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“Are you kidding me?!” Niji practically yells. “Sanji got Employee of the Month again?!”
He glares hard enough at the golden edged portrait of his little brother hanging underneath the damning ‘Employee of the Month’ sign that he’s only mildly shocked that the golden paint on the frame doesn’t start peeling off under the force of it. His hands clench and unclench at his sides, itching to rip the stupid picture off the wall and cast it down to the depths of hell.
“This is the third month in a row!” Niji huffs, “This shit is rigged!”
“Maybe it’s because you do such a piss poor job that I barely have to try,” Sanji smirks, lighting up a cigarette.
“I hope you catch your feathers on fire again,” Niji hisses.
Sanji scowls. “And maybe another reason you aren’t is your shitty personality!”
“Knock it off!” Reiju jumps in, smacking them both on the back of their heads, “People are staring!”
Niji glances around, glaring at all the other angels milling near the holy public notice board. Most of them flinch and look away when Niji meets their eyes, even the heavenly wheels of fire. “If they’re staring, that’s their own damn problem!”
“How did you two ever become angels?” Reiju sighs, rubbing her forehead, “You both swear enough that I’m shocked the seraphim didn’t make you gargle water in the River Styx to wash your mouths out.”
“I think our mother just had enough good karma that Niji and Sanji got in on a legacy admission,” Ichiji says dryly.
“Isn’t nepotism a sin?” Yonji wonders.
“Of course not. God put his own son on earth to be a leader to the humans, remember?” Ichiji says. “If that’s not nepotism, I don’t know what is.”
“Getting off topic!” Niji snaps, “What’s important is that Sanji somehow beat us all for the third time! Why aren’t all of you also pissed?!”
“Eh, it doesn’t really bother me,” Yonji says with a shrug, “I mean, isn’t envy a sin too? I’m pretty sure about that one. They made me do a powerpoint about it to get my wings and all that.”
“We all had to do the powerpoint, Yonji,” Reiju says. “But I agree, I don’t really mind it either. Shouldn’t we just be proud of our brother for managing to save the most souls for three months in a row?”
“Pride’s a sin,” Yonji mutters, only for Reiju to step on his foot. “Ow!”
“There’s no reason for the rest of us to concern ourselves with something so petty,” Ichiji agrees. “But if you’re truly so concerned about it, Niji, then maybe you should try taking on some extra assignments. I’m sure the Higher Up will take notice of you showing some initiative.”
Niji groans. “More work?”
On his last assignment he’d ended up nearly killing the human he was charged with protecting since the guy seemed to think the best hobby in the world was cliff diving. After barely managing to keep the stupid bastard from drowning himself for the fourth time, Niji was tempted to just let him sink to the bottom of the ocean on his next attempt. The dumbass was lucky his friends all decided to call it quits after that particular close call, and Niji had submitted his completed assignment seconds afterwards so that human could be someone else’s problem.
“Niji’s too much of a lazy bastard to do that,” Sanji snickers.
“You fucking-“
“There’s only one way to prove him wrong,” Ichiji says, gesturing down to the earth slowly spinning below him.
“I know what you’re all trying to do,” Niji says, “You just want me to work more for free!”
“We don’t even get paid,” Reiju points out dryly.
“You know what I mean!”
“You say this like helping more people is awful,” Sanji snorts, “This is why you never make Employee of the Month.”
Niji seethes with indignant rage as he considers the lose-lose situation in front of him. Unfortunately his siblings are right in saying that if he took on additional assignments it would probably impress the Higher Up, but at the same time he loathes taking on additional work.
He’d always considered helping humans in their day-to-day routines to be so pointless. Humans were just so damn fragile that practically anything could kill them at a moment’s notice, and Niji was sick of pulling people back from the edges of crosswalks, keeping them from slipping on patches of ice, or whatever else had suddenly decided to try and kill his charges for the fifth time that hour.
He was pretty sure it’d be easier to care for literally anything else on the planet instead of a human, since at least animals didn’t often go running headlong into danger against their better judgement. Humans were supposed to have access to all the forbidden knowledge that was gifted to them by the Higher Up, right? So why didn’t they use their own goddamn fucking brains for once instead of making Niji run interference to try and keep their squishy meat suits alive?
Truly, the ways of the Almighty were beyond what Niji could comprehend. He would’ve chosen dinosaurs to inherit the earth instead. Those supersized lizards had been fucking awesome, and they definitely wouldn’t have given Niji a migraine by doing something as stupid as trying to pet a wild grizzly bear. That had happened three times.
