Dead End 2: Deathly Di-Di-Doo Ch.12 (Patreon)

[A Sliver of Cain]

— Cain (Past Life of Sean Caine) —

Cain found that he barely recognized what the world had become, even having lived through all of it.

He had the benefit of knowing what was to come — the fruits of reincarnating, out-of-context knowledge — and still, living through it was something else entirely.

Cain had seen the Garden that his father had been cast out of. He’d seen the world when it was young, the first of seeds and sprouts and saplings beginning to bloom — he’d farmed those first seeds alongside… Abel. He’d seen Man become man and spread throughout the young world. He’d seen man, his own descendants and those from other canons of Creation, take strength in each other, and he’d seen the civilizations that inevitably followed.

In the beginning, it’d felt like every time he looked away — for a year, a decade, a century, or so — another society sprang onto the scene in some river valley or another. The Tigris, the Euphrates, the Nile, the Indus, the Yellow, and more and more and more.

Cain came and went, cursed to wander. Living history was rather different from simply reading it. There was also the additional complication of the supernatural — the divine, demonic, draconic, and dozens more brands of power. It could not be denied, not as Cain.

Millennia passed, all of prehistory and ancient history. Then, Cain heard tell of one man born in Nazareth… and he knew the world was about to get interesting.

He was in Rome when he felt Christ’s death, stealing away within the barren marriage bed of a loathsome man’s beautiful wife. It was ironic, for he sinned as the sins of man were absolved by Christ’s martyrdom. He knew that absolution was never intended for him, though. God’s curse would stick to his skin like a scar forevermore.

The center of power for the era didn’t react to Christ’s death, nor to His resurrection. The people of the Eternal City still followed Greek Gods turned Roman, and they would for another 300 years yet.

Cain knew from experience that their gods were just as real as Him Above — All Myth was truth in that latest life of his.

Cain knew that if he felt Christ’s martyrdom and apotheosis, then others in the canon would’ve felt the same. What would come from here, he didn’t know. Details in history were always lost to the sands of time, and that was even more true when Angels, Devils, Divines, and Monsters were so entrenched in the world.

The only thing Cain could do, he immediately realized, was prepare for the worst.

“Apologies, Lovely Agrippina,” He whispered to the partner in his bed. “I must be away. Everything has changed, and there is work to be done.”

They were entwined between sheets of silk sourced from the Far East, fitting for the family of the Emperor. A soft and supple leg slid along skin that had been perfectly weathered by millennia of cursed life, winding around Cain’s waist to keep him trapped there beside its owner.

Agrippina wielded her nubile, Mediterranean-sun-kissed body as a weapon, for she had few other chances to live than when she was beside her mysterious lover. She would cling to every moment he could give her, each a respite from the husband she despised.

“What secret knowledge lies in your beautiful, ancient head, Cain? Tell me,” Agrippina excitedly whispered back. “You simply must!”

She was lively and merely rebellious now, with a fire that burned in her breast despite her life of suppression. Cain knew well who she would become. The younger of her name in the Julio-Claudian Dynasty; her son would be Nero.

Her son would be his, too; Cain intended to make sure of that. Agrippina’s marriage to Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus was an arranged atrocity, the brainchild of her great-uncle and Emperor, Tiberius. She held no love for her arranged husband, not the man who’d gladly run over a child that was playing in his way.

Domitius was a drunk, a bore, a well-connected wretch, and, much to Cain’s benefit, blind to his undeserved blessing. Agrippina was a trophy on his shelf left to collect dust. The loathsome fool couldn’t even conceive of his trophy thinking or acting for herself; he was still unaware of the affair of years between Cain and his wife.

Agrippina had pursued Cain upon seeing him on the streets of Rome, and simply declaring, ’That one’. He’d gladly returned the attention.

She was beautiful and fiery and utterly unwilling to compromise on her desires. In another era, Cain would’ve called her ‘tomboyish — tanned and tenacious’.

Cain shook his head at his luck. For all his strained feelings for the Old Man Above, at least He hadn’t cursed Cain in all aspects of life.

