Dxd: A demon Among Devils-Chapter 16: []:Metatron

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"You will not."

She turned to stare at him with wide eyes. He cursed inwardly. He had not meant to be so blunt.

"The state you are in," he began hesitantly, "it is my fault. I could not heal you completely."

"Do not blame yourself, Arisato-san," she tried to sit up, but failed even that simple motion, such was her weakness. Instead, she offered him a small smile, "I am sure you tried your best, and I am grateful for that."

"You misunderstand," he frowned, trying to come up with an easier way to say it, but couldn't, "When I found you, you were already dead."

The girl looked down.

"Oh," she said in a small voice.

He wished he didn't have to tell her, but she had a right to know.

"Your Sacred Gear was taken out. The process killed you."

Asia closed her eyes, and her hands clenched into fists on the bed sheet as she recollected memories she had no wish to recall.

"I remember being tied up and Issei-san coming to rescue me. And then Raynare started drawing out the Sacred Gear. It felt like something was pulling away my life force, dragging it away even as I tried to hold on," she winced, "It hurt. And then everything went black."

"Yes," he said, not knowing what else to say.

The resulting silence that fell weighed like lead in his mind. He grimaced. He was not good at this consoling business.

"When I first tried to revive you," he said at last when the stillness became unbearable, "I was unsuccessful. The Light refused you."

The girl's face fell, but she nodded in understanding.

"I am not surprised," she said softly, "I was excommunicated by the Church. The Heavens will never accept me."

"The Church has no say whether you are accepted into Heaven or not."

She looked up at him in surprise.

"But the Church-"

"Is an institution run by men," he finished for her, "And men have never decided who goes to Heaven. That has always been God's domain."

"That is true," she admitted, "So then why does the Light refuse me?"

"You broke a rule."

"A rule?" confusion spread across her features.

"A law of the Heavens."

It was what Metatron had told him as they stood amongst the wreckage, he gazing up to her chained form, and it merely watching from afar.

Asia hesitated, then nodded, agreeing with him reluctantly.

"I once healed a devil, when I was still a Holy Maiden. That was why the Church excommunicated me. He was hidden as a human, and I did not know at the time. When it was finally revealed, I was called a witch and driven away by the very people I helped," a sorrowful expression crossed her face, "I was forced to go to the Fallen Angels for safety, and Raynare took me in."

That made sense. Healing her hadn't been the problem. The cuts and bruises that were on her body were easily washed away by a simple Dia. It was the resurrection part that he could not replicate. The Light was a rigid, unbending thing. Its laws were few, but they were stringent. Break any one of them, and the Heavens would cast you down. In her case, she had broken the most important law; consorting with demonkind, and while she had done so unknowingly, the Light made no exception.

Some would decry this as unjust. Some would rage against the Heavens for enforcing such a severe decree. They would be fools. The Light was strict because it had to be strict. A stray step from the path Heaven ordained, and one risked corruption. It was how the Fallen had came to be, and he had seen the evidence of the darkness that stained their souls, both from Raynare and the Personas he housed in his mind. So while others might have pitied the girl and declared her fate to be a tragic one, he merely accepted it.

But accepting it did not mean he would not defy it. Nyx had demanded humanity accept their deaths. He defied her by having Thanatos ram its blade into her ugly, hollow face. And when she switched Arcanas, turning into monstrous form after monstrous form, he had defied her further by summoning the ultimate Personas of each of the Arcana she chose to defile. And when at last she was forced into her final form, the great shadow of the moon falling inexorably towards the Earth to bring forth the end of all creation, he had ascended time and space to defy her on that blasted, desolate landscape, with nothing but the unlimited potential of humanity at his back and the uncountable numbers of Persona in his mind.

It had been enough. Nyx was powerful. There was no denying that. But he accepted she was powerful, accepted that she was what she claimed to be, and nonetheless, defied her.

And when he stood amongst the ruins of that church, watching the unmoving body of a girl chained to a beam of broken wood, he had accepted that it was to be her fate, and nonetheless defied the Light to give her life back once more.

Metatron had almost been furious.

"If the Light couldn't help me," Asia finally spoke up, "how did you revive me?"

He smiled at her, hoping it would reassure her.

"Not all forms of resurrection belong to angels."

"I... see."

She did not see, but he did not blame her. It was a remarkably simple explanation for a procedure that would most likely undermine her entire faith. It was also something he did not wish to fully disclose, not while he was still unsure of his place in this world and his allegiance to those that dwelled on it.

"But it worked," she asked hopefully, and when he nodded, she pressed on, "If it worked, why do I feel so weak?" her eyes darted to him, widening in realization, "You said I would never recover."

"I did. Your Sacred Gear. I could not replicate it."

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