Ah shit, now he was getting off topic.
Niji forces himself to refocus on the current situation. After a few more minutes of deliberation- minutes where Reiju had begun to look increasingly impatient and Ichiji’s eyebrow had started twitching over the edge of his sunglasses- Niji finally accepts defeat. Even with his limited access to angelic omniscience, he still couldn’t think of another way of getting Employee of the Month, and damn it he wanted that title if only so he could rub it in Sanji’s smug fucking face just once.
“Do you have any extra assignments, Ichiji?” Niji finally asks, shoulders slumping.
Ichiji lets out a long, frustrated breath. “Yes, I do in fact.” He pulls out a file and seems to seriously consider chucking it at Niji’s head. Ultimately Ichiji just hands it to him, though it takes a bit of Niji’s superhuman strength to pry it out of his brother’s grip.
“Asshole,” Niji mutters.
“I will spike you down to the depths of hell, so help me,” Ichiji says.
“You’ll make Mama sad,” Yonji says with a frown.
“What Mama doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
Niji ignores the idle banter to flip open the file and scan the papers inside. He practically groans when he sees that it’s yet another Guardian Angel mission, the fifth one he’s handled in the last month.
“Really?” Niji asks, looking up from the file.
“You could always give it to Sanji,” Ichiji says, raising an eyebrow.
Niji grits his teeth, slamming the folder shut and dissolving it into sunlight. “Fine! Whatever!” He snaps his wings out, white feathers shedding all over the fluffy golden clouds below them.
“Gross,” Sanji says, making a face, “When was the last time you groomed?”
“Fuck off,” Niji says, flipping Sanji off.
“Or gone to your corporate mandated anger management classes?” Sanji adds.
“Wrath is a sin,” Yonji adds unhelpfully.
“I said, fuck off!”
Niji launches himself off the clouds sharply, wings beating against the air as he hovers like a particularly murderous dove. “I’m gonna save the shit out of this person, get Employee of the Month, and when I see you again I’ll cram your halo down your damn throat!”
He doesn’t wait for a response, soaring over the clouds and past the pearly gates before tucking his wings in and hurtling like a comet toward earth. The wind rushes past his face fast enough that it stings, but he pays it no mind. He’s weathered the sensation hundreds of thousands of times over the millennia’s that he’s been alive.
He’ll show Sanji, he thinks, he’ll show all his stupid siblings that he’s worthy of his damn wings, and then he’ll rip Sanji’s stupid portrait off the stupid wall. Part of him whispers that his thoughts probably aren’t the most angelic, but Niji seizes his conscience in a well-practiced motion and tosses it aside.
He’s just here to help people. He doesn’t have to be fucking nice about it.
It’s relatively easy to find the subject of his assignment. Nico Robin, according to her file, is mostly a creature of habit, going about her usual routine of attending classes for her Master’s degree in Archaeology interspersed occasionally with meetups with her friends for meals after class or on the weekends. Sometimes she goes off campus to visit the nearby library or her mother’s grave, but otherwise her life is a normal, completely unremarkable human one.
“Boring,” Niji mutters, tossing the folder aside. It vanishes in a flash of sunlight accompanied by the chime of church bells. He rolls his eyes.
Niji goes back to scanning the college campus grounds, completely unseen by the general population of students, until he spots the large circular table set up amongst other similar tables outside the cafeteria. Nico Robin is sitting at with other humans that he assumes are her friends, eating lunch and laughing along to some story one of them is telling. Niji shoves his hands in his pockets and starts walking toward the table.
The file on Nico Robin had contained some details about the people she associated with- presumably the same ones she’s sitting with right now- but Niji hadn’t bothered to glance over any of their names. The last thing he wanted to learn about was more boring humans, and he doubted they’d be very relevant to his mission anyway. He was only supposed to protect her for a little while, no point in putting in any more effort than was actually necessary.
It’s as Niji gets closer to the table that he spots something odd. He frowns, squinting at a strange man standing near his target. The man looks normal enough at first glance, but Niji does a double take as he notices the two pointed horns just barely poking out from the top of his wildly curly hair. The man snickers as he waves a hand and a slingshot materializes out of thin air.
He pulls back the band and fires the slingshot at a nearby window, hitting his mark expertly. Niji has no idea what projectile the man used, but the reinforced glass immediately splinters from around the point of impact.