Agrippina kept her dark hair cut short and fashionably messy, a trend that Cain had put her on when she complained about the pampering required of her for every public appearance. Her sun-kissed skin shone like gilded bronze, especially when oiled as she’d quickly learned Cain liked.

Lines of paler skin — even more supple — framed her sex and breasts and the curve of her heart-shaped behind. Cain had even had the privilege of piercing those perky nipples of hers, sensual ornamentation that she wore proudly for his eyes alone.

“Very well, but only until the sun rises,” Cain yielded to her excitement. “Then… I’m afraid I may have to beg an audience with your great-uncle.”

“Tiberius is still all but exiling himself on Capri, Cain, and a fool that the Empire runs without, at that.” Agrippina scowled at the mention of the estranged Emperor; she shook such thoughts from her mind a moment later, and purred. “If you still insist, I’ll make you work for it, my love~…”

Despite her curiosity, she tried to draw him back into a carnal embrace. Smirking lips kissed and nipped their way up his neck. Cain resisted the temptation by the very skin she lavished.

He swept her into his arms, and in a single smooth movement, stood from their bed to carry her onto the palatial villa’s balcony. Rome’s Palatine Hill sprawled before them — the temples, the simple House of Augustus, and the empty House of Tiberius; just as Agrippina said, the current Emperor spent his days in pleasure palaces in Campania or Capri.

The pink hues of dawn were just beginning to reach over the horizon to illuminate the Eternal City beyond.

“You have your gods, Lovely Agrippina,” Cain began, gesturing at the temples of the Palatine Hill. “And I have mine — only One, Him Above. Both are true, both are real; even more so than belief would betray.”

“I remember,” Agrippina hummed, taking up a lounging position where Cain had carried her, with her cheek pressed against his steadily beating heart.

As much as Cain missed modern conveniences — often, that is — there was something to be said for the ancient world where the supernatural was more ‘natural’ than ‘super’, especially since he would never be less than a Man in this life.

Agrippina hadn’t resisted the idea of Cain being the Second Man, First Murderer when she was told. She’d been curious, of course — burningly curious — but Cain’s nature and even his curse didn’t drive an ‘impossible’ wedge between them. She’d even counted herself blessed by the luck of her divines to have spied him upon the street; such was the malleable and mixed of the ancient mythological and mortal world.

“For my God, there has been a new development,” Cain explained. “Christ is dead, and Christ lives again. As I said, everything has changed.”

“I do not know what that means, Cain, but I trust your judgment and wisdom,” Agrippina said frankly. “This change; will it reach us here in Rome?”

“There is no doubt in my mind. The only question is when and how. Thus, Lovely Agrippina, there is work to be done.”

“Your goals, then. Do you intend to do the work of the god who cursed you?”

“He has no need of my service. I work for the sake of man. What do you think tethers me here in Rome?”

“Dare I hope…?”

“We will make an Empress of you, Lovely Agrippina, and an Emperor of our son.”

IIIII

“You call that a solution?! Good man, I would sooner cast my own mother into the Bacchus’ hedonistic den at full revel than follow your proposed edict!”

“Just so!”

“Nay, too far!”

“… Bacchus would at least keep the people happy and preoccupied.”

“Bah, you only worry for your whorehouse holdings! We all know what your actresses do when the stars come out!”

“Do we? Do we all know such sybaritism, Calvus?”

“Ahahaha, the good senator bares himself, just as he did to those poor actresses! Tell us, Calvus, are you as bald below as up top?”

“Ugh…” Agrippina huffed. “Why did you need to attend this farce, Cain?”

“I was hoping for more information, news from the wider world,” Cain replied. “I expected these men of power to be discussing subjects of importance. I see I was mistaken.”

… He really shouldn’t have expected anything noteworthy from a headless Roman Senate.

He’d gotten much more worthwhile information from chatter in the baths, rumors from traveling merchants, and reports from soldiers returning home, traumatized beyond mortal means.

As months of news from Jerusalem, Greece, and Egypt reached the Eternal City, Cain’s understanding of the situation had developed. There was more at play than just Christ, for the enemies of Heaven were using the distraction in Jerusalem to their Hellish advantage.

Lucifer and his Satans rose in stark opposition to His plan, His work; they rose in stark opposition to the entire world and all of its mortals, no matter the divine canon that claimed them.

