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He is sitting at a desk on the Public Safety Office, being questioned about the murder and subsequent cannibalization of his partner.
This isn't a thing that Public safety ought to be asking, and Makima especially shouldn’t be the one interviewing him. He’s not the first devil who’s eaten his partner (although they usually manage to recover more of the body. They trusted Angel too much.)
Makima asks him, authoritatively, “How did you get him to follow you?”
The Angel Devil shrugs. “He trusted me,” Angel says.
Makima glances down at him, contempt on her face. Not so much more than usual.
“And you betrayed his trust,” she asserts.
The Angel Devil shakes his head, then shrugs. “He let me do it,” he tells her.
She doesn’t believe him. “Why would he let you kill him? He’s stayed alive for a very long time. Why now?”
Angel shrugs. He does not reveal his hand quite yet, but it will not be long.
“I gave him as long as I could. And then I told him that I needed to kill him in order to save Denji from him.”
Makima’s eyes focus. She asks him, sharp and quiet, “And why would you tell him that?”
Angel rests his face against the table.
“An angel came to me in my dreams. She told me that there was no way out for me, but that I could let Aki die gently. She told me that Aki wasn't concerned about his deal with the Future Devil because he was suicidal and self-obsessed, but that his death wouldn't be the worst for him, it’d be the worst for Denji, and that he’d hate that more than anything.”
Her eyes lock onto his again. “And you believed it,” she asks. It ought to be incredulous, but Makima is too controlled for that.
The Angel Devil nods sideways, against the table. He tells Makima, “Everyone knows Aki’s not sane. He wouldn't be here if he was.”
The Angel Devil closes his eyes. “And she told me that Denji would suffer more than anything. She told me that Aki wouldn't really suffer, but that he would do things, become a thing he wouldn't want to be the most.”
And there is a light in her voice, when she asks him, “And you believed it?”
Angel blinks his eyes open. “I believed her because she didn't tell me anything I wanted to hear.”
And is that not what all angels do, upon appearing to unworthy things? Angel Devil has never been a real Angel, but he’s read the Bible. It’s something between an experiment, to combat boredom, and a taunt, Devil Hunters only leaving him romances between humans and angels and the Bible, but there isn't much else to do, when he's not on patrol. Angel Devil would rather sleep. But he can't always sleep, and he wanted to know what an Angel is.
Angel Devil is a devil before he is an Angel. He has never heard the voice of God. He is kinder than the other devils, because he wants to die, and not to hurt people.
Real angels give missions from God. No one wants a mission from God. The Angel Devil didn't want a mission from her, either.
She called herself ‘something like a God,’ but Angel knows better. She is a messenger. Makima cannot take what the angel told the Angel Devil from him, because he did not believe her. And because she gave him some resistance to her influence. Makima would believe herself superior to any angel, especially one who would rely on Angel Devil’s free will, but Makima cannot control that angel now. She has left, and she is forever beyond Makima’s reach.
Makima is staring at him, flat.
“What?,” he asks her.
Her voice is honey-sweet, when she asks him, “Are you sure you didn't want to eat Aki?”
Angel peels himself off of the table, and looks her in the eyes. He tells her, “No. No, I wanted to eat him.” The truth is more complicated than that. He seemed sweet to Angel, not sweet the way that ice cream was, but sweeter than most corpses, and sweet even when he was alive.
Aki didn't taste as good as Angel thought that he would, but he didn't eat Aki because he wanted to. The angel told him that he needed to get rid of all of Aki's flesh. She told him that fire would work, but that’d be ‘more romantic’ if Angel ate him. Her eyes were dark and pitying then. It was a joke, what she told him, but Angel couldn’t burn away all of Aki’s flesh. The fires for that are hotter than Angel knows how to make, and Devils, even Angel Devils, cannot simply drop bodies off at crematoriums without Public Safety being called. And then Aki's body would be in the hands of Public Safety, and that's how it would reach the worst fate. He doesn't know what it would be, if she even really knows what it is. But he trusted her.
Aki trusted him. Angel doesn't know why.
“It was a softer death than he’d get otherwise,” the Angel Devil tells his superior. This is not the reason he did it, but it has the benefit of being true.
Makima blinks down at Angel. She cannot understand this, but as the idea of not understanding things is anathema to her, she will move on quickly.
“So it was an enemy of the Future Devil,” Makima tells the Angel Devil. “I didn't know that it had any enemies. It couldn't make them in our custody, but I’m sure it could have before. It has such an irritating attitude.”
Angel nods. He doesn't care about the Future Devil, but he nods anyways.
“It couldn't possibly be the Angel Devil,” Makima says, a gentle almost-mockery in her voice. “We only have one devil of each fear at a time.”
The Angel Devil nods.
Makima rests a finger against her chin. “I suppose there are a lot of Devils who might want to change the future.” She sinks down into her chair. She asks him, sugar-sweet, “Do you have any idea what Devil they could be? To appear to something like you?”
The Angel Devil does not dream, ever.
The Angel Devil nods, quietly.
“The God Devil,” Angel says. “It must have been the God Devil.”
This is too close to a reason for Makima. She is greater than a fear of an imaginary God, she can convince herself of that. She sits at the top of Japan’s hierarchy, if not the very top. But an Angel doing missions for a God makes too much sense.
The Control Devil will make up a story, and make the Angel Devil repeat it, and the Angel Devil’s partner is dead, and why would he resist Ms. Makima? He doesn't care about Denji and Power, not very much at all. He’ll tell the fiends what Makima wants him to say, and he won't fight all that much, but it’s too late. Aki’s bones are there, but his flesh is gone. She cannot make a fiend from his skeleton, even less one Denji would recognize.
This does not change Makima's plan for Angel. It just spoils her plan for Denji. It will not be perfect. Makima can squeeze all of the pain out of Angel’s confession, and Denji’s life won't ever be perfect, not for years and years. Makima does not know how to deal with the aftermath of loss
She will get Denji another family member, and wind all the time out of Angel, and not let the Chainsaw Man dwell.
Makima turns to the Devil in front of her.
“You’ve caused quite a mess, haven’t you?,” she asks the Angel Devil.
Angel’s posture has relaxed. He smiles at her, and shrugs. Makima cannot make him regret this, but he will. Oh, he will.