Heaven’s Feel

Here’s the chapter!

If you’d like to read 3/7/13 chapters ahead or just support me, you can do so on my (P)(A)(T). If not, I still truly appreciate you reading my story—thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Good night, everyone, and enjoy the read!

(P)(A)(T)/CalleumArtori.

[...]---[...]

I walked through New York for a few more minutes after leaving the café.

The city was infinitely louder and more crowded than I remembered. It stank more too.

The smell was an aggressive blend of exhaust fumes from car tailpipes, garbage piled up in alleyways, and the grease of cheap street food.

Everything blended together: the expensive perfume of a sharply dressed executive, the cheap cologne of a young man who looked like he was studying for college while he walked, the scent of sweat from the thousands of people around me.

A cacophony of overlapping conversations filled my ears—some about overdue rent, others about work, or what they would have for dinner; some were off-key singing, others arguments, some apologies, random, scattered chatter.

Dogs barking three blocks away, the sound of car, motorcycle, and bus engines on the surrounding streets, horns blaring, brakes screeching, engines revving, wheels screaming as they spun against the asphalt.

Even with my senses dialed down to “minimum,” the experience was still very different from what I remembered.

The vibration of the subway passing below was a constant tingling in the soles of my feet. The taste of the air on my tongue was dry, slightly metallic and greasy, with an aftertaste of dust and hot asphalt.

“No one steps into the same river twice…” I murmured to myself as I walked.

How true that phrase was...

And yet, the city’s chaos was, in a way, nostalgic.

I stopped at a corner, waiting for the light to turn red for the cars, even though I could have crossed anyway.

I rested both hands on the Slick Cane and looked at the flow of vehicles through the intersection ahead.

I still had concealment active, so people simply walked around me without noticing, as if I were just another natural obstacle in their path to work.

(“Something tells me we’re not going to meet Jinn and Millia.”) Ozma’s voice rose in my mind, coming from the Spiritual Realm.

“Where did that insight come from?” I hummed.

(“Experience, instinct, pattern recognition.”) Ozma snorted. (“Call it whatever you want, but I feel like you’re about to do something stupid.”)

I let an amused smile play at my lips.

“I’m going to church.”

Ozma’s tired sigh amused me.

(“Don’t tell me you were actually serious when you told that devil you were going to confess your sins?”) He sounded halfway incredulous.

“The Devil doesn’t lie,” I replied out loud.

My Devil doesn’t.

After all, no father should treat his “son” so superficially.

(“I’d say it’s funny, but I’m more worried than anything else.”) Ozma commented, and I could feel the doubt in his tone. (“What are the odds we get attacked the moment you step inside the church?”)

“Not zero,” I admitted, and started walking again when the light changed. “But not high either. Don’t worry.”

(“And you expect me to believe that isn’t a lie?”) He didn’t sound convinced. (“How am I not supposed to worry? Should I remind you that the simple act of you breathing irritates the divine? Or that one of the traits that make up your existence is literally called ‘Divine Anathema’?”)

(“Or that he literally ate the feathers from the wings of an angel belonging to the God whose church he’s walking into?”) Jinn joined Ozma. (“Including the divinity within them, by the way.”)

She wasn’t far enough away to be unable to use our connection to communicate. At this point, the limit was a city—or days—away.

Since her voice came from the Spiritual Realm and the Mental Microphone was on, the entire stream could hear the conversation.

“I also used the feathers to make a boot. And I have hellfire fused with my soul, along with many sins.” I added items to their list. “But those are details.”

Not to mention the Shadow Puppet.

I could hear the exasperated sigh coming through my connection with Jinn.

(“Is that why you told Millia and me to go ahead? Are you trying to get yourself killed alone?”)

“I like being alive.” I didn’t know why they thought otherwise. “And going to church wasn’t planned.”

I blinked when Stark’s message appeared in front of me.

[(MOD)GeniusBillionairePlayboy]Could you please be a bit more careful while walking? My whiskey bottle almost fell off the shelf, drawn in by the colossal gravity of those massive balls of yours!

I snorted.

“It’s not that bad.”

More messages flew into view, all carried by tiny little angels.

