Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Up in the heavenly realm, Fubuki panicked.

This was fairly notable due to how in control of situations she usually was, but in all fairness, she was the last member of the heaven house to join in the collective freak-out that was finding out that Sora and company were no longer contactable.

Still, in lieu of anyone else, Fubuki was de-facto in charge of hololive, and that meant rounding up the gamers, Aki, Subaru, and possibly AZKi, to discuss what they would do next.

It was that discussion that had led to the current situation. A-chan had given Fubuki access to hololive’s official social media, which meant she would be the one to post that Sora’s hiatus - originally a week just to tie up anything that might administratively take forever during ascension - was now extended indefinitely. She’d done that already, and otherwise, the plan was that the AZKi and the gamers would otherwise just keep going as if nothing was wrong, while Aki and Subaru would figure out if there was anything they could do, since they weren’t yet active.

Still, one fear was answered when Roboco came back online, along with everyone from the in-between.

Fubuki put her phone down, and then did something unusual: she lightened her stream schedule. While obviously anything right there in her schedule was still going to happen, she refrained from adding much more to future weeks - yeah, A-chan told her to just pretend that nothing was wrong, but Fubuki was first and foremost a creature of empathy, and she knew herself well enough to know that right now she needed to relax a bit to make sure she was still thinking straight, otherwise worry would start catching up to her.

Still, there was a plan, now. Perhaps it was time to re-learn her spiritual capabilities - though, hololive had made it so she hadn’t had to pick up a sword (1) in a long time. For once, she cursed her young age as a kitsune; dying before even earning her second tail (2) was rather unfortunate, and, as much as she enjoyed being part of hololive, it allowed her to live carefree such that now she was very out of practice with invoking her kitsune abilities.

I wonder if I can get Mio to join me with that...

Granted, getting her own powers into shape might be as good as she could do. Hololive had more or less entirely domesticated Okayu, who Fubuki was pretty sure had absolutely no capability of manifesting her Nekomata (3) powers anymore. She wasn’t even sure if Korone had any supernatural powers to begin with aside from abnormally high physical endurance.

Still, it gave her something to do, if a confrontation became inevitable.

You don’t get to hurt my friends, o nameless one. Even as a seraph.

Amelia Watson walked into the house occupied by the underworld-bound hololive members.

Well, ‘walked’ was a strong word, as she looked closer to a barely-animate corpse limping through the door, up to her room, and then falling over in bed. This had become a rather unfortunately recurring issue as of lately.

Towa, who was in the room, explained the situation to the rest of the underworld folks (4) who were looking horrified at the state Amelia was in once again.

“I know this looks bad, but the fact of the matter is that by any objective metric Amelia is on her way to rightfully walking out of the lower underworld faster than any other soul on record.”

Kiara was unamused.

“Does she not understand we have all of time and that we’ll be waiting for her, no matter how long it takes?”

Calliope sighed.

“It’s Amelia Watson. She’s stubborn like that.”

Towa sighed.

“Amelia’s reached the point where she regularly burns out her actual ability to feel pain. To be fair, she’s got a point - yeah, it looks bad when you are seeing your heart on the outside of your body, but the thing is, there’s actually a limit to how much pain your body will tolerate - go too far and your pain receptors temporarily stop functioning. For what it’s worth, this wasn't my idea; Amelia understands that she can’t actually die to a rather unhealthy degree. But she’s right in one regard: she is very close to freedom, and she did it in weeks, rather than decades - sort of.”

Coco sighed.

“So exactly what’s the hold-up, then? This has become more consistent as of recently.”

“Amelia pissed off her gatekeeper. And, for those not versed in devil hierarchy, gatekeepers are those who generally decide which souls can or can’t escape, so as you could guess, you don’t want to annoy them.”

Calliope Mori facepalmed.

“God damn it Amelia. What’d she even do?”

“Basically did her usual shtick of brute-force ill-advised pacifism. The problem is, her gatekeeper is A: smart, and B: loves karmically fitting punishments, and those have combined into what I think is actually the most brutal form of torture that Amelia’s been put through. What you need to understand is that Amelia’s state is actually mostly generated from exhaustion and brutal overexertion, not from direct pain.”

Kiara replied to that statement, surprised at the revelation.

“Wait, what? I know Amelia works hard, but that did not look like a healthy amount of trying hard!”

Towa sighed.

“Yeah, so, to explain the context, gatekeepers have two primary abilities, and neither of them are good for anyone, but they’re especially bad for Amelia. The first is that they tend to be able to summon other devils to fight in their stead, which means that Amelia’s gatekeeper isn’t spending his energy hopelessly fighting Amelia. That means that, unlike most devils, our gatekeeper - I can’t recall the name - essentially can do the one thing that every other devil has failed to pull off: match Amelia in a duel of pure stubbornness. And that would be why he’s a gatekeeper: if he decides you don’t deserve to get out, you don’t.”

Calliope and Kiara looked at each other, horrified, though Ollie interrupted loudly.

“THIS ISN’T FAIR! AME-SENPAI HAS NO WAY OUT!”

“She does. She just needs to give the gatekeeper a convincing argument. For more violent souls, that argument usually involves a lot of fire, dark magic, and becoming a devil, and for more peaceful ones, forcing them into stubbornness matches like Amelia until eventually a soul can force him into a position where they can find a justification that allows them through, even if it involves a tiny bit of fighting. Gatekeepers are, all things considered, not very malicious, compared to most devils. Honestly, I thought Amelia would be stuck forever in the arena, but she played the devil’s game really well on that one.”

Choco pointed out the rather obvious contradiction: “I thought she was rather aggressively not playing the game.”

“Yeah, and that’s the thing: she realized that the whole rule where the devils are allowed to mess around with the rules actually has a little fun side-loophole: the devils aren’t actually allied with each other. Everyone wants to fight Amelia, but there’s very little trust between devils. Similarly, while Amelia isn’t allowing herself to fight the devils, she very much allows the devils to fight each other.”

“You mean that-”

“Yep.” Towa said, while smirking, “Amelia essentially played all of them against each other, and when all of them failed to actually get anything out of Amelia, they proceeded to have one of the most embarrassing fits of what basically was spiritually empowered gamer rage at each other instead. Unfortunately, the gatekeeper ain’t falling for that trick, which means they’re back to a trial of pure stubbornness, and normally that would favour Amelia, if it weren’t for the gatekeeper’s second ability: the karmic mirror.”

The rest of the members present looked confused. Towa continued.

“The karmic mirror is honestly fascinating. It essentially mirrors one’s karmic debts, and morphs it into the gatekeeper’s trial. For example, if your crime back when you were alive was that you tended to set things on fire, then the ground around you would also catch fire in retaliation for your karmic debt. If you were an excessive liar, then the gatekeeper would also lie to you, making your freedom very hard to ascertain, since there’d be no trust, and he might just lie about saying you’re free. Anyone want to guess Amelia’s?”

Calliope Mori, knowing Amelia better than most, answered:

“Time compression. A bad dose of ‘month in, day out’. That’d explain the overexertion; she’s putting in like 20 days’ worth of attempts, every single day she goes at this. Her karmic debt was induced by skipping around the timeline repeatedly, setting up our world for destruction - even if she never pulled the trigger, so to speak - and thus, her karmic mirror is time compression, forcing every day to last for weeks on end.”

Towa nodded, but then smirked.

“Ironically enough, this has a side-effect of making her karma burn way, way faster; if we go by a 20-to-1 ratio - and it’s probably more extreme than that - she’s done a year of karma burn in 18 days. So, while it’s horrible for Amelia, she’s actually not going to be missing out on years worth of whatever we do once she’s out. She’s just rather stuck at the moment. That’s where Amelia’s at; I’m in talks with her gatekeeper, but unfortunately he’s just as stubborn as Amelia is.”

Ayame motioned towards her two swords.

“You think he needs convincing from outside forces?”

“It might come down to that, but trust me, we don’t want to play that card just yet. Amelia hasn’t given up hope, and I think the important thing is that if she’s willing to keep it together for now, then we should believe in her. Remember that if she convinces the gatekeeper to let her go, then she’s never going back to the lower underworld again. She’ll be free; whereas if we bust her out she’ll have devils on her back forever, and that isn’t fun for anyone. If things break down, it’s important that he’s the one to break the rules first. Until then, it’s up to Amelia to persuade her gatekeeper to let her walk free.”

Towa paused, letting the words sink in a bit, and then continued speaking: “Still, for the sake of keeping Amelia sane, we do have a collective role in taking care of her whenever she pushes herself too hard - I know that you might not approve of me dragging you guys into taking care Amelia as she does this to herself but-”

Kiara interrupted.

“-of course we’ll help her with this! I think it’s stupid that she’s required to convince the gatekeeper alone, but at least we can help make sure she’s well-cared for in-between her horribly torturous sessions. Seriously, why are they that bad?”

Towa blinked.

“Um, because we’re devils, and torturing bad karma out of the souls of the damned is what we do? It’s just usually most souls with that kind of karmic debt are normally a lot more evil. Amelia’s case, as I’m sure you are all aware, is weird as Hell. Actually, it’s a lot weirder, demonstrably. I feel awful doing this to her, but we don’t have a choice here.”

In the in-between, three vehicles flew.

The first was the Pekodam, piloted by one Usada Pekora.

The second was the Mikochar, piloted by the elite Sakura Miko.

And finally, flying higher than either of them was Iofi’s UFO, of which all three members of HololiveID’s first generation were aboard.

Iofi had taken the pilot’s seat, leaving Moona to chat with Risu. Given that they hadn’t been reunited for very long, it seemed like a conversation they needed to have.

Moona addressed the squirrel girl.

“Hey. How are you doing, with, you know, everything.”

“Um...I dunno. I don’t like dying, but I guess I can’t complain about how my afterlife’s been going. I’m just...I dunno, after remembering hololive literally picking me up off the street...all that’s been on my mind is how we were separated. It’s the only thing I’ve been able to think about, recently. I guess I should thank you guys for picking me up.”

Moona shrugged.

“Iofi’s scary observant like that. I would’ve never been able to catch you by myself.”

In the pilot’s seat, Iofi overheard the conversation, and then grinned.

“Hey, if you want a better view, you could come take the pilot’s seat yourself.”

“Absolutely not!”

Still, Moona had to admit, the view was nice, though so far the aerial reconnaissance had only confirmed what they had suspected: Sora wasn’t close by, and if they wanted to get a good overview, they would likely have to violate foreign airspace. The elves at the eastern border region of the Lunar Alliance would likely avoid freaking out too hard - in fact, now that Moona thought about it, Botan actually left the Botanx parked in the border region - but past that it would likely go poorly.

Moona sighed.

Damn, this is going to be a real pain to figure out. How do we avoid-

A new voice interrupted the train of thought over a voice channel.

“Hey Moona!”

Uh oh.

“Apparently there’s a whole bunch of magical signals south of here peko - I’m just gonna fly over and see what’s up with that right now”.

“Uh, isn’t that outside the region of the Lunar Alliance territory?”

“I’ll come up with an excuse for flying the Pekodam that far later, peko!”

Welp. I guess if she goes first...

Tokino Sora landed back in front of the group consisting of herself, A-chan, Kanata, Watame, and Nene.

It was decided that, as both Sora and Kanata had full angel wings, they couldn’t hide their status as angels. As such, they would pretend to be angels on some administrative duties - which did happen - and the rest of them wouldn’t fly, as that would be a giveaway that they were from the heavens, and for now it was best for them to avoid drawing too much attention to themselves.

Sora smiled.

“I looked around, and, while it might not be much for now, I spotted a sign of civilization - a city that seemed to be known as the city of the peafowl. Given my memory, I think there’s a fair chance of one of our friends being present.”

A-chan blinked.

“Do you want to go ahead or not?”

Sora shook her head.

“I spotted it via a better vantage point - it’s still pretty far away, so I hope you guys don’t mind a fairly long walk. As a result, I’ll stick with you until we get much closer; at that point I’ll look for Reine-chan.”

Nene made an enthusiastic exclamation: “Forward it is, then!”

The rest of the gang smiled.

Sora replied: “Yep!”

Chapter Text

As Sora’s party was starting to learn, the in-between had some serious annoyances to deal with that weren’t present in Heaven. Sure, there was the obvious, such as a day-night cycle, but there was another one they were quickly learning was going to be problematic: Physical exhaustion seemed to exist a lot harder down here. 

Something about the in-between, due to being a lot more Earth-like in nature, made it subconsciously harder for the members of the party to utilize their spiritual selves to bypass human tiredness like they previously did. Which was to say, unlike in Heaven, they had been struck with the realization that they needed to find somewhere to rest.

Well, for Nene, Watame, and A-chan, anyway; Sora and Kanata were still in fairly high spirits, due to their angelically blessed physical strength.

Thankfully, they had their destination in sight; which meant they just needed to pick up the pace a bit before nightfall.

A-chan cursed her lack of physical stamina relative to the others; as of right now it was clear that she was the one that the rest of the group had to slow down to allow her to keep up with. Granted, she was competing with Nene, who was known for her hyperactivity, Watame, who was known for her general low-key relaxed high stubbornness, and two literal angels-

“You’re only human, A-chan. Don’t worry about it.”

A-chan wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to Sora doing that to her; in the past it had usually been the opposite way around, back when the two of them were alive.

A-chan frowned. It was a subtle reminder of the fact that Sora used to be human, with the emphasis on the past tense. A-chan was still a little freaked out by Sora’s new angel senses, which only made her worry as she couldn’t imagine what it was like to actually feel them.

“With that in mind, we might want to move just a little faster if possible.”

A-chan, Watame, and Nene blinked, looking at Sora, who had spoken.

And then the sound of very distant thunder hit their ears.

Sora frowned, while pointing to the approaching storm clouds.

“Yeah, that’s why. We can still beat the storm if we move. We’re not in Heaven, so, uh, it actually rains down here on occasion.”

Surprisingly enough, it hadn’t been particularly close; while the storm was still approaching, the group had entered the city without any particular issues.

The city itself was situated around a palace that was located in the middle, and while the palace wasn’t that large it was still tall enough to be immediately visible from the rest of the buildings.

Sora looked at the rest of the group.

“Can the four of you find somewhere to stay? I have my phone with me, so I can contact you guys later.”

A-chan asked the rather obvious question: “Oh? Where are you going?”

“Up - I’m going to see if I can find Reine.”

Kanata added: “Sora-senpai adapted to her angel senses stunningly fast. Honestly, I’m not actually that good with them; with the blessing of perception she might be able to locate her faster than we can.”

Watame smiled cheerfully.

“You say that, but I think you’d be able to tell if Coco was nearby, no matter what.”

“You don’t need angel senses to find her!”

The five of them laughed.

A-chan added: “Alright, but make sure to regroup with us quickly if you can. I don’t want to find you flying around if conditions get really bad - if nothing else, being too high makes you a target for lightning strikes.”

Sora laughed, and then flew upwards.

A-chan, you really don’t have to worry that much about me.

While in the air, she paused.

Alright, admittedly she has good reason to worry about me right now.

She looked around, and focused her senses.

Found you, Reine-chan.

And then started flying towards the palace.

Much to Sora’s surprise, for a place that was so bird-themed, there were virtually no aerial defenses whatsoever. She really could just fly right up to the palace window with nobody stopping her. She spotted her target on a balcony, who then went inside, and from the looks of things, she hadn’t noticed Sora’s presence. Given the distance, it wasn’t terribly surprising.

And then she realized something: perhaps that also had to do with her angel wings. Kanata was right, as it turned out: being an angel gave you access to places just from inherent trust that the angels could do no wrong. It wasn’t an assumption she was comfortable with, neither from her experiences with other angels or from her experiences of actually being one.

She landed on the balcony, and walked into the palace.

What happened next was a rather surreal combination of three different events in succession.

The first was that she had a keris (1) pointed at her; it was easy to recognize by the very distinctive wavy shape that ordinary daggers didn’t tend to have.

Pavolia Reine had drawn her blade quickly, all things considered, and apparently didn’t like the intrusion into her home.

The second thing was arguably more amusing, as Reine spoke.

“Who are you and what are you...doing...here...”

Reine’s surprised and combat ready stance quickly changed to her slowly placing her dagger on the floor, followed by placing her hands on her head as she lowered herself to the floor.

“Uh...uh...let’s just pretend I didn’t just threaten you with a dagger...oh no...”

Sora shrugged.

“I mean, I just kind of flew into your house without asking, and if you didn’t recognize me at first, it’s a somewhat reasonable reaction. I was...a little overexcited to see you again. So, how are you doing? I’m Tokino Sora. (2)”

“I’m Reine, but clearly you already know that. And I do recognize your name from my own mortal memories, though…”

“Hmm?”

“Annoyingly enough, I don’t remember much of you past your name. I remember the...the thing...ah, right, ‘hololive’. You were from that group, though infuriatingly, I can’t recall anything about you, but it’s annoying because it really just confirms the large gap in my memory that I knew I had. Still, at least I remember you to a certain degree, though...”

Sora tilted her head.

“Though what?”

“I thought you were an ordinary human. I was from a magical realm before getting magically transported to your world by accident - I remember that much. You...weren’t. At least, from what I remember - lord knows my memory isn’t worth anything these days. You weren’t an angel last time I checked.”

Sora frowned.

“No, you’re remembering right - I was recently ascended into angelhood; I was human until basically a day or two ago.”

Reine paused, before asking the awkward question.

“Wait, if you became an angel, why are you here, then? I’ll admit I skimmed the afterlife books, but I thought you angels were, you know, from up above.”

Sora sighed.

“It’s...a long story. I don’t really want to share it at the moment. I’m just focused on larger issues, and mine aren’t really important right now. What is important is that I’m getting the group back together. Fubuki’s called the project HoloAfterLive. Either way, I’d love to have you back with us, we’re actually only two members away from finding everyone.”

Reine smiled.

“Good for you guys. Who’s left? Not that I’ll remember much about them, but I am curious.”

“Akai Haato and Anya Melfissa.”

Reine’s eyes widened.

“I’ve found Anya, actually, though...you might not like what happened to her.”

Sora’s face dropped to one of concern.

“What...happened?”

And that was the third thing that happened that evening, and perhaps the most surreal of all: Reine’s dagger, her keris, started speaking, the voice emerging more spiritually than physically.

“Hi Sora-senpai! I’m a dagger now! Oh, and I don’t know how to get my physical body back.”

Sora blanked, entirely unready for the absurdity of having Reine’s dagger talking back to her.

Reine smirked.

“I was wondering when she was going to introduce herself. Let’s move to my - well, our - room.”

The muffled sound of thunder within Reine’s room made an ambient backdrop to Sora and Reine’s conversation.

The bedroom was exactly like Sora imagined it to be. Which is to say, it was fairly large and elaborately decorated; Reine was, for the most part, fairly dignified in how she carried herself, initial meeting panic aside.

Reine put Anya down on her desk.

“At some point Anya’s gotta show you the rest of her powers.”

An annoyed voice jumped out of the keris.

“Oh come on! It would’ve been hilarious to see Sora-senpai’s reaction to when I did this:”

And, at that point, Anya, in dagger form, floated off of the desk and hung suspended in the air.

“Yeah, I can do that. It’s pretty limited, but I actually can move through some spirit-self reasons that I kind of already forgot. That might be why I can’t get back into human form, because I can’t remember how I did it the first time.”

Sora frowned.

“I’m just wondering why you weren’t reincarnated in human form in the first place.”

You could hear Anya’s sigh.

“Honestly, I forget most of the reasoning, except basically the fast version is that the human body I had wasn’t my real self; and now that I’m basically only a spirit self I don’t get my physical body back unless I figure out how to physically reincarnate my human body again. It’s not a default in the same way it is for most people. Still, it’s been pretty chill hanging out with Reine. Well, I also gave her lessons in the use of a dagger; she has a surprisingly quick hand when she’s wielding me.”

Reine smiled.

“To be honest, I’ve been missing out on a lot of my happier times, but I’ll admit I’m also happy to have most of my full spellcasting back.”

Sora laughed.

“Ah, right, you were like Shion in that manner.”

Reine shrugged.

“I wouldn’t remember, honestly - though I’m happy for all of the members who’ve been able to find each other. I guess that includes me, now.”

Sora smiled.

“Yeah, that’s the spirit!”

It was at that point that Sora got a ping on her phone, reminding her of the fact that she hadn’t in fact regrouped with her friends.

“Ah, sorry Reine-chan, Anya-chan. I need to message A-chan to make sure she’s not freaking out.”

Reine laughed.

“Ollie’s really something, isn’t she?”

Sora laughed in response.

She then paused, thinking about how to talk to her kouhai.

“Hololive Indonesia, Generation 2: both you, Anya, and Ollie were from that generation. You and Anya are here. As for Kureiji Ollie, well, she’s in Hell at the moment.”

Reine’s eyes widened.

“What did she do? I hardly think hololive would have any actual sinners.”

“She’s undead, which puts you in the underworld by default; it’s why Yozora Mel’s also located underground. Hololive’s talent pool was, when I think about it honestly, really weird at times. If nothing else, the rest of hololiveID would love to see you two again.”

Anya’s voice interrupted.

“Even though I look like this?”

Sora shrugged.

“It’ll be fine, honestly.”

There was a ping from Sora’s phone.

Reine opened the door, and like Sora had said, Moona Hoshinova stood behind it, who addressed her friend.

“Hi.”

“So...I don’t really know you anymore, though at least I know of you.”

“We’ll figure it out. Risu and Iofi should show up shortly, once Iofi figures out where to park her UFO, which is hard given the storm outside has reduced visibility pretty badly - I jumped down onto the roof from above.”

The sound of something large impacting the roof was heard, and at that point, Sora cringed, while Moona once again facepalmed.

“Reine, I know this might be a little hard for you, but please try not to be too offended at the fact that Iofi just crashed her UFO into your palace.”

Reine laughed, surprising Moona.

“You know, as much as I’m tempted to be annoyed at this turn of events, somehow this isn’t the worst way I’ve met someone today. Let’s get you three down here, alright?”

Chapter Text

Despite the loud impact sound, surprisingly enough Iofi’s landing on the roof of Reine’s home was actually a perfect landing and not a crash-through-the-roof scenario like Moona feared it was. Risu and Iofi had gotten out, and now that brought five out of six members of hololive ID back together along with Sora. 

Well, possibly four out of six, depending on how you counted Anya’s position.

Sora opted to let the indonesian members talk it out amongst themselves - as they had just met up, they opted to converse in Indonesian (1) rather than Japanese, and Sora was actually more comfortable letting them do that, despite the fact that left her out of the conversation.

The first generation of hololive ID had taken to Anya’s new - well, technically old - form pretty well. Moona, Risu, and Iofi were clearly a little weirded out by the fact that there was a talking dagger left on the dresser beside Reine’s bed, but the familiarity of the voice was comforting.

As awkward as it could’ve been, it was mended by the fact that Anya herself wasn’t too panicked about it. She just sounded annoyed.

<Man, why am I the one stuck like this?>

Reine stared at Anya’s dagger form.

<Um...because that’s your original body. At least, that’s the logic we came up with.>

Moona frowned.

<Yeah, but just because that was what she started with doesn’t mean that’s what she should end with. She was just as human as I was.>

Anya audibly sighed.

<It’s different, I think. I mean, I had a physical body, but I think on some level I did sort of think of myself as a spiritually possessed keris. It just so happens that I was spiritually possessed in the correct manner to conjure a human body - and now I need to re-create that miracle, which is annoying because that seems like the kind of thing I should only have to do once. Ah well, I’ll figure out as we go along, I suppose. Oh, and if any of you three want lessons in using a keris, feel free to ask me for lessons. Reine picked up the style pretty quickly.>

Iofi laughed.

<I think I’ll be fine.>

Anya continued.

<Fair enough, given, well, you flew a spaceship here. I don’t really have much else to offer other than occasionally witty comments otherwise. I’m uh, probably a little less attractive to potential fans in this form than I was back when I was alive.>

Risu smiled.

<I think you’re a bit nervous right now...but I think it’s going to be fine. We’ll figure this out. And at the very least, Reine hasn’t given up on you.>

<Yup! No idea how I convinced her that I was still the same Anya from our living days.>

Moona replied in a completely matter-of-fact manner: <It doesn’t take very long to find out.>

Reine shrugged.

<I mean, it was a leap of faith on my part - I had no proof. But it seemed like the right call, and to be fair, I’ve had you with me for quite a bit now. Honestly, the only disappointment in all of this is that we’re still missing Ollie, since she’s in the underworld now.>

Sora smiled, even though she was entirely lost with the conversation when Iofi looked at the one person in the room missing from the conversation.

“Oh, right, Sora-senpai. We might have gotten a little overexcited to speak with each other for the first time in a while. I’m really sorry if you feel left out.”

Sora shook her head.

“This is your moment more than it’s mine. That, and I’m actually talking with A-chan at the moment.”

Sora smiled, and put her phone down.

“Oh, right, Reine, I wanted to ask: Do we actually have any sort of sleeping arrangement tonight? I can’t imagine you’re mean enough to throw us out into the rain.”

“Of course not, though admittedly I don’t really have the beds for five of us on hand.”

Iofi shrugged.

“It can’t be helped. I’ve got the three of us covered.”

She pointed to three sleeping bags, color-coordinated for the three members of hololive ID’s first generation.

Reine and Sora blinked, of which Reine answered first:

“How did I miss you bringing those in?”

Sora then added: “How did I, with angel senses, miss you bringing those in?”

Moona and Risu both shrugged.

Moona added a rather nonchalant statement confirming the weirdness of the situation:

“Iofi’s just like that sometimes. Good call, though.”

Reine breathed a sigh of relief.

“That’s good, but what about you?”

Sora paused.

What do I tell them…?

Thinking about it, she went with the truth about her ascension.

“Angels don’t strictly require sleep. I’ll just stay up.”

Iofi stared at Sora, in that manner that a somewhat inquisitive little sibling might.

“I don’t think you want to, though. You look tired enough that you could.”

Sora sighed.

“I don’t want to intrude. Lack of sleep will affect me far less harshly than you five.”

She paused for a moment.

Why do I think that? Korone’s not an angel, and she goes without. What is it about the in-between that’s so weird?

Reine had taken to staring at Sora.

Risu joined in.

“Are you of all people really doing this, Sora-senpai?”

Sora suddenly got very nervous.

“I mean...I’m not lying. Sleep feels nice, but I’d rather not-”

Moona brought out her phone, and then showed it to Sora, which revealed the fact that she was now one phone tap away from video calling Kureiji Ollie.

Sora’s eyes widened. Ollie was crazy, and she was also well known for being very caring in manners that were not considered subtle. If Moona called Ollie about the subject, well, that was likely to go places. It was the nuclear friendship option.

“You’re bluffing, Moona. You can’t video call the underworld from here, can you?”

“Well, Roboco-san said she was trying to set that up; wanna find out if it works together?”

“Okay, fine! I...I have my own reasons for staying up. It’s true that I don’t want to bother you, but it’s kind of a...me issue, anyway.”

Reine was unimpressed by the failed deflection.

“So what you’re saying is, you’re planning to go outside and deal with some issue on your own anyway? Geez, you’re being somewhat hypocritical here.”

“Nonono! It’s uh...um...try not to take this badly, but I really don’t want to see my dreams. They’re...kind of bad. It’s related to the fact that I, um...I’m trying to figure out how to put this.”

The stares of four other hololive ID members bore into Sora.

Sora sighed.

“I know that you four might actually be jealous instead of sympathetic, but...I remember everything. It’s...done some bad things for me, though it’s been getting better.”

Moona also sighed.

“Alright, I’m tired of the deflection.”

Moona pressed the call button.

The rather emphatic voice of Kureiji Ollie was blasted into the room.

“UH, WHO’S THIS-OH, HI MOONA!”

Moona replied.

“Uh, maybe less loud? It’s night here, and we can all hear you just fine.”

Ollie’s voice practically deflated.

“Oh, um...whatcha up to calling me during the night?”

Moona grinned.

“I’ll let Sora-senpai explain, actually.”

Sora sighed, knowing this wouldn’t go well.

“So, uh, first and foremost, I’m an angel now.”

Ollie responded in a surprisingly level-headed manner.

“Yeah, that was pretty crazy, but how is it related to now?”

“Well, the five other members of hololive ID kind of met up - sorry about not having any means of getting you out of Hell right now - and, well, I’m trying to convince Reine that I don’t need to sleep tonight. I’m saying angels don’t actually need sleep, and the rest of them think I should get some sleep anyway.”

She looked at the phone.

Ollie’s zombified face stared back.

“Get some rest, Sora-senpai. This isn’t a request; I’m ordering you to!”

Sora’s jaw dropped.

“I didn’t think you had it in you to literally give me orders like that. Besides, haven’t you gotten a fair taste of not having physical limits anymore?”

Ollie glared through the phone.

“Yeah, and now I’m having to learn my mental limits instead. I mean, seriously, you’re normally not this insistent; you were one of the better members at actually taking care of yourself during your hololive days! What happened?”

“Um...well...I’ve been thinking about...things, I guess. I don’t know how I’m feeling right now. It’s been a long day for me; I’m not sure I’m really able to sleep right now. Look, I know I’m not phrasing this well, but I’m trying to figure out a way to put this that doesn’t reveal issues that are kind of a ‘me’ thing and not something I really want to bother you guys with-”

“OH MY GOD YOU DO IT TOO. SERIOUSLY, YOU’RE NOT ALONE UP THERE!”

Sora sighed.

“I remember everything about my mortal life. I remember it so clearly that it really messes with my ability to tell what’s real. Every time I dream, I go back to the end of my mortal life, and I wake up back in the afterlife having to remind myself that...you know, that my past life was just that - my past life. You guys are real. I’m not really sure about myself, to be honest.”

Ollie quieted down from her previous response.

“Honestly, I never thought about how bad it would be to remember everything perfectly. Wait, does that mean you remember how the world actually ended?”

Sora cringed, taking a deep breath to try and not remember her last memories of horribly burning to death.

“Yeah. Succumbing to unsurvivable burns wasn’t a fun way to go the first time. I don’t feel like doing it again. It happens sometimes. A-chan remembers it like a bad nightmare; I remember it so clearly that I need to remind myself that I’m not the same Sora that died there.”

Moona, Risu, and Iofi’s eyes widened, while Reine responded to the comment: “Wait, what?”

Sora realized her verbal misstep. She paused, thinking about what to say.

“I try - in general, the angels try - not to think of my previous living self as the same me that’s right here, right now. I try to think of it as a new beginning for things, because I’m not sure what I can do if I don’t. I’m not human anymore. My memory is the last piece of humanity I have left, and if I forget...then nothing of the Tokino Sora you knew in life would be left. She died, burning in horrible agony back in the mortal realm. I’m here, newly ascended into the ranks of the angels. I hope we can become friends.”

Ollie spoke in an annoyed tone.

“Sora-senpai, this sounds like it’s leading to a philosophy lesson, and we’re not doing that here! You’re trying to avoid mentally resting yourself, and we’re NOT. LETTING. YOU. DO THAT! And we’re not becoming friends because that implies we haven’t already done that!”

Sora laughed.

“Alright, fair enough. Still, that doesn’t answer the practical question of-”

Reine interrupted in a matter-of-fact manner, ready to fall asleep.

“I have a spare futon.”

Chapter Text

Sora was admittedly somewhat nervous about falling asleep.

The six members of hololiveID were all watching Sora - well, four members physically, one as a dagger, and the last who hadn’t closed her end of the video call - and it was pretty clear that all of them were going to make Sora get some sleep.

Sora fell into Reine’s spare futon. It was surprisingly comfortable.

As she lay down, she focused her thoughts.

And once again, Sora found herself in the world of her dreams.

This world wasn’t an inferno, however.

It was a blank canvas of a world, a grey, featureless landscape that consisted of nothing.

Sora closed her eyes.

And, in this place, let there be light.

Over in a nearby inn within the town, three talents of hololive and a staff member talked with one another in their room.

Kanata slumped over in her bed, the events of the day finally taking their mental toll on her.

“I’m sorry.”

A-chan sighed.

“I’m not going to say that mistakes weren’t made, but there’s nothing you could’ve done with the knowledge you had at the time. The fact of the matter was that, yes, you did slingshot Sora into ascension, but you couldn’t have known about the whole thing with the nameless one.”

Nene frowned, talking next.

“That, and it’s not like you were even in control when you stopped me. The guy basically hijacked your body at that point!”

Kanata sighed.

“I know, it’s just...the fact is, when we confront him - and we will, you all know that - I’m gonna have to stay behind, or else he’s just take control of my body, and even taking my own angelic strength out of the equation, I know none of you have the will to actually hurt me if you end up needing to. I’m a liability now.”

Watame frowned.

“You did nothing wrong. That, and remember that our true goal here is to get all of hololive together; the deal with the nameless one is an interruption, and really nothing more for now. When it all comes together, we’ll still need you. That, and just imagine how disappointed Coco would be if you didn’t end up rejoining us once again.”

Kanata replied in a solemn tone.

“Yeah, but...I got her thrown into Hell, Watame. It wasn’t intentional, sure, but the fact of the matter is that mortal-angel relationships are not looked upon kindly, and in general they almost always punish the mortal far more harshly than the angel; I should’ve warned Coco not to fall for me, since, well...”

A-chan took out her phone.

Kanata’s eyes widened.

“What are you doing?”

“You need to talk with your partner. Right now. And then I’m going to fall asleep.”

Kanata took out her own phone.

“I’ll call her myself.”

She started a video call, with Kiryu Coco on the receiving end.

Sora looked around the newly formed world that had generated around her. There was light, and the environment was pretty familiar; out of the void sprung a city-like environment, borne of her memories. It was a comforting location, and the familiar setting of the hololive office was one that she could find some solace in.

Or, she could’ve, if it weren’t for one issue.

She was still alone.

And now, it was time for the next step.

Do I want to do this…?

She reached out with her mind.

A-chan, I wish to speak with you...

Up in Heaven, Ookami Mio walked into the kitchen to find something rather surreal, which was Tokino Sora. The strangeness was mostly that Mio was pretty sure Sora was missing at this exact moment.

“Sora-senpai, how are you back here right now?”

“Um...I never left?”

Mio paused. The voice sounded distinctly off. Mio decided to press, because everything about this was strange.

“You can speak in your natural voice. I’m hardly one to judge.”

“I can’t right now, actually. It’ll give it away too soon.”

Mio’s brain kept thinking about it, until-

“Fubuki-chan?!”

There was a sudden puff of white smoke, and in Sora’s place was one Shirakami Fubuki.

“Ever since the incident I’ve been thinking about how I could help Sora-senpai with...well, everything, really. So, um, I’ve been practicing my magic. I’m a kitsune with dormant spiritual powers, and, while I’m out of practice, I’m starting to get the hang of using them now (1). The main issue with illusion magic is that I’m not that good at copying voices; I think Marine-chan’s the only voice I can do well enough to avoid you catching me.”

Mio laughed; Marine had been a popular impersonation target back when they were alive, and to find out Fubuki brought back that joke while awakening her powers as a kitsune was admittedly both funny and a very Fubuki thing to do.

“Ah, you think that you can fool the angels?”

“Yeah. Try not to be offended, but one of these days I’m going to create an illusion of another member, without telling you, and my goal is to do it so well that you can’t tell it’s not the member in question. More importantly, I need to be able to do it with Sora, since if I can fool the angels, well...”

Mio smiled.

“Ah, that buys her time, though I feel you risk getting in trouble with the nameless one for that.”

