Fantastasia van Mizeria, The Ice Queen of Hell

“Deze! Deze!”

The white-haired angel who just struck down his peer merely stands by, observing the situation. The Sword of Death still rests within his hand.

Fantastasia, at this point, covered in blood, is trying her damn best to prevent her partner from bleeding out. Crystals of red ice form underneath Dezechiel in a desperate attempt to freeze the wounds shut.

She tears off a piece of her skirt, tying an improvised bandage around the struck angel’s shoulder.

Rentael sighs. “You know, if I wanted to, I could finish him off right now.”

“You stay out of this!” the desperate girl cries, her voice cracking. “How could you do this to him?? Aren’t the two of you brothers?!”

The tears streaming down her face turn to ice and shatter on the frozen floor.

“Maybe in the past. But it’s forbidden to stand in the way of another angel’s mission.”

“Mission this, mission that, don’t you feel one bit of grief over striking down your kin?!?”

Rent looks at the bloody scene. “Of course I do. But this is simply how things are.”

“Simply how things are?! You should treasure your family more than that! After all, after all…”

Dezechiel begins coughing on the ground, the restless demon girl instantly switching her attention to him.

“Deze! Deze! Do you hear me?”

The wounded angel opens one of his eyes. “Regretfully so. Your hair looks like a mess right now, haha.”

“More importantly, how are you feeling?” Fantastasia ignores the feeble snarky remark, instead checking the strength of his pulse by palpating his carotid vein. She puts her ear to his torn chest, trying to make sense of his frantic breathing.

Deze looks down at the extent of his injury. You can kind of see the surprise in his eyes as he realizes this is a bit more than your average battle scratch.

“I’d like to say ’tis but a flesh wound, but… I really can’t, haha.”

“Moron! This is no time to joke!”

Dezechiel gently pushes the demon girl off of him. He slowly gets on his knees, his face twisting with every movement.

“You’re in no position to move! Just lay down and-”

“Why are you specifically after her?!” the brown-haired angel ignores the girl’s attempts at making him rest. “She did nothing wrong! In fact, I’m the one who did more bad things!”

Rentael lifts his eyebrows, then smiles. “Ooh, you’ve still got some fighting spirit left. I like that. To answer your question though, it’s very simple: there are no other demons left.”

Please stop.

“Huh? What do you mean there are no other ones left?” He looks over at the girl. Her gaze is fixed on the ground, not fighting the statement one bit.

“That’s right. Fantastasia van Mizeria is the last unsealed demon. The Ice Queen of Hell, the Snow Lily, call her what you want. There’s nobody else left.”

Please don’t do that.

“As if! Why would there be no other demons left-”

“Because she sealed them all in her eternal ice.”

Please don’t expose my heart like that!

Deze turns to her. “Hey, Fan-Fan, that can’t be true, ri-”

The girl’s eyes turnt rivers all but confirm it.

“I… I didn’t want to!” the drops of ice hit her bloodstained hands. “I was just doing what I was told! I thought I was protecting them, but… my ice never melts, once it’s formed… I didn’t know that, I didn’t, I swear…!”

The brown-haired angel pulls her in closer, embracing her with a warm hug. Even if a good part of that warmth is caused by the acute bleeding.

The streams of blood mix with the pink strands of her hair. The girl doesn’t pull away; quite the opposite, she digs her face further into Deze’s chest.

“They were right! A demon who can only cast ice magic is nothing but an ill omen! A nuisance! I should have never been born, I should’ve-”

“Shut up.”

That catches her by surprise.

“Eh?”

“Shut up.”

Fantastasia’s face twists in pain. “What do you mean ’shut up’? I killed them all! The ones who said I’m a freak! The few who treated me nicely, even if only out of politeness! My ashamed father, my disinterested mother, my caring, but busy sister, my cocky older brother, my newborn younger brother-”

“Shut up.”

She curls her fingers. “What do you mean? I’m a murderer, I killed them all, I-”

“Shut. Up.”

She topples into his lap, the warm blood dripping by her ear. “I don’t understand, what is you’re trying to say…”

“I’ll tell it to you however many times it takes for you to finally listen. Shut up.”

She grips the fabric of his pants. “I… don’t get it…”

The angel lightly caresses the top of her head. “Stop hating yourself. You’re much more amazing than that.”

The girl looks up. She can barely make out the shape of his face through her teary eyes, but she can tell he’s smiling.

“Some time ago,” Rentael interrupts their moment, “a few angels descended to hell to do some… cleaning, so to speak. What they didn’t expect was to meet a girl who was a bit different from all the other demons. A whiny little lily with ice for flames, a bit too powerful and a bit too inexperienced to understand what she was doing. And so, instead of just freezing the trespassers, she froze all of hell with everyone with it.”

