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October 10

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"Hey everyone, I need your help saving the world!"

It had been a good night. Or morning. Whatever. Drinking with Divesepid and the Smaragd Guard, worrying about nothing. Favaro had deserved this break, okay. So why did she just have to come Ninaing into his cave like this.

"Aha," Rachel slurred. "I thought we were already doing that?"

"Yes, but we're expanding the plan." Nina grabbed a rock and scooted closer to the fire. "We need to — wait, shouldn't you be on patrol?"

"Bel's gone up to the ship with Cerberus for instructions on the tribe leadership thing." Rachel cast a shadow somewhere at the entrance — ah, Azazel being all broody. "Goat guy, what was that crap about you kicking the dog girl? She never needed you to be a bitch before."

Nina sighed. "Azazel is very, very bad at public relations even when he tries. Anyway, we're going to move Dromos to Eibos so Bahamut goes nowhere near the city."

"Aha," Rachel said, and then once more for good measure, "Aha ... what?"

"I'm not sure how yet, but I'm sure if we get all the skilled people together we'll make it work. I'm going to go around a bit in the lower ring, and you—" She handed Rachel a short list with names. "—can go to the upper ring to find me these people? Once you're sober."

Favaro leaned over to read the list; the leaders of three civilian human resistances plus Walfrid for some reason.

"Why?" he asked, because someone had to.

"We're making an airborne town to fly there, what else?"

Everyone just stared.

When Divesepid stirred in his sleep, Azazel snapped, "You. Get up."

Divesepid tensed up at spotting Azazel. "What are you doing here?"

"Helping me!" Nina said all too brightly for the madness she was spouting. "Anyway, Favaro, what does the Red Troupe actually want?"

Favaro shrugged. "We know they're commoners who like the king to be gone. Lots of them lost people to his harsh laws."

"I wanna talk to them," Nina said. "And I also wanna talk to Klarimiani and Anne, so you need to find Rita's hideout for us; she wasn't in her old place. We didn't even find her zombies."

"Do you still have any?" Azazel asked Divesepid.

The unease in the air didn't get any better as the answer was awaited.

"We're going to need a lot of workers for the sky island," Nina quickly added. "Zombies will be better cause they don't get tired."

"Doing what exactly?" Malphas asked, still on the blurry brink of being knocked out.

"The sky island of bits of Cocytus that we're gonna use," Nina said, before launching into wild, disjointed ideas that she was sure other folks could put together better. Favaro forgot most of it.

She was frantic, almost desperate. More than once she asked whether whomever she spoke to was sure they'd do it quickly.

Azazel leaned cross armed against a wall, altering between watching her like a hawk and looking anywhere but her whenever she glanced in his direction. Looming as usual, but kind of put on the spot too. He left at the first excuse; Nina wanted Belphegor and Trismegistus in on it. One of his goats remained behind, keeping an eye on Nina.

Nina got her way, and had almost everyone going placed except Malphas, who insisted she'd be doing more than enough during the building. Divesepid wandered off to gather a scarce few zombies, Rachel and the rest to find human allies, and Favaro was to go to the Red Troupe.

Nina herself ran off somewhere. He followed.

Curious, she stopped to look at him.

"Nina, don't forget to slow down," Favaro said. "When I say the wind blows to tomorrow, I don't mean you gotta run as fast as the wind. How are you doing?"

"I'm fine. I actually got to talk a bit with Sofiel and that helped. Really, don't worry."

"Eight days to get to Eibos with the fastest skybeast, Nina. Like, good for you it's not all about your love life, but don't burn up on something else either."

· · · · · · ·

Vanaheimr had changed. El Mugaro could sense it before ne even went outside. The once serene, empty city had come to life with visitors from other pantheons. Ne had never seen so much diverse faces, not even during the invasion a few months ago; there were citizens now.

Despite the liveliness, ne didn't get to see Sofiel. The longer ne tried to sense her direction, the more sure ne was of her absence altogether. She wasn't even close to Vanaheimr despite the city requiring her more than ever.

But someone else was, so Mugaro tinkered with the new locks on nur room in the early morning and went for a walk, a flight, and a few more walks and flights, which might have involved a few more overloaded doors and some guards telekinetically tossed into soon to be locked rooms. Gabriel wouldn't like this. El Mugaro didn't care.

Bacchus had a rather nice, colorful room that was an awful lot like his old carriage. Ne suspected he still slept on the couch. There was no liquor anywhere though, and Bacchus all sober left a grouchier person with traces of alcohol withdrawal. Ne started quietly working against the symptoms, though the source was too much brain stuff for nur to fix. That coffee he now obsessively seemed to drink didn't help.

"Hello, Bacchus. What's going on?"

"Huh? What are you doing here? Get out before you're seen!"

Mugaro just peaked out the door before locking it using a high security code ne had seen Gabriel use once. "They can't see me if nobody can get in!"

"Ugh, fine. Sit down." Bacchus slumped back into his seat and almost poured a second cup, before reconsidering. "I got no juice or anything."

"That's okay." Ne took a couch opposite of Bacchus and pulled up nur knees. "So what are you doing here?"

"Political stuff. Odin contends Gabriel isn't a worthy successor for Zeus, who was Mortis' chosen. Says the four arch angel council should stick to advising roles and that he as Zeus's right hand should be the true king. With all the recent drama, he's finally got a foot to stand on. Sofiel asked me to sabotage from the inside out, but now she went on a damn pilgrimage I dunno what to do anymore."

"Sofiel wouldn't just abandon mother," El Mugaro said. "Not when she went to heaven to go get help. You don't really believe that, right? She must be locked up somewhere!"

Bacchus squeezed the bridge of his nose. "You're doing something to my head?"