Fubuki smiled in a determined manner.

“As if the nameless one isn’t in far more trouble with us for what he put Sora-senpai through.”

Down in the underworld, the sentiment was shared, though with slightly less subtlety.

Coco looked at the screen to her partner, former roommate, and overall significant other, Amane Kanata, who was busy looking like she wanted to crawl into a hole.

“Kanatan, it’s not your fault.”

“Which? The part where I would’ve attacked Nenechi without Moira’s intervention? The part where I helped speedrun Sora’s ascension? The part where I even encouraged it in the first place? Or, you know, the part where I fell for you and then got you thrown into hell because of that, because you paid the price for my falling for temptation.”

Coco laughed.

“Okay, last thing first: you can try and defend me all you want, but I, to quote the angels, totally ‘corrupted’ you. I have no regrets about doing that, by the way; the angel stuff is boring, and even with that aside you were so happy with your memories in the mortal world that I’d do it again, even knowing that I’d end up here.”

Kanata just frowned.

“I know, it’s just...you’re taking an eternal punishment for my temporary temptation.”

“Honestly, the upper region of the underworld isn’t a pleasant place to live, but it’s not that bad. If anything, I feel worse for you; the angels don’t seem like much fun. And you didn’t know about any of the other stuff, really; there’s not much you could do. The only reason I haven’t come on up and smacked the nameless one is that I don’t have any way of actually doing that. Also, let’s be honest, do you think I wouldn’t have ended up here if I didn’t meet you?”

Surprisingly enough, Kanata laughed.

“That’s fair, honestly. I hope you don’t mind if I call on occasion.”

“Of course not, Kanatan. I need to thank Roboco-senpai for all of this; though, actually, it was you who first contacted us from Heaven, since you have permission to do that. So that was also you; and the only reason we can still talk is because you did that first. So thank you, Kanatan.”

Kanata smiled.

“Yeah.”

Coco smirked.

“Oh, and I’m totally going to have my revenge on the nameless one. Haven’t decided how yet.”

A-chan woke up in a dream.

That wasn’t surprising, given the last thing she remembered was going to sleep.

What was more surprising was seeing Sora. The familiar setting of the hololive office - back when it existed in the mortal realm - surrounded the two of them.

“I’m really sorry for bringing you into my dream of all places, but we need to talk.”

A-chan sighed.

“This is about the nameless one, isn’t it.”

Sora frowned.

“Look, I’m not going to lie - not that I could ever lie to you at all, A-chan - but the fact of the matter is that right now we’re just trying to, I dunno, get together again? I think it’s more important to focus on that for now, but...”

“You’re thinking about the eventual confrontation.”

“Yeah. Look, I don’t want to be pessimistic, but the reality is I’m probably going to lose that. The reality we’re living in is that my ascension is most likely predestined. I’m not saying I’m just going to give up or anything, but I don’t see any way this doesn’t end with me being ascended. And if that’s the case, I want to get as much of the group together as I can before my humanity runs out for good.”

A-chan just stared, unimpressed.

“No offense, but I’m seriously unimpressed with you right now. I mean, really, are you really going to just give up on hololive if you get ascended?”

Sora laughed.

“Fair, but honestly I’m just kind of assuming that everything’s going to go wrong in the process of dealing with the angels; I mean, did it really seem like the nameless one was going to let me walk free given the manner in which he ascended me in the first place?”

A-chan frowned.

“Also fair, but I think you’re underestimating two things.”

“Hmm?”

“First is how much we really do want you back. It’s not going to be a casual decision; plus, you would definitely go that far for any of us, so it goes both ways.”

Sora sighed.

“I guess, it’s just...I don’t like the idea of putting you in the nameless one’s line of fire. At present, I think he’s possibly the strongest being in existence - at least until I overtake him, most likely entirely unwillingly. When that happens, it’s probably for the best if you aren’t present anyway, since I’ll likely be mad enough for the both of us.”

“Oh, no, you won’t be, because that brings us to the second thing: I don’t think you realize how far we’re willing to go to save you. You may have forgotten how fundamentally weird our talent pool is, but, well, I would guess we have a fair amount of supernatural assistance on our side. Plus, Moira, at least as far as we’re concerned for now, is on our side, and she’s also a seraph.”

“Yeah, and that’s kind of the point, A-chan. You’re human, and this is a battle of angels.”

Sora paused.

“I don’t really know anymore. Can we just, I dunno, talk for a bit? I’ll get you out if I fail to control the dream and everything spirals into armageddon again. That might happen.”

A-chan paused.

“Honestly, I’d rather you not spend the end of the world alone again. Still, if we want to talk, I’m not going to say no, though I’m curious why you’d pull me from my own dreams to do so now.”

“Ah, that was me more just seeing if I could do that. Technically, while we’re here, we’re actually pure spiritual selves - we don’t have physical selves at all here; which has the odd property of making it so there’s actually two different versions of us at the same time; though I lack the focus to control both my dream and real selves simultaneously. I know it’s weird to see me do this, but I figure, if I’m already being forcibly ascended, I might as well make use of what powers I have, especially since, well...I appear to be incredibly spiritually gifted.”

“That makes sense, unfortunately - it would explain why everyone’s after you.”

“Yeah. I don’t really know how I feel about things. I guess that’s why I’d talk in my own dreams: it’s...more personal, I guess. I just want to go home, and sometimes, for small amounts of time, I can pretend. It’s not healthy, but at least I feel like I’m alive again here.”

A-chan looked outside the window. The cityscape was familiar, and yet it was all wrong. It was nothing more than a stage designed to look like a city; it was their former home, and yet it could never be somewhere people actually lived.

A-chan turned back to face Sora.

“I know it’s hard to stop, Sora-chan...but you really need to. It’s all fake, and you know it. You can’t live here; this world doesn’t really exist. I think that’s why these nightmares with the end of the world keep happening; it’s your mind catching up to the fact that this doesn’t really exist anymore. I think on some level you know that, too.”

Sora sat down on the office couch and started crying, entirely silently. Outside, it started raining.

“You’re right. It’s just...I want to go home.”

A-chan took a seat beside Sora and put an arm around her.

“I know it’s hard, but...you’ll find someplace to call home.”

Up in Heaven, Fubuki continued her attempts to fool her friends.

With practice, she had a character list for who she could impersonate, along with grades for how well she could do it. She had done so with the permission of all of them, to make sure that, yes, she was impersonating them, but she was doing so for good reason, and she had warned them, so they were being observant. Mostly she practiced with the members present, but she occasionally mixed it up, mostly for fun, but also a few times for practical purposes.

Between AZKi, Subaru, Aki, and the rest of the gamers, the list went as follows:

Sora - C (See if this can be improved)

AZKi - F (immediately fails if asked to sing)

Aki - D (hard to replicate ara ara energy)

Subaru - C (hard to replicate extrovert energy)

Mio - A

Okayu - B

Korone - B

Marine - Perfect (2)

Kiara - Perfect, but only while very excited, degrades to F upon attempting english (3)

It was a mixed bag. Mio was the harshest judge, which made sense as she was the member that perhaps knew Fubuki best. Still, the average attempts had been getting better, so that was progress.

But will it be able to fool the angels? Perhaps it’s time to ask for some help from my other half…

Well, assuming she’s in a mood to help and not just burn everything down.

In the city of the peafowl, the rain cleared.

The silhouette of a giant robot with rabbit ears approached the city.

“I guess that’s it, A-chan. I’m angry because I remember too much while others struggle with what they’re missing. I’m angry because I was ascended to the highest rank possible while several others are still trapped quite literally in Hell. I’m angry because too much went right for me. Unbelievably, I’m angry because I’m winning. It’s so stupid. I should be able to come to terms with that by now.”

Sora fell over on the couch into A-chan’s lap.

“It’s not stupid, Sora. Rarely does life give simple winners and losers. That which you’re complaining about? That’s just the reality we’re living - well, after-living - in. That’s just how the world works. That’s just how your mind works, too.”

“No, it’s not.”

And then, the world around the two of them exploded as it transformed into a blazing wasteland. Time seemed to slow down as the inferno erupted around the two, all while Sora cried.

“This is how my mind really works; a broken thing so entrenched in the past that I can’t even let go of what should be forgotten. This isn’t a place for anyone, and you should just leave. There’s nothing of value here.”

A-chan, unfazed at the end of the world, just stared into Sora’s eyes, as she wrapped both of her arms around the idol.

“That’s not true. You have value, and you should never forget that.”

She continued holding on. And that was the end of the dream as the fire consumed them both. Sora screamed, partially in pain and partially just for the sake of doing so, screaming at the unfairness of reality itself.

And then she woke up.

“You okay?”

Sora blinked, as she looked up into the concerned eyes of Iofi.

“Please tell me I didn’t scream out loud in reality - it’s bad enough I did that in my dream.”

“Nah, but you did look...distressed.”

“It’s complicated. It’s the whole deal with my ascension. I don’t know.”

Sora got up.

“Not gonna fall back asleep, so I might as well catch the sunrise. Also, so I can find A-chan; she’s...probably going to want to talk to me after my dream last night.”

“Not gonna share with us?”

Sora stared at the floor.

“It’s...somewhat existential. I’d rather just focus on getting hololive back together. At least I can do something about that; the other issue is...harder to resolve, as of right now.”

Iofi rolled her eyes.

“You know, I’m tempted to call Ollie again.”

“Look, she cares, but...that’s going a bit far. I even went to sleep last night!”

Iofi laughed.

“Look, Ollie’s brand of optimism is...a little much at times, but I can’t deny its effectiveness.”

Sora smiled.

“Fair enough. It worked the first time, after all. I just wonder how we’re going to get her out of there. Or any of the other underworlders - though admittedly, we can’t bring any of the hololive demons to Heaven, as we found out the last time we actually did that.”

It was all going well until Reine walked into the room, carrying Anya in her sheath; Sora hadn’t noticed that the two of them were missing until now.

Reine looked a little distressed.

Sora responded: “Ah, Reine-chan. Is something wrong?”

Reine sighed, looking like she wasn’t quite entirely sure how she wanted to address the problem.

“I don’t expect this to be your fault, Sora-senpai. But I need to address my friends here, so allow me to use the language that best emphasizes how I feel at the moment.”

She breathed in.

<Can somebody in this room explain the giant rabbit mecha that just landed at the edge of the city? Because many people around the palace are feeling rather understandably a little nervous about having a literal building-sized giant robot looking over the city, and somehow I don’t feel it’s entirely a coincidence that it showed up after you girls did.>

Moona facepalmed.

Chapter Text

Sora blinked.

Moona breathed in sharply, before replying to Reine.

<I may have forgotten why we were in such a rush to get here. Shachou doesn’t tend to, how do I put this…be the most respectful of state boundaries while she’s in mecha-mode.>

Sora didn’t understand indonesian, but she got the gist of it anyway.

“I’ll talk to her.”

A-chan, Kanata, Nene, and Watame walked outside to a mostly panicking populace.

Well, this isn’t good.

Kanata flew into the air, looked around, and then her eyes widened. She approached the ground, and then pointed in the direction that caught her attention.

“A-chan, you might want to see this.”

They moved around a bit to get a clear view, when they all saw it, too.

With the sun behind, stood the Pekodam, which was slowly making its way towards the city, step by step.

A-chan sighed.

“So, who’s gonna talk her down?”

As if to answer the question, Tokino Sora flew past the four of them, heading towards the mech.

Sora laughed quietly when she heard Pekora’s signature laughter being projected via loudspeaker from the Pekodam. It was an oddly fitting way for the rabbit to enter the city.

Good to see you haven’t changed.

Sora pulled up to the mech, flying directly eye level with the head.

“Good morning, Pekora-chan! What are you up to?”

The mech stopped its ominous advance. A loud voice emerged from it.

“Sora-senpai! I can...explain...”

Sora smiled. With the four members that were taken from heaven to the in-between, five from hololiveID, and now Pekora, the number of people she had found was going up. Despite everything, getting hololive back together was looking more and more plausible.

As if to keep up the good news, another mech, this one pink and without the bunny ears, tapped the Pekodam on the back.

Sora’s eyes widened - she knew who it was.

“Miko-chan!”

“Sora-chan! You’re really here!”

“Yes! Though I’m really just here to make the Pekodam turn back before anything really stupid happens.”

Sora decided that it was amusing to watch a literal mech a few stories in height shrug, while Pekora tried to play it off casually.

“Oh come on peko, it’s not like I actually armed the TNT cannon yet!”

And similarly, Sora also chose to find it amusing to watch the Mikochar give a disapproving glare to the Pekodam. She had to admit; it was this somewhat casual form of banter that she had missed the most from mortal hololive so far.

Her train of thought, however, was cut off by Sora catching up to the last word of Pekora’s sentence.

Wait a minute.

“Yet?”

The Pekodam froze.

“Uh, not that I was planning anything evil at all, Sora-senpai!”

As if to add on to how silly the whole thing had gotten, A-chan, who had walked up to the two of them while listening to the exchange, just sighed.

“Remind me how you got me to deal with you maniacs again.”

The smile on her face, however, told the real story: she too was happy to see where things were going.

Sora raised her hand in a gesture meant to get everyone’s attention.

“So, what’s the plan?”

Reine, who had finally caught up to them, was the one to respond, and the first generation of hololiveID was right behind her.

“We have a nice chat and figure out where we’re going from here. If me - well, and Anya too - are gonna join you, I’ll need to talk with the rest of the people who live around here. I’ve informed the palace that, in fact, none of you guys mean any harm. Except maybe Pekora, but I’m assuming at least one of you is keeping some watch on her.”

Miko, Moona, and A-chan just gave the Pekodam a suspicious glare.

“Good enough for now.”

Pekora, sensing now was a time to be reasonable about things, got out of the Pekodam, as did Miko from her equivalent mecha.

Sora asked the obvious question.

“So, um, where’s everyone else? Last I heard the in-between realm was where most of us were sent, and as far as I know Haato’s our only missing member now.”

Miko answered the inquiry: “They’re pretty far up north, in the joint human-elf kingdom known as the Lunar Alliance; I figure the plan is that we’ll fly everyone there - well, actually, Sora-senpai, you have your angel wings, so you can actually fly with us!”

Sora looked at her wings expressionlessly.

“Yeah. So does Kanata, too.”

She smiled.

“At the very least, it’ll be nice to see everyone again.”

Iofi continued with the description: “Most of us live at the castle of the Moon Kingdom, which belongs to Himemori Luna and the Lu-knights; of all of us in the in-between, basically only Noel, Flare, Botan and Lamy don’t live either directly in the castle or in a location very close to it.”

A-chan asked the obvious question:

“Any idea why?”

Miko answered.

“Flare and Lamy both have attachments to the bordering elven lands, and Shirogane Keep stands at the border region between the humans to the west, the elves to the east - split between the winter elves and the summer elves. Technically, it borders four regions - humans, two different elven tribes, and an ashen wasteland that nobody really goes to ever, if you go far north. Noel didn’t want to make Flare move far out of her home, and Botan similarly to Lamy, so the four of them live at Shirogane Keep.”

Sora smiled, because she had to admit it was wonderful how much the members of hololive still cared for each other.

Then again, I guess I’m not too surprised. It was like that while we were alive, why would that change now?

She looked back at her wings.

Hopefully not because of these...

Sora looked around.

A-chan just stared at her, a particular look that conveyed a very simple message without words.

We need to talk...but maybe not right now.

Down in the underworld, Amelia fell over into bed once again, brutally pushed to the brink of insanity from sheer overexertion.

「I’m really sorry, Kiara. Lower underworld ain’t a joke. Thanks for helping in the effort to remind myself that I am slowly advancing one day at a time. I think.」

Kiara just glared at Amelia. Calliope, who was sitting beside Kiara, added another statement that was more factually correct:

「Um, isn’t this closer to 20 days at a time?」

Amelia laughed.

「What, have you never worked casual 160-hour work days?」 (1)

Calliope just raised an eyebrow and continued staring at Amelia, who continued talking.

「Okay, that’s a good reaction, because honestly this feels kinda awful and I’m starting to feel bad at how much of a crutch you guys are becoming for me. The fact that all of you have been working with me to make sure I stay human is probably the only reason I still am.」

Kiara frowned.

「Out of curiosity, what’s Towa doing? I thought she was in charge of handling your karma.」

Amelia sighed.

「She is, but she’s not the one who gets to decide whether or not I go free unilaterally; I’d be out of lower by now if she did. While Towa owns my soul, hell technically owns Towa; and I don’t mean as in some devil being above her, I mean that the systems in place from however many years ago are just that rigid. Exit from lower for hellbound souls is very strictly handled by gatekeepers except in emergency scenarios, such as the episode with Akuma. Towa’s the reason I get to go back up to our underworld house to rest so that I can enter each encounter with my gatekeeper refreshed until either I get out permanently or snap and join the devils. I think you girls are the only reason I haven’t done that yet; time compression sucks, and I’d be more mad if, you know, I wasn’t literally the most deserving target in all of existence. Karma’s a real bitch like that.」

Kiara continued frowning. She hadn’t exactly been quiet about the fact that she had felt that Amelia’s punishment was horrendously unfair.

Calliope sighed.

「Well, despite how things are, for the most part, you actually seem pretty fine right now aside from how physically brutal the overexertion is on your front; we’ll send in Choco for that. By the way: I’m still mad at you for using alternate timelines to learn Japanese; I had to do that the hard way!」

Amelia laughed. There was a knock on her door.

Choco and Towa both entered.

“Hey, Choco-senpai, Towa-senpai.”

Kiara and Calliope got up, waved goodbye, and left the room, while Amelia readied herself for yet another medical examination.

This had become a routine within the house; Amelia would arrive from her latest encounter having so badly overexerted herself to the point of Towa usually needing to carry her in. Kiara and Calliope would then talk with her about how things were going, and then after that Choco would do another round of medical examinations, and then finally Amelia would talk with Towa about next steps, or on what to do if Amelia had pushed herself way too far and needed to rest more (2).

Usually that was forward progress, but at this point, it was just pure stubbornness, both on Amelia and her gatekeeper’s behalf.

Stupid one-on-one confrontation rules.

Still, she was entirely sane, and that meant she could do something few souls in Hell could: focus on the future.

After all, once she was out of the fire, there was the question of what would come next.

Sora’s party was ready to depart.

The arrangement was fairly simple: Kanata and Sora would fly, while Moona took the passenger seat in the Pekodam so she could yell at Pekora when necessary, meanwhile Iofi would ferry Risu, Reine (who was carrying Anya), Watame, Nene, and A-chan in her UFO. Miko would fly the Mikochar back home by herself.

Reine was naturally the last to get ready, as she was polite enough to inform everyone at the palace of the peafowl that she was leaving first. For the most part, all of Reine’s various acquaintances had all sent their regards and wished her safe travels.

It was time to fly.

Up in Heaven, Mio was practicing her own magic. A combination of fire and melee magic; her fighting style was rather unrefined, but it wasn’t supposed to be; for the most part, it relied more on overwhelming the opponent with a combination of speed and ferociousness rather than on superior strategy or otherwise organized strikes. (3)

Much like Fubuki, she was out of practice; despite being a wolf-spirit at heart, she hadn’t really been doing anything that wolf-like while she was in hololive.

But still, she couldn’t simply stop training, either. All she needed to do was think about what happened to Sora, and an intense, focused anger took over. She’d never be able to live with herself if she did nothing when round two with the nameless one eventually happened.

She knew the confrontation was going to happen, one day, and even if they were destined to lose, she was going to give it her all first.

They all would.

Amelia emerged from her room, tired but still surprisingly enthusiastic, to the crowd of friends that lived in the underworld with her.

“Alright, so I’ve been thinking.”

Calliope smirked.

“Impressive job, Ame.”

Amelia rolled her eyes, while the rest of the room laughed.

“I swear Gura’s rubbing off on you somehow. Anyways, I’ve been trying to figure out what we’re gonna do once I get out, since it’s looking more and more inevitable that I will eventually succeed at convincing my gatekeeper to let me go. I mean, we’re still just stuck here, right?”

Coco smirked.

“I mean, we all say that, but Ina got out of here, right? You’re no different, aside from the time scale. And the most important thing is that once you’re out of being owned by devils, you can live here and not actually go back down into lower ever. And then eventually we’ll figure out how to get an appeal that allows you to get out.”

Amelia smiled.

“Yeah, fair enough, but...even if I get out, what about you? Or the rest of us?”

Coco continued smirking.

“When have I ever done things by the rules? That, and I’ve so far only gotten more mad at the angels for what they’ve done, which probably means I’m getting thrown back in here when I yell at them again. You get used to it.”

Ayame spoke next.

“Underworld’s my home, Ame. I’m not particularly interested in moving out; and I can’t live in Heaven anyway; at least, not for extended periods of time. And I wouldn’t want anyone from above to live down here. Kanata can’t live down here, either, for similar reasons to myself - angels get underworld affliction.”

Towa went next.

“The main issue is mostly that the angels are pretty big on blocking cross-afterlife gatherings. That’s the only thing I want, really. I’m not sure how we’re going to convince the guys at the top to actually change things, but...well, we’ve gotta ask, at least. Honestly, I don’t really have much of a plan at this point.”

Amelia laughed.

“I figured the plan would be that we make it up as we went along, so if you happen to have a bit of a plan, even if it’s not much, that’s more than I have.”

“And here I thought you said you were thinking, Ame.”

Amelia glared at Kiara, and then laughed.

The rest of the room joined in.

Sora’s party traveled north, flying over a forest.

They’d been travelling for a while; as it turns out, angelic flight wasn’t that fast, and for the most part both Iofi and Miko refused to go too far ahead of Kanata and Sora; meanwhile Pekora flew her mech ahead of the rest of the party.

A-chan took her seat on Iofi’s surprisingly smooth ride, when Moona called her over voice chat.

“Yo, how are you holding up? I know Iofi can be a bit on the wild side.”

A-chan blinked.

“Honestly, just fine; the ride’s been perfectly smooth so far. Why do you ask?”

“Because it confirms that Iofi is in fact just messing with me.”

A-chan smirked.

Yeah, that’d be hololiveID alright. They’re all-

“Wait, A-chan, We just spotted something that might be rather worrying. Get Sora-senpai and Kanata-senpai on voice chat right now.”

Sora, Pekora, and Kanata all joined the call, Sora and Kanata sounding confused and Pekora sounding panicked.

Sora spoke out loud in the call, wondering what the panic was about.

“Um, What’s wrong?”

“Sora-senpai, a pair of angels just flew right past us peko; they’re headed your way!”

Down in the underworld, Amelia breathed in, feeling well-rested and ready for another gatekeeper trial.

Thanks, Choco, for all of the medical attention you’ve given me. Thanks, Towa, for everything you’ve done to ease my time. Thanks, my friends, for helping me stay focused. But for once, though I don’t know why, I’m feeling pretty good about this attempt.

Chapter Text

Amelia walked once again into a large, empty valley lit only by numerous sources of fire. It was familiar to her, and she was well aware of the fact it wouldn’t be empty for much longer.

“Gatekeeper, I have come to bargain!”

A large magical circle conjured itself around her. She knew what it meant; this was the time compression. A normal session with her gatekeeper would last for days because of this.

On the other side of the magical barrier emerged a great horned devil.

“If you wish for the right to be free, then you must earn the right. Convince me that it’s better to let you leave than to keep you here.”

Amelia smirked.

“I can do this all day, and surely you have other souls you have to get around to doing. You’re only wasting your time. Do your worst!”

“We’ll let the time barrier handle most of that...so I will, indeed, do my worst.”

He raised a large, ashen hand into the air, and channeled a spell.

On the inside of the barrier, several less powerful devils teleported into the arena.

Alongside one much more powerful and obviously threatening looking one.

Amelia’s eyes widened.

“You summoned a titan on me?”

She looked around, and then saw a second devil that looked that powerful.

“You summoned TWO titans on me?! What the-wait a minute, I know you. You tried to get me earlier, and then gave up when your magic ran out. Why are you back here?”

The second titan-class devil spoke with a deep, hissing voice.

“Revenge.”

And then, of all things, pulled out a rifle, and immediately shot Amelia.

Amelia, in an impressive display of fortitude, managed to not collapse immediately, though she did scream.

“FUCK why do you have that, what am I going to-”

A bolt of lightning struck the titan from the side. Towa was, like always, rather unimpressed.

“Hey! There are rules, and this definitely counts as violating the spirit of the law, if not the actual letter.”

She turned around to look at Amelia, who grimaced but gave a thumbs up.

The titan turned to Towa.

“I’ll get you for this.”

Towa sighed.

Amelia smiled; the gun wielding devil was the main issue, and Towa just removed it from play. In her peripheral vision she caught two more projectiles heading toward her, both of them balls of acid. In the moment, she focused, using her own spiritual power, and blinked out of the way.

The gambit was pretty simple: get them to hit each other instead. It succeeded, the pair of acid balls hitting the first titan-class devil, who hadn’t actually attacked Amelia yet. While not a gun user, he was still using some equipment, because his first attack was to fire a long chain to the smaller devil that had just hit him, which wrapped around his target. He then pulled the devil in, followed by punching that devil with a hit that also came attached to a powerful blast of fire.

Amelia observed the interaction.

This is a devil who likes getting up close, and has techniques designed to force close quarters, where he’s less escapable. Hmm…

The first titan turned his attention back to Amelia, and then lobbed some rather embarrassingly slow moving fireballs in her direction.

Amelia shrugged, and simply walked out of the way.

Yeah, he’s not a threat if he doesn’t get too close.

Amelia ran around, waiting as other devils attempted to attack her. For the most part, the big one was still trying to grab her, which resulted mostly in him catching and then punching out other devils as Amelia positioned herself and blinked out of the way.

I can’t believe this is working.

She looked at her watch.

One hour has passed.

“Well, shit.”

In the in-between, everyone in the voice chat froze.

Sora was the first to speak.

“I’ll just drop down into the treeline of the forest we’re flying over.”

While Sora descended, Kanata spoke next.

“Don’t engage them yet. It’s not a wise idea if you don’t know how powerful angels can get. Stand back, and stay calm; I’ll talk to them.”

Kanata flew ahead, meeting the angels in front.

A-chan, Miko, Reine, Nene, Watame, Risu, and Iofi all watched, their breath held, waiting to see if anything would go wrong.

After a couple of minutes, Kanata flew back.

One angel descended into the treeline.

“Okay, it seems I’m not as trusted as I once was. Still, don’t engage yet - Sora’s not actually bad at staying hidden, so we should be fine for now.”

As if fate were taunting her, there was a massive explosion in the forest. The second angel who had stayed up descended into the chaos, only to be nearly hit by what looked like a magical laser beam, shooting up into the sky.

Miko was the closest, and was still in the Mikochar. She couldn’t take the wait anymore; clearly Sora was in combat with a pair of angels, and everything else be damned she was taking matters into her own hands.

She armed her mech’s TNT cannon.

“Kanata, permission to fire!”

A moment of silence rang over the line, before Kanata finally made up her mind.

“...Permission...gr-”

Miko didn’t wait for the confirmation, and fired in the direction the angels were headed. A series of explosions went off on the treeline, reducing parts of the forest beneath to splinters.

Inside Iofi’s UFO, crew cohesion was breaking down, and Iofi knew it. She lowered the altitude on the UFO; Sora was the most important priority at the moment.

A-chan realized at this moment that she was probably the only person Miko would listen to given the current situation, and the Pekodam was most likely on the way, which would be a second series of explosions to deal with.

“Sakura Miko, stand down. If you have a lower powered weapon, please switch to that; we’re going in and don’t want to be aerially bombarded if at all possible. Usada Pekora, that applies to you as well.”

Miko obliged, switching to her mech’s beam sword, and jumping down into the forest itself.

Although they hadn’t actually landed yet, not everyone was going to wait. Nene decided to make an ambitious call.

“Open the hatch. I’m jumping down.”

Iofi did so, lowering the altitude of her spacecraft even further. Nene conjured her bear claws while meeting the ground, and Reine once again drew Anya, while Kanata flew down to join them.

A-chan looked at Watame and Risu. None of them were combatants, and yet a grim sense of determination rang out between the three of them.

The UFO landed.

A-chan spoke.

“Let’s not waste ti-.”

That was as far as she got into the sentence before a brilliant flash of light hit all of their eyes.

Reine, Nene, and Kanata didn’t wait, and started running towards the flash. Miko advanced more slowly, and behind her were A-chan, Watame, and Risu.

At the source of the flash was a surprising sight: two angels, one clearly battered from being close to an explosion and the other not doing much better, looking around a now mostly empty area that was close to craterized.

Kanata put up a hand, in a motion that told her friends to not step any further, before walking closer and speaking to the two injured angels.

“What the heaven happened here?”

One of the two angels - this one female, with silver hair - simply spoke in a bewildered tone: “Honestly, I have no clue. I flew down to meet my mate after the explosion, got nearly sniped by a magical beam, and then flew into a second explosion, because someone was panic-firing a high explosive weapon. My colleague might know more.”

The other angel, who was male with blond hair, added: “Well, I flew down to investigate some magical oddities, and I discovered something rather rare: an un ascended angel. I’m not sure if you’ve read up on that, but it’s, uh, somewhat dangerous. Unfortunately, it’s also rare enough that I honestly didn’t know what to do. And then she freaked out and unleashed a rather powerful spiritual shockwave - as in a ‘someone really should forcibly inhibit her power’ level shockwave. Then I got shot down by a giant laser by someone I didn’t even see while I was trying to chase her, and then got exploded by somebody else I didn’t catch. By the way, whoever fired the explosive cannon into the treeline - I know you were probably freaking out, but please don’t do that; it made a messy situation messier, and now I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”

Miko cringed, but at least she was getting away with it.

He sighed.

“Which brings me to the issue of how an unascended angel even got into the in-between, since you’re not supposed to be on any sort of angel duty pre-ascension. It’s not my place to question it, but someone needs to figure that out.”

The silver-haired angel spoke.

“Sorry about getting you involved in the mess; you guys probably aren’t supposed to be involved in issues such as these. Though, really, Amane-san, I’m surprised you didn’t notice that anything was off - it might just be angel senses, but, well...”

Kanata shrugged.

“I’m not as adept at utilizing my magically-aided senses as most angels are, unfortunately.”

“Ah, fair enough. I won’t bother you guys further, then. If nothing else, because this is certainly above what I’m supposed to handle - this is an anomaly, and it’s quickly going from a ‘we’ll handle this on our own’ anomaly to a ‘call down the powers above right now’ anomaly.”

The two of them raised their hands, and then teleported out.

A-chan let out a sigh of relief, as did most of the party. As bad as that got, they didn’t actually end up directly fighting the angels.

“Alright, so that just happened. Sora, where are you? I just need to know you’re safe.”

Silence reigned over the voice call.

Sora...please, no.

A-chan took out her phone and messaged Sora. It was a desperate bid, but the worry was creeping in, and-

Kanata held A-chan steady.

“We’ll find her. I promise.”

The horror had become all too real in the chaos: they had lost contact with Tokino Sora.

The imposing figure of the Mikochar walked up behind them, while the worried voice of Sakura Miko came out.

“I’ll look around. I think our priority is meeting up with the rest of the members here, right?”

Nene frowned, but nodded anyway. Watame and A-chan looked at each other.

A-chan breathed in.

Sora wouldn’t want me to be too stuck up on trying to find her. I have faith in Miko.

“Okay. Let’s move; we’ll tell the other members what happened while in flight.”

Amelia breathed heavily. She was overpacing herself; at over 100 hours left there was virtually no chance she was going to end this in any way but essentially being a corpse if she tried to keep pushing it. Plus, being shot at the beginning of the encounter meant that the entire battle had started on a downwards trajectory.

She silently thanked Towa for giving her the opportunity to take long rests between attempts, because collapsing was a pretty regular occurrence at this point, and going in completely fresh was the only thing that made this even remotely bearable.

More to the point, she was running out of other devils to push the chaining devil into. He was more powerful by enough of a margin that he had simply demolished most of his competition, and it was pretty clear that he had first dibs on eventually snatching her and punching her really hard in the face. Given that Amelia was human and not a devil, that would most likely incur significantly more damage than she really wanted to deal with right now.

Argh, I’m running out of opponents here, but how could I…

She grinned, and then ran to the edge of the circle, deciding to test a theory.

While the titan’s chain was magically propelled, the chain itself was physical, which meant it could likely go past the boundaries of the magical barrier that kept the time compression going.

She spotted her target: her gatekeeper, who had taken a position on a raised platform. Amelia focused, mentally slowing time down.

And then she jumped, right as her pursuer fired another chain to catch her. Amelia blinked out of the way, and the chain went straight through the barrier, catching the gatekeeper and pulling him down into the magical circle where time was compressed.

“Gotcha!”

Unlike every previous opponent, however, the gatekeeper responded by punching out the devil that had just pulled him into the arena in a rage.

Amelia grinned.

“So, how does it feel to share my fate? I told ya I’m more trouble than it’s worth, and, well, here we are.”

Amelia’s gatekeeper grinned, and then transformed into a much more human-looking form.

“Oh, we’re only getting started. You see, this has become a little personal to me, and the fact of the matter is, I’m actually willing to play a little game. Check your pocket, will you?”

Amelia did as told, only to find there was a revolver in it.

How did that get there…?

She pulled it out, but made sure not to put her finger on the trigger.

The gatekeeper continued speaking, and then pulled out his own revolver.

“One duel for your fate.”

Amelia laughed.

“Nice try. But Towa’s been keeping me updated; despite my tactics my karma doesn’t actually bounce massively positive here - if I shoot you, I’ll be set back once again, and we’ll be all back here doing this song and dance again in the future. I don’t feel like doing that; I’m feeling that you’re going to let me go today.”

The gatekeeper frowned.

“Correct, and it is impressive that you saw through this, given the setup. However, as you probably have figured out, there isn’t a way out for you right now. The fact of the matter is that your karma balances only in a loose sense of the word, and I am not letting you out. You were a fool to challenge me this early. And now, I’ll punish you for that foolishness.”

And then he took aim at Amelia, and shot six times.

Amelia, with a few new bullet holes in her body, collapsed to the floor, gasping in pain.

“Oh COME ON this isn’t fair! I played that perfectly and you just SHOT me for it?! Aren’t you at least gonna like, do magic stuff and at least...make a cool example out of me or...something?”

“She’s actually right to ask that, by the way.”

Towa stepped in.

“Because this isn’t a karmic energy thing. That is actually literally pointless physical pain for no other reason than being mad. And you might be a gatekeeper, but I’m calling you out here for bad behavior. I’m sorry, but you are basically breaking the rules right now, so cut that out.”

She pulled out a contract.

“Seriously, you’re just doing a devil’s equivalent of gamer rage at this point. Just sign this, and lose with some dignity, will you?”

Amelia, despite being in a lot of pain, laughed.

The gatekeeper snarled.

“You...think you can really do this?”

Towa sighed.

“I mean, yeah. Remember that, while you decide Amelia’s fate, I’m the one who owns her soul. I’m telling you to follow the rules and make the choice to let go of her before you do anything really stupid.”

The gatekeeper raised his hand.

“There aren’t rules down here; we’re both devils. So meet YOUR karmic mirror!”

Amelia’s eyes widened.

“That works on devils?”

“Of course it does; all devils have negative karma. That’s why gatekeepers are so feared; you cannot escape the mirror. It’s why only Akuma was truly above us; because he could outpower the mirror through his own sheer hatred. The funny thing is, Towa, I don’t know your sins; I guess we’ll find them out together!”

