Angels of Death is a manga series written by Makoto Sanada and illustrated by Kudan Nazuka, based on a video game of the same name. It began serialization in Media Factory's Monthly Comic Gene magazine in January 2016. A prequel to the video game, Angels of Death Episode.0, also written by Sanada and illustrated by Nazuka, began serialization digitally in Kadokawa's Gene Pixiv on March 3, 2017. A two-volume four-panel manga series titled Satsuten!, written by Sanada and illustrated by Negiyan, was serialized in Comic Gene from February 2017 to January 2018.
13-year-old Rachel Gardner wakes up on Floor B7 of a hospital with only the memory of a murder that she witnessed prior, resulting in her being sent for counselling. While searching for her parents, a announcement refers to her as a 'sacrifice', opening an elevator. Unaware that this building is the setting for a killing game on the various floors, Rachel begins to make her way up, where she encounters serial killer Isaac "Zack" Foster on B6 and her counsellor Daniel "Danny" Dickens on B5. Although Danny appears friendly at first glance, he soon reveals a morbid interest in her blue eyes, cornering her in an attempt to help her regain that once blank, dead look in her eyes. Frightened and panicked, Rachel regains her memories of the murder details, realising her parents are dead. Zack then reappears and kills Danny, but loses interest in her lack of emotions. As the broadcast designates Zack as a sacrifice along with Rachel for having killed someone not on his floor, the two strike a deal where Zack can use her intelligence to escape the building, and in return will kill her upon leaving.
Zack and Rachel begin to make their way up the various floors. At B4, they come across a huge graveyard and a network of dark rooms filled with files about the various people that came to the building as 'sacrifices', all of whom were ominously killed. As Rachel explores the floor for clues to the next elevator, Zack encounters the floor master: a young boy with a pumpkin mask named Edward "Eddie" Mason, who has fallen for Rachel at first sight and is determined to kill her to bury her in one of his graves. At first, Rachel contemplates Eddie's offer but ultimately chooses Zack when he swears to God on their oath. Using the darkness to his advantage, Eddie attempts to kill the two of them until Rachel turns on the light, allowing Zack to kill him. He is buried in the grave meant for Rachel.
Zack decides to nickname Rachel "Ray" as they head up the elevator to B3, a prison-cum-torture-chamber. The floor master, a sadomasochistic woman named Catherine "Cathy" Ward, forces them to go through stages of torture to proceed, intending to uncover their crimes and condemn them as sinners. In the first torture, Zack sits on an electric chair without him knowing, causing him to be electrocuted by Cathy until Ray stops the mechanism. In the second torture, they are trapped in a room filled with poisonous gas. Even though Ray has solved the riddle and found the keycard, Zack broke it by accident. As Cathy increase the poison's dose, Ray resorts to explode the whole room using batteries and wires available to create spark since the gas is flammable while she and Zack hides in a safe. Escaping the room, Ray and Zack takes a rest from the aftereffect of the gas, in which Zack begins to dream of his childhood.
Chapter 16: "In the Firing Squad Execution Chamber"
Zack recalls his time at an illegal orphanage where the caretakers neglected the children to the point of death. There, he was made a tool of labour, especially in burying the bodies. After watching a slasher horror movie though, he was inspired to kill the couple and went on a killing spree. Waking up, Cathy offers Zack and Ray to stay in eternal imprisonment as her playthings, which reminds Zack of his childhood that causes him to have a brief conflict with Ray. At the fourth obstacle that requires two serums, one vitamin and one drug, to be injected, Zack decides to inject both serums into himself. The drug triggers Zack's past and his bloodlust, causing him to nearly kill Ray until she calms him down by asking what he truly wants. Having vowed to himself to never lie, Zack pleads Ray not let him kill her until they fulfil their promise. Ray run with Zack in tow until they ends up in a room where gatling guns are pointed at them. Cathy reveals herself and offers Ray a gun to shoot Zack, but Ray refuses to follow Cathy's order with reasoning neither she nor Zack are tools like she make them to be. This delights Zack who claims to be so happy that he cuts his own stomach open.
Enraged by Zack's apparent suicide, Cathy moves to kill Ray instead until Zack is revealed to be alive. Before Cathy could go further, Ray takes her off guard by shooting her with a gun she hid in her bag, severely wounding Cathy, which gives Zack the opportunity to kill Cathy. When they arrives at B2, Zack faints due to his bleeding, prompting Ray to go look for medicine. The story then changes to Cathy's past. She was a daughter of a pair of doctors who was popular in her school until they died due to accident. Seeing Cathy was unaffected by their death, other students started bullying her, except a girl named Lucy who was her loyal admirer to the point she would murder the ones whom Cathy deems as sinners. The two of them eventually become prison wardens and constantly torture the prisoners to force them confess their sins until they died. This ended when Cathy quits her job as prison warden after receiving invitation from a reverend, killing Lucy whom she deemed as a sinner as well for all the prisoners she had killed.
