Toxic Elf - Chapter 26

“Please, please, stop!”

Just as I expected, the “little one” is the first to show signs that the treatment is working. A pitiful little voice, a face drenched in tears. I might even have felt sorry for the girl…

If this creature really were a child, rather than something the biblical God created a couple of millennia ago. And then some. A lot more. So I look at her only to judge whether she’s “ready” to play the role I have in mind.

“Too soon.” For now, all she wants is for the torture to stop.

If I stop now, all I’ll have is a servant who fears me, whose loyalty isn’t worth a bent copper. At the first opportunity, she’ll betray her tormentor, try to escape, or stab him in the back. Her education is underway, but it isn’t finished. There’s nothing in the Fallen Angel’s eyes but a plea for me to stop, to quit “refreshing” her most painful, agonizing memories.

Yes, she’s no Freed Sellzen. He hadn’t even lived a paltry two decades.

“But why?! What did I do?! I’ll agree to—” My future servant’s pleas cut off, and her eyes roll back as I reactivate the arrays in her brain.

Physical pain… It worked well on the “exorcist,” largely because he’d lived such a short life. There was nothing in his past I could really get my hooks into. And as for Freed himself…

He was just a dull psychopath with a few fixations. He loved inflicting pain and suffering, loved killing, and, as so often happens with sadists, couldn’t take pain himself. His sense of self crumbled quickly, and “reassembling” him into an obedient dog was easy.

I would have kept him as a servant, but… he was a psycho. The problems caused by his unstable mind hadn’t gone away, and spending ages putting it back in order? I had better things to do. Better to kill him and be done with it. The prison’s spells siphoned off his life force, though an enormous amount went to waste because he hadn’t surrendered it willingly. Who cares? In the end, I still got slightly more than Reika Marikawa would have paid.

Besides, Freed had “carved up sinners” enough times to earn a death sentence himself, so there was even a measure of justice in my decision. A hypocritical kind of justice, naturally: self-serving and full of double standards. But I’ve never lied to myself. I’m a rather peculiar sort of righteous man.

The Fallen Angels, though… Hm. At least I can work with them. Of course, if we’re talking about “justice,” all three deserve execution. Their plans for Asia and their insolence toward Sona-san are far from their worst offenses.

But I’ve said it before: double standards are my specialty. I need these three. I can profit from them, and if I put in the effort, I might even secure their loyalty. So their punishment will be something useful to me: service. I’d call it “eternal,” but if anyone knows nothing lasts forever, it’s me. I might die, they might die, everyone might die—take your pick.

I’m working on them differently, too. Physical pain is less effective on beings who have lived long lives, fought plenty of battles, and been taken prisoner before. Over those long lives, though, all three have accumulated a wealth of memories that cause them terrible anguish. Not physical pain, but pain of the soul.

Take Mittelt, short and fragile-looking. Her Fall is an especially painful memory. As an Angel, she was cheerful but rather careless. That was her undoing. One mistake—which even I thought absurdly trivial—and goodbye halo and Heaven, hello Underworld and black wings.

Had she ever dreamed of Falling? Absolutely not. Did she regret it? Without a doubt. She spent a couple of human lifetimes agonizing over how she could have avoided making that mistake. Literally! She pleaded with God for decades. And in the end, she had enough resentment toward her Creator to fill an entire freight train, with plenty left over.

Her entire life as a Fallen Angel has swung between resentment and curses on one side, sincere repentance and pleas for forgiveness on the other. Even now, the “little one” sometimes launches into another round of appeals to Heaven, begging her “father” to forgive her.

And what can I say after learning her story? Her Creator is an asshole. I certainly won’t be praying to him. If he kicked his own creation out into the cold over some trivial bullshit, he’d probably rain lightning down on me. What else is there to say? The biblical God is so strict that Angels, despite having their little peckers and pussies, can only fuck inside a specially made barrier—and only after a ritual and weeks of prayer, while “feeling pure love for each other” without even a hint of lust! Angel boys must be very different from humans and demons. A human or demon wouldn’t even get it up for an ordeal like that. And I feel sorry for the girls: they’ve turned sex into something close to assembly-line work. With someone you truly love, no less!

How is that supposed to work? Sorry, dear God, are we praying here or fucking? Apparently the biblical God never heard the saying: “Either take off your cross or put your underwear back on.”

Still, this probably isn’t the world I was born in the first time around. The religious texts tell the usual story: six days to create the world, a day off afterward, and so on. Except this world is actually much older than the biblical God, and he didn’t create humanity. He did step in on their behalf, though not without getting something out of it: faith is rather useful to heavenly beings.

Hm… Or maybe I simply didn’t know about Earth’s mystical side back when I was an ordinary mortal? Even after I was born as Chiba Taro, if I noticed anything supernatural, it was just mindless small fry or anomalies too trivial to bother with. Then again, I was weak and simply couldn’t detect this world’s well-hidden “shadow” side.

All right, no point dwelling on that now.

