Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The moon presses down upon the world as the vibrant red of the aurora borealis threads through the fabric of the night sky. Moonlight should glow white, but tonight a sickly green tinge infects its surface, staining the pale faces of the pedestrians as they clump together in clusters of fear.

The cellphone in Yoshiya’s hand vibrates as the terror trembles through his body. Instead of a small circle suspended in the sky, the full moon looms over an entire block of Shinjuku, its edge barely visible in Yoshiya’s peripheral.

 “I’m, I’m…” He needs to say something—anything to explain this awful scene that his camera captures. But the words wither and die as the red lights near the edges of the sky continue to thread themselves around the enlarged moon.

Throughout the streets surrounding Yoshiya, people cry and moan in a morass of fear that threatens to engulf him. Yet, somehow, some coherency of thought collects within his head and he manages to extract a few words despite the mind-numbing terror oozing through his body.

“I don’t know what’s going on.” Yoshiya was walking; he doesn’t remember where, not with the moon bearing down on him now. Yet, he does remember, with isolated clarity, the moment that the streets had begun to glow brighter than what had been cast by the city lights. He remembers looking up, watching as the black sky peeled open and witnessing the moment those red lights first slithered into existence around a growing moon engorged with such green luminescence that the faint stars had vanished under the brightness of its light.

Words fail Yoshiya once again. Even thoughts barely stutter into existence for what can be said when the moon devours the night?

Hysteria bubbles up from within him. Once he had gotten a better grasp of the actual language, he would have made a decent English major, thinking up metaphors like that.

Would have…Weakness cuts away at Yoshiya’s legs and his knees almost fold.

He’s going to die. The moon is falling towards the Earth and he’s going to die. Why is he sitting here filming this, wasting time when he should be calling his mom or Kaori, someone-

A roar rips through Yoshiya, stripping away the worst of his terror and leaving him staggering from a deep sense of loss. The crowd erupts around him in yelps and yells. A woman stumbles into him, only to push away while shaking her head in confusion.  It doesn’t make sense, the presence of the roar engulfs him, yet he can still hear the rising shrieks as people around him begin to point and back away from something to his right.

Gripping his cellphone tighter in apprehension, Yoshiya turns to look and stares at the sight of a tornado whirling above the tallest building within the district. It glows red, a black coagulated red that scabs over every coherent thought in the boy’s head.

As a hollowness spreads within Yoshiya, a new sound crawls out from the pulsating center of the glowing tornado. Drowning out the clamor of the streets, a second roar awakens, tearing through Yoshiya’s ears and down the streets on the back of a harsh wind. Despite the overbearing clamor, the initial roar that had stripped away his fear continues to resonate within him, scraping away any form of emotion and leaving nothing but numbness in its place.

The wind comes back, yanking on Yoshiya’s clothes and throwing loose debris into the air. Slips of paper whip past Yoshiya towards the twisting black behemoth that tears into the sky as if trying to claw at the moon itself.

Holding up his trembling cellphone, Yoshiya draws the device in front of him. The moon and the tornado are swallowed by the camera’s eye, shrinking down to fit inside of the phone’s screen. Funnily, as long as he beholds the hideous column through the frame of his phone’s cruddy camera, it’s like an evil spirit trapped in a box. Contained as it is, it won’t slip off the building’s edge and come howling down into the streets below.

Just as suddenly as it had appeared, the tornado vanishes from the confines of the screen. Yoshiya freezes as once again the moon’s feverish glow rules the skies unfettered. Within the deep sense of loss that the roar had carved into Yoshiya’s chest, sparks of fear sputter in and out of existence as he gasps from the wavering emotion. The wheezy breaths of those around him barely reach Yoshiya’s ears while he grips the shirt fabric over his chest as if trying to squeeze out the numbness that has curled around his heart.  He stares at the empty space left by the tornado as if at any moment it will spin back into existence.

A thin streak of orange light shoots off of the top of the building, hitting another skyscraper a block away. For the most vanishingly small of moments, a perfect circle is visible where the light explodes upon impact, carving the side of the skyscraper open. But then, smoke swallows the gaping hole as the building collapses in on itself and casts a rain of rubble down onto the streets below.

Previously quiet whimpers rise into screams. People who had been hunched over gasping now scramble past Yoshiya. As if he is a rock at the bottom of the raging river, they part around him in desperate dashes to avoid death while he stands completely still. Eyes fixed upwards, he watches as the next orange flash is followed by a set of purple explosions that encircle the sky above the city. With his camera still raised, shock freezes him solid.

He barely even notices when the moon above him starts to shrink; not when one of those orange flashes slices off the top corner of the Metropolitan Government building, sending tons of rubble cascading into the streets before him.

A shadow descends over him, blocking out the remaining green glow and finally drawing his attention upward. The top floors of an office building meet his gaze as they fall directly on top of him.

Fear bursts back into his chest, scrambling out in a scream as his knees finally fold. The impact of his knees against the pavement jars his entire body just as the building rushes towards him…but stops only a few meters above him.

 Snot and tears run down his face, and his chest heaves as he gulps in air. His arm still holds the camera upwards – more from being locked in that direction than any conscious effort on his part –and it records the new sky made of metal and concrete. A small trickle of dust trails from the hovering building and brushes his shoulder. The gentle touch centers all of Yoshiya’s scattered thoughts into a realization. The camera pointing up at the ceiling of concrete turns towards his face. The boy doesn’t even wipe the snot from his nose as he sobs.

“Mom, Dad, I’m not coming home, I’m sorry, I’m not,” His tears choke him. “Kaori, please be okay, I’m sorry, please.”

The video cuts, leaving the screen in total darkness. Kaori sits on her bed, legs tucked under her and her phone held loosely by numb fingers. Once the video exits full-screen mode, white light strikes the girl’s face, reflecting brightly off of her eyes as she stares unblinkingly. Below the video, the black lettering of 5,014 views trickle into her awareness, as does the nonsensical string of symbols that make up the poster’s username.

She had just been surfing YouTube because she couldn’t sleep. She hadn’t, she hadn’t meant to see that…it had just randomly appeared in her feed.

As her thoughts stutter and stall, she taps on the username, expecting something, anything besides the created date of the account to state two hours ago. The uploaded date for the video reflects the same horrible digits.

Her fingers press and slip against the screen, searching for a reason to dispel the rising unease, because that couldn’t have been real, right? It certainly looked like the same streets that she herself had walked down repeatedly throughout her life but that didn’t happen. She would have been able to see something like that from the windows of her house. There would have been something like-

Sirens blaring in the middle of the night, startling her awake and leaving her sitting up in bed with a throbbing heart until she sought the comfort of the mind-numbing videos of the internet.

Kaori scampers off of her bed, bare feet hitting the floor as she slides her contact lists onto the cellphone screen. She paces the length of the room, glancing out of the window that faces in the wrong direction to actually see anything important as the phone rings in her ear.

No one answers her call except for the voicemail of her friend Yoshiya Kohmaru, talking into her ear with a far calmer, happier voice than those last desperate words that had called out to her on that small video screen.

Chapter Text

Where did everyone go? That should be the question on her mind, but it isn’t. Because even if most of the city disappeared, there are only a few people who really matter.

Twice, Kaori listens to Yoshiya’s voicemail before she moves.

Without bothering to change out of her pajamas, she slips past the bedroom of her sleeping, snoring father and down the hall of their small apartment. After jamming on a pair of sneakers, she grips the doorknob and doesn’t even hesitate to force the door open. Her skin prickles when a wall of cold rushes though the entryway and slips right past her overgrown shirt and into her skin.

Despite the days being a little on the warm side, it isn’t summer yet. Kaori was expecting a spring night chill to greet her, but this…This cold is too harsh, too close to the piercing bite of winter. Kaori shivers, less from the cold than from the unnaturalness of it, before rushing down the stairwell of her apartment.

Fear burns through her as she makes her way through the smaller streets, causing the air’s bite to evaporate from her awareness. Yoshiya couldn’t have made a fake video that good, not with the barely up-to-date cellphone that he has. But what Kaori saw, that wasn’t possible. She’s looking up right now and the moon looks perfectly small and white as it stares back at her from its corner in the sky.

It continues to watch her as she makes her way through the quiet residential streets and towards the Koshu-Kaido road leading into the Shinjuku district. It shouldn’t be her only companion tonight; the four-lane roads should be filled with late night workers driving home and the younger partygoers who have temporarily shrugged off their daily responsibilities.

Instead, Kaori runs through empty streets. The high-rises loom over her as the black sky above presses down upon the silent city.

Something must have happened. There’s no way Kaori should be able to go blocks and blocks without seeing anyone but her reflection in the dark windows. But the place that she’s running to, the building where that tornado had sprung from…that was the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. If that video had really happened, there would have been more than pandemonium in the streets. The National Defense Force itself would have surely rushed to the scene with military helicopters crawling through the skies and soldiers running through the streets.

Kaori’s ears prickle as the absence of blades whirring through the air crawls over her spine. There aren’t even any sirens piercing the night, only the sound of her shoes hitting the pavement over and over again.

At every empty crosswalk, the streets stretch out around her, forcing her to keep her eyes ahead lest the barren sidewalks draw her to a stop. And she should stop. She shouldn’t be here. Kaori should be at home and under her bedroom covers, waiting for tomorrow when there would be nothing in the sky except for the regular old sun with a few clouds scattered by the breeze.

Each gasp rattles in her throat. The knuckles of her hands glow white with a desperate grip. She needs to go home, turn right back around the way she came. It would be safe and smart but…what if Yoshiya isn’t there in the morning? What if it’s just his voicemail tomorrow and an empty desk across the classroom from her own?

What if he’s gone?

“Yoshiya…” The words thin under the towering skyscrapers.

“Yoshiya,” Kaori says louder, just enough for herself to hear. She continues to rush forward, picking up the pace as she repeats her friend’s name just a little louder each time she speaks.

Her legs scream at her as she drags oxygen into her burning lungs, but she doesn’t stop. Regardless of how blurry her vision grows or how loud her heart pounds in her ears, Kaori keeps running, calling out her friend’s name. If she goes fast enough, maybe she could search the whole city tonight.

The red lights glaring down at her are meaningless as she zips under them. There aren’t any cars to run her over anyway, so why should she waste her time slowing down.

Kaori doesn’t see the vehicle, not until the tires’ screech breaks through her ears. Red and blue lights flutter across her face as she stumbles back too late to save herself. The driver reacts fast enough though, the bumper stopping inches from her bare knees as they shake.

Seconds after the car stops, her hands reach out as if she could have caught it before it hit her.

“Ma’am?!” One of the officers is already out of the police car before Kaori’s managed to drag her gaze away from the headlights. He hovers several feet away, sweat glistening off his face as he inches towards her.

“Ma’am, are you all right?” He looks old enough to be her dad as he stares at her with open concern.

There’s somebody else here and that’s good, right? Maybe they know something, anything about why the streets are so empty.

“Young lady, my name is Officer Tanaka. I need you to tell me what you’re doing out here in the middle of the night.” His tone changes, gaining a touch of parental authority under the concern that plagues his eyes.

Buried, childish instinct emerges past the shock and forces an admission out of Kaori. “I’m looking for my friend, Yoshiya.” The next words stretch thin. “I’ve been trying to call him, but he won’t answer.”

The cop tries not to frown, but the corners of his mouth weigh down as he glances back at the window shield hiding his partner.

Kaori waits for him to say something, because what could she say next? “I saw him on this impossible video” sounds so stupid.

“Okay, well here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to take you to the station, and you can give us his description and name. And where you think he last was, and we’ll look for him for you.”

Kaori just stares as the officer finishes. The skin under his eyes is dark from exhaustion.

“What happened out here?” she asks.

The video can’t be real because he wouldn’t be acting this calm. He would be shoving her in the car, telling her to get out and away because a part of the city’s in ruins and who knows how far it will spread. That’s not how he acts, though. Instead, the look of concern fades in his eyes and a dull sheen grows over his gaze.

“Well, nothing scary happened, that’s for sure.” He nods like he’s about to nod right off to sleep.

Apprehension prickles along Kaori’s skin.

“There’s been a few people passed out here and there, but nothing worth panicking over.” The man’s gaze wanders past Kaori’s shoulder and focuses on nothing at all.

She refuses to take her eyes off of him.

“Hey.” The man’s gaze lands on her again at his own muted exclamation. “We’ve been dropping people off at the hospital. Maybe that’s where your friend is.”

Nope, no. Kaori isn’t doing this, whatever this is. There’s something wrong here, and it’s not just the abandoned streets.

There’s something wrong with these people.

Kaori steps back and the officer frowns.

“Hey, where you going? You need to find your friend.”

Kaori drags up some remnant of a smile. “Oh, that’s okay. I just remembered. He told me yesterday to meet up by the thing, so I’m fine.” And that was terrible. She honestly would have had a better head start by not saying anything and running. Now, he knows she’s full of crap.

The officer stares at her, an ember of emotion flickering under the dullness.

“Are you sure?” He asks without lurching for her or showing any signs of movement at all.

“Yep, totally sure. Besides, there’s nothing worth panicking about, right?” Kaori’s voice cracks at the end of her question and her heart nearly stops. But the officer only nods.

“I guess…” His frown deepens.

Kaori backs away, nearly tripping over her own feet. “Thanks for your help Mr. Policeman.” Somehow, her voice carries enough gratitude to sound sincere. She barely manages to turn her back on them, keeping her light jog slow and steady just long enough to get into the mouth of an alleyway. The moment she’s out of their sight, she takes off sprinting, her feet slamming against the ground as she runs into the darkness.

Her hands clench her knees as her long hair falls over the sides of her face, like a curtain blocking out the world around her from sight. Kaori was going to run farther, to the point that it would have been exhaustion that forced her to stop. But she had reached her destination. Without even realizing it, she had skidded to a stop in front of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.

It had towered over her, whole and unmarked. The edge that had been lopped off in Yoshiya’s video fitted back seamlessly into its rightful place as the rest of the skyscrapers encircled it. Those buildings had all been torn apart within the confines of her cellphone’s screen; yet now, every single one rises up over her, undamaged and untouched.