Now that they were back on their UFO, the grief of losing Sora became much more clear.

A-chan was angry; Sora was outright missing, and due to her position, she was likely going to have to be the one to bring up what happened to the rest of the group.

Forcing herself not to cry, she took out her phone, only to find that someone had already pinged her.

It was Roboco.

Towa waited anxiously, as did Amelia.

And then the atmosphere changed, as the gatekeeper appeared to be getting weaker channeling the spell, and a large amount of absolutely nothing continued to happen.

Amelia noticed the strangeness.

“Um, Towa, what’s going on?”

Towa seemed just as confused.

“I mean, my classical sin was wrath - I flipped out at Akuma for attacking my friends so hard that, well, I ascended into a devil from it. It’s been a long time since then, but...”

The gatekeeper froze.

“This...isn’t possible! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, TOWA?!”

Towa shrugged.

“Explain it, because I’m out of the loop.”

“Towa, your karma...is positive. That is categorically impossible for a devil! I don’t know how you fooled my mirror, but somehow you actually did it. You fooled the mirror into believing that your karma somehow runs positive, and...and now I’m powerless against you. I...I can’t believe this. Truly, you are one hell of an anomaly, and I don’t understand how this is possible.”

Towa froze.

What.

Amelia grinned, and then gasped in pain, owing to her prior bullet wounds.

“So, does that mean - fuck, it still hurts - that I’m free?”

The gatekeeper sighed.

“Fine, Towa. I’ll sign your contract; Amelia’s free. But know that one day I will have my revenge on you.”

Towa laughed. It wasn’t pretty, but Amelia had finally won.

Chapter Text

Iofi was kind of glad for the fact that people actually knew her around the Shirogane Keep lands, because she was pretty sure that otherwise everyone would be freaking out a little at the fact there was a UFO and two giant mechs approaching the keep.

Thankfully, this wasn’t the case; and in fact, the opposite was more true, as Shirogane Noel was waiting outside of the keep to welcome her friends.

Everyone taking the chance to get out, it was clear that, even if the circumstances were rather unfortunate owing to the fact that they were down Sora, who was arguably the main reason for them meeting up here, the fact of the matter was that many people were meeting each other for the first time in quite a while.

In particular, Nene had practically leapt at the chance to hug her gen-mates. Lamy reciprocated surprisingly quickly given Nene’s sheer speed, and Botan and Polka soon after.

Similarly, Watame gave a fluffy hug to Himemori Luna, who was present at the gathering, because of course she was.

Pekora, Miko and Moona soon joined them, and then they all went inside the keep.

Inside, the scene was a little more chaotic, mostly owing to the number of people that were gathered in one room: A-chan, Roboco, Miko, Suisei, Matsuri, Aqua, Shion, all of Generation 3, Kanata, Watame, Luna, all of generation 5, Ina, Gura, and nearly all of hololive ID.

Noel had a map spread out on the table that showed the general area of the border region the keep was in as well as the surrounding areas. It was like she said: to the East and partially to the south were elven lands, to the west was Luna’s kingdom that was mostly human-based but was nonetheless open to newcomers of all likewise species, and finally, there was north.

The northern region on the map was blank.

Noel snapped her fingers in a surprisingly authoritative way, to which even A-chan found herself reflexively following the sound, and the rest of the room went silent.

Ah, right, she was a knight from another world. How time flies, I guess…

Noel spoke seriously.

“So, we may have a slight issue. You said that Sora was last tracked up here, Roboco-san?”, she says, while pointing to a spot in the middle of the unmapped region.

Roboco nodded.

Noel sighed.

“Great. Just great. I guess if there’s anything to be positive about, it’s that me and Flare will finally be the first people to actually explore whatever’s actually out there in the ashlands. Maybe I should remember to draw a map with her when we get back. Or maybe not, the fact it’s blank might well be accurate to reality. I’d normally lead the charge, maybe see if I can tag a few knights to come with me, but one of the things we agreed upon when I married Flare was not trying to go on large heroic journeys without her.”

She paused.

“Oh, right, for everyone who wasn’t aware of this fact already: Fuu-tan and I tied the knot. While a number of you are probably disappointed that you didn’t get to see that, at the end of the day me and Fuu-tan decided that the wedding was about our happiness first and foremost, and given that we died without actually confessing properly, I wanted it done as soon as possible.”

Flare nodded.

“It’s why we’re not in Heaven. We both died regretting the fact we never confessed, and, well, we both decided we didn’t want to move on to Heaven without the other. Ironically, this meant neither of us actually got into Heaven, when we could’ve both gotten in and found each other again in the heavens instead. That was remarkably foolish of us, though I don’t regret the choice.”

Kanata frowned.

“I’m really sorry about that. We screwed that one big-time; you should never have been separated during administration; Noel had no reason to get sent earlier than you did.”

Noel shrugged.

“It can’t be helped now. Besides, we all make mistakes; there’s no reason that angels should be an exception from that rule. That, and I think it’ll be fun when we actually move on up together.”

She then paused as she remembered who was in her generation.

Flare addressed the one member of hololive fantasy who couldn’t go to Heaven.

“I’m...I’m really sorry, Rushia. I know we’re talking about moving on up when you’ll never be able to, but-”

“No, I’ve come to terms with my curse. When you head up, I’ll be happy for you.”

Noel smiled.

“Alright, getting back to things: we’re going to go-”

A-chan raised an eyebrow.

“When you say we, who exactly does that refer to?”

Noel shrugged.

“Me, Fuu-tan - don’t deny it, you’re tagging along - and basically whoever else doesn’t mind traveling into a frankly depressing mess of a place. I’ll track to Sora’s last known position, but if I don’t find her there, I’m honestly not sure if it’ll be worth scouring the wasteland; I can’t imagine Sora would stay put there. Who’s with me for a likely hopeless trip to the ashlands?”

Roboco raised her hand immediately.

“I mean, I was originally from a place not much nicer, so this is really just that but I actually have a good purpose this time. Honestly, it’s not like you to act this pessimistic.”

Miko raised her hand.

“I refuse to give up on Sora-senpai. And Roboco-san is right; what’s up with you?”

Noel sighed.

“It’s a military thing; as captain of the order of Shirogane, I don’t want to send my knights on a belief that things will go better than they actually will. Similarly, I’d rather not put them on any front line that I’m not willing to put myself on first. And, you know, I think it’s a fair assumption that most people don’t want to travel out into a lifeless wasteland just on a tiny bit of hope of finding a friend. I’ll do it, but I can’t make you guys do it; most of you aren’t even honor-bound knights, but are friends. I’d feel even worse telling you guys to go out there.”

Pekora smiled.

“That’s why we’re doing it together!”

Noel smiled in response.

“That being said, I have a better idea: everyone, raise your hands, and anyone who doesn’t wish to come with us can put their hand down.”

Precisely zero hands were lowered.

“That settles it, then. Prepare for a long trip; this most likely isn’t going to be any fun.”

The group moved out into the ashlands the next morning.

The ashlands were aptly named. A grey layer of dead ash covered the landscape, which for the most part was flat and entirely lifeless.

Noel hadn’t been wrong, of course: it was a depressing sight, and it made sense why no one would map out this region: there was barely anything to map out.

It was in this particular instance of the middle of nowhere that over half of hololive had found itself, wandering the land in search of answers, and so far, they hadn’t found much.

Still, they had to try, and their wandering the ashlands did finally run them into a singular landmark: a place where the land descended into a wide valley, likewise covered with ash.

Roboco called out.

“Here it is. This is Sora’s last known location.”

The entire group stopped.

Noel sighed.

“It’s as I figured. Sora wouldn’t stick around. Do you want to turn back, or keep going and see if we find anything?”

The party debated over it. It was a pretty split decision, as it turned out.

Miko gave her argument for going further.

“Come on, guys! We were together back in our day! That, and my elite shrine maiden instincts tell me Sora-senpai is really close! We can’t give up now!”

It was a fairly compelling argument, but Noel presented the common sense counter-argument.

“Pretend you’re Sora-senpai for a moment, and you found yourself teleported here, somehow. Would you possibly consider this a place that you would actually want to stay?”

Silence reigned between the two sides, as the line in the sand (1) was drawn.

Miko’s force of optimism drew a crowd consisting of herself, Matsuri, Shion, Rushia, Pekora, Luna, Kanata, Nene, Polka, Iofi, Moona and Gura, while Noel’s ‘okay but Sora isn’t stupid’ counterpoint gained her the following of Roboco, Suisei, Aqua, Marine, Noel, Flare, Watame, Lamy, Botan, Risu, Reine, and Ina.

With the talents looking at each other, a few of them looked at A-chan.

A-chan sighed, looking down at a patch of grass in front of the valley.

Wait, grass? Ain’t that funny, but that’s also weird...eh, some plants are just persistent like that, I guess.

“You know, I normally would have trust in Sora not to stick around in such a place...but Miko’s right. I don’t know how to say it...but it’s almost like I can feel her presence.”

Rushia nodded.

“Not alone. It’s like she’s in front of us, lying about in the valley.”

A-chan looked around at the group.

“Noel, I trust that you have enough faith in your friends to-”

“I’m the captain of the knights of Shirogane, but I’m not exactly the captain of my friends, and hololive isn’t a military group. It’s a trust thing, and, you know, maybe I’m not the best shot-caller for things like this. I have faith in you guys, even if it’s illogical.”

And so, they moved into the valley, once again finding nothing at first. Nothing but ash-covered plains, though in the valley ran some entirely dried up and dead riverbeds where water no longer flowed. Eventually while in the valley the group ran into a large rock that had an inscription carved into the stone:

VALLEY OF THE FORGOTTEN

This is not a place for those who have somewhere to belong.

This is not a place meant for those who have found purpose.

This is a place where nothing of value will be found. 

Miko looked at the inscription, and paused. It was an accurate description of the place they had found, and yet, somehow, it was in this inscription that it really hit home: this journey was wasted, and there was practically no hope of finding Sora here.

And yet, she knew Sora had to be here. In this place she absolutely could not be, was the realm that Sora had to be in. Yet she wasn’t; the spiritual presence that Miko had detected was right in front of her and yet missing at the same time.

“I’m sorry. I think I’ve just wasted our time.”

Rushia spoke up.

“It’s not a waste, I think. Whoever wrote this inscription did it purposefully, after all. We’re not going to find something of value here...but maybe we’ll find some one of value. It’s annoying, though, because I really did sense Sora-senpai’s presence, but...”

The trailing silence was enough to get the message across.

Nene frowned, disappointed that their optimism hadn’t panned out.

Flare smiled, strangely enough.

“You know, I’m kind of happy Sora isn’t here. It would be pretty sad to find her lying alone in a place like this.”

A-chan smiled too.

“Yeah, that’s fair. Let’s turn around; if nothing else, we’ve become the first group around here to actually map out the Valley of the Forgotten, so there’s that.”

Noel laughed.

“I mean, most of the map is blank anyway, but fair enough.”

Evening approached as the sun continued to lower.

It was on the way back that A-chan noticed the grass again, and this time she decided to bring it up.

“Okay, did any of you notice the grass? I thought this place was lifeless.”

Everyone just stared, bewildered. The grass wasn’t doing super well, but it’s existence was puzzling.

Even more puzzling was the fact that it seemed to cut off abruptly at the entrance to the valley; it was almost as if the valley had supported life, but then life in the valley died while leaving this last patch of grass outside intact.

Ina, in particular, stared at the grass very hard.

“I think I’ve figured it out.”

The rest of the party stared at Ina.

“It’s a layered space. I know what it is because I’ve studied the techniques from many of my predecessors back when I served the ancient ones, and layering space was a pretty common tactic for staying out of sight. The grass being cut-off is a dead giveaway,”

A-chan asked the obvious question for the rest of the non-magically-oriented party: “layered space?”

“Basically, it’s a space that’s spatially exactly the same as the space it’s layered on top of. Sora really is in front of us. She is, from a set of objective spatial coordinates, right here in the valley.”

The rest of the party stared in disbelief - except Miko, Shion, and Rushia.

Nene looked confused, and asked the obvious question.

“Okay, but we didn’t find her, so how is she here?”

Ina smiled.

“She’s here, but she’s in a different ‘layer’ of space that happens to be mapped to this exact position. This isn’t the easiest thing to explain, but...think of space like a digital drawing; our mistake is that we’re trying to search for Sora on the background layer when she’s actually in a foreground layer. Even if our coordinates are right, we still won’t find her.”

Iofi sighed, being a digital artist herself and thus actually understanding the analogy.

“Okay, but how do we switch layers?”

Ina frowned.

“If I had the ancient ones with me, this would be trivial; I’d just rip open a whole in the layer barrier. That’s not an option, unfortunately, so it means we need someone who has some sort of attunement for this, and I’m not sure we do.”

Rushia stared at the border.

“I think I can open this. I don’t know why, but I think I can.”

She walked up to the line where the grass abruptly stopped, and then reached out with her hand.

In a weird twist, her hand touched the boundary of something, as if there was a physical border there.

Shion, recognizing there was an opportunity to help, raised her hands, and started channeling. Miko did the same, and with the three of them, a triangle-shaped hole in space suddenly appeared, which was large enough for them to walk through.

Looking into the hole, what they found was fascinating: the grass was real, and unlike the last instance of this valley they had seen, the grass lined up on both sides of the border.

Ina smiled.

“I present to you: The Valley of the Forgotten.”

The party organized into a single file line, and then walked in.

This version of the valley was beautiful; the once dried up riverbeds were now flowing streams, and an abundance of plant life had grown from what was once nothing but ash. The hills around the valley were full of life; and where a land of desolation was located was now a land full of mystery, and yet also full of hope.

Ina turned around after entering.

The seam in the grassline was because some of the grass on the inside of the hidden layer was spreading to outside the layered instance, as Ina suspected.

I should probably inform whoever lives here to fix that. It would’ve taken me a lot longer to figure it out without that hint.

The valley was still eerily quiet, however. The only sounds were those of flowing water, and even those were fairly quiet. They had entered the valley properly, now.

The search for Sora was on.

They had reached a clearing in the valley, where the stone labeling the valley was in the first layer. Eventually while in the clearing the group ran into the same large rock with the inscription from the first layer:

VALLEY OF THE FORGOTTEN

This is not a place for those who have somewhere to belong.

This is not a place meant for those who have found purpose.

This is a place where nothing of value will be found. 

Surprisingly, the inscription was still exactly the same.

It was at this moment that suddenly Reine ran ahead of the group, drawing Anya, her keris.

Metal met metal, as the keris slammed into a very quickly drawn Katana from a mysterious assailant. The attacker was a female samurai with long pink hair, who spoke to the party.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had to deal with outsiders. Seriously, didn’t you guys read the inscription?”

The samurai in question let her hair down, giving a determined look to the party. She continued speaking to the group.

“There’s nothing here, okay?”

Chapter Text

Reine blinked.

“Um, clearly you’re here, so technically by definition we’re at more than nothing.”

“I mean nothing of value is here. It’s a place where we can be forgotten, and for the most part, we’re comfortable like that. So, if you’ll excuse me, you should leave. Or I can dump your bodies outside of the barrier and make you forget you were ever here; there’s over two dozen of you, so that’s gonna take forever. There’s no purpose in coming here, so I don’t see a return trip being likely.”

Houshou Marine spoke, separating herself from the party to join Reine, wielding a scimitar rather than a keris.

“That’s where you’re wrong. We have reason to believe there’s a friend of ours who’s right here in this valley, and we intend to find her.”

The samurai rolled her eyes.

“You’re really not getting it. If she’s chosen to live here, that means she likely doesn’t want to see anyone. If she wants to see her friends again, she’ll leave, and take with her virtually no memories of the place.”

Reine raised her blade, and pointed it at the mysterious opponent.

“Who are you, anyway?”

Her opponent smiled.

“I’m Oda Nobuhime, second line of defense for the valley of the forgotten. Credit where it’s due in getting past our first line, by the way - most can’t figure out the layered space.”

Reine shrugged.

“That’s because there was grass growing on the wrong side of the layer.”

Nobuhime facepalmed.

“Oh god dammit. Why is gardening such a pain? Alright, fair enough, I gotta fix that at some point. Still, given you have a blade pointed at me-”

Houshou Marine raised her scimitar.

Nobuhime shrugged.

“Okay, two blades. I suppose we’re in for a good little sword duel. Shame that your blade is so short in comparison to ours, miss...”

“Pavolia Reine.”

“Alright. Let’s end this quickly, then.”

With an incredibly fast swing of her blade, she immediately disarmed Houshou Marine of her scimitar, who mostly looked embarrassed and backed down.

Shion’s hands ignited, but she didn’t move forward.

Reine stared at her blade, and then ran forward.

(Anya, I hope you can guide me, because she’s a way better swordsman than I am.)

(Don’t worry, I got this.)

Reine turned to the rest of hololive.

“Let me handle this one.”

Nobuhime smiled.

“You’re going to fight alone? Alright, then.”

“Well...”

Reine engaged Nobuhime. Anya guided each of her movements, turning her combat stance from wildly flailing about to a series of elegant dagger techniques. Each of Nobuhime’s slashes were blocked perfectly.

Nobuhime’s blade was longer, but Reine’s blade was far faster, giving her an edge. Still, Nobuhime was winning, which meant it was time to deploy plan B.

Reine jumped backwards, letting go of her blade.

Anya continued floating in the air, and then continued fighting Nobuhime while Reine watched, much to the surprise of most onlookers who had only found out Anya could do this by watching her do this.

Nobuhime pushed Anya forward - with no wielder, the blade itself was very light, meaning each blow drove Anya back. She took a brief moment to appreciate both the ridiculousness and unfairness of fighting a floating blade.

“Oh COME ON!”

“Alright, I will!”

Shion finished her spell, and fired a powerful fireball aimed at the samurai, which then proceeded to miss.

Nobuhime turned around.

“Ha, you missed!”

“And you really should’ve remembered who your opponent was.”

The samurai turned around once again, only to realize she had let Reine fully charge her own magic.

Reine let loose a powerful lightning bolt, and unlike Shion her attack actually hit her opponent, knocking Nobuhime back.

The samurai got to her feet stunningly quickly.

“Argh! Well I’m not...done...yet...”

While Reine got ready for another round, the rest of the party had enough of waiting. Sakura Miko drew her gohei (1) and stood her ground beside Reine, Roboco took her position beside Miko, and Suisei, somehow possessing an axe, stood beside her.

On Reine’s other side, Noel and Flare, armed with a mace and a bow respectively, stood their ground.

Noel spoke.

“While I’ll admit Reine’s skill with a blade is impressive, understand I have fought opponents far stronger than you and won handily. Oh, and there’s 20 plus of us and one of you, that’s also a thing. Are you sure that you want to have this fight?”

“Um…”

As if that wasn’t enough, Rushia stepped forward. Her hair went from green to fully pink as she invoked her magic, though she had yet to attack in any manner.

She spoke with a quiet but very intense tone. (2)

“Go on, answer. Are you really sure you want to have this fight?”

Nobuhime backed down in fear.

“No…”

She mumbled under her breath.

Rushia continued: “Oh? What was that?”

“Um...nothing. You’re...you’re really something, and dealing with you is above what I’m gonna try because I actually enjoy having my spirit actually properly inhabiting my body.”

Rushia’s hair went back to its usual green hue.

“Then let’s move forward. And let’s not pretend it’s anything else; we are almost entirely certain Sora’s somewhere in the valley.”

Nobuhime sighed.

“Yeah, but she’s not, shall we say, my issue. To be honest, I’m in enough trouble as is for the whole grass thing; I was kind of hoping you’d just kind of get intimidated and leave, because the fact of the matter is if my boss finds out I let an angel through - that is, an ascended angel, as pre-ascension angels are excepted, don’t ask me why, I dunno - I’m gonna be in some trouble, and also I should probably warn you that the admittedly few people that live here don’t generally like angels. Blame my boss for that one; she’s got a close-but-not-quite literal hell of a history. Rather unfortunately, I think you probably have to meet her. Good luck with that, Uruha-san.”

And with that, Nobuhime jumped, propelling herself into the air well over the heads of the entire hololive party.

Nobuhime smiled.

“Good luck with finding your friend, by the way - I’m gonna go cut the grass, hehe.”

And then she left.

Rushia blinked.

“...how did she know my name?”

Polka shrugged.

Something about her seems weirdly familiar to me...

The party moved further into the valley. As per the original expectation, it was alive, bustling with plant life.

At the center of the valley, and from what one could see, was the center of the layered space, where a large wooden shrine stood. It was tall and imposing, and yet strangely inviting. It sat at the top of a small hill, the pathway defined by a series of stone steps that lead to the shrine proper.

The party had just reached the first set of stairs when the one they were searching for showed up rather anticlimactically: Sora rather suddenly dropped in from the sky.

“Hello everyone! I...uh, wasn’t expecting you guys to get here so quickly.”

A-chan ran ahead of the party and pulled Sora into a tight hug.

“Sora-chan, do you have any idea how much you had us worried?!”

Sora smiled tearfully.

“Yeah...but now’s probably a good time to mention that I’ve got to hide for a bit, and this is a good place to do so. Though, actually, the hiding thing isn’t really the reason I’m here, that’s more to do with, well, this.”

She unfurled her wings, raised her hand, and at once a blue aura lit the area around them, covering both Sora and the hololive members.

Kanata’s jaw dropped.

Nene asked the obvious question: “Um, what just happened?”

Sora explained: “It’s a technique called a suppression field. It’s a magical aura that more or less suppresses - or in some cases outright shuts down - any magic invoked within the field. The only catch is that it also works on the caster.”

Shion blinked, raised her hand, and then nothing happened.

“Okay, she’s telling the truth about that.”

Kanata finally mentally recovered enough to start speaking again.

“That’s...a really powerful technique for an angel of Sora’s rank. I can’t do that; it’s something generally only learned by a rank of angel that most of the lower angels simply refer to as ‘the powers above’, which, well, tells you what they’re like.”

Sora grimaced.

“Yeah, I’m not a fan of finding out how correct everyone’s been about me. If nothing else, I feel I’m more likely to invoke the technique to suppress my own powers rather than anyone else’s.”

A-chan blinked as Sora dismissed the suppression field.

“What do you mean?”

Sora sighed.

“I am one bad decision away from being a walking engine of destruction. Or flying, technically. Now’s probably not a good time to go into details. I don’t particularly enjoy finding out that the nameless one’s actually right in many regards.”

She paused in thought.

“But enough about that. I should explain how I got here, and, well, that’s a story for the ages. Let’s meet up in the shrine of the forgotten; there’s a fair chance that the founder of this place is there. If not her, then somebody that regardless of everything else we actually need to meet up with.”

She breathed.

“So, the two angels. For the record, I only blasted one of them telekinetically, and that’s because I panicked really hard. That’s also how I found out that I could do that. I never even talked to him.”

Miko stepped forward to ask the obvious: “What was the giant laser then? And the whole giant flash of light when you teleported out?”

Sora smiled.

“That would be the founder of this place. She was looking out for me, because I’m apparently a special case. I’m getting really tired of that, but at least she got me out of the eyes of the angels. And she’s not the only person we should meet! It just so happens that I also found someone very important with her.”

The rest of the party moved forward, following Sora.

Kanata frowned.

I don’t think we’re as hidden as we think…

At the top of the stairs, Sora turned around, facing the rest of the group.

“Before any of you get too worried, the shrine’s bigger on the inside, and it also has...well, I’m not sure if there’s enough room for all of us, but we’ll figure something out. The shrine itself utilizes the layered space technique, so bare in mind that one room is actually like five stacked on top of each other, as long as you know the pathways to access them.”

A-chan paused.

“Is it really okay for us to just, you know, inhabit the shrine like that?”

“I’ll convince the founder myself if I have to. I know you want to speak with me right now, and I promise you, I’ll talk later; but right now I’m busy with some other things. Just rest for now.”

Down in Hell, Amelia was carried into the house by Tokoyami Towa.

Towa shouted to get the attention of those present.

“Amelia’s free.”

Calliope and Kiara immediately shouted back words of congratulations.

“Holy hell, that was fast. What happened to the whole ‘decades’ thing?”

Amelia groaned, but responded.

“Gatekeeper rage quit.”

Kiara laughed, and then looked at Amelia’s body.

“Um, what happened?”

Towa sighed.

“He rage quit by shooting Amelia six times with a revolver. Ironically, that’s what got him dinged; at the end of the day there’s no karmic excuse to do that. I called him out on un-gatekeeper-like  behavior and he reluctantly agreed that, in fact, he was losing the fight, and decided to not do anything really stupid. Combined with the fact that Amelia was both incredibly nice to the devils while practically begging them to punish her - which they did, and pretty severely - and she’d gotten her balance back to the point where it’s only negative instead of so badly negative there’s no other choices. Right, Choco-sensei: Amelia’s been shot six times. Seven times if you include the other devil who shot her; I zapped that one. I’m sorry, but we kind of need you again.”

Choco sighed, but also smiled.

“Well, I’m glad to find out that this is likely the last time I’ll have Amelia in a medical bed.”

Amelia laughed, while grimacing from the pain of multiple bullet wounds.

“Yeah, hopefully I’m done. Though, Towa, I can’t help but notice you didn’t mention the thing where-”

“Let’s not talk about that right now.”

True to Sora’s word, there was enough space for them, on account of the fact that the one cabin room with two bunk beds - so four in total - was layered for the sake of the extra space, which meant it was possible for everyone to get a bed to themselves while night fell.

It was very early in the morning that Watame woke up. Exiting the shrine would result in exiting the layer, but something was off about the morning, and Watame wasn’t going to sit around. She didn’t strictly need sleep, after all, so she would give it her all to shrug it off and figure out what was wrong.

Her suspicions were only confirmed when she saw Sora out on the shrine grounds, as if she was waiting for something. That wasn’t the big thing, however.

That went to the fact she was talking to someone else, and the silhouette was far, far too familiar to her.

“...Haachama?”

Chapter Text

Watame kept looking at the distinct shadows of both Sora and Haato, but she was at enough of a distance that she couldn’t hear what they were saying, and due to Sora’s enhanced angel senses her cover would be immediately blown if she tried to get too close.

And then Haato’s silhouette disappeared quite suddenly.

...was I seeing things? No, that was too real, and Sora’s definitely there...

Watame felt a tap on the shoulder. She then turned, and then-

“HAACHAMA-CHAMA!”

To Watame’s credit, she didn’t scream at the sight of Haachama suddenly appearing beside her, though she was very tempted.

Instead she was just completely silent, her jaw dropping.

She dropped her voice to a whisper.

“Where have you been?”

Haachama smiled.

“Right here, silly! I’ve been trying to get a hold of my powers because my spirit is crazy like you wouldn’t believe. It’s amazing what I can do here! All I had to do was talk it out with my other half and-”

Watame laughed.

“Slow down for a bit, you’re clearly quite excited, and, uh, it’s kind of the dead of night right now?”

“I mean, you’re up, and so is Sora.”

Watame sighed.

“Yeah, I don’t require sleep anymore.”

“And neither do I! Haato just likes to pretend she still needs sleep...then again, so do I! Just not right now. I’ve got friends to meet!”

Watame froze.

Oh no.

Watame’s voice suddenly got audibly nervous.

“Um...some of us still haven’t gotten used to not needing sleep, so maybe wake us up later?”

Sora tapped Haachama on the shoulder.

“I think you should also wake up, Haato, if you’re going to do that.”

Haachama turned around, turning her neck slightly unnaturally to face the angelic idol.

“Alright, fine.”

All of a sudden, Haachama relaxed. You could practically feel the atmosphere shift as Haachama’s eyes refocused. Her voice, in turn, became more peaceful.

Haato sighed, and rolled her eyes.

“Though, really, it’s not like we’re two distinct entities nowadays; we don’t do the on-off sleeping routine anymore. It’s more just that Haachama’s instincts kick in more heavily sometimes, and the same goes to Haato...which, I guess, we both are. I just got used to calling both halves of myself Akai Haato, though we’re both Haachama, too. It’s...strange, I guess, but the end of the world helped me realize that I needed Haachama to become the real Akai Haato, just as much as Haachama needed me to be the best Haachama possible. Well, that, and the founder here was somebody who had a similar issue, which is why she taught me everything she knows about handling the split personality merge.”

Watame smiled.

“Well, I’m glad you’ve found a solution to your issues.”

Haato shrugged.

“It isn’t perfect. Sometimes I still hear voices.”

“Hmm?”

“If you’ve managed to attain harmony with your other self, you shouldn’t hear voices in your head anymore, as you’ll learn to stop having your own split personality get in the way of the other self; the founder of this place taught me this. The voices are rare for me now, but sometimes Haato hears Haachama and vice versa. For example, Haachama’s still telling me that it’d be really funny to pretend to be a horror game monster and wake all of our friends up by scaring them. I think she’s right, too.”

Watame sighed.

“Please don’t. Maybe you can make breakfast or something.”

Haato’s face refocused into the crazed expression of Haachama when Watame realized she had made a terrible suggestion, given her mortal history.

“You’re right! And...my voices are now made as one again. Thanks for the suggestion!”

And with that, Haachama - or Haato - sprinted into the shrine blindingly fast.

Watame blinked.

Oh no. We’re all doomed.

She looked back outside to Sora, who flew off the shrine grounds.

Where is she going…?

This gave her a difficult decision to make: did she go back to warn her friends about the impending breakfast disaster in the making, or did she follow Sora to see what she was up to?

This all ties back to the founder...and she taught Haato what she knows? Who IS this person?

Watame sighed, and considered her options, before coming to the conclusion that if she warned her friends about Haachama’s meal in advance, she’d almost certainly have to partake in said meal.

That sealed the decision for her. She liked her friends very much, but she wasn’t willing to take a Haachama breakfast for them; the fact that neither she nor Haachama couldn’t permanently die anymore actually made the prospect more terrifying, not less.

I’m sorry.

And so, she kept walking forward, following Sora’s flight path.

Towa fell into her bed, finally happy with the day.

Amelia was free from the lower underworld, and all it took was Towa following the rules harder than any other devil would. She had prevailed, and so had Amelia.

And now that Amelia’s sanity was no longer an immediate concern, that brought her to thinking about the last round with the gatekeeper.

How am I karma positive? That makes no sense at-

A knock on the door interrupted Towa’s thought.

“Hey. I wanted to chat with ya.”

The voice belonged to apprentice grim reaper Mori Calliope. Or at least, temporarily suspended grim reaper Mori Calliope.

“Come on in.”

Calliope opened the door, and walked in.

Towa asked Calliope: “How’s Amelia doing, with the whole ‘being shot seven times’ and whatnot?”

“Honestly, quite poorly, but honestly still better than the time you and Ayame 2-on-1’d Akuma.”

Towa flinched. That fight was a long time ago, but the memory of it was still painful.

Calliope’s eyes widened.

“I’m really sorry for bringing that up, I didn’t realize it was still painful-”

“I’m over him, really. Still, why are you here?”

Calliope sighed.

“I know it’s probably not my place to ask, but I couldn’t help but notice that you tried to avoid talking about something that clearly you and Amelia both saw.”

Towa drew a sharp breath.

“I don’t blame you for asking, but...it’s a devil thing. I’d rather not talk about it, and besides, if you wanna hear, well...to be honest, I don’t feel like I’m gonna keep this secret very well. It concerns my devil nature, and it’s...well, problematic, to say the least.”

Haachama walked into the shrine - which on the inside wasn’t a shrine at all - and went to the kitchen with a wide smile on her face. It had truly been a while since she had handled cooking implements. How hard could breakfast be?

And more importantly, how important could it really be to add oil to the pan?

In another room, Luna woke up, sensing a disturbance to all things natural.

“Something’s wrong nanora~”

Watame kept following Sora, at least until she met a familiar face: Oda Nobuhime, who seemed to casually wait around, as if they were supposed to meet. Sora descended to meet the samurai while the said samurai just shrugged. The two of them started talking.

Once again, the distance Watame kept meant that she didn’t hear what they were talking about.

What I wouldn’t give to have Fubuki’s fox ears right now…

Still, she waited, and, for the most part, nothing seemed to be going on, until Sora facepalmed.

What?

Sora removed her hand from her face, when something unusual happened: Nobuhime drew what was clearly a wooden training katana, and gave it to Sora. Nobuhime drew her other blade - also clearly a training blade - and then stood her ground.

And then the two of them fought, much to Watame’s surprise. She silently observed the duel, noting that, while Nobuhime was clearly more experienced, Sora was holding her own surprisingly well.

Part of that was that she was well aware of her angelic capabilities, and was constantly forcing Nobuhime to play overly aggressively just to get any hits in at all.

Okay, where did Sora get that adept at wielding a sword? Questions for later, I suppose…

Luna got up; she couldn’t help but get the sense that something was horribly wrong. Kanata had woken up too, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were going to regret the decision to get out of bed.

That regret was amplified when they walked into the kitchen, and saw something that was somehow equal parts joyous and absolutely horrifying.

Kanata spotted the chef: Akai Haato, also known as...

“Haachama?!”

The blonde turned around.

“I’m making breakfast for you guys!”

Kanata, despite being an angel and not having a biological need to eat, paled, feeling sick to her stomach.

Luna, on the other hand, was simply horrified, and thus ran over to the stove to look at the state of Haachama’s pans.

“DO YOU NOT KNOW HOW TO USE COOKING OIL?!”

Back in the underworld, Towa walked out of her room, well-rested.

Amelia was still out of sorts from her wounds, but at least she was sleeping peacefully.

That left Towa alone, surrounded by seven other members of hololive, who all eyed her with varying degrees of intensity. (1)

Towa sighed.

“Yeah, I figured you guys were gonna want to know what actually happened, and what the thing that I made Amelia shut up about is. I suppose I should actually talk about that, it’s...strange. Let’s start by setting the stage for exactly how Amelia confronted her gatekeeper for the last time; it’s fairly important.”

In the valley of the forgotten, Watame continued to stare at Sora and Nobuhime dueling. Amazingly enough, she was winning, though it was clear that to a certain extent she was crutching on her angel powers. Nobuhime had upped her ferocity in combat, and at one point, successfully disarmed Sora.

Sora, apparently not interested in playing fair, reached for her blade, which then stopped in mid-air, and then flew back towards its wielder. Sora dodged one more attack from Nobuhime by flying backwards out of range from the samurai, and then when her blade’s hilt reached her hand she swung it again at Nobuhime, who blocked, and then was knocked flying backwards from blocking - clearly Sora had swung that blade with her angelic strength.

Still, she had won, which left Watame impressed beyond belief. Clearly there was some behind the scenes discussion that she was missing as to why she was picking up combat abilities.

Is she planning to fight…?

A-chan slept in. It was one of the few times she did so; but to be honest, she was tired, given how freaking long the last few days had felt.

So when she woke up alone and heard a lot of panic coming from another room, she knew that this was a level of chaos that could only be achieved by the talents of hololive themselves. As it turned out, A-chan happened to inhabit the layered bedroom that shared the layer with the rest of the shrine-that-wasn’t-a-shrine-on-the-inside which meant she could hear the shenanigans going on from another room.

“HOW CAN YOU SCREW UP PANCAKES THIS BADLY?!”

That was Kanata’s voice, surprisingly enough.

And then all tiredness immediately evaporated, because there was only one talent in all of hololive that could achieve that level of reaction from Kanata over that exact topic. She got up, smiled, then sighed, and then dragged herself into the chaos zone known as Haachama’s kitchen.

Watame watched the end of the duel play out. Sora handed her training blade back to Nobuhime, and then turned around, while Nobuhime ran off into the valley.

