Chapter 95: Truth and Lie in a Form

"Can I… see your true form?" Haru asked. "The one that the original Ali saw when he said that it looks exactly like the devil."

"Looking exactly like the devil means being ugly," He said. "You'll be scared of me and you'll regret seeing me."

Haru was silent for a while, as if thinking what should be done to convince him.

"Your true form is full of black colors, right? And your shape is like that of a mourning ghost. Your wings are full of scars and touching you would make anyone bleed."

"H-How did you know that?!"

Haru remembered seeing that kind of form through the crane machine's glass, but he wasn't sure of it. Now that he had seen Ali's reaction, he was able to confirm that it's definitely the form that the devil was trying to hide.

"And you must've seen your reflection using this ocean's surface, right?" Haru went on. "Then show me. I already know everything. I just want to be face to face with who I really am with right now."

Ali looked hesitant for a while, but he eventually gave in.

He had nothing to hide anymore and it was just him and his supposed vessel in the worlds he, himself, had created.

He soon shed the mask that was in the form of a little boy's body and grew eerily with its black skin and fangs, its wounded wings, and its armament-like limbs.

Haru couldn't describe it any further and thought that what he saw in the crane machine's glass seemed like a mere silhouette of the devil's true form.

"I'm not the original Ali and I'm definitely not like him, as you have told in your story," Haru said as he stared at the devil's true form. "So I'm going to say the truth. Your true form is ugly and repulsive. It's not the sight that anyone wants to see and you're probably right about guessing that the original Ali must've truly been scared. But because he's selfless, he hid that from you and went blabbering nonsense about you looking like death and being wonderful. Death, I think, is more elegant than you are."

They were both silent for a while.

"I have another form," The devil said. "Less repulsive and a bit more acceptable."

"Let me see it, then."

Soon, the devil shrunk and mimicked the form of a human.

Only this time, his dark skin and the flowing aura of it never faded as he turned into a child-like form with his tiny broken wings peeking from his back.

It was more acceptable, just like how he said it.