She couldn’t handle it, this impossibility. But even after hunching over so that her hair blotted out her vision, the scene around her won’t leave her mind’s eye. She tries to focus on the ground instead, but…

There’s a cellphone by her foot with a little plastic kitty attached to its keychain. She stares at it as its little black beady eyes look up at her. It isn’t hers, and neither is the purse that she tripped over a few yards back. There’s also a canvas bag that she hasn’t looked at since she bent down to hide everything from her eyes. A few tourist trinkets spill out as it lays deflated on its side.  Judging by the paintings sprawled across its surface, it had to have come from the Opera House’s gift shop she ran by only minutes ago.

There aren’t too many items, just one or two abandoned things every couple yards. But it’s enough. Enough to show that other people must have thought that video was real too, even if all the buildings around her show no sign of ever being destroyed.

The cold finally catches up to Kaori again; and she shivers from that, not from the fear crawling through her body. She pants, the exertion of having run here finally burning through her lungs.

The sound of her breathing reaches through the air around her. There aren’t any other noises, no cars to swallow it up with their rumbles nor chatter of the late-night crowd to trample over it as they head home at this ungodly hour. Just her alone, in the exact same spot her friend had stood.

The enormity of it presses down upon her hunched shoulders. Something had happened here. Those sirens that had jolted her awake, the barren streets, her friend’s video reaching out for her in the dark. They’re real, it isn’t an ill-thought prank or even a dream because she’s biting her lip so hard that the pain would have ripped her awake. This is real and happening, the logic and rules of reality have been undone not on a screen to an anime Kaori’s just watched, but to herself and now it’s swallowed up her friend just like everyone else who was there beside him—

A shuffling sound crawls over Kaori’s ears. With the curtain of hair blocking her sight, she can’t see whatever it is that is making that slow noise. But she knows, she just knows, that even if it sounds far away that only idiots from horror films believe something like that before they look up and get snatched away.

So she doesn’t look up. She scampers back, hands half-raised and legs tense and ready to run. Bracing, she tilts her head up and sees nothing. The shuffling noise that her heartbeat nearly drowns out isn’t in front of her.

Kaori whirls, knowing that there has to be something right behind her, but it isn’t right there either. Several yards away, at the intersection she had passed earlier, a figure has emerged from the gloom of the perpendicular street. Its feet drag against the pavement of the road it staggers upon.

Weird videos, brain dead cops, Kaori wouldn’t be surprised if that list finished up with zombies. She keeps her distance. It hasn’t seen her yet, not by the way it continues to trek forward and away from her. That’s good, really it is, gives her time to see what she might be up against. It looks human, a man or a boy judging from the profile of its physique. It’s not moving right at all, feet dragging against the ground like its legs are damaged on the inside…Oh, it stopped.

Kaori’s breath catches in her throat. It turns, its face too dark to see anything except for the glasses that gleam in the city lights.

Her legs tremble and the thing drags one foot forward. Her heart throbs and it slowly shuffles closer until several yards become only a few. She doesn’t wait for that distance to dwindle down; breaking out of her shock, Kaori side-steps until she slides around the fender of one of the few abandoned cars.

Somehow, she holds her ground as it stumbles closer. She needs to know now just how smart these things are, if they’ll try to climb over cars or lurch around them. There’s only one, so she should be fine as long as she keeps her eyes right on its face that finally is close enough for her to see…

Time doesn’t stretch, the thing is already shuffling so slowly that her mind can’t make anything move any slower. Kaori herself doesn’t move, doesn’t even think of it when it finally stops parallel with the car. Slowly, the entity raises its arm, but not to reach towards her. At the end of an outstretched arm, a small cellphone points towards the Metropolitan Government Building. The hand that holds it is so pale that it glows against the phone’s dark screen.

“Yoshiya…” Kaori finally chokes out. The minutes slip by and he just stands there, phone aimed at the sky that looms starless and dark over them.

He doesn’t respond when his name slips out of her again, doesn’t do anything other than stand there with his arm trembling from the strain. Kaori inches forward, hands curled against her chest as she moves past the car and towards her childhood best friend.

No part of her recalls that she would never approach anyone else who stood there barely seeming human.

“Yoshiya.” Her voice barely whispers past her own ears as she comes close enough to reach for him. His eyes are glazed behind his reflective glasses, even when she finally repeats his name loud enough to draw his attention.

Slowly, his gaze roams from the phone to Kaori’s face. The rest of his body turns as well just as the hand holding the phone drops to his side. Two trickles of blood flow from his nose and drip past his chin. Kaori shivers as he just looks through her.

She’s made a mistake. That realization burns through her as he finally moves forward. She shouldn’t have come this close. She really shouldn’t have come close enough for him to grab her.

“Kaori?”

He speaks, each syllable catching on the other, making her name near unintelligible. But he said her name. He actually said her name.

“Hey Yoshiya… what happened?” Kaori reaches out, her words as soft as the tentative touch of her hands upon his shoulders. His glazed eyes draw down to her collar bone before he drags his gaze back up to the sky. His phone clatters against the asphalt as he raises his now empty hand and points to the empty sky.

“It was right there.” The blood continues to trickle, curling around the corner of his mouth as he speaks.

“The moon was right there, but now it’s gone.”

Chapter Text

As the sun rises in the east, it brightens the rooftops of a small Shibuya neighborhood only a few blocks away from the main Koshu-Kaido road. Despite the work hour drawing near, the sidewalks remain quiet and empty while silent cars stay hidden within the dark shelter of their garages.

Sunlight drifts past the windowpane of one of the houses, grazing the edges of the open curtains as it comes to rest upon the girl sleeping on top of her wrinkled lavender blanket. As the soft light settles upon her eyelids, the girl groans and throws an arm over her face to block out the disruption to her dreamless sleep.

The smell of food ensnares her dulled senses though, awakening her past the point where she could still slip back into slumber. Sighing, Chiho Sasaki forfeits her attempt at returning to sleep and instead sits up. Aches spread through her shoulders as she moves, and she curls around the soreness spreading across her chest.

“Oww…” It hadn’t hurt that bad last night, but she could have seen this coming if she hadn’t been so tired she’d barely been able to slip on her pajamas last night. Lying for hours with one’s body scrunched up against a rooftop would cause anyone to feel more than a little sore the following morning.

The next groan sounds more like a growl as she forces herself to straighten. After glaring at the opposite wall as if it is at fault for her current misery, Chiho abruptly turns away. She lets her feet hang over the edge of the bed as she winces from the pain of the movement.

One annoyed huff later and she’s on her feet, only wobbling slightly as she steps past the scattered articles of her school outfit strewn across the floor. They really should be picked up and not left in a sloppy mess, but bending down right now…with the twinge on the corner of her hip that had been digging into the concrete…Chiho shudders as she closes the bedroom door on the mess behind her.

The trek downstairs isn’t as bad as she was expecting, which causes her to breathe a sigh of relief as she makes her way into the dining room. The strong stench of coffee assaults Chiho’s nose as she enters the area. Rather than wafting past the half-wall blocking off the kitchen area where her mother puts the finishing touches on breakfast, the smell arises from an untouched cup sitting on the table and in front of her father’s face.

Like a plant withered from the lack of water and seeking life-giving relief, he droops towards it before slowly picking it up and sipping the steaming brew.

“Morning, Dad?” Confusion causes the soreness to temporarily recede. Most days, her father is already at work by now, leaving Chiho and her mother to chat idly about their plans for the day. Now, though, he sits there with eyelids weighed down by exhaustion.

“Morn’ Chi,” he mumbles into his drink.

Chiho shares a glance with her mother who comes into the room carrying two plates of food. Her mother shrugs before setting down a plate in front of Mr. Sasaki and looking at him with concern.

 “Are you taking today off?” Chiho sits down across from her dad. The bruise on her hip only twinges slightly.

“What?” He startles. “Oh, no, just going in later today. The computers at the station went down last night, so there’s some IT people running the place until we figure out what happened.” He takes another slow sip. “They’re thinking that it might have been a problem with the electricity of the building, like a shortage or something. So anyone who isn’t scheduled to be out on patrol right now is just staying home.” The police officer frowns into his drink, missing the way his daughter stiffens in her seat.

“Is that why you got in so late last night?” questions his wife as she finally settles into her place at the table.

“Uh? Oh, no that…We just got a lot of calls last night. People were missing their wallets and…there were some other problems. A couple of people had fainted on the sidewalks, I think.” Her dad scrunches his eyebrows as he takes another sip.

“Oh, oh, that sounds really crazy!” Chiho blurts out, all traces of weariness forgotten. Both of her parents look up at her and she blushes. “Maybe, um, people were out partying and stuff, and things got a little wild!” 

Her mother frowns but it’s her father that speaks first. “Well, a lot of them were college students, so that’d make sense.” Her father nods, his eyes dulling before he finally picks at his food.

Chiho nods before digging into her food with far more gusto than her apathetic father. Her mother is staring at her, she can feel it. But, if she doesn’t look up at her then maybe she won’t say anything. Or question her about why she got in so late last night without the convenient excuse of a police officer’s job.

“Chi, I know you’re worried about meeting up with Kaori before school, but you shouldn’t eat that fast. You’ll choke.” Her mother says simply before tucking into her own meal.

Chiho stops, her fork hovering over the next bite. Her mother’s attention has turned back to her half-awake father and the low murmur of their conversation flows past her.

Her parents trust her, whether that’d be to interact properly with boys or to balance her part-time job with school well enough to succeed at both, they’ve never shown any doubt that she’d be responsible. But still, even the most trusting and understanding of parents would have said something about their daughter stumbling through the front door a little after one in the morning.

The urge to text Maou rises up.

Chiho swallows it down just enough to finish her breakfast.

“Thanks for the meal, Mom. It was really good.” She doesn’t wait for her mother’s reply before she slips away and back up to her room. Her phone hangs half off the nightstand, but Chiho refuses to look at it past a quick glance as she digs through her closet for a clean school uniform.

Maou might know something about her parents’ response to her late-night arrival, but it would be wrong to call him now. He’s probably sleeping off last night still, and Chiho isn’t going to be the one to disturb him when he needs the rest. Besides, it isn’t like her parents are bad off or anything. Despite her dad being so tired, they acted pretty okay and not too weird; so, she can just wait for when she meets Maou at work tonight to ask about her mother’s selective amnesia.

Really, it isn’t that big of a deal.

Just as she straightens the collar of her school shirt, the phone beeps.

It’s already in her hand before she even thinks about it, but it isn’t Maou’s name glowing up at her. It’s Miss Yusa’s.

“How are you doing?”

The thought of Maou recedes from her mind.

“I’m okay, only a little sore.”

Which is only a little bit of an understatement, but Ms. Yusa doesn’t need to know that with how she must be feeling.

“Oh, That’s nice.”

Chiho frowns at that as she types away.

“ What about you? Are you okay?”

The response comes only after Chiho has left the house and worry causes her to keep looking at her screen until the next words appear.

“I’m taking a sick day. Really don’t feel up to sitting at a desk today.”

“You shouldn’t be alone if you’re not feeling well, Ms. Yusa. Do you need me to call Suzano?”

Chiho winces just after she hits send. She forgot that Suzano doesn’t have a phone yet.

“She’s already here, actually. Or has been here since last night, not really sure.”

“Oh that’s good! Not the not sure part, but that she’s been keeping an eye on you.”

“And cooking, and doing the laundry, and…tried to vacuum.”

“Really! How’d that go?”

“It startled her when she turned it on.”

“Poor Suzano.”

“Poor vacuum cleaner, she crushed the handle so I’m going to need a new one”

“Oh…”

“I might be able to get away with making a new handle, the rest of it’s still intact.”

“Well, that’s good?”

“She’s apologizing again for breaking it. I probably should go calm her down.”

“Okay, talk to you later!”

The walk from home to school isn’t that terribly long, so Chiho isn’t too surprised to see the gates leaning over her as she slips her phone into her bag…Still, Emi did take a bit of time to respond between each text, so Chiho can’t help feeling concerned. Last night had been horrible and Emi’s cries of pain after each attack echo in Chiho’s ears.

Sitting there, on top of the Metropolitan Government building, hands bound behind her back while she woke up to the screams of her friend each time that awful purple light flashed. The chill of the wind blowing over the high-rise cools Chiho’s skin even now, while the soreness through her breasts flares up into an ache as she remembers waking up with them pressed against the concrete.

She shudders, the memory creeping over the worry for her friend and engulfing it with a deep anxiety. Chiho stops, breathes in deeply before expelling it all out in a gust of air. Shaking her head so hard that her hair swishes against her cheeks, she glares forward at the school doors before marching through them.

Things are fine now. Even if it had seemed like Suzano had betrayed them all at first, she decided to side with her friends in the end. Emi and Suzano are both okay now and have even reconciled with each other despite what happened. There’s nothing to worry about anymore. Her friends are safe, so she just has to focus on school so that they don’t worry about her while they’re trying to recover.

With these thoughts in mind, Chiho enters her classroom, ready to take on the normal, quiet stress of school life. It isn’t until she’s sitting at her desk, though, hand upon the clasp of her school bag that she realizes that she missed one thing.

Her only high school friends, Kaori and Yoshiya weren’t there to meet her by the school gates this morning.

Chapter Text

Helloo, you have reached the voicemail of Ka-Oh-Ori. Please leave a message after the little beep and I’ll get back to you soon. I promise

As the rest of Sasahata North High School gathers in the cafeteria for lunch, a girl stands alone by her locker with a phone tucked next to her auburn hair. Her free hand loosely grips the pale green fabric of her skirt while her dark amber eyes stare aimlessly at the floor.

.

Hey, this is Kohmura Yoshiya. I’m sorry I missed you, but leave a message and I’ll call back.

Chiho lowers the phone away from her ear. Neither of them has responded to any of the texts that she managed to sneak out between classes. That might be understandable for Yoshiya, who sometimes forgets to charge his phone and has it die in the middle of the day; but, for Kaori, that isn’t normal at all. She always responds to texts, even the odd ones at two in the morning.