Still no sight of the founder...I wonder what’s going on.

And then Sora flew back towards the shrine, until she stopped, turned towards Watame, and waved hello.

Busted.

Watame sighed. Angel senses ruined the art of eavesdropping, and Sora had gotten far too good at using them.

“Watame wa warukunai yo ne.” (2)

Sora broke out into hysterical laughter.

“I mean...yeah. I’ve been practicing my powers. Nobuhime tends to be a little...aggressive, but she’s honestly a great partner for it, mostly because she doesn’t seem to get too offended when I lose control, and...well, I’d rather not talk about the times I’ve used slightly more power than was necessary for a simple sparring match. It happens not infrequently, unfortunately.”

Watame shrugged.

“Well, I’m not gonna pry into it.”

“Oh? When you came all the way out here to watch me fight?”

Watame froze at the accusation.

“Let’s just get back to the shrine.”

Towa nearly finished her story.

“So, that’s when he uses the karmic mirror ability on me. You see, the process that raises devils means that, by definition, devils are always karma negative. We’re literally born from our worst impulses, and devils know this - many basically do nothing but try to convince souls to do exactly this. Akuma ascended me via wrath; he hurt the folks of my old devil clan, just to see if it would make me lash out at him. It worked; and after that, well...it’s a long history. My first few years were...violent. Mostly aimed at him, to absolutely no avail. You guys know the rest.”

She took a moment to breathe.

“But enough about that. The rest of that tale is one everyone here has seen for themselves. After negotiations broke down, the gatekeeper used the karmic mirror on me. You’ll never guess what happened next.”

Coco raised her hand, while smiling.

“It ended up being far nicer than you imagined. I’m just imagining the moment, you bracing yourself to face all of your sins, and then finding out you’re harmless.”

Towa looked to the side, looking embarrassed.

“Um...you’re close.”

Everyone’s jaw dropped. Ollie spoke next, as if she knew the twist.

“NO WAY!”

Ayame laughed.

Mel and Choco giggled lightly, and then Towa finally said it.

“The karmic mirror bounced. My karma was somehow positive. That’s not supposed to be possible for me!”

Kiara screeched with laughter.

“I knew it! It revealed that you really are an angel!”

Towa facepalmed.

“Shut up! No I’m not! Honestly, do I look like I have wings? Because I don’t! And I’d be suffering from underworld affliction if I was, and clearly I’m not!”

The rest of the room broke out into laughter.

“This is serious!”

Watame and Sora reached the shrine.

Watame smiled.

“You know, Sora-senpai, you keep thinking about all of the big issues we’re running into, but the truth is...I think it’ll be nice for us to just meet up as friends, once again.”

Sora nodded.

“Yeah. That’s true. I wonder how everyone’s doing; but I guess I’ll find out. I owe A-chan a long talk. I guess I kind of owe everyone that, really.”

And then they entered.

The scene they entered was a little on the chaotic side.

Which is to say it was a complete disaster zone, all surrounding Akai Haato, a.k.a. Haachama:

• Roboco was absent.
• Miko and Suisei were holding their heads in their hands and staring very intently at the table they were sitting at.
• Matsuri was unconscious and lying on the floor.
• Aqua was hiding behind Shion, who was backed away from the table looking absolutely horrified.
• Noel and Flare were both on the floor beside each other looking sick.
• Marine was spouting poetic nonsense about how breakfast was an opponent far too strong for her to fight while being held by Rushia.
• Pekora had moved herself to the wall furthest from Haachama, not looking at her.
• Kanata was looking at Haachama in absolute contempt.
• Luna was curled into a ball on the floor muttering something about cooking oil.
• Lamy was cradling Nene’s unconscious body.
• Botan’s face was looking very pale and Polka looked both very pale and utterly terrified.
• Moona, Risu, and Iofi were just staring blankly at the table while saying nothing.
• Reine looked very worried at the situation.
• And finally, A-chan was lying down on the floor, again looking very pale.

On the table was a stack of something, though the black-and-red color scheme told both Sora and Watame that it was likely not ready for human consumption.

Sora froze, unable to process what she was looking at.

“What...is that…?”

The chef, Haachama, looked cheerfully at the two newcomers.

“I made pancakes for everyone! Want some?”

Sora blinked while Watame just silently accepted that she was doomed.

Chapter Text

Sora woke up, her mind in an absolute haze, while hearing voices.

“Seriously Haato, how did you make pancakes so bad that they literally knocked out Sora of all people? And, you know, me?”

“Well, I discovered that if I made it, I automatically found it delicious.”

That voice talking to Haato was A-chan’s, and amazingly it was purely unimpressed rather than completely broken, unlike Luna’s voice, which had descended into pure despair.

“What about the rest of us nanora~?!”

Sora slowly recalibrated her thoughts.

Oh, right, I failed to say no to Haachama’s cooking...okay, and there’s A-chan…

Haato seemed to be unfazed, and responded to the complaint.

“I mean it’d make sense if you made it!”

Kanata’s voice cut through next.

“That’s because it would’ve been safe for human consumption! This was not, and I’m not even human!”

She got up off of the couch that she had been sleeping on.

Huh, someone moved my body while I was knocked out, because last I remember I was at the table.

Her memories got clearer and clearer-

Oh god, I’m remembering the taste. Please let me block that out.

Sora entered the dining room once again, memories of the morning not entirely pleasant.

The table had been cleared, and from the looks of it, the horrendous mess that the so-called ‘strongest idol’ had made out of breakfast had been cleaned up.

A-chan looked at Sora as she entered.

“Sorry for losing consciousness first. I would’ve warned you if I was still up.”

Sora laughed.

“I mean...it...”

The problem with trying to say that Haachama hadn’t ruined breakfast was that Sora wasn’t a good enough liar, and from the looks of it Haachama had used her newfound spiritual powers to somehow make an even worse mess of her cooking than she did while she was alive.

Sora sighed.

“I’ll respectfully decline any offers for food from Haachama in the future.”

Across from the living room, Haato frowned.

Good going Haachama, you disappointed Sora-senpai.

And it was worth it!

No, it wasn’t.

It was worth getting Marine though just for how dramatically she reacted, and Matsuri and Nene’s overconfidence was really funny.

Haato sighed. Disappointing Sora was a failure on her part.

Sora continued on.

“Anyways, I think I owe everyone a lot of explanations for disappearing like I did. I promise you, there’s an explanation. I can’t promise you that it’s a good one.”

A-chan spoke next.

“Yeah. Let’s get everyone together, shall we?”

After cleaning up the disaster zone of a kitchen, all of the members of hololive in the in-between found gathered in front of the shrine, with Sora going a bit ahead to address the group as just that - a group.

“Alright, so...to explain things slightly. First: did Haato explain to the rest of you why she’s here?”

Akai Haato smiled gracefully.

“You were unconscious, but I did talk about Haato and Haachama to the rest of them.”

Tokino Sora nodded.

“Then at this point I’m going to try and recount the events in the forest as they occurred, more or less second by second. The first thing was that one of the scouting angels spotted me. He just said hello, and was trying to figure out why me, who as a reminder never finished the ascension process making me an unascended angel, was in the in-between; as angels aren’t sent places for angelic duty until they’re ascended. I...kind of freaked out, because my first reflex was to assume he was going to try being a little more forceful than he actually was. If I had time and wasn’t trying to remain out of sight, I would’ve apologized.”

She sighed.

“This is how I found out how powerful I really was. When I freaked out, I unleashed a powerful spiritual shockwave that, well, was a rather high-powered explosion. I wasn’t trying to do that; that kind of just happened. It threw him off the trail though, and that’s when I ran into the founder, who has a lot of very strange abilities. I actually don’t know her name.

“She fired another beam upwards - the laser was her’s - which threw the angels back a bit. Miko then fired, and while that was going on, she cast another spell that warned off the angels; after that both me and the founder teleported out all the way into the ashlands. What I don’t understand is how you tracked us up here; this place is lifeless if you simply walk into it.”

Roboco smiled.

“You never turned off location tracking. Which, to be fair, your location disappeared as soon as you entered the layered space, but it gave us a location.”

A-chan talked next.

“I then pointed out that somehow grass was growing in the ashlands, which led Ina to the conclusion that, indeed, there was somewhere this grass was spreading from. Shion, Rushia, and Miko all opened the barrier for the rest of us at that point.”

The three mentioned members all nodded.

Miko continued.

“We did it for you, Sora. We were really worried.”

Sora frowned.

“I’m really sorry for worrying you about that. I think you can understand why I need to go into hiding for a little bit, and, uh...I forgot to message you guys before entering the barrier, and I couldn’t contact you from inside. I also didn’t know how to get in again if I left, so, well...”

A-chan sighed. 

Another case of a small cycle of errors leading to a large cycle of panic.

“You’re being awfully inconsiderate, Sora. And, honestly, this isn’t the full story. I can tell you’re leaving something out here. If you don’t want to talk about-”

“No, I have to, because it relates to this one pretty heavily. Remember what I said about the spiritual shockwave? The one I blasted the angel out with? The one that, well, you girls all saw from above the forest? Well, there’s a reason for that. For some reason, I’m two things at once, and it’s not a good combination: I’m powerful. Really powerful. I wield a spectrum of powers that generally only higher-ranked angels do, casting spells from a caste of angels that lower angels generally call ‘the powers above’. It’s hard to overstate how much of a freak outlier I am in this regard, given I technically haven’t even ascended yet.

“If I get deified...I probably would be the most powerful being in existence, bar none. And, you know, I wouldn’t mind this so much, but there’s a second problem here...and it’s the reason why, as much as you probably want me to, I’m not coming back with you girls. I’m sorry.”

Sora teared up ever-so-slightly, while A-chan frowned.

Kanata flew ahead to meet Sora, and then answered.

“You’re like me.”

Sora blinked some tears out of her eyes.

“What…?”

“Angels are supposed to have something called an inhibitor. It’s a spiritual essence that angels are supposed to develop that...well, inhibits angels from the extremes of their spiritual powers. Mine didn’t develop properly, which, well, is why I’m the way I am. I think you’re the same, Sora, and unlike me you possess a far greater range of spiritual powers; I only have excess strength to leak.”

Sora trembled.

“Yeah. As of right now, I’m one bad day away from turning into a walking disaster zone. So the real reason I’m hiding here is that I just want more time to actually practice using my powers. Time to practice controlling my powers rather than just freaking out and unleashing whatever’s there. That’s why, as Watame observed earlier this morning, Nobuhime duels me regularly; if I lose control of my powers I blast her into the ground, and the rules are I only win if I beat her with my sword.”

Virtually everyone’s eyes widened from that statement.

Suisei asked: “Why on earth are you getting into sword dueling?”

“Among other kinds of magical combat, to be fair.”

“That doesn’t answer my question, though I’m starting to guess.”

Sora shrugged.

“I mean, one day I’m gonna have to fight the nameless one. I make no claims that this is even a good idea; but for the most part I think he’s too obsessed with me to even think about throwing me out of Heaven permanently, so I can do whatever I want, really. As of right now, he’s still far more powerful than I am, but at least I won’t go without resistance. I can make him work for it, and maybe that’s as much as I can get; I’m bound to lose the confrontation, when it happens.”

Shirogane Noel walked out in front of the rest of the members.

“Then promise me one thing.”

Sora blinked.

“Yes…?”

Flare walked out beside her wife, finishing the statement.

“Promise me you won’t fight him alone.”

Sora sighed.

“Please don’t get immediately thrown out of Heaven for me if you make it up there with Flare.”

Noel smiled.

“If it’s any consolation, you’re not the only person I’d do it for.”

Flare continued the sentiment: “I’d do it for anyone else in hololive.”

Marine smiled, and continued the sentiment even further: “Also, don’t lie, you’d get yourself thrown out of Heaven for your friends if you could actually do it.”

Sora smiled.

“That’s entirely fair. Still, confrontation aside, I hope you can understand why I don’t feel ready to live with the rest of you. I don’t know how long it’s gonna take to get things under control; the answer is probably a long time.”

Sora wistfully looked around.

“I think that’s everything involving me, though. Where does that leave everyone else?”

Roboco went first.

“I’m going back to the Moon kingdom. Remember I’m the only point of contact between all three afterlives, and I think it’d be nice to get back in contact once again.”

Miko spoke next.

“I’m gonna probably go back home. I’ll be waiting for you, whenever you’re ready!”

Matsuri and Luna bowed together, while Luna spoke.

“My kingdom needs me once again. Also, I want to sleep in my actual bed nanora~”

Sora laughed at that.

Shion spoke next, with Aqua holding on to her from behind.

“Nice seeing you again, Sora-senpai. We’ll be waiting in the moon kingdom for you.”

Pekora smiled.

“I’ll probably head home with Miko-senpai peko.”

The other four members of hololive fantasy looked at each other, until Rushia finally spoke.

“I’m staying for now. I have too many questions, and I think I need to meet the founder.”

Marine nodded.

“Me, Fuu-tan and Noe-chan are with her on that.”

Sora smiled.

“That’s fair. I said we should all meet her, but...to be honest, I don’t think it’s terribly important. She’s the kind of person who tries to keep out of the public eye herself, so I guess it makes sense she wouldn’t meet all of us at once.”

Watame and Kanata looked at each other, before Kanata finally spoke.

“We’re with you. I mean, technically speaking we all need to get back to Heaven someday.”

The fifth generation of hololive all looked at each other.

Nene looked back at Sora.

“I think I want to go with them, for now. I like Heaven, but...it’s not like I’m returning to hololive without them. I...I hope you don’t mind, Sora-senpai.”

Sora teared up just a little.

“Of course not. If anything, I’m really happy your generational bond is that strong.”

Ina and Gura looked at each other, before Ina finally spoke.

“Yeah, we’ll settle back in the moon kingdom - we’re still waiting for Ame to show up before we really go anywhere, and last I checked she’s not getting out for several years. I’m just glad she has Towa for company down there.”

Suisei shrugged, addressing Sora.

“Well...I don’t really know where I want to go, so I think I’ll stay with you for now. I remember you, at the least, and you know, as much as I hate the hand I was dealt in the afterlife, I can’t be mad at you. That, and I stopped being jealous of your memory when I found out what you’re dealing with.”

A-chan smirked.

“I think you can guess easily enough that I’m sticking with you. I’ll wait until you’re comfortable with your own powers, no matter how long it takes.”

Sora bowed, and then she realized one member hadn’t spoken.

“Oh, right, Haato. What are your plans?”

Akai Haato, who had calmed down considerably and wasn’t acting like the crazed idol who had knocked most of hololive out via her cooking at the present moment, smiled.

“I’m leaving, but I want to tell the founder first. I think I’ve learned to live with Haachama, and, while she was useful, I really don’t want to rely on the founder. I’m the strongest idol, after all!”

Sora cracked an outright grin at that.

“There’s the spirit!”

And thus, the party split up. Sora, A-chan, Haato, Flare, Noel, Marine, Rushia, Kanata, Watame, and Suisei would stay in the valley to keep Sora company, while the rest of them would all go back to their respective homes in the in-between.

That left hololiveID, who was still talking amongst themselves.

Sora walked up to the group.

“Decisions?”

Moona turned around to face Sora.

“We’ll be heading out as well. Mostly because I want to keep an eye out on Shachou.”

Sora laughed.

“Yeah.”

Reine nodded.

“I’ll stay here. I want to meet the founder, if only because she seems like the kind of person who knows how to help Anya’s condition.”

Chapter Text

Fubuki walked around the heavenly city of Elysium.

She had gotten off her livestream not that long ago. While she had apologized for the fact she wasn’t as active as she could be, her fanbase seemed to be entirely okay with it, and for the most part, that had given her some extra free time.

Hmm…

She conjured her wings, and flew upwards. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to find; but she did know that the population of angels went higher as one went upwards into the heavens.

Not too far behind her was Mio. It wasn’t that Mio didn’t trust Fubuki - quite the opposite - but on some level Mio was worried about everything, as well.

Roboco connected herself to the hololive chat, once again connecting all three afterlives. Much like the first time, she had quite literally wired herself into the server computers of Luna’s castle.

She opened the chatroom with a little power, and then devoted all other system resources to building another program, now that she was once again wired into the network.

Fubuki got a number of stares from the angels. As it turned out, it was surprisingly rare for angels to fly up as high as Fubuki had gone; though to a certain extent, she understood; she had been going upwards likely for kilometers.

She didn’t know what she expected to find, once again.

Still, the portion of Elysium she had flown up to turned out to be surprisingly religious, at least if the imagery was anything to go by - there were a lot of shrines up here, which was interesting.

Fubuki recalled her memory of what Kanata had told her about gods.

The creators only speak to the seraphim.

This gave the seraphim a unique role in angel society, but they comprised only the tiniest portion of the angel population. This meant that for the rest of them, they likely worshipped the creators, but for the most part, none of them had any idea what they were like.

Fubuki flew around. She didn’t mind the unusual looks from the angels. She understood fully well that what she was doing was unusual.

Still, after a long flight - from what Fubuki could guess, a few hours of flying - she spotted something in the distance: a much larger temple, surrounded by only clouds.

Fubuki smiled. A temple like this would likely get her an in-road into just what the angels thought of the creators.

I wonder if I can get an idea of what they think of Sora…

She flew in the direction of the temple.

Amelia Watson woke up in a medical bed, mostly in a lot of pain.

She felt a lot better than a few days ago thanks to whatever magic Yuzuki Choco was employing.

Towa walked in, smiling.

“Ina and Gura are really happy for you.”

Amelia smiled.

“Yeah, I figured they would be. Thanks for telling them, since I’m not doing so well right now.”

Towa sighed.

“Yeah, that’s not a lot of fun, but at least you don’t have to go through that again. Congrats; you did the impossible: you got out of lower, and you did it in weeks, somehow.”

“Not from my perspective, but yes, I’m glad to hear I didn’t really miss out on anything. I take it that gatekeeper rage quits are uncommon, then?”

“Very. To be fair, you’ve had the annoying property of being an annoying opponent who is actively flaunting the rules, but you’ve also been undeniably nice. I legitimately think a lot of devils who tried to blast you ended up being on your side by the end of it, which means that the gatekeeper can’t re-summon the same devil twice unless you annoyed any particularly spiteful devils. Which happened, but generally speaking that’s what I’m there for.”

Amelia smiled.

“Thanks for that. It would’ve been unbearably worse without you there. Honestly if I were alone I probably would’ve just accepted Akuma’s devil contract, all those months ago.”

Towa sighed.

“You wouldn’t have been the first. Enough about him, though. And honestly, enough about me; A certain other circle of your friends want to chat with you.”

And with that, Towa got up and left, and into the room stepped both Calliope and Kiara.

Amelia smiled, though remained utterly still otherwise.

「Hey. You might of heard that I’m free.」

Kiara replied enthusiastically.

「I knew you’d finally pull it off! You really showed them, Ame!」

Calliope grinned.

「Congrats, Ame. How are you feeling?」

「Like swiss cheese, but otherwise just fine.」

「How’s Towa doing?」

「I don’t know. She’s been...really off-put by the revelation that her karma went positive. Honestly, I’m not surprised; it’s impossible under any usual circumstances. It’d be like if I found out my karma went positive while I wasn’t looking at it.」

Kiara replied to the remark.

「Hey, I think it should be, so there’s that. I mean, didn’t you get free from lower?」

「That’s not how it works, unfortunately. I’m out of lower, but I’m not karma positive; being out of lower just means that I’m not horrendously negative - that is, it won’t take forever for my karma to ambiently balance itself unless I screw it up for myself. I don’t plan to, for the record.」

Kiara smiled.

「Well, that’s the spirit. Be sure to say hi to Ina and Gura later」

「Oh, I definitely will.」

And with that, Amelia got up, and then immediately fell into bed again.

「Oh my FUCK that still hurts-」

Calliope sighed.

「Yeah, you still very much need to rest. And since I’m off duty, I will ensure you actually get that rest. Seriously, I can understand trying to shake off overexertion - lord knows I’ve done that far too many times to count, and I’m gonna add that it’s not good to do that so don’t follow me there - but trying to shrug off literal bullet wounds? That’s stupid, even for you.」

Amelia groaned.

「Yeah, that’s...annoyingly fair.」

Fubuki landed at the temple grounds.

The place was clearly under construction; for the most part, while it looked like a very grand temple ground, it was just that: a ground.

The only sign of worship on the temple grounds was a small statue with an inscription on it.

Tokino Sora, Goddess of the Sky

Fubuki drew a sharp breath.

“It’s highly unusual for a non-angel to be up this far, and even more unusual for you to be here, since I deliberately wanted this place somewhat out of the way of things. I won’t knock you for either of those; I just wanted to let you know that you’re a little early, as the place isn’t finished yet, and the goddess has yet to ascend.”

Fubuki felt her blood freeze in response to the voice.

She turned around, and there the nameless one stood, his wings unfurled.

Roboco looked at her spare processing power, and saw that a program that she had been building finished.

There we go.

“I am, by most accounts, known as the nameless one, and few outside of the high angels know me. I ask of you that you try not to be too intimidated by my presence.”

Fubuki paused as she realized that he hadn’t said anything about hololive.

He doesn’t know hololive...he doesn’t know I’m friends with the one he’s looking for!

Fubuki breathed.

I can be casual about this.

“Um...okay. What is this place, anyway? I only saw the statue and the inscription.”

“Ah, you came at a bad time. It’s the temple for the goddess that’s yet to ascend properly. This is to say, I know who it’s going to be, but she’s...well, not here yet. Don’t worry too much about it; it’s far beyond the scale of anything you’re used to, seeing how you’re relatively new here.”

Fubuki said nothing. A single wrong word would be very deadly here.

She had to admit, without the context of knowing Sora personally, she would never have guessed what the nameless one was actually the way he was behind the scenes. He was actually quite friendly, and for the most part, the way he presented himself was overall pleasant.

I could’ve easily thought of this guy as a friend.

The topic of Sora’s ascension was even brought up pleasantly - that is, there was no sign of what the ascension really meant.

And that meant that she had an opportunity to ask a lot of questions. If she did this right, she could get a lot of information back to her friends.

“So...you mentioned that the goddess hasn’t ascended yet. What does that actually mean?”

The nameless one paused, thinking about it.

“Let me respond to that with another question: what do you know of the creators, the true deities responsible for the creation of all?”

Fubuki paused.

“I don’t really know much, aside from the fact that they only speak to the seraphim.”

“To be honest, few non-angels know that much, so you’ve done your research...or you’re friends with an angel. Honestly, either one works.”

Fubuki said nothing to that statement, as to not incriminate herself.

Back in the in-between, Sora talked with those who decided to stay with her. (2)

She sighed.

“I just wished my inhibitor worked. I’m just so tired of having to watch myself; one bad move and I could potentially legitimately put my friends in danger.”

Kanata shrugged.

“I mean, it happens. Mine’s kind of busted, too. Still, at least you’re being responsible about it.”

Sora shrugged.

“I’m doing it for me, though. I just want to make sure I don’t accidentally hurt one of my friends. Just because we can’t die anymore doesn’t mean I should be careless.”

Marine paused, alongside Noel, Flare, and Rushia. Marine spoke, confused:

“Wait, we can’t? I mean, I haven’t, but...that feels wrong to me.”

Kanata seemed confused.

“I mean, you can physically have your body injured enough to not count as living, but as long as your spiritual self still exists just fine, you can reinhabit your dead body, magically regenerate it a bit, and continue on living. Heck, in the case of something like suffocation, you’ll just shrug it off once you have air again, as long as your body is intact - your physical self is essentially just a shell being piloted by your spirit...well, it is for us. You guys might be a little more attached.”

Noel and Flare both looked at each other.

“That explains so much, but...no, something’s not adding up here. I mean, I figured out I can’t die pretty early on; that’s part of why I was so feared: I wasn’t really too worried about permanently dying, while some of my opponents were...not as used to it.”

Haato finally spoke.

“Oh, that’s obvious. You guys aren’t fully spiritual yet. You’re still kind of physical - it was easy for me to get it because of the whole Haachama thing, and that’s why I suspect you can’t get to Heaven yet, Marine; the transition from physical to spiritual...you’re still too attached to being a physical being. Meanwhile I’m here because the angels don’t know what to do with me as of now.”

Kanata nodded.

“There we have it, A-chan: the last requirement to make it into heaven is to fully internalize the nature of one’s spiritual self; to accept that you aren’t the same physical person you were when you were alive, because that person is very dead right now. You haven’t done that, Marine. Noel has, and Flare I think has finally got it, mostly from how often you hang around your wife. That’s what kept Aqua out of the heavens, by the way. We can run down the entire list if you want, but that’s the full explanation. Congratulations, Haato, on being the first to figure it out.”

Sora blinked.

“That’s...oh god...wait, then I still don’t get how I got in. I’m still too attached to being alive!”

Kanata tilted her head.

“You are?”

A-chan replied next.

“I think your nightmares keep happening because you’re trying to deny it, but, no, you’re fully aware of exactly how dead you are. As am I, which is why I’m so worried about you.”

Sora looked down at the ground.

Suisei, in an unusual course of action, laughed.

“Then I’ll delay going to Heaven! I ain’t dead yet, even if I’m dead!”

A-chan paused.

“Okay, Kanata, that makes sense, but Subaru and Nene both made it to Heaven, and there’s no way either of them got the whole thing with the spiritual self.”

Kanata shrugged.

“Subaru was literally too optimistic to be phased by dying. Nene wasn’t far behind that. I’m serious, by the way; they both accepted it, it’s just that it wasn’t a revelation; it was more just a casual ‘oh I guess that’s what it is now’.”

Sora laughed.

“That sounds like the two of them.”

And then, all of a sudden, a pink beam of light hit Kanata directly in the head. The attack knocked her out cold in a single hit.

Sora was caught off guard by the surprise attack.

“What’s going on?!”

She turned her head to face the shooter, as did everyone else.

Sora’s eyes widened.

“...founder?”

On the other side of the shrine grounds stood a mysterious figure, her long pink hair let loose.

“I’m sorry about that. I have...shall we say, a little something against angels listening in on my conversations.”

Watame was angry.

“She’s still our friend, and you shouldn’t have done that. Still, I guess I should say hello, but the rest of us aren’t looking at you too highly for that.”

Rushia’s eyes narrowed, as she prepared to ignite her own magic, her hair slowly turning pink. Rushia spoke with an ice cold tone.

“I’ve been looking for you, founder...or should I say…?”

Up in Heaven, the nameless one continued speaking.

“That’s more or less how it is. I seek to change that, and I found a method to do so. You see, while the creators have no physical presence, they do have a...let’s call it an essence, and I’ve found a way to bind the essence into a willing host. I’m merely preparing things for the event that the goddess - that is, the host that will be uplifted with the essence - actually arrives here. It’ll be a bit before that happens.”

Fubuki blinked.

So that’s what this is…?

“Admittedly, circumstances changed recently surrounding that, but I think I’m a little grateful for that fact, as it made me realize I was...a little too hasty. Patience is a virtue, after all, and, really, I should be taking the time to make sure I do things right. Wouldn’t you say, Shirakami-san, of the recently reformed hololive?”

Chapter Text

“...Ayakashi-san?”

The founder smiled.

“I don’t generally reveal my name to many people. But, yes. I am Uruha Ayakashi, the first necromancer. I don’t believe I know you, but seeing you there...you’re definitely one of my bloodline. If it’s any consolation, I’m sorry for being the reason you cannot enter Heaven.”

Rushia simply stared. The rest of the members present backed off, clearly sensing that this wasn’t their confrontation to have just yet; Rushia had by far the most personal reason for speaking to the other necromancer.

“Then why? Why do I only know your name from one of my friends being an angel? Why did they not bring your name up during my trial? Why have you done everything possible to never speak when your descendants are the ones feeling the consequences? You...have a lot to answer for. Explain why I have to track you down when you could’ve spoken to me. Because you seem to be very knowledgeable about many things, and I don’t believe you actually had no idea that I existed.”

Two members of the Uruha family simply stared at each other. Rushia in anger, and Ayakashi with rather casual indifference.

“There are many aspects to my story that I won’t share. That being said, I will say that...the angels have a rather fair reason to not bring my name up. Let’s just say that I’m a bit of a forbidden topic amongst their kind. That is to say that I would almost certainly be thrown into Hell if it weren’t for some rather large protective forces keeping me out of the wrong eyes.

“And that’s the thing, my dear Rushia. In particular, you had Kurumi as your judge, and, well, she holds a slight grudge. It’s for good reason; if I get re-trialed by her I’m almost certainly being sent downwards. But the result of that grudge is that she’s not likely to speak my name, and those who served under her are unlikely to speak my name, even if they’ve read up on the precedent my case has set. Understand that, while on a base level I am similar to your friend Haato - and Haachama - I am also very different. Haato’s personality was merged with another aspect of herself, while mine merged with a very powerful demon.”

Rushia’s anger softened.

“That only explains the angels. Besides, if you know you’re destined for the underworld, why don’t you just go there and save yourself the time? The angels are pretty thorough, last I’ve heard.”

Ayakashi laughed.

“Wow, I forget that new souls tend to think highly of angels. I guess it’s natural, given that you haven’t had as many issues with them as I have. In particular, I go a long way back with one angel in particular, which I’ve been...let’s say, a thorn in his side.”

Sora interrupted.

“The nameless one.”

“Precisely. There’s a reason I’ve been training you on your powers, Sora-chan, and it’s because if you can truly unlock the fullest extent of your powers, you will be perhaps the biggest pain for him to deal with. You’re the only person that he will not inflict any harm on for any reason. That is, physical harm - being forcibly uplifted into godhood would likely harm you in other ways.”

Sora paused.

That...makes sense, but…

“So...is that it, then? Am I just a tool for revenge?”

Ayakashi shook her head.

“Of course not. Coincidentally you also happen to be carrying that out, but the fact of the matter is you’ve been very happy with learning your powers otherwise, and the fact of the matter is that if you wish to confront him, unleashing your powers on him is the best way to do so.”

“Oh?”

“...I’m not qualified to explain why that’s the case, unfortunately.”

Sora rolled her eyes.

“I suppose you’re going to say only an angel could explain that.”

“Ask Moira about your inhibitor.”

Sora froze.

“How do you know this much about angels? You aren’t one yourself.”

“I’ve learned a lot about them in my thousands of years of trying to avoid them. Most of this information comes from one singular angel who, in many respects, is actually quite similar to me, though she’s obviously allowed in the heavenly realm and I am not. That would be Moira. She’s been quite helpful for me, and for you as well. Though, you’re probably now aware of why she doesn’t interact much. She’s very busy.”

Rushia snapped.

“She’s also not a giant pain to deal with! You haven’t explained why YOU’VE chosen to never interact with any of your friends or family. If you brought Sora here, obviously you could.”

Ayakashi shrugged.

“I feel you’re demonstrating why I don’t feel a pressing need to meet my family members. Because at the end of the day we’re accomplishing fairly little. I can feel your malice from here, Rushia, and I wish to ask that you don’t act on it.”

Rushia, her hair fully pink, took a step forward.

Fubuki paled.

“Um...what are you talking about?”

The nameless one shrugged.

“Do you take me for a fool? Because I’ve done my research. You’re Shirakami Fubuki, and you’re very good friends with the very person I’m trying to catch. You’re up here not because of idle fox-like curiosity, but because you’re trying to find anything you can do to help your friend.”

Fubuki took a moment to try and think.

What should I do now? I’m busted, and...well, I guess we just talk. Maybe we’re not as screwed as we think. Just keep calm...let’s just be honest for now.

"You’re right. I’m gonna be honest, I’m really tempted to fight you right now.”

“Please don’t. It’d be a waste of time, and you’d lose that fight for certain; I’m vastly more powerful than you think I am. If you want to be helpful, though, you could tell me where Sora is - I suspect you know.”

“And if you know I’m friends, you’d understand that...I’m...not...telling.”

Fubuki’s words slowed as her mind started to race. The nameless one was simply standing there, staring at Fubuki, and it was clear that he was not going to cause any physical harm.

And yet, Fubuki felt the presence of her own mind under stress; a huge mental pressure had been forced upon her train of thought, as if a thousand voices were all surrounding her, saying nothing but trying to push Fubuki’s mind into committing herself to one action: TELL HIM!

Fubuki refused. She was not going to sell out her friend, even as the pressure mounted-

Ookami Mio hugged Fubuki, and the pressure was relieved as she snapped out of the spell.

Fubuki breathed heavily. Despite the fact that no actual blows were exchanged, the mental pressure forced upon her was impressively draining. She leaned into Mio’s embrace, and sat there, just trying to relax her mind. She knew she wasn’t safe, but Mio had given her some breathing room, and she needed that.

“Ah, there we go. I knew she was there.”

Ayakashi frowned.

“Alright, then.”

She raised her hand and fired a spell. A single, wisp-like projectile fired out, directly hitting Rushia.

It didn’t seem to have much of an effect, until Rushia fell over, and was rendered unable to get up.

Ayakashi sighed.

“That spell, by the way, is the spiritual desynchronization, and one of my more specialized techniques. It essentially causes the magic that allows your spirit to pilot your body to stop working.”

Rushia, now on the ground, said nothing, but was still conscious.

“Now, let’s settle for a moment while-”

Ayakashi looked around, to several angry faces. While A-chan, possessing no supernatural abilities whatsoever, stood back, Ayakashi now stood surrounded by Suisei, Haato, Marine, Noel, Flare, and Watame, who all looked ready for battle. Reine had drawn Anya, though had taken a step back.

Sora just looked upset when she spoke.

“Please. She’s your family. I know it’s not fun when she’s angry at you, but you should try.”

Marine stepped back, turning to Rushia, to whom she whispered something.

Noel stepped forward.

“Let me make this clear: no matter how useful you might be to our cause, the fact of the matter is you have hurt a dear friend of mine. Neither me nor any knight of shirogane would be willing to just let that happen.”

“Actually, I’ve been doing my best to inflict as little pain as possible, but, yes, the sentiment is well understood. I am the aggressor here, from your perspective. Now, if you excuse me...”

Another figure landed beside her.

“Ah, hello, Nobuhime.”

The samurai once again drew her sword.

“For the record, Uruha-sama, I’m not going to defend you all that much. You really need to learn some tact. But, yes, Noel, I will draw my sword if you decide to fight. That goes to you as well, Reine.”

Reine responded, somewhat annoyed.

“You already drew your blade!”

“I didn’t say it was much of an if, given you have Anya drawn.”

“Okay, fair enough.”

The next thing that happened was that Noel and Flare both advanced together, Noel’s mace drawn and Flare’s hands on her bow. The two of them seemed to radiate powerful spiritual magic, with Noel looking more energetic and Flare’s stance looking more solid than normal.

Ayakashi’s eyes widened looking at the duo.

“The knight and the elf...the two of you have a bond that only truly entwined souls can master...and not one I would expect souls of the in-between to ever utilize. Still, that does make this conflict unfortunate. I’m not entirely sure I can actually avoid hurting you two if you’re like this; and I’d rather not do that. You’re clearly good souls.”

Ayakashi’s hands glowed pink, ready for another spell.

Nobuhime walked forward with her sword.

Reine’s hand ignited, preparing a fireball spell in one hand while holding Anya in the other.

“STOP!”

And then the scene froze as a sky blue aura washed out the area, which caused every single spell being prepared to immediately fizzle at once.

The nameless one continued to speak.

“I have to admit something to you: I’m very impressed.”

Fubuki and Mio both stared at the nameless one, who continued speaking.