I turn to Kalawarner, my second servant-to-be. She looks like a grown, fully developed woman.

Very fully developed. My eyes settle of their own accord on the Fallen Angel’s impressive knockers. I give the sources of gravity in this cell a respectful nod. No dirty thoughts—I don’t have a fetish for captive women. I’m just acknowledging the black-winged woman’s considerable assets.

Incidentally, that very “pure love” was why she Fell. Or rather, the lack of it. Though she sincerely believed she loved her partner “the right way.” The result: a Fall, black wings, a fight with her lover, who had Fallen too, and the end of a relationship formed in Heaven, no less.

“Well, thanks, I guess.” I shrug, mildly baffled by the “adversaries” of my current race. “Gifts like these are… surprising.”

Seriously, what a stroke of luck. Has the Great Dao finally smiled on me and showered me with some uncharacteristic good fortune? I probably haven’t landed a haul like this in my last hundred lives. Yes, I’ve already put the captives firmly in the “perks” category.

How could I not? They practically fell into my hands ready-made! After getting to know them, looking through their memories and feeling their emotions, I realized that breaking them would only spoil things. Kalawarner and Mittelt don’t need that. Their souls have suffered for a long time, and they’ll be drawn to someone who can ease the pain in their hearts. Yes, two of the three Fell over utter bullshit, and deep down, I think they believe it too. Both Mittelt and Kalawarner consider their punishment unjust, absurdly harsh—and I can’t argue with them. From the perspective of any sensible being, anyway. From the biblical God’s perspective…

“How… FAMILIAR.” I shake my head, comparing the Angels’ Creator to certain “venerable elders” from the cultivation worlds. More precisely, I’m remembering how far removed from mortal life those elders had become, and how their followers interpreted their decisions.

All that talk of “The Great One’s designs are beyond the minds of mere mortals.” It has the unmistakable ring of “the Lord works in mysterious ways.”

Honestly, I hadn’t expected to draw parallels with the cultivation worlds. Certainly not such obvious ones. The former Lords of the Underworld, for instance, sounded like a cross between dark-path sect leaders and masters of demonic cults. The slightest offense earned an agonizing death, and everyone around them was a slave. If you were one of theirs, you were a slightly privileged slave. If you weren’t, you were a slave to slaves. No wonder their own people were happy to overthrow them.

And the demons’ opponents… Something tells me—my nose, perhaps—that they reek of a fanatical orthodox sect. How else would you describe them? The slightest misstep, and you’re cast out. I’d say, “At least they don’t execute you,” except I can’t! During the three-way war, it was simple: if you Fell, you were the enemy. Fucking marvelous. Sure, I can understand it when someone Falls deliberately, as Raynare did. But cheerful little fool Mittelt deserved a whipping at most. At most! I’d have just wagged a finger at her and clicked my tongue.

And Kalawarner? Since when is being confused about your feelings some terrible sin? What does the biblical God even consider “pure love” when, for Angels, having sex is like leaping into the Abyss without wings or a parachute, with a Fall practically guaranteed nine times out of ten?

What kind of backward bullshit is that? No wonder Angels Fell like raindrops in a downpour during the three-way war, and their population is in such a dire state now. How are they supposed to reproduce when the biblical God isn’t making any new winged ones, and the white-winged ones look at barriers for a bit of fuckity-fuck in horror? What “pure love” can there be when climbing into the marriage bed feels like climbing onto the executioner’s scaffold?

I’m telling you, the whole thing reeks of a sect run by a master who’s achieved enlightenment a thousand times over and simply DOESN’T UNDERSTAND his followers. In his mind, they have to be exactly as he imagines them. Anyone who can’t live up to that gets a kick in the ass and is thrown out of the sect. And they’d better stay out of sight: if the ones who remain catch them, it’s off with their heads.

Absurd. Utterly absurd. And stubbornness worthy of… I don’t even know who. A sensible leader… No, a leader more in touch with mortal life, one who saw the world differently—that’s closer to the mark—would have been horrified by the results of his decisions long ago and eased the rules. Perhaps not all at once; he could have spread the reforms over decades. But the laws would have changed. Otherwise, Heaven is headed for defeat in the long run.

No one will even need to attack it. Angels will simply die out as a biblical race, leaving a handful of the Creator’s closest followers beside his throne. A formidable handful, perhaps, but holy shit, the Upper Plane will face millions of enemies—and there are already heavy hitters among them.

So I honestly don’t understand why Daddy God not only refuses to change the rules, but won’t even follow his own! Take Mittelt. She repented. She even repented of having regretted her repentance. Why weren’t her wings made white again? In Catholicism, repentance is central to the sacrament of penance! Mittelt repented with all her heart. She called out to her Father, begged for punishment, for a chance to atone. What did she get in return? Silence. He didn’t even take away her hope, leaving her to suffer in uncertainty.

Very… cruel.

