Chapter 33.3: Angels and Demons

  “There is more, but…” Shiro trailed off, deep in thought. He then shook his head firmly. “What happened in between... I don’t want to think about it.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “Might I add,” he turned towards Ace with a half-amused smile, “I was so relieved that my wife wasn’t around. She returned to the countryside where her parents lived. Said it was good for the pregnancy.”

  “So he lived with you while she was away?”

  Shiro nodded, his calloused fingers fidgeting with the nose pads of his glasses. “It was as if he gave up,” he turned his head away. “He just lay there in bed like a log. Kept mumbling about how he was an awful person who should have helped but could not.”

  Ace could only stare into space numbly.

  “It really pained me to see him so distraught. I didn’t even know how to help him besides caging him up so that I could watch over him.” Shiro inhaled sharply. “His indifference was the very thing that kept him alive. Cruel, isn’t it?”

  Ace reached for a pillow and hugged it close to his chest. “Did you find out what was making him so depressed?” he asked softly.

  Shiro nodded and turned to him. “This is something that you might understand more than I,” he said.

  Ace raised his eyebrows but saw Shiro’s temple glow again. “You see, when Dante is drunk, he tends to let his guard down,” Shiro said as he worked at pulling out his memories carefully. “So, I made him drink. It took a lot, given his talent at holding his drinks down, but it worked.”

  This time, Kakoshiro brought cartons of beer. Not one, but ten. He offered one can to Dante, who simply turned away from him, choosing to remain engrossed in his phone. Kakoshiro tried to take a peek at what he was browsing, but he turned away even more.

  “Got you some beer.”

  “Is it cold?”

  “It’s chilled.”

  “Don't like cold beer.”

  “Who doesn’t like cold beer?” Ace thought aloud. Shiro simply chuckled.

  Kakoshiro, in a stroke of desperation or genius, used the baby milk warmer to heat cans of beer. Dante didn’t question it — he guzzled them down with gusto. At first, Dante would put the finished cans aside in an orderly fashion. The drunker he got, the less considerate he became. The cans would be crushed and dropped between his legs. Kakoshiro sat by his side, undenting and straightening out the discarded cans, which he stacked up.

  “How’s your family?” Kakoshiro eventually broached as he slowly built a pyramid with the cans.

  Silence.

  “How’s your mother?”

  “Car accident. Dead.”

  “Your father?”

  “Dead? Don’t remember.”

  “Do you have siblings?”

  “Deeeee-” Dante belched rudely. "-aaad."

  “Really? Everyone–”

  “Don’t care.”

  Inhaling sharply, Kakoshiro readied his next question. “Is anything troubling you lately?”

  To this, Dante plopped down on the bed and pulled the covers over his head. Kakoshiro sprang to action upon hearing soft snores. There was a quiet click — the phone unlocked the moment Dante’s ring finger touched the sensor.

  “The… Straits Times?! That’s one of Singapore’s news outlets!” Ace exclaimed as he caught a glimpse of the screen. He squinted at the title of the article that the Kakoshiro pulled up.

  ‘Death of boy, 12, who fell 13 floors after failing exam, ruled a suicide’.

  Shiro’s memory ended there. They sat in silence as Ace pieced together the information he had gleaned. “That article was about… three weeks old if I remember correctly,” Shiro said. “He had been staying over at my place for around the same amount of time.”

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  Ace scratched his head furiously. “You’re saying that he was in Singapore and… he’s somehow connected to this?” he asked, running over the details in his mind.

  “Wait here,” Shiro said suddenly and excused himself. He returned with a staff card, which Ace held up to the nightlight. On it was the name of a renowned tuition centre, which Ace was very familiar with, as he had once attended classes there.

  “Dante threw this away, but I picked it out,” Shiro said. “From there, I found out that he was a teacher. I’m certain that the boy who died was his student.”

  A suffocating, heavy feeling in Ace’s chest started to swell. He wanted to run out of the house and find Dante just to apologise to him. Shiro placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it gently. “They must have been quite close,” he sighed and put on his glasses. “Do you know how many phantoms I had to exorcise?”

  “How did he manage to…”

  “Get out of it? Yeah, he did. By the way, did he tell you that he has a pet cat?”

  Ace shook his head. “Wow, there’s still a lot you don’t know about him,” Shiro remarked, but this time with a smile. “No worries, there won’t be anything upsetting in this memory, which is one of my favourites by the way.”