“I can’t say that I’m too mad about the fact that we’re on opposite sides. If nothing else, you’ve certainly shown that you’re both very good souls.”

Mio responded, mostly confused.

“Um...aren’t we enemies, right now?”

“Yes, but the fact of the matter is that the two of you are very dedicated souls who are fiercely protective and loyal to your friends. That is generally considered a virtue, and you shouldn’t be ashamed of that fact.”

Fubuki, recovering enough to speak back, asked a question in response.

“You’ve been working against us, and yet you admit that we’ve done no wrong. What does this say about you?”

The nameless one smiled.

“Both of us have placed our faith in Tokino Sora. The thing is, the two of you, as her friend, have both placed your faith in Sora’s humanity. I have, as her uplifter, chosen to place my faith in her godhood. We will see who’s faith wins out in the end, though I suspect Sora will ascend, at the end of the day.”

Mio snarled.

“That’s because you’re forcing her!”

The nameless one shrugged.

“You say that...but I have my faith that, when I ask her to ascend, that she will do so entirely willingly. Though, previously, you were right; I did try to force the ascension early. You made me realize that I made a mistake. According to Moira - another seraph, though you might know of her now - I’m destined to make the mistake of trying to ascend her too early. I got too giddy at the prospect of joining Sora into the seraphim, and that led to this mess. I’m usually far more patient; it’s a virtue, after all.”

Mio snapped back.

“And why would Sora, who’s been historically more attached to her own humanity than any of us, willingly give it all up? She’s not going to surrender that easily; her willpower’s easily among the best of us.”

“That’s simple: she needs to finish the ascension, as she already has four blessings. She’s far too powerful to be let loose, and she needs the fifth blessing.”

Mio blinked.

“The fifth blessing?”

“Ascension grants the true final blessing of the angelic ascension: the blessing of inhibition, which prevents an angel from accessing the most extreme ends of their spiritual powers. Angels are generally very powerful, you see, but the fact of the matter is that it’s hard to control that level of power if you’re left to your own devices. Sora is perhaps the most powerful ascendant we’ve ever had, and she’s missing the blessing that allows her to keep control over herself. When I explain this to her, she’ll agree to ascend; she’s far too kind-hearted to let herself be a potential walking disaster zone. Now, I’ve already made my guesses on what Moira did, but I’d like the confirmation: where is Tokino Sora?”

Fubuki stared at Mio as the pressure upon her mind mounted. Mio did the same back. Neither of them wanted to give.

Tell him.

Fubuki and Mio turned, but the mental pressure continued, making even the act of running seemingly impossible.

Tell him!

Fubuki and Mio breathed heavily, as the pressure of a thousand voices all joined in unison.

TELL HIM!

Fubuki broke first.

“She’s in the in-between.”

And then, blessed silence. All it took was selling out her friend.

“For the record, I had already guessed, but I do wish to thank you for your compliance.”

And then he teleported out.

Mio held Fubuki, who cried.

“I just...I just...I just couldn’t handle it anymore. Sora’s no longer safe. And it’s all my fault.”

Mio frowned.

“Let’s just get home. We need to tell them what we know. Plus, we found out something rather important today.”

And with that, Mio and Fubuki turned to head back home.

Observing the entire interaction from a distance was a blue-haired seraph, who then also teleported out.

Sora, wings unfurled, cried silently while channeling a magical suppression field that nobody on the shrine grounds could overcome at all.

Nobuhime and Noel both took the hint, and lowered their weapons.

Sora spoke, breaking the silence.

“Please...we need to talk this out. Both Uruhas...neither of you are in the right mind. Both of you are attacking your own family, and I know you’re angry, but you have to be reasonable about this. Noe-chan, Flare-chan...I know you’re trying to defend our friends, but please, stop. Reine-chan, if you want to ask Ayakashi about Anya, you can’t be trying to destroy her.”

Anya’s voice responded to the comment.

“You know what? I’m not interested. I’m fine as a dagger for now, though, uh, I can’t really use my floaty powers right now, though that’s because nobody can use any actual magic right now.”

Everyone stood, entirely tense, but Sora was clearly not going to have any fighting going on at this moment.

A-chan spoke next, unimpressed.

“So, are we good?”

The response was mostly affirmative nods. At that point, Sora dismissed the suppression field, re-allowing the use of magic.

“Unfortunately, we are not, thanks to your friends messing things up slightly, which means I have to move my plan ahead of schedule.”

Sora turned around.

The new speaker was Moira, who had rather unexpectedly teleported in without any warning.

“Let’s cut to the chase: the nameless one’s figured out you’re in the in-between.”

Chapter Text

Sora felt physically sick, despite no longer having the reflex.

Ayakashi blinked.

“So...how long do you think we have to figure out an exit strategy?”

Moira looked seriously at the group.

“I don’t know. He won’t be slowed down by all that much, and given what he’s been up to, our first priority is keeping Sora as far away as possible from him; a direct confrontation will go somewhat badly for your friends, if my predictions are correct. There’s a lot of explanation you’re missing, and, to be honest, I don’t have time to explain it right now.”

Sora paused.

“Just what is your plan? You mentioned that you had to move it up because of our mistakes.”

Moira nodded.

“One of your friends in Heaven - Shirakami Fubuki - got a little too curious and ran into the nameless one. Being who he is, he got her to tell him where you were. He might not actually harm those who haven’t attacked him first, but believe me when I say he has tools that make it so he really doesn’t have to.”

Sora replied back.

“Alright, then, what’s the plan? Because I’m still lost here.”

“Honestly, I figure the plan is you all get teleported out of here. You finally found the last member of the group - Haato - which means you can finally start getting the group together. Especially since I might have helped one of your friends on a particular project, though funnily enough she’s not aware of that fact yet.”

Sora was confused.

“Which friend?”

“You’ll figure it out soon enough.”

Ayakashi snapped her fingers.

Kanata woke up, and Rushia got up, her body and spirit once again synchronized.

“Let’s make this quick, then. It’s been a joy meeting you, Haato, and similarly, Sora, but I know a hopeless fight when I see one, and as someone who’s avoided being sent to hell for messing with the angels for many years, I don’t intend to break that streak.”

Moira nodded.

“I still need you to not go to Hell, and while I made a point of making sure you’re not mentioned in history books, you still have a significant role in all of this. I’ve had to revise my plans thanks to what you girls are up to, but thankfully everything’s still going to plan - that is, my plan. Sadly, I won’t be able to help you any further, as I have a very specific role to play in all of what is about to happen.”

And with that, she teleported out.

Ayakashi rolled her eyes.

“Typical of her. She claims to have a grand plan, and then tells us we need to figure it out. Then again, I suppose the plan here is pretty simple: get out of here!”

“Leaving so soon?”

Ayakashi turned to face the speaker, as did Nobuhime and everyone else present, as the nameless one appeared before the group.

He seemed awfully smug for some reason, while Ayakashi grit her teeth.

The nameless one kept speaking.

“The irony is, Ayakashi, is that I’ve let you off the hook for all of your crimes against angel kind because I never considered it worth the effort to hunt down where you were truly hiding; and most lower-ranked angels can’t find the layer you’re hiding in. Clever trick, though it’s naturally useless against myself.”

Ayakashi played it casually.

“Well, for the most part, I’ve just enjoyed sneaking around - I’m not one for having much of a social life; though I feel circumstances mean we’ll be skipping the unpleasantries this time.”

“You made a mistake in hiding Sora. You see, I’m actually looking for her, and the fact is that you’ve given me ample motivation to hunt you down, except for the fact that actually my priority task isn’t dealing with you, so the double-irony is that you’re actually getting away with everything today. I’ll be back eventually.”

Nobuhime jumped, katana drawn.

“Oh no, you won’t!”

Everyone’s eyes widened as the nameless one conjured his own sword - this one, a long, shining claymore, a large western blade with elaborate runes carved into it.

He took a single swing at Nobuhime, who blocked it with her own sword.

She turned around.

“All of you! Get out of here!”

The nameless one turned to face his opponent.

“You won’t last long, you know.”

And, as if to prove his point, he raised his arm, which called a large beam of light from the sky, directly striking Nobuhime in a massive impact of holy energy.

Sora’s jaw dropped.

He defeated her that quickly?!

The smoke cleared, and, rather impressively, Nobuhime stayed standing.

“You’ll have to try a little harder than THAT.”

“Alright, then.”

He raised his arm, and then fired a beam of holy light magic from it, which Nobuhime attempted to block with her sword - and failed miserably as the beam blasted through her defense and launched her flying.

She landed back on her feet.

Ayakashi raised her hand, as it was fairly obvious Nobuhime was going to lose the battle.

All of the hololive members teleported out.

They arrived at Shirogane Keep.

Ayakashi smiled.

“While I know I haven’t made the best impression, I truly do believe in you girls. Good luck. My tale isn’t finished yet, it appears, but I feel you know your own capabilities better than I do. One last thing though: to the knight and the elf, I want to say that your bond might well be important in the coming days. That is all for now.”

She snapped her fingers, and teleported out.

Sora nodded.

“She’s done her part. Now it’s our turn. Actually, if we’re here...”

Sora pulled out her phone and read the conversation going on.

Sora landed a fair distance in front of Shirogane Keep. She wasn’t sure why; it was just instinct that told her this was where the confrontation was going to be. Noel and Flare were directly behind her, and the members of the 5th generation were all hiding much farther back, waiting for the cue to start.

A surprisingly long time later, a massive flash of light signaled the appearance of the nameless one.

Sora spoke first; she didn’t want the nameless one to put her on the defensive, even socially.

“Hello.”

“I suppose you’ve been waiting for me.”

Sora nodded.

“I’m surprised Nobuhime stalled you for that long.”

“Given who she’s trained under, you shouldn’t be. She’s surprisingly hard to make stay down when she’s determined to stay a thorn in someone’s side. Particularly if it’s mine.”

Sora smirked, unusually for her.

“I suppose we should talk, shouldn’t we?”

The world seemingly went silent as Sora considered her options, before deciding to go all-in:

“I don’t want to ascend.”

The nameless one shrugged.

“I thought you might say that. So let’s talk this out. Because, despite your defiance and misguided belief that you don’t want to ascend, I’m certain you’ve noticed certain aspects of your angel nature that are now becoming...problematic, if my predictions are correct.”

“My powers.”

“Yes. You see, ascension turns out to be important - there’s one last blessing you’re missing, and due to missing out on it, you’re down something that angels generally need to be functional members of heaven.”

“I don’t have an inhibitor.”

Sora smiled.

“I’m aware of that fact. And, you know, a few hours ago, I would’ve said yes...but my friends have agreed to be part of the line of fire if I ever lose it. They’re willing to be with me to the end, and I’m not willing to lose that.”

As if to make her point, Sora conjured her own blade: a thin longsword with a small, rather inelegant but functional cross-guard hilt, glowing blue.

Her first action was to plunge it directly into the ground in front of her, in a peaceful but otherwise determined stance.

The nameless one’s eyes widened, before his face resumed a relatively confident smile.

“Well, that makes things more interesting. I figured you’d bend over to me once you realized you needed to ascend to control yourself. Maybe you believe you can take control of your own destiny, but let me just get that out of the way: you can’t.”

Sora’s eyes narrowed.

“Hmm?”

“I think I’ve finally got it, you know. Moira’s been up to something. You’ve traded your subservience to me by becoming her pawn. You should join me; at least that way you’ll ascend into something far greater than you currently are.”

Sora flinched; he was right.

She dug her heels into the ground.

“And yet, O Nameless One, I believe in her more than you. And if you take one more step, I will start wielding my blade. I know you won’t punish me for this. You need me too much to ever send me to Hell...so I can defy you to the last straw if I have to.”

The nameless one responded by conjuring his own blade, a large claymore alight with golden holy magic.

“To be honest, I’d love to see just how powerful you are...to get a sense of just what you would be like once your ascension is complete. The fact of the matter is that, as you’ve attained the four blessings, I can attack you, and I know that you can take it. Your friends, on the other hand, might not.”

Noel drew her mace, and Flare drew her bow.

“Don’t count us out that easily. We’re not giving up.”

The nameless one sighed.

“Let’s play fair, shall we?”

He raised his hand, and a series of chains made of light magic appeared and immediately restrained both Noel and Flare.

Sora raised her sword, and charged.

Both blades clashed in an impressive display of swordsmanship; only this time it was the inverse of what Sora had trained for: her swordsmanship was more precisely trained, but the nameless one wielded far more power behind his strikes. Each blocked blow from Sora pushed her back, and both of them had wings, meaning neither could push a flight advantage.

The nameless one started charging a spell.

Sora recognized the charge from Nobuhime’s first battle; if she didn’t interrupt it there’d be a large beam of light concentrated on her. To counteract it, she charged him, sword in hand.

The nameless one countered by switching his sword stance to be entirely one-handed, blocking each of Sora’s strikes, before striking much harder to push Sora back right as the spell finished.

Sora closed her eyes, and invoked a suppression field.

A massive beam of light emerged from the sky, slamming into the suppression field, and then into Sora afterwards, striking the ground with such force as to leave a small crater.

Sora got up.

The nameless one spoke.

“You should be grateful that you’re an angel right now. That would’ve hit a lot harder if you weren’t. I’m also very impressed at that suppression field - though, you’re a little too weak for that technique to be of use against me. Let’s see if you can handle it when I actually use my full power on the thing.”

He once again started charging a spell.

Sora’s eyes widened. The first hit was hard enough, but if-

The sounds of a chain shattering was heard.

“What?”

And then suddenly he was taken down by Noel punching him really hard.

“Argh! How could a human break those chains?!”

Sora laughed.

“Noel’s really strong like that. You do well not to underestimate her.”

“Fine, then. Noel, was it? You made a grave mistake in attacking me. You’re unexpectedly powerful, but you’re still nothing compared to me.”

Noel smirked.

“This isn’t about strength. It’s about will. And we have a lot more of that than you.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes!”

The reply wasn’t from Noel.

It was Momosuzu Nene, who had landed in front of the nameless one.

Lamy walked up beside Nene, her hands glowing blue with ice magic.

And in the distance, the Botanx, piloted by both Botan and Polka, took a giant step, aiming its artillery cannons towards the battlefield.

Flare, still bound by magical chains, spoke.

“Our bond is too strong to be defeated by simply being overpowered.”

And, as if the universe wanted to make a point, somehow Flare did the impossible and shattered the chains binding her, as if she somehow gained Noel’s strength.

Noel grinned as her hands somehow lit up with elven fire magic.

“So bring it on, O Nameless One. Let’s see how powerful you really are.”

Chapter Text

The nameless one blinked.

“Are you sure you want to do this? I don’t really have much of a quarrel with anyone here. I’m just here to get Sora back up to Heaven like she should be.”

Flare ignited the end of the arrow currently on her bow with fire.

“Have you considered that you’re the reason she hasn’t gone back up yet?”

“I suppose that’s a sticking point, but what I’m trying to say is that you all have a perfectly good chance to not attack me. You don’t want to see first hand what happens to those who try.”

Nene grinned.

“And what if I do? I’m ready for round two!”

Nene jumped, bear claws extended.

The nameless one swung his sword impossibly fast, hitting Nene with the blunt end of the blade rather than the edge, knocking her away and down into the ground.

He turned around just in time to see Flare fire several arrows, all lit with fire strike him. In the split second that they traveled the distance, a glowing magical barrier seemingly made out of light appeared, each arrow harmlessly bouncing off.

“It’s no use. All you’ve done is resign yourself to an unfortunate fate. Your loyalty is to be commended, but this was a very foolish decision on your part.”

Noel jumped, her hands alight with fire.

Once again, the nameless one raised his hand rather casually to block with another barrier, only Noel punched hard enough aided magically to leave cracks in the barrier.

The nameless one’s eyes widened, and then relaxed again.

“That’s...impressive. That’s a bond that I thought only the angels could master. At the very least, it’s considered native to Heaven...truly, you would’ve made fine angels in a few years from now. I suppose mistakes happen, but it’s unfortunate that we’re on opposite sides.”

He raised his hand again, and from it fired another beam of light energy, blasting Noel and knocking her back as well.

Surprisingly enough, though, Noel stood on her feet, despite the hit. She smirked.

“You do well not to underestimate that very bond. Flare’s spirit...in life, we found each other, and supported each other to the end. And in death, we also found each other, and we’ll continue to support each other - physically, mentally, and even spiritually. My strength is Flare’s, and her’s is mine, as well. And if you hurt any of us...we’ll both be there too.”

“Let’s see how far that really goes, shall we?”

Lamy smiled.

“The answer is: a lot.”

Lamy, who had been preparing her spell since the very start of the fight, raised her arms and cast her spell, encasing and trapping the nameless one in a rather dense block of ice, freezing him entirely.

She looked to Sora, the implications clear.

Run.

Sora flew off.

Noel and Flare both stared at the ice, looking at each other with a shared sentiment, while Nene got up once again.

It can’t be that easy.

Rather suddenly, the colours washed out, and the ice dissolved; at the same time, both Flare and Noel’s fire magic fizzled out, as did Lamy’s ice magic.

The nameless one flew into the air with a confident smile, while his blade was gone - clearly he felt he was done using it.

“So, impressive spiritual magic you have there. But I know you’re stalling me, and I don’t plan to stick around too much longer. I don’t know why you try; I have my angelic strength, and you’re cut off from your magical-”

That was far as he got into the sentence before a high explosive round from the main long-range cannon of the botanx hit him, unloading the payload in exactly the way it was designed for: explosively.

Nene cheered; she couldn’t think of a more deserving way for him to go out.

The smoke cleared.

The nameless one was still airborne, but was visibly damaged and now was now audibly annoyed.

“Even if you’re aware of the fact you can’t die, how can you possibly care this little about your well-being? You know having your body physically destroyed - which will happen if you keep going - is generally unpleasant, right?”

Noel smiled.

“And yet, it’s worth it for a cause such as this. I said to bring it on, and so far I’d like to think we’re keeping up.”

The nameless one flew up into the air, and dismissed his own suppression field.

Nene took the opportunity to strike. She looked at Noel, who got the hint, and threw her into the air towards the nameless one, bear claws raised and ready to hit as she re-conjured her wings from Heaven.

The nameless one aimed downwards, and unleashed a powerful shockwave of light, blasting Nene point-blank and sending her right into the ground at a high enough velocity to shatter bones.

Nene attempted to get up, then stumbled as she tried to rebalance off the parts of her body that were no longer capable of supporting weight, experimenting with how she could stand.

Lamy ran over to Nene’s body, and helped prop up Nene with the leg that she visibly could no longer stand with.

“Nenechi, stay with me.”

“I’m...not giving up yet! Super Nenechi never surrenders!”

The nameless one sighed, and started conjuring a spell slowly.

“Let’s end this, shall we?”

Another long range explosive round from the botanx hit the nameless one, but surprisingly he kept focus through the hit.

“JUDGEMENT!”

Several beams of light came down and bombarded the four members that were on the ground.

Noel grabbed Flare as one of the beams came down directly on the two, and Lamy similarly with Nene.

Flare got up, surprisingly able to recover, as did Noel, as they ran over to Lamy and Nene, who were visibly much worse off.

Noel frowned.

“I think we’ve gotta fall back. I hate to admit it, but I don’t think we can really fight him - the botanx so far is the only thing that he hasn’t just completely shrugged off. That, and we’ve got to get Nene somewhere safe for now. I’ll keep him distracted while-”

Nene just looked at Noel, her face determined despite her body having taken severe injuries.

“I’m not leaving yet. I’m staying until the end...”

Lamy looked to Flare, and then to Noel.

They got the message, and once again both Noel and Flare took combat stances.

The nameless one, on the other hand, had decided to focus down his primary source of incoming damage.

He slowly conjured another spell; this one a direct, massive beam of light aimed towards the botanx.

From the pilot’s seat, Botan looked to Polka, her co-pilot.

Polka was busy being in a screaming panic, while Botan simply remained cool.

“It was nice while it lasted. You’re a great co-pilot, Polka.”

The beam hit with such force as to rip right through the Botanx, annihilating both the head of the mech and the physical bodies of both pilots. What was left of the botanx collapsed.

The nameless one looked down to see both Lamy and Nene directly beneath him.

“Let’s clean up the mess.”

And fired another beam downwards.

Lamy conjured a dome made out of ice with her magic as a last ditch effort to protect herself and Nene.

The ice cracked.

Lamy looked at Nene, tears in her eyes, as she cradled Nene’s already broken body.

“Nenechi…I’m sorry. We’re not going to make it.”

Nene looked back, and smiled.

“Sora-senpai got away, didn’t she…?”

The ice shattered. The beam crashed into the ground, dispersing itself in a large explosion, destroying both Lamy and Nene’s bodies, though not their spirits.

Noel and Flare, both having resumed combat stances, looked at each other, and then back to the nameless one, who lowered himself to meet the two of them.

“I tire of this fight. Sora, why don’t-”

He realized Sora was missing as he looked around.

“Well, that’s slightly annoying. She really thinks I can’t track her down, doesn’t she? Anyways, let’s deal with you two.”

He stared at Noel and Flare as his hands glowed with holy light.

“It’s unfortunate that I have to do this to souls such as yours. Tell Kurumi I said hi; you’ll know what that means fairly shortly.”

Sora landed in Himemori Luna’s castle, the gates having been opened for her. She had carried A-chan with her, hoping that if nothing else, she had somewhere to stay while Sora once again attempted to go into hiding.

Putting A-chan down, she took a quick bow, and then they kept running inwards, deeper into the castle.

“You’ve been such a great friend for putting up with...everything that’s been going on. Take care of them, will you?”

A-chan blinked.

“What do you mean, ‘them’?”

“I’ve got to go run off again.”

The voice of the castle’s princess was heard.

“Sora-senpai...don’t go. I know you’re scared, but...”

Luna’s voice sounded surprisingly shaky.

The voice of her consort, Natsuiro Matsuri, also added to the conversation.

“Hide in the castle’s basement for now. Kanata’s down there, and it also has a secret back door out of the castle - you’ll know it when-”

The sound of an explosion cut their trains of thought.

A-chan ran to the nearest window, to find both the Pekodam and Mikochar mechs flying, with both of them armed, and both of them aiming their armaments at the nameless one, who had caught up to the city that surrounded the castle.

“You’ve got to be kidding me - all of those powers and he’s also a faster flyer?”

Sora nodded sadly.

Haato rather suddenly walked past the four of them.

A-chan pointed out the rather obvious issue with her appearance - she was left behind at Shirogane Keep.

“Wait, Haachama? How are you over here?”

“Haachama-chama!”

A-chan rolled her eyes, because the so-called ‘strongest idol’ appeared to think that was actually an explanation.

Knowing her, that might well qualify as one, somehow.

Sora smiled.

“Let’s just say she’s been experimenting with her other half, and you do well not to underestimate her.”

Unlike the botanx, which was primarily a long-range offensive mech and had few abilities in the mobility department, both Pekora and Miko’s mechs were far more robust, being both faster moving and more defensively capable.

Which is to say, surprisingly enough they were still in the fight.

Both Pekora and Miko armed the main weapons of their respective mechs, and continued firing. A series of explosions engulfed the nameless one in what in most fights against a human-sized target would be considered entirely overkill.

This was not most fights. A beam of light emerged from the large cloud of smoke where multiple missiles had once hit, slamming into the shield of the Mikochar.

Miko smiled confidently; these mechs were defensively capable.

“I knew I installed the shield for a reason! I AM A GENIUS!”

She then panicked as she saw every single shield indicator telling her that said shield was failing badly.

“OH NO!”

On voice communication with Pekora, she shouted one message: “CATCH ME!”

She then pressed the emergency eject button.

Thank goodness I installed that thing.

Within seconds, she launched out of the Mikochar as the remnants of her old mech were blasted mercilessly, falling into the city below and taking out the roof of some building she didn’t recognize.

Well, that was fun while it lasted…

She then saw the Pekodam position itself underneath her, with the hatch opened, allowing her to land in the co-pilot’s seat beside Pekora.

“Caught you peko!”

Miko smiled.

“Good going, Peko-chan. Lesson learned: we need to not get hit by any of the really big lasers; we can’t handle those. I think our shields can take his weaker attacks, though.”

Pekora smiled.

“Well, at least we’re not outmatched entirely peko. In fact, it might be a better idea to close in on him!”

The Pekodam raised its arm, and conjured a massive energy blade. It then flew forward, swinging the blade at the nameless one.

He, in turn, conjured his much more human sized blade, which somehow blocked the entire blow, blocking with such force as to knock the Pekodam’s blade back.

Pekora’s eyes widened.

“How?!”

The nameless one flew around the Pekodam faster than it could turn around, sword in hand.

When he got to the engines, he swung his blade. A powerful shockwave of holy magic was emitted from the swing, blasting the Pekodam from behind.

And just like that, the Pekodam started losing flight. Not done with that, the nameless one flew over the head of the mech, and with his angelic strength, punched the mech, denting the head and also sending it flying into the ground.

“OH NO PEKO!”

Miko silently reached her hand out to hold Pekora’s, right up to the point where the Pekodam smashed into an empty street in the city below them, facing upwards.

Pekora and Miko reoriented themselves, both shaken heavily from the impact.

“Ugh...Miko-senpai, I don’t think this is working…”

Miko looked around, and decided to see what systems of the Pekodam were still operational.

Most of them weren’t, but…

Oh hey, TNT cannon’s still okay.

“Pekora-chan, permission to fire the TNT cannon.”

“Permission granted!”

Miko smiled, and then adjusted the settings to launch all of the explosive projectiles at once.

“Let’s give him an elite surprise gift!”

And with that, a large bundle of explosive ordinance was launched directly upwards, where it detonated mid-air.

“HA↑HA↓HA↑HA↓HA↑HA↓HA↑HA!”

“Even in defeat, we still got him with that!”

Pekora hit the escape hatch button. It was time to get out, since all mobility systems were compromised from impact.

And then nothing happened.

Miko commented: “I think we took too much structural damage from both impact and from getting hit on the head the first time. I think we’re trapped for now.”

“Well, at least we actually took him out first, so we’re not actually in danger...right?”

Miko looked very nervous, and Pekora suddenly realized they might still be doomed.

The smoke cleared, and the nameless one stayed afloat, though visibly much worse for wear with the large explosion that he had recently been right next to.

And he was charging what looked to be a very powerful laser spell.

Pekora broke at that moment.

“I don’t wanna die again. Please, I don’t wanna die. Do something, Miko-senpai!”

Miko just looked down.

“Pekora-chan...I think this is it for now. I don’t know what will happen next, but…”

Pekora held her head in her hands, waiting for the end.

Miko undid her seat belt, and then climbed over to Pekora’s seat, reaching to the rabbit girl’s hands with her own, their faces close together.

Pekora looked up, directly into Miko’s eyes.

“Miko-senpai…”

Miko had tears in her eyes.

“Pekora-chan...can I do something really selfish, before it all ends?”

Pekora cried, but understood what Miko wanted in these last moments. All of their stupid arguments, social awkwardness, and their so-called great war lead to this moment, where they would stand together.

“If it’s the end for us…then say it...”

Miko smiled.

“Pekora-chan…I love you.”

Miko initiated a kiss as a large beam of light struck the Pekodam, annihilating its head, and then both of its occupants’ physical bodies.

The nameless one turned around to face the castle.

“Impressive fighting. It wasn’t enough, but impressive nonetheless.”

And then he flew towards the castle.

Now that he no longer had anyone attacking him, he could cast a few spells that ordinarily had impractically long cast times.

Such as, in this particular case, a large area barrier.

No escape this time.

In the basement of Luna’s castle, while searching for the back door, Sora and Kanata felt the barrier, though only Kanata recognized it.

A-chan looked at the two angels.

“What just happened?”

Kanata fell down slowly to a sitting position on the floor, looking defeated.

“He’s encircled the castle with a barrier. We can’t escape. We’re done. It’s over. I’m so sorry, Sora-senpai...but you know, at least we’re angels. We’ll probably get taken back up to Heaven together if I don’t lose my wings over this.”

Over in Luna’s castle, the remainder of the hololive resistance all took stances in the throne room. If the nameless one fought indoors, he wouldn’t have a flight advantage, meaning all of the more human members had a much better chance of actually being able to hit him.

At least, that was the theory.

Suisei held an axe over her shoulder, ready to swing.

Roboco’s arm was transformed into some sort of blaster.

Shion had her magic ready, and Aqua was mostly just hiding behind her.

Marine had her sword drawn, and Rushia’s hair was already preemptively turned pink, in preparation to use her powers.

Ina, Gura, Moona, Risu, Iofi, and Reine, wielding Anya, stood in front of the throne.

Luna sat on her throne, with Watame and Matsuri taking the left and right of the royal seat.

Haato was mysteriously missing.

The doors were forced open by angelic magic.

“Let’s cut to the-”

“Oh, I’ll cut you alright.”

Suisei hadn’t waited, and swung her axe with impressive speed.

It wasn’t fast enough, however, and the next thing she was aware of was being blasted by holy energy, knocking her into the floor, followed by being bound by magical chains of light that prevented her from moving, though her physical body was still intact enough for her to be conscious.

“I can understand those with spiritual or mechanical assistance, but you, a human? That is truly foolish of you. You should practice taking care of yourself before trying to protect others.”

Despite the injury, Suisei gave him a look of pure murderous intent.

Roboco fired a long range sniper-like beam weapon, and then found herself also blasted by a ray of holy energy, followed by being chained to the floor. Her diagnostics told her she was badly damaged, even from just that single strike.

“Given that you will not naturally recover your damage if I destroy your body, I’d think you’d be a little more cautious. Here’s my compromise: I’ll leave you damaged, but at least you can most likely be repaired from what I just did to you.”

Ina, Gura, Aqua, Shion, Marine, and Rushia were all then forced to the walls, and then were chained to said walls, rendered immobile before they could even attack, though they were all left uninjured otherwise.

The members of hololiveID were next, Reine having barely swung Anya before she too was forced to the wall.

The nameless one shrugged.

“I don't want to fight anyone else. You know by now what I’m here for.”

Anya flung herself towards him.

He caught Anya by her blade end mid-air, and then threw her back so hard that her blade embedded itself into the wall.

“Impressive trick for a spirit who resides in a dagger.”

He then turned to Rushia, who was also giving him a murderous look.

“Ah, Uruha’s descendant. I’d recommend not following her example. Anyways, I-”

His adept angel senses allowed him to realize that a blonde girl had somehow snuck up on him impossible fast.

Turning around, he blocked the attack with a magical barrier, and then blinked as he realized there was now a frying pan embedded into the barrier, which had visibly cracked.

“Okay, Shirogane I can understand pulling that off, but how could you swing a frying pan with that much force? No human can do that!”

Haachama smiled.

“Haachama-chama!”

The nameless one smiled.

“Cute. It won’t save you, spirit. I see you’re Uruha Ayakashi’s successor in the ‘being difficult for the angels’ department, as if we needed another one. Anyways, I don’t really need to harm you, so...”

Another set of chains wrapped around the empty space where Haachama was a split-second ago.

“What? How are you-”

A frying pan smacked him on the back of the head with such force as to throw him forwards.

“Aren’t you human?!”

Haato’s soft smile reflected back.

“I, Akai Haato, am completely human.”

Haato’s faced refocused into the crazed expression on Haachama.

“Haachama, on the other hand, is something else! I don’t know WHAT I am, but you better watch out, as I-”

“-have just spent far too long talking.”

Haachama looked around, and then realized that her arms and legs had just been bound by magical chains.

The path to the throne was open. Only Matsuri, Watame, and Luna were left standing, and they all looked terrified.

The nameless one smiled in a pleasant manner that entirely contradicted what had just happened.

“Well, that was messy, but I’m sure we can overlook that. Let’s just get this over with; I’m only going to ask once, and I know she’s in the castle somewhere: where is Sora?”

Sora looked up at A-chan in a sad sort of look.

A-chan just sighed.

“Could we get warped back to Heaven?”

Sora shook her head.

“You think we can escape from him up in his own realm? We’ll just be repeating this again, and it’ll go even less well.”

“Then where the hell are we going to go? The castle isn’t that large.”

Kanata froze.

“That’s it.”

A-chan blinked.

“What is?”

“Hell! Get in the chatroom right now!”

Sora and A-chan pulled out their phones, in one last desperate bid to escape.

The nameless one walked into the basement area the three members were hiding in, and then looked around.

He sensed the magical aura inside the area.

“That’s a summoning...and the only place to go would be Heaven. Do they think they can escape by getting summoned back to my native realm of all places?”

He dismissed the barrier and all magical enchantments he had laid.

“Well, that does mean we can get back to where I should be, anyway.”

And then he teleported out.

Sora, Kanata, and A-chan arrived in Hell.

Sora blinked, as did Kanata.

Kanata looked at Sora, and spoke.

“Okay, so we probably have a few weeks before we’re likely both completely bedridden. You might end up lasting longer than me because you’re more powerful, but honestly I don’t know; underworld affliction isn’t well documented because angels don’t go down here.”

“Ahem.”

The interruption to the conversation was a voice that could only belong to one person: Kiryu Coco.

“So, care to explain to me what the fuck just happened?”

Chapter Text

Noel and Flare woke up in a court building’s lobby, their bodies regenerated and souls intact.

They immediately hugged upon seeing each other.

Looking around, they saw that they weren’t the only members present. The four members of the 5th generation of hololive were huddled together, and both Miko and Pekora were sitting down on chairs beside each other, mostly looking awfully depressed.

Their faces reminded Noel and Flare of a brutal fact: the reality was that they had lost badly, and the worst part was that the eight of them who had been resummoned into the angelic courts once again had no idea if they had bought enough time for Sora to escape. They might have, for all they knew; but it was also equally possible that Sora was now being forcibly ascended. They didn’t know, and that fact weighed them down far worse than the thought of being sent to Hell.

The two of them waited, and watched as Pekora and Miko were both taken out to go further into the building, presumably for a trial.

Tell Kurumi I said hi.

And there lied the insult to injury; the nameless one clearly knew that he was sending the eight of them right into Kurumi’s courtroom, right into the hands of the infamously most unfriendly rules-strict judge.

Flare spoke rather casually.

“Well, we might be about to get thrown into Hell for attacking a seraph, but it was worth it if I get to do it with you.”

Noel smiled.

“Maybe we can argue that we were doing it to protect another angel.”

Kanata looked nervously at Coco, while Sora and A-chan just sighed instead.

Kanata spoke.

“It’s...a bit of a messy story, but, well, the long story short is that the nameless one found out where we were hiding, we ran away, some of friends defended us, he utterly destroyed all of them in combat, and then we desperately requested a summon from you before he caught up to us. I can’t fight him because he can possess my body via word of the seraphim. We’re hiding here until underworld affliction gets both me and Sora.”

The flash of pure rage on Coco’s face was visible for a second, but she then managed to dial it back to a mere look of anger, and then to a surprisingly wholesome and caring look.

“Well, Kanatan, if you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask. You’ll be staying in my bed, especially if you end up like Ayame did.”

Kanata froze.

Coco answered the unspoken question: “I know you well enough to know that you were gonna ask.”

Kanata nodded, and responded.

“I mean, I don’t really need sleep anymore, but eventually I’ll be too weak to really do much, so I appreciate the fact you’d be willing to give up your bed for me.”

“Who said anything about giving it up? There’s room for both of us.”

Sora and A-chan both laughed at that comment.

And then paused as Sora realized that she was most likely going to need a bed to stay in shortly herself.

“Ah, Coco-chan, I wanted to ask, is this place yours?”