"Yes, healing your symptoms a bit. I'm glad you stopped drinking. I'm not glad about Sofiel being sick and them not letting me see her."

Bacchus sighed deeply. "Say, kid, you know why I was exiled?"

"I heard a bit about the laws to prevent nephilim," ne said, patient to see whether this had to do with Sofiel.

"It's a bit more complicated. See, I was a descended of a different kind of god than angels are. Zeus was too. You know. Ascended humans whose soul became divine or their descendants. If we fail, it's seen as a sign of imperfect ascension. Inherent flaw. Being a buddy of Zeus didn't make it easier to depose me either. So, exile and a job as bounty god. Hamsa's different, but same idea. We did divinity wrong. Angels consider humans to have limited free will, and so all wingless gods are respected humans who surpass their limits.

Angels are born perfect and so have perfect free will. If they sin it is seen as a fully conscious choice. Angels are born at the peak and can only fall, for their defiance against heaven is perfect. Rather than an upward struggle born from striving up, any sin an angel commits is total rejection.

After Mortis died in the war against Lucifer, they were kinda short on angels, and Zeus was far more lenient, so the four archangels instilled the pilgrimage of meditation. Not sure what it is, but those that return from it swear up and low it's the best thing and will purge you from any taint. Those that don't become demons."

"But why would they do that to Sofiel?"

"I'm not privy to Gabriel's court, but there were rumors. I bet it has to do with your mother."

"They can't accidentally make nephilim," ne said.

"It's about the principle here, not the facts. That's politics, kid. Now you better get back before Odin catches you here, cause his politics would like you as scapegoat."

· · · · · · ·

Jeanne taught herself to pray with her eyes open and hands down.

The first thing she asked Michael was that he not be too angry that she hoped that their child would be defiant once more, and bring Sofiel back. She did want nur safe, really, but ... the welfare of the world wasn't opposed to that. Sofiel's welfare wasn't either.

She prayed to her child, so ne would know she was alright, but also to be cautious since Charioce had escaped. Only in the vaguest way did she reference the trouble caused by Azazel's army.

And she prayed to Sofiel, find new ways all over to wish her well and try not to ask for answers. Not that Sofiel wouldn't know she begged for them.

In a whisper, she times spoke to Kujata, when fear for the future was too much.

None could answer, but there was one thing close by that Jeanne's potential could find appliance to.

Dromos was contained by a barrier of the gods now, with Valerian automatons around to ensure its stability.

Odin turned gigantic and stood in the river near Dromos. He didn't touch it, just observed. A few other gods were around, and the barrier was lowered entirely so they could attempt readings of the island.

Jeanne joined them. The wings turned gray in patches, flight was little more than levitation. She her to focus all her self on just keeping in the air.

"How did he control it?" Odin asked her, the one question that mattered the most.

"We never learned that here, they wouldn't even let us close to the machine itself," Jeanne said. "However, Charioce must be personally crucial somehow, for there were no test runs and as far as I can tell, nobody else came by except him. Perhaps I can find out—"

"So not even you know. Then what good are you?"

Odin shoved her away from Dromos, and the gods raised back the barrier around it. She wouldn't be able to get through and learn anything. To think she even wanted to.

When Jeanne landed in the harbor, she staggered into an empty hangar. Dissolving her wings, she dropped on a crate and just stared at the floor, trying to fight off the corruption. It wasn't unlike hunger, a constant craving. The unicorn couldn't heal her, because it wasn't her illness.

A gate opened before her, and there stood one of Nina's friends.

"Hello, lady Jeanne. If you remember, I am the unfortunate mausoleum caretaker whom Nina dragged into her adventures," she said smiling so brightly, Jeanne suspected it was more like Nina dragging a kindred spirit into rebellion. "She would like you to visit."

"Hello, lady Aurora. Unfortunately, I am rather busy. I will be able to come—"

The unicorn nudged her in the back gently.

Alright then. "Let me find an excuse to vanish."

That done, the unicorn brought her to a cavern with Nina in it.

"Jeanne! You're just in time for your plan!" Nina declared. "Azazel got it into his head you don't want anything to do with him anymore and way too many people think he's tainted you, right, Aurora?"

"That is the running theory, yes," Aurora said. "At least among those who adhere to the physical evil philosophy."

Nina looked over the unicorn as Jeanne stepped off. "Where is Mugaro anyway?"

"With Odin here, I thought it better to send nur to the safety of heaven, however relative that may be," Jeanne said. "Nina, what plan?"

"No good, we probably need Mugaro for it ..."

"Probably?" both Jeanne and Aurora said; Jeanne gave Aurora a questioning look at that.

"She just said we need to bring Dromos to Eibos, no more." Aurora closed her gate. "To be honest, I'm just going along cause I'm not feeling either of the governments in heaven right now. Why would you send your child there?"

"There is another reason ..." Reluctant, Jeanne manifested her now ashen wings. "I hoped ne would aid Sofiel."

"Mugaro better do that quickly, because there's gonna be lots of sick people in maintaining Dromos," Nina said.

"Hold it, Nina. Maintaining Dromos? Our best chances are to find and stop Charioce before he unseals Bahamut."

Nina shook her head. "He's got fate and the world in love with him, he'll get there. We need to protect the city from him and the best way to do is to take his main weapon towards Eibos. Teamwork time, so come tell Azazel you're working with him."

"He's not entirely wrong that I have been avoiding him. I have no intention to declare war upon him and Lucifer, but I cannot be a close ally."

"I don't really get it," Nina said. "Isn't it less bad if the people he kills are other bad people?"

"That is how it works for you, but sometimes an ideal is to uphold trust of the people more so than immediate practice," Jeanne said. "How can I ask them to trust me if I lean on someone who takes justice so far, and in such a gruesome manner? This is not a shadow's rumor, this is a statement of how he would rule. He is not merely the rag demon, he is Lucifer's right hand. His actions are taken as a promise."