Immediately there are a few startled exclamations from nearby students. A girl who had been about to walk past the window shrieks loudly and jumps back from the hazard, just in time to as the window shatters fully and collapses into shards off broken glass on the ground.
“What the hell was that?!”
“It just exploded!”
“Maybe a bird hit it?”
“Do you see a bird?!”
Other students are looking over now, panicked, and before long one of the employees from inside the cafeteria comes out to examine the damage. Even Nico Robin and her friends are looking over with concern, one of them muttering something about getting a first aid kit before digging around in his bag.
None of them seem to notice the man with the slingshot.
The man cackles to himself as he dematerializes his weapon with another wave of his hand. He stretches his arms up lazily, eyes scanning the crowd’s panicked reactions with an expression of immense self-satisfaction, and Niji can see the exact moment the man’s eyes land on the table that Nico Robin and her friends are currently sitting at. His eyes light up.
“Oh hell no,” Niji mutters.
He’s crossing the outdoor eating area in a handful of long strides, beelining for the troublemaker who hasn’t even seemed to notice him yet. Well, that suits him just fine, Niji thinks grimly before he reaches out and grabs a handful of the back of the man’s bright blue sweater before hoisting the other right off his feet.
“Don’t even think about it, demon!” Niji growls.
Up close he’s even more certain of his assessment as he gets a better view of the demon’s tiny horns and now can even see how the other’s ears end in distinctive points.
“Ahh!” The demon trapped in his grip flails wildly, arms and legs shooting out in confusion as he makes a feeble effort to free himself. Part of Niji’s brain idly conjures the image of holding a cat by the scruff of its neck, complete with the confused shrieks coming out of the other’s mouth.
Niji banishes the thought with a shake of his head and refocuses on the demon. “That’s my target! Pick someone else!”
“What?!”
The demon still looks disoriented. He hasn’t even summoned a weapon yet, though Niji had already been prepared to counter with his own sword if the demon had. After a few more seconds of struggling where the demon still refuses to summon his weapon, Niji feels a flash of confusion.
Niji finally drops the other as his arm gets tired of holding him, “Draw a weapon on me, and I’ll run you through.” It’s then that he finally meets the demon’s gaze properly.
Honestly Niji is… not impressed. The demon in front of him is much scrawnier than the usual soldiers and generals he’s seen in past clashes with hell’s forces. This one’s practically shaking in his boots as Niji glares down at him. Tinier horns then most demons too, Niji notes as his eyes flick to the small triangular points sticking out of the other’s hair. Maybe he’s fresh out training or just spawned from hell’s depths?
That might actually be the case if the slingshot Niji had seen earlier was the demon’s actual weapon. Most demons he’d met before used full size swords, spears, tridents, and battle axes. A slingshot was practically nothing in comparison. Niji crosses his arms, relaxing his posture slightly as his judgment of the other’s threat level lowers.
The demon, for his part, looks like he wants to cut and run now that he has both feet on the ground, but also seems to realize that running would’t be the wisest choice in this situation. At least he’s smarter than most demons.
“I-I don’t wanna fight!” He says, waving his hands in front of him. The other’s demeanor is so timid that Niji actually believes him.
“Good,” Niji huffs, “That lady’s mine.” He jerks his head toward Nico Robin.
“Wh-?” It’s then that the man in front of him seems to finally register Niji’s halo and wings. “Wait, aren’t you an angel?”
“Did you just notice?” Niji asks, tone condescending.
The demon sputters, “I- I just, you weren’t acting like an angel!”
“You got a problem with how I act?” Niji snaps.
The demon in front of him instantly shrinks back. “P-problem? Nope, absolutely not! No problems here!”
Niji crosses his arms, “Get lost then. I gotta make sure she doesn’t walk into traffic or something.”
He glances sullenly then at the woman at the table, who’s been obliviously speaking with her friends throughout this whole exchange. It seems whatever excitement had been happening from the shattering window has passed now and they’re back to discusssing- he strains his ears- student loan. Oh, for fuck’s sake.
“You, uh, you don’t sound too excited about that,” the demon says, regaining Niji’s attention. “You know, the whole protecting thing.”
“What’s it to you?” Niji asks harshly. Privately he admits that the demon’s not necessarily wrong. Niji definitely wouldn’t consider looking after a boring human to be the best use of his time, but he’ll be damned if he fails this assignment for a reason as ridiculous as not being excited about it.