Ray meets a reverend Abraham Gray who tells her she can get medicine at Danny's floor and he can take her there only if she'll take his trial. After convincing Zack she will return alive, Rachel finds herself constantly collapses and seemingly hallucinates only to find herself already at B5, but finds the medicines are gone. Meanwhile, Danny, who had faked his death, is about to kill Zack, but Zack awakes right before Danny could. He offers Zack medicine in exchange for Ray's eyes, but Zack refuses. Knowing he is no match for Zack even at the latter's injured state, Danny leaves. Following Zack's request, Ray returns to B6 where she first met Zack and brings him his knife. When she returns to B2, however, Ray finds Zack is missing.
Grey accused Ray for being a witch who only follows her selfishness that causes misfortunes to happen to Zack and the other floor masters, which unnerves Ray. She then finds Zack in the next room, trying to follow Danny. Despite his injury, Zack insists that they continue their way, but Zack's bleeding eventually worsens. Seeing Ray willing to endanger herself to save him despite their oath, Zack points out Ray's self-contradiction. Ray admits that she is confused as to why she only wants Zack to kill her but can only think it's an oath to God. Zack then admits while he indeed made the oath, he thinks that God doesn't exist in the world. Hearing this, Ray also comes into realization that she doesn't want Zack to kill her just because he swore to God but doesn't know the reason why, further distressing her. As Zack once again falls asleep from his injury, Ray once again tries to look for medicine, meeting Gray once more who reveals Danny has given him some. However, Gray refuses to give it to Ray and takes her to a courtroom where the supposedly dead Eddie and Cathy reappears together with Danny to judge her.
Grey deems Ray guilty for being a witch and sentenced her to be burn at stake while telling her that her so-called God does not exist and he is the God in the entire building. Refusing to accept Gray's words, Ray remembers' Zack's knife in her possession and recalls her relationship with him, convincing herself that Zack is her God. Injuring herself with the knife, Ray awakes from the hallucination and threatens Gray to give her the medicine. After giving the medicine to Ray, Gray warns her that God doesn't desire impure and dishonest being. Ray returns to Zack's side and tends his injury before finally they proceeds to Floor B1. Upon arriving at B1 that resembles an inside of a house, Ray panics and tells Zack not to open the door to the room in front of them. The story then changes to Zack's past. After murdering his abusive caretakers, Zack runs away from the orphanage and kills a passerby to use her car to cover from the rain. In the morning, he is found by a blind old man who takes him to his house and allows Zack to stay without asking anything in return. Unable to comprehend the old man's kindness, Zack killed again and tells the whole thing to the old man in hope of scaring him so Zack can kill him, but the old man merely asks what Zack is planning to do from now on, further confusing Zack. The next morning, the old man decides to spend the rest of his life to care for Zack. Unfortunately, just as he decided this, he was killed by thugs for his wallet. Upon finding out the old man's death, Zack kills his murderers, coming into conclusion that he is a monster and will bring despair to those who shows happiness.
Danny is working as counsellor for the prisoners in hope of finding his ideal eyes. In the same prison, Cathy is working as a jailer together with her friend Lucy, regularly torturing the prisoners to confess their crimes to the point of death. However, one day, both Danny and Cathy meets a prisoner who is neither afraid nor remorseful of his crimes. He informed Danny and Cathy about a reverend he met who has influenced religious fanaticism on him. Out of curiosity, Danny and Cathy goes to the church where the reverend, Abraham Gray, is working as a priest. Under the effect of a chemical, Danny reveals his true self and desire to Gray. The prisoner from before escape captive and go back to the church, but is then disillusioned of his faith on Gray when the priest reveals he does not believe that God exist and is simply conducting an experiment. With Cathy's help, Danny kills the prisoner. Intrigued by Danny, Gray invites him to become a part of his experiment to determine the true meaning of religious faith as the one who gives the trial. Feeling following Gray would give him more satisfaction, Danny accepts Gray's invitation.
As Gray's experiment needs more people who can give trials that requires them to be able to kill without slightest bit restriction or hesitation, Danny starts looking for candidates and considers Cathy to be one. While shopping, Cathy stops at a store where she meets the twin owners of the store who are using human flesh as ingredients for their furnitures. Danny proposes the twins to join the experiment, but Gray refuses them and would only allow one of the twins to join. Distressed by Gray's words that they are incomplete, one of the twins kills the other to become "complete" and reappears at the church, introducing himself as Shin. While closing the store, Shin suggests for Danny to invite Cathy to the experiment, making Danny questions why Cathy never killed the prisoners herself. But admitting that Cathy fits the criteria given by Gray, Danny invites Cathy to join them. Cathy agrees after admitting that not killing the sinners on her own doesn't satisfied her, and so she has chosen Lucy as the first person she would kill.