[(MOD)GeniusBillionairePlayboy]You don’t even believe that yourself!ヽ(｀Д´)ノ

[TohsakaHeiress]I just regained consciousness. The Heaven’s feel and feeling my fingers touch an angel was too much for my brain.

[TohsakaHeiress]What’s going on?

“I’m going to church,” I replied helpfully.

Since Rin didn’t comment on licking an angel, the stream probably filtered that out. I just didn’t know which filter had been triggered.

More messages appeared in quick succession:

[TohsakaHeiress]I think I must’ve hit my head harder than I thought, I’m hallucinating stupid words…

[MagicalGirlSera-Tan]You’re not hallucinating, but the words this idiot human is saying really are idiotic!(Panicking magical girl emote)

[MagicalGirlSera-Tan]Have you lost your mind?! If the Big Man upstairs is even a third of what he was back in our world, he’ll send Michael or Uriel to erase you the moment you step half a foot inside that church!

[MagicalGirlSera-Tan]Turn around, Stop! 乂(ﾟДﾟ)

I let out a brief, low laugh.

Both because of Serafall’s reaction and because of Sona’s “What do you mean, ‘was’?”, followed immediately by Serafall’s “Oops.”

The fact that, along with her messages, the little angel carrying them was making a disgusted face also amused me.

“Like I told Ozma, don’t worry,” I replied briefly, without stopping. “There’s little chance of a fight breaking out. And if it does, don’t worry either…”

It wasn’t arrogance on my part to say that. Nor pride…

Maybe it involved a bit of pride, alright, I’ll admit it. I was making some assumptions here, but I had something to base them on.

I had done more than just peek at and touch Heaven when I arrived in this world.

I had managed to… understand a few things, so to speak, when I touched Heaven before.

Again, I wasn’t arrogant enough to claim I understood Heaven, much less God. I couldn’t even feel Him when I looked “up” there.

But my “Truth (Aletheia)” had brushed against Heaven’s “Aletheia (Truth)” for a brief, fleeting moment. That caused a certain resonance, and I was able to acquire some knowledge.

It wasn’t enough for me to understand much—nothing beyond what I was already a specialist in.

That Heaven was imperfect.

[…]

The church wasn’t far.

It was Trinity Church, at the intersection of Wall Street and Broadway.

I’d never been here on my Earth, but I’d heard about it a few times.

A Gothic-style building that looked out of place amid so many skyscrapers. The dark stone walls and stained-glass windows carried a sense of history that the rest of the modern neighborhood simply didn’t have.

That—and the fact that I could see the sacred celestial “aura” surrounding the place—gave the structure a certain weight.

I walked up to the iron gate and stopped right in front of the “dome” that covered the church, but didn’t step inside.

I observed the "sacred energy" for a few seconds.

I had experience with two divine energies—or divinities: the kind contained within the feathers of angels and fallen angels from DXD, even if the fallen angels’ lacked the “glory” the angels’ possessed.

And the energy of the Brother of Light from Remnant.

The energy, aura, and presence of ‘The Eye’ didn’t count—that thing was far too alien for me to catalog…

Both divine energies—the angel feathers and the Brother of Light—were far more potent than the one covering Trinity Church.

The one at Trinity was far more abundant, of course, but if I had to compare them, it would be like comparing a lake to a bucket of tar. One was larger in volume, but the other’s density wasn’t even comparable.

And it wasn’t truly divine, either...

I extended my right hand and touched the “dome” with my open palm.

It was warm, like touching glass that had been sitting in the sun for a long time. At the same time, it wasn’t rigid like glass—the “dome” rippled slightly under my touch, as if I’d pressed my hand against the surface of a still lake.

I didn’t even need to use Analyze: Item—nor could I, really, since it was pure energy—even though I could’ve used it on the gates coated in sacred energy, to know that this wasn’t truly something from above.

“It’s a byproduct of faith—or rather, of human belief…” I murmured instinctively. “It wasn’t made by ‘Him’…”

The collective subconscious of humanity.

It wasn’t something like Alaya, of that I was certain.

I wasn’t as sure about "HOTD" or the "Demon Slayer" world I’d been to before, since my perception and senses were far weaker back then.