Leviathan flooded Greece. Beelzebub blighted Egypt. Cain heard in passing from a Fallen Angel that Asmodeus sieged the Gates of Heaven. Jerusalem was caught in the chaotic, reactionary wake of Christ, and Cain knew all eyes in their canon were turned there.

But still, Lucifer himself had shown neither head nor heel.

Cain had no proof that the missing Lucifer was in his neck of the woods, but-…

A flash of red hair — bloodfire.

Cain didn’t see it as much as he sensed it — purposefully discordant notes in the bickering song of the Senate session.

“~Cassius plots to take what is yours,” The bloodfire voice whispered. “Your wealth, your women, your wants and desires…”

“~Cato? Does he deserve the name? Wasn’t it his ‘wise’ idea to bleed the markets for his own profit?”

“~Albus has risen too quickly. Why should he be considered for praetor? Have you not been working hard for years, decades before he was even born?”

Cain didn’t give himself away by peeking at what he already knew. He sighed to himself and to Agrippina.

“I was right. The Devil has come to Rome. What he plans, I do not know, but he surely thrives on chaos. If we intend to match him in parallel, Lovely Agrippina, we’ll have to thrive on chaos, too.”

“Cain.” Agrippina looked at him with amusement. “I am Roman.”

She said it as if it explained everything. It did. That, Cain noted, was likely why Lucifer would find the success he was seeking in the Eternal City: nowhere knew chaos like Rome.

He could already imagine Lucifer’s plans. Whispers here and there. Devil Contracts to important figures all across the city. A growing power base as he used the current Emperor’s absence and waited for him to kick the bucket. And then… Caligula was up next, according to the histories Cain remembered, wasn’t he?

… Oh, that was just begging for the Devil to lead the Empire from a paranoid, hysterical shoulder.

Still, ‘Caligula’ — just Gaius now, as a hundred thousand others in Rome alone — was Agrippina’s brother. There was a chance that Cain could lean his hand on the scales of fate and change Caligula’s madness-…

IIIII

“My own brother; he is mad! Utterly, absolutely, irrecoverably, inconceivably MAD!” Agrippina ranted.

Cain helped their son take his first steps as he listened attentively to his lover.

“The horse I could understand! Jupiter knows it has more sense than the rest of the Senate combined. And his ship-borne palace is just good culture. The supposed ‘war with Neptune’? Fine. A symbolic statement; a message and metaphor — no more. But his pastime of impersonating Jupiter has escalated beyond reason! He believes it now, truly believes it! He is striking the divine faces from all of his statues! And more, violating Vesta’s Virgins?! It must — simply must — be the work of that Devil!”

“It is,” Cain simply confirmed, not taking his eyes off Nero. “Well done, little one. Strong legs are the basis for a strong man; keep at it.”

“Da strongest~!”

He turned back to Agrippina. “And we shall deal with him in time. Right now, forget your brother’s madness and the Devil’s influence. Give little Nero someone to walk towards.”

Agrippina took one look at her son by Cain, and folded just as Caligula must have folded to Lucifer. “Oh, my boy!”

Nero was a beautiful and intelligent child. Cain had trouble believing his son might go on to be the Nero he remembered. After his birth, he’d spent most of his time with Nero as an attempt to avert fate. He thought he’d been rather successful-…

“Padoru!”

“-!” Cain snapped his gaze onto Nero. “Where did you hear that word?”

“Padoru padoru!”

“… Good Lord Above, it has been a long, long time since I prayed to you, but please, God, purge my son of this evil…”

Only laughter echoed on the winds of Heaven.

“… Old Bastard.”

IIIII

“And Claudius is next?” Cain asked, nodding in approval. “Weak of body, but strong of mind; Rome could do worse.”

Agrippina agreed, “He is competent enough. More so than my brother in his last years; that is for certain.”

“Killed by Praetorian Guards and senators; full circle, the first.” Cain shook his head. “Were any of them ours?”

Over the years, the Praetorian Guards had been where Cain had focused a significant portion of his efforts. They were the swords in Rome, after all, and that kind of hard power ended up deciding things more often than not. He knew that much from experience in this life and from the histories of a past life.

