Fallen (Halloween 2024 Special Episode)

Inspired by a set of Illustrations made for Halloween 2024 which have recently been uploaded over at Pixiv, the following is a little departure, into the world of (slightly steamy) fantasy. Unfortunately, Honeyfeed doesn't offer much in terms of being able to format the poem in an ideal way, so I apologise in advance for the suboptimal reading experience.

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The sun has long departed, no longer offering its light,

Making way for the moon, at its full splendour this misty night

No longer burdened by the bright of day,

Monster, ghouls and beasts come out to play.

Wandering out, beware of a single misstep, flinch or error;

Those who lurk all around won’t hesitate to fill you with terror.

The howls, growls, screams and roars of the numerous creatures start.

All alone, fear torrents in and rapidly fills your heart.

The chilling sounds grow louder and your feet stick in place

Sweat quickly trickles down your back as your pulse starts to race.

The evil forces surround you; there’s no escape from this place.

Hopelessly, you stay still as you draw your last breath.

Your prize lies before you; a merciless death.

❀

Clouds drift by, along the dark, starry expanse of the night sky. The moon looms large, beaming down beautifully on the desolate land below.

The distant, lengthy howl of a wolf, the piercing cry of a predatory bird, the roar of an attacking leopard, the frantic flutter and shrill squealing of seemingly countless bats; all making their mark on the eerie soundtrack that accentuates the nearby valleys.

While danger seemingly lurks around every corner and in every crevice, I reside in relative safety for the time being. A cold and dark mountainside cavern, with the lingering moon providing the only usable light.

While the myriad of sounds in the valleys below rumble on, likely instilling fear in any ordinary human, I have no such concern, partly thanks to not being a human and partly thanks to having absolutely no ability to affect anything from where I sit.

A thick and heavy metal cuff around each ankle, chained to plates locked into the floor and a fancy, linked hand restraint device, solidly binding both of my wrists together and restricting their movement, held firmly in place with a hefty padlock. The advanced training from my time in the military when I was a human wouldn’t stand a chance, not that the far superior powers that I’ve got now are any better, mind you.

Along with the shackles around my ankles fixing me in place and the device around my wrists ensuring that I don’t break free, I’ve also been saddled with a weighty, spiked collar; also anchored in place by a sturdy lock passed through the front eye. I kinda understood the binding my hands and feet, but this thing? I’ve no fucking clue; I guess my captor really wanted to rub in my face exactly how hopelessly defeated I am.

I guess you’re probably wondering how I ended up here, in such a woeful predicament? Well, let's rewind about an hour.

❀

You’ve got to be shitting me; I’m only a lowly Santō rikui in the Angelic Forces; couldn’t they have sent a better-equipped angel to do this? What? Was there a staff shortage or something??

As I begrudgingly dragged my knee-high, lace-up boots along the barely-existent path on the unforgiving rocky hillside, my mind had little space left that hadn’t been consumed by irritation.

I’m still not particularly accustomed to this longbow either. I’m almost certain that I was supposed to learn from somebody when I was still human, but evidently, I never got around to it. That said, now that I think about it, there’s an annoying sense that I’m forgetting something. Maybe I used to know how to use one and I’ve forgotten? Maybe I knew somebody who was good with them? At this rate, the sudden pain in my head will grow unbearable pretty quickly, so I should probably let it lie…

I’ll admit, finding out that I’d died was a pretty disappointing exchange, though I soon came to realise that it wasn’t all bad. Getting enlisted into another military-like organisation helped shoo some of the immense pessimism and the fact that they allowed me to keep the orange scrunchie, nail polishes and streaks in my hair was pretty cool too. Combined with the elegant, white, sleeveless dress with its red chest ribbon, gold wrist cuffs and brown knee-high boots, the human version of me would probably be jealous.

I did consider flying, but these days, everybody and their dog has a state–of–the–art Air Defence System, which reportedly extends to barren and spooky mountains as well. While us angels can’t be killed particularly easily, we are still subject to pain and I for one wasn’t in the mood to get blown out of the sky. Getting whacked by a SAM on my inaugural mission would probably result in me becoming a laughing stock for all eternity, which is a pretty long time for those in the afterlife…

I’d been tasked with either apprehending or neutralising the fabled demon, Sawa-sama. Reportedly this evildoer had spent the last few hundred years or so thriving off the local population, endlessly making deals with humans in exchange for their life force, which in turn helped extend Sawa’s own lifespan and prevent physical aging.

In addition to draining the life force of humans, Sawa was also reportedly responsible for tempting humans, filling their minds with all sorts of impure and despicable thoughts and the deaths of many angels, supposedly slaughtered by sheer strength alone.

The mountainside that I’d been carefully ascending showed no signs of life, aside from the lengthy howls, vicious growls and sharp screeching of various animals.

After shuffling, hopping and hauling myself up for a long while, despite the mysterious fog that had been growing thicker as the night ticked by, I peered over a junior peak and paused. Uwah; with each of their two banks holding four missiles, either side of a large central detector and pivot housing; a series of modified, ground-installed Type-93 SAM Launchers dotted about the mountainside. I’d like to think that they’ve only got the standard IR sensors for detection, but there’s no way a demon would have a standard unit like what the humans use…

I prepared myself to summon an arrow on arrival; much like the various small arms that populate the ranks of the Angelic Forces, the arrows which we use are a conversion and materialisation of light energy, which we can freely summon, so long as there’s light energy around us, meaning that unlike humans, we needn’t worry about the inconvenience of always having to carry our weapon on us if we want to use it.

