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Charging in blindly was a mistake, and for the first stages of the battle, that mistake cost the Fallen Angels dear. Half the initial force was neutralized in flickering firefights and savage melees that ran all across the school. The other half, savagely mauled, beat a hasty retreat, regrouping outside on academy grounds and leaving the defenders wearied but triumphant.
For a bare moment, hope glimmered, and victory seemed a distant possibility.
Then Kokabiel entered the fray. The Lord among the Grigori floated up where he could see the school in its entirety. The spears he conjured in his hands were lances of pure power, and he hurled them down in indiscriminate fashion. They detonated where they landed, flashes of angry light, creating massive craters in the earth, annihilating pavement and cement with likewise ease.
Building by building, block by block, the Fallen Angel demolished Kuoh Academy, turning looming structures into rubble, rearranging the very landscape, obliterating everything and anything to get at those inside.
The knife flashed down and buried itself up to its hilt by his head. His eyes flickered towards it then back at the one who had stabbed it down.
"Why can't I do it?" Raynare whispered, "Why can't I do it?" trembling hands left the grip of the blade and clenched at the edges of his shirt, "This is all your fault."
He smiled upwards at her.
"I'm sorry."
She laughed. Pained and bitter.
"Even in a situation like this you can remain so calm… Where is your anger, Nephilim? Where is your rage for the one who betrayed you?" tears threatened to spill down her cheeks, "Where is your hatred for the one in front of you?"
He shrugged.
"All I see in front of me," he said softly, "is someone who is hurting."
She recoiled, and for a brief instant the familiar scorn was back, flashing across her face.
"You would never understand what I went through. You could never comprehend my pain."
He smiled again.
"I will never understand because you choose not to tell me."
She hesitated. Her head dipped down, and he could sense her inner turmoil as clearly as he could see her fear.
"Do you know what happens when an angel Falls?" she finally said. Before he could reply, Raynare was already moving on, speaking so low that he had to strain to hear the words, "There is a feeling inside of you that you are sinking, sinking into something you can never get out off, that you can never escape from, and no matter how hard you try it continues to pull you under, latching onto your soul, dragging you down. It feels like you are drowning in your own thoughts, suffocating under the weight of your own emotions, and when it is over, there is nothing left of what you once were," her fingers had latched onto his shirt again, and they clung there with almost desperate strength, "And after that, it doesn't get any better. The warmth that once gave you purpose is gone forever, and in its place there is a void, a great emptiness that tears at your sanity and violates your thoughts. The things that you once enjoyed you don't ever gain happiness from again. Even your wings, the limbs that you have grown so used to become twisted mockeries of what they once were."
She looked haunted when she finished, as though reliving some long forgotten memory. It took her a moment's pause to regain herself, but even then, when she next spoke, her voice still trembled.
"You get used to it. Eventually. Some may even enjoy it. To those who Fall willingly, these feelings are liberating to them. But not all angels Fall willingly. Some of us are tricked. Some of us are betrayed. Some of us fall in love and suffer both."
"Kokabiel," he said neutrally.
She nodded, her face contorted into an emotion he could not describe.
"I do not know how he first dug his claws into me. How he even knew my name. I was just a normal angel. There was nothing special about me that would have set me apart from the countless others. Perhaps that is what made it so attractive. So alluring. That someone like him would consider me worthy of attention, even if it was the wrong sort," another harsh laugh, more pained this time than bitter, "He was so very earnest about it. So very sincere. He told me that I was the only one who could ever understand him, that I was the only one who could help him. He promised me that he was finding a way back into Heaven's graces," the Fallen Angel scoffed, "As if that was even possible. But what did I know at the time? I was too idealistic, too naïve. I thought that if I could help a Grigori redeem himself, I could earn honor and esteem for myself. More than that, I thought I was doing the right thing."
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