“I guess I’m just wondering…” the demon hesitates, “Why are you doing this if you don’t enjoy it? I thought all angels were supposed to be really gung-ho about protecting humanity and all that.”
“I don’t owe you a fucking answer,” Niji huffs.
“Did you just curse?” The demon says, eyes wide.
“Yeah,” Niji says, raising an eyebrow, “You gonna tattle to the Higher Up on me?”
“What? No!” The man says, “I just didn’t think angels could do that!”
“I bet you think we all spend our free time wearing white choir robes and tuning our harps too then?” Niji deadpans.
“…Don’t you?” The demon asks tentatively.
“Hell no!” Niji says. He then grins a bit sadistically as a thought strikes him. “My mother pulled me out of harp lessons after I tried to choke out my brother with the strings.”
That hadn’t actually been the reason his mother had removed him from harp lessons, but it sounded better than just a lack of interest. Part of him just wants to make the demon in front of him squirm, a task that seems all too easy considering how jumpy the other is.
For a moment the demon can only gape at him as Niji grins. “I- you-!” Then something strange happens. A shadow passes over the demon’s face and he narrows his eyes at Niji. “You’re lying.”
Niji blinks, not expecting to be called out on it. The other looks certain though, as if he already knows the story is a falsehood. Niji frowns. “How did you…?”
“I can tell,” the demon says, “I can tell when people are lying. It’s kind of my thing.”
“A demon of Deceit then?” Niji asks.
“Something like that,” the demon says vaguely.
There’s a pause as Niji reevaluates the demon in front of him. He’d thought the other was a low-level demon, something fresh out of the pits, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. Demons of Deceit were much higher up the metaphorical ladder of demon kind than a fresh-faced soldier. Maybe this demon is a bigger threat than he’d initially thought.
“I’m Usopp, by the way,” the demon says, seemingly uncomfortable with the continued silence.
“Odd name for a demon,” Niji muses.
Usopp shrugs. “Easier to pronounce than-“ he says something in a dead language that Niji hasn’t heard used in at least a millennia. Yeah, alright, this guy definitely isn’t some newborn demon.
“…Niji,” he finally introduces himself.
“So, you’re assigned to Nico Robin then?” Usopp asks, rocking back on his heels.
“You know her name?”
“Sure do,” Usopp confirms, offering Niji a smile then, “Because I’ve been assigned to her too!”
Niji freezes, eyes widening. “That’s impossible.”
It should be impossible. There’d been an agreement between heaven and hell centuries ago to never assign a demon and an angel to the same person after a series of horrible clashes between them over their charges had left humans caught in the middle of a few terrible nearly species-ending plagues, floods, famines, and natural disasters.
“That’s my line,” Usopp says. He waves a hand, and in a cloud of horrible sulfuric gas a file appears in his hand. Usopp coughs and waves the lingering cloud away with the file before handing the folder over to Niji. “See for yourself.”
Niji takes the file and flips open the cover.
Nico Robin, human (30)
Niji summons his own folder in a shower of flower petals, shaking them off the file quickly.
“That’s not fair,” he hears Usopp mutter, though he ignores it in favor of opening his own assignment.
Nico Robin, human (30)
“What the fuck,” Niji says, glancing rapidly between the files. All the information inside them are the same, from the overview summaries to the smallest details about the woman’s habits. The only difference are the executive’s signatures on the bottom, one from an archangel and one from one of Lucifer’s top generals.
He eventually hands the file back to Usopp who vanishes it once more. “Believe me now?”
“What are we supposed to do now?” Niji asks, tossing his own folder aside in frustration. The added spectacle of the usual sunshine and church bells as the folder disappears only serves to piss him off more.
“Maybe we can just ignore the assignment then?” Usopp offers.
Niji scoffs. “Ignore our assignments after we accepted them? If any of the upper angels and demons see that we’ve done so we’ll be hunted for sport. If we’re lucky.”
Usopp grimaces. “Well, they were the ones who messed up!”
“Yeah, I’m sure that’ll go over really well when we’re questioned by our managers,” Niji deadpans. If Usopp’s superiors were anything like Niji’s, then they were definitely not interested in being told they were wrong. Judging by the look on the demon’s face, Niji’s assumption probably isn’t too far off.