I quickly dashed toward the sheer cliff that separated me from the cavern which likely served as the lair of my target.

After making light work of the almost vertical rock face, the soles of my boots softly landed on a small landing area outside the cave’s mouth. I stared into the abyss which lay beyond the opening in the mountainside, longbow in hand and ready to summon a arrow.

I could neither hear, nor see, nor feel even a slight movement within, so I tentatively shuffled into the cave.

I advanced maybe a few metres.

Uwah!?

The quiet flicker of a torch light on one of the walls dimly illuminated the space.

At the same time, I froze and immediately knew that the battle had concluded before it’d even really started.

I still have no clue what devil sorcery had been employed, but it left me totally paralysed, without any chance to react and give myself a fighting chance.

My eyes locked in place, unable to avert in the slightest.

A tall woman stood before me; an image that well and truly lived up to the description of out of this world. Handsomeness unlike anything I’d ever seen, it became impossible to focus on anything other than her.

Short, lustrous, messy, black hair, with rose-coloured streaks which played host to two dark horns.

Stunning, cool, greyish–blue eyes, with a gaze colder than any place on earth that a human could reach, perfectly accentuated by her long lashes and dark eye shadow, which combined flawlessly with her dark lipstick.

Her legs and arms were definitely the stuff of ancient myth; well-toned and muscular, but not to the extent of a bodybuilder or the like. Her overall physique and the fact that she held an almost two–metre tall trident against the floor in her right hand reinforced her strong, commanding and imposing impression. It became immediately clear that slaying an angel or five probably didn’t even amount to a warm–up for her.

As the impure thoughts rapidly clouded my mind, her chest became the specific focus of my attention; while the size of her breasts made me a bit jealous, the spike–covered cups of her dress quickly dispelled any fruity thoughts and helped me realise that her heavy, black collar and fingerless gloves also skimped not on the metal spikes.

Quite thoroughly taken in by whatever magic she’d cast on me, I took it all in with complete awe; trident earrings, cool almond-shaped nails, painted dark brown, a short, fairly tight–fitting dress, with laces running down the central chest area, frills and a thigh–exposing split at either side. The hem of said dress lying just above a thick, single thigh belt which had a bat–shaped pendant suspended from it.

Tracing the silhouette of her powerful legs all the way down to the ground, I found sexy, black, barely–there heeled sandals, whose front straps wrapped flawlessly around her dark–brown painted toes.

My mind had been completely consumed with whatever underhanded magic she’d hit me with. Lust, desire, attraction and a number of other things had absolutely incinerated every last pure thought that previously seemed wholly unshakable.

Her expression remained stoic and frosty as her heels sharply clicked on the stone floor while she slowly headed toward the woefully immobilised angel that stood before her.

She stopped in front of me, trident still firmly in her grip. Her ravishing gaze leaving me fully mesmerised and star–struck. Oddly, that severe pain that I felt earlier when trying to think back to my human life had returned as she stood less than a metre away.

My chest painfully tightened as I braced for the inevitable killer strike.

She lifted her left palm to my cheek, which could probably have burst into flames at any moment, given the heat coursing throughout by body and face especially.

‘Hmm. Rather than kill you, like the rest of those worthless angels, I think I’ll keep you, as my slave,’ she asserted, with an icy and authoritative tone, helping none at all with relieving my internal tension.

‘Yes!’ I quietly yelped.

Yes?!? Have I actually gone nuts???

Before I knew it, my vision started to blur and my legs weakened, threatening to give way underneath me. Still, I remained powerless to take my eyes off the might Sawa-sama.

❀

I awoke and swiftly found myself subdued and uncontestably captured.

Rather than worrying about just how badly the mission had gone and the predicament that I found myself in, my mind snapped back to the hazy moments before I’d been taken down.

That severe head pain; curiously, it entirely vanished in an instant when I accepted what Sawa-sama declared.

While I still had no clue what kind of special power she used to render me powerless, I had to admit that it was very effective. I also had to admit that she’s evidently excellent at what she does; any human wouldn’t stand a chance against her.

Something fundamental had changed in me, contrary to the innocent thoughts that normally filled my mind, I found myself longing for things that no doubt get me cast out from the Angelic Forces.

Longing for her.

While a slave has no right to expect anything from their owner, I dearly hoped that she’d make good use of me, caring not how humiliating or against my core values as an angel her wishes may be.

Wandering into murky territory, I hoped that she’d use me for pleasure as well. It seemed like she lived in the mountain cave without company and surely it must have been lonely. I didn’t care about having to submit, I didn’t care if she’d almost or actually would kill me in the process; I’d like nothing more than for her to feel something even half as amazing as what I felt when I first laid eyes on her and I resolved to beg and plead for her to use me in such a way, ready to be pushed to and beyond my limits for her sake.

While very little made sense, one thing became abundantly clear; I’d fallen.

Fallen from grace and as an angel and more importantly; unequivocally fallen under Sawa-sama’s rapturous, all–encompassing spell, with no will to escape from it.