In contrast, he knew that Lucifer was mostly hard at work within the Senate. They’d fallen into a sort of cold war, both investing power in the mortals of the Eternal City beneath the notice of Olympus.

Cain was certain Lucifer knew something was up at this point. Whether he knew Cain was responsible was still in question.

Cain had positioned himself better for the future, but Lucifer was the most active in the present — he’d come out on top in their secret struggle with Caligula. He was the whisper in the Emperor’s ear, driving him even madder, and the whisper in the ear of the dissatisfied senators, driving them to commit their coup.

“Not from what I heard.” Agrippina waved. “It was rather a mess, though. Milonia and Drusilla were slaughtered in the attempt alongside Gaius.”

“Of course they were,” Cain sighed. “Your family is just messy as a matter of fact, Lovely Agrippina.”

“I blame the Guards.” Agrippina sniffed. “Those that you haven’t swayed are still just as loose with their sword arms as they were during the time of Sejanus.”

“The change in power will offer opportunities there,” Cain said. “I’ll get us the stranglehold we need, Lucifer’s corruption be damned.”

He nodded to himself, committing to that path. Claudius, he remembered, was a decently solid choice for Emperor. Cain doubted that Lucifer would find much purchase with him. And if Claudius’ time in power became a respite, that just meant Cain would have more time to raise his son right-…

IIIII

“Are you even my father?!”

Cain held his head. “Good Lord, save me from teenagers…”

He’d remembered correctly, years ago. Claudius was simply a solid Emperor for Rome. He focused on pacifying the Senate, implementing infrastructure, and had even successfully conquered Britain where the original Caesar couldn’t.

He was also, Cain had found, more influenced by Olympus than Lucifer. The gods of Rome had finally realized something strange was going on in their neighborhood, and they’d put their foot down with Claudius. Blessings of stability and protections against outside divine influence were the main factors that allowed Claudius to thrive.

That didn’t stop Cain and Lucifer from continuing to build in the background, though.

Lucifer had the Senate in his grip — little surprise there — while Cain had taken a better hold of the Praetorian Guards. Unfortunately, with as busy as Cain had become wrangling the mess of swords in Rome, he’d had to neglect his son somewhat.

“Nero…” Cain began.

“No, I don’t know why mother is so fond of you!” Nero shouted back.

“That is simply love,” Cain explained. “We have been together through thick and thin-…”

“You are not even an equestrian! I have heard no history for your line! You expect me to believe I descend from no greatness at all?!”

“My father’s name was Adam; that is all the ancestry I can claim,” Cain openly admitted.

“Adam?!” Nero gasped. “What kind of Roman name is Adam?! No, you’re a barbarian, too, aren’t you?!”

“This is entirely unproductive, Nero. Your true lineage is greater than you realize-…”

“Through my mother, yes! I am the grandson of Germanicus! Tied by blood and adoption to Divus Augustus himself and Divus Livia herself! And now, I am heir to Rome! When Claudius passes, I shall ascend with no help from you!

“How does it feel, ‘father’?” Nero sneered. “You never married my mother, yet she is a widow once and a wife twice. What kind of man allows his lover to marry a cripple, even if he is Emperor?”

“Right, we’re being spiteful little shits now, I see.” Cain shook his head.

Cain continued, “I know for a fact that Agrippina’s marriage to Claudius is just for political show. Claudius is even a friend of mine. He knows why she hasn’t joined his bed, and he’s good enough that he doesn’t expect it of her. If anything, she married him for you, Nero, to clear the way for your succession. She remains loyal to me in love and lust. But since we’re being spiteful, should I say how she whines and whimpers in-?”

“Bastard!” Nero shouted, leaping at Cain.

Cain held his spiteful son back with one hand, regretfully sighing to himself as he did. Cain did not know if it was God’s curse or a curse inherent to himself alone in this life, but even after millennia in this life, he seemingly couldn’t help but hurt family. 

“… I was right. This is entirely unproductive. Apologies, son; I overstepped. That was much too far-”

“You-! I never want to see you again-!”