She only stares at the phone screen for another minute before trying to call someone else. But this time, instead of nothing but ringing silence, the line picks up after just the first ring.

“Hello, Chi? What is it?”

The groggy voice on the other end of the line has her wincing in guilt.

“Hey, Mr. Maou…I was just…Well, it’s probably nothing, but…”

She breathes in deeply.

“My friends didn’t show up to school today. I mean, they’re probably sick or I don’t know…They haven’t been responding to any of my texts.”

The silence barely lasts a heartbeat before-

“Damn it.”

The weariness in that voice has completely disappeared.

“You’re still at school?”

“Yes, Mr. Maou.”

“Okay, just stay there for now and act normal. I’ll meet you outside the gate as soon as classes finish up.”

He pauses, and Chiho expects him to hang up, but then- 

“What’s the name of your classmates?”

“Kaori Shoji and Yoshiya Komura.”

“All right, just give me a second.”

A muffled thump manages to make it through the low-quality cellular connection.

“Oi, Urushihara, get up. I need you to do something.”

Despite the owner of the noise not even being near the phone, a nasally whine somehow worms its way into Chiho’s ear as Maou wakes up his lazier roommate. No doubt that the thump that had occurred earlier was Maou kicking the horizontal stack of cardboard boxes that Urushihara constructed for himself to sleep in. The repurposed udon noodle containers are usually right in the middle of Maou’s one-room apartment, just above his pillows when he’s sleeping.

Chiho had to have woken him up with this call.

 “Hey, Chi, you still there?

Maou’s words knock her right out of her brief flash of guilt.

“Yes, Mr. Maou!”

“…I’m going to hang up now. I got to focus on getting lazy-ass up here, so I’ll see you later then.”

“Okay, Mr. Maou. Bye then.”

And with that, Chiho hangs up. She still stares at her phone like before, but now the listlessness has hardened into determination. Last night, she had been completely unaware that some perverted creep had planned to kidnap her to use against her friends. But now, she isn’t so clueless so as to blunder into the same situation again. She’ll do exactly as Maou says, starting with going to the cafeteria to eat lunch like normal. If anyone is stalking her again, she’s not going to clue them in that she’s on to them.

Of course, if someone did kidnap her friends, then they probably are already assuming that she figured that out. It’s only logical for people to be on guard if they already been attacked; so, if you really want to rile them up, striking again before they’ve got their feet back under them makes sense.

The air conditioning currents drifting through the cafeteria aren’t cold enough for the shivers that go through Chiho’s hands as she carries her lunch tray.

Her friends going missing now of all times—they can’t be sick. This has to have something to do with Ente Isla, the dimension that Maou and Emi and Suzano all come from. Someone from there, probably a companion of the perverted creep from last night, has decided to target her and the people close to her, like her friends or…her parents.

The floor falls away, even though it’s still beneath her feet. Fear rises up through her chest and throat making her feel weightless as she leaves her unfinished lunch behind and rushes back to the relative privacy of the school corridors.

The phone takes a little longer to ring, but Chiho’s heart races as time stretches out the sound.

“Hey, Chiho, what’s going on?” Emi Yusa’s wary voice betrays none of the exhaustion that she must feel.

“Can you and Suzano go to my house right now? Both of my parents are home, they should be there still. Kaori and Yoshiya are missing, and they’re not answering their phones and if someone is after-”

“Whoa, Chiho, slow down. I can’t understand anything you’re saying. Are you in trouble right now?”

She breathes in deeply, forcing the quicker breathes of her rambling away.

“No, I’m okay, but…”

The girl tells Emi the exact same thing she told Maou and lets the fears for her parents spill out over the phone.

“So, Maou’s coming here, but even if I’m fine, there’s nobody watching Mom and Dad.”

Her father might be a police officer, easily capable of defending himself if a robber or other human busted into their home. But against people who could crumble the walls of their house like paper…

“All right, Suzano and I are heading over there right now. But if anything happens on your end, call immediately. Even if Maou is storing up more magic than he’s claiming to have this time, we don’t know how many people we might be dealing with.”

Emi doesn’t say it, but Chiho knows that the thoughts behind those words also include the simple fact that even if Maou could handle an ambush, there’s a good chance that he couldn’t protect Chiho from all of the crossfire. And while Emi could handle a car landing on top of her, a human high school girl wouldn’t.

“Okay, I will.”

Neither of them hangs up, even though there is nothing more to say and the only sound on the other end is the breathing of the other. It’s just, she knows it doesn’t make any difference if Emi can hear her right now, but…

“Do you want me to stay on the line?”

She’s scared.

“No, Ms. Yusa, it’s okay. I’ll try to text every hour though,” Chiho responds to the softened voice.

“Okay, be safe.”

And with that, Emi hangs up, leaving Chiho alone in the empty school hall. 

Chapter Text

“Honestly, we were just as surprised as you were.”

There’s a tightness around his wrists, slowly pulling his awareness to the surface as the words trickle in.

“The huge asteroids that are classified as those “dino-killers” are pretty easy to find and track with the technology we have now. However, those little guys like the one that blew up above the moon yesterday are really hard to spot even with our best telescopes. We’re essentially trying to find a bus in such a vast area of space that it makes our planet look like a water droplet.

Above Yoshiya’s head, his hands are bound by something almost smooth except for the loose fibers that itches across the skin of his wrists.

“For such a “little” guy, it certainly caused quite a big explosion.”

At the sound of a second voice, he opens his eyes, and darkness blurs into an off-white ceiling. Craning his neck up to stare at his bound hands, Yoshiya takes in the sight of a blue neon rope stretched across his skin. He doesn’t move, barely even breathes as he just gapes at the impossibility above his head.

“Well, that wasn’t really what you’d call a traditional explosion. Not all asteroids are big hunks of rock. There’s a lot of them that are essentially gravel and dust piles, barely held together by their own gravity. When one of them hits a larger body—like our moon in this instance—that doesn’t have an atmosphere to burn them up too fast, they can create what are basically these huge debris clouds.”

The world is soft, silky, and warm beneath him. He might be lying on a bed except his, he remembers, is firmer than this and doesn’t smell like flowers. So, he isn’t in his own bed—He isn’t tied up on his own bed, and yet the panic that should be there is smothered by confusion over the words that continue to wash over him.

“For a dust cloud, it was pretty dark according to some of these images.”

“Well, based on the preliminary analysis that we’re running, we’re thinking that the asteroid mostly consisted of carbon, essentially a flying ball of dusty coal.”

The words are coming from two voices. That much he can gather, but it doesn’t make sense, doesn’t fit what’s happening to him now. Slowly, he turns to look towards the direction they’re coming from.

“This is just crazy. One of those blink and you’ll miss it type of events.”

“I know, right. I’m honestly a bit jealous of all those backyard Russian and Japanese astronomers who got to see the impact in real time.”

The glow of a computer screen frames the head of a girl. Her hair falls over the back of her chair as she leans against it. The voices continue to reach out from the desktop’s speakers, but they blur out of Yoshiya’s focus as he stares straight at the person across the room.

“Kaori?” He manages to ease out.

The girl in the chair jerks before twisting to look back. The back of the chair she sits in rises up like a wall between them as she leans away from it and from him. Her dark eyes are wide when she meets his stare. For a single moment, they just look at each other with unease. Yet, something Kaori sees causes her to sag as if in relief until she’s leaning over the flimsy separation between them.

“Kaori? What’s…” The question trails off because Yoshiya’s not sure what he should even be asking.

“Hey Yoshiya, your…you’re awake now right?” Her voice wobbles with relief.

“Uh, yeah.” Yoshiya watches her hand tremble against the chair’s top edge that it grasps. “I think so…” Maybe he isn’t really awake. Because being tied up on Kaori’s bed (it smells like her he finally realizes) like this doesn’t seem like something that could actually happen. So yeah, he’s dreaming that he’s tied up on Kaori’s bed. That has to be it.

“I…Kaori, why am I tied up in your bed?” Since this is a dream, he can ask off-the-wall, awkward questions.

“I wasn’t sure if you were turning into a zombie or something, so Dad said that we should tie you up just in case,” she states.

“What? Why would I be turning into a zombie?” So this is one of those dreams then, the ones with some coherent structure around an impossible scenario.

“Because of last night…Do you remember what happened?” Her voice lowers to a near whisper while her face pales.

When the Moon swallowed up the night.

The memories surface like when one awakens from slumber, but despite their peaceful drift into Yoshiya’s awareness, his heart clenches.

The arms of his school outfit are wrinkled and stiff against the goosebumps along his arm, and his knees ache from where they hit the ground last night.

“What—” His voice cracks. “What the hell happened?”

He was almost crushed. Almost disappeared between the concrete and metal of a skyscraper that decided to float instead of fall down upon him.

“I don’t know…I just found you wandering around last night after that video you posted.” Kaori’s voice reaches him, drawing his attention away from the mental images of high-rises being sliced in half. She watches him from her chair with a face still too pale.

The cellphone was in his hands last night; its camera staring down on him as he sobbed his goodbyes.

The bed creaks as he jerks in his bindings. Yoshiya can’t handle this, being bound and unable to move. He can’t breathe as his fear surges out of his throat in a shapeless yelp while the rope bites into his wrists. He needs to get free. Needs to sit up or stand or run—

The rope loosens from around his wrists as warm fingers brush against his skin. He rips his hands free and surges up, only to hunch over onto himself as he hyperventilates.

He should be dead. How is he not dead?

“It’s okay. Shh, it’s okay, you’re okay.” A hand gently touches his shoulder as another brushes against the top of his head for just a moment before withdrawing.

The fear sputters in his chest. This isn’t the crumbling streets of Shinjuku. He’s in Kaori’s room, on top of her bed as she stands right beside him. Her hand remains steady on his shaking shoulder. She’s so close even though she just admitted to being worried about him turning into a zombie.

“Oh my god. What’s happening?” He looks up at her while her free hand clenches against her chest. “Why did you think you think I was a zombie?”

“There was a lot of blood coming out of your nose and you were kind of shuffling, no, you definitely were shuffling around before I ran into you.” Despite the tremble that goes through her hand, her words come out strong and clear. “You weren’t chanting brains or anything, but you kept moaning about the moon all the way home, so…” She shrugs.  “It seemed possible. I mean, all the cops were acting totally brainwashed and…it just made sense with how mucked up everything was.”

“Made sense?” His voice wobbles.

Kaori frowns as her gaze drifts from him. “More like, it was one of the worst things that could happen, so of course it was happening.”

Yoshiya looks down at his shaking hands.

“Yeah, that makes sense.”

It takes over an hour of nervous chattering on both their parts before they quiet down and simply sit together on Kaori’s bed. She’s leaning against his shoulder while he stares at the computer screen that has gone dark and hides the paused video from his view. Neither of them really knows where to go from here. The panic of the moment has faded to a worn anxiousness. Something should be done, but Yoshiya isn’t sure on what he should be doing.

Ordinarily, when one’s city is destroyed by a natural—or unnatural—disaster, there’s a list of obvious actions to take, such as funnel with everybody else into the nearest evacuation or storm shelter. Or hide under the bed and pray that you don’t die.

Right now though, there isn’t anything he can do except stew over what Kaori had discovered while he was…out of it. Not that it wasn’t weird enough that the city was totally undamaged when she found him or that nobody’s running through the streets like the world nearly ended last night. Instead, the amateur and professional astronomer online communities are clamoring over a cool dark patch that appeared on the moon at the same time as the Incident.

According to the web articles that Kaori found when she first started surfing the internet while waiting for her zombified friend to maybe wake up, the sight was obviously from people not cleaning their telescopes properly. Silly them, if only they had upkept their telescopes as well as the professional and government-supported organizations like NASA and JAXA, then they wouldn’t have seen anything at all.    

The video’s asteroid impact explanation (supported by NASA which had apparently seen the whole thing regardless of what those strange internet rumors were saying) had appeared only in the last hour or so when it became apparent that around half the world having a simultaneous telescope failure was a tad unlikely. It’s hard to tell whether the changing story was from the weirdness that affected the minds of the policemen last night just creeping over the minds of people across the globe or if it is a sign of governments scrambling to find a good enough cover story to prevent mass panic. Either way, Yoshiya isn’t sure which he really prefers.

Kaori hadn’t been able to offer much of an opinion, not with the exhaustion finally catching up to her and causing her to quietly tuck herself against Yoshiya’s side. He hadn’t said anything else about last night since then. If the dark smudges staining her eyelids are anything to go by, Kaori needs to sleep even if it’s only for a little bit, and he’s not going to rile her up again with talks over global catastrophes that he himself would rather avoid thinking about.

“Dad called your parents this morning. Said you fell asleep while I was tutoring you last night and he felt bad about waking you up to send you home.” Kaori starts to speak again. Apparently the nervous chattering of earlier isn’t quite out of her system yet.

Well, at least his mother won’t be angry at him when he gets home since it was another adult that was irresponsible this time and not him.

“They acted like they didn’t even notice you didn’t come home last night, like those cops didn’t really get that people shouldn’t just be passed out on the streets.”

And his relief goes right out Kaori’s bedroom window and smashes onto the streets below. This thing, whatever it is, got to his parents too.

“Wait. What about your dad?” Kaori had told Yoshiya that after she dragged him halfway to her apartment that she had managed to get a hold of her father on his cell. To say that he had been a bit panicked to wake up to his daughter trapezing through the streets at night and needing help bringing her zombified classmate home was a bit of an understatement.

The fact that he still went to work this morning and left her alone is something that Yoshiya can’t quite grasp.

“I think, maybe it was because he was sleeping.” Kaori’s attention shifts from the opposite wall to meet Yoshiya’s stare. “I was sleeping too before the sirens woke me up and I’m not,” she waves a hand at her head, “brainwashed or anything. Maybe you had to be awake for that or something.”

