Soukoku One-Shots

White Feathers and Wicked Heavens Pt. 7

Many Lifetimes Ago

The True Order of Events

The Heavens were aglow with blistering white sunlight, and every inch was flooded with Angels crowding together to witness the first execution in the history of their kingdom.

"Nakahara Chuuya and Dazai Osamu." Fukuchi Ouchi's voice boomed through the square, silencing the furious whispers of the audience from where he sat high above them, Angel of Justice and head of the Council of the Heavens. "You are here to receive your sentence for crimes against the Heavens, the kindly universe, and the duties it has bestowed upon you as the respective Angels of Life and Death."

Crimes. Dazai could not recall a single day that being in love with Chuuya had felt like a crime.

He knelt, bound and chained, to the wooden stage in the center of the square. He could hardly move without his body erupting in throbbing pain, and the cursed metal of the chains burned like the sun never could, suppressing every lick of his abilities as the Angel of Death.

Chuuya knelt beside him, also bound and chained. His skin was splattered with bruises and dried ichor, and his white wings gleamed in the morning light. Dazai had never seen wings as brilliantly white as Chuuya's, nor a look as fearlessly defiant as the one he burned into Fukuchi, chin cocked up and eyes blistering. It unsettled Dazai to see him without his staff across his back, large cleaver blades on either end catching the sun almost as adamantly as his hair.

The Angel of Freedom, a perpetually delighted Nikolai Gogol, leaped from his seat with a parchment scroll in his hand. "I will now recount your collective offenses in further detail" he exclaimed, grinning wide.

Dazai glanced at Chuuya—only briefly, but it was enough to see the scorching hatred burning on his face as he stared Fukuchi down.

Nikolai cleared his throat and began: "Nakahara Chuuya and Dazai Osamu have been privately conspiring for an indeterminate number of millennia and thereby directly disobeying Law Two of the Heavens' official code, which states, and I quote: 'The Angels of Life and Death are hereby and forevermore forbidden from direct contact in any and all universal locations of available occupation, so as to ensure the invaluable balance of the kindly Universe and its Angelical guardians.'"

Nikolai's gaze flitted between Dazai and Chuuya as he still kept that disgustingly cheery smile plastered onto his face. Waiting with bated breath for an outburst from Chuuya, no doubt. Something told Dazai that he was perfectly aware of the immoral nature of this situation. Something told Dazai that he didn't care.

"Well? Does that sound accurate to the two of you?"

Of course it didn't. Nikolai knew it, and Dazai knew it, and Chuuya knew it, and even if Fukuchi had convinced the entire Heavens that he didn't, he knew it too. He and Chuuya—Life and Death—were a pair, as they had been since the universe's birth. That union would never cause imbalance, and cleaving it would not mend the damage.

"Absolutely not!" Chuuya shouted, jostling the chains that kept him bound to the platform. Even now, his eyes crackled with anger and lightning. "We've done nothing wrong!"

His darling Chuuya. Dazai could not help a sad little smile—they both knew the effort was futile, but he would surely scream his throat out before he submitted to that.

Whispers erupted throughout the audience, of course, but Nikolai looked perfectly delighted. "You are still in violation," he chirped, clasping his hands behind his back. "Perhaps you should have considered this beforehand."

"Before any of this existed?" Chuuya fired back. Dazai watched his wings attempt to flare with his frustration, but the chains kept them bound tight against his back and Dazai's heart throbbed at the sight. If he had not been so foolish about leaving the Heavens unattended with someone like Fukuchi around, Chuuya would not be in shackles.