"I guess I don't know much of the saint stuff. I want people to be okay too, and if he or fate or what not makes me forget about them for their convenience, then it's the small part of myself I'm going to deny, not the big part. Isn't working with Azazel gonna help more people? What if Azazel promises not to torture anyone else?"

"To be a saint is to be an example for the people. I could justify cooperation with an ambiguous demon lord for the good of all. That story has changed after he executed one the people deemed a hero. He passed no trial, and desecrated the corpse, and he did not trust me enough to tell me he was building a militia under our castle. I can't tell my people to trust him like that."

Nina sat back, pondering. "But what if we tell them why he did it and that it won't happen to them if they're not jerks?"

"Please don't think I condone what your uncle did to you," she said. "But the proper response was to apprehend him and have him face trial. I know that Azazel's mercy is limited, but if not for its own sake, then he should have done so for the sake of justice. We could have changed public opinion with a trial that highlighted what Charioce's people are like in the dark. We could have had you testify, you who also has a decent reputation with the population and even with a princess, and numerous gods backing you. Now, we only have complications."

"I must concede," Aurora said. "As much as is it is fun to hop around being rebellious, I can't go home now. My old life's done for because I've probably already been seen. The entire local rebellion lays under the shadow of doubt now."

"And you did not tell me either," Jeanne said. "So what am I to tell my people if I still cooperate with Azazel?"

A silence fell.

"So there's no way to change your mind?" Nina asked at last.

"No more than the damage done can be undone," Jeanne said. "I regret that it ends up the way it has, but it must be. As far was what you have to say. Lady Aurora, what is your opinion?"

"Well, I'm not much of a virtuous god, I merely record the many ways of death. I'd like that to go down a little. Nina thinks she has a plan for which she just needs the Red Troupe, the White Rose and the Smaragd Guard as far as the humans are concerned. Might we come up with a plan where you cooperate with Azazel in secret, would you work with that?"

"Perhaps, if Azazel will guarantee not to torture or murder anyone else."

Nina bit her lip, and thought before she spoke.

"I made some pretty huge mistakes cause of not thinking about how what I felt worked in the bigger picture. Please don't go down that road, you can sort out justice later."

Jeanne almost felt affronted, when Nina was the one she should be advising. That's what it had been up to now.

"For what it's worth, Favaro convinced Azazel not to hurt Kaisar for betraying us," Nina said. "But you're afraid, right? If there's one thing I got from my dragon problem : I know what hiding one's fear behind a front is like. Did you ever stop and talk to Sofiel about that? She's got a clue on how love stuff works, so I bet other stuff too."

"Alright. I am afraid my fragile status as a saint will be used to lead people down the wrong path. I never had to juggle my reputation, I simply had it by Michael's grace. I saw people rebel to their own death for me, and I won't stand for that again."

The words had been unplanned, yet came out so easily.

"Oh ... the reputation game, now I get it." Almost eager, Nina continued, "Have you heard what Azazel did? Azazel made himself a scapegoat, however poorly that went. And as much as I'd prefer it if people didn't hate him for things he didn't do, ... maybe it will help if we blame him for your condition. Will you work with him in secret at least?"

"Yes," Jeanne said, her words faster than any well trained ethics could keep up with. "If you have a plan that can work with secrecy, I will reconsider."

· · · · · · ·

Gods dammit. He'd seen the wall of his room dozens of times already, he'd see it many more times because pacing here was the only concrete thing he could do.

Azazel was bored. Of all the aftermath to emphasizing his dark lord history, he hadn't seen this one coming. Cerberus was pissed and didn't even want him to do anything for her pack thing behind the scenes. No more looming over groups and restraining trouble makers, which was at least something.

Lucifer invited him to his castle's torture room, which had some captured slavers. Tempting. So, so tempting. And pointless, and reminiscent, and it might have consequences.

Putting an army of zombies below the already conquered castle wasn't thought through, he had to admit. It just came naturally and waltzing over horrible memories had been part of that.

It was the one thing he was good at, being the evil overlord and bearing all the grandeur and fear that came with it. Thrive on fear. Olivia had offered this very thing, albeit with hatred. Maybe he could become like that regardless, get some power from that at least.

Not that that felt any more right. Whatever right might be.

"Azazel! Get your ass down here or Nina's going to try flying again!" Favaro's voice echoed up.

Nina and Favaro stood below, near his goats.

"What are you doing here?"

"Planning! Jeanne will work with you again," Favaro said. "Pretty sure it'll be fine. We're all trying to save the world here."

The world was about to end in the reign of Bahamut's fire. Azazel had to face to dreadful truths : it really bothered him this time.

And Nina looked off, wearing rags and looking serious but starting to smile when she saw him.

Distracting but only a little, really.

Yesterday had was left him with the keen awareness she knew an awful lot about him. His fears were not something he had ever planned on sharing with the world, and the realization that Lucifer, well ... abused him wasn't anything he'd ever had to place. And now Nina knew things.

Unlike himself, she wouldn't use it against him, but that didn't stop the ... the ... he didn't even know why it bothered him. Old Azazel would look at new Azazel and see weakness and Nina as something to make that worse. He had approximately sixteen ideas on how to torture himself through Nina, and no ideas on where to go from here.

Right now she was pushing a sandwich with his favorite cheese into his hands.

Favaro had sat down on a nearby boulder and was already munching on something, and Nina had covered a low rock with a cloth to put things on. Azazel almost balked at being part of a picnic, before remembering he had no dignity left to lose.

He would have stood by, except Nina poked him onto a boulder and sat next to him.

"Why are you here anyway?" he asked.

