Chapter 52: Divine Retribution
The frozen blood-light stopped its agonizing climb, a crimson glacier suspended at Dante’s chin. The psychic echo of Cain’s death throes receded, leaving Dante gasping, his mind a raw, flayed wound. Azrael’s question hung in the frigid air, a shard of ice piercing his consciousness: Does it hurt yet?
Dante blinked, trying to clear the bloody tears freezing his lashes. His whole body was a map of pain – the deep ache in his shoulders from the manacles, the searing numbness where the divine blood-light had touched, the phantom vibrations still trembling in his bones. He met Azrael’s void-like gaze, the violet abyss promising only eternity in suffering. He forced his split lips into a grin, a grotesque rictus against the pain. "Hurt?" His voice was a ruined rasp, scraping like gravel. "Felt worse hangovers after a bender at the Inferno. That cheap tequila… fuck, that burns." He choked, spat a gobbet of frozen blood and phlegm onto the frost-covered stone between them. "Cain whined more about stubbing his fucking toe."
Azrael didn’t react. He simply tilted his head, a predator considering its prey. He raised a hand, not towards Dante, but beside him. The shimmering air coalesced, not into an image of Cain this time, but into a single, impossibly pure white feather. It floated gently, radiating an aura of profound serenity that felt obscene in the torture chamber. It drifted towards Dante’s chest.
"Serenity," Azrael’s voice whispered inside Dante’s skull, colder than the chains. "Remember its absence."
The feather touched a patch of skin below Dante’s collarbone, unmarked by the earlier assaults. Where it made contact, Dante screamed. Not from burning or cutting, but from an excruciating, deep-tissue itch. It burrowed under his skin, worming its way into his muscles, vibrating along his nerves, an unbearable, maddening sensation amplified a thousandfold by Azrael’s power. Dante thrashed wildly, rattling the chains, his neck tendons standing out like cables as he tried to writhe away from the feather-light touch that felt like fire ants gnawing his marrow. "GET IT OFF! FUCKING GET IT OFF ME, YOU SICK BASTARD!"
Azrael remained impassive. The feather drifted lower, tracing a lazy path down Dante’s sternum. Every millimeter was agony. Dante howled, bucking, his heels scrabbling for purchase on the icy stone. Tears of pure, unadulterated frustration and torment streamed down his face. "THIS IS BULLSHIT! TORTURE ME PROPERLY, YOU FUCKING COWARD! OR ARE YOU TOO SCARED TO GET YOUR HANDS DIRTY, LIKE YOUR PATHETIC BROTHER WAS AT THE END? HE SOILED HIMSELF, AZRAEL! SMELLED LIKE PISS AND TERROR WHEN I SNUFFED HIM OUT!" He screamed the words, hoping the insult, the reminder, would provoke a reaction, any reaction besides this unending, calculated torment.
The feather vanished. Dante sagged, gulping air, sweat freezing instantly on his fevered skin. The maddening itch subsided, leaving a deep, trembling aftershock in his nerves. Before he could draw another breath, Azrael moved. Not with light, but physically. He stepped forward, closing the distance in a silent glide. His hand, pale and flawless, reached out. Not with a weapon, but with fingers tipped by suddenly elongated, razor-sharp claws that gleamed like polished obsidian.
"Hands," Azrael murmured, the word a death knell.
The clawed finger touched Dante’s chest, just below the hollow of his throat. It didn’t stab. It pressed. Then, with terrifying, deliberate slowness, Azrael dragged the claw straight down Dante’s sternum. Flesh parted like wet parchment. Blood, dark and shockingly red against his pale, sweat-sheened skin, welled instantly in the wake of the claw, then spilled over, tracing hot paths down his abdomen. Dante’s breath hitched, a low, animal groan escaping him as the searing line of fire opened on his body. Azrael continued, relentless, down past the navel, stopping just above the thatch of dark hair. The wound wasn’t immediately deep, but it was long, a raw, burning canyon splitting his torso.
"Like slicing fucking cake," Dante gasped, his voice tight with agony, yet still laced with defiance. He forced a laugh, a harsh, broken sound. "Bet Cain squealed like a pig when they first did this to him, huh? Before he learned to beg properly?" Blood dripped steadily from the wound, pooling on the frost between his feet.