“Technically it’s Mel’s, but I don’t think she’ll particularly care where you sleep. She’s a vampire, her sleep cycle really isn’t if she wants it to be that way. Thinking of the rest of us, we need to get online - I imagine the rest of our friends who aren’t aware of what you just did are probably freaking out a little.”

Suisei was angry beyond belief. She didn’t necessarily want to describe it out loud, but presently her thoughts were right now of trying to picture what it would be like to outright see the nameless one’s body in a state that would generally be considered mortally lethal.

She was still fond of the idea of putting an axe through him. She just needed some way to catch him off-guard.

Given what Sora-chan has said about angel senses, that might be difficult...I might need help here.

The rest of the members in Luna’s castle were mostly trying to comfort the princess the castle was named after.

No one enjoyed listening to Luna cry, and she was currently bawling her eyes out while being held by Matsuri, who was also crying, just not as loudly.

There wasn’t much they could do, however. The awful truth was that nothing they could do worked; he’d bested the strongest weapons they had available: The Pekodam and Mikochar mechs. While it was clear that they put up a solid fight, they had still lost handily, and now they were down eight members of hololive until reincarnation; their fates left unknown until they appeared once again.

Roboco, still badly damaged but with all personality components unharmed, got a ping from her phone.

“...girls, I know that everything’s kind of bad right now, but you need to get online.”

The nameless one teleported back to the temple grounds empty handed.

Where IS she?

“So, how’s the search going?”

Moira’s comment sounded awfully smug for some reason.

He turned to face Moira, the goddess of destiny.

“I suppose you’d somehow already know. Foresight was your strength, not mine.”

“You really could’ve asked for my advice, you know. Going down that early was a mistake. Then again, being hasty has always been the root cause of nearly all of your problems; but I have to say, I do admire your drive when it isn’t misdirected.”

The nameless one sighed.

“You’re one to talk. Aren’t you supposed to use the essence of destiny for the sake of guiding souls along the right path? I hope you realize that eight girls have likely just put themselves into the underworld today. Or at the very least, put a serious mark on their records.”

“I never interfered with their actions directly. I’ll admit they’ve thrown a few wrenches in my plans, too. Though, really, you say that, but the fact of the matter is that they were defending their friends and home territory from you. Even if you’re an angel, you did appear to be the bad guy in this scenario - in fact, they were even defending another angel in fighting you. That’s gotta count for something, right?”

“Sora hasn’t ascended yet.”

Moira shrugged.

“Fair enough. I’m not going to fight you on that; mostly because I don’t have any combat magic. And, I will admit that not all of the girls are getting back to the afterlives they were originally sent to. Still, you may want to have some patience. You might be making a huge mistake.”

The nameless one stared back.

“Regardless of how it looks, the angels are categorically always in the right; we’re above the mortals. I lead the angels, and thus I am in the right.”

Moira sighed.

“I suppose that’s where we differ in opinions. Holding the angels as absolutely pure isn’t really my stance on things. You really should see the new kids nowadays; it’s amazing watching the angels be so friendly with people. It didn’t use to be like that. I don’t wanna say it, but I dare say you might be out of touch.”

“Possibly. It’s been thousands of years since I’ve had an opportunity like this. Fate owes me my dues, given how long I’ve planned this one.”

“You have to know by now that the fates aren’t friendly to you.”

The nameless one sighed.

“Fate can’t hold out forever, though. I’m owed this ascension after how long I’ve been planning for it. It’s perfect; I’ve waited millenia for a host as perfect as her. Then again, that might be my hastiness talking.”

Moira smiled unusually pleasantly.

“You know what? You’re right. It’ll be a little while - well, unless the fates change once again, which has been happening an awful lot recently - but one of these days you’re going to get what you want. And fate is going to hand you exactly what you deserve.”

“Hmm. I feel like you’re objecting to my plan.”

“Maybe I am.”

Down in the underworld, Sora finished recounting the tale of how she and Kanata got down there, the two of them lying on a couch with A-chan while she talked about the adventure, while those present simply watched.

“...and that’s when Kanata just realized that Hell was our escape route. It bought us...however long we get until underworld affliction leaves us both bedridden. Probably a couple of weeks, if I’m correct, though the condition isn’t studied very much.”

Everyone just stared at her.

She looked around the room and then stared into Ollie’s eyes.

A-chan and Kanata both moved off the couch, leaving Sora alone as Ollie leaped in an impressively fast tackle hug motion.

“SORA-SENPAAAAAAAAAAAAAI!”

Sora was, for once, glad for angelic endurance and the fact that underworld affliction hadn’t actually gotten bad yet.

“Well, Ollie-chan. How are you doing-”

“I’m just fine! I wanna know how YOU’RE doing!”

“I mean, I’m right here. I’ll probably be fine until I get sick, basically.”

Coco stared at Sora, unimpressed with the deflection.

“I think she means, like, how are you feeling about everything.”

Sora paused.

“Tired, mostly. Whose bed isn’t occupied right now?”

Amelia Watson walked out.

“Mine, because I am restless for having not gotten out of bed for days due to, well, you know, the manner in which I got freed.”

Sora smiled.

“I knew you’d be fine. Still, thank you - though I’ll need a more permanent one once I inevitably become bedridden.”

Ayame frowned.

“We can’t get you out of here before that happens?”

Sora nodded.

“I can leave whenever necessary - just a summon request to one of the members up above, it’s just that being in the same realm as the nameless one is a rather bad idea right now. I mean, if you guys want me to ascend to godhood, I’ll do it, but I don’t think you guys actually want that.”

A lot of awkward looks went around the room from that.

“Thought so. A-chan, what do you wanna do right now?”

“Honestly? Sleep. It’s been way too long a day for all of this.”

“Sounds good enough to me. Though, that does bring us back to-”

Ollie interrupted loudly.

“Use MY bed! It’s a really large one!”

A-chan smirked.

“Dare I ask how many people you’ve dragged into it?”

“Just me! I can’t get anyone else for some reason!”

Choco, for whatever reason, continued to look very amused.

A-chan noticed this, and then asked: “So, what’s so amusing to you right now?”

“I’m just appreciating the fact that we don’t need to ask where Kanata-senpai is sleeping.”

A-chan smiled amusingly at that fact.

Coco looked really smug for some reason, while Kanata tried not to blush.

She failed.

Noel and Flare walked into the courtroom. They were the last to be called up; the six other members who had been physically destroyed and reincarnated had gone before the two of them.

Walking into the courtroom, they found Kurumi at the judge’s bench, as expected. Unusually, though, she seemed rather off-put by something.

Flare paused.

I don’t think she really wants to condemn us, does she…?

Noel also took a moment to parse the situation.

She’s going to follow the rules, no matter what...but something’s instilling a sense of doubt here.

Flare almost worked up the courage to ask a question when Kurumi started the proceedings.

“Before we begin, I would like to take a moment to inform you that all of your friends who entered previously were sent to the in-between. The verdict is public, and it was on their request that I inform you of this fact.”

Noel and Flare both breathed a large sigh of relief. That meant they weren’t being kicked into Hell; as if Miko and Pekora weren’t, then the two of them were certainly safe.

“I will also admit, however, before we begin, that this trial is very, very, unusual. For starters, I was called out of retirement for it. As in, specifically out; it was order from the seraphim, the very top of the angel hierarchy, that made me take the case.

“In addition to that, it’s an appeal - that is, a trial carried out by someone who had already gone to a realm but is now being judged on the possibility of being transferred - and it’s for a pair that died only recently; normally it’s many years between appeals, owing to the nature of eternal timespans.

“Back to where we were, however, the oddities don’t end there. You may have noticed we called the two of you together, and that’s because we are handling your trials together; as in, we’re handling the two of you as a single verdict; even though many pairs of souls - or in some rare cases, more than a pair, but that’s besides the point - are naturally entwined, usually by statue the verdicts are separate. There is one exception, and that is in the case of a soul bind; a special bond two souls can share that was theorized to be only possible by angels that nonetheless the two of you share.”

Noel and Flare looked at each other.

Noel asked the obvious question.

“I think I’ve had this mentioned to us; it was our special bond, but...what is a soul bind, and why is it so rare?”

Kurumi raised a single finger.

“I’ll actually save the explanation for later, because it’s a vital part of your final verdict. That’s already been determined, though it’s actually even weirder than you think it’s going to be. So, let’s begin. We’re only going to deal with what has happened since the last time you were here. And, normally, this would be where I frown and inform you that attacking a seraph is actually a crime in the angel hierarchy.

“But this case got weirder still, because a different seraph gave me yet another order: You and all other members of hololive, plus a few other actors involved, are officially pardoned for the crime of attacking a seraph. You will not be punished for doing what you did on that battlefield.”

Noel and Flare jaw-dropped. This explained how everyone got sent back to the in-between; at the end of the day, Moira had pardoned all of them for fighting the nameless one.

She really is on our side.

“And that’s where this case somehow goes from strange to so weird that I’d be tempted to retire on to avoid this trial if I weren’t ordered to take it by word of the seraphim. Shirogane-san, Shiranui-san, do you remember your first trial, and what kept you out of Heaven?”

Noel nodded.

“I said that I didn’t want to go to Heaven without Flare...who’s now officially my wife.”

Flare smiled happily at the comment.

Kurumi nodded.

“Now it’s time to bring in the soul bind, because that’s the real factor that determines your fate here. A soul bind is a special bond where the spirits of the two souls in the soul bind will actually disassociate with their host bodies, essentially leaving their spiritual essences to be part of the other soul within the soul bind. Or, to put it in more human terms: the two of you managed to separate your spirits from your body as to leave parts of your spiritual selves remaining within each other. Think of a Yin-Yang symbol, if you know what that looks like.”

Noel and Flare looked at each other.

Noel spoke first, smiling.

“I never would’ve guessed...but it explains a lot. And I feel that bond, too. Flare’s special to me.”

Flare smiled, and continued.

“Noel’s strength is my strength; my pain is also hers. But what’s the relevance here?”

“Both of you had a clean bill of karma and yet got denied entry into Heaven. The reason is because you both requested it, but also because to make it into Heaven you must fully realize the nature of the dual-self; you must come to terms with the fact that your old self is deceased and that, while you still exist, your spirit is wholly separate from the physical body you wield. This transition is hard to get; and you must have it accepted to be allowed into Heaven.

“However, you two didn’t just accept that you weren’t your previous physical selves. Your love for each other quite literally transcended the concept of physical selves entirely. This is why it was theorized as something only the angels could do, because former mortals haven’t typically let go of themselves by enough of a margin to transcend to the point of accepting somebody else as part of oneself to a spiritual level. And even most angels can’t; your bond is that deep.

“This is why your trial is being conducted as a singular verdict. The two of you have a bond that can’t be separated very easily, and even though we’re most likely capable of doing so, the act of separating a bond that special would be unconscionable.”

Noel and Flare continued to smile together.

And then Flare came to the realization.

“Wait, if that clears up everything, does that mean that we’re...actually moving UP?!”

Kurumi looked utterly puzzled, but continued speaking.

“I mean, look at this way: the two of you engaged in combat together to save friends and people who are effectively family, against an impossibly strong opponent, and yet you kept fighting even knowing it was hopeless, just to buy your friend every last second you could get for her. If everyone involved were mortal, that would be a pair of classically heroic deaths.

“This means that, somehow, by committing an actual crime against the angels, you’re now being sent to Heaven. You committed crimes against a seraph, the highest rank of angel, and got sent to Heaven for it. In fact, your bill of karma is even more glowing than it was previously, taking the crime out of the equation. I have no words for how unbelievably weird this case is.

“I promise you, as your judge, I did not give you any favoritism or any sort of deliberate bias. This completely absurd result is actually what I get by following the rules entirely as written.”

Noel and Flare jaw-dropped.

“Enjoy your new afterlife. By the way, please don’t fight the angels; I can’t see it likely you get pardoned again that soon. Honestly, I have no idea what’s going on up there, but I’m starting to get the odd feeling there might be a minor schism going on between the seraphim, which would explain a lot.”

The nameless one sighed.

“I’m amazed. You’re objecting to my actions despite the fact I’m the one who ascended you into the Goddess of Destiny.”

“The reason I’m objecting is because you ascended me.”

And then Moira teleported out.

Sora sighed at the level of overprotective worry that everyone else was surrounding her with.

“Come on you guys, I’m not at death’s door here!”

Kiara snickered.

“Calli’s room is that way.”

Calliope rolled her eyes, while A-chan seemed amused by the whole thing.

Towa, in particular, seemed to be endlessly fussing about Sora’s situation; she’d been by far the most thorough in making sure Sora was alright and was regularly checking up on how Sora was doing to see if she needed anything.

Well, the most thorough aside from A-chan. A-chan wasn’t fussy in the same way, but she was worried, and Sora could feel the presence of her worry no matter what she did.

Choco was monitoring Sora’s condition, mostly to see how fast underworld affliction would kick in. So far it really hadn’t, but it hadn’t even a day yet while the onset period was weeks.

Sora found it a little overbearing, but she couldn’t be too annoyed at her friends; they were just being caring.

Sora supposed that this too, was hololive.

True to form, everyone had been surrounding Sora, given everything that she had been through, except for Kanata and Coco, for some reason.

The six members who were re-destined for the in-between, including Nene, who had voluntarily demoted her own afterlife, reappeared in the middle of Luna’s castle, where they were immediately mobbed by the members still present. In particular, Marine and Rushia gave Miko and Pekora a very large hug to celebrate their return.

Up in Heaven, Fubuki fell over on the couch, feeling absolutely awful about everything. Her actions had led to the disaster down below, and while Sora and Kanata had escaped, they’d done so by condemning themselves to Hell.

She had no motivation to think of anything. She just wanted to find a place to lie down and stay there for a while.

Mio sat down beside her, and put an arm around the fox girl. Korone, Okayu, Subaru, and Aki Rosenthal all joined her, all trying to deliver the single message that despite everything, they were still together, and they were still hololive.

Kanata curled up to Coco’s embrace on top of the dragon girl’s bed.

“I missed this. I should be ashamed to admit it. But I really missed this.”

“Well, if you get unwell to a point where you can’t move around, I don’t mind if you just stay in bed. If you’d rather stay here to keep yourself hidden, we’ll take care of you, Kanatan.”

Kanata closed her eyes.

Coco smiled looking at Kanata.

“Sleep well, Kanatan.”

END OF PART I

Chapter Text

So far, things were peaceful. Despite the rather large disruption of a pair of angels appearing in the underworld, nothing went wrong on the first day of their arrival, something that they were all thankful for. Yuzuki Choco in particular, who had been closely monitoring both Sora and Kanata for any signs of Underworld Affliction.

So far, they’d been entirely symptomless. More disturbingly, Choco wasn’t able to find any sign of any sort of actual disease. This was problematic; if Underworld Affliction was a real disease, then there should’ve been a pathogen that caused it, like when Ayame’s lungs were laced with divine magic that caused her significant breathing issues.

Then again, Ayame’s disease was infuriatingly hard to track down and was mostly magical; Choco would’ve never figured it out if she wasn’t part of the chat room with her friends when the whole episode with Ayame happened. The result was that there were far too many unknowns for Choco’s comfort; she was trying to figure out how to treat Underworld Sickness when she knew precisely nothing about the illness.

And so, she stared at her desk, covered in messily written medical notes written with virtually no sleep whatsoever.

She wasn’t alone; also staring at the pile of papers was both A-chan and Kiryu Coco, mostly in worry for their best friends.

Choco sighed.

“I have to admit, if I didn’t already know from information brought about from people who know more than I do, I would assume that ‘Underworld Affliction’ was made-up. I can’t find any trace of it, and so far there’s been no symptoms.”

Coco shrugged.

“Is that not a good thing? Given that there’s absolutely no chance that an angel-only sickness could be spread to the rest of us, wouldn’t we want as mild a case as possible as to minimize our friends’ suffering.”

Choco nodded.

“In the short term, it’s good for exactly that reason, but it also means if it flares up, I don’t have any knowledge on how to treat it. Still, as much as I want to, I can’t make test subjects out of Sora and Kanata, for both obvious ethical reasons and for reasons pertaining to the fact that I still want to be friends with them.”

A-chan sighed.

“I understand, really. It’s not a fun scenario to be in because of the inherent amount of uncertainty involved in the whole mess. I myself am just hoping that we have any means of minimizing their suffering if things do start going wrong; but the fact of the matter is that you’re right; we rather unfortunately know nothing about Underworld Affliction.”

“Maybe it’s something to do with how powerful I am.”

The voice belonged to one of the afflicted in question: Tokino Sora.

A-chan sighed.

“I suppose we shouldn’t keep your own medical records secret from you.”

Sora shrugged.

“So...what are we dealing with, here?”

Choco sighed.

“As far as anything I am aware of, you are perfectly healthy, and that’s the problem.”

“Ah, and since Underworld Affliction is documented, we know it exists, but you can’t find out anything about it.”

Choco frowned.

“For obvious reasons, there aren’t a lot of test cases for this. You and Kanata are the first, and as far as luck goes, catching a new and thus completely undocumented disease is one of the worst rare gacha pulls in existence.”

Sora cringed.

“Fair enough. I’m just restless; I don’t like the idea of just...doing nothing while everything else is going on around me. As far as I know, I still have all of my powers. Granted, I’m also wielding them with no way to inhibit their use, but even still; I really don’t want to do nothing all...day? Does this place have days given there’s no day-night cycle?”

Choco smiled.

“We do have clocks; though not all of the underworld uses 24-hour days due to precisely the fact that there is no day-night cycle. Look, demon time is a giant mess because everything relating to demons tends to be; but at least we managed to standardize on the idea of seconds, minutes, and hours. We’ll just use 24-hour days because that’s what we’re used to.”

A-chan rolled her eyes.

“Thank goodness for small organizational mercies, I suppose.”

Rather suddenly, they heard a phone ringing. Coco pulled out a cell phone and answered.

“Hello, Kiryu Coco speaking.”

Silence.

“I don’t recognize you, and I haven’t given this number to anyone. No one outside of my own trusted circle should know this. If you’re thinking on-”

She paused.

She then turned to the rest of the room.

“I’ll go; apparently this is important.”

As she walked out, she addressed the caller.

“Now, you mind holding on for a bit, or do I have to hang up and call back?”

She laughed, because she had no intention of doing so.

Damn spam callers are a problem even in the underworld. I...suppose that actually makes sense, given the population that resides here, but even still.

However, to her surprise, the voice on the other end responded.

“Go ahead. This call requires secrecy after all; it’d be best if others weren’t listening in on your half of the conversation.”

And all of a sudden, Coco felt her stomach drop.

Coco walked outside of the underworld house, entirely silent.

“Alright. I don’t know who you are, but I suspect that this is a lead-up to an attempt to recruit me for something. I mean, the mystery phone call? The ‘we need your silence’ lead-up? It couldn’t be more obvious. Given that you’ve obviously done your research, you no doubt know that I ran a yakuza-like group when I was alive, and was a consumer of a lot of that sort of media. I may have even been a tiny bit obsessive at times.”

The voice on the phone responded by laughing. It was male, and Coco couldn’t place the voice at all.

“Oh, that’s great! That means I don’t have to tell you about the secret organization that I’m part of that we’re getting together behind the scenes. You see, I wanted to ask-”

“I’m not helping you guys.”

“Oh come on, at least let me finish. That, and I believe you aren’t in a position to argue with me, and you’ll find out why soon enough. To continue where I was, we’re an organization that has some rather powerful underworld contacts, and the fact of the matter is, as ominous as this seems, I’d like to believe we’re running an operation that might benefit you. As well as ourselves, of course - I’m not going to lie and say there’s no self-interest here.”

Coco laughed.

“Good on you for being honest. What could possibly benefit me?”

“Your story is somewhat well known. You were sent to Hell for dating an angel, basically, and-”

“I wouldn’t say we were dating, but-”

“You were dating.”

Coco rolled her eyes, while the speaker on the phone continued.

“But regardless of that, the fact remains: you aren’t a demon, but a sinner. Yet for some reason you keep acting like you own the place; which isn’t entirely appreciated. So, to keep things more nicely wrapped up, we think you’d be better off in a position where you could, you know, actually do things for a change. You’d be our very own honorary demon.”

“No.”

The voice on the other end sighed.

“Alright. I really didn’t want to hand this off, but I’m frankly not given access to the information needed to intimidate you, so I’ll be handing this over to my associate who is a bit higher up.”

A moment of silence.

After what felt like forever, a new voice took the place of the old one. It was also male and unknown to Coco.

“Hello. Are you still on the phone?”

“Yes. I don’t know who this is, but regardless: I’m not serving you demons. I’m still my own-”

“We know about the two angels.”

Pure silence reigned over the call. Coco prepared to go inside as-

“You are not to tell them about this call.”

“How did you-”

“We have some very watchful eyes on our side. You’d do well not to underestimate them.”

Coco paused for a moment, and then decided at that moment to record the call without telling the speaker.

You can’t tell me what to do.

“Let me make one thing clear: I don’t take orders from people like you.”

“That’s not enough for you? Okay, let me elaborate: you have two angels, Tokino Sora and Amane Kanata, who are currently being hidden inside your place of residence. You are also good friends with them, and have a desire to keep them safe. If you want them to remain safe, then you’ll listen to the rest of what I have to say.”

Coco paused, snapping back at the speaker.

“If you’re threatening them, then I’ll say that I think I can keep them safe myself, thank you very much.”

“Do you really think that?”

Coco stopped.

“Let me make one thing clear: if you touch either Sora or Kanata...well, we dragons are known for being a very territorial species. All I can say is that you will not be ready for my wrath, or the wrath of many of my friends who will be equally angry.”

The voice on the other end laughed.

“I don’t think you’re as confident in your ability to protect them as you say you are. After all, why would you still be on this phone call if you were that confident? You would’ve brushed me off and hung up. But some part of you is uncertain, some part of you knows that, by yourself, you can’t do it. Here’s the deal: Let’s go to the old mid-underworld coffee shop ‘Waiting for…’. The sign says it serves coffee that is ‘hotter and more bitter than Hell itself’ (1), because demon advertising is silly like that. Be there 24 hours from now; I’ve texted you the address and sent you a picture of the location. We’ll end with a deal that’ll keep your precious angels safe.”

Coco snarled.

“I suppose you think I’ll discuss options more openly in person. I don’t know where you’re getting that from, but-”

“Oh, I’m not going myself. I’m not so stupid as to put my own punchable face in front of you. I’m quite well aware of the fact you’re angry. Is what I’m doing manipulative? Of course it is; I’m a devil after all; and I pride myself on being transparent about my own devilish nature. You’ll be meeting with an associate who has the necessary instructions. Are we all good?”

Coco sighed.

“You know what? Fine. I’ll be there. I’ll talk, but the fact of the matter is I still plan to reject the offer. I won’t even speak a word of this to my friends, as much as I want to.”

She could practically hear the evil grin over the phone.

“I certainly hope we can hire you; if we have you onboard, it’d be very helpful when I later have to make this call to a certain devil with violet hair; I believe you know her. That’s all for now; so I’ll just say my goodbye here. Remember: don’t speak a word of this to your friends, and also remember you can’t protect the angels alone; this isn’t their realm.”

And then the call ended.

Coco let out a horrified breath. She wasn’t lying; if either Sora or Kanata were hurt she would most likely go off the deep end invoking the sin of wrath and most of her friends would not do any better. But the fact of the matter is, the speaker was right; Coco had virtually no confidence in her ability to prevent them from getting hurt in the first place.

If she wanted to be certain, she needed a second opinion and preferably several more opinions after that.

She pressed the button to stop recording, and then walked inside while grinning.

I can’t believe they made the mistake of trusting a Yakuza leader.

Coco walked into the house rather loudly, getting the attention of most of the residents of the underworld house.

“Get online.”

She then uploaded the recording of the call privately so she could get a link to post to her friends, which she then linked in their shared chat room with no context.

Kiryu Coco’s face dropped to one of shock as both Kanata and Watame walked out from their room.

Towa blinked.

“Why would you do that?!”

Kanata shrugged.

“Look, you know that if I declined, she’d just go down the entire list until someone said yes. Accepting the teleport request seemed like the practical option!”

Coco facepalmed.

“Well then. I suppose if you are already present, do you wish to tail me with Towa?”

Watame simply grinned in response.

“Of course.”

Chapter Text

Kiryu Coco walked through the city of the demons. Towa and Watame, while they had followed, had agreed to remain a fair distance behind so as not to be spotted.

The city was exactly as Coco remembered it: large, and with streets that tended to have a few  demons fighting in them more often than not. These were, in comparison to arena fights, much more lighthearted, but it was clear that demonkind in general was always ready for a good throwdown.

Still, demon civilization still had a sense of just that - being civilized. Despite the occasional fight, it was clear as day that there were implicit rules to more violent demon interactions. It was also clear that one of those rules was that any unfortunate mortal souls that were in the crossfire were more or less just there to get flattened.

Coco, thankfully, wasn’t fragile, as many demons learned when she had first appeared; as such, her reputation appeared to have preceded her. While she deliberately avoided getting into a fight, no demon made a specific attempt to go out of their way to challenge her either.

She soon discovered the building she was looking for, a small, relatively run-down coffee shop labeled ‘Waiting for…’, with a sign that said ‘Hotter and more bitter than Hell itself: That is coffee.’

Well, this is the place. Subtlety ain’t much of a thing around here, is it?

Coco shrugged, and then entered. She didn’t know who she was looking for; but surely there was a plan, and if whatever secret organization that contacted her knew about the angels, then they were certain to know who Coco was already.

As she walked into the place, she immediately spotted a demon, a female with light purple hair and a pair of horns, waving at her, at a table which had a singular empty seat.

Well, that answers that.

And so Coco walked in, and sat down, opposite the site of the demon she didn’t know.

The demon bowed, and then introduced herself:

“Hi! I’m Rindou Mikoto, demon heiress and a whole bunch of other titles I’ve earned in my thousands of years of being a demon that you probably don’t care to listen to.”

Given the circumstances, she seemed awfully friendly.

Coco shrugged.

“You seem to already know this, but Kon-dragon; I’m Kiryu Coco. I don’t know what you’re offering, but-”

“Before we negotiate, I need to talk to the barista here. I know her pretty well; you’ll see what I mean very shortly.”

And without further ado, the two of them walked up to the barista, another horned demon, before Mikoto gave a bunch of hand gestures that Coco didn’t recognize to the barista demon.

The barista, however, nodded, and then pointed upstairs.

Mikoto smiled.

“Oh, and before anything else: do you want anything from here?”

Coco took a moment to think about it.

“Depends, is demon coffee any different from mortal coffee?”

“It tends to be more bitter, though some former mortals adapt just fine. This place is definitely more palatable to non-demons than most, but it’s your call.”

Coco shrugged.

“Eh, I’ll risk it.”

Mikoto smiled, and then ordered a pair of coffees, which were quickly served.

“Great, now follow me.”

And with that, Mikoto walked upstairs, with Coco following along, turned at a hallway, and then, about halfway through it, turned to stare at the wall, before pressing into it. The wall then slid open, revealing itself to be a secret door.

Or, at least, an almost secret door.

Mikoto sighed.

“Man, whoever used this secret room last forgot to clean up. You can clearly see the door if you actually look. Oh well, good enough for our purposes.”

Coco followed Mikoto into the secret room, while the secret door closed behind them. The two of them sat at opposite ends of a desk that had been clearly placed there earlier.

The casual nature of which Mikoto and Coco had introduced themselves had disappeared; it was time to talk business.

Coco didn’t want to be put on the defensive, though, and as such she decided to control the conversation.

“So, what do you want?”

Mikoto paused, sipping her coffee.

“I have a lot to explain.”

Up in heaven, Fubuki was in the middle of receiving a long series of gentle headpats from Mio.

Mio sighed. Ever since the incident down below, Fubuki had been pretty much paralyzed with guilt for being the one who had gotten Sora into this mess. On one hand, Mio knew that, when presented with events as they had happened, Sora would forgive Fubuki instantly, but she also knew that the Kitsune found it far harder to forgive herself than to forgive others.

It wasn’t made easier by the fact that it was Fubuki’s fault, even if accidentally.

It was at this moment that there was a knock on the door to the hololive heaven house, which made everyone somewhat nervous - it was out of the way of things, and now that all hololive members had been accounted for, it couldn’t be anyone they knew.

Aki Rosenthal went to answer the door.

“...Moira?!”

The blue-haired seraph walked into the room.

“Hello. I suppose the events of the last, oh, 24 hours necessitate some explanations; your actions have made me realize I have made some mistakes in how I’ve been trying to handle you girls. The short version is this: don’t get involved with angel matters; it doesn’t end well for those who aren’t us. The long version, however, is something I’m starting to believe it would have been best to discuss earlier; however if the best time was yesterday, the second best time is now. Hmmm...”

She paused for a moment, thinking to herself.

“I’m not supposed to indulge myself in mortal desires given I’m a seraph and all, but is it possible to make coffee around here?”

Mio got up.

“Um, sure? I’m somewhat surprised at the request, but I suppose we could do that, though I have to ask: is there any particular reason?”

Moira shrugged.

“It’s been a long day for me, with me essentially using my authority to pardon your friends and thus rig the outcome of seven trials. Speaking of which, the results of one said trial are actually about to show up - that’s the other reason I’m here.”

Every hololive member present - AZKi, Fubuki, Aki, Subaru, and Mio - simply looked at Moira in total confusion, until two new people walked into the room.

“Kon-nui!”

“Kon-muscle!”

Noel and Flare walked in.

Moira smiled.

“I will add, however, that I have a lot to explain.”

“This is probably a weird tangent to start off with, Kaichou, but we need to start with demon society, to understand what it is that we’re offering. You see, you are a sinner - and while you weren’t bad enough to become devil property, you were bad enough to be punished. Your punishment is that you have to live in a civilization built for demons - a civilization that, for the most part, does not have a place for you.”

Coco paused.

“I don’t get where we’re leading with this, though. Also, why does a coffee shop have a secret room? Is this just secretly a front for your group?”

Mikoto giggled.

“Ah, no, that’s just the fact that a lot of places have secret rooms. Demon society encourages it, because if you’re going to have a society where everyone is self-interested and willing to backstab others, you might as well formalize the rules of backstabbing.”

Coco laughed.

Mikoto grinned.

“See, you get it too. So now I’ll explain why I’m here, and why I’m serving a shadow group that still hasn’t given me that much information. You see, while originally I ran for being in the high council for the newly unified underworld, the fact of the matter is that I am personally self-motivated, and I realized I could lead a much more personally fun life with a group that was willing to support me. This is how groups form; smart demons figure out that it’s mutually beneficial to support one another. I might be a strong and respected demon, but often that makes you a target; the shadows are comforting in that manner.”

Mikoto paused.

“For the most part, while demon society is...rough around the edges, to put it lightly, it is a society. There are rules to the game we all play, even if we all play to simply get ahead of others. You see, in the early days, it was essentially the rule of ‘the strong ruling over the weak’, with bigger sword diplomacy being the standard method of negotiation. While this is less true than it used to be - it turns out that technology is fun and we have other means to project power over others now - the fact is that the demons, as a whole, tend to think of themselves as above sinners, which is to say that you adapt to living like demons do or you get flattened. Even if you’re strong - and you are - it’s a hard image to break.”

Coco grinned.

“And that’s what you’re offering me, isn’t it: if I’m willing to cooperate with you, you’ll use your pull to offer me a place in demon society. I’ll shoot up from being a sinner - a sinner who helped free the underworld, though I guess literally everyone got involved in that by the end - to essentially being a high-ranking demon, given my power. And with that, I’ll have a lot more pull for handling things down here.”

Mikoto smiled.

“That’s one half of what we’re giving you.”

Coco’s eyes widened.

“What’s the other half, and more importantly, what is the job, anyway? This seems a little too beneficial to me and I know enough Yakuza scenes to know that you have to be getting something out of this too.”

Mikoto shrugged.

“I’m glad you asked. You see, we know you have friends from up above. It’s the only way to explain why you have angels stationed at your home. I’m part of a larger group, one that also has connections to the realm above. Since you also have connections up there, we’re considering some...less than angelically preferred means to have you help us in establishing connections to the other afterlives, because if we can connect there, that expands our circle of influence to far more than I can find with only an audience of demons.”

Mikoto smiled as she finished her coffee.

“I’m offering this deal because it’s mutually beneficial. I know you haven’t had anything to do recently, and while you live in the outskirts of the upper region where demons don’t generally bother you, a powerful place in demon society I believe to be a place that you would willingly place yourself, given the opportunity. And, of course, if you have a powerful say among the demons, you can make sure that no demon will ever harm your precious angels. I’ve reviewed your profile; you’ll be perfect for the job. As will Towa, once she knows I’ve hired you - though she’ll probably get the equivalent devil recruiting her, rather than myself.”

Coco thought about the request.

“I have to say it’s pretty enticing. You make a very good argument, and if you had asked a day or two ago, I would’ve probably said yes without hesitation.”

“If you wish to take a moment to think about it a bit longer, feel free to do so.”

Coco breathed out.

“Oh, no, I don’t need a moment. The answer is no. I’m never helping you guys.”

Moira sighed.

“I suppose I need to speak to you the most, Shirakami-san. Or Fubuki-chan, if you would prefer.”

Fubuki shrugged, and let out a quiet statement of preference:

“Fubuki-chan.”

Moira nodded, and continued speaking.

“If it’s any consolation, Fubuki-chan, I don’t think you are necessarily in the wrong for what you’ve done, even despite the end result. It would’ve been better if you hadn’t gotten involved, yes, but you couldn’t have known what was going to happen as a result of your involvement. That being said, I suppose this is a good time to mention to all you, especially the pair that made it to Heaven thanks to a very special pardon of mine.”

Noel and Flare’s eyes widened.

Moira continued speaking.

“Look, I know you’re all good friends. It’s not exactly a secret to me; and with Sora’s involvement in all of this it would be inevitable that I learned about your friendship. I know that you want to help her, no matter what it takes. Am I correct in this assumption?”

Everyone in the room nodded.

Moira sighed.

“It is with great disappointment that I now ask that you simply stay home and avoid getting involved with all of this. Just let the angels handle things behind the scenes for now. Especially since the two angels are in the care of your friends. While underworld affliction will eventually catch up to them, they’ll stay safe from the angels.”

Fubuki blinked.

“Wait, how do you know about that?”

Moira shrugged.

“I’m the Goddess of Destiny. I know a few things about futures and where people are going to end up. I’m the one who ties the threads of fate to those bound to them.”

In response to this, AZKi asked a simple question.

“Is it unavoidable?”

“Sora’s ascension is not inevitable, though I would say it is more likely than not. You need to understand that Sora is one of the few individuals who can possess the willpower to resist the nameless one’s own. The possibility exists. If Sora’s willpower to avoid godhood is absolute, she will avoid that fate. If the scales are tipped, she will not. And this is why I have asked all of you to not involve yourselves.”

Aki blinked.

“That seems wrong, though. If the nameless one is going to tip the balance to ascend her, why can’t we do the same with our own friendship?”

Moira nodded.

“It’s a good question, admittedly; and the answer is that your protectiveness is a double-edged sword. You do well to remember that, all of you.”

Subaru replied in annoyance.

“You can’t just say that without explaining it!”

Moira smiled.

“It means that just as you’ll do anything to protect Sora, she too will do anything to protect you.”

And then she rather casually teleported out of the room.

Down in the underworld, Mikoto and Coco had a rather intense staredown, until Mikoto finally broke the silence.