"Planning in private. You've been kinda purple around me since yesterday so I better now drag you before Cerby for that," Nina said, picking apart her bread. "And now I'm self conscious. It's annoying, really."

"What happened?" Favaro asked.

"Nothing exciting by your standards," Nina said before leaning to Favaro to whisper, "Belated awkwardness about hugging."

And so Azazel discovered his goats had excellent hearing.

Favaro snickered too. Why did Nina have such a bizarre idea of private?

"Anyway, Jeanne agreed to the scapegoat plan. She's already been with Dromos and is stalling the dismantling under the pretense of trying to control it. She thinks she can convince the humans to let her try, so I'm gonna have a chat with Anne about that. Her father sometimes listens to her."

Political crap. Great. The power vacuum, the network of alliances and law writing. Gods dammit, why the fuck did this all have to be so annoying? Rebellion should be straight forward, not a bizarre chess play of hostile allies and soft spot enemies and why the hell did Nina have to look like this. Distracting.

"Your PR problem is an unsalvageable mess. Let's poke at it till we find a loophole," Favaro said.

Right. That. Let's focus on that instead.

There was no loophole, Favaro just liked rubbing it in.

Nina insisted the people needed to trust Jeanne, so they were going to roll with Gabriel's current creed of evil embodied. They'd blame Azazel and somehow that would get her close to Dromos. Fine, whatever.

Azazel let him blabber until the topic of Mugaro came up.

Jeanne had sent nur to heaven for safety from Odin. It wasn't unexpected, and probably the better—

"We should get Mugaro back soon," Nina said. "Jeanne's on board, but we gotta figure out a way to be secretive.

Nina busting through an incoming phase of gray gloomy acceptance made him all the more aware of the sinking feeling. Dammit. He hated thinking about feelings, and missing people was only going to get worse when there was hope to see them again.

"It's not safe, if Merlin senses nur—"

"About that, can't we talk with Merlin?" Nina said.

Azazel looked carefully blank, but Nina crossed her arms and continued. "I met Merlin in the castle. She thinks you seduced her to defy fate by ingenious manipulation."

"I did," Azazel said.

"Pffff-ffffft. Sure," was Favaro's oh so dignified input.

"What?"

"You know how to set up things," Favaro said. "The avalanche happens on its' own."

"So what? Merlin was another easy push. You should know better than to try talking with the enemy."

"That's not better. Just because Lao and XVII didn't listen doesn't mean no one else would. But I don't know what to say to her to get through," Nina said.

Azazel thought back to his game plan. Merlin's weakness had not been apparent at once, but there was an eventual pattern to be seen.

"Good people keep good company. She carefully chose whom she served, but once she had latched on she went through hoops to justify her own judgment because how else could she be a good person? It meant she chose people she was close to over more qualified options and she'd hone in on evil advisers only if she had never trusted this person before.

During her pact with me, she justified it to herself in that we were doing the world a favor. She's not averse to dirty means if it's for a good cause. ... isn't there a word for this? Putting herself in a room and not seeing anyone outside?"

"That fits with what she told me. She pushed XVII to change things around in the kingdom because now that fate's awry it's harder to justify his actions. I think she knows something's wrong, so I want to see whether we can reason with her. I need to."

"Not by using Mugaro as bait."

"Of course not, but if we do meet her, would you apologize to her?"

"What?"

"Show of good will and being trustworthy. We've been over this," Nina said.

He scoffed. "It's way beyond what went wrong between you and I."

"Worth a shot," Favaro said. "As far as I'm getting, Merlin's not on a mindless revenge quest or anything for self purpose."

"Tch."

Nina had this awful, obnoxious tendency to do the sad eye thing except unlike with Mugaro, she got all close and was about to break into a smirk if she got what she wanted. "Come on, Azazel. I bet it's her self purpose thing that she's doubting about. Who knows what might happen if you throw her off balance."

That didn't connect at all. Total waste of time. He did have some dignity left. Merlin sided with Charioce, end of discussion.

"Ugh. ... fine."

Nina clapped her hands together. "Great. But we'll cover that when she shows up. I bet Jeanne won't take too long to get in one the plan, but I'm not sure about the others. Promise me you'll try not to be so ominous."

He just stared, because why even bother explaining her that was impossible?

"No glaring, wings in, sit with the rest of us at the table, and don't smile at death, but do smile at nice things. Though don't force it cause that'll stand out. And for goodness sake : us a fork if you get any more cake. First let's talk about Jeanne. Just in case she really, really doesn't want to work with you, maybe we can use your plan in a different way. Wanna hear it?"

Dammit. Patch jobs. Altruistic people striving for good shit were were supposed be simple.

"I might as well."

· · · · · · ·

October 11

· · · · · · ·

"So, he didn't curse Jeanne, but he did torture your uncle to death because said uncle did so to you, but you want to downplay the latter while playing up the first?" Anne asked. "Why on earth would you do that if he's your friend?"

"Convenience!" Nina put her her biggest, sweetest eyes. "See, if they stop thinking of Jeanne as becoming a witch because of her own failings, she can say it'd be good for her to be near Dromos. Can you maybe pretty please encourage your father to advise like that?"

"Oh, gods, why am I like this?" Anne threw hands up. "Alright. I will try."

"Excellent!" Nina gave her a quick hug before jumping up. "Anyway, what happened that made you send Klarimiani outside? Lynch mob?"

"Of the servants," Anne said. "There's a lot of people in here who despised the king, they took it out on his so called 'pet'. Some of the recently apprehended Onyx Knights were already found dead, so it felt safer."

"Sadly, you weren't wrong. Well, see you later!"

Nina returned through the portal without really hearing the answer, a tad anxious whether it'd be yes. She didn't want to think further about it.

That she avoided thinking about unpleasant things again occurred to her right after the gate closed. She slapped her forehead.

