D. N. Angel Fan Fiction ❯ Dante's Prayer ❯ One-Shot

Author's Notes: Really brief and to the point, but written as my response to the end of the anime series. Brief as it is, please enjoy. ^^

Though we share this humble path, alone...
How fragile is the heart
Oh give these clay feet wings to fly
To touch the face of the stars

Breathe life into this feeble heart
Live this mortal veil of fear
Take these crumbled hopes etched with tears
We'll rise above these earthly cares...
-- Loreena McKennit, "Dante's Prayer"

He could hear nothing, see nothing, smell nothing, feel nothing. Moments ticked by like hours, hours ticked by like months. There was only the gaping darkness and nothing more. All was black; all was death.

Dead, he thought. He was dead.

He might have expected death to be more dramatic.

He had never thought of what it meant to die. It was hard to understand such a concept when he had no true life of his own. His was dependent on another. He did not exist unless there was someone else to exist for him. That was what his existence was -- dependence.

Death, he had thought, was the ultimate finale. No longer did the lungs breath, the heart beat; everything stopped.

But he was conscious. Of everything, he was conscious. Though he could not see, nor smell, nor hear, nor feel, he could think. His brain still processed.

Was that was what death was, he wondered? A permanent paralysis? The body did not move, but the brain thought?

A weaker person might have panicked at such a thought. But he did nothing. What could he do? He was dead.

Daisuke...

Did you survive?

Death had not faded his memories. He remembered the powerful beat of wings, the screams of rage and pain, the sound of destruction all around them.

I won't forget you, Dark.

But you should. Forget me, and live.

Death, he decided, was depressing. He longed for that finale, that ending it was supposed to be. He longed for anything that would close his mind away, anything to make this strange consciousness fade. Death, he thought, would be a respite to this.

Unless this was what being dead was after all.

He was dead, alone with his own thoughts for an eternity.

And that struck as the final blow. He was alone, floating endlessly in some great dreamscape, and he was dead.

He spoke the words, 'I don't want to be dead.' But no sound came. Or maybe he had not spoken at all. It felt as though his lips had never moved at all.

Then he heard it. It seemed so far away, and yet so close. The distant sound of slow, uneven breathing. He was not alone.

He fumbled in the black abyss. He could move. It had all been nothing, a moment of strange panic and detachment from the world.

He followed the sound, walking through the darkness, each step a strained, pained one. There was something in the distance. He could not make out its shape; only saw a blur of white that seemed to glow in the never ending black. It felt like a year that he walked, one slow, pained step at a time, drawing nearer at a snail's pace.

But when he was prepared to give it up for gone, he was there.

Krad.

Broken, he lay there, his shattered wings a blanket around him. But he breathed, and furious amber eyes glared into his own.

He fell to his knees. Why, he wondered, did such a wave of relief wash over him to see Krad? To see Krad alive?

To see him again at all?

It was because Krad had always been that dependence. Throughout his life -- no, his existence -- Krad had been the one constant, the one variable that never changed. Krad was always there. He knew he existed if Krad was there.

"You," Krad hissed.

He collapsed against him. He was tired. So long, he had lived this way, but now he could stop. Now, he could rest. He didn't want to fight anymore.

"Dark--!"

"Shut up," Dark muttered. He pressed his fingers to his lips and silenced him. "Shut up."

Beneath him, the furious breathing began to slow. It became calm, even, and they lay there, tangled together.

"Together again," he murmured. "Just like in the beginning..."

"This is Hell," Krad said, and he knew that he did not mean them, not them together again. He meant this world that was theirs now. Dark lifted his head and stared into the empty, sightless gaze boring into the heavy black hanging over them.

"This is Hell," he answered, "but we're not alone anymore."

We're together, because... I wouldn't forget you...

So I found you.

I found you. Here…

"Into the depths of Hell, Krad...

"... I would fall with you."