“But I’m not brainwashed.” The look she gives him causes him to stutter. “Not right now, I’m okay and remembering the, the…”

The moon presses down upon the world.

“The thing. I remember the thing and I am very freaked out about it.”

Kaori’s grip remains solid on his trembling hand. “Yeah, I can feel that,” she admits.

They fall into silence again. Both of their gazes fixed now on the dark computer screen sitting across the room.

“We should see if…anyone else remembered.” Kaori’s words prickle in Yoshiya’s ears.

“How? By googling ‘the end of the world by giant moon’ again. Wouldn’t that just bring up the same stuff as earlier.” Yoshiya stares at the screen as if its darkness will rush forward and swallow them up.

“Maybe,” Kaori responds slowly, “we could just check on the video. You know, see if it has any weird comments or anything. There might be someone else like us on there.”

They sit in silence for a moment. The bed feels nice and soft and safe under Yoshiya while the desk crouches in the shadows across the room.

 “Okay.” Sweat prickles the back of Yoshiya’s neck but he still stands up. He might feel safer just hiding out over here, but Kaori isn’t the type to just sit around and do nothing. She never has been. So, waiting around and not finding out what they can would drive her up the wall just as walking forward towards whatever awaits them makes his skin crawl.

 Kaori’s hand remains clasped to his as she follows him to the computer. It doesn’t take more than a few minutes before the screen glows up at them, the astronomer and news reporter frozen in time.

“So, are we going to use your Youtube channel, or—”

“I don’t have a Youtube channel.” Yoshiya states grimly as he closes the news video and accesses Kaori’s history.

“Oh, okay that’s…That’s not okay. It’s creepy.” They both stare at the random lettering that make up the username of Yoshiya’s nonexistent profile.

Time stretches as he clicks on the video thumbnail and then the pause button before scrolling down. He can’t watch this right now. Maybe later to see if his memory does match up with what actually happened, but not when he’s still aches from whatever happened last night. Not when the residual fear trembles through his limbs.

Ay_Al3ks: Whoa! Those effects were awesome!!! Where’d you film this!!!

J224: Whoah. Awesome.

XeponVenekalLucifer: I’p Voinv Ho Rill Cou

PCoftheAbyss: Dude, what kind of camera were you using?! I want it!! /

“What is that?” Kaori points at the comment made less than a half hour ago. The indecipherable English letters glare out at them from among the kanji-laden sparks of enthusiasm. It isn’t English though, Yoshiya knows that much despite his current mediocre understanding of the language. Yet, it seems familiar, like he should know what it means but doesn’t quite grasp it.

A wisp of pain shifts behind his eyes.

“Maybe it’s German or something.” He copies XeponVenekalLucifer’s words and pasts them into a separate search bar. It’s nothing. Youtube is an international site so of course a foreigner’s going to eventually stumble across his video. That doesn’t mean that whatever that person is saying is any different than the other commentators.

Nothing shows up on a general Google search nor does the translator spit out any understandable answer. It’s almost like those words don’t exist in another language.

“Yeah, you know, it’s probably just some troll typing random made up crap and messing with people on the internet.” Kaori’s voice wavers as Yoshiya continues to fail to pull up anything. The pain behind his eyes slithers backwards further into his head as he searches to see if there’s a different free translator that they could use. He tries each single word of the odd comment on its own, but still nothing useful comes up.

The words continue to glare up at them as he stares back. They mean something. Something important, but the meaning slips through Yoshiya’s understanding as the ache within his head spreads into his sinuses.

“Yoshiya!” Kaori’s voice, frightened and high, draws his attention away from the words and back into a better awareness of himself.

He doesn’t have to bring his hand up to feel it, but he does so anyway. When Yoshiya pulls away his finger from where it brushed against his nose, he stares silently at the single drop of blood beaded on his skin.

Chapter Text

A single drop of water lands on the auburn bangs of the girl walking away from the shadows of her school's gate. Chiho glances up, eyeing the grey clouds that have gathered above her and the rest of the students heading out for the day. The skies had been clear that morning; but, as she had sat through afternoon classes unable to take in the teachers' lectures, the approaching storm had pushed away the blue skies just outside of the classroom window.

Now, the thick scent of the coming rain weighs down the air around her.

It's weird. Yesterday's forecast had predicted a sunny and hot afternoon, but the skies above show otherwise. Come to think of it, last night's weather had been a little strange as well. While she had slowly stumbled home, the air had been cold, and the wind had occasionally tugged harshly at her clothes.

Chiho glances up at the sky again and, for a moment, she can see the afterimage of the Gate that had opened to the moon. It had gotten colder right after the sky had peeled apart and the sickly green moonlight had struck the top of the building that she was on.

Stained by the unnatural light, the once white wings of her kidnapper had stretched out, growing larger with the power that he had bragged traveled through the portal that brought the lunar surface "closer" to the Earth. With this swell of magic, he had torn apart chunks of the roof, encasing Maou in a tomb of floating rumble that would have crushed him if it hadn't been for the red, black pulsating magic that had ripped through the concrete and clawed up into the sky in a pillar of suffocating demonic energy.

Chiho stops, blinks, and then smacks the side of her head with her own palm. She's not getting lost in her memories. She can't, not when there's still danger lurking and definitely not when Maou's waiting for her outside the school fence somewhere.

"Chi?"

Chiho flinches, a soft "eep" escaping her as her attention is dragged back to the real world and she takes in the sight of Maou standing right there in front of her.

His hair's ruffled like he crawled out of bed. The t-shirt he's wearing is mostly white with yellow bands decorating the collar and sleeves, which are almost too frayed to be seen in public. He's staring at her with open concern even though tiredness wrinkles the corners of his eyes.

She's close enough to see the exhaustion wrinkles.

Chiho's cheeks warm, but just like she did with the images in her head, she stomps down on that feeling because now is not the time. Maybe when her friends are not being kidnaped, but she can't fawn over Maou being so close to her now, which would be easier if he would back up instead of stepping closer.

"Are you okay? You look a little—"

"I'm fine!" Chiho cuts in before he can do anything weird like checking her temperature by putting his hand against her forehead...

"You just startled me that's all." Her voice only cracks a little bit, so go her!

"Um, okay." Maou stares at her, obviously not quite buying it. Thankfully, he doesn't push the issue.

"Where you able to get a hold of your friends?" A tinge of pessimism taints his tone, so Chiho simply shakes her head.

"I called Emi, though. Suzano and her are both watching my parents right now." Chiho admits. Maou and Emi aren't exactly friends, but she doesn't think that he'll react too badly to her turning to his nemesis for help. Especially when he saved said nemesis last night, even if it was just incidental because the creepy kidnapper was stupid enough to target both Chiho and Emi at the same time.

Maou grimaces at Emi's name. "Yeah, I figured as much. Urushihara said that they were hanging out by your place."

The contents of that sentence take a moment to truly register for Chiho.

"Wait. How does Urushihara know that they're there? Did you send Ashiya and him to watch my parents?" A warmth blossoms in Chiho's chest that Maou cared enough to think about her family.

"Uh," Maou sheepishly glances off to the side before meeting her eyes again. "not really. He snuck a couple of trackers on the two of them about a week ago."

"What?!" Chiho clenches her fists as she steps towards Maou. The budding warmth flares out into burning indignation. "Why?!"

Maou scampers back, raising his hands into the air as if to ward off her advance. "Suzano was literally poisoning us! Of course we're going to put a tracker on the assassin that had been sent to kill us!"

"But she's our friend!"

"She wasn't a week ago!"

Silently, Chiho concedes that point to Maou, but—

"Why did he put a tracker on Emi?! She's not an assassin sent to kill you!"

"Are you kidding me?! She's the Hero, that's enough of a reason."

"Mr. Maou, that is not a good enough reason to put a tracker on a woman!"

"Well, I…Urushihara did it without telling me." Maou admits while tossing his demon general under the short and growling bus before him.

Unease prickles across Chiho's skin. "Why would he do that? That's creepy." She says quieting down her sharper tone.

Maou shrugs as he slowly comes out of his defensive position. "I don't know. I mean, him and Emi did almost fight to the death last month, so maybe he's a bit paranoid she'll decide to finish him off now that his magic is gone."

"That doesn't make any sense. Emi's going to be more likely to kill him when she finds out that he put a tracker on her." The tension in Chiho's shoulders loosen as their conversation winds down.

"You're going to tell her, aren't you?" Maou deflates under the scathing glare Chiho throws him as she stomps past him and his stupid question.

"Of course I am!"

If this were any other day, Chiho would be berating Maou for letting his useless roommate siphon off of his hard-earned funds to buy something that illegal. As it is though, the reason that she's still on Earth and not with the creepy kidnapper at his place on Ente Isle is because of those illegal trackers broadcasting her location to Maou. So, the only thing Chiho does to show her annoyance is let out an irritated huff every time Maou dares to glance at her.

The near silent treatment doesn't last that long, especially once Chiho spots the last few blocks leading to Kaori's apartment.

"Mr. Maou, do you think Yoshiya and Kaori are okay?" Chiho's voice is quiet as the last of the irritation drains away and the anxiety of before crawls back.

Instead of throwing her another apologetic and skittish glance, Maou stares down the street. "I don't know. I had Urushihara hack into the school records and they stated that someone called them both in sick. So maybe they really are ill."

Chiho clutches the strap of her school bag.

"But you don't think so, do you?"

"No." His voice is strong in its certainty. "It doesn't happen too often but, Sariel," At the sound of the name of the one who hurt her friends last night, Chiho grimaces. "sometimes works with another angel, Raguel."

The clouds above them rumble with the yet unleashed rain.

"Supposedly, Raguel is some kind of Observer who's supposed to report and make a judgement on the situations that the other archangels are handling. He's not built to fight that well, so he keeps himself hidden most of the time. But if he is here, he would have seen Sariel's defeat. I'm betting that watching the one who possesses the Wicked Eye of the Fallen lose has him freaking out. Those Eyes are kind of how the one who calls themself God keeps a lot of the angels in line, so if Raguel thinks that we still have him, he's going to be pretty desperate to retrieve him."

"Otherwise he's going to get into a lot of trouble with his boss back home, right?" Chiho guesses. If Raguel is supposed to just observe things, then he really is just a glorified secretary who's taking notes for battles instead of business meetings. Compared to Sariel who's shown that he can completely diminish someone's ability to use holy magic, he really isn't that important at all. Or that irreplaceable.

"Oh, you bet." A grim light glints in Maou's eyes. "Let's just say that losing to me would be the best option open to the guy."

"Did he kidnap my friends for leverage?" Chiho asks. If Raguel doesn't know what happened to Sariel, maybe he's trying to initiate a trade…But that doesn't make sense at all. Sariel didn't believe that humans like Chiho were valued by a demon like Maou, so Raguel probably doesn't believe that Yoshiya and Kaori would be worth a trade either.

And it can't be that he wants them for the same reason that Sariel wanted her. Besides being a perverted creep, Sariel admitted to wanting to study the effects of demon magic on her human body and emotions. Neither Kaori nor Yoshiya have been exposed to any demonic magic, so if an angel wished to study the humans of earth, they could just grab the closest person off the street.

The only thing that makes Kaori and Yoshiya different than the average Japanese person is that they're Chiho's friends.

"He's trying to get to me," Chiho's voice wobbles as a cold wind slips past them. "to draw me to him because he knows that I'd check on my friends if they didn't come to school." Her knuckles are white over the strap of her bag. "And since he doesn't think that a demon would care about humans, he believes that it'd only be me who would check on them, so he would avoid a fight with you."

Maou glances at her with eyes that glow unnaturally bright in the dim gloom, but Chiho doesn't notice as she gazes at the sidewalk.

"Yeah, he's probably trying to get information from you since you were there and saw everything that happened." Chiho's eyes widen at Maou's words. When she looks to him, the true blood orange of his eyes slithers through the false human brown. "Another way of putting it, he's too weak to handle a fight with the Devil King, so he's going after the human witness who would know what happened to a missing archangel."

When Maou smiles confidently at her, Chiho's breath catches in her throat.

"Which means that your friends are going to be fine. Raguel's not expecting me to show up and kick his ass right now, so surprising him and getting them out of there is going to be easy."

As warmth once again radiates through Chiho's chest, the rain above them starts to fall.

Chapter Text

There’s a pillow jammed against the computer screen in case something happens to crawl through the monitor. Since apparently Youtube comments can cause nosebleeds now, who knows what else can come through that screen. Maybe the creepy black-haired ghost girl that stars in the movies her father loves to watch.

 It’s not as if the pillow will stop anything like that, but the second that thing hits the floor while some horror shoves past it to break through into the world, Kaori will be out the open bedroom door dragging Yoshiya along if she has to.

Yoshiya probably can run on his own, though. Yeah, he looks a little queasy as Kaori press three napkins against his nose, but the pupils of his eyes are blown wide with barely concealed panic. He’s just as ready to run as she is if the trembling tension in his body is anything to go by.  

“I think it’s stopping.” Kaori states. She hopes that she’s not imagining the slowing trickle of blood. There’re already four piles of blood-soaked tissues scattered around them, and the empty tissue box has long since crumbled in Yoshiya’s clenched hand. Neither of them really knows how much blood a person can lose through their head before it’s not okay.

She quickly pulls the mess of tissues away. The blood crusts around his nostrils, but nothing new oozes out as she sits there waiting…and waiting.

“Kaori?” His voice is so quiet.

“There’s nothing else coming out.” He lets out a strangled gasp of relief at her words. “But I’m calling Dad. He said to call if anything weird happens. And that was weird.” Kaori rambles as she remembers that her phone is on the desk by the computer with that freaky comment hidden under a pillow.

She doesn’t want to go over there, but if things get worse and her father isn’t home to help her deal with whatever happens…She’s just going to spring up and dart over there. Count to three under her breath as Yoshiya watches the way her lips move and stares at her like he’s ready to cry.

It only takes a few seconds before she’s nearly crashing into her friend as she half falls to the floor, but the phone is in her hands. And it’s off because she’s an idiot who forgot to charge it after running the battery down to zero yesterday.