IIIII

Cain would end up exiling himself from his son’s side for a time to let things cool between them, but not from Rome. 

It was during those intervening years that he was finally revealed to his rival in Rome.

He met Lucifer naked and by chance when they both happened to be visiting the same public bath at the same time. Cain would, at the very least, treasure the memory of Lucifer’s bemused expression upon recognizing him.

“Cain?”

“Lucifer.”

“This-…” For a moment longer, Lucifer just stared. Then, he laughed loud enough to drive away everyone around them. “Oh, this is rich!”

Cain remained silent, simply assessing his rival. Lucifer’s Fall had been before his time; he’d only felt his influence as the Devil, not the Light of God.

He only somewhat knew what to expect, having spent a decade vying for hidden influence in the Eternal City against Lucifer. He’d learned the Devil’s usual tricks. He liked to lend his corrupting voice to those he influenced, speaking to them in whispers and, after a point, literally speaking through them so others would fall in line, too.

How Lucifer would react to him, though — the First Murderer and not even his own work — Cain didn’t know.

“You know, I’m something of a fan, Good Murderer,” Lucifer drawled and grinned.

“I can’t say the same about you, I’m afraid,” Cain replied.

“Really? Not even after the Old Man cursed you so?”

“I deserved it.”

“Ah, are you one of those, then? Faithful and self-deprecating even in perpetual exile? The Old Man loves followers like you more than any~…”

“Hardly. My sins are my own. I didn’t need God to punish me for them, but He did, and now I live with his curse forevermore. I don’t pray to Him often these days. I don’t damn Him, either. I’m much too busy with the works of man rather than God or Devil.”

“Trying to sit out the Great War, hmm~?”

“Trying to look out for my descendants first and foremost.”

“Lost causes, one and all, but useful fodder, I must say. My victory will inevitably be seized through them.”

“It won’t. Neither Heaven nor Hell will win out over Earth.”

Lucifer seemed amused by that declaration. “Is that so~? These are not Men like you, Cain. What chance do they stand? What choice do they have other than to cower, equally, before Heaven or Hell?”

“If God has done one thing right and nothing else, I would name it humanity’s endless potential,” Cain said.

“Potential so easily smothered in its crib,” Lucifer taunted.

Cain did not yield in the slightest. “Potential that can grow to rival God and Devil — not easily, not simply, but if given the chance-…”

Cain and Lucifer parted ways on fraught terms. There would be no agreement between them. For all that they were both cast out of God’s Grace, that didn’t mean they were alike. Lucifer was Proud and spiteful, willing to wage a war of revenge on Heaven and all of Earth; Cain just wanted to see the race of man live up to its potential — one day, he hoped they would become Man once more.

Outside of Rome, the Great War raged. Cain heard tell that the Gates of Heaven were still under siege, and he heard tell of Devils, Angels, and Fallen Angels across the Empire.

A town in Hispania burned as collateral for a battle between ‘demigods’, white-winged and black; a consul in Gaul doomed his own family to demonic sacrifice, considered perversion by even the Roman gods; a Germanic tribe abandoned their gods to defend against rampaging monsters, unaware that the cause and solution were one and the same.

Within Rome, the Olympians assumed they’d kept the Great War at bay. Wherever and whenever they could, they stomped down on outside influence. They never discovered Lucifer and Cain; both were so entrenched in the Eternal City that once the Olympians started truly looking, their influence just seemed natural.

For years in close exile, Cain maintained his hold over the Praetorian Guards and kept himself in Agrippina’s confidence, if not their son’s.

The best he could do for Nero, estranged as they were after his misstep, was to keep the Devil’s whispers from entering his ears.

He took solace in Agrippina, for she never cast him out. Her marriage to Claudius was loveless and political — necessary, but not at all fulfilling.

When she called — often, with nights as if their love was still young — Cain returned to her bed. The free time, though, when he wasn’t by her side, gave her chances to scheme and act on her own.

Agrippina always was too smart and fiery for her own good; it was what Cain loved about her. It was also what killed Claudius, despite their understanding and even friendship with the Emperor.