Dezechiel pulls the weeping girl closer, as if to protect her from the rambling angel.

“Sadly, my mission doesn’t change though; I’m here to kill her.”

“Deze, just…”

“Shut up.”

The angel slowly gets up, struggling to stand straight. With no weapon in his arms, in no state to fight, having no chance of victory, yet no intention of backing down, he marches towards his opponent.

Rentael waits for him to get close, then sends him back to the ground with a single kick. He’s definitely holding back at this point. Not like he needs to do much to win, anyways.

“Deze please,” the demon girl jumps to him, trying to keep him from getting up, “stop this! Please, just let me…”

“Shut up,” he wipes the blood from his lips.

However, that’s his limit. No matter how cool you’re trying to look, no matter what’s at stake, you’re gonna reach your limit eventually.

His knees give in and he falls back on the ground in an almost theatrical fashion.

The white-haired angel leisurely walks over to the duo. Dezechiel gives him a contentious look, but doesn’t have the strength to do anything. He pulls the broken demon girl closer to him, then lightly kisses her on her messy hair.

“D-Deze?”

“I can buy you five or ten seconds if I use my angel form, so-”

“You idiot!” she beats into his chest like a child. “That’s not what I want… You know that’s not what I want, but you still…!”

The executioner looks at them from above. “You can’t save her, no matter what you try. I will hunt her down and will finish her off.”

The expended angel smirks. “You sure you can fight her with an injury of that caliber? Especially when she can go all out?”

“Well, who knows? I don’t think she has much left in her either.” He points at the wound in her stomach with the tip of his sword.

Dezechiel just now notices it. Indeed, Fantastasia let her guard down for just a second during her fight with Hans von Lederkuchen. And that’s what sealed her fate.

The white-haired swordsman lifts his blade up. “You've reached your limit, Deze. At this point, I'm just delivering a coup de grâce.”

Dezechiel grits his teeth. So this is it?

“Wait!” The demon girl stops the forgone conclusion by putting herself between the two angels. “It's not him you want to kill, right?”

Rentael nods. Seeing the resolution in her bloodshot eyes, he quickly understands.

Fantastasia looks back at the angel behind her, loosely hanging on the brink of death. Her face lights up red, but she bites her tongue and powers through.

Coming to terms with your own mortality is one of the most empowering experiences. It allows you to see things for what they really are; attain values of true importance.

Accepting death is accepting a full life. Once you are fully aware of the fact that you will, without fail, perish one day, you truly realize what you hold dear and what it is you want to do.

The girl slides down onto the ground, facing the angel. She wraps her arms around his nape, lightly pulling him in.

“Fantastasia?”

“You're really such an insufferable idiot,” the girl reprimands him in a sweet voice, their faces centimeters apart.

He doesn't respond, unable to tell what's going on. Or rather, he doesn't want to accept it.

She gets even closer.

“But even that part of you…” she whispers at a critical range. The hot breath on his ear sends the angel's senses into a sympathetic overdrive.

“I love it.”

Wait. Please.

She looks at him, beet red. “Sorry, but my heart can't handle you seeing me like this, so…”

With one hand, she covers his eyes, pushing the brown bangs out of his face. The other slides down his back.

And just like that, the defeated angel overdoses on her sweetness- and a light amount of inexperienced tongue action. For a brief moment, his mind goes blank. He can't think of anything. But somehow, that's ok.

It feels almost natural to pull the girl closer in. Like a reflex that's been sitting in the back of his head all his life, lying dormant until it was time.

Contrary to her usual chill, he feels her warmth. All reluctance evaporated, all barriers set aside to let him, even if only for a second.

Those three hundred years spent together culminate into this single moment, burning brighter than a supernova.

Alas, bright flames don't last long. Eventually, the kiss ends and she lets him see her.

“You're squeezing a little too hard, haha.”

Her lit up cheeks, the heavy ragged breath, those wonderful blue eyes desperately trying to look away but curious enough to take a quick peek every now and then-

He loves all of it.

The girl smiles, tears streaming down her cheeks. 

“This is my goodbye,” she bids her farewell while gently setting his hands aside.

Please no.

Not like this…

Not Fantastasia…

Please, anyone, God, Devil, if you hear me, then please, just one more time…

Give me the strength to stand up and stop her, just once more!

Please, don't let it…

…end like this.

Don't let my snow lily wilt…

Please, I beg of you…

All those prayers fall on deaf ears though; life is never that convenient.

The girl stands back up and wipes her mouth into a sleeve. Recalling this last sweet memory is making the corners of her lips rise in a very endearing way.

To the angel's horror, she gets on her knees and bows her head. Rentael acknowledges this and merely lifts the crimson blade.