She had been talking to her father on the phone while waiting on those empty streets. She knew the battery was too low, but she didn’t want to hang up. If she hung up, then it would only be her and Yoshiya whose head keeps rolling back so that he can stare at the dark sky.

“I need to get the phone cord.” She whimpers because it’s in the drawer of that stupid desk. Yoshiya just shakes his head in mute horror, but he doesn’t react fast enough to reach for her before she pulls away.

She jams her fingers against the loose contents of the drawer, but the cord is in her hands and she’s back away from the computer before her heart bursts open with fear. Her pulse throbs in her ears as she lays her head on Yoshiya’s shoulder and tries to breathe. When her breath isn’t catching in her throat, Kaori pulls away from the stability of her friend’s shoulder and plugs the cord into the outlet only a few feet away.

It was just a comment, just weird little comment.

But with blinding clarity, she remembers the movies. The ones that her father had shown her when she was still small enough to tuck against him as she watched drunken idiots read from dusty books with crinkled, yellow paper sheets only to call forth monsters that tore them apart.

A single sentence can destroy everything.

The phone turns back on and Kaori tears herself from her thoughts. Instead of calling her father, she stares at the little screen and the words upon its surface.

Chiho: Are you okay?

There’s three missed calls and a list of texts from her friend, all of them asking the same thing in different wording.

“Oh.” Yoshiya breathes right into Kaori’s ear as he leans over her shoulder to read the texts. “You should respond to her. She sounds really worried.”

Kaori should call her dad first. That’s what she really should do because calling the adult would be more sensical than dragging another teen like her into this mess. But this is Chiho, her only other best friend, and the voicemail wavers with worry as Yoshiya and Kaori listen.

The two of them wait as the line rings over speakerphone.

“Hello, Kaori?” The disbelieving tone reaches out to them.

“Hey, Sasachi, what’s up?” Chiho’s nickname slips naturally from Kaori as does a voice that is somehow calm.

“What’s up? What’s up?!” The high-pitched shout has both of them cringing against the rest of the onslaught. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you all day! Why weren’t you at school?!?” And where’s Yoshiya?! Is he with you?! He’s not answering his phone!”

Kaori starts giggling because this is Chiho. So completely Chiho to flip out when something’s off with her friends.

“Kaori? Are you okay?” The question flows quietly under Kaori’s giggles, but the girl can’t stop them long enough to answer.

“Um, she’s kinda okay? It’s been a really long night.” Yoshiya cuts in as he stares at Kaori shaking besides him. “Oh, Yoshiya here. I’m okay…maybe, probably…yeah, I’m okay.”

“What do you mean maybe? Where are you guys? What happened?”

“We’re hiding in Kaori’s bedroom.” Yoshiya looks around the room as if once again realizing where he’s at. “There was some…scary stuff that happened last night.”

“Yoshiya was tied to my bed” Kaori manages to huff out as she catches her breath. “In case he turned into a zombie.”

“What?!?! Just, just, open the door.”

“What?”

“Huh?”

“Open the door. Mr. Maou and I are already here, so open the door and tell me everything that happened.”

“But the bedroom door is already open. I don’t see you guys.” Yoshiya says quietly.

Kaori stares at her pale friend. Those words...didn’t really make a lot of sense. Of course, they’re not going to be waiting right outside the bedroom door. Why would Yoshiya—?”

“No, that’s not what—We’re outside of the apartment. Just let us in.”

With her thoughts interrupted by Chiho’s order, Kaori is on her feet, and Yoshiya is to until he tips over and collapses to his side.

“Yoshiya! Hey, are you okay!” Kaori kneels to his side while terror rushes through her. The piles of bloody tissues sit along her peripheral

“Yeah…yeah, just a bit dizzy,” he murmurs while pushing himself up on a shaky arm.

“Kaori?! Yoshiya?! What’s going on?!”

Kaori stares at Yoshiya who hasn’t even managed to get to his knees yet. She can’t just leave him like this, but there’s nothing she can do. If he needs a hospital, it would be easier for three people to get him there anyway.

That’s assuming, of course, that the hospital isn’t full of brainwashed doctors and cops, making it dangerous and pointless to drag him there.

“I’ll be right back.” Kaori pulls herself away from him. “I’m going to let them in and then I’ll be right back.”

Yoshiya stares at his own shaking arms as Kaori slips past the doorframe and races to the front door of the apartment. She yanks the door open, stumbling back as the swing throws her off balance.

Just outside, dripping wet from the rain that Kaori had even noticed until she can see it now just past the balcony of the open stairwell, Chiho stands with her school outfit plastered to her body. A man stands beside her; the rainwater drips from his dark hair as he stares at Kaori with…she swears that those eyes were orange, but no. He’s staring at her with hazel eyes that reflect the glow of the hallway light behind her.

“Kaori,” Chiho steps inside and her motion closer drags Kaori’s gaze away from the man, Mr. Maou’s, eyes. “are you okay?”

Kaori hiccups, grabs Chiho, and pulls her into a hug that presses her tight against her body.

Kaori’s trembling. Her arms are tight against Chiho’s upper back as she hiccups right by Chiho’s ear. Kaori’s strong, the type of girl who’s yelled at the few boys who dared to make gross comments at Chiho during lunch. She’s not supposed to be afraid of anything, but now she’s curled up and almost crying right into Chiho’s shoulder.

Maou meets her glance with blood orange eyes that must be glowing from Kaori’s fear. Her friend is so scared that it’s causing Maou’s demonic side to slip out.

Chiho tightens her grip around her shoulders.

“Kaori, what happened? Are you okay?” To Chiho’s side, Maou looks away and forward. He sniffs the air as if picking up a scent.

“Yeah,” Kaori says quietly. “I’m okay, it’s just been a really, really long night.”

“What happened?” Chiho insists. “Where’s Yoshiya? Is he okay?” Maou leaves the peripheral of her vision and forges ahead.

Kaori jolts against her. “Oh! He’s in my room, but something’s wrong with him, he keeps bleeding from—” Kaori twists out of Chiho’s grip and right towards Maou who has turned back towards the pair. His eyes are glowing and when he speaks the words reverberate through the air.

“Why don’t you sit down and relax. I’ll check up on your friend for you.”

Kaori loosens. Her shoulders slump and she slides to the floor until she’s sitting on her knees.

“Okay. I’ll just sit here.” She murmurs.

“Mr. Maou!” Chiho steps past her friend. “Why’d you do that!”

When Maou doesn’t shrink back sheepishly, something in Chiho’s chest tightens.

“She’ll be safer sitting there.” Maou’s calm tone sharpens. “There something that reeks here. Some kind of malevolent energy just lingering around.”

“Malevolent…” Chiho can’t smell anything, but there’s a chill in the air that she isn’t quite sure is from the damp air that came in with them. She strains her ears, listening to the silence of the apartment.

“But, what about Yoshiya?” If there’s something here, then he’s in danger too.

“That might not have been Yoshiya who was on the phone.” Maou attempts a kinder tone, but the tension still makes his voice echo with his restrained magic. “It’s not that uncommon for demons or angels to be able to take other people’s forms.” Maou looks away from her and stares down the short hall leading to the apartment’s two bedrooms.

“That stuff is coming off of whoever’s down there, and I doubt that a human would be producing that kind of energy.”

Maou walks forward, leaving Chiho to stand still by the murmuring Kaori.

“You’d be safer staying here too. Let me check out this ‘Yoshiya’ first.”

The wall and desk swirl together. The bed frame he leans against bends inward even though it isn’t moving. Yoshiya’s not falling back, but he sinks into the metal frame that feels as malleable as clay beneath him.

There’s something wrong with him. His nose isn’t bleeding, so he should be okay. But he isn’t. There’s something crawling around inside his skull, like spiders skittering across the crevices of his brain. No, no, they’re crawling inside of it, carving out pieces to make room for themselves and scraping away at what’s left of him.

“Holy crap, what happened to you?”

The world focuses, yet not really. The swirling mess of a wall is gone and in its place are two red suns. Glowing the red orange that they do when draped with fire smoke.

Yoshiya whimpers because he doesn’t want to burn.

“Hey, hold still for a second.”

The world reverberates and Yoshiya pushes himself back against the bedframe that refuses to bend more inward. Pressure wraps around his shoulders, holding him in place.

The spiders skitter, their legs sharping against his mind as the suns glow brighter. Their heat blisters the back of Yoshiya’s eyes, sinking through the blood veins in his head.

The cold, sharp legs of the spiders curl up and disappear under the warmth. Yoshiya gasps at the as his thoughts realign themselves into some kind of clarity.

His fingers and toes tingle as if the oxygen has been sucked out of them while the solid bedframe stops bending beneath him. As the heat in his head soothes the raw scrapes across his brain, the two suns dim around the pupils that appear from their center. It takes a moment, maybe two for Yoshiya to realize that the glowing blood orange light comes from a pair of eyes staring right into his.

“Hey there, kid, are you hearing me now?”

The words are everywhere. The calm reverberation through the air encourages him to answer, even though…

“Yeah,” Yoshiya says, his voice dull to his own ears, “I can hear you.” 

The silence that comes after almost gives him time to…something isn’t right here. His thoughts ooze by so slowly that he should be able to grab onto why this isn’t right. But the understanding seeps through his fingers until he can only stare dully at those glowing eyes.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened to you?” The voice coaxes.

“The moon,” A single spark of fear alights the words as Yoshiya gives the only answer he has. “it swallowed up the night.” 

Chapter Text

Civil@Sabar: I’p vlax cou jukgigex. Htah zahhle yekhainlc loorex aj iw ih faj yloje. Jinye htij gixeo ow ih ammeakj ho umjeh cou, xo cou neex telm ekajinv ih?

“I’m glad you survived. That battle certainly looked as if it was close. Since this video of it appears to upset you, do you need help erasing it?”

XeponVenekalLucifer: No.

XeponVenekalLucifer: Coug jcn’ehad ij hekkizle.

“Your syntax is terrible.”

Civil@Sabar: Ot?? Pc amoloviej. Tof fas ih jummojex ho ze jaix?

 “Oh?? My apologies. How was it supposed to be said?”

Drops of water slip from auburn bangs, dripping past Chiho’s nose and onto the wooden floor.  She shivers, the cold from her wet clothes leaching the warmth from her body.  Or maybe it’s the malevolent energy stealing the heat from within her. The thought worsens the shivers across Chiho’s skin.

She draws her arms around her abdomen, her fingers gripping the dark green fabric of her school uniform. This is supposed to be Celestial Force, the magic wielded by the angels of Ente Isla? An energy that steals the warmth from rooftops and living rooms alike and that had left Kaori a terrified mess until Maou hypnotized her.

The girl in question mumbles from her spot kneeling on the floor, her dark eyes dull and her expression slack when Chiho looks back to her best friend.

Something twists in Chiho’s stomach as her eyes stay glued to Kaori. This is wrong. The cold feeling in the air, Kaori’s emotionless stare that drifts over the parallel wall. Kaori is supposed to be loud. Her warm presence overtaking the whole room as she spins Chiho around, hands gripping her foolish friend’s shoulders while demanding that Chiho change out of those wet clothes right this instant. Don’t worry, there’s enough over-sized pajamas in Kaori’s closet that something’s bound to fit her size. Certainly better than catching a cold at any rate.

Chiho swallows the lump in her throat as well as the half-faded memory that plagues her mind from the last time she stumbled into Kaori’s home while soaked to the bone from poor planning and a rainy fall day.  

As those thoughts linger in Chiho’s head, Kaori sits as still as a doll, not thinking of anything at all.

“Hey Chi?”

Chiho jolts, the sight of Maou leaning past the door of Yoshiya’s bedroom skyrocketing her heartbeat until Maou must hear the pulsating sound even from across the apartment. 

“It’s okay,” Maou states, one hand raised and the other hidden past the doorframe. His sharp orange-red eyes take in Chiho’s startled expression, “Your friend’s fine.”

Friend…Not Kaori behind her, but…

“Yoshiya’s okay?” Chiho’s voice cracks under the rumbling promise of thunder from the rainstorm outside.

“It’s actually Yoshiya?”

When Maou said that demons or angels could take easily take her friend’s form… Chiho worried that maybe…maybe she might not see the real Yoshiya again.

Maou nods, “Yeah, it’s him, but,” the demon king from another world frowns before he continues, “He was doing a little rough, but he’s fine now.”

“What do you mean, Mr. Maou? What happened to Yoshiya?” Chiho’s damp soaks pad against the floor as she walks forward.

At that, Maou grimaces, “Well, the good news is it wasn’t Raguel. I don’t think that any of Heaven’s angels came anywhere near your friends.” Maou glances back into the bedroom, his gaze pensive. “He just got exposed to too much demonic magic, so I had to burn all of it away.”

Yoshiya’s leaning back against the foot of his bed as he sits sprawled on the floor. Besides having the same dazed look as Kaori, something dark stains his nostrils. The same something that stains the piles of used tissues scattered around the room. The red tint in those dark blotches is barely perceptible in the dim room. 

“Mr. Maou…are those from…” Is that Yoshiya’s blood all over those tissues on the floor?

“Seems like it,” the tightness of Maou’s tone hardly registers in the sight of the littered floor. “But I’ll have to check with Kaori just to make sure. The kid didn’t have the same reaction to my demonic magic, but I don’t want to mess around in his head any more than I have to just in case.”

“Hey, Kaori,” threads of power reverberate in Maou’s tone as he calls over to the girl kneeling on the floor. With a slow turn of her head, Kaori looks over to Maou and Chiho with dull eyes.

“Mind telling me what happened? Does Yoshiya get nosebleeds like this all the time or was this something new?”

“Oh, that’s new,” Kaori wobbles to her feet, her tone flat, “it’s from the evil comment on the video. When Yoshiya read it, he started bleeding a lot. I was scared.” Her last sentence comes out like an afterthought, the tone implying that the emotion wasn’t that important.

Chiho still feels where Kaori clung to her, her terrified grip desperately tight.

Wait? A video?

