Dantega:Volume 1 Chapter 8
Chapter 8: The Devil's Advocates
(PART 1)
‘Huh? Where am I?’ Ubica thinks to himself as he slowly opens his eyes and sees that he laying on a bed in a rather large room wrapped in a white blanket. What catches his attention most about this room is that the ceiling has extravagant paintings of children and women with wings floating in a sky as their background.
‘Angels?’
His eyes are stuck on this painting for it truly is a magnificent piece of art; it looks much like the paintings of Micheal Angelo that look down on you from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, but in smaller form.
Ubica’s blank stare is stolen by the sound of a beautiful melody being hummed by a woman; he averts his eyes to the source and sees a sight that makes his body feel weightless. A girl is sitting at the end of the bed in which he's laying on. She has her back turned to him and she is looking out of one of the five large windows on the side of the room they are in. The sunlight escapes through the windblown blinds and hits the hair she is gently grooming, giving it a whitish tint. She is loosely wearing a white bathrobe that hangs low, revealing the gorgeous tint of the skin of her right shoulder down to the middle of her back.
‘ An Angel?…Am I dead..?’ Ubica says to himself. He wants to reach out and touch this warmth, and is suffering through knowing that he'll never grasp it.
He feels himself slowly moving away from this warmth and light, sliding out of control into an abyss of darkness and cold, not even being able to struggle. This is his destiny, never will he feel what she feels, never will he be what she is. With the sight of this angel moving farther away, and the sound of her voice becoming weaker with each passing second, tears roll down his face as he works up the strength to speak.
“P-Please forgive me…”
The angel stops her humming and turns to Ubica, by now she is so far away he cannot make out what her face looks like, he continues to speak “ I am so sorry for what I’ve done to you… I would do anything to take it back.. Please forgive me, begging you.”
Tears are flowing from Ubica’s eyes rapidly, this is the first time he has ever felt the sensation of crying.
“ Please.. I don’t want this anymore. Please forgive me.” Ubica is apologizing for the hundreds of thousands of angels he has killed as the Anti-Christ.
During the battle of Armageddon, when angels were killed they were stripped of their wings and sent to Hell. There they lost all sense of self and the people they truly are eventually cease to exist. It is said that God will one day come to Hell and free them from their torture, but it has not yet happened and Ubica knows it. He is personally responsible for their torment and ugliness, he feels immense guilt for turning these pure and beautiful beings into wretched and rotten shadows of what they once were.
The angel is so far away now that all he can see is darkness, he has drifted the furthest into nothingness he has ever been to. ‘
No.. I don’t want this, no.’ his plea is of no avail, he keeps falling faster and faster.
Ubica’s eyes are wide open but he can’t see anything, he knows that this is the destiny befitting of a monster like him, even if he refuses to except it, the truth is that this will never change.
“Ubica!”
‘Huh? A voice?’
“Ubica!”
“I said wake up! Ubica!!!”
With this loud shout, the darkness is pierced by light, and out of that light comes a hand that reaches out and rests on Ubica’s face. He can feel the warmth again, the darkness disperses and shatters away like breaking glass, and he can see once more.
“You’re awake!? Huuwaaaa thank goodness.”
This voice comes from Daey, she is lying on top of Ubica with her hand resting on his cheek. She is loosely wearing a white bathrobe and showing a good amount of skin, her hair is down, where as she normally wears it in twin tails. The sun shining off her usual pinkish hair gives it the impression that it is glowing white.
Ubica’s eyes are fixated on her, his voice shakes as he speaks “I-It was you..?”
Daey looks confused, she tilts her head as if asking ‘What?’.
Ubica grabs her hand that is resting on his face, he gently pulls it under his shoulder, moving Daey towards him. Ubica wraps his arms around her and holds her tight, he can feel her warmth and smell the sweet scent of her soft hair.
“This is a little sudden don’t you think?” Says a shocked Daey.
She realizes that her appearance is rather provocative but she wouldn’t expect someone to suddenly hug her like this. One in her situation would think that there would be ill intentions involved in something similar but not Daey, she feels nothing but the pure kindness of this embrace. In fact, she feels her heart racing like never before and for some reason she does not ever want to be let go. She strokes his back with her hands as they sit there is silence.
“Hey can I ask you something?” the silence is ended by the soft broken voice of Ubica.
“Yeah.” Daey replies, her head is resting on his neck and shoulder, she can feel vibration of his voice rub against her temple.
Ubica takes a deep breath and asks “ Would you please… Become my angel…?”