But humanity’s subconscious clearly existed in this world. I could feel it—unlike in Remnant—though in a much weaker, more fragile, and more primitive form than Alaya should—and did—possess in "FATE".

It existed in this more sacred form because it was anchored in the faith humans had in “Him” and in Heaven. That faith converted, manifested, and allowed the energy to exist as something that, in human eyes, was meant to be sacred.

It was sacred to the extent that human faith could be sacred to itself. It could ward off evil and protect, as it should—but it wasn’t angelic, nor divine.

The disappointment leaking out of the Divine Anathema manifested as a sigh slipping from my lips, which twisted slightly.

I released the “dome” before I accidentally burst it like a bubble and stepped forward, this time deliberately not “wanting” to touch it.

I passed through the gates calmly.

I felt the sacred energy react somewhat aggressively to my nightmare energy, but when I pulled it back closer to my body, it settled down again.

In fact, it felt as though it embraced me gently.

The earlier aggression came from the energy’s “assumption” that the nightmare energy was something that could harm me.

I felt the sacred energy resonate with the Echo Humanitatis, causing the markings, symbols, and blood-red veins covering my left arm beneath my suit sleeve to glow in a pure silvery white.

The glow didn’t burn or repel the nightmare energy—nor the part of the Shadow Puppet covering that arm, which I sensed the energy had initially wanted to do—it merely warmed my skin slightly, as if my arm were submerged in lukewarm water.

The cold of the “void” receded a little under the warmth.

I closed my eyes for a second and looked at the true form of my soul, which had begun growing bones.

They were weak, fragile, porous, and brittle, but they slowly grew beneath the “muscles” that were my Aura, forming a complete skeleton.

A ribcage to protect the “heart,” which was my Mana Core.

The “circulatory system,” the “veins” of my soul, pierced and wrapped around the bones, nourishing them where they could as my Mana flooded the porous cavities of that newly formed structure.

A “skull” grew around the “brain,” which was my Spiritual Core, where my Spiritual Energy and Nightmare Energy resided.

Two “eye sockets” formed, locking into place around the outline of my soul’s “eyes.”

I felt the exact moment when the first “rib of belief” completed itself around my Mana Core.

In the physical world, my lungs expanded involuntarily. I bit my tongue to suppress the breath that nearly escaped my lips.

The effects of Sun Breathing—including the part that made anything divine dislike me simply for breathing—still existed even without my breath, but actually inhaling would only worsen it, something I was actively avoiding.

I cast one last look at the “skeleton” growing within my soul’s true form, noticing the markings, symbols, and blood-red veins beginning to be carved into it, before returning to the real world.

(“Why do I feel like something ridiculously absurd just happened?… Is this why we came here?”) I heard Ozma’s confused voice. (“Something’s glowing in the sea.”)

“No, that part was completely unintentional,” I admitted without hesitation.

I had already “felt,” with very heavy quotation marks, humanity’s collective subconscious—shortly after meeting John. But no matter how much I tried to interact with it, nothing happened. I didn’t even get a response.

Touching it directly—or rather, stepping directly into the area where the collective subconscious was strongest—seemed to be what triggered this reaction.

“As for the glow in the sea, that’s just the sword. Ignore it,” I replied after a second.

At least the “chair” wasn’t reacting so dramatically.

It was only trembling quietly at the bottom of the ocean while human belief further altered that bizarre thing—rather than blazing like a bonfire at night the way Excalibur Asura did.

I started walking again immediately after.

The cemetery around the church was calm, a stark contrast to the rush unfolding just a few meters away beyond the fences.

The church’s two large wooden doors were open. I went inside.

The interior was spacious, steeped in that strange silence old churches have. I’d always found it somewhat unsettling.

The high ceiling, supported by dark wooden arches, rose until it vanished into shadow. It was Tuesday and still early, so there were very few people—eleven in total, counting the priest. I was number twelve.

Most were locals, older people who likely came here as part of a morning routine.

The only exception was a child. A ten-year-old boy who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else, most likely dragged along by the older woman beside him—his grandmother, according to the Chalice’s information.

They were spread out across the long wooden pews, sitting in silence or moving their lips in wordless prayers.

The space was lit by light streaming through the windows.