Belphegor and Azazel waited on the other side, and Nina quickly reported what they could expect, what they had to wait for, and what they they should give up on. The latter was health related; humans still controlled the capital and insisted that since the rebellion had healers they didn't need to share any medicine.

"Can we reach Mugaro?" Azazel asked.

Nina thumbed at her Aurora. "We could visit! We just need to find out where exactly Mugaro is."

"Uh ... that's probably not safe," Aurora said without looking at Azazel.

Aurora had a lot of itchiness around Azazel, which couldn't be helped. Less expected was Azazel turning heel the moment Nina stepped closer. Too abruptly. Again.

"Is he angry with you?" Aurora asked in the kind of voice of foreboding. "I may hope not ..."

"Oh no, he's just ... a bit upset. About Lucifer and gods."

That was a fib.

It must have hurt his pride that she'd seen him all upset and he hadn't sent her away or anything like before. It actually was kind of amusing to see him all flustered— oh wait, that actually wasn't new. He'd been like that when she had ... oh spirits ... nesting.

She'd tried to nest with him.

The memory hit her with such force she flared up in pink light.

"Nina, is something the matter?" Belphegor asked.

Only the eternal mortification of knowing she had regressed into the most cliched myth of dragons : hoarding they prettiest person they could find in their den.

"No," she said through gritted teeth.

"If you are going to transform here and now, I'd like to know why at least. Is it something we can prevent by altering the environment?"

... alright, calm down. Calm down. Now. Belphegor was aware of far more shameful secrets about her love life than this.

"So I'm uh ... lately regaining memories of my dragon life. I just wandered into one. Nothing to worry about."

Belphegor perked up in that kind of surprise ready to melt into smug understanding. Oh spirits. She remembered.

"Well, learning your transformations could be activated by crushes certainly put some things in context. The results was quite entertaining."

A twinge of sorrow crossed her, no doubt at the memory of Dante and Eligos. But she collected herself to continue, "I may hope next time you try to nest with him, you're more sound of mind."

Aurora gave Nina a very wide eyed look and pressed her lips together.

This was an ideal time to make herself as scarce as Azazel, so she did.

· · · · · · ·

Rita went on a fun little trip to Eibos with Jeanne and her weirdo horse to see Charioce's splendid concealing mist. Really, it put her own to shame.

· · · · · · ·

With his reputation in shambles, Cerberus didn't want him involved in management anymore. Having nothing to do, Azazel holed up in his ruin. His too quiet ruin now. Mugaro had of course never talked, but it was company regardless. The moving of feet around the place, the rustle of pots ... dammit, the quiet should not unnerve him.

Near dusk, Nina slipped into the back of the ruins. Wings in and cloaked up, she almost succeeded at hiding in the shadows.

"Azazel?"

He leaped down the tower, and wasn't about to admit that was out of impatience.

"I'm done for the day," Nina said. "Tomorrow there's a meeting with all my friends and Jeanne will be there, but I'm not sure you can talk. Maybe if you show up early? Oh, and Mimi says there's indication Charioce isn't heading to Eibos in a straight line. He stopped by an allied city for repairs to his ship, the locals refused to arrest him when notified by Manaria."

Figured.

Without prompting, she told him how the day went before blurting into, "Teach me more about telekinesis."

He might as well.

Boring, repetitious crap, and Nina was a slow learner. Her wings knew better what to do, getting her hands to affect the same required the same over and over.

He expected her to make it a game at some point, but Nina was uncharacteristically serious. Every instruction she followed. Every time something didn't work for her, she'd say so in short words.

She'd replaced endless laughter with determination, his thing. It didn't feel right on her.

His goats got restless, and approached for attention.

"Want to try something else?" he asked, nodding at them.

"Can we just focus on this?" Nina asked.

"No, it's boring." He just sat down and summoned his goats closer. They were alert to him when around, but otherwise acted like animals. Skittery ones, they still didn't trust humans as much as they should. Throughout the day he often gave them small corrections of what situations they should and should not fear, but with the limited connection there wasn't much to do.

Or to keep them from getting dirty. They had no fur, but all kinds of crap got stuck under their scales and in their wings.

"Help me clear them while you're here."

Nina grabbed one of the brushes and tried her best on a wing.

"We should name your goats," Nina said. "Should we call this one Aza and that one Zel? Or Zaz and Ael? Eza and Laze?"

"Just say Azazel and I will hear you," and he meant what the hell no.

"But they aren't quite you, they're like Cerberus's puppies."

She was somewhat smiling by now, so he didn't argue.

Nina scratched one of the goats behind the ears, and he felt that at this proximity. The urge to resist telling her how to scratch better was hard fought.

"Can they levitate anything?" Nina asked. "Oh, and if they get hurt, would you just feel or, or does it also damage you?"

"I might feel it when mentally linking," he said. "Why?"

Nina hovered her hand over a spot on the goat's back. A sharp twinge got the goat to bristle and jump up. Unperturbed, Nina backed up, closing her hand around something.

"What did you do?"

Nina held up a thin, broken needle. "I think they lost some stuff in there while experimenting."

"I meant how you got it out."

"Duh, I figured out the levitation thing. It really is all the same, flying is just holding ourselves with it, and it can also break when we hit things hard enough. So we should be able to grab things inside other things too."

Nina was hardly the sort to wander into those conclusions.

"What is happening with you?" he asked.

"Nothing! I'm just preparing myself. For when I have to face XVII." She stood up, dusted herself off. "Can we continue now?"

· · · · · · ·

Jeanne always stood before councils, authority and judgement. Never as part of it. One day she'd like to change that, but for now she flaunt that authority with lies.

"He may be sowing discord in an attempt topple the government while we infight," Jeanne said. "My goddess has already retreated into meditation to find the cause of the curse, of which the presence should not surprise me. It is a time honored tradition of the wicked to target the saints."