Azrael didn’t answer. He lifted his clawed finger, now slick with Dante’s blood, and examined it. Then, with the same unhurried motion, he traced a parallel line beside the first wound, another searing stripe of agony opening up. Dante gritted his teeth, a strangled cry tearing loose. Azrael continued, methodical, carving a latticework of shallow, burning cuts across Dante’s chest and abdomen. Each stroke was precise, deliberate, a butcher marking his meat. Blood flowed freely now, painting Dante’s torso crimson, dripping in rhythmic splatters onto the stone.
"Gonna... make... a fucking quilt?" Dante panted, each breath fire in his lungs, each movement tugging at the fresh wounds. "Cain... Cain always liked... pretty things... before I made him ugly." He spat more blood, aiming for Azrael’s feet, but it fell short, a pathetic splatter on the frost.
Azrael paused. He lowered his bloodied hand. Then, he raised his other hand, palm up. Above it, a small ball of pure white flame ignited. It didn’t flicker like earthly fire; it burned with a cold, intense, silent fury. Divine fire. Purification. Agony distilled.
"Cleansing," Azrael intoned.
He brought the flame close to Dante’s chest, near the top of the latticework of cuts. Dante’s eyes widened, real terror flashing through the defiance. "Nonono, fuck that, Azzie, don’t you fucking–"
Azrael pressed the cold fire against the open wound.
The scream that ripped from Dante was unlike any before. It was a raw, unhinged shriek of absolute, soul-searing agony. The divine fire didn’t just burn; it consumed. It seared the flesh, cauterizing the wound with a violence that felt like his very soul was being scoured. The smell of burning meat and ozone filled the small cell, thick and nauseating. Dante convulsed like a man electrocuted, back arching impossibly, chains shrieking in protest, every muscle locked in a spasm of torment. Spittle frothed at his lips, his vision whiting out completely, consumed by the blinding, purifying pain.
Azrael held the flame there for three eternal seconds. When he pulled it away, the wound was a blackened, smoking ruin, the edges fused in a grotesque scar. Dante hung limply, shuddering in great, heaving gasps, barely conscious. Tears streamed unchecked, mingling with blood and sweat on his ruined chest.
Azrael moved the flame to the next open gash.
The process repeated. Press. Hold. Dante’s screams were weaker now, ragged, wet things, more whimpers than roars. His body spasmed weakly with each application, his energy draining away with the blood and the unspeakable pain. Azrael worked methodically, moving down Dante’s torso, searing each bleeding line Dante had carved. The smell was horrific. Dante’s head lolled, his breathing shallow and rapid. The defiance in his eyes was guttering, drowned by an ocean of suffering. "St...still... here..." he slurred as Azrael seared a cut low on his abdomen, making his hips jerk violently. "Cain... he... he cried... for you... at the end..." It was barely a whisper, a final, desperate prod.
Azrael finished the last cauterization. The divine flame winked out. Dante hung like a broken marionette, his torso a ruined landscape of blackened, smoking scars and drying blood. He was panting, each inhalation a shallow, painful gasp. His vision swam, darkness threatening at the edges. He barely registered Azrael stepping even closer, until the angel was right before him, the cold radiance of his presence enveloping Dante.
The violet eyes, fathomless and devoid of mercy, scanned the broken demon prince. Then, Azrael’s hands, the claws retracted now, moved to the buckle of his own robes, woven from shadow and starlight. He undid it with deliberate slowness. The dark fabric parted, falling open to reveal a form of impossible, sculpted perfection beneath – pale skin that seemed to hold its own inner light, untouched by violence or time. Dante’s fogged mind struggled to comprehend. This wasn't torture. This was... something else. Something worse.
"W-what...?" Dante rasped, trying to focus, a new, different dread coiling in his gut.
Azrael didn't speak. He simply pushed the robes off his shoulders, letting them pool around his feet like spilled ink. He stood naked, a statue of divine wrath and cold beauty. Then he stepped forward, pressing his body against Dante's bleeding, ruined torso. The contrast was obscene – flawless divinity against broken, burned flesh. Dante hissed at the contact, the pressure igniting fresh waves of agony from his seared wounds. Azrael’s skin was unnaturally cool, like marble.