“Okay,” Usopp runs his fingers through his hair again, starting to mutter under his breath. “Let me think… Maybe we can try and…”
Niji absently notes that when the demon pushes his hands through his hair his tiny dark red horns briefly become more visible. He’s struck with a sudden urge to reach up and try and push the other’s hair back down again to get a better look, but he quickly dismisses the unexpected impulse.
What the hell was that?
“I got it!” Usopp suddenly exclaims.
“Huh?” Niji jolts out of his idle musings.
“So we have completely opposite objectives, right?” Usopp says, “You have to protect her, I have to try and endanger her.”
“Yeah?”
“So what if we work together then?” Usopp says excitedly, “I’ll tell you when I’m going to do something dangerous, and you swoop in to save her. We’re both technically doing our jobs, just now with a little collaboration!”
“Collaboration,” Niji deadpans, “You really think we can get away with that?”
“Unless you have a better solution,” Usopp says, looking at Niji skeptically.
Unfortunately Niji definitely does not have a better solution. No matter how he slices it, he’s still in the middle of a colossal corporate fuckup, and unless he wants to be strung up by his pinions it’s looking more and more like Usopp’s solution is the only option. Forget being Employee of the Month, if Niji doesn’t fulfill his assignment he’ll be lucky if he’s not stuck mucking out the stables of the Four Horse of the Apocalypse for the next two centuries.
Niji exhales frustratedly, wanting to rage against the situation he’s found himself in but not having any outlet to do so. This is what he gets for taking extra work. When he gets back to heaven he’s going to superglue Ichiji’s stupid sunglasses to his face for putting him through this.
“Fine.” He forces the word out through gritted teeth.
“Wait, really?” Usopp gapes at him.
“Didn’t you want me to agree?” Niji snaps.
“I- I mean, yeah, I just thought it’d take more persuading,” Usopp sputters, “I was already building up this whole argument in my head. I even drafted part of a powerpoint I could use if you give me like five minutes with a computer-”
Niji rolls his eyes and cuts the other off, “You do know that if we do this then we’re going to need to be convincing, right?”
“Of course!” Usopp’s chest puffs up, “Don’t worry, I’ll come up with the best kinds of accidents possible, and then you can be all heroic and everything so upper management doesn’t suspect us of working together!”
“Are you sure you can do something that drastic though?” Niji asks.
“What do you mean?”
“No offense, but when I go into save her it has to actually look like her life was in danger,” Niji says, “You think you can actually try to kill someone?”
Usopp frowns then, and suddenly his whole demeanor shifts. Niji inhales sharply as the air around them shifts to swelteringly hot, then scalding. The sunlight warps and dims, throwing strange shadows across the ground. When he looks into the other’s eyes, they’re filled with hellfire and brimstone.
“You think I can’t be scary?” Usopp asks, voice echoing oddly, like it’s emanating from everywhere and nowhere all at once… And then he’s back to normal. The temperature shifts back to it’s mild warmth and the sun shines normally once more. Usopp smiles wryly at Niji’s no doubt gobsmacked expression. “Don’t underestimate me too much.”
Something sparks in Niji then, something like… interest.
For so long Niji has been bored out of his skull watching the coming’s and going’s of various humans as they scuttle like ants all over the tiny blue planet they call home. Up to this point there’s been very little, if anything, that’s been able to capture Niji’s attention for longer than a few minutes. It’s been so long that most days Niji feels like he’s wandering aimlessly through his existence rather than actually experiencing it.
But there’s something about this demon.
It calls to a part of Niji that he’s long suppressed, a tense excitement to see just what might happen next. Usopp is an unpredicted factor in his otherwise highly regimented life and its cycle of boring assignments. It’s like a shock of electricity through his core to realize there’s something new to see. A grin involuntarily stretches across his face.
“My mistake,” Niji says, feeling like he’s been shot through with adrenaline, “I think this might work out better than I expected.” He extends a hand. “Let’s work together then.”
Usopp seems to balk at the other’s attitude shift and barely restrained enthusiasm, but he quickly puts on a brave face. “Uh, yeah! Sure!” He tentatively reaches out to take Niji’s hand.
When they shake hands Niji feels that rush of electricity again, jolting every nerve in his body into high alert. Had he just made an actual deal with the demon? He hopes so. It was getting too fucking dull around here.
“Don’t disappoint me, Usopp,” Niji says, as he feels the contract take hold, “If you can’t entertain me, you better hope the Devil finds you first.”