Such words sounded dreadfully arrogant to herself, and she would never have uttered them if not for the dire situation. That being that Argus currently represented the alliance and she needed him to look at Valeria and have Reinier nod along — he suspected Jeanne was playing, but couldn't say so out loud.

"You believe Azazel actually wants to break apart what currently benefits the demons?" Argus asked.

"He has led me to believe he was supportive, but perhaps you have heard of the recent conflict with Lucifer. He sought to ensure his own position, no doubt. Perhaps I have outgrown my use, perhaps he changed his mind, perhaps it was a scheme all along. Perhaps even he is not the cause of the curse. Perhaps another shapeshifter such as Gilles de Rais goes around."

And there the lie fell short, because if the future was to hold, she didn't want to condemn her best ally forever. They could check Azazel's crimes of course, but it was more the image that mattered for now.

"Alright. It may indeed be best to station you near Dromos, if not for its security, then your own," Argus said. "You said you had fellows from that island who you wanted to take?"

· · · · · · ·

Rita had expected a submissive patient like before, but Klarimiani had gotten noisier and demanding. She wanted to know what was going on, where her son was, what the war was about and at last, she remembered Furfur dying and wanted to know how Rita had even held Furfur's soul.

Rita showed her the marble.

"Why did he let you keep that upon arrest?" Klarimiani asked.

"They didn't," Rita said. "I got it from ... what does it matter?"

"Yes," Klarimiani said.

"I don't care," Rita said.

"Why do you not care?"

Why indeed. She struggled for fact.

Favaro and Trismegistus need a high ranked insider to ensure they did not run into guards when rescuing Rita.

Klarimiani had escaped from the castle because Nina had a royal friend in there.

Yet Klarimiani who got into the fully guarded castle that had been rebuilt since her last visit, without aid.

Presumably.

Now she had all this information, the holes stood out more.

most of all the tiny soul sphere in her hands right now. Try as she might, she didn't remember where she got it or knew how to use it.

The biggest hole was tangible.

Klarimiani tapped her foot, waiting.

"Nishaol had infiltrated the castle and ... " Rita frowned. "This is weird."

Not the only thing that actually didn't fit together now she forced herself to consider, holding onto slipping thoughts.

Nina had been inside the castle to ask that princess to take care of Klarimiani, teleportation had been possible then. Klarimiani had no reliable memory though, so she opted to investigate teleportation possibilities.

Rita didn't find Aurora, but someone passed on the message so the goddess popped out of a gate before her laboratory at a point of her own choosing. A rather frilly affair who didn't have time for tea, which was fine for Rita.

Aurora couldn't tell her more about how Klarimiani had gotten in or out, but her eyes fixed on the soul sphere as Klarimiani played with it.

"You know what it is?"

"An imago container. I have a reservoir of them to host unpolished blueprints."

"I used it to put Furfur's soul into that zombie. I'm unsure why she now has memories of that demon, that wasn't supposed to happen."

"It should not be able to hold souls at all!"

"Interesting."

Maybe it was time for experiments with memory.

She just needed a few more human hands, so she sent out her mosquitoes. After Aurora was gone, of course.

· · · · · · ·

October 12

· · · · · · ·

Kaisar sat quietly behind crude bars, head down. Shame radiated off of him, but she couldn't tell whether it was for the right thing.

"I wish I had your resolve to kill your beloved cause he betrayed you," Nina said. "How did you do it? I have actual evidence mine did everything he's suspected of."

He looked up startled, as if he hadn't even heard her approach.

"Hello, miss ... is there anything you needed?" Dry, practiced aversion.

"I'm rebelling still and I'm getting better at it. We're not sure about you though. They'll come to question you in a while. Please be honest. For our sake, but also your own."

"I might still die, don't I?"

"No, I meant for your spirit. For mine, I need you to tell me how you managed to blame Favaro so much you could murder him."

He didn't answer.

· · · · · · ·

Nina puffed up the last pillows, then stood with her hands on her hips, purveying her domain : a cave pretending to be a home with disjointed furnitue stuffed in, a fire for boiling tea, and some bread, ham and cheese she'd gotten last minute. Felicia and Tasro were around the room setting up everything.

This was as good as it was gonna get.

Jeanne entered early, in her new clothes. Nina had gotten both herself and Jeanne some nice local clothing, nothing fancy.

"To what extend are you friends with these people?" Jeanne asked, peering around the empty room. "Are you casual aquaintances, on the level of invitations to dinner?"

"Don't worry about that," Nina said. "Just do your noble saint thing."

Nina handed her a little list of names.

"They are so many ordinary people ... " Jeanne said. "Are you to support a knightdom?"

"Nobody on our sides does nexuses, so we're gonna need a small town for all the work and food, and you're not going to labor over Dromos alone," Nina said. "No way. Using Dromos once has a cost of an eye, but if we divide the cost over say, fifty people, I bet everyone's just gonna get crow's eyes or something."

Getting the master zommorod off of XVII was a question she couldn't face yet.

Rachel and the other Smaragd Guard arrived first. Belphegor had reported them to Lucifer as human allies, but since he already had Paracelsus working for him he hadn't been interested. They remained a ground force protecting Belphegor's clan.

Anton and the other constructions workers who'd pacted with Malphas arrived next. Dietlinde grudgingly sat in a corner with Felicia and Tasro.

Marcio shuffled in carrying a package that smelled of cake, and soon after, Emeline and Burkhart entered.

John and Augustin came with Aurora, who left three more times to bring in a few members of the Sacred Circle.

Rita brought along Alex and John from the White Rose, the former new to Nina, a wiry, sharp man.

Sarvo Harnak entered with four guards. He was the guy who had the best shot at getting a foot down now that different humans were in charge.