This is an odd question, Daey knows that she can’t really become his angel so she doesn’t know exactly what he is implying when he asks this. But whatever it means, she feels that it is impossible to say no to him; the truth is however, she feels a desperate need to be wanted by him.
“Yeah.”
An instant after her words are spoken, Ubica squeezes her even tighter and begins to softly cry once more. He is crying like someone would if they had held in their emotions their whole life and decided to finally let go and become human again.
Daey is at a loss for words at this reaction, she can feel the water of his tears falling on her shoulder and sliding down her back. She’s wondering why he is crying, is it sadness? No, these are tears of happiness, Ubica is crying because he escaped from the darkness that he is destined to reside in. He was under the impression that he lost himself once again, but now, the light and warmth he sees and feels at this moment is here because of Daey. Most of all, he is happy for the hope that the person he is now is still alive and can still gain repentance for his sins. It’s not over yet, even though just a few minutes earlier he thought it was. This is it, in his arms he's holding the future that he holds so dear, and he has no intentions of ever letting it go.
After a few minutes, the two are no longer embracing, rather they are rubbing shoulders as they closely sit side by side.
“Thank you Daey… I-I’m sorry about that.” Ubica says as wipes the tears from his eyes, his nose is red and he sniffling.
‘Ahhhh so cute!’ thinks Daey as she looks at his innocent child like expression. She fumbles her words and replies “ N-No don’t worry about it, I’m glad to help. I have to say it was surprising to see you like that though... Is something wrong?”
“No nothing’s wrong! I’m really really happy!”
“But you were crying Ubica, there has to be something that’s bothering you.”
Ubica shows a strained smile, looks to the floor and says “That was the first time I have ever cried, that means I’m becoming more human... That’s why I am so happy.”
Daey tilts her head, she raises one of her eyebrows and asks “Wait, so you’re telling me that in your whole life, you have never done that?”
“That's right...”
“How?”
Ubica scratches his head as if trying to find an answer, “ I guess it’s because I never had a reason to.”
The truth about that statement can be based more on the fact that he has never had a reason to live until now; in the past whenever he lost something it never affected him because it truly didn’t matter. Ubica looks around the room with a confused look on his face when he decides to change the subject by asking “Anyways… Where are we?”
“Whaaa!? Three days!!?” shouts Ubica after he is told of the happenings with Napoleon, Rage, and the two thieves Strauphius and Aria, and finding out he has been asleep for three days since the incident.
“No need to feel bad about it, the map they have says that the first gate is pretty far away. So we all needed to relax for a little anyways.” Says Daey.
The two stand in silence for a few moments until Ubica speaks “Trojia and Tsubiri! Are they alright!?”
Daey giggles, she knew that the next question he would ask was that one and replies “Yeah they’re fine. Those two... They are the only ones that wouldn’t take it easy.”
“What do you mean?” asks Ubica.
“They just wouldn’t leave your side these last three days. The first time they left this room was about an hour ago, Rage wanted them to go into the town to buy some warmer clothes for you.”
Ubica smiles, but he feels a pain in his chest because he worried them so much.
“You know… They love you...Those two.” says Daey with a serious look on her face, the atmosphere in the room drops.
Ubica thinks about what she says for a few moments and attempts to downplay her statement “I’m sure that’s not the case… They are just kind.”
“Haha geez Ubica, you’re so dense.” Deay said with a giggle, she continues “So… Do you have any feelings toward either of them?”
Ubica stands up off of the bed and stretches his arms and his back. He looks at her with an idiotic smile and obliviously says “Of course I do. I hold my feelings dear to all of you.”
Daey sighs and lays her back on the bed “Geh, that’s not what I meant stupid.”
“Hey, who are you calling stupid!?”
With Ubica’s words, Daey throws her hair brush and it slams into his chest, “Who else!? Someone who doesn’t even know when a person obviously loves him is what you would call stupid!”
Ubica leans over and grabs the hairbrush that Daey threw at him. He looks at it with a strained smile and holds it out as if to give it back to her. Ubica shows Daey a troubled expression and softly says “I wouldn’t know what something like love really is.”
Daey stands up and looks him in the eye, “Hmm, if you’re telling me the truth that would mean…” She pauses for a second and reveals a faint smile ” Hmmm… Interesting…” She said as she turns and walks away from the bed, she looks out of one of the large windows.