“Well then. Before we wrap up, why would you reject the offer? You do understand that we’re implicitly threatening your angel friends, right?”

“If you were just trying to manipulate me, I might’ve fallen for it. But to involve my friends in this? I’m sorry, I don’t want a place in any society that demands I leave my friends behind.”

“Just like you left them behind to have this discussion?”

Coco grinned.

“Oh, no I didn’t.”

As if on cue, the formerly closed secret door that led to the secret room was opened, and from it, three figures emerged.

Coco blinked. Last she remembered, only two people followed her. She recognized two of them, while the third was under a hooded cloak, concealing her identity.

The first, Tokoyami Towa, spoke with a rather dismissive tone.

“Rindou Mikoto. You were a prominent rising demon lord before your rather mysterious act of stepping down, leaving HoneyStrap to become the new council. What are you up to? Oh, and as a devil, and one of the most powerful, let me just add that my friends are not available for recruitment under duress. This definitely qualifies.”

“Tokoyami Towa! I wasn’t expecting your arrival.”

The second, Tsunomaki Watame, continued the sentiment:

“I’m willing to join my friends in Hell. I’m not afraid of you.”

The third unveiled her hood, revealing the face of an actual angel underneath.

“I’m still feeling strong enough to throw you through the wall if you try anything.”

Mikoto’s eyes widened in fear.

“You wouldn’t. You’re an angel, you’re supposed to be too nice for this sort of thing! We’re a society of people who only care about ourselves, you aren’t!”

Kanata blinked.

“I’d do it because I love her.”

Coco’s jaw dropped, before then turning back to face Mikoto, grinning.

“So, Mikoto: still want to force this deal?”

Mikoto practically choked on her words, and then while aiding herself with demonic magic, very quickly sprinted and ran around the four hololive members, running out of the secret room.

“You’re not getting away that easily!”

Coco then followed along with three of her friends, while Kanata put on her hood once again, disguising herself from otherwise prying eyes. The four members of hololive’s 4th generation ran back downstairs, casually walking through the coffee shop and to the outside, where they spotted Mikoto running away.

Coco thought about it, and then shrugged.

“You know what, let’s just go home. That’s a lot more important for now. Wanna ride?”

Towa, Watame, and Kanata looked at each other, before smiling, and nodding.

“Once I find space to transform, feel free to hop on.”

Another demon observed the entire interaction from the coffee shop, this one with magenta hair and a pair of asymmetrical horns.

...Watame? What’s she doing down here in the middle of Hell?

Chapter Text

Four members of hololive walked back into the underworld house, to a living room with the rest of the underworld members, plus Sora and A-chan, present.

Coco sighed, and then stared at Kanata, who had entered in front of the dragon.

“Kanata, care to explain why you, an angel, who is both suffering from Underworld Affliction and is being implicitly directly threatened by a secret organization with possibly powerful demons in their ranks, were outside of the house that is presumably the safest place you can be?”

Kanata shrugged.

“I dunno, I figured ‘with you’ qualified as a safer place than anywhere else down here. You and Towa are the best defenders I know.”

Ayame and Kiara both drew their swords in mock-offense, while Ollie spoke up from behind them.

“I GUESS WE DON’T COUNT FOR ANYTHING AROUND HERE!”

Towa smirked.

“Well, Ollie, you did lose your head the last time you got involved with something involving really powerful underworld figures. More than once, I should add.”

“I PLANNED AT LEAST ONE OF THOSE!”

The rest of the room laughed. It was morbid - a staple of underworld humor - but it did lighten the mood, and given the situation, it was nice to have someone doing that.

Coco brought the mood back by asking the obvious question.

“Oh right, Sora-senpai, Kanatan, I probably should’ve asked you about the whole demonic protection racket. I am sorry about putting your safety in jeopardy, given that apparently they know about you two; but I’m not willing to lower myself to anyone else’s level except my own. Or yours, but I figure your baseline is above mine, karmically speaking.”

Towa shrugged.

“To be fair, Coco, you were thrown down here for a specific crime against an angel, not for karmic debt. I believe I told you a long time ago that it’s unwise to argue with your judge.”

Coco smirked.

“My judge also gave me that advice. That doesn’t necessarily mean I followed it.”

“Clearly you didn’t!”

Kanata facepalmed, but then stared at Coco.

“Coco...I wouldn’t want you to lower yourself just to keep me safe. I’d like to think I’m strong, too. And, really, for all of the rumors of so-called ‘Underworld Affliction’ so far neither I nor Sora-senpai have suffered from any symptoms, and Choco can’t find any pathogen that would cause the disease.”

Choco raised a finger, interjecting.

“To be fair, that just means it’s something I can’t find. That doesn’t necessarily mean it doesn’t exist; diseases are very tricky things, especially when magi-biology gets involved and makes everything even trickier. I unfortunately know nothing of angel biology.”

Kanata sighed.

“I know, and I guess I’m just frustrated because I hate sitting around and doing nothing while Coco negotiates with demons she doesn’t want to negotiate with.”

Coco grinned.

“To be fair, I don’t mind negotiating with demons when the negotiations involve tearing them a new one.”

The rest of the room laughed at that response.

A-chan smiled.

“Well-spoken, though Kanata’s observation does bring me to a point I want to make, which is that if we’re are stuck down here anyway, I want to try doing something while we’re here, because Sora-chan will probably start giving me looks if she does nothing for too long.”

Sora gave A-chan a look, but more a guilty look than a restless look.

A-chan continued to smile.

“Sora, I know you well enough to know that you want to sing. It’s what you’re meant to do, and given you don’t seem to be keeling over from Underworld Affliction either, I can tell you’re at least a little frustrated at the situation.”

Sora nodded.

“It’s a really silly idea. But, in case you guys don’t know, we actually already restarted hololive back up in Heaven.”

Ayame raised her hand.

“Problem is, we don’t actually all have computers yet. Hardware is hard to acquire in the upper underworld, since delivery services don’t exist and this place is a total wasteland anyway.”

Choco continued.

“The punishment for sinners of the lightest kind - the kind that live up here - is to live a relatively mundane life aside from the fact that the place in question is a rather isolating wasteland where societies don’t really form as often, and where the societies that do form aren’t generally known for their accommodations to former mortals. It’s rather unlikely we’ll get much going here, and if nothing else, it would be much better for Amelia to stream once she’s no longer literally in hell. Plus, demon audiences tend to be a little...shall we say less wholesome end of things, mostly because they’re likely to see former mortals as beneath themselves.”

Amelia shrugged.

“I dunno, there’s not much better to do, and I can’t imagine the demons backseating me more than my own mortal audience used to.” (1)

Calliope and Kiara both broke out laughing, while Amelia continued speaking.

“I still loved ‘em though. Those were good times. Besides, the fact that I can’t actually stream together with Ina and Gura means I wouldn’t want to restart anyway; I’m not rejoining hololive without them.”

Kiara responded:

“And not without us, either, I’m guessing.”

Amelia nodded.

The rest of the room smiled.

A-chan smirked.

“I see we’re in a position where if we can actually start getting members in on this we’ll most likely get everyone, it’s just a matter of getting started.”

Sora nodded.

“It’s not really surprising, to be honest. I didn’t want to start without you backing me up, and I know multiple other members didn’t want to start before I did, and, well, that just kind of kept going. We got all four gamers running back up in Heaven, and that’s mostly because Koro-chan didn’t mind streaming solo for a bit, which meant that Okayu dragged along, which meant that Mio-chan and Fubuki-chan’s return became inevitable. Nenechi didn’t want to start without anyone else in the 5th generation, and even Watame didn’t want to restart until Kanatan was free from various angel duties. That...kind of sidetracked because of me, I guess, so I’m sorry.”

Kanata shrugged.

“It’s really not your fault.”

“I know, but it makes me feel like I need to get everything started while I can. That, and it would be really nice, you know…?”

Sora paused in thought.

“I’d like to get everyone back in the group again. It’d be nice, and plus, if we’ve already gotten the group back together, then that means that I don’t have to worry about hololive’s return, especially with...well, I won’t go there.”

Everyone in the room looked at Sora.

“Is this about the ascension thing?”

Sora looked to the side, avoiding eye contact.

“Yes...”

A-chan rolled her eyes, somewhat frustrated.

“I don’t know why you assume that’s going to be something you’re alone on.”

“Well, we can automatically count any of the holodemons out on being able to help me up in heaven, as Ayame has already proven. And eventually I do need to go up there; if nothing else, the fact that I have no limiter is...dangerous, to say the least. I can keep a hold on my powers a little better than before, but the fact of the matter is that while I am holding things together, that means that things will fall apart if I don’t keep holding myself together. I have to go back to Heaven eventually, and the fact of the matter is that while both me and the Nameless One have infinite time, I can’t stay in Hell forever.”

Kanata sighed.

“Yeah, and I shouldn’t, either. I dunno, it’s pretty comfy here, but I’m probably biased because four members of my own generation are stationed down here.”

Sora smiled.

“Thinking of the fourth generation, has anyone heard from Luna?”

Kanata, Coco, Watame, and Towa suddenly sighed.

Kanata spoke.

“Hime-sama is at least nice enough to not ping everyone, but she’s been persistently pinging us. We’ve pointed out that she has no way back to her own home afterlife if she gets summoned here, and that usually stops her from trying for a bit when that’s pointed out.”

Sora paused.

“Actually, since we’re both not supposed to be here but we have our own reasons to not want to be summoned back up to Heaven, what is our exit strategy?”

Kanata froze.

A-chan sighed.

“I suppose the exit strategy is to make it up as we go along, which, fair enough, given our history.” (2)

She paused.

“Kanata, you probably know better than most, but is there even a theoretical out? I mean, in theory, people have changed their afterlives before.”

Kanata paused.

“Technically, as a provisional archangel, I have permission to request a teleport for myself and whomever needs to join me directly into the ministry of right and wrong, but...I have reasons to avoid that. Or at least, specifically Sora-senpai has reasons to avoid that.”

She paused.

“Actually, you know what, since this might be useful later, I have a long explanation about the three afterlives and how exactly they’re connected to each other. I think it’ll be helpful for all of us to hear it.”

She drew her phone.

“And really, it might be useful to-”

And then she froze.

Coco looked over at her phone, and then her eyes widened.

Ayame looked at her computer.

It wasn’t the fastest thing in the world, but it got the job done. It was powerful enough to live stream, and while the idea of trying to restart her career in her home realm was a little intimidating, the fact of the matter is that there was no better time to do so.

If not now, then when…?

She smiled, and set up her broadcasting software.

Up in Heaven, Fubuki stared at her own screen.

In particular, she stared at a particular file.

reconnect.exe

This was a powerful file. If reverse-engineered and exported, this would potentially be what they needed to fix their problems with getting the full group together.

There was just one issue: Fubuki wasn’t that technologically smart.

And, as such, started writing a message to Roboco.

Back in Hell, Coco, Watame, and Towa all looked at their fairly detailed itinerary for dismantling a secret demon organization. They didn’t know much about the group, but they now had plans for what to do if the demons dared strike against their friends.

Coco wasn’t satisfied with that, however. She had written Rindou Mikoto’s name down, and she intended to get some answers from her.

Kanata looked at her phone.

“It would be really nice if we had allies within the administration.”

She thought about her options, and then scrolled through her contacts.

She found one in particular, one that, if not on friendly terms, was at least on terms that included mutual respect for each other.

Archangel Kurumi

Kanata thought about the decision, and then wrote a text message.

She saved the message as a draft, and then put her phone away.

Chapter Text

Down in the underworld house, Coco smiled, while in a living room mostly populated by four-fifths of hololive’s 4th generation.

This wasn’t unnoticed by her friends, though Watame was the first to mention it aloud.

“You seem happy.”

Coco shrugged.

“I mean, I’m not even thinking of restarting my career until this mess gets cleaned up, but I’m very glad that the rest of hololive is starting to get back into things without us.”

Ayame blinked.

“Even with the ability to livestream to whatever afterlife you want, you might have better luck with underworld audiences than angelic viewers, mostly just given your history; you are down here for a specific crime against the angels.”

Coco smiled.

“Eh, it’s not that - I am absolutely not joining hololive again without Kanatan.”

Kanata blushed, while Towa sighed.

“I can’t tell if you’re saying that to be sincere or if you’re trying to embarrass her.”

“Or?”

Both angel and devil facepalmed at that moment.

Coco looked down.

“That being said, I don’t really know what to do next. I could fairly easily go down and explore the mid-underworld without too many consequences, given that I’m one of the few former mortals that can do that.”

She paused.

“That being said, we can’t let Kanata be alone at just about any point. Whatever organization is tracking us is really on to us, so as much fun as it is to not worry about it, I do have to keep watch now.”

Kanata frowned.

Towa sighed.

“Hmm. It might be better if I try to track down our enemies, then.”

Coco raised her eyes.

“Oh?”

Towa smirked.

“You might be a surprisingly strong former mortal that exists to be a real wrench in everyone’s plans, but me? I’m a devil. Demons, as a whole, fear my kind.”

Watame giggled.

“Regardless of how warranted said fear actually is.”

Towa glared back at Watame, and then the four of them laughed.

Coco grinned while replying back to them.

“Just like old times. Sort of.”

And then she paused.

“I feel like we’re being watched.”

Towa replied casually.

“Oh, we definitely are. That’s why I’d rather keep you around Kanata.”

Coco paused in confusion.

“Okay, let’s assume we’re being watched. Why are you telling them exactly what we’re planning to do?”

Towa shrugged.

“Because even if they know I’m coming, there frankly isn’t much they can do about it. As I said, demons fear my kind; and even if the secret group has some powerful agents assisting them, the fact of the matter is that they don’t want to be in my way once I get truly mad. They all know the fact that I was the leader behind overthrowing Akuma.”

Ayame walked into the room.

“Getting by in demon society is managing a balance between two things: being powerful enough that people don’t want to mess with you, and having enough of a societal presence that it would be much more of a pain to remove you than to just let you go. Towa has both; you, Coco, only have the first, and if you’re only going to have one I recommend the latter.”

Coco blinked in surprise.

“Wait, really? Demons tend to talk a big game about being strong and...not much else, really.”

Ayame nodded.

“If you’re powerful but ultimately not actually a part of demon society, then eventually someone will come up with a larger scheme to get rid of you. Unlike devils, who’s distrust for each other is so legendary that devil contract law exists to make their literal society actually workable - correct me if I’m wrong, Towa, but that’s what I remember - demons actually do trust each other to actually act like people. There’s a lot of natural distrust, but generally speaking demons do actually cooperate with each other on occasion.”

Towa nodded while cringing.

“I promise that I do actually trust you guys.”

Everyone present laughed.

Up in the in-between, Roboco had scheduled her debut. The reception was rather positive, and both there were a number of replies coming from all three afterlives to the announcement.

She had kept the announcements separate, however: one for each afterlife. The plan was that it would make every afterlife think that Roboco was already reincarnated within that particular afterlife. For approximately one-third of potential audience members, that assumption was correct.

The plan was working perfectly. Demonic audiences were excited, with more empathic demons confused as to how Roboco was sent to the underworld, while lots of other onlookers from the in-between were happy. Even a number of angels congratulated Roboco, with a number of them also expressing shock at Roboco’s reincarnation given her status as a robot.

The networks were separate, so they had no way of seeing each other and realizing that Roboco had posted to all three of them simultaneously. It was brilliant.

Of course, for safety reasons, she’d have to debut three times in a row, and that was going to be rather inconvenient. Mixed-audience streaming wasn’t something Roboco wanted to try for a number of reasons, most fairly obvious.

Chapter Text

The aftermath of Roboco’s debut was glorious.

Checking three different social media feeds, she watched a stream of comments, memes, and other similar posts pour out for her revival. It had worked: a number of angels were confused, as were in-between viewers, who joined both demon and devils in a chorus of being shocked by the turn of events.

The robot girl smiled; the only downside is that, due to the split of afterlives to stream to, she was stuck with the reality that she could only stream one-third as much as she wanted to for each individual afterlife.

She checked the hololive chatroom, satisfied with her long day of work.

A few days later...

Ayame’s re-debut went fairly well, to both the underworld as well as the realm above. Strangely enough, Ayame ended up being a bigger hit among former mortals than among demons, even in the underworld; but on the other hand, she almost preferred it that way, just because of how used to her friends she had gotten.

And really, if all she had to do was be adorable, then honestly it was easy to get back into the rhythm of things. It was familiar, relaxing; and if Ayame were the type to spend time being retrospective above things she probably would’ve noted how very strange it was that she, a powerful demon, was actually far more comfortable with her hololive living than she was with any place in actual demon society.

She wasn’t, and thus instead simply took the moment for herself. Such was the 1500 year-old oni.

That being said, it wasn’t entirely an innocent act. Ayame had chosen to re-debut faster than necessary somewhat as an act of spite. She knew that they had enemies that were likely to be at least slightly irritated at the fact that they hadn’t scared the hololive members at all. The thought of foiling their actions just by acting naturally and hanging out with her friends was a specific kind of spite that Ayame was willing to participate in as an underworld native, if only because it was so easy to do so.

It was in the wake of Ayame’s confident re-debut that Towa made a phone call.

You did this to yourself, Mikoto.

“Hello. I’m Tokoyami Towa; I believe we’ve met. I wish to talk with you in private; at a location of my choosing. I promise you: I have no intent to harm you. But I want answers, and more importantly my friends want answers. I’m willing to sink lower than them to get them.”

The voice on the other end sighed.

“Dammit. I picked a fight with the wrong group of friends, didn’t I?”

“Very much so. By trying to manipulate my friends, you’ve inadvertently tried to manipulate me. In other words, you tried to indirectly manipulate a devil, and you were planning to manipulate me directly later anyway; you should’ve known that would backfire. Let’s make it clear: if you attempt anything funny, I’ll bring Coco. Trust me when I say she’s far angrier at you than I am.”

A rather pitiful terrified squeak was the only sound on the other end of the call.

Towa grinned.

“Here’s the deal: same place as last time.”

“...24 hours from now?”

“For messing with my friends? I don’t feel like giving you that much. Don’t tell your bosses about this. Or tell them anyway. Or hell, you could just walk and not show up. Just bear in mind you’re dealing with a devil, and one with very comprehensive contract experience.”

In another room, Kanata was lying next to Coco’s sleeping form, still awake.

She had her phone out, and was looking through the contact list, both in and out of hololive. She needed a way out that she could open; a way out that didn’t depend on being summoned.

She drew a sharp breath, knowing that she was making a decision many would not agree with.

I hate you, but at the same time, I respect you, as you respected me.

She pressed the send button. The phone replied thusly:

Message sent to Archangel Kurumi.

Chapter Text

Towa walked into the little coffee shop that she planned to meet Mikoto at. She was a little ahead of schedule, because now that she had Mikoto playing along to her plan rather than her playing along to Mikoto’s, she now needed to be as careful as possible, as to prevent the situation reversing once again.

And so, when Mikoto entered, she simply gave the Oni a look, who flinched, and then sat down.

“Hello, Mikoto. We need to talk.”

Mikoto, on the other hand, regained her confidence. She didn’t look too rattled at Towa’s presence.

“Well, good to know that you aren’t that terrified of me. It’s nice, really, knowing that I can act some semblance of normal for me and not ruin things. Let’s move things to the secret room, shall we?”

Mikoto breathed sharply, and then followed Towa.

In the upper region of the underworld, another being walked forward.

He was hired to do a job, and that job was to secure a pair of angels for secure transport down to the lower region of the underworld. He didn’t know his contact aside from the fact that they were a devil, they had paid him half upfront - rare for a devil - and that it was probably beneficial for him to help out, assuming this didn’t blow up horribly in his face.

He was but a vampire, and he suspected if combat broke out he would basically do nothing, but hey, he wasn’t going to complain about getting money for close to nothing if it came down to that.

His name was Kuzuha, and while had witnessed the fall of Akuma - he had even testified against him in the trial - he was now heading towards the house that the very team that started the revolution lived in.

Sorry folks. I like you guys, but angels aren’t supposed to be down here.

Beside him was another hired being, this one far more powerful, though that didn’t say much. She was a devil, and one with very powerful abilities, despite her rather non-intimidating looks.

She was known as Makaino Ririmu, and she was poised to be one of the devils that would lead the underworld if the HoneyStrap council that currently did so ever fell apart. Since they hadn’t, that meant that she was unemployed for now, and capturing a pair of angels seemed like a pretty fun use of her time.

They had been given the location of the hololive underworld house, and they’d been given a mission.

As they approached the house, the two of them looked at each other.

Ririmu smiled.

“You first, Kuzuha.”

The vampire sighed.

“Well, here goes nothing.”

“So, Mikoto, now that you’re trapped in a secret room with a devil who you are very much not on good terms with, I’ll just say that I do want to avoid anything getting a little too violent down here. So, let’s just start: what do you want Coco and I for?”

Mikoto sighed.

“What we’re really looking for, at this point, is your contact with the overworld - the collective term for the other afterlives - because your friend Roboco-san isn’t natively an underworld member. We want the technology she uses to do that.”

Towa nodded.

“That makes sense, except for one problem: how would you know this? For all you know, Roboco’s an underworld inhabitant.”

Mikoto nodded.

“It’s a valid question, and the answer is fairly simple: we have some powerful foresight available to us. I don’t know who the overseer is, but I was given the information that Roboco’s actually streaming from somewhere in the overworld.”

Towa sighed.

Great, she doesn’t know either.

“Alright, then. Why is your organization after Roboco’s technology?”

“I don’t know. I’m just doing what I’m told, except for the fact that I’m totally using it to make friends in the overworld on my own, because if they expect me to grab forbidden technology only for them and to have me not use it, they’re absolute fools.”

“Ah, good ol’ demonic distrust. Not quite as bad as us devils, but certainly up there.”

“Yep. And it’s somewhat problematic for me, too, but I’m reasonable and won’t actually draw my own swords while in a coffee shop - that’d be rude.”

“Fair enough. What would you want cross-realm communication technology for, anyway?”

Mikoto smiled.

“I’ve made a few friends who aren’t in Hell. Despite my position as, well, a demon and a powerful one at that, I’m not considered all that scary. Some people hang out with me!”

Towa laughed.

“I think it’s a little more impressive when a devil pulls that off, but that’s somewhat beside the point. Honestly, if you promise not to share it publicly, I’d even be willing to, say, make a contract with you.”

And with that, she conjured a piece of paper.

“So, let’s sign: I give you the program, and in return you keep this all to yourself and never bother us again.”

Mikoto read the contract, and then her eyes widened.

“I want to accept, but I can’t.”

“Oh? And why’s that?”

“Simple: a couple friends of mine are also involved with my little scheme. They’d be Kuzuha and Ririmu.”

Towa paused.

“If you want me to revise the contract to include them, I can-”

“No, it’s because there’s a bunch of plans running all at once here. You see, while I was having this talk with you, Kuzuha and Ririmu are tracking down your house, and they’ve been assigned the task of capturing both of the runaway angels. As far as I know it’s purely for leverage over your group, but it means that if I sign this contract, in a roundabout way I’ve already violated the terms.”

Towa’s eyes widened.

“Thank you for spilling that fact. Now get out. I don’t wish to speak with you any longer, because I’m going to have to clean up the mess that your friends and my friends inevitably leave behind. I think you know better than to get more involved with this mess.”

Mikoto sprinted at her top speed out of the secret room.

Towa sighed.

“Well, one demon out of the way, I guess.”

Kuzuha knocked on the door, praying like crazy that Coco wasn’t the one to answer it.

The door was opened, and one Kiryu Coco was behind it.

Damn it.

“...so, uh, hi.”

Coco looked unimpressed.

“Look, we try to stay out of the way for a reason. The fact that you know where we are and also travelled out into this desolate wasteland to meet us means you’re obviously not just here to say hi. So what do you want?”

Kuzuha looked to the side. Ririmu had the other side of the house covered.

“Look, I’m trying to put this nicely, but we’re looking to exchange a deal. You see, I’m here under orders, and the orders are not, shall we say, good for you girls.”

“Go on.”

“I’ve been ordered to capture both of the angels living here. Now, if we can talk this out first, because I think I can get something better for both of us. Something that keeps us both safe. Understand that there’s a very powerful devil watching this right now, but she’s with me; if we can get a better deal then no one needs to get hurt. That being said, we are threatening you.”

Coco walked outside with a downright powerful scowl on her face.

“I don’t plan to be nice, but if I’m going to make a decision, my friends will certainly aid in making it. Normally I would make Towa do this - she’s our devil contractor - but she’s out at the moment; I believe she's threatening one of your colleagues.”

Kuzuha sighed.

“So that’s why Mikoto said she couldn’t join us. Fair enough. Look, I’m not powerful enough to really negotiate around here, and I really think it would be messy if Ririmu got involved; she’s really powerful, and used to serve very close to Akuma himself. She’s significantly nicer than he was, but if she starts casting that will make a mess of things. Honestly, it’d be nice if Towa were here; she’s threatening enough that I can automatically say that I’m not paid enough for this and walk out immediately. That’s part of why we’re being careful; we’d rather not make her mad. I’m not sure you-”

Coco interrupted.

“Let me make one thing clear: if you dare harm either of our angelic friends, you won’t have to worry about what Towa does to you because you will be dealing with a far angrier me instead.”

Kuzuha looked very nervous.

Please, someone less aggressive answer this.

And, as if by sheer amazing luck, someone else came from behind the door.

It was Amane Kanata.

Kuzuha blinked.

“Wait, are you really just handing yourself over to me?”

Kanata shrugged.

“No, I’m here just to prove that I’m not afraid of you, or of your devil friend.”

More footsteps from the back were heard.

Ririmu flew, using her bat-like devil wings, to meet the footsteps from outside.

“Showtime?”

Kuzuha paused.

“Not yet.”

Towa walked out of the coffee shop she had just interrogated Mikoto at.

God dammit, now I need to get back home to keep Ririmu off of the backs of my best friends. Why can’t this ever be easy?

She was stopped by another demon interrupting her thoughts.

“Mind if I walk along? I’ve been following what you girls have been up to for a little while.”

Her name was Mano Aloe.

Towa sighed.

“Sure. What I’m doing is trying to keep the underworld from tearing one of my best friends apart, because apparently nothing can ever be easy. I have to contract another devil into not attacking us anymore, and to be honest I’m getting tired of having to do this. I don’t have much time.”

“We don’t.”

“Aloe, this doesn’t concern you. To be honest, I’m trying to make it so it doesn’t concern my friends either, but that’s proving to be a little harder than I’d like it to be.”

“Exactly. You need to make your friends disappear entirely, something that I’ve learned a bit on how to do after, well...”

“I’m really sorry about how your time with us went. I’d probably be a lot nicer about it if I weren’t running on a lot of anger-fueled adrenaline, but as I said, Ririmu’s my problem to deal with. Trust me when I say that you do not want to get involved with this mess. If you get involved with us, you’ll inevitably be found by a secret organization that has a lot of hidden eyes, and probably hunted down by a large number of underworlders who are not the nicest of people. I’m just trying to prove a point that I’m a lot less nice and not worth the trouble.”

Aloe shrugged.

“Are you talking about your situation, or my very brief time in the mortal realm?”

Towa blinked in surprise.

“That is really dark humor.”

“I wasn’t really out of the underworld for long enough to kick the habit. Besides, it turns out the main guy behind most of my mortal troubles is, uh, currently suffering in the lower region of the underworld so really he’s not my problem anymore. And honestly, underworld humor is like that, if you’re forgotten due to the fact that you barely count as a devil at all.”

Towa rolled her eyes.

“You haven’t been around, and yet apparently my reputation still precedes me. Look, I can’t stop you if you want to follow, but I’m saying that you’re getting yourself into more trouble than it’s worth. Namely, you’re getting involved with me.”

Aloe smiled.

“Well, then I just want to ask: what is going on?”

“A pair of my friends who shouldn’t even be here are currently getting hunted down by a devil I know, so now I’m out to contract her into not dealing with us. Either that or I zap her, so I think she’ll take the contract.”

“Ah, is this why I saw Watame down here earlier? That did confuse me for a bit.”

“It’s not her - it’s a pair of people who, due to a rather messy incident in the overworld, are not where they are supposed to be. One of them is Sora-senpai.”

Aloe’s jaw dropped.

Towa sighed.

“We have a lot to talk about.”

Kuzuha nervously took several steps backwards as he looked at Ayame, who had both swords drawn.

Ririmu, on the other hand, landed beside Kuzuha, much more confident in herself.

Coco had one hell of a cocky grin on her face.

Surprisingly enough, even Sora walked out, her face serious.

By the end of it, every hololive member from the underworld was present except Towa. The full list was Mel, Choco, Ayame, Coco, Ollie, Calliope, Kiara, and Amelia. Even Watame, Kanata, Sora, and A-chan, who weren’t native but were currently in the underworld, were there.

Kuzuha sighed.

“Can we negotiate one last time? As in, try not to get everything messed up in a huge fight? You guys do not want to mess with Ririmu, and I don’t want to mess with you.”

A quick but very intense staredown emerged.

Kuzuha finally broke it.

“Alright, Ririmu, if you wanna do your thing, I’m not gonna stop you, but-”

“Oh, I’ve been waiting for this moment-wait, where’s Towa? She’s the one I was brought along to deal with!”

Coco laughed.

“Dealing with Mikoto down in the mid-underworld.”

Ririmu sighed.

“Aw, that means I have to deal with Ayame now.”

Kuzuha took a step back.

“Please remember that totally defeating them isn’t actually our objective. I’m mostly saying this because they outnumber us.”

Ririmu smiled very menacingly.

“Let’s fix that, shall we?”

Chapter Text

Ririmu raised her pitchfork. As she did so, several shadows were conjured, seemingly out of thin air. The shadows then solidified, turning into conjured monsters.

The shadows spread out, conjuring an ever-larger army of monsters. Most of them were fairly humanlike in stature, with a few that were human-shaped but much taller and more beastly. In the back demonic-looking giant spider-like monsters emerged, alongside conjured skeletons with entirely blackened bones.

Ayame grinned.

“Ah, a summoner. Now I understand why you wouldn’t want to fight me; too bad Mikoto isn’t here to keep me busy.”

Two of the giants leapt from the back towards the group.

Ayame jumped forward; while doing so she drew one of her swords from its sheath, while tossing the other sword, still in said sheath, over to Sora.

“Sora-senpai, catch!”

Ayame swung her blade, cleaving the first giant clean in half. Sora followed up by doing the same to the second.

Sora blinked.

“That worked, but how did you know I was a good sword user?” (1)

“Call it instinct.”

The smaller monsters started advancing forward. In response, Sora fell back, while Ollie and Calliope leapt forward, their sword and scythe also drawn alongside Ayame’s blade, while Sora re-sheathed and tossed Ayame’s sword back to her.

Ayame, both swords drawn, grinned, slashing her way through the ineffectual minions.

Sora fell back to A-chan’s position, only to find A-chan was smiling.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh, I just remembered that we have summoning access. You can guess why that’s relevant now.”

Wait, that means we have Towa.

“That being said, if we can do this without her, that's actually better, as that means we don’t need to have Towa guarding you at all times - I told her not to get involved unless we specifically send a summoning request.”

Coco spoke up.

“We should fall back to the house, actually. Remember that they’re after you and Kanatan, not the rest of us, which means that we should try to make sure they don’t reach you in particular.”

Sora and Kanata both nodded, and then turned to run inside.

Ririmu, seeing this, fired a beam from her pitchfork, red in color, aimed at Coco.

It failed to connect, as Amelia jumped in the way of the beam, followed by screaming in pain. The scream was incoherent; for a brief moment even Amelia’s ability to articulate sentences failed on her.

Kiara grabbed Amelia’s convulsing body, and then flew her inside, as A-chan, Sora, Kanata, Watame, and Choco ran inside with her.

Calliope turned around, and shouted across the battlefield.

“What the hell did you do to her?!”

Ririmu grinned.

“Ran a dark magic-fueled current directly through her nerves and pain receptors. It’s pain in its purest form, and it’s one of the few things that can hurt someone who’s burnt out their ability to feel pain - I feel she had it coming, given her history. The only problem is that it only works on former mortals, as it requires interacting directly with mortal biology to inflict pain.”

All of a sudden, one of the spider beasts that was guarding Ririmu was sliced cleanly in half.

From behind the beast, Ayame emerged, evidently enraged.

“Oh? It only works on former mortals? That’s awfully convenient. Stand still for a moment!”

And with that, leapt at Ririmu with both blades drawn.

Ririmu jumped backwards, barely avoiding the strike while her eyes widened.

“Kuzuha! Do something! She’s too close! I was brought on to deal with Towa specifically!”

Kuzuha shrugged.

“Oh hell no. Fighting the Nakiri Ayame? That’s way above my paygrade. That’s what we had Mikoto for, remember?”

“How did you get hired?!”

“I’m a better negotiator than you, Ms. shoot-first-ask-questions-later! I just wasn’t expecting Coco to be hostile!”

Ririmu rolled her eyes, and then unfurled her wings, jumping up into the air.

“Fine! Make me do things myself!”

She then charged at the underworld house through the second story window.

Ayame looked up, realizing that she had no way to fly.

Ayame and Ollie turned around, and then once again swung their blades at the remaining summoned monsters.

The window shattered. Ririmu looked around, and spotted Kanata.

“Well, I’ll get one of the angels, anyway.”

“Oh no you won’t.”

Out of nowhere, she was sent to the floor by a powerful punch from Kiryu Coco.

Ririmu barely had time to think before Kanata walked up to the devil and picked her up.

Coco grinned.

“Goodbye, motherfucker!”

Kanata then threw her right back out the window with rather impressive velocity.

Coco laughed, while A-chan grinned.

Another voice joined the conversation.

“Well, this is going just wonderfully.”

It was Tokoyami Towa.

“Sorry for responding late to the summoning; I had good reason for it. I know we can win this fight, but the truth is, we have to run. I know it looks like we’re winning. And we kind of are, but the fact of the matter is that Ririmu is the kind of devil who’s spiteful enough that she might try something really drastic later. Mostly because me and her have a bit of a history, so as much of an advantage I theoretically have over her I don’t actually want to fight her. I suspect she’s holding back to deal with me specifically.”

A-chan raised an eyebrow.

“What happened between the two of you?”

“Ririmu was one of Akuma’s former close servants. She didn’t forgive me for the fact that Akuma went out of his way to give me...well, ‘preferential treatment’ is probably a strong term for it, but he is responsible for my devil ascension. Little known fact: devils aren’t actually immune to pain. Don’t ask me how I know. She knows where we live now, so we have to run anyway.”

Coco frowned.

“We’re just gonna let her win?”

Towa shrugged.

“Devil’s code: do whatever it takes to survive - so to speak - and that means knowing when not to fight. My instinct is telling me that engaging Ririmu directly is not going to go well, because she wants to fight me. Smart devils only want to take engagements with favorable results. And if she takes me out then - as much as I hate to say it - I think that ends badly for all of us. Ayame’s the only other truly feared demon among the rest of us, and she’s currently pulling that weight very hard, from what I’m hearing going on outside. I think I’ve scared Mikoto for now, but if Ririmu tells her she’s dealt with me, then we’re back to square zero.”

Sora drew a sharp breath.

“Where can we go that would be hidden from her?”

Towa smiled.

“I actually know someone who could help. That’s why I was late.”

And with that, they moved to the backdoor of the house.

Up in Heaven, in a sanctuary that belonged only to a seraph, Moira stood, contemplating her next course of action.

Things are getting interesting down there.