The stained glass was tall—typical church imagery: lots of color, depictions of saints, historical events, and the like.

Alongside the natural light, there were a few modern lamps. With the Voidbag, I could tell the church’s internal wiring had been upgraded to something more modern.

At the front, near the altar, the priest was arranging pamphlets.

He was a middle-aged man, white-skinned, with light brown hair thinning at the crown. He wore a simple robe and moved slowly and unhurriedly, occasionally casting brief, welcoming glances toward those seated—and toward the door, checking if anyone had entered.

That look froze when it landed on me, since I’d dropped my “concealment” upon entering the church.

I could feel the fear, confusion, and unease coming from him. His faith allowed him to perceive something about me, even if he didn’t know what it was.

Somewhat impressive.

Not that I’d been hiding anything to begin with.

I smiled at the priest, ignoring his disturbed stare, and gave a small greeting wave with my left hand before sitting on the last pew on the left side of the church, closest to the aisle.

I rested the Slick Cane on the bench beside me and placed my elbows on my knees, leaning fully forward.

Ozma and Jinn fell silent.

The (CHAT) was strangely quiet as well, likely waiting to see what I would do.

I did nothing beyond what one would expect from a pagan pretending to be the Devil.

I began to pray.

I closed my eyes, interlaced my fingers, and pressed both hands against my forehead as I activated the Transparent World and “looked” at Heaven, even though my face was angled downward.

I didn’t pray in the traditional way. I tried to connect directly with the one I wanted to speak to.

I had already felt and touched that being’s essence before, and no matter how distant Heaven might be—literally on another plane of existence “above” this one—I could still reach it if I focused.

Normally, I would have had a much harder time doing what I was about to do, but thanks to the energy of belief, faith, or sacred energy—I still wasn’t sure what to call it—it had been made easier, allowing me to change my original plan.

I “grasped” the energy of belief, for lack of a better term, around me and interconnected it with the energy my soul had learned to generate.

It was a fragile connection, like ordinary glue holding two wooden planks together. The beliefs were too different in their essence, and I had no intention of deepening that link and ending up touching something I shouldn’t—or didn’t want to—touch.

But it was enough for my purposes.

I used that connection to further amplify my senses, using the act of prayer itself as an anchor.

If a sufficiently large portion of human belief had faith that praying made it possible to connect with “Him,” with Heaven, with the divine and the “higher” in general, then it would be possible.

I ignored the way the church, the ground, and the air around me began to tremble.

Tempting as it was, I didn’t try to peer deeper into paradise than I should.

I wanted to avoid any trouble—more than I’d probably already caused by looking into the interior of Heaven without permission.

I also kept my title fully active. I didn’t know how concealment would behave, considering I was intruding into Heaven itself, but I trusted the stream enough.

I kept my senses focused in a single direction, using the Divine Anathema as a guide. Like a hunting dog, with me holding its leash close, so it wouldn’t break free and bite something it shouldn’t by accident.

That was better than letting my “Truth (Aletheia)” run loose, searching in every direction and brushing against Heaven’s “Aletheia (Truth)” even more.

I felt the Shadowflame react to this “hunt” as well, but I left the flame dormant, continuing its evolution in silence. One hunting dog was enough.

I seized the Divine Anathema and began to search.

Curiously, I encountered no resistance while doing so. For some reason, Heaven’s defenses were practically nonexistent, and I was able to follow my “dog” calmly.

My “dog” “sniffed” around, following its “memory.”

It remembered the sensation of touching the angel, the sound of her wings rustling, the sweet scent emanating from her being, the taste of her skin.

It remembered the outline of the divinity from which that angel was made.

Surprisingly, it took me less than a minute to find her.

Which was fortunate, since I wasn’t sure how much longer the shallow connection I’d formed with the surrounding energy of belief would last.

I focused my senses.

Even though everything was amplified by the energy of belief and by using “prayer” as an anchor, without employing my “Truth (Aletheia)” the way I had before, I couldn’t understand a damn thing around me.

My vision was completely blurred and rippling, my hearing was almost nonexistent, and my sense of touch was numb.

It felt as though I were submerged in a fleeting, distant dream.

