Standing Amid the Ruins
Ruins stood there. No, they were barely pretending to stand, clinging desperately. My legs were already like pillars cracked through, my spine twisted arbitrarily as if someone had wrenched it back from behind. With Reinforcement released, my body was exacting revenge, one rupture at a time reverting in brutal payback. Every inhale curled my ribs inward, scraping my lungs. Blood welled constantly under my tongue. My heart thrashed like a panicked beast on the run. If I fell, it was over.
Pillars of light hammered down sporadically. Another one speared the spot where I'd stood moments before, and two angels who descended circled it like inspectors confirming the cleanup before lifting off again. Movement drew them down. The prone got erased. The fallen, ignored. With my shattered knee and wrenched ankle, I had to keep standing. Because I refused to die.
At my feet sprawled the angel I'd just killed. Its severed neck stared in the wrong direction. Feathers that had once been pure white were matted thick with rotting blood and dulled shards of light. Dark crimson leaking from gaps in its armor mingled with dirt and flesh, blurring into the other corpses. It was strange. In this land of rot and burst-open ruin, this one body stood out jarringly alien. Remnants of purity that had no business existing here.
And beside it, a mountain of demon corpses. Horns torn out at the root. Chests hollowed through with gaping holes. Bodies intact but heads neatly vanished. Halves without lower torsos, halves without uppers, mismatched limbs tangled like crude dolls. Walls splattered with chunks of meat. Railings snagged with organs. Floors awash in dried-black blood and still-steaming fresh gore. Hell had always been ugly, but this was ugliness sliced clean away, leaving only the aftermath. The angels' path wasn't filth—it was unnaturally tidy. Like they'd raked through everything living, then neatly discarded the husks. I stood at its center. In the place where demons should have died, one angel lay dead. By my hand.
Far off, light split the sky again. This time toward the shattered citadel. Pillars of light shifted course, stabbing rhythmically toward one point. I looked up. Midway up the blackened, collapsed tower. Even through blurring vision, pale lines rained down there. Hell's heart. Where the newly born Great Demon Bell had been. Not memory—Raksha's body reacted first. Deep in my chest, an ancient instinct surged. This massacre was for that one. We were chaff ground up in the process. The angels had swept this area, now converging on their target, Bell. They paused. Scanned. If nothing, pressed deeper. I saw the pattern. Light pillars struck, white wings descended within, swept for motion, deemed cleared, then rose back to the starless dark. What lingered between? Meaningless debris. I stood in that gap. Fall now, and chance discovery by angels—or survive faintly, forgotten like happenstance. Unseen, alive or dead.
I drew slow breaths. Ribs screamed. Blood clawed up my throat again. Each step shook my leg bones like sand pillars on a beach. Raksha's memories followed. Streets before the slaughter. Bridges over red rivers. Markets where scaled merchants hung meat. Taverns where they swigged blood-laced booze and swapped petty curses. A hand tousling a sniffling imp's head, pressing crumbs into its grasp. Now atop those spots: pierced chests. Severed necks. Ripped guts. Unidentifiable flesh clumps. Wine barrels by roadsides brimmed with blood and chunks; bookstore glass held embedded spines. The square for kicking skulls offered no footing now. Limbless torsos stacked like stairs, a single broken wing atop them. I tried skirting them, slipped once. My hand pressed inside someone's ribs. Soft things crushed under fingers. Long cold—no dirt, no warmth, just chilled void. This city. Where Raksha lived. A hell worth living in. Now, a pile of neatly butchered meat. I stood atop it. Crushing flesh underfoot to stay upright.
The light pillars receded. Angels massed around the central tower's ruins. This zone: cleared. Left behind: the unlucky unescaped. The faintly breathing unlucky. And the human clinging to a demon's body. Heartbeat throbbed in my ears. Head rang. Raksha's memories clumsily overlaid mine. In my past life, I'd amounted to nothing till the end. Just survived. Endured. Clung to breath, nothing more. Being alive changed zilch. Even in the final plunge, unclear if I'd begged to live or willed it over. Memories blurred; the result sharp. I should have died. Here, now—tenacious accident, not reason. Raksha had shielded another to his last. I'd stolen that spot. In this hell, me alone. Me, persisting to survive.
A faint rasp from afar. I turned. In collapsed building shadows, amid corpse piles. A small body, not fully torn, trembled. Wings blood-soaked and half-ripped, one horn snapped—a low-rank demon. Gut split, innards peeking. Demon resilience kept breath going. Eyes unfocused, groping vaguely upward. Not seeing me—just clawing air. No plea for life. No strength, no hope in those eyes. Just habitual breathing. I halted before it. A short detour to light's blind spot: under corpse mounds, collapsed sewer mouth. Hunker there, I'd last awhile. Alone. If I left it.
"...Leave it."
The mutter circled my mouth. This body's owner had thrown himself to shield another at the end. Past-life me achieved nothing. Now me—reaching out deepened the sins. Stealing this body. Slaying an angel. Surviving the slaughter alone. And dragging one more needless life along. Saving it might just prolong agony. Ending it here could be mercy.
"Still..."
The word died in my throat. Who knew. Collapse here, ease. Lie beside it, a light pillar cleans up. Died once already. Second time, maybe familiar. Yet I still stood. Standing meant choosing. The life trampling others to survive had ended once. Repeat here, meaningless breath-prolonging—why possess this body? I spat a curse.
"Ha... fuck."
I gripped the child's arm. Blood-, flesh-, dirt-slick skin slipped in my grasp. Pulling it snapped more ribs inward. Agony surged, breath-near-breaking. I dragged the child. Between corpse heaps and rubble, into lightless shadow. Mere steps. But each piled on sin. Each hammered home the choice's futility. In the shadow, behind crumbled wall, its breaths changed. Shallower, thinner, fading. I laid it down. Pressed the wound. Blood wouldn't stop. Reinforcement barely held my own body from shredding—couldn't mend others. Touching might shatter it easier. Its eyes flicked to me. Focus? Unclear. Lips trembled.
"......C-cold..."
Before the word finished, breath stopped. Chest heaved once final, then stilled. I didn't release my hand, seal the wound, fake CPR. Just watched. It die. Dragged here by me, into darkness untouched by light, quietly expiring. Quicker under light, maybe kinder. In the end, I did nothing. Didn't hold its dying hand, ease it. Just stared down from the living side at the dying one.
In the heart of utter annihilation, I survived once more. Failed to save a thing again. Hands held only blood, flesh, cooling remnants of warmth. Nausea surged. Guilt tore through my mind. Body's pain clung like proof of life.