll be thinking clearly again in the morning."

Akutagawa felt his heart rate increase in fear, before it returned to normal, despite the disease he'd just given himself. He somehow even felt relieved of it now. He began, "I will go home... I will sleep... My sincerest apologies, miss Makima."

"And take care of yourself, alright?" She stood up and took Akutagawa up with her. "I'll deal with the body."

"Thank you, miss." He soullessly said, but when he looked back at Atsushi, he still felt a pain wash over him. "I loved him." He said. "I still do."

"I know." Makima smiled as she picked up Atsushi's corpse and slung him over her shoulder. "You'll talk to him again tomorrow, you'll be thinking clearly. Today was blurry, you don't remember it too much."

Akutagawa silently nodded before turning into his devil form and slowly creeping down the side of the building until he reached the streets below. Quietly, he strolled back to his home at Public Safety.

Makima watched him leave, before looking around her to make sure nobody was watching. She once more laid Atsushi down and placed a hand over the hole on his chest.

"Revive."

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