From what little I could make out, I realized I was in some kind of room. There were humanlike furnishings: a bed, a wardrobe, even a mirror.

The walls were a deep blue, with some sections decorated by what looked like drawings painted with some kind of supersaturated pigment, reminiscent of an LSD-induced hallucination.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw some kind of animal—a small, round, scaly shape walking across the pale silver floor.

Was this some kind of bedroom?…

At the center of it all stood the one I had come to find.

It was a silhouette with feminine contours, even though angels weren’t supposed to have gender. But the voice I’d heard before had been feminine as well.

A “she,” then, as I’d already theorized.

The angel—she—wore something like a dress, blue and white in color.

She was shorter than me, but not by much. About ten centimeters at most. Which didn’t matter much, since she was floating slightly, until her eyes met mine.

Her face was literally pressed close to mine, our noses almost touching.

Because of that, I could make out her face more clearly than anything else.

Her skin had a strange sheen, slightly silvery, as if it were made of matte metal or polished marble, without pores or any human imperfections.

Her lips were painted an absolute black, creating a bizarre contrast with the rest of her pale face. It didn’t look like lipstick.

Her hair started as pure white at the roots and faded into a periwinkle blue, a messy mass that fell to what I imagined would be the level of her thighs.

Even with my vision fucked, her eyes were what drew the most attention.

They were large and absurdly expressive—like headlights.

Instead of white, the sclera was a pale blue, and at the very center the pupils were smudges of a much darker color, ringed by a crisp white outline that made them stand out even amid my visual confusion.

There were three of them—the two normal ones and a third set squarely in the middle of her forehead—all staring at me at once.

Her eyebrows were thin lines of a very dark indigo, almost black, matching the density of her long lashes.

On her face, the white freckles—three on each cheek and three across her nose—looked like tiny points of static light, as if her skin were leaking luminosity.

I sensed that what I was seeing was a “shell,” not her true form.

Just above her head, the silver-blue halo, bristling with points like a tiara, emitted a constant luminescence that made my head throb whenever I tried to focus on it.

But what truly defined her silhouette were the wings.

Six of them sprouted from her back, beating slowly to keep her aloft.

The feathers, a clean and brilliant white, resembled—but felt even more sacred and pure than—the angel feathers I had devoured before.

She was… beautiful. Entirely inhuman, but beautiful in her difference.

I noticed a little too late that her mouth was moving.

I could see her pearly white teeth, but I couldn’t hear anything beyond a sharp, vibrating sound—impossible to understand with my impaired hearing.

I tried to read her lips, but she spoke so quickly and excitedly—combined with the fact that my head was beginning to pound from manifesting an outline of my “presence” directly within Heaven—that I couldn’t manage it.

I felt something hot and viscous run down from my right eye, nose, and ears. I was running out of time.

I opened my mouth to speak. My throat felt like it was being torn open; my lungs heated to the point of burning, but I forced the words out anyway.

I trusted that my title would make my words understood—but I also used the Chalice.

I spoke like an echo of voices, in every human language that existed within my blood’s memory, all at once:

["I ask forgiveness for before. Forgiveness for touching you. My curiosity led me to gaze upon Heaven; my instinct, to reach for its light. But it was my ignorance that made me touch one of the angels who dwell here."]

["Know that it was never my intention to cause you harm or injury."]

["To you, I ask forgiveness."]

It was something I had only realized after the madness and euphoria of touching Heaven had passed.

The sin I wanted to confess and ask forgiveness for.

After my words, I didn’t wait. I severed the connection and fully withdrew my “presence” from Heaven.

When my senses snapped back into my body, I immediately vomited blood.

My throat felt as though it had been shredded by a dull, serrated blade; my teeth were cracked, my tongue felt like a swollen, dead slab of meat inside my mouth—numb and heavy, with the metallic taste of blood mixing with a bitter flavor of ash and rot.

Every spasm of my diaphragm as it tried to expel the vomit sent shockwaves of pure agony through the muscles and bones of my chest.

My lungs felt as though they’d been cauterized from the inside.

It felt like I’d inhaled overheated ground glass, leaving the internal tissue dried out and riddled with microfractures. In truth, the comparison was flawed—I’d breathed something like that before, in the desert of Shahrabad, and it hadn’t hurt at all.This burned.