But useful. Could I really pass up a gift like a punishment so unjust, so wildly excessive? Of course not! The little one has just relived her Fall. She’s hurting, full of resentment, longing to return to Heaven. Kalawarner longs for it too, for that matter. The injustice done to them both will be the key to their souls. They know their punishment was too harsh, that their offenses were nowhere near grave enough to deserve it.

They’ve been thrown away. More than once. First Heaven cast them out, then their own Fallen Angel superiors abandoned them. Kalawarner has been abandoned three times: the man she loved accused her of not loving him purely enough, then fluttered off on his little black wings. Something tells me he was the one at fault. Kalawarner’s years of tears and grief, for instance: even her Fall hurt less than the betrayal of the man she loved… who was, objectively speaking, an asshole.

What do they both dream of, quietly, hiding the thought even from themselves behind false bravado and hollow laughter? They dream of being needed. Of being valued. Of not being betrayed. Of being punished when they make a mistake, perhaps, but forgiven too. They want to stop drifting aimlessly, latching onto groups of scum for a pitiful imitation of belonging, and live in a world they can call their own.

And I, Chiba Taro, will give them that. They will become my servants. Servants of one who will one day be Great. Of one who will plant his feet on Earth and overturn the Heavens. One whom all, without exception, will call Mighty and Incredible. Unrivaled. And my servants will climb to the summit after me and take their places at the foot of their Lord’s throne.

Once they truly pledge their loyalty to me, they will become part of me. Their grievances will be my grievances; their achievements, my achievements. When I dine from platinum plates, they will dine from gold. When I’m swimming in money, they will want for nothing. Those who betrayed them will become my enemies and pay tenfold for the pain they caused my people. Those who spill their blood will die in agony.

“Because I am Chiba Taro, and I won’t let anyone touch what’s mine.”

Trite words from a vain, arrogant son of a bitch from the cultivation worlds. But I mean them. They are a promise imbued with unbreakable Intent, pouring into Mittelt’s and Kalawarner’s minds right now. They form the foundation of an illusion that will show them what lies ahead, explain my goals, and let them glimpse the future awaiting them if they agree. The first shoots of their loyalty will grow from this: the knowledge that as long as they stand faithfully behind me, as long as their faith in me is unshakable, as long as each of them is willing to die for me… I will never abandon them.

Chiba Taro has no need for hypocritical bastards like himself. I’ve learned that lesson often enough. I’ll be the only two-faced bastard, surrounded by loyal followers and repaying their devotion tenfold. There it is… another side of my hypocrisy: I don’t give a damn about anyone who isn’t with me, but I’ll do anything for my own. Because they are mine.

“And so it shall be.” My words, brimming with Intent, thunder through the Sitri House prison, making everyone on this floor cower in fear. Mittelt’s and Kalawarner’s bodies arch as the arrays advance to the next stage of their conditioning. Demonic temptation, I’d call it—though, with my experience in the cultivation worlds, I’m better at it than any demon I’ve ever met. “I will become your EVERYTHING. YOU WILL GIVE ME EVERYTHING. AND AS LONG AS I LIVE, YOU WILL NEVER BE ALONE!!!”

The silence that follows rings in my ears. I let out a weary breath. Both Fallen Angels are many times stronger than ordinary mortals, modest though their power is, so showing them enough of mine to back up my promises takes a lot out of me. But it’s necessary. Right now, I feel wrung dry. All I want is to teleport home, fall face-first into my pillow, and sleep through the entire weekend. Nothing fancy.

But first I have to trudge to the portal platform on the first floor. Only after a search and clearance from the shift supervisor can I head home. The prison’s wards work rather like a one-way valve: under certain conditions, you can teleport out, but anyone teleporting in has to arrive outside all the outer barriers. The sole exception is Sitri-dono, my Lady’s esteemed father.

Oh, well. Tired or not, I have to keep up appearances. I take a second to compose myself, then leave the two women’s cell. Raynare hangs in the next one, watching her “dreams.” I have no use for her; a different fate awaits her. The Fallen Angel owes someone, so she has a program of her own. I won’t be honest with her, won’t rush, and won’t even try to bring her over to my side. Let her hang there. When I have the time and energy, I’ll deal with her. Roughly, without finesse, to punish her and play a joke on someone else.

Out of habit, I nod to the prisoner in the white dress, meeting her black eyes for a moment.

“Goodbye.”

The quiet female voice stops me in my tracks. That’s unexpected.

I turn back to her. She hasn’t moved: still sitting on the floor in the corner, knees drawn up to her face, hands folded over them. Her knees hide everything below her nose, and her bangs almost cover her eyes.

“Until next time,” I reply thoughtfully, noting once again that the fear has left her gaze.

Hm… what if… As I walk down the corridor, an idle thought filters through my exhaustion: I could dig a well in my yard, put a properly briefed “Sadako” inside it one evening, then invite Reya-chan over for tea.

“Would she beat me up or appreciate the nod to a classic?”

Author’s Note:

If Taro’s thoughts about Heaven in this chapter rubbed anyone the wrong way, I apologize. Remember, this is still a DxD story, and its treatment of Christianity is… debatable, to say the least.