According to Favaro, Sarvo had been a barber within the castle working directly for Charioce. He had connections with a number of the staff who were less keen on the way the king did things, and with the Black Troupe, though they were not open allies; snobbery and economy stood in the way. Which was just fine for what Nina needed.

Of the demons, Belphegor sent Durahanem, Kolraun, Adva and Tipa, but Cerberus only sent Borashne under the pretense she was taking inventory. Now Lucifer had acknowledged them as tribe leaders, they didn't openly mingle with the citizens anymore.

Humans and demons inevitably separated in the cave; the only ones relatively in proximity were John to Adva and Tipa; their cooperation on the healing field to thank for that. Now she just needed to establish similar ties between others. Getting everyone to be friends wasn't gonna happen, but they could be convinced of the need to cooperate.

She stood on the tall side of the cave floor, where everyone could easily see her.

"Hey everyone," Nina said. "Welcome to project world salvation! Today we're going to figure out how to defeat Charioce and then Bahamut."

Rita conjured a projection usually used for monitoring heart rate; hooking it up to some of Olivia's tech allowed one to project different things. Right now, it was an image of Eibos as remembered by Jeanne. Probably. They still weren't sure how it worked, but it had the mist and ray she'd seen.

"With the god and devil keys within, Bahamut has no true bindings and was only temporarily dissolved by Favaro's tangling it all up. Charioce has worked to conceal the imminent return of Bahamut, and intends to lead it to Anatae in secret. As you can imagine, Bahamut needs just one fireball before Dromos is charged up and everyone in Anatae dies. We want to move Dromos to Eibos.

Mister Sarvo, I would like to arrange for everyone here to get jobs in the castle, and once there, work with Belphegor and her court so they can begin building a ship to take Dromos away from Anatae." Nina turned to Durahanem next. "If we were to move Dromos to Eibos before Charioce gets there, what do we need to make a small town to float there? Full of staff to control Dromos, of course."

The room met her with silence.

"Once more with a little bit extra enthusiasm?"

"No magical creature we could make would be immune and strong enough to move the entire thing," Durahanem said. "Lady Belphegor has already taken an interest in a floating island using the plunder from Cocytus, and I'm sure lady Cerberus could manage the cooks, cleaners and other crew we need. It won't be a town so much as a factory or warship. Schedule is of vital important, and if you want staff with those damn infective things you need a health crew.

But within the timeframe you put, while the capital is occupied by Essenbeck, Valeria and Manaria?"

"Never mind that!" Sarvo said. "What proof do we have of this? For all we know, you want to lay the foundation for overthrowing humankind."

The field flickered to tech Nina herself had seen on the island to maintain Dromos. A lot of distrusting eyes went to Jeanne, who took the cue to step into an empty space before Nina with the unicorn.

"You may see so for yourself," Jeanne said. "Here is a gate to Eibos."

The unicorn opened a gate for them. With a poke, Rita altered it to make the other side indirectly visible.

"It's the same kind of mist I cast over this city a while ago," Rita said. "It obscures all senses of those who inhale it. There is also something that would affect the radiance of Bahamut's return so gods and demons can sense nothing."

Sarvo said to Jeanne, "Why didn't you warn anyone?"

"I have tried," Jeanne said. "Between politically volatile situation and poor trust, I have failed. You must understand : we cannot explain how Charioce is even blocking the emanation of Bahamut. No force in the world is known to be able to do such, so Gabriel and Lucifer have no reason to believe in Bahamut's return, but we can show you something is happening at Eibos."

At her word, the unicorn opened a gate, and Aurora opened one of her own.

Sarvo turned to his people, speaking in hushed voices. Eventually Alex of the doctors volunteered, along with three of Sarvo's trusted men.

They went through.

The others expected Jeanne to continue, but Nina found it time for a bit of grounding. She nodded at Rachel and Durahanem, who quickly stepped up.

"That's Durahanem, who's currently representing Belphegor since she can't make it; Lucifer's having her do tribe master business," Nina said as she stepped aside. "And Rachel, who was a slave in the work camp that built Dromos. She also works for Belphegor, but in the security department. They're gonna do the management of our Dromos island."

Nina let a silence fall, waiting for the inevitable.

"What about the rag demon?" a human asked, which caused a rush of voices. The name Azazel fell a lot.

"Let's deal with that right now!" Nina whistled, held out a snack (they had Azazel's tastes except with more veggies) and one of Azazel's goats darted in. It ate from her hand easily enough and she scratched it behind the ear. Leaning over the back, Nina let the snake tail curled around her. "Magic likes to give fitting forms to people. This is one of Azazel's uh ... children, a scapegoat. Cause you're wrong about some things, but bearing sins is a thing he does."

The stares given to the goats mixed from mild curiosity to utter dread.

"What about heaven's justice system, is that wrong?" Sarvo asked.

"No, it's true, but I bet you saw lots of branches in his case. He doesn't bear the sole blame." She snapped her fingers, which was Favaro's cue to shove Kaisar in.

Kaisar didn't make eye contact with anyone as he sat down on a chair near Nina.

"This is Kaisar Lidfard. His lieutenant tried to murder me a few months ago and he never even reprimanded him," she said. "But he apologized for that and now we're doing greatish. I think. Kaisar, you met Azazel before, tell us about that."

He did, in his own way. Death of his family, much detail on how he should have appreciated them less, and how Kaisar had decided not to hate Azazel.

"Who's the scapegoat?" Nina asked him.

That stumped Kaisar, before he said, "Azazel used my father as scapegoat for fun."

"He did it all for fun, but it was the king who did the scapegoating." Nina faced the crowd. "This is what we mean. Azazel's got a lot of criminals to be better at killing, but Charioce has countless more on direct orders. Kaisar here's someone you want to like cause he's got all the glory and name and hair gel. You don't see what else is going on."