I forced myself to breathe incorrectly, without using Sun Breathing. It made everything worse, but it was the best option for now.

I raised a hand to my face, feeling the hot, viscous moisture coating everything.

My right tear duct, nose, and ears were leaking like an open faucet. My head throbbed; it felt like at least thirty veins had burst in there, and my brain felt like it was melting.

The ringing in my ears was deafening. Vaguely, I felt Ozma’s and Jinn’s voices calling out to me, along with gasps and murmurs from the other people in the church.

I grabbed the Slick Cane and forced myself to stand.

My vision was dark—a reddish, smeared blur. My right eye throbbed, almost like I’d been staring straight at ‘The Eye’.

I felt blood running down my face and neck, dripping onto the floor and my clothes…

My fucking brand-new suit!

I growled, grabbing the connection I had with the Chalice and reabsorbing the blood back into my body.

I burned the stains on the fabric and the floor away with Shadowflame, leaving them clean, then reached into the Voidbag and pulled out five Healing Potions.

I poured three over my head and face while drinking the other two. I was tempted to use a Greater Healing Potion, but since I only had two, I dismissed the thought.

Instead, I pulled a Blood Orb from my inventory and tossed it into my mouth, chewing it like candy—which tasted like absolute shit. Then a second one, stopping short of the third when I felt my body finally beginning to stabilize, with the only remaining injuries now being internal.

Well, internal bleeding was fine. It was inside the body, where blood was supposed to be…

I froze, eyes wide.

I felt something on my face. Warm and wet—this time moving upward instead of down.

It wasn’t blood.

A small, soft tongue slid from my jaw, up along my right cheek, stopping just beneath my eye in a slow, deliberate motion.

My entire body locked up, almost like a defensive rigor mortis.

Instinctively, I nearly reacted by striking back at whatever had touched me, even while sensing that I wouldn’t reach it—that it was something distant—but I stopped myself at the last possible instant to avoid accidentally blowing up ten city blocks.

Then I heard something that was a sound and, at the same time, not a sound.

No words were spoken in the air. I didn’t hear anything—but I could feel part of what the message was trying to convey directly through my skin, where I’d been licked.

It was like an amalgam of raw, crystalline emotions. Amusement, curiosity, a hint of childish mischief, and a sort of smug satisfaction.

Instinctively, I activated the Transparent World and seized the meaning of those emotions using my truth—“Truth (Aletheia)”—which almost resonated with that pure transmission of knowledge.

The message formed in my mind, translated from that emotional torrent into something I could understand:

[“I forgive you—and we’re even now!”]

The voice was feminine and familiar, identical to the angel’s sigh from before. The tone was unbelievably playful and bright, echoing like the chime of silver bells.

I blinked, stunned, and slowly raised my right hand to my face, to the exact spot where I’d felt the lick.

My fingers touched skin. There was no saliva, no real physical moisture. But when I pulled my hand away, I saw tiny particles of pale blue light dissipating at my fingertips, like fairy dust evaporating.

The phantom sensation of that tongue’s texture still tingled on my skin.

“What the fuck?…” I whispered, my voice coming out hoarse and broken, my throat still recovering.

The realization hit me like a punch to the gut—harder than the recoil of the connection itself. I brought my hand to my face again while bracing myself with the other on the Slick Cane and bending forward, my body trembling.

I couldn’t help it. I started laughing almost uncontrollably. Real, genuine laughter, utterly amused by the sheer absurdity of the situation.

She’d used the “door” I’d left open when I “disconnected” from Heaven—that millisecond when my presence pulled back—to extend her own influence and touch me in return.

And she used it to… No fucking way…

(“Devas?! Can you hear me?!”) Ozma’s voice snapped me out of it. (“What happened?!”)

I could have answered a lot of things, but I chose the purest possible truth.

“An angel licked me.”

[...]---[...]

Well, I think the description I gave makes it pretty clear who the angel is, but I won’t be naming names just yet.

Devas gained something new, in a sense. He discovered a few things—and got licked. Fun chapter to write.

Good night, everyone, and enjoy the read!