Still, Cain had arranged things to fall in Agrippina’s favor when she inevitably made her move. The Praetorian Guard rallied behind him, and thus, her. The Senate more or less agreed, but only to keep the ball rolling as it already was. Cain was wary of involving them too much; he knew their chambers were Lucifer’s favorite playground.

In 54 AD, Nero was made Emperor of Rome.

For a time, his rule was good and beloved, just as Cain had raised him. Then, Cain’s attention was stolen away from mortal affairs once more-…

IIIII

“What does the Might of God want with me?” Cain asked. “Is the curse no longer enough? Has He decreed that my time has finally come?”

The Archangel Gabriel was, to be frank, one of Cain’s favorite servants of God. Even as His strongest arm, she didn’t judge Cain herself. Oh, he knew she didn’t approve of him — none of His Angels did — but she also didn’t crusade for harsher punishment as Uriel did, or look upon him with pity as Michael did, or praise him for his sin as Lucifer did. In His canon, Cain preferred Gabriel over any but perhaps Azazel.

Her legendary beauty may have also helped his opinion of her.

The Might of God was, quite literally, divine. She could rival Venus on the best of days and the worst, though if Cain hadn’t been called out of Rome to meet her, he wouldn’t have tempted Olympus by thinking that thought.

Golden hair, a fit and voluptuous figure, and perfection itself in her features — Gabriel was built for love as much as war. She wore armor of crimson and gold that shouldn’t have been as effective as Cain knew it must’ve been. He supposed, if anyone could get away with a boob-window in divine plate, it would be the Might of God.

Though that did raise other questions… Cain had long since realized his current life took place in a — to borrow a modern word — ‘ecchi’ Creation.

“Nothing of the sort.” Gabriel shook her head.

Her tone was stoic and neutral, as was her expression. Cain couldn’t help but think it didn’t suit her; he couldn’t help but imagine what she would look like with a genuine smile…

“First Murderer.” She didn’t say it with any vitriol, and Cain had stopped flinching at the title long ago. “Creation is at war.”

Cain cocked his head. “I’m… aware…? Did you think I missed that somehow? I may be exiled from His plan, but the struggle between Heaven and Hell has already spilled over into the rest of the world, Gabriel. I wouldn’t be surprised if the pantheons of the East are also fending off Devilish attacks.”

Behind her blindfold, Cain couldn’t see Gabriel’s eyes, but by the pause, he would guess she blinked in surprise. “It has… escalated so far…?”

“You’ve been tied down at the Gates of Heaven for a decade, haven’t you?” Cain guessed.

A mournful frown came upon Gabriel’s face as she nodded. “The waves of Hell are endless… and His Angels fall just as readily as the Devils do. I am only free from the battle now because Father tasked me with speaking to you.”

“My spear still twitches against imaginary foes, Cain,” Gabriel admitted. “Even as His Might, I am-… I am-…”

“Tired?” Cain gently asked.

It was a minute motion, almost unnoticeable, but Gabriel nodded.

“I understand,” Cain said honestly. “I don’t think I can ever not be tired with my curse. I hate to be the one to say this, but you do realize this is only the beginning, no?”

“Lucifer will not stop…” Gabriel whispered. “He will try and try and try until he usurps Creation — Father’s and every other — or until he is put down for good.”

“You will need to prepare yourself to fight until the war is done. I-…” Cain hesitated. “I don’t know how much I can help you; I don’t know how much of my help you’ll even accept. Here and now… Can I offer you a soul-searching lap pillow in these trying times?”

Gabriel innocently cocked her head. “What is a ‘lap pillow’?”

“… A method of giving strength and comfort to the weariest of souls,” Cain answered. “If you’ll humor me, come and lay your head-”

He sat and patted his thighs; Gabriel, to his surprise, took him up on the offer. Staring down at her blindfold, Cain realized that the Might of God was much too trusting — innocent and sweet beneath the absolute martial arm of His will. Thankfully, Cain had no intention of betraying her trust today.

“Hmm,” Gabriel hummed. “This is… nice.”

“Take this time, this rare moment of respite, Gabriel,” Cain advised. “And fortify yourself for the war to come.”

