The Deities of Hell

Mizuki had come to a place where the stars in the sky couldn’t reach.

There was no sign of the decaying world, but he could see an ominous-looking wall in the distance.

Another world was yet again spreading out before him.

Instead of the sun or stars, a prominent moon shone down in the darkness.

It hung low in the sky and seemed big.

A large building stood alone under the moon.

It appeared to be a large castle.

It was surrounded by a crumbling district and forest with an eerie feeling hanging in the air.

Mizuki was walking in the forest surrounding the castle.

“Hah, hah… Woah!”

On the way out of the forest, he ended up falling into a place looking like a pit.

“Ouch!”

“Ah!”

Where Mizuki had fallen was in a way a deep hole.

He had fallen on his face, but something soft was moving under him.

Slowly raising himself up, he understood as soon as he opened his eyes.

Underneath him was Yua.

Her face had become dirty from the soil and looked haggard.

“Yua!”

“M-Mizuki!”

They clung to each other in an embrace.

Although Mizuki was overjoyed, he remembered something shameful.

“Sorry! Sorry for leaving you!”

“Let go, Yua, let go.”

Yua cried while apologizing, but her words didn’t reach Mizuki who, while embarrassed, tried to put some distance between them.

Paying it no heed, Yua pulled out a notepad and pen while hugging him.

She wrote “I can feel something hard against me” with a smirk.

“So let go!”

“Haha.”

Satisfied, Yua stopped teasing Mizuki and let go of him.

They both slowly got up in the hole and sat down facing each other.

With a serious expression on her face, Yua started writing on the notepad again.

“I am sorry for abandoning you,”

She conveyed her apologies to him first.

“You had no choice. You don’t need to apologize at all,”

Mizuki said, and Yua smiled sadly.

Seeing her expression, his chest felt a little painful.

“I’m glad you’re alive.”

“Me too.”

Both of them were relieved to see the other person being alive.

Meanwhile, Mizuki interrupted her.

“I like you, Yua.”

“What?”

“If we manage to leave this world alive, I want to go out with you,”

Mizuki said with an earnest face and felt a little shy.

“By the way, what about me do you like?”

Yua wrote on the notepad and held it up for Mizuki.

She showed a sly expression.

“Uh, you’re kind and don’t give up, and you believe in me… you’re a little lewd.”

“Ahahaha! Wasn’t that a little spontaneous?”

“...”

Seeing her laugh, he come to think of something and showed a troubled expression.

“I’m glad.”

Seeing those words on the notepad, Mizuki’s heart fluttered, and he made a fist pump.

However, seeing the notepad again, his mood dropped.

“But, we are probably mistaking liking each other for being tortured by this scary place. So I can’t go out with you right away.”

Mizuki was crestfallen.

Yua didn’t reject his confession, but he couldn’t help feeling like she had.

“I… I get it.”

Seeing how disappointed Mizuki looked, Yua felt guilty.

Yua hadn’t meant to reject him.

Because of this, she felt troubled seeing him like this.

“M-Mizuki… Uhm…”

From the guilt, it was hard for her to speak to him properly.

In that moment, both of them suddenly shook and were lifted from the ground.

“Woah!?”

“What the heck? Huh!?”

A net caught and lifted both of them in the air.

Suddenly looking down, he saw another monster that was looking like Snakey and Spidey standing there.

It looked angry, with a large monkey-like body and dark feathers sprouting from its back.

The monster stared hard at Mizuki and Yua inside the net.

Then, after picking up Mizuki, it threw him in another net.

They were now stuck in different nets.

“Was that hole a snare to trap us?”

Having just fallen, Mizuki pulled himself together and took out the pliers from his pocket to cut the net and escape before the monster noticed.

“Ouch… Ah! Yua! Wait! Yua! I’ll save you now!”

Having fallen on the plants on the ground, Mizuki chased after the monster that was carrying Yua away.

Yua looked like she was about to reach out to him.

(I left Mizuki before… Do I even have the right to be saved? Besides, I rejected him.)

Yua still felt guilty and couldn't reach out to him.

She took back the hand she had reached out and held it over her mouth while tears ran down her cheeks.

Then, taking the notepad with trembling fingers, she let it drop into an opening of the net.