One pale hand snaked down Dante’s flank, fingers trailing over the lattice of scars, the touch strangely intimate and profoundly violating. The other hand gripped Dante’s hip, hard, fingers digging into the muscle above the pelvic bone. Dante flinched, a weak sound escaping him. "Don't... fucking... touch me..."
Azrael ignored him. He pressed closer, his hard length, already erect and impossibly large, pressed against Dante’s thigh. It felt cold, like the rest of him, but undeniably, terrifyingly real. He shifted his hips, aligning himself. Dante realized with dawning horror what was coming. He tried to struggle, to twist away, but the chains held him fast, and his body was a broken, agonized wreck. "NO! Get the FUCK OFF ME!" he screamed, the sound raw and desperate, stripped of all bravado. "AZRAEL! DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE!"
Azrael’s grip on his hip tightened, bruising. He used his other hand to guide himself. There was no preparation, no gentleness, only cold, brutal intent. Dante felt the invasive pressure, the stretch, the tearing as Azrael forced his way inside him. It wasn't just the physical violation; it was the icy shock of it, the divine chill invading a place meant for heat and life. Azrael sheathed himself fully in one brutal thrust. Dante screamed, a sound of pure, animalistic violation and agony that echoed off the stone walls. His body convulsed against the chains, the movement driving Azrael deeper, tearing him further.
"FUCK! GET OUT! GET THE FUCK OUT!" Dante sobbed, tears of pain and utter humiliation streaming down his face. The seared wounds on his chest screamed with every ragged breath, every involuntary spasm. Azrael began to move. Slow, deliberate thrusts, each one a calculated assault. He fucked Dante with the same cold, methodical detachment he used to carve his flesh. It was deep, punishing, each withdrawal dragging against raw, tearing tissues, each slam back in hitting with bruising force. Dante could only hang there, impaled, violated, the chains the only thing holding him upright as his body was used. He choked on sobs, his head hanging, dark hair plastered to his sweaty, blood-streaked face. Azrael’s breathing remained perfectly even, his expression unchanged except for a faint tightening around his inhumanly beautiful eyes, a chilling hint of… something.
"Your defiance," Azrael murmured, his voice a glacial whisper directly in Dante’s mind, resonating through his violated body. "Is noise. Nothing more." He punctuated the words with a particularly brutal thrust that drove a guttural cry from Dante's throat.
"Cain..." Dante gasped, trying to find the familiar weapon, the only weapon left. "He... he begged... for mercy... when I..." Another savage thrust cut him off, stealing his breath. "When I... fucked him... raw... like this..." he choked out, the lie tasting like ash. "Said... your name..."
Azrael’s rhythm faltered, just for an instant. A tiny fracture in the ice. His hand, still gripping Dante’s hip, spasmed, the fingers digging in hard enough to bruise bone. The next thrust was vicious, snapping Dante’s head back. "Liar," the void-voice hissed, colder than Dante had ever heard it, carrying a tremor of something ancient and furious.
Dante laughed then, a wet, broken, hysterical sound that dissolved into a cough. He tasted more blood. "Ask him... oh, wait..." He managed to lift his head, meeting those violet abysses, pouring every ounce of shattered defiance into his gaze. "You can't."
Azrael’s hand shot up, clamping around Dante’s throat, cutting off his air and his poisonous words. The thrusts became punishingly hard, deep, and fast, a brutal piston driving into Dante’s violated body. Dante’s vision tunneled, darkness crowding in as he fought for air, the agony from his throat, his chest, his torn insides merging into one all-consuming white noise of suffering. Azrael fucked him like he was trying to break him apart from the inside, the wet, obscene sounds of the act filling the cell along with Dante’s choked gurgles. The angel’s perfect face remained a mask, but his eyes burned with a cold, unholy fire. He held Dante’s gaze, choking him, violating him, until Dante’s struggles weakened, his eyes rolling back.