“What video, Kaori?” Chiho’s voice wobbles as her friend slowly tilts her head towards her.

“The YouTube video with the big moon in it. And all the buildings tumbling down” Kaori stumbles forward, stepping past Chiho without glancing at her once, “I shoved a pillow in front of it so the evil comment wouldn’t get us.”

Kaori raises her hand, pointing to the computer with a fluffy bed pillow pushed right up against the screen. In the dim room, the glow of the hidden display tinges past the fluffy, soft edges.

 “You got to be kidding me.” Maou grumbles, glaring harshly into the room. He prowls forward, his eyes aglow with an unholy fiery light.

“Mr. Maou?” Besides Chiho, Kaori’s raised hand drifts back down to her side, “what’s going on?”

Without looking back, Maou reaches out, tearing the pillow away from the screen. His free hand comes up; his nails slightly elongate into the claws usually hidden away in his human form. A brief sheen of crimson flows over the computer screen before fading from sight.

Maou stares down, his frown puzzled. The images on the computer look harmless enough. Just some page to a YouTube video, the replay symbol resting in the middle of a blurred, finished video while recommendations border the right side of the screen. The comments look normal too, not that Chiho can see what they actually say from her spot by the bedroom door.

“Well, there’s no more magic in the computer,” Maou looks back to Chiho, “so, if you want to come closer, it should be safe.”

Chiho walks into the room, her hands clutched to her chest and Kaori shadowing behind her.

“Mr. Maou, did someone send magic through Kaori’s computer? Is that what hurt Yoshiya?” The bloody pile of tissues rests too close to her socks as Chiho steps up to Maou. When she looks down at the screen, the comments are small, but readable. Japanese kanji and English letters and some other language, something that looks strangely European all chattering beneath the inert video.

When Chiho leans in, she recognizes a part of one of the usernames with its strange language. Even with the unrecognizable spelling of the rest of the name, it’s not hard to guess what that name means.  XeponVenekalLucifer. The Demon General Lucifer. The name ‘Lucifer’ isn’t exactly unique to Ente Isla, and plenty of weird people online use variations of that name while trying to be edgy, but…when mouthed under her breath, the strange words before ‘Lucifer’ sound too much like the way Maou and the others occasionally speak.

The few words following the username even match the articulation of that strange language when whispered, yet…the comment thread below the fallen angel’s first post….

“Mr. Maou, look. There’s someone else writing in…” Chiho doesn’t know the name of demon’s language offhand, but Maou follows the line of her finger hovering above the screen.

“What the hell?” Maou leans down, his already glowing eyes failing to reflect back the light from the display, “That’s not Ashiya, he doesn’t even like using these things,” Maou falls silent, reading the short conversation in the comments.

“Mr. Maou, what do the words mean? Who is that?” Civil@Sabar. Chiho can read that much, but for all she knows, it probably isn’t even the English word Civil. When Emi’s friends had shown up several weeks ago, the strange language that they spoke had a few English sounding sort of words even if there’s no way they actually meant the words they sounded like.

“I don’t know. I guess I wouldn’t put it past Sariel to call himself a crappy nickname like The Civil Sarial, or something else stupid,” Maou leans in closer, his face nearly pressed against the screen, “but even if he did manage to crawl his way back here so fast, there’s no way he’d be this friendly with Lucifer. Guy’s name could be Civilasabar? Civil Asabar? Hmm, that’s not anywhere close to any demon or angel name. Could be someone new…but what’s so important with this video?”

Maou straightens, reaching over a hand to the mouse next to the keyboard.

“You just click on that little circle with the arrow, right?”

The fiery orange-red glance her way draws out Chiho’s startled response, “The circle?”

“Yeah, to start the video over again.” Maou explains, uncertain over something most human children know, “you just click the circle-arrow?”

“Um, it’s called the replay button. And, yes, you just click it again…But, Mr. Maou, shouldn’t we be trying to find out who this person is?” Except, the words feel stupid already as they linger in the air. Whatever’s in this video caused two people from Ente Isla to type in their native language to each other.

Whatever’s about to play after the video reloads has to be important.

“They’re someone who’s asking to erase this video. So…” Maou trails off as an awfully familiar sight appears, the visual of the sickly green moon so much smaller than it was looming over Chiho as she had laid upon the bruising hard roof.

The dark, crimson tornado of Maou’s power. The crumbling buildings falling, but not away from Chiho from her place on the rooftops. Metal and steel crashing down yet stopping instead of crushing the sobbing Yoshiya who says his goodbyes before the screen goes black.

Inaudibly, another drop slips down the bangs of Chiho’s hair and strikes upon the wooden floor.

A soft sigh breaks through the numbness. Maou’s staring at the screen, his face paler than even when he was empty of demonic power and getting pummeled by Sariel in the beginning of their fight.

“…no, that’s not possible…” sweat starts beading on Maou’s face despite the chilliness of the room, “there’s no way!”

 “How the hell is this on Youtube?! There was a barrier over the whole damn area!!” Maou gaze darts over the screen, taking in the slowly growing number of comments and the several thousand views.

“Crap, crap, crap, who the hell even posted this?! Doesn’t matter. This is bad.” As stunning as a spotlight, Maou’s frantic, fiery gaze turns to Chiho, “How do we get this down?!”

A video of a battle between an archangel and the Devil King on the most popular video platform in the entire world.

A different cold than what draws goosebumps over her skin grips Chiho’s heart. The peace between Emi and Maou…The hero Emilia and the Devil King Satan. It’s only possible because of the quiet lives they lead now…If the people of Japan…of the whole world…learn about angels and demons and all sorts of terrifying beings…

Then that peace is over.

“I don’t know.” The username of this video’s author isn’t anyone Chiho recognizes, even though it’s Yoshiya’s on the video. A useless string of symbols that mean nothing at all. There’s no way that they could take down the video without access to that account—

“Urushihara! Mr. Maou, get Urushihara to hack into the account and take it down!” The fallen angel can be useless and scary at times, but if he’s such a self-proclaimed computer whiz to be putting trackers on people, the NEET must be able to take that video down!

Maou’s hand dives into his pants pocket, the flip phone bouncing open as he pulls it out.

It takes only one ring for his call to be answered.

“Hello,” drawls a calm voice from the speaker, the whiny tiredness of before gone.

“Hey! We’ve got a big problem! Some jackass posted a video of me kicking Sariel’s ass on Youtube. You need to stop trolling the comments and get it down, now!”

There’s silence on the other end as Urushihara digests Maou’s command.

“Yeah, not happening”

“Urushihara!” Chiho breaks, grabbing Maou’s arm, shaking it and the phone, “I thought you were a really good hacker! So, take it down now!” They don’t have time for Urushihara to be too lazy to do any work! This is way too important!

“Oh, Sasaki? Good to hear no one attacked you at school.”

Surprise catches and swallows Chiho’s next words. Even though that tone’s unconcerned, the fact that Urushihara said anything like that at all is weird.

“Chi’s fine,” Maou states slightly more calmly before his voice dips into growl, “but she’s right in that you need to get it down right now. Better yet, hack into that guy’s account or computer and wipe out that video completely.”

“Dude, it’s too late for that.”

The voice on the phone’s far too calm for the words that follow.

“I assume you’ve read the comments already? I had to cheat to stop whoever that was from hacking into my account. I guess magical barriers can hide your IP address. Who knew?”

“If someone like that already caught on to it, it’s too late to pull it down now.”

“Besides,” the fallen angel sighs, “I don’t think I can get into that YouTube account to get at that video. It’s like it doesn’t even exist. A ghost in the machine unreachable by any mundane hacking attempts.” The demon general pauses as if trying to think of a possible solution, “I don’t suppose you got the original device that thing was on? Or access to the guy that posted that thing in the first place?”

“Lucifer.” The short warning in Maou’s tone slips by, lost in Chiho’s look over her shoulder back to Yoshiya. The boy who was filming the video in the first place.

“Yoshiya?” Chiho’s friend slowly turns his dull gaze up towards her. Dried blood flaking under his nose.

Pulling away from Maou, Chiho walks over to Yoshiya, crouching down to his level as his gaze tracks her movements. “Did you post the video?” Chiho asks, even if she already can guess the answer.

“No.” Yoshiya states simply, because he isn’t the type of boy to post something like that without frantically calling his closest friends and babbling to them first.

“Okay, but you did film it, right?” At Yoshiya’s slow nod, Chiho pushes a bit further, “So, can I have your phone?” It doesn’t really make sense. If Yoshiya filmed this but didn’t post it, who did? Kaori wouldn’t do something like that without freaking out over the phone to Chiho first. And none of them are really close to anyone outside of their trio.

Yoshiya holds up his empty hand as if that’s answer enough.

“I dropped it. I think…back when Kaori found me. I dropped it.” With glazed eyes, he stares at his own palm.

The unnatural chill nips her skin, the magic within her body reacting to the lingering remnants of the battle that took place only hours ago on this very night.

The wings tucked inside her body ache from the flight here. The phantom rush of wind still pulls at her as she remembers the journey. The hesitation that made her stare in horror at the horizon and the ever-growing moon. Too afraid to fly until it was over and the skyscrapers themselves had already long been pieced back together.

The moon’s so small above her. So small and quiet like the streets around her with human-made litter scattered about and abandoned. Even with how small that white, glowing rock currently is, it’s so much larger than her courage.

Disgust curls her lip, sharp teeth nicking the corner of her mouth as she treks down the streets. If only she had flown sooner. If only she had forced herself past the weakness hollowing her trembling limbs.

A scent that’s not a scent curls in the air. Wafting past her nose, the slightest hint of purple wavering like smoke past her eyes. Not too far from her feet lies a phone. Innocuous except for the energy smoking out of it, invisible to a mundane human’s eyes.

But not to hers.

The girl bends down, her clawed hand lightly grasping the device and picking it up. She turns the cellphone in her hands, the traces of power wisping from it familiar yet not.

Opening it up, none of the names in the contacts are recognizable. However, that doesn’t really matter. Not in this high-tech world where a simple internet search might be all you need to find some people, human or not.

Maybe her hesitation didn’t cost her. She does have one lead now. A trail that might even lead her to the one she seeks.

The Devil King Satan.

The one whose cowardice cost a mother her life and a daughter her home.

Chapter Text

Even within the Devil’s Castle, the damp chill of the steady rain outside seeps through its walls and over the inhabitants who reside within. Perhaps, this cold would be sensible if Crestia Bell was surrounded by looming stone walls with gaping, open archways massive enough to accommodate entire squads of demons flying into the grand hall of their king.

Yet, this place lacks that expansive size as an excuse for its chill. The tatami mats beneath Crestia’s folded legs are comfortable and should easily maintain some warmth while the wooden walls are close enough to be cozy, especially with the pretty green curtain hanging over the single window.

A one-room ‘castle’ this small should really be able to hold in its warmth; yet, it seems that the cheaper apartments in Sasazuka are less insulated than even a farm villager’s modest home. How strange. This supposedly modern country, with advanced technology that leaves even the most learned of Ente Isla’s scholar’s head spinning, cannot match the quality of construction of Crestia’s homeland.

 “Do you guys even have a heater? Or is that too far above the budget for you bums.” Emi’s harsh voice dispels Crestia’s brief ponderings. The Hero Emilia leans against the wall, her arms crossed and her glare strong despite the tightness around her eyes. The young warrior should be still resting after her ordeal with Sariel. However, this meeting is far too important for her to sit out and rely on Crestia to fill her in.

Outside, the light of the day fades as the sun sinks over the horizon. The thick clouds bring on the night’s darkness faster than a clear evening would. The last of the sun’s rays unable to overcome the barrier between the Earth and the sky.

“Well excuse me, miss. Let me just run out and get one for you. It’s not like I have anything else more important to do.” Maou’s responding snap comes quickly. His arms are crossed as well, resulting in the hero and devil king having matching, tense postures. It’s a far cry from the relaxed, victorious Devil King of last night. The one who had saved Crestia from doing something unforgivable and had rescued Emi from Heavan’s machinations. 

“Mr. Maou, Ms. Yusa, please don’t fight,” Chiho’s words wobble with worry. The sweet girl sits beside Crestia, her modern schoolgirl uniform contrasting with the former Inquisitor’s traditional kimono.

The small part of Crestia that can never stop thinking about her disguises and false roles notes that she should change her attire to something more akin to the modern fashions of Japan. And yet, who would she be fooling? Everyone in this room, from the three demons to the Hero of Ente Isla to the ordinary schoolgirl beside her, already knows of Crestia’s true identity.

Crestia Bell likes the wear of her kimono and of her Japanese alias, Suzuno Kamazuki. Why should she have to shrug them off now.

The harshness of Emi Yusa’s expression softens when she looks at Chiho Sasaki.

“Sorry, Chi. I’ll back off.” There’re other words that Emi seems to want to say. Perhaps, sorry for upsetting Chiho so soon after one of the girl’s friends was hurt by demonic magic. Or, maybe the hero wants to explain that the exhaustion from last night has Emi on the defensive when surrounded by so many demons, so she can’t help her insults.  Whatever those words are, they never leave Emi’s mouth as she refocuses a sharp glare at Maou Sadao.

 “On the topic of more important things, you got any ideas how to fix this. This kind of undoes that memory wipe stunt you pulled last night.” The unnamed this is the paused video on the fallen angel’s laptop.

Said fallen angel half-blocks the screen from Crestia’s sight as he types away. Despite the chill permeating through the apartment, Lucifer wears the same short sleeved shirt and half-pants that Crestia doubts he’s changed out of for days. Unbothered by the weather that has even Emi sporting a jacket, the fallen angel messes around with the computer. The video vanishes from view with a click now that they’ve all watched the only existing evidence of last night’s events.

It’s still odd to think that the technology of this world allows anyone to instantly capture the smallest or largest of events. Back in Ente Isla, the ability to record one’s memory onto a crystal or other means of viewing by strangers is possessed by a small fraction of the sacred magic wielders. That any layperson can wield that power here with the help of an electronic device. It’s fascinating in a way.