They are in a second story room of a rather large house. From the window the sight of large stone houses stretch about a mile and a half around four main dirt roads and intersections. Past the town, snow capped mountains can be seen; some of the closer and smaller mountains have its structural base shaved down due to the stone and rock excavation that is needed in order to build the numerous houses that lay in this stretch of flat, cold and baron land. In normal circumstances, stone buildings would not be able to protect humans from the rigid cold of the tundra. That is if it were not for the clay plaster used to bind the blocks of stone together that contain frozen permafrost-filled brush found on the tundra floor. By filling the plaster with this watered down brush, it allows the cold of the outside temperature to absorb into the outer layer of already frozen permafrost brush, while the inner-house side is absorbing the warmth from a large intricately designed outhouse that lies in the basement, and is filled with boiling water containing rocks that constantly send heat from this machine, through iron hot pipes that intertwine the innards of each room of the house. It truly is quite the amazing invention to say the least.
“Oh, the two love birds are back.” Said Daey, out of the window she can see Tsubiri and Trojia in the front lot carrying one bag each, presumably containing the clothing for Ubica.
They are making their way to the front door but are stopped and talked to by Xavier and Luke.
“I just got out of the bath right before you woke up, the water should still be warm.” Said Deay, as she points in the direction of the bathroom door on the other side of the room.
The water of the bath gets heated in virtually the same way the house does, by resting three iron hot pipes under the bath tub, the water will begin to heat until it reaches a comfortable temperature and with a turn of a switch valve, the boiling water that heats the iron hot pipe will stop flowing and as a result begins to cool.
“Oh, thanks.”
Ubica is rather looking forward to nice hot bath, he walks to the door and reaches his hand out to open it when he suddenly stops and his face drops.
“W-Wait a minute, you just said that you came out of the bath right?”
“Well yeah.” Said Daey in a nonchalant manner.
“That would mean that I would be bathing in water that you were just!… You were just!”
Daey is looking at him like he’s crazy and thinks to herself ‘That I was just what?’, she looks at Ubica’s blushing face and in her sub conscious she feels that he is undressing her with his eyes. That’s when she realizes exactly what he is thinking, her face instantly glows red as she folds her arms over her chest “W-W-What the hell are you thinking about you pervert!!?”
“Hey that came out of nowhere! I’m not being perverted, just what in the world am I supposed to think about in this situation!?”
“You don’t think about anything and just get in the damn bath!!”
“B-But”
Daey grits her teeth and the vein that can be seen in her forehead signifies her anger; she opens the bathroom door behind Ubica and begins to shove him in.
“It’s not like I can get you sick you jerk! Are you saying I’m gross or something!?”
Ubica is holding the door frame in an attempt to keep her from pushing him in “No it’s not like that!”
Flames seem to flow from Daey’s eyes when she gives Ubica one final push that sends him flying into the bathroom, Daey slams the door behind him and shouts “Don’t you dare come out until you’re done you idiot!!”
Ubica loudly sighs and looks at the innards of the bathroom, the pipes and valves that surround the bath tub confuse him into submission. He was trying to find a way to empty out the tub and heat up some new water but he thinks it would be too complicated to do so. Little does he know that it is as simple as pulling a switch to empty the tub, and turning a valve to fill it with water and warm it up.
Daey is leaning her back on the bathroom door, her hand is resting on her chest and she can feel her heart racing quickly. She realizes the reason why Ubica is weary of bathing in the same tub as her, but she doesn’t mind this at all, she’s actually quite happy that he will be thinking of her in that way while he is in there. She waits and listens to him undress and get in the water, with her face bright red she smiles and walks to the door that exits the room, she pauses and thinks back to when she was watching him sleep.
‘Please forgive me.’
Jumps into her mind, she heard everything Ubica was dreaming about because he said it all aloud in his sleep. “I wonder what all of that meant?..” she quietly says to herself under her breath. She remembers his tears and the way he begged at whoever it was he was talking to, she is also wondering why he wants her to be his angel, and what it even means for that matter.
“You really are interesting Ubica. I don’t think I’ll be able to leave you alone.”
As a naturally curious person, she can't help but feel that she has taken her first step into unraveling the past secrets of the mysterious Ubica. Everything about this incident makes her body feel warm with excitement, especially the fact that she is the first and only person to ever see a tear fall from his eyes. She wants to be the only one to know and see all that he hides and refuses to show, this will be her happiness.
Daey opens the door and enters a hallway that leads to a balcony, she looks off the railing and sees Trojia walking toward the stairs that lead to the second story while carrying a shopping bag. The mere sight of her begins to churn certain feelings that Daey has never felt before, it is nothing malicious, but rather that of the pure determination of not wanting to lose. She smiles as she looks at Trojia who is trying to hurry Tsubiri up the stairs.
“I must apologize Trojia, but it seems that you have one more rival in love...”
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