  Once again, they viewed Shiro’s memories. It started with Kakoshiro frantically looking for Dante, but to no avail. He paced about the room, chewing on his nails. “He went out without me knowing! Did he use… He used Enigma,” he muttered as he pulled at his hair. “He used it! I knew it! One moment I take my eyes off him and-”

  The door to his house flew open. Dante tottered in, cradling a small bundle against his chest. Everyone, past and present, watched as he undid his belt buckle with one hand. The belt clattered to the floor and was promptly arranged into a loop. The bundle was neatly placed within the circle, and Dante settled on all fours. Kakoshiro peered over his shoulder as he tenderly unwrapped his jacket. A trembling black kitten mewed shrilly as it kneaded the fabric swaddling it.

  “Whose cat-”

  “Mine. All mine.” Dante shifted the kitten away from prying eyes. There was a red hand-shaped mark on his cheek that pulsed with every word he spat. He stared at the kitten, his hands hovering above it, unsure of whether to stroke it or hold it to warm its frail body. His drunkenness eventually caught up to him as he flopped onto his side, laying his head next to the makeshift catbed.

  “Sssupernova!" Dante mumbled before hiccupping loudly. “Nova? Hmhm… Nova.”

  Dante murmured the kitten’s name over and over, and each time, the kitten mewed back as though talking back to him. It fell silent when he did.

  Ace turned to Shiro, but Shiro remained oddly transfixed on the Vision. A warm golden glow enveloped them, and the scene gradually dissolved, revealing something that made Ace’s eyebrows lift in surprise.

  It was a quarrel.

  The dialogue between them was indecipherable, but Kakoshiro was talking down to Dante, who was slumped against the kitchen counter. The blonde’s hair was sticking up in all directions as though he had just woken up. Kakoshiro gesticulated at the kitten, which was wearing a tiny white cone. It was curled up on the counter and appeared to be in deep sleep. “See that cute cone? I made that,” whispered Shiro.

  “But you named it!” exclaimed Kakoshiro, cutting himself off in the present day.

  “Did I? You claimed that I picked it up and named it? Preposterous.”

  “Call out to it then.”

  “Ashy? Jinx? Blackie?”

  “No, no, no!”

  “Pets would respond to their names. This one does not.”

  “Because you did not call out its name!”

  “I clearly didn't name it! Stop putting words in my mouth…” Dante groaned as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “What else could I have named it? Nova?! After a stupid supern–”

  A sharp mew interrupted the argument. The kitten, christened as Nova, stood on all fours. Its tiny tail was ramrod straight as it sought out the voice that called out for its name. Dante stared up at it with widening eyes. It tottered to the edge of the counter, its paws making small tapping noises on the granite. Teetering on the edge, it looked upon its owner and mewed sweetly.

  Before anyone could react, Nova took a huge leap.

  A frail kitten, summoning the strength of a giant for a leap of faith toward its owner, made Ace’s nose wrinkle. He could hardly stop the sniffles at the sight of Nova clinging stubbornly to Dante’s chest. All its attempts to nuzzle Dante failed as the cone got between the two of them, causing it to cry louder. The sharp edge in Dante’s eyes was gently dulled by Nova’s tiny paws. After much coaxing from Nova, Dante finally cradled its small body in one hand, bowed his head, and drew it close to his chest.

  “You are the emotional kind.” Shiro nudged him playfully. He, too, had tears at the corner of his eyes.

  “You’re the one crying in your memory,” Ace retorted.

  It was a retort brimming with defiance, but as Shiro’s memories of Dante and Nova surged forth, it became clear that it was not only Shiro’s tears that painted them. What was once Shiro’s was now a tapestry of intertwined feelings that belonged to both of them.

  “He may have buried his feelings in Nova, but I was worried that it may not be enough,” he sighed wistfully. “But it seems that my worries are unfounded.”

  “What were you worried about?”

  “If he somehow managed to…” Shiro drew a line across his neck. “And the baggage he carries…”

  “Don’t say that! Dante would…” Ace trailed off as he realised what would happen. The one thing that Felix first warned him about at the very beginning.

  “There’s something else that worried me,” Shiro sighed. “About a year after Dante enrolled, an executive order was issued by the Elders.”

  Silence fell between them, and Ace realised that he was starting to pry too much. “It’s okay if you-”

  “Executive Order 6210, ‘Angels and Demons’,” Shiro cut Ace off. “If Dante Higashino, wielder of the ability ‘Angels and Demons’ and the Obscure Scarlet, were to lose control or die, all Sanctums, Institutions and Academies would be locked down. A kill-on-sight order will be issued for said Aberrant.”

  Ace let out a shaky breath and unintentionally crushed the card Shiro handed him. “For three months, I lived by that order. Perhaps a portion of the phantoms came from me. Or perhaps it was all from me, who knows?”

  A brooding disquiet settled in the room, but Shiro broke it. “Ah… Sorry, I got too pessimistic there,” he apologised deeply.

  However, the golden memory that had been established in the room had been stained black.