And inconvenient.

“It doesn’t undo anything.” Oddly, it isn’t the assured voice of Maou that answers the hero, but the drawl of the short angel who types away at his computer, the back of his purple hair the only thing facing the rest of the room, “most of these people on here think it’s just some decked out special effects.” Writings and various pictures that Crestia can’t make out appear and disappear across the screen of Lucifer’s computer as he types away.

“And the ones who blabbing about it being real are already the ones known for being crackpots and conspiracy theorists, so no one else is taking them seriously.” The drawl stays stable, said in such a different tone than from last night when Lucifer had stopped Crestia off from damaging the train station.

“That’s putting it mildly. You’d get a whole lot of magic from the fear and anger, right? Forget it.” Says the anticipatory, excited voice. Something that looks like a teenage boy crouches on the metal railing behind Crestia. The wings that must have carried him up here already tucked away.

The slitted pupils in his vibrant purple irises gives his true nature away even if Crestia possessed no idea who the demon general behind her was.

“Oh.” Chiho deflates. The tension in her shoulders slumps away as Crestia pulls back to the present, “So, you guys don’t have to leave after all,” the girl sighs quietly in relief.

Not quietly enough, however, since Maou looks to her in surprise.

“You thought this video was going to chase us off?” Maou’s puzzlement vanishes under a smug look. “Yeah, right. It’s as inconvenient as hell. But even if that video had managed to blow our real identities sky-high, I’m not going to skip out on my next shift because of that. Kisaki would have my head.” The supposed Devil King grimaces at the thought of his human boss’s displeasure.

Crestia remains silent. The respect that Satan has for a human manager is baffling as well as his sense of duty towards his job. For someone who spent years trampling the human civilization of Ente Isla, his treatment towards this world is…

“Sire, I don’t think that Kisaki would appreciate you bringing your notorious fame to her establishment.” Ashiya states from his place in front of the stove, the demons’ dinner simmering before him. The tall, pale haired demon wears a green apron as he stirs the bubbling pot. From the way the apron matches the shade of the window curtains, it’s easy to deduce who designed the interior of this room.

“Nonsense. She’d love it. You know how many people would flock to the store?” Maou grins, the panic he came racing back to the Devil’s Castle with forgotten now that it’s clear most humans don’t even believe the truth of the video itself. 

“You mean how many tanks and fighter jets would be flocking to your store?” Emi skewers Maou’s enthusiasm, “I don’t think your manager would appreciate that sort of clientele.”

Maou puffs up in indignation, “No one asked your opinion.”

“It is most fortunate that our secrets are still safe from this world.” Crestia cuts in before Emi can strike back at the demon’s response. Besides Crestia, Chiho’s bracing for the coming fight once again deflates. Guilt pangs briefly from within Crestia’s chest. She can’t avoid her next words, but the poor girl shouldn’t be reminded of the harm that has befallen her peers.

“However, I believe that you said someone like us had ‘posted’ this video in the first place.” Posted, the word implies that this video was a piece of paper pinned up on a noticeboard in the town square. Hmm, perhaps the word does make sense after all if one considers the online space to be a town’s square of sorts. “And that this someone was most likely the same individual who had infected Yoshiya with some malevolent demonic energy.”

“Maybe not,” Lucifer cuts in before anyone else can respond, “could have been two different people.”

Briefer than what most people could register, Maou glances at the back of Lucifer’s head before refocusing on Crestia.

So. The demons know who tried to harm Chiho’s friend, but not who posted the video. It’s not surprising that the Devil King can pick up on a demon’s unique signature from just the few traces of magic necessary to infect a human. Whoever this demon is, the Devil King’s either sheltering them from Emilia’s wrath or he wants to deal with this malevolent actor on his own. The former reason Crestia can not abide by if it’s true; however, the later one… If the Devil King wants to judge and deal with one of his own people on his own terms, it’s hard for Crestia to justify disagreeing with his reasoning. A king’s duties include the disciplining of those who break the rules.

Crestia’ll have to investigate on her own and to keep an eye on the king and his generals’ movements to see if they lead her to this demon. Or, perhaps she could just ask Lucifer when Maou and Ashiya are out of the apartment, since the fallen angel so kindly hinted at the existence of a demon she wouldn’t have considered otherwise.

Crestia nods, “so there are two people who—”

“Three,” Maou says tightly, “that guy who was yacking in the comments probably wasn’t the same one who posted the video in the first place. Nor the same guy who attacked Chi’s friend. That reminds me. Suzuno, Emi, does the name Civil@Sabar sound familiar at all? Is there anyone in the Church who has a name similar to that?”

“Never heard of it.” Emi admits after a moment, “Of course, it’s not like I knew everybody that was working for the Church.”

The eyes of everyone except the uninformed Japanese schoolgirl turn towards Crestia Bell. The former High Inquisitor of the Holy Church.

“I have never heard of a such a name.” Crestia states steadily. “While many of the members of the Church are named after virtues and other good qualities of humanity. There is no one currently alive with a name like Civil or Civility.”

“To be frank, it doesn’t sound anything like a demon name. Even one that’s been twisted around to fit the languages of this world.” Maou admits, “So, it has to either be a human or an angel.” The from Ente Isla goes unsaid.

“An angel would not have been beat by the IP Barrier.” Lucifer sighs, “Unless they’re too lazy to even try to get past it.”

“IP Barrier?” Emi glares suspiciously at the fallen angel’s back.

“He used what demonic energy he had left to block a hacking attempt from Comments Guy.” Maou mutters, as if embarrassed that a demon general of his would waste his power defending the confounding device known as a computer.

Ashiya inaudibly grumbles as he gives a sharp stir.

“Are you joking? You know what, whatever.” Emi decides, “Waste your energy defending that out-of-date pile of junk. Better than using it…” Emi glares hard enough at the back of Lucifer’s head that he tenses.

“You were using your magic to hack into my work computer before, weren’t you?” Lucifer flinches at Emi’s question before peering over his shoulder.

“No! I didn’t!”

“You know. I thought it was weird that someone from our world would even know how to do that. But you’re just a big cheat, aren’t you? Hacker, my ass.”

“I swear! I broke into your company’s crappy system!”

Emi closes her eyes in annoyance, ignoring the floundering demon general. “Sure.”

“No, really—”

“Enough you two,” Maou cuts in, like he didn’t get into a verbal spat with Emi earlier, “so, we have the Video Poster, Comments Guy, and maybe someone else who took a shot at Chiho’s friend to worry about. But some little-known video—”

“It has forty thousand views.”

Maou recoils.

“…some mildly popular video isn’t something we have to worry about since most people don’t think it’s real.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Emi states, her green eyes glaring right at Maou, “What about Chiho’s friends? I assume they know all about us by now since you had to fry demon magic out of one of them.”

It’s bad enough that Chiho knows about the demons and magical humans of Ente Isla. She’s a child, one who has lived a safe and comfortable life up until this point. While Crestia is glad to have made her acquaintance, the girl never should have been put at such risk. Now, even more children are involved in their dangerous matters.

“Well…actually…” Chiho speaks up, her voice subdued, “you don’t have to worry about Yoshiya and Kaori knowing about you guys.”

“I asked Maou to take their memories. Like he’s done to everyone else who witnessed last night’s events.” The girl stares at the tatami mats, unable to meet anyone’s eyes, “I know everyone is worried about just me knowing already. So, well,” Chiho looks up, meeting Maou’s gaze, “they’re a lot safer not knowing anything. And they wouldn’t have remembered anything the first time around anyway.”

Kaori rests on her bed, arm tucked under her head as she watches her sleeping friend beside her. Yoshiya snores softly, strangely pale as he drools on her pillow. They definitely went overboard in studying last night if Yoshiya looking like he’s been dragged under a bus is any indication.

Kaori knows she can be a bit intense, but she can’t quite recall which assignment was so urgent that they had to work this hard on it. Apparently, whatever horrors their teachers assigned them were so bad, Kaori’s mind completely wiped out every memory of it but vague, blurred recollections.

Yeah, school can be as torturous as hell.

Distantly, there’s the clunk of shoes placed on the shelf by the front door.

Kaori smiles, relief burning through her as she rolls back and off the bed, catching herself in time so as not to hit the floor and wake Yoshiya with the noise.

Her dad’s home, and…this is the happiest she’s felt since she was a little tyke waiting for him to walk in, pick her up, and spin her around like he used to when she was small.

That assignment must have been bad, bad enough to leave her stinking of sweat as much as she does after track lessons if she’s reminiscing about being a little kid.

Swallowing, Kaori rushes out of her bedroom, the smile on her face fading when she sees her father and the large, bulk of camping supplies that he drops to the floor.

“Dad?” Kaori’s voice cracks, even though there’s got to be some kind of explanation for this. You know, maybe her dad got the urge to go camping this weekend or something. That’d actually be fun. Not scary at all.

“Kaori,” Her dad’s relief curls around her like a hug, “how you doing? And Yoshiya? How’s he?”

Why would? There’s nothing wrong with Yoshiya. There’s not, there’s not, there’s not.

“Kaori?” Her dad’s hands are on her shoulders. It’s hard to look at him, hard to focus. It’s like she’s a skipping rock. There’s nothing wrong with Yoshiya goes each skipping thought in her head.

“Kaori,” her dad’s voice cracks just a little but enough to make her heart fracture in two, and when did she sink to her knees on the floor? “Can you tell me what happened last night?” Her father asks, like a parent placing his hand on his child’s forehead, checking for a fever. Fear burning in his eyes as hot as the skin.

“Just one detail. Anything that comes to mind, please.” 

Chapter Text

You know, most people would not view anything called the Torture Building as safe. Sure, the thick concrete walls are far more than capable of blocking bullets from the streets outside while also being fairly fireproof compared to Takumi Kuruya’s apartment. A Molotov cocktail might stain the walls with a bit of soot while leaving the idiot who threw it slumping his shoulders in disappointment.

Despite its relatively indestructible nature, the rumors surrounding the multi-story building should dispel any thoughts of safety once someone goes past its doors. The place was a dumping ground used by various gangs and thugs before the Youtoukorou took sole control of it. Torture, executions, liquified corpse disposal. You name it. Anything and everything’s been done in this building, leading to many to suggest that the place is haunted by the spirits of those who met their gruesome end here.

The rumors are right of course. This place is plagued by those who haven’t moved on.

And that’s exactly why Takumi Kuruya feels like the safest guy in the whole damn city. See, when you’re just about to go home for the night, stepping out of the unnaturally chilly corridor and onto the streets below, the Torture Building transforms into the safest place in the word when the goddamn night sky peels open and reveals a gargantuan sickly green moon staring down at the city.

Any other night, Kuruya would have been ashamed of screaming like a little girl. Yesterday was not one of those nights. No siree, he was yelling at the top of his lungs as he scurried back inside, the glass door slamming shut behind him as stumbled over a crack in the tile before shooting right back up the stairs he’d come down.

Perhaps hearing “Polka” shrieked into the stairwell woke the “kid” up. Or maybe the distant booms from skyscrapers collapsing outside did the job. Whatever the case, the concrete walls around Kuruya glowed eerily, circles of blue light with foreign runes etching into being and surrounding the information broker as he threw himself behind the couch where Polka had just been sleeping.

Like a sensible person, Kuruya barely peeked over said couch. Just enough to see the sickly green seeping through the window, mingling with the purple light of Polka’s arising power as the ghosts who had perished in this building lent their energy to the necromancer.

Now way too early in the morning, as Kuruya glances away from his computer, Polka Shinoyama looks like a normal albeit tired teenager.  His exhausted, heavy-lidded blue eyes mark him as having some foreign blood while his white hair with its single black streak indicate a favoring for hair dye and being “cool.” From the red cross stitched to the right thigh of his blue trousers to his black-and-white hooded wrap over, Polka’s appearance screams anime or metal fan.

Last night though… With his lean hands outstretched, magic circles carving themselves into the air and walls around him, the illusion of adolescence vanished under the presence of the dead coming to defend their master. While Kuruya cowered behind the couch, the necromancer’s blue eyes were aglow with an unholy light.  The gleam from his magic illuminated the scar across his throat. The only remnant of the wound that killed the original owner of that teenaged body.     

“How’s it going, Takumi?” Cool arms slither past Kuruya’s shoulders, a girl’s chin resting on top of his head. Misaki Sakimiya’s pressed close enough against Kuruya’s back that he should feel a heartbeat. If she had one.

“Ugh, off. You’re too cold.” Despite the disgust in his tone, Misaki doesn’t move right away, too busy staring at all of the programs Kuruya’s got open on his computer screen. Well, screens.

Large monitors overtake the whole wall, curving around Kuruya in a fortress of scrolling information and real-time video. The four lanes of Koshu-Kaido road remain empty despite the oncoming workday. The abnormal lack of cars sending shivers across Kuruya’s skin that Misaki must be picking up on with their proximity.

It’s not like the news is talking about why people are lingering in the illusionary safety of their homes. The captions of the few obligatory news feeds Kuruya has on mute spit out the usual mundane stories. Not a single reporter says one word on the city getting torn up and put back together like a bunch of legos.

The classified government networks on the other hand, those are squirming with communications. The rush of agents from around the world stifling the release of data from telescope observatories. Heads of states whisked away into underground bunkers as major military powers arm and ready themselves for whatever happened in Japan to attack their cities next.

Everyone who stands behind the curtains of power bristles in agitation and fear, yet none of them have a clue what truly went down in Japan.

“I don’t think anyone really knows what happens.” Kuruya admits, his voice shaking just a bit from the sleepless night he spent witnessing Polka cast an ungodly number of magical circles. Certainly more than Kuruya’s ever seen him do, not that he knows how many is the oh-god-we’re-going-to-die threshold.

There had certainly been a lot when something had teased its way into Kuruya’s head. Whispering to relax, calm down, there was no big, bad moon—

Polka’s hands had been on both sides of Kuruya’s head, fingers like vices against the hacker’s headset as something else flowed through him. Biting and snaping at whatever had tried to slither into his mind as a magic circle just for Kuruya had bloomed underneath him.