Then, as abruptly as it began, it stopped. Azrael withdrew, pulling out with a slick, awful sound, leaving Dante feeling hollowed out and raw. He released Dante’s throat. Dante gasped, sucking in air that felt like shards of glass, his body slumping in the chains, trembling violently. Azrael stepped back, his expression smoothing back into its customary impassivity. He didn't bother to retrieve his robes. He simply stood there, watching Dante hang, broken and bleeding, covered in his own blood, sweat, tears, and Azrael’s cold release, which was already freezing on his skin.
Azrael raised his hand again, claws extending once more. "The bones remember," he whispered.
The clawed fingers didn't aim for flesh this time. They reached for Dante’s left forearm, still held high by the manacle. Dante saw it coming, saw the terrible intent. "No..." he whimpered, the sound barely audible.
Azrael’s fingers closed around Dante’s forearm, just below the elbow. They tightened. Dante felt the immense, crushing pressure. Heard the awful, wet crack as the radius and ulna snapped like dry twigs. The pain exploded, sharp and nauseating, cutting through the haze of his other agonies. Dante screamed again, a thin, reedy sound of utter despair. Azrael adjusted his grip, moving lower, towards the wrist. Another squeeze. Another sickening crunch of bone. Dante’s scream dissolved into whimpers, his body going slack, consciousness flickering precariously. Azrael moved to the other arm. The same methodical, brutal process. Snap. Crunch. Dante barely made a sound this time, just a low, continuous moan, his head lolling forward, chin resting on his bloodied chest.
Dante hung slack in the chains, a broken doll of blood and seared flesh. The agony from his shattered arms, his violated body, his cauterized torso, blurred into a single, pulsing throb of white noise. Consciousness flickered, a guttering candle in a hurricane. Azrael’s cold perfection filled his narrowing vision, the violet eyes boring into his soul. A clawed hand, still slick with Dante's blood, cupped his jaw, forcing his head up. The touch was glacial, invasive.
"Defiance is dust," Azrael whispered, his voice echoing in the hollows of Dante’s fractured mind. "Pain is eternal. Remember him, Morningstar. Remember Azazel."
The name detonated in Dante’s psyche like a supernova. Azrael’s power wasn’t light or blade this time; it was a psychic sledgehammer, shattering the dam holding back millennia of grief and horror. Memories, not recalled but relived, flooded Dante’s senses with brutal, crystal clarity. He wasn't just seeing; he was there again.
He was chained, weakened by days of his brothers' playful torment, forced to watch from the cold stone floor of a celestial dungeon. Azazel hung opposite him, beautiful face twisted in agony, his magnificent wings – once the color of storm clouds – now ragged and dripping ichor onto the floor. Michael’s holy fire scorched Azazel’s chest, the smell of burning feathers and flesh overwhelming. Raphael meticulously peeled back layers of skin with a surgeon’s precision. Gabriel’s voice, cold and righteous, demanded repentance as Uriel’s laughter echoed. Azazel’s screams tore through Dante, each one a fresh wound. Dante strained uselessly against his chains, raw fury and impotent despair choking him as his love’s eyes locked onto his, silently begging for an end he couldn’t give. He watched the light dim in those beloved eyes, saw the final shudder, heard the wet rattle of Azazel’s last breath… the silence afterward was worse than the screams.
"No!" The denial ripped from Dante’s throat, raw and shattered, merging past and present agony. "Azazel! STOP! PLEASE!" He thrashed weakly, the chains clanking, his broken arms sending fresh jolts of torment through him. He was drowning in the memory, feeling Azazel’s pain as his own, feeling the soul-crushing weight of his own failure all over again.
Azrael watched, a sculptor observing clay crack. "His suffering is your inheritance," he hissed, leaning close, his breath like frozen silk on Dante’s ear. "His end, your failure etched in eternity." He drew back, raising a hand. Light coalesced not into a blade, but into a simple, brutal dagger of condensed divine energy, pulsing with lethal intent.
The first stab was high, just below Dante’s collarbone, punching through newly seared flesh and grating against bone. Dante’s breath exploded out in a wet gasp, his body arching against the chains. The psychic assault of Azazel’s death throes merged with the searing physical violation. "Fuck... you..." he choked.
The second thrust plunged deep into Dante’s abdomen, below the lattice of blackened scars. Azrael twisted the blade. Dante screamed, a sound scraped raw from the depths of his being, as divine fire licked his insides. He sagged, head lolling, blood bubbling at his lips. The visions of Azazel flickered, overlaid with the cold reality of Azrael’s empty gaze.