They sat like that for a time, some days or weeks or months or years; Cain felt the time wasn’t wasted in the slightest. Gabriel dozed in and out on his lap. When she came to consciousness, they sat in silence, and when she drifted away again, Cain kept vigil over the mentally healing Archangel who’d been unprepared for a War so Great.

Eventually, she stirred for the final time. “… I was meant to ensure you did not join the enemies of Heaven, Cain.”

Cain hummed, “There, you don’t have to worry, but I’m afraid I can’t say I’m an ally of Heaven, either. I am firmly on the side of man.”

“Heaven is the side of man, isn’t it?” Gabriel said.

Cain shook his head. “No, Heaven is Heaven, and man is man. He created them separately.  Even if both fight for the same cause, even if Heaven guards man, and even if man follows Heaven, claiming they’re one and the same betrays His plan.”

“Hmm. I was not expecting to find you so wise, First Murderer.”

“… I’ve had a lot of time to think on a great many things, and no direction to keep my mind distracted from those thoughts but that of my own making.”

“Then…” Gabriel hesitated. “A more personal question, if you are willing to answer? How-… I am His Might; how could I have grown so… so tired doing work in His name?”

“He doesn’t create anything as perfect, Gabriel,” Cain shared. “Not Angels, not Man or man, not even Himself. Perfect… is limiting. Stagnant. Perfect is not true Creation; it’s a single, frozen moment, and Creation is always in motion.”

“… Thank you, Cain,” Gabriel said; Cain wasn’t quite sure why the use of his name rather than his title sparked a blush on his cheeks.

“Thank you for this moment. It was…” Gabriel smirked just enough to tease and joke, the first Cain had seen from the Might of God. “Perfect.”

IIIII

Cain returned to a Rome on fire, a lover dead by matricide, and a son too far gone to claim as his own.

“I look away for ONE-! FUCKING-! SECOND!” He shouted, punctuating his words with hammer blows upon his foe.

Lucifer’s face was bloodied; his smirk was immortal. “Even if you hadn’t, I would’ve gotten to him, Cain. You laid the groundwork for my greatest work here in Rome so perfectly~…”

“Don’t say that word!” Cain snapped. “It’s not yours!”

For the first time in their brawl through the burning Rome, Lucifer actually looked caught off guard. “What word-?”

Cain punted him through a building rather than answer.

‘Perfect’… That word, that concept, that lie of Creation from Lucifer’s lips after-

It incensed Cain. Unreasonably and irrationally so. More than Lucifer’s corruption of his son and more than the indirect murder of his lover. Perfection…

Cain shot after Lucifer with a kick that shattered Roman concrete and cobblestones. He found the Devil lounging in flames, so confused by Cain’s sudden anger that he hadn’t even moved from where he landed. His brow furrowed in thought, and he muttered to himself.

“Groundwork…? No — simply work…?”

The Devil’s musings were cut short as MURDER bore down upon him. A flying fist caught him in the gut so hard it forced Lucifer to his feet. A cross-body hook removed those feet from under him again. Cain kicked him up into the air where another two-fisted hammer blow was waiting to help him back down.

With the pure physicality of primordial Man, Cain beat the Devil to ‘perfection’.

Now, if only he had his weapon…

From the rubble around him, Cain picked up a Stone.

Lucifer’s eyes shot wide. “W-Wait, there’s no need to get that serious, Cain! Why, in a perfect world, we might even be allies-!”

With a twitching eye and his weapon grasped tightly in hand, the Stone of Cain began to fall upon the Devil — again… and again… and again… and again… and-…

IIIII

— Sean Caine —

In the Dead End, of the audience watching-… no, experiencing my past life as Cain with the help of memories, magic, and mirrors, only two souls found the right words to react.

“!!(\ ゜ロ゜\))” Cass exclaimed her excitement like a wrestling announcer. ‘Bah Gawd-! Bah Gawd Almighty-! It’s a Murder!’

And Gabriel — never one to enjoy the suffering of others, but always willing to make an exception for her Lucifer — just gave a simple closed-eye smile. “Perfect.”

IIIII

[AN: If I were looking to write a spin-off story for one of Sean’s past lives, DxD Cain/Great War would probably be the strongest contender so far. I’m honestly tempted, but I’ll leave it as an idea for the future. ;]