Yeah, once upon time, Kuruya had been terrified of the thought of being in the same room as someone called “The Corpse God.” Last night, last night though, he clung onto Polka like a kid grasping onto their parents as the bogeyman beckoned for their soul from the closest.

Even now, whatever room Polka decides to be in, Kuruya will be there too. If Polka inexplicitly wants a picnic on the roof, Kuruya will brave the open air and eat quaint sandwiches to hang out with the lifesaver. If Polka wants to ride one of the trains across Japan, sign Kuruya up for the seat right next to him.   

“Takumi, are you alright?” Polka stares at Kuruya, his voice soft.  From his perch on Polka’s shoulder, a shark plushie turns to Kuruya. The spirit bound within the toy tilts its head in concern as its black, glass eyes gleam with the light from the monitors.

“No, absolutely not,” Kuruya says candidly, “but I think it’s just shock, Polka. Not anything magical.” Kuruya’s heart pulses before he looks directly at the necromancer.

“There’s nothing magical still sticking to me, right? Or drilling into my head or whatever?”

Polka shakes his head, “No, there’s nothing clinging to your soul.”

“Kay, great.” Kuruya’s hands still tremble as he types away. Misaki’s presence still pressed against his back.

Usually, Kuruya dislikes people crowding his personal space. Yet, Misaki’s almost like his own personal body armor curled around him right now. Yeah, sure she looks like a normal seventeen-year-old schoolgirl with the lean body of a dancer. But the girl’s a literal zombie. If something exploded or attacked, Misaki could take the hit easily, allowing Kuruya to survive.

“How about you, how you doing?” Polka starts in surprise at Kuruya’s question, as if the thought of his own wellbeing hadn’t even crossed his mind.

“I’m fine,” the boy states, his eyes shadowed with weariness, “I did overspend a bit on my stores of mana.” The necromancer glances at the walls where his protective circles of runes have sunk into the stone and out of sight.

“However, it’s nothing I won’t recover from shortly.”

“That’s good,” Misaki chirps as she pulls away from Kuruya to move over to Polka, “You were really busy all night sprucing up the building and keeping that voice out of our heads.”

“You heard a voice?” Polka glances at both Misaki and Kuruya, signaling the question is for the both of them.

“Hmm. I don’t know if that’s the right description of it. It was strange. Like, on one hand, it sounded like a bunch of burning leaves rustling together, but then I’d hear a guy’s voice.” Misaki places a finger on her chin. “It wasn’t really a person whispering, but it was, you know?”

“Not how it sounded to me. It was like I was trying to convince myself not to worry about anything, but it wasn’t me.” It was as creepy as hell though, like something hacked into Kuruya’s thoughts to reprogram them not to be afraid.

“I see,” Polka nods, “I’m not sure, but I believe your undead status made it so that whatever spell that was used couldn’t take ahold properly.” Polka glances at the calm news reports. “Whatever took ahold of the minds of the people in this city and the nearby areas was…what’d you call mass-produced. It was made to impact the minds of mundane people and not catered to anyone with a hint of magical aptitude or whose brains have been modified with magic.”

“Wow! I guess Kuruya would have been out of luck if you hadn’t been right there?”

Kuruya flinches at Misaki’s bluntness but holds his tongue. The girl lacks a filter, so he’s not surprised.

“I wouldn’t say out of luck, but he would have been like everyone else right now. Possessing a vague sense of unease from the lingering fear of their subdued memories.”

 “I would have been magically drugged like everyone else, good to know.” Kuruya grits out, “Say, you wouldn’t happen to recognize the magic or person who did this?” Hacking into increasingly complex security systems is getting Kuruya nowhere. Besides, what better person to ask than the Corpse God from another world?

“People.” Polk corrects, staring at the paused YouTube video on one of the screens. The only post of social media that Kuruya managed to dig up situated at ground zero of the event. The fact that it’s the only video…Whatever happened blocked most transmissions going in and out of the area shortly after the city-destroying battle started. Maybe there was a weak spot in the blockade, or maybe whoever posted that video is the greatest hacker to walk the Earth. Either way, it’s the only snippet they have that’s allowed Polka to observe the events he missed witnessing directly as he transformed the Torture Building into a magical bomb shelter.

“From what I sensed last night and the different branches of magic on display in that video, there were consistently four distinct signatures of mana as well as brief glimmers of others whose magic was hidden under the strong currents of the more powerful wielders. The person who opened the hole in the sky, the two people fighting, and the one who caught the buildings before they crushed the pedestrians were all different individuals. Other than that, someone threw up an impenetrable barrier shortly after the battle, so I wasn’t able to sense which of them repaired those buildings. However, the victor of that battle was the one who erased the memories of nearly every witness.”

Polka hesitates, a thoughtful frown on his face, “Their power was…disconcerting. At least two of those fighters were skimming off the souls of the living humans in this city. Absorbing their fear and turning into a weapon to wield.” Not once does Polka look away from the video paused on the sickly green moon.

“While I myself can interact with both living and dead souls, to devour human emotions throughout the entirety of a metropolis is beyond my current abilities. These beings are more on par with the strongest of elementals. Too powerful to be contained in the body of single sorcerer.”

“Wait, are you saying?”

When Polka looks at Kuruya, his eyes possess an unnatural glow.

“I’m saying that the souls of those creatures last night weren’t even human. They lacked even the leftover traces like what clings to mine that signify a human origin.”

Chapter Text

Thick, heavy clouds cover the underbelly of the sky. Their rumbles promise rain, so Crestia leaves her humble dwelling with her bangasa firmly held in her hand. The sturdy bamboo handle of the traditional umbrella weighs far lighter than the body-sized mallet she uses in battle, so it is no trouble to keep ahold of even when an unruly breeze tugs the underside of the washi paper, patterned with a single red swirl that matches the shade of her flower hairpin.

Even from the perception of a non-native of this land, the gloomy weather seems unseasonable for a Japanese summer. One that had the local grocer bemoaning the heat spell last time Crestia replenished her supplies. Perhaps the weather systems of this world are sensitive to magic?

Her ponderings provide good company as she walks, the light shower of rain soothingly pitter-pattering off the cover of her bangasa. Soon, her destination comes into sight. Although the colors are less cheerful than usual under the overcast sky, the red and yellow sign of the MgRonald’s near Hatagaya Station promises a warm interior compared to the chill outside. Not that Crestia minds the cold, she’s used to the deep snowdrifts of winter from her homeland. But the change in temperature does feel comfortable when she steps past the entrance.   

The atmosphere however…  

“There were extenuating circumstances!” Chiho’s anxiety washes over Crestia even though the sacred magic user isn’t even a demon and shouldn’t be able to sense such things. The girl’s pigtails quiver as she pleads with her manager while Maou stands silently by the young girl’s side. Unsurprisingly, the MgRonald’s manager looks at the girl in disbelief.

“Why are you making excuses?”

Chiho, not as versed in the art of deception like most of her comrades, is doing a very poor job of convincing her superior that Maou had a perfectly good reason for sprinting out of the store like a lunatic on the night he had to battle an archangel.

Luckily for the both of them, Crestia’s obligated to assist.

“The truth is, Good Sadao saved us last night.”

The automatic sliding doors slip shut behind Suzuno as she takes on her role of the defenseless neighbor of Good Sadao.

The manager’s office is rather spacious and designed well enough with its large bookshelf framed by two potted plants. It is a place that speaks to the organizational skills and neatness of its owner while in truth gives away nothing much more of her personality. There are no personal effects, no pictures of family nor friends on the desk, and not a single nicknack beyond those plants whose sole purpose may very well be to make any visitors feel comfortable.

In truth, it’s disappointing that Crestia won’t be able to divine much in the answer of why the Devil King is so respectful of this mere human manager. However, that wasn’t her intended goal anyway but a minor curiosity.

“And who might you be?” The manager appears mildly interested if still disbelieving of the random appearance of a newcomer. Her appearance slightly gives away more personality traits than her office. Her ponytail of black hair is draped over one shoulder, a woman who isn’t afraid of asymmetry and perhaps minor signs of rebellion against the neat, identical appearances required of a fast-food chain. Oddly, her eyes appear almost black with only the barest hint of some other color. Even in Ente Isla such a shade is virtually unheard of, but perhaps in Japan it’s more common.

“My name is Suzuno Kamazuki. Chiho and I were on our way home that night when a deviant attacked us out of the blue and the Good Sadao rushed to our location to provide assistance.” Nervousness tinges Suzuno’s voice. An appropriate amount for a grown woman who had a close call but was most fortunately rescued.

“Yeah! He’s a hero! I honestly don’t know what would have happened if he hadn’t been there to rescue us!”   Chiho’s voice rises high like a girl who’s babbling to cover for a friend who snuck out against her parents wishes. However, the manager seems to take it as the shakiness of a teenager who’s still worked up about a horrible experience; although, she does turn to Maou with a measured stare.

“You fought off a deviant with a mop?”

Maou rubs the back of his head in what could be an honest display or simply a show of nervousness. “Yeah, he was a bit of a tough customer.”

“Well,” the manager says, “I supposed that does count as extenuating.”

A knock on the door startles a flinch from Chiho, yet both the manager and Maou turn calmly towards the noise just as another MgRonald’s worker rushes in.

“Ms. Kisaki! Some dude just fell out of the walk-in!” the worker panics, referring to the restaurant’s freezer.

“What? Is he alive?!”  The manager’s quick to her feet. Her priorities already resorted as she discards the finished conversation with Suzuno and hurries to deal with the more critical matter.

Close on her heels, Maou follows with Crestia close behind. While this is not her workplace, Crestia possesses some basic healing arts, and it would be remiss to let a poor stranger die of frostbite if she could do anything at all to save them. She’ll just have to trust the Devil King to keep his coworkers and manager occupied to hide the use of Crestia’s talents if it comes to that.

It does not come to that.

It most certainly does not come to that.

The sight before Crestia leaves her unmoored. The archangel that ordered her to kill the Devil King beside her, the being from Heaven that tried to strip the sword known as the Better Half from Emilia, the one who made the savior of Ente Isla scream out in pain on the rooftop of a foreign city in a world far from her own.

That is who’s on the floor in front of her.

She’s not…prepared for this. Maou had tossed the unconscious angel through a Gate. Sariel should be in Ente Isla, where the colored glass windows of The Church have borne his likeness for centuries, long before he had deigned to approach the human realm as more than a story. For years, he had been among the pantheon of angels who populated Crestia’s prayers. His kind the distant representation of the divine, of the justice so lacking in the political squabbles of Church affairs.

Now this angel, the cruel being who leered over Chiho and who almost destroyed Emilia lies stirring on the tiled floor.

If Sariel attacks…Maou is depleted of demonic energy. Chiho so fragilely incapable of fighting. The only weapon Crestia has is the concealed Hammer of Justice curled away into the guise of a flower hairpin on her head. The entity before her appears unmarked. Any signs of the battle that tore through towering steel buildings vanished. Any cuts or bruises gone for the tunic he wears leaves his arms and legs exposed enough to show no injuries.

Distantly, Crestia recalls the declarations of Lucifer’s supposed death. Of how Emilia the Hero pierced his heart with her holy blade and left him dead on the battlefield. The same Lucifer who sits very much alive at his computer as Crestia stands here now.  If a fallen archangel can survive such fatal blow, if the Heaven-sent one on the ground before her has recovered so quickly from the earlier battle, her hammer may very well be harmless to such beings.

“Crap, the Gate must have just looped back around. I knew I was almost out of power, but I thought I had enough to get rid of this clown.” Maou grumbles to Chiho as Kisaki kneels next to the archangel. Unaware of his true nature nor the danger.

“Oh good, he’s alive. Are you okay, sir? Not dead or anything?” The manager’s concern is undeserved. If this was a human stuck in a freezer for who knows how long, then it would make sense. But the archangel isn’t even pale or tinged with blue limbs, the only off-color spot on his body is a bright ring of orange where paint had struck his face days ago.

When the archangel opens his eyes, gone is the manic gleam of last night, replaced by an awestruck expression ensnared by the sight of the beautiful manager leaning over him.

“How strange this fortune? I had to travel to another world to meet the goddess of beauty.” Sariel’s tone comes out just as awestruck as the glittering in his purple eyes, his hands gesturing towards the Kisaki who sits as stunned as Crestia.

“You got to be kidding me.” Maou grumbles, as if such baffling behavior can be expected from an archangel.

“—forbidden love that I may fall all the way from heaven—” Sariel’s words weave through the air, his melodious tone at odds with the insanity of his speech. The Devil King’s strike must have concussed...do angels even get brain damage…

Kisaki springs up, backing closer to Crestia and the others, her hand held in front of her as if to ward off the disturbed being. “Okay, who is this freakshow?”

“Actually,” Maou answers, “he manages the SFC.” The rival restaurant across the street if Crestia remembers the politics of food places correctly.

“True, my beloved, he speaks truth—”

At the weaving of yet more incomprehensible words, Crestia glances to Maou who maintains the most unsurprised expression she’s ever seen…He must have seen this sort of behavior before, but with no prior meeting to the archangel Sarial…

“Is this normal, Good Sadao?” Even to her own ears, Crestia’s quiet voice is filled with trepidation.

Maou blinks, his expression nonplussed as Chiho looks to Crestia in confusion.

“Do,” As Crestia speaks, Kisaki is too busy berating the ‘manager’ of SFC to pay attention to the murmured conversation behind her, telling Sariel he can either deal with the cops or the hospital if he’s going to act like a brain-damaged lunatic, “others act like this?”

There’s only one ‘other,’ archangel that Maou actually knows well enough that would lead to him being completely unsurprised by this post-battle nonsensical behavior.

“I’m not answering that.” Maou mumbles shortly, the words an answer in and of themselves. As well as the promise of some kind of retaliation if he admits to anything.  

A single beat’s pause and then,

“He’s never been this type of weird towards women.” Maou gives up, no doubt calculating the worse retaliation that’d arise from misleading silence.