BOOM!
The heavy stone door exploded inward in a shower of dust and shrapnel. Framed in the sudden chaos, shadows resolved into furious figures: Vincent, eyes blazing crimson hellfire, already moving with lethal grace; Sukuna, a snarling vortex of cursed energy, tattoos flaring like live wires; Xavier, his techno-organic arm crackling with unstable power; Hela, radiating an aura of chilling, ancient power. And Dabi, his mismatched eyes wide with terror, instantly scanning the horrific scene, locking onto Dante.
"Get the fuck away from him!" Vincent roared, a wave of pure infernal force blasting towards Azrael.
Azrael turned, the divine dagger dissolving as he raised a hand, meeting Vincent's assault with a shield of blinding light. The impact shook the chamber. Sukuna lunged, a flurry of cursed energy strikes forcing Azrael back a step. Xavier fired concussive blasts from his arm, the energy sizzling against Azrael's defenses. Hela moved like smoke, her touch withering the stone floor as she flanked the Angel of Death.
Dabi didn’t hesitate. He ignored the erupting battle, the clash of divine and infernal power, the deafening roar. He sprinted to Dante, skidding to his knees on the bloody, frost-slick stone. His hands fluttered uselessly, terrified to touch the ruin before him. Dante’s eyes were half-lidded, unfocused, blood trickling from his mouth, his chest heaving shallow, wet breaths. The stench of burnt flesh, blood, and ozone was overwhelming.
"Dante? Baby? Look at me," Dabi pleaded, his voice cracking. He carefully, so carefully, cupped Dante's battered face. "Dante!"
Dante flinched at the touch, a weak whimper escaping his split lips. His eyes slowly focused, swimming with pain and lingering horror. "Hurts..." he breathed, the word barely audible, thick with blood and despair. A tremor wracked his broken body. "Dabi... it... hurts... everywhere..."
"I know, baby," Dabi whispered, his own voice thick with tears he refused to shed. He gently wiped the blood from Dante's mouth with his thumb. "I know it fucking hurts. It's okay. We're here. Just hold on. Look at me. Stay with me." He kept one hand on Dante's cheek, grounding him, the other hovering over the grisly wounds, afraid to cause more pain. "Hela's here. She'll fix it. Just hold on. Please."
Behind them, the battle raged with savage intensity. Sukuna landed a blow that cracked Azrael's shield, sending shards of light flying. Vincent pressed the attack, his movements a blur of shadow and hellfire. Xavier unleashed a torrent of energy that forced Azrael to divert his attention. Hela chanted, dark runes flaring on the floor around the angel. Azrael, cornered, enraged, fought back with terrifying grace and power, but the combined assault was relentless, overwhelming. Sukuna saw the opening, a fraction of a second. He lunged, not with cursed energy, but with raw, physical fury enhanced by his power. His fist, wreathed in black flames, punched through Azrael’s radiant chest, shattering bone and divine essence from within. A look of profound surprise, then emptiness, flickered in the violet eyes. Azrael’s form glowed incandescently for a moment, then imploded into a silent burst of blinding white light and dissipating shadow, leaving only an echoing silence and the smell of ozone and burnt feathers.
Hela was already moving past the fading remnants. She knelt beside Dabi, her presence radiating an unnatural cold. Her hands, pale and long-fingered, hovered over Dante’s ruined torso. A soft, eerie green light emanated from her palms, sinking into the blackened scars, the deep stab wounds. Dante gasped, a sharp intake of breath, as the healing energy touched him. It wasn't gentle; it was the brutal knitting of flesh and bone, a necessary agony. His broken arms shifted with sickening cracks as her power realigned the shattered bones, drawing a weak cry from his lips. Hela’s expression was focused, distant, her power stitching the demon prince back together, piece by agonizing piece. Dabi held Dante's face, murmuring reassurances, his eyes fixed on the slow, painful work of restoration. "Almost done, baby. Just breathe. It’s okay now. You're safe. I've got you." The chamber was silent except for Dante's ragged breathing and the faint hum of Hela's ancient magic.