Angel Notes

The world has ended, so why have humans refused to end with her?

Angel Notes is a short story by Kinoko Nasu set After the End. It can be read here.

A war between modified humans, A-rays and Liners, in the dead Earth now known as the Land of Steel is interrupted by the eight Aristoteles which start descending to the Earth after Gaia pleaded for them to hunt down the remnants of the human race.

The story begins with "Gun God" Godo, as he flies with the remnants of his comrades above the troposphere, and defeats a winged Aristoteles with his gun that kills gods.

Five years pass.

Gun God now lives in the last city on Earth with plant life. In one of the few cities left in the Land of Steel, the last true human walks into his house and meets an angel named V/V. She tells him that she is here to cook, clean, and play the guitar. She is very bad at all of this - her guitar's untuned - but she's pretty and impossible to kick out, so Godo eventually learns to tolerate her.

This doesn't last for very long, for another Aristoteles is coming to destroy the planet. Gun God has to leave once more in order to prevent the approaching Type-Saturn from reaching the planet.

Angel Notes sets the foundation for some major concepts of the Nasuverse(thought it may not actually be set in it), such as the Earth being a living being (Gaia), and the concept of the Ultimate Ones.

Tropes found in this short story:

 * After the End
 * Badass Abnormal: Pretty much the entirety of the human race in this timeline, after they took on major modifications to survive in the new environment.
 * Badass Normal: Gun God, pretty much, since he's the last remaining normal human on Earth.
 * BFS: The Ether Liners fight using demonic swords emanated from their own bodies. The Slash Emperor wielded by Ado Edem is absurdly huge. Incidentally, see that ravine in the picture? The Slash Emperor did that.
 * Bittersweet Ending:
 * Dark and Troubled Past:
 * Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: They don't call him the Gun God for nothing. His gun kills gods. It's designed for killing gods, because its power is proportionate to the density of Gin in its target. Godo, as the last man on Earth, is the only one who can use his Black Barrel safely. Then there is Ado Edem, strongest of the Ether Liners, who slew Type Jupiter with his demonic sword, the Slash Emperor.
 * Eldritch Abomination: The Aristoteles..
 * Fantastic Racism: Implied to be the reason behind the war between the Liners and the A-Rays.
 * Gaia's Vengeance: The Earth was terrified by the fact that her children could survive her after they killed her, and called for the other planets to destroy humanity after her death.
 * Half-Human Hybrid: A-rays, humans engineered to cross with other species, like tigers and bears and oh my. Liners are just as engineered, being merely a subset of A-ray that happens to look more human. Both are designed to survive in the harsh world of Over Count 1999, to breathe the toxic, Grain-infused air and to eat food concentrated to levels that are toxic to normal human beings.
 * Last of His Kind: Godo is the last actual human. Even the Liners are a subspecies of the A-rays, which merely happen to look the most human.
 * Meta Origin: The Earth's death has resulted in the abundance of poisonous Grain/Ether, or "space dust", which has amazing energy density. Users of Gin can unleash amazing amounts of energy, and this results in conventional warfare becoming obsolete. One of the normal A-rays can apparently unleash force equivalent to that of a nuclear bomb by herself. She happens to look like an angel as well.
 * In addition, it has been confirmed by Word of God that
 * Our Angels Are Different: One of the A-ray subspecies are Winged Humanoids who look like angels. Then there are the angels around the World Tree, who are basically seen as pests equivalent to wild dogs. Godo gets paid to hunt them and keep their numbers down. An A-ray angel friend of his gets annoyed at him because of it.
 * Person of Mass Destruction: Everybody except poor Godo. He makes up for it by killing gods.
 * Science Marches On: Angel notes features a total of 8 Aristoteles, one for every living planet minus the Earth. Pluto has since been demoted from planet to dwarf planet. Then again, the Moon had its own Aristotel and it's never been a planet.
 * The Stoic: Godo
 * The World Tree: Two intertwined trees that rise for hundreds of meters above Godo's home city.
 * Ultimate Lifeform: The Ultimate Ones are the most powerful life forms in their respective heavenly bodies.
 * Winged Humanoid: V/V, as well as an unnamed A-Ray woman.