It might be time for me to set the next part of the plan into action.

The escaping group consisted of Sora, A-chan, Kanata, Coco, and Towa.

Choco walked out to meet them.

“I have some favors that I can call in from mid-underworld, so I’ll help you guys escape.”

She spread her wings.

Towa smiled.

“I’ll take anything I can get, really. Only problem is that walking into the city of the demons with two angels in tow will be slightly difficult. There’s no way the gates won’t have someone looking out for them, if they got Ririmu to help hunt us down.”

Coco grinned.

“I’ve got a better idea. Towa, Watame, A-chan, feel free to ride on me.”

And then she transformed into her dragon form.

They took flight, headed downwards.

Meanwhile, Ririmu was starting to get frustrated, mostly because the three people trying to attack her, which would be Ollie, Ayame, and Calliope, were all definitely not in the ‘former mortal’ category unless you counted Ollie, and thus were all in the category of people that she could not incapacitate via inflicting pain in its purest form to them. She didn’t have a variation of the pain beam for demons, and even if she did that wouldn’t work on a grim reaper, and even if she had an answer for that Ollie just plain lacked pain receptors within her nervous system.

The air was the only place to stay for now. She could keep summoning monsters from up here.

Okay, where’s Towa? I still need to zap her, because that’s really all I’m here for. We needed the devil - me - to take out the other devil. What’s up?

She then spotted someone who had wings made out of fire approaching her.

“Question 1: Can you not even give me the air to think?”

Kiara took a position opposite Ririmu.

“Nope, sorry.”

“Question 2: Are you a native underworlder?”

“Nope, I’m a-”

And, as Kiara found out immediately thereafter, it is very hard to remain in flight while convulsing in pain due to having a current of dark magic running directly through one’s nerves and pain receptors. As she was hit by Ririmu’s red beam, she lost altitude and fell to the ground.

Calliope ran over to her body, panicking over Kiara’s condition, while Ririmu shrugged, looking around.

Oh, huh, the reaper's actually worried. Honestly, it’s kind of cute, but I still need to deal with the real threats here. I suppose I can just wait until Mikoto turns up again, and then take the house while she deals with Nakiri.

And then she spotted Coco’s dragon form flying away, opposite the house, with Towa riding on top of her.

Not even going to wait. Wait, is Towa running from me? Does she know that I’ve specifically prepared for this duel?

Ollie and Ayame had cleaned up the rest of the monsters, but they couldn’t fly. Ririmu, on the other hand, possessed a pair of red bat-like wings, and she could very much fly.

She had her real target in her sights, now, alongside two angels flying beside her as well as one winged demon.

Flying in the direction of Coco and Towa - in fact, the dragon had three people riding her, along with three people flying with her - she got closer, aiming her pitchfork at Towa, and then got zapped by a bolt of lightning from Towa, who had gotten up and was now aiming her own pitchfork at the other devil.

Ririmu considered her options, and quickly fired a red beam of concentrated pain at Coco, with the intention of downing the dragon instead - who was a larger target.

It failed to connect, not because it missed, or even because it was intercepted, but because the beam fizzled out of existence.

What?

And then she noticed that one of the two angels flying had turned around, though still keeping her momentum.

Sora had one hand extended, and had casted a suppression field, entirely fizzling the beam.

Ririmu fired again, only for the beam to fizzle just like before.

Why is angel magic this stupidly broken?! What am I supposed to do against that?!

Rather than turning around, which would’ve been the smart option, Ririmu instead charged forward, intent on getting closer to fight. While on the way, she summoned a pair of winged monsters to help chase down her target.

Sora adjusted her flight path upwards, to gain height over Ririmu as the devil approached. While doing this, she raised her hands, seemingly unsure of what she was doing.

Ririmu used the opportunity to get closer, alongside both of her minions.

I’m just going to assume the pain-beam doesn’t work on angels. They’re probably like demons or something. I don’t know.

She raised her pitchfork, and then Sora extended her hands.

What followed was a massive shockwave made out of angelic magic that slammed into Ririmu and her two minions. The minions were hit so hard that they outright disintegrated as they were hit; as for Ririmu herself, she simply got launched downwards at terminal velocity, landing with such a speed as to leave a crater where she hit the ground due to the force of impact.

Sora regrouped with her friends, and then unusually landed on top of Coco.

“Coco...do you have room for a fourth person? I’m...I’m feeling a little off from that.”

“Sure.”

Kanata thought about it for a moment.

Something’s off about that.

Towa pointed downwards.

“I’m going to call in a few favours. Coco, do you see the complex of buildings there?”

The dragon nodded her head.

“Yeah.”

“There’s an underground complex of tunnels down there; I have a contact down there - made very recently, in fact - who says she’ll help us stay hidden for a bit.”

Choco nodded.

“And I know a few demons around that area - I’ll be able to call in a few favors to keep us underground for a little while. It should be fairly smooth sailing once we’re underground.”

In an office in the Afterlife Administration, a redheaded angel looked over a few documents fairly casually. It was Kurumi, the Absolute Angel.

Why did Amane-san decide to learn the administrative gateway spell now of all times? I can just summon her if necessary. I mean, she should know it since she’s a ranked administrator; she’s an archangel within trial duties. Still, now seems like a weird time.

Ririmu extracted herself from the crater she had left in the ground.

“You’re not getting away that easily!”

“Oh, I think she is.”

Ririmu turned around.

Mori Calliope and Takanashi Kiara were both there.

“How did you catch up?!”

Calliope shrugged.

“I’m a reaper. I can manifest myself wherever I need to be. Kiara just flew - she’s a fast flyer. After setting herself on fire and deliberately triggering a reincarnation. She’s still a bit mad about that ‘inflicting pain in its purest form’ thing, by the way.”

Ririmu raised her hand, conjuring a magical barrier.

Calliope sighed, and swung her scythe through it, impaling Ririmu.

“You saw our fight with Akuma, so I have no idea how you could not be aware of my ability to ignore barriers. Yes, you’ll come back, but you aren’t coming back today.”

“Oh,” she said, gasping in pain, “COME ON!”

And then fell to the ground.

Sora and the rest of the members running with her - A-chan, Choco, and all of Generation 4 sans Luna - entered into the building that connected the tunnel network that Choco told them about.

Choco and Towa walked ahead of the rest of the group.

“We’ll talk to get access to the underground network.”

They walked up to a few other demons, and then Towa proceeded to open up a large panel on the wall, revealing nothing but darkness.

Coco blinked.

“Are we supposed to find your contact while entirely blind?”

Sora closed her eyes.

Her wings lit up with a powerful sky-blue glow.

“I’ll light the way, then.”

The group entered into the dark tunnels.

Rather unusually, while Archangel Kurumi was busy looking over her case files while in her office, another figure entered the room.

It was Moira.

Kurumi raised an eyebrow.

“Seraph Moira, Goddess of Destiny. What is it you want with me?”

“Let’s just say that things are probably going to get a little interesting around here.”

Within the dark tunnels, the group continued walking, under the light of Sora’s spell.

The fact that her light was focused on her made A-chan realize that, for whatever reason, Sora was breathing very heavily.

“Sora-chan, are you alright?”

“I’m fine.”

Her steps seemed to be awfully shaky, as if she was having trouble supporting her own weight. A-chan, not to be deterred, rather casually walked up beside Sora.

“If you need to take a break, we can do so.”

“It’s fine, it’s just that...my lungs are burning. It actually hurts to breathe. But our safety is more important for now; don’t slow down for me.”

“We’re actually pretty safe down here.”

Everyone present turned their heads to face the speaker: Mano Aloe, who was smirking.

“Apparently you guys need help disappearing for a little while. Thankfully I know a thing or two about that. Also, please save anything you want to say to me relating to my time in the mortal realm until after we’ve made it to the safehouse. We need to get there first, and I don’t think you know the tunnel networks that well. Let’s worry about disappearing you guys first.”

Coco shrugged.

“Mostly just Kanata, Sora, and A-chan; they aren’t from around here. Watame too, now that I think about it. Those four are actually from Heaven. It’s a long story.”

“I know, actually. The angel wings kind of give it away. That’s why you need to be out of prying eyes; thankfully this tunnel network is such a convoluted mess that even if you know someone’s gone in here they’re as good as lost. If you’re all still up to walking, let’s keep going.”

Moira smirked.

“I’ll admit, what I’m doing probably counts as an abuse of my ability to influence fate, but I’ve spent thousands of years being the ‘reasonable’ seraph so I feel like I’m owed an allowance or two.”

Kurumi sighed.

“If I’m allowed to speak freely: could you at least not do it to an integral system of justice? It makes these things much messier.”

“I promise you that I do not have any preemptive pardons in the near future.”

“But let me guess: a trial or two for which you already know the outcome.”

“Already knowing the outcome of a trial does not mean I have necessarily predestined the outcome. It just means I’m very good at foresight. I will not force your hand in any manner.”

She paused.

“The only thing you really need to know is that the nameless one isn’t watching anything that happens in your particular department of the administration today. For now, your only supervisor is me; your verdicts are officially your own to make.”

By the time they reached the end of the tunnels, Sora was, despite her claims that she was entirely capable of walking on her own, gradually weakening in her stride over the journey, leaning her weight onto A-chan on one side and Watame on the other.

They had reached the end of the tunnel that they were currently going through. Aloe proceeded to slide off an otherwise unmarked wall to reveal a well-lit room.

“Here we go. The tunnels are protected from most kinds of scrying spells, too. The only way to find somebody down in the tunnels is through actually searching the tunnels. And that’s assuming you know all of the secret doors. Nobody truly does; not even I, who spent quite a while hiding down here, know all of them.”

The room was, of all things, a fairly comfortable living room. At the reveal of light, Sora dismissed her glow spell.

She also looked very tired.

“There’s more than one exit, so even if we’ve somehow been tracked we can still get out quickly.”

She pointed to a short hallway.

“Bedroom’s that way, and since you, Sora...senpai? I don’t really know, but you do not look in the best of shape right now. I dunno if angel biology requires rest or not, but it looks like it does to me.”

Kanata replied: “It doesn’t normally. I’m feeling just fine, honestly.”

Aloe shrugged.

“Mostly I’m just using my own eyes.”

Sora nodded, and followed Aloe’s directions to a bed, followed by A-chan, who looked worried, and Choco, who looked extremely worried.

When she reached the bed, she didn’t so much lie down so much as she outright collapsed into it.

Choco drew a sharp breath.

“...I think underworld affliction is real.”

Chapter Text

Sora woke up, feeling a noticeable amount of physical pain.

Just...relax. This isn’t that bad...

Her eyes then widened, because the realization that she actually felt in pain was a rather large revelation: it was the first time since becoming an angel (1) that she had actually felt any. Even being blasted directly by the nameless one’s light beam hadn’t actually hurt all that much; while it certainly hit hard, in retrospect she handled it just fine.

This was much less okay in comparison, and it was actually bad enough that Sora was already mentally rejecting the idea of actually wanting to get out of bed.

And then her mind caught up to the fact that she didn’t recognize the bed she had fallen into.

Oh right, we finally got out of the tunnels, and into Aloe’s safehouse...I need to thank her.

“Welcome to being awake.”

“Oh. Hello, A-chan. I’m feeling...okay, I think.”

Even as Sora spoke those words, her voice was weak enough that A-chan just gave Sora an honest look of pure disbelief.

I think I could’ve said that better.

A-chan sighed, and then continued speaking.

“You collapsed basically the instant we got here. Everyone was worried, for multiple reasons. Choco in particular, since in theory Kanata will be dealing with this at some point. She has a pretty strong theory, but she doesn’t want to run any medical tests without your permission. Kanata, Coco, Watame, and Towa are around the safehouse; Aloe’s out at the moment due to being the only person who isn’t known to be working with us.”

“Where’s Choco, then?”

The voice of the demon made her presence readily apparent.

“I’m right here.”

Sora turned over in bed, and, yes, sitting beside the bed in a chair, carrying writing utensils and some papers was none other than the demonic nurse Yuzuki Choco.

Choco asked fairly bluntly: “Sora-senpai, it’s a bit awkward to ask so soon after you wake up, but do you consent to me running a lot of magical medical tests on you while we’re here? Most of them will be while you’re asleep. I have a theory on exactly what Underworld Affliction is, but I’d like to confirm it.”

Sora blinked.

“Go ahead. I’m actually feeling remarkably weak at the moment. And in a lot of pain, which is weird.”

She breathed rather sharply, as if just to demonstrate what she meant. A-chan, in response, also drew a quick breath, more out of nerves than out of pain.

Choco frowned.

“To make it worse, we do not have any means whatsoever of helping your condition; demon biology and angel biology are very different. The main thing was trying to figure out how Sora succumbed to this before Kanata did.”

A-chan frowned, looking at Sora with a look of pure concern on her face.

“I guess I should just rest...”

A-chan just looked at her.

“‘I guess’? Sora-chan, you are not going anywhere without a miracle, given how good a job you’ve done today in convincing me you’re feeling well, which is to say: not at all. Let alone with the whole ‘being hunted down by demons’ issue at present.”

As if to make a point, she then laid herself down into the bed beside Sora. 

Choco smiled.

“I won’t be as harsh towards my senpai, but I will say this: no more using your magic. At all. It’s almost certainly connected to the issue at hand.”

Despite her apparent professionalism, internally she was grinning at how adorable the sight of Sora and A-chan together in bed was.

“Coco, you really don’t have to do this.”

“But I want to. If you don’t want me to, just say no. Or grab me, given your grip strength is enough that I’ll feel it.”

As of currently, both Kanata and Coco were sitting on the couch in the living room, with Kanata’s small figure leaning into and practically being wrapped around by Coco’s larger body, with Coco curling her tail around the angel.

As embarrassed as Kanata was, the issue was that Coco wasn’t actually wrong; the angel did enjoy resting by relaxing her body directly into the dragon’s. The main issue was that both a devil and a sheep were watching the interaction, and Kanata knew just as well as they did that she was most likely never going to live this down. Towa had a surprisingly devilish smirk on her face, and Watame a glowing smile that everyone knew wasn’t quite as innocent as it appeared.

“I swear to some deity that I’m going to make everyone here forget about this moment.”

Laughter erupted from everyone present, including one Mano Aloe, who had entered via opening up a hidden wall panel, walking through it into the living room, and then closing it again.

Kanata facepalmed at realizing that Aloe was present.

“Can we just forget this ever happened?”

Towa’s smirk deepened.

“I’ll remember this moment for as long as I possibly can. I’m a devil, after all.”

Aloe laughed.

“Hey, treasure memories like this. Most demons would kill to keep their happiest memories. Well, as much as one can kill in a realm where nobody stays dead. Demons really care about keeping their personal sense of identity.”

Kanata blinked.

Huh.

Aloe continued speaking.

“That being said, I believe we’re overdue for a reunion of sorts, as unfortunate as the circumstances may be.”

And with that, she knocked on the bedroom door, before walking in.

About a minute later, she walked back out, she made a “come in” gesture to the four members of hololive’s fourth generation present, who all followed into the bedroom. Sora was still in bed, while A-chan had since gotten up.

Aloe smiled, turning to the seven other people in the room.

“It’s definitely a bit cramped with eight of us here, but well, I do want to have a moment to talk. Absent anything else, I just feel bad by cutting off your opportunity to say anything back to me due to the circumstances. If you have anything you want to say, now’s probably the time.”

Towa smiled.

“I’m really sorry we never got to sing together. You would’ve been great. I suppose we can do that in Hell, assuming that we’re still able to get away from the guys chasing us down.”

Most of the room was silent, but tears formed on most of the members’ eyes.

Towa continued speaking, as if on behalf of the group.

“I’m...I’m really amazed by you. You’re a good demon, Aloe. You absolutely didn’t deserve any of what happened to you, and to be honest, we didn’t deserve this act of kindness.”

Aloe smiled.

“I only did what any other member of hololive would’ve done in my position.”

A-chan replied to the comment, somewhat in disbelief.

“You’re not a hololive member, though. And that’s the thing; it is not unfair to say that hololive failed you, for all intents and purposes. Sure, your departure was brought about by outside influences, but at the end of the day we didn’t do all that much to protect you.”

Choco continued speaking, echoing the sentiment.

“You’re a demon, Aloe, and often that means being more than a little vindictive. I don’t think you understand what you could’ve done to us; we don’t know the tunnels. You could’ve led us right into our capture if you wished. Given our failure, you’d even have ample motivation. Demons, as a species, don’t tend to be quick to forget. Lord knows that if we ever betrayed Ayame, we’d almost certainly A: get a taste of her actual demon side, and B: regret it as she messed with us for the next hundred or so years.”

Coco went next.

“You frankly saved our asses back there. You either want to leave us in your debt, or you are an outrageously idealistic believer in the hololive dream, and somehow despite the fact you’re part of a demonic species I don’t think it’s the first one. It’s not like we’ve even told you we’re leaving the door open for you to sing with us again.”

She then turned around to face her friends, and fake-whispered very loudly.

“We’re doing that, right?”

The rest of the room, Aloe included, laughed.

Aloe smiled.

“I guess it’s because, had it all happened again with you knowing it was coming, it would’ve never happened. Mistakes happen. And, while there’s certainly reasons to be thankful, don’t be too quick: I’ve really just delayed the inevitable capture. I said that they’d have to search the tunnels because they can’t scry it automatically, but if they’re that determined to capture you they might actually do that. I know a few other secret doors, but there’s less certainty about them actually leading anywhere safe.”

A-chan frowned.

“Well, we’ll take what we can get for now.”

Up in Heaven, Moira and Kurumi spoke.

Kurumi looked annoyed, while Moira had an utterly insufferable smirk on her face.

“Moira, understand that I do not approve of your meddling anymore than I do of the nameless one. It so happens that I agree with your motives a lot more than I do the nameless one, but the fact of the matter is that your methods are actually arguably less lawful. You know how I am about that.”

“Look, I know you’re not the happiest about what I did with the trials, but I did not actually intend to break justice that hard. If anything, I just felt that the pardon happened to be a nice way to correct mistakes that were made the first time you judged that particular set of souls.”

Kurumi sighed.

“If you want to file an appeal on their behalf, you can do that and let the system handle it on its own, but then again, I get the slight feeling that you don’t actually trust me.”

Moira smiled pleasantly.

“I trust you, but I don’t really believe in you all that much. I trust the hololive members, but again, I don’t necessarily believe all that much in their capabilities. It just so happens that I appreciate what they stand for, and I can work with what they’re doing. I think, just like you strongly do, that they’ve made a mistake in opposing a seraph. It just happens that I don’t believe it’s a total mistake. I think much good can come from all of this. It also just happens that I need to wait for Sora to get back up to Heaven.”

Kurumi paused.

“Wait, back up to Heaven?”

“It’s very hard to hide from the nameless one in his home realm; this was easier. Now, that being said, they’re going many places, and let’s just say it’s probably for the best that I start preparing my office for a little discussion with Sora. It’s not going to be a very fun discussion for either of us, and much more to the point she’s not appealing her trial. At all. I am selecting your next set of trials, and yes, there’s four of them, and I believe you know all of them to a certain extent.”

Kurumi lowered her head to her desk.

“Why me?”

“You’re one of the few people who actually has studied underworld beings, and thus you would know that angels and devils aren’t all that different. I believe you’ve even said that to Calliope. And also because you’re actually very good at what you do.”

“Somehow, this does not fill me with great joy. Though, yes, I suppose my record has been, if nothing else, quoted as ‘frustratingly correct’, which I suppose I will not argue - I deal with legal consequences of laws, not with the emotional consequences of them.”

“That’s why you’ll be perfect for this. I promise you this: I will not personally influence any of your next four trials. The only thing you need to remember is that the nameless one isn’t watching your verdicts; you’re solely under my jurisdiction. I will not judge you on your verdicts; you are free to make every verdict solely at your own discretion.”

Sora woke up, once again with both A-chan and Choco beside the bed, alongside a bunch of medical equipment that Sora didn’t recognize. This time, Aloe and four out of the five members of hololive’s fourth generation were present, crowding the room.

Sora whined, waking up to her body being a little weaker and a lot more in pain than she would’ve liked.

“Everything hurts. Just...give me a moment.”

Choco spoke.

“Alright. I’ve figured out what the whole deal with Underworld Affliction is. Figured it out while you were asleep. What’s interesting is that it made me realize that I was wrong the entire time. There is no underworld-based disease that’s aimed at making angels sick.”

Sora blinked.

“What is it, then?”

“It’s an entirely magical curse. Technically speaking, it affects everyone, devil, demon, angel, and everyone else between those extremes. It just so happens angels are the only ones who can be hurt by the curse.”

“What? Why?”

“The curse doesn’t affect angels at all. It affects angelic magic, and does...well, actually a lot of things, all at once. Kanata, you need to hear this as well.”

Kanata blinked.

“I guess that makes sense, given I’m an angel. If I were to take a guess, I would say that the curse averts our ability to restore magic. Is that right?”

Choco nodded.

“That’s a fairly good guess, but it’s also wrong. If that was what it did, Sora would still be just fine - well, maybe without her magic - but she’s dead tired and also in a lot of pain, which running out of magic alone can’t explain. You are on the correct train of logic, however.”

She took a moment to breathe, and then continued speaking.

“It takes the mechanisms of angelic magic and corrupts them instead. Rather than refilling with angelic magic, it instead restores your energy with magic rather profoundly from the exact opposite end of the spectrum, which essentially feedbacks the user and burns them from the inside out, in addition to not actually restoring their magic.”

Most of the room looked horrified aside from the two demons present.

A-chan looked back to the currently lying down Sora.

“And this is why Kanata hasn’t been affected. She hasn’t used her magic at all since getting here.”

“Bingo, and it actually goes one level further than this. Let’s rewind to that battle with Ririmu. Sora, in order, fired off a suppression field - twice - then an aimed telekinetic blast attack that was way higher powered than it actually needed to be, and then used a long-lasting light spell to make sure the paths to the safehouse were lit. All of those were useful, but it means that, as the curse reacts to angelic magic, well...”

Sora frowned.

“By using more and more magic, then the curse starts filling in more and more corrupted magic, with the reaction getting continuously stronger as my own angelic magic is essentially turned against its user. I’ve been using way more magic than Kanata, which is why I’m bedridden and she isn’t.”

Choco nodded.

“Exactly. And this means you actually get hit twice, because you don’t have a limiter to prevent you from overusing your abilities, which means that you’re likely to use way more power than necessary, and thus continue being a catalyst for a reaction with your own angel body being one of the reactants. There’s only one issue, which is that I can’t figure out why angelic flight doesn’t trigger the response.”

Kanata answered.

“It might. Angels are just naturally resilient - that’s one of the blessings, even - and flight magic is one of the most efficient angelic magic uses as far as our abilities go, so the effects wouldn’t be noticed. I suppose the other issue is that, as we are the underworld, there’s not much hope for a karmic restore.”

And now it was Choco’s turn to be confused.

“Karmic restore?”

And even more surprisingly, Towa answered.

“Theoretical devil technique that angels might actually do because angels, you know, have a baseline level of respect and trust for each other that devils really don’t.”

“Oh?”

“Devils are powered by karmic energy. Almost entirely negative karmic energy, the kind that we harvest from souls of violent sinners, but that’s what empowers us. We can harvest karma for our own devil energy, but we can also move it around. In theory, and I stress that because it has never actually been done, it should be possible to transfer karmic energy from one devil unto another. The problem is that the restore, if it were to work with any efficiency whatsoever, requires both parties to work together. Devils are, uh, not big on that. I imagine angels actually do occasionally do the transfer of energy because, again, they probably trust each other.”

Choco pointed out the issue.

“There’s not exactly a lot of positive karma in the underworld. Demon society tends to promote giving in your vices, and thinking in self-centered manners that aren’t generally conducive to an actual, positive-thinking society.”

Towa shrugged.

“And devils, by definition, can’t be positive. There’s a reason it’s only happened once, and I still can’t explain it.”

The rest of the room stared at her.

“Yes, it’s me. In theory, I’m actually capable of karma transferring with an angel in a non-harmful manner. I don’t really want to risk the cross-species boundary if I can avoid it; angels and devils are naturally rather different beings. Kanata’s magic - okay, Sora’s magic - is light-based and generally favours inner strength while most magic uses are utility spells. Sora had one combat spell, and that was the blast wave. Otherwise it was just the anti-magic thing, flight magic, and light spells. In comparison, I’m physically much weaker while wielding a list of spells that’s either A: entirely designed for combat scenarios or B: contract-writing magic. We’re pretty different.”

She sighed.

“That aside, Choco’s right. Well, I dunno about the hololive demons - maybe Choco and Ayame are positive; karma-positive demons are rare but they do happen.”

Choco chuckled.

“Consider my appearance, and the fact that Lust is generally considered a sin. And just in case you aren’t aware: Ayame’s 1500 years old. She’s mellowed out a lot since her earlier days - she was a real terror a few hundred years ago; those swords are not for show. She happens to also be fairly practical; hololive was the first environment she’d been in for which being a genuinely good person was simply much easier than not. Hell, even I didn’t entirely drop my roots when I joined hololive, as you might be aware.”

Most of the room laughed at that.

Aloe added: “Before anyone asks me, let’s just, uh, not go there.”

Sora paused.

“So, what’s the plan?”

Kanata took a breath, and then answered.

“I’ll eventually open a portal back to administration, and then we’ll get back to the in-between from there. Given the problems related to Underworld Affliction, this means, rather unfortunately, I can only make one attempt at casting the spell. More importantly, and I know some of you will disagree with me on doing this, but I’m actually in contact with Kurumi. She says she has four trials coming up in a couple of days from now, so we should be able to sneak by, if we time this right. I haven’t told her that we’re in Hell; I think she believes we’re still in the in-between.”

The entire rest of the room jaw-dropped while Coco grinned.

“That’s rather unangelike of you. I’ll support you wholeheartedly.”

A-chan smiled.

“Then we’ll rest for now. Specifically, Sora will rest. Doctor Choco’s orders. And my orders, too.”

Chapter Text

It had been a few days since the group had arrived at Aloe's safehouse. 

Sora had physically recovered some of her strength, to the point where her natural blessing of resilience had made her feel almost normal once again. That said, ‘normal’ was a very relative term, and she was a little tired of feeling continuously tired, as if an eternity of pushing herself too hard had come all crashing down at once.

Still, she once again could walk, and that was nice.

The living room was relatively populated, with Coco currently curled up around Kanata on the couch much to the latter’s embarrassment, as well as Towa sitting beside the two of them, casually staring at her phone with a relatively passive interest on whatever was on it. On a chair was Watame, who mostly seemed to find the scene amusing, and Choco was leaning on one of the walls. A-chan, who was seemingly watching over the group, smiled upon seeing Sora awake and walking again.

“You seem to be doing better-”

Rather suddenly, Aloe entered, as she usually did, by opening up a hidden door in the living room wall, walking through it, and then closing it. She then turned around, raised her hand, and then some mysterious red runes appeared briefly on the door, before disappearing.

Aloe then turned around to the now present Sora.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be up, but I suppose a pleasant surprise is a pleasant surprise. How are you feeling?”

Sora sighed.

“Tired, but like...human tired, not cursed tired. Thanks for taking us in; I know this place is too small for eight people.”

Aloe smirked.

“Yeah, curses suck like that. Glad to see you’re doing...well, better, anyway. And to be honest, this place is too large for one person, so I don’t mind.”

Sora paused, thinking about Aloe for a moment.

“What’s with the runes on the door?”

The demon girl shrugged.

“Sealing spell. Just a little something to keep outsiders from running into us too frequently. There’s no good way to put this, so I’ll say it like this: we’re being chased. It’s undeniable; I’ve been running into demons in the tunnels who appear to be searching for something, and I’m beginning to suspect it’s you. The seal will keep the door in a condition such that only I can open it from the outside, unless they have a seal breaker or someone on the inside. Since none of you who followed know the technique - well, Choco might but I haven’t asked - it’s fairly likely they won’t have anyone capable of breaching the door, since they likely won’t have a reason to; they’re much more likely to bring someone who’s more trained in finding hidden doors, since there’s so many around here.”

Sora sighed.

“Thanks. I know it’s probably not fun.”

Aloe shrugged.

“Nothing I haven’t done before. I’ve always had a talent for attracting less than wanted attention to myself. I wish I didn’t, but I very unfortunately do have a talent for it.”

A-chan sighed.

“Well, as unfortunate as it is, ever since we died, Sora’s also been remarkably good at it. I really wish she wasn’t, but, well, here we are. It’s a long story, but there’s a reason we’re in Hell. I do see why Coco would bring up there being some nefarious reason for you helping us; we haven’t done anything to deserve it.”

Aloe smirked.

“Hey, if anything, it’s nice being able to use a very specialized set of skills for something that benefits someone else. It’s just unfortunate that you got the attention of some much more dedicated hunters; this might actually be outside my level of disappearing competence. This is why I’ve been out of the house; I’ve been laying down an escape plan so we have somewhere else to run, whenever you’re ready.”

Sora and A-chan both blinked, and Coco asked the implied question.

“What makes you think this location is compromised already?”

As if to answer the question by demonstration, Choco whispered, while putting one ear to the wall:

“They’re outside right now, in fact. They just can’t get in.”

Everyone else in the room widened their eyes.

Aloe breathed in sharply, before whispering.

“We’ll go as soon as the coast is clear. Anyone not from Hell, go hide in the bedroom.”

The members that weren’t from Heaven did as they were told.

And with that, she waited a few minutes, opened the door, walked out, and then closed and re-sealed the door.

Yuzuki Choco, putting her ear to the wall, continued listening in on the conversation.

Aloe’s voice went first.

“What are you guys here for? There’s nothing down here.”

A voice Choco didn’t recognize responded.

“We’re looking for someone. They were last seen down here.”

“Well, you’ve found my little safehouse. Now get out, I don’t like visitors. Who are you looking for, anyway?”

“Well that’s the funny thing. We’re actually looking for angels, as ridiculous as that sounds.”

“Oh, them. I actually saw where they went. I’d rather you not bother me, but you’re gonna, I’ll just tell you to go down another two floors; from there, go west. I’ll admit that’s what I know; you have fun checking the dozens of secret doors down there.”

A few minutes passed, and then once again, Aloe entered the room.

“Let’s run.”

This time, it was Coco who had lit up the tunnels with ambient fire magic. They couldn’t afford to make Sora use her abilities; even though she was once again walking, they knew that she wasn’t anywhere close to peak performance again.

Aloe decided to elaborate on where they were going.

“We’re gonna switch networks.”

Coco blinked.

“Switch networks?”

Aloe replied.

“The underworld city’s tunnel system is made out of like seven different networks that are mostly   though not entirely disconnected from each other. They all connect at one central area which theoretically means we could avoid going to the surface, but the problem is we can’t do that, because the central connection area is almost certainly going to be watched. We don’t have many other options; which means the only other way is to go to the surface level. And, if we’re forced to do that, then the only thing we want to do is go as far as possible from the city before we surface. These tunnels thankfully go fairly far; as long as we keep going, we should basically exit the core of the city. At that point, we’ll transfer networks from the surface region and hopefully lose your pursuers.”

A-chan’s voice replied to the statement nervously.

“I do not like the tone of the word ‘hopefully’ in there.”

“Look, if they’ve recruited seal busting demons for this, it has officially exceeded anything that I’ve had to get away with, in this realm or in the mortal realm. I just have to get away from other demons - well, not just demons - being assholes; but from the looks of it you have an organized ring after you, and that’s probably outside of what I can handle.”

Sora smiled.

“Well, I’m choosing to believe in you, even if it’s for something unusual.”

After what felt like and probably was hours, Aloe raised her hand and stopped the group.

“Alright, here we are. End of the tunnel. If we can keep going we’ll enter another tunnel and be able to connect to a different underground tunnel network. The nice thing is that basically any demon who uses the far reaches of the network tends to be the solitary type who will leave you alone as long as you do the same. Are we all ready to make a run for it?”

Sora nodded. To be honest, she wasn’t well enough to make a long sprint, but it was looking like there were few other options; physically pushing it was all she probably could do.

And so, all eight of them ran out of the tunnels, preparing for the worst. It was as Aloe said: they were now on the surface, and from the looks of it, in a location pretty remote in comparison to where they entered. Nobody was looking for them.

Still, the run was nerve-wracking; they were badly exposed, without cover; if anyone spotted them and cared to chase them then they would lose the possibility of entirely outwitting their pursuers.

And with that, unusually, while Kanata mostly used her wings to hover quickly, she took her phone out, checking it unusually actively, and then put it away.

So far, it was going perfectly. There were a few other demons afoot, but most of them simply ignored them, or at worst, gave a passing glance to the unusual appearance of a pair of angels.  As Aloe said, demons that lived out here had a much more live-and-let-live approach to life; that’s why they chose to hang out around the underground network, where few would find them.

Sora was regretting the decision to say she was ready to sprint; the fact of the matter is that she had very much not regained her full strength and was now physically having trouble making the dash for it.

I can’t slow the rest of them down. Just keep focusing on moving.

And, just like Aloe had said, they reached the entrance of another tunnel, with an ominous door closed.

“Here it is. Keep going down this tunnel, and it should connect us to where we need to go.”

She opened the door.

Standing behind them was Ririmu, wearing a sinister grin on her face.

“Gotcha.”

Chapter Text

Aloe immediately turned around.

“Get away from here!”

And that was as far as she got; as she finished the sentence a glowing sword made out of some sort of magical energy was sticking directly through her body from behind.

She didn’t have much time to realize that fact, however, as the blade was retracted, and then Ririmu raised her hands, blasting Aloe several feet behind the rest of the hololive members still standing as they watched in horror. She didn’t get up from the impact.

“I’m...sorry.”

They all knew they didn’t have time to observe the horrid scene; Ririmu was once again on their tail.

That being said, Towa wasn’t interested in running away. She stood her ground, and looked poised to do precisely the opposite.

“Hey, Ririmu, can we just talk for a moment? You know, stop yourself before you do anything you really regret. You’re alone, and you’re probably not the most powerful person here. Hell, you might not even be the second strongest; you saw what happened when you picked a fight with the angels, and we’ve got two of ‘em here. Can I request you sign a non-aggression contract? It’ll be easier for both of us. Oh yeah, and you’re speaking to the devil who led the effort to down Akuma earlier this year; you’ve gotta know this won’t end well for you. And if you dare to attack my friends, you know that’s pushing the same button that led me to fight a bloody stalemate against Akuma, and I only had Ayame helping me that time.”

Ririmu paused.

“You know, you make a good point. My ability to run magical currents directly through a victim's pain receptors is limited to former mortal biology, which means it naturally doesn’t work on demons, devils, and it probably doesn’t work on angels, either. I suppose that’s why I usually summon others to do my bidding, though I think personally I can make this work solo. So, with that in mind...”

She grinned again.

“...Request DENIED!”

And with that, she fired a beam directly at Towa. It wasn’t red; this one was violet in colour. It hit Towa head on; in an act of arrogance Towa didn’t even bother trying to dodge.

This was a mistake.

Towa screamed, collapsing as her body convulsed as she felt the pain of dark magic being run through whatever the devil equivalent of pain receptors was.

“How...how did you…”

She cried, whimpering in pain, lying on the ground rather pathetically.

Ririmu shrugged.

“I spent years specially tailoring a variant of the painbringer so it would work on devils. Ya know how hard it is to actually claim superiority over foes that are actually stronger than you? You’ve gotta get terrifyingly creative. And so, I did, well, exactly that. Now, for the rest of you.”