Nina leaned on her goat and poured years of practiced levity into her smile. What she next said was true, what she communicated in every other way a lie.

"He's got it worse for the king than I did. I get it, he's really pretty, and the king hasn't tried to murder him or anything like with me."Nina flicked a finger at Kaisar. "Anyway, he just let the king escape with the bracelet we need to control Dromos. If we don't do anything and Bahamut breathes Anatae into dust, but the world isn't destroyed? Please take him to court."

Azazel arrived almost on cue; albeit less cued in that Favaro had been.

"What are you doing with my goats? And why the hell is Kaisar out here?" He stayed mostly behind the corner where the group couldn't see him.

"Intervention to help your public relations problem." She dragged Azazel in by his arm. "Everyone, I'l like you to introduce to our other bad team mate. So that thing with scapegoating means that what he did before Lucifer was deception so you'd all hate him while thinking Cerberus is cute and innocent so you'd keep working with her. Taking the fall. Obviously that's a ridiculous idea cause how easy is it to find out Cerberus also has a body count now the gods are opening up files? Right?"

A few of the people behind Sarvo looked terribly embarrassed.

"Oh. Just so we are crystal clear, Cerberus just acts cute."

"And Azazel only pretends for the world that he corrupted me," Jeanne said. "My illness is of another cause, so please do not reveal this."

But few listened, because they had a deeper concern. Nina heard it build up and dread it, and indeed.

Emeline raised a hand. "Nina, dear, about that ... those rumors about the red dragon and the king ... Was that you, acting?"

Nina couldn't help but cringe, but still faced her.

"No. We met each other by chance; he likes to keep a close eye on the city, and before I joined the rebellion I made a show of my strength. It went from there. It was ... innocent for a while. Before the slavery and attempted murders." It sounded as flippant as she wanted, even if it felt so false to her. "Once we found it, we tried to use it to our advantage. Perhaps he did too."

That was an overstatement, but in all of the world, she couldn't go sound all uncertain and love struck about a tragic romance right now. He liked her for himself, that much was true.

"What does such even matter?" Kaisar said. "It is not appropriate talk for this situation."

Durahanem gave him a profound glare. "Not appropriate because it doesn't matter, right?"

"She's a virgin," Augustin said, and everyone stared.

Oh spirits please stop.

"I just see it somehow. Ever since becoming a hallow of the holy child, I can see markers of sanctity such as these near people. Virgins always have a ribbon around their waist."

Why were people like this?

"Nonsense. I'm not seeing anything like that," John said. "Virginity is a social construct with no factual basis. How would one even define it? Just penetration, or —"

"Nina, why are you glowing?" Emeline said.

Nina well into discovering that actually, her brain could still get overloaded. Embarrassment this time. "I'm trying to not transform because this is really none of your business!"

That carried enough growl to quiet the room.

No good. She forced a smile back on her face and said, "Look, all of the rebellion messed up, myself included. And so did all of you."

She forced the light further down and took stock.

Azazel's wings had come out, ready to fly her out if it was needed.

Everyone else stared, tense for the both of them.

The room had veered out of control so quickly, she herself couldn't add to that.

She unfolded her own wings. "Sorry, everyone, I'm just having magical trouble cause I'm half demon. I'll have to glow for a little. So back to Azazel, I'm not going to pretend he'd not a murderer, but ..." Nina started ticking off her fingers. "... so is your king, and his knights, Favaro, the former captain of the Orleans Knights, all the humans who organizes the amphitheater, all your neighbors involved in the slave trade and ownership, a whole bunch of your customers, and so on. If Azazel and Cerberus are deal breakers, you have to do the same for the criminals on the human side. Which guess what? The easiest way to do is to work against Charioce right now. You don't have to interact with any of the murderers on either side."

"Shouldn't we try reasoning with the king first? Maybe now he's no longer at the advantage, he might cave," one of Sarvo's guards said.

"Ha. You'd fail, he doesn't wanna. It's true I had a relationship with him. I tried. Charioce would rather have that thousands of his own people die than so much as spare a breathe he deems weak."

She wished she could've told herself that once.

"On that note," Jeanne added. "We do not ask you to be on friendly terms with these two demons, let alone forgive them. But we can assure you they have been our allies consistently. We share this common goal of fighting Charioce, and enough good will exists that I can promise you will not be harmed by them."

"Yeah." Nina crossed her legs and leaned on her hands before she casually said, "Just don't go torture and murder demons, and they won't do it to you. Right, guys?"

"I've made that clear enough already," Azazel said. He'd reverted to unreadable and standoff ish, but that was better than angry right now.

"We're not asking you to be best friends with him, or forgive him," Jeanne said. "But we can assure you these demons have been our allies in this cause, and have no reason to subvert these expectations.

"Exactly. Don't provoke Azazel and you'll be fine. Kaisar will probably protect our side, but if he had to choose it'll be the king, so don't trust him too much." And as she switched to stage whisper. "And just between us, if Azazel's being annoying, he really likes cake. Appease him with cake."

"Stop that."

Nina pushed a nearby pillow in his face. "Try chocolate."

"Just so we're clear, nobody else do that. It's strictly a Nina and Mugaro thing," Favaro added in his stage whisper.

Azazel threw the pillow away. "Will you shut up about cake already?"

Favaro just hopped over to Marcio. "This guy sold out Azazel to the knights and I'm sure you all know he was the big attraction in the amphitheater and look how fine he is after jut paying Azazel some cakes."

Azazel quirked a brow. "The cake demon's a human?"

Nina solemnly folded her hands for Marcio. "My condolences to your dignity, for this is now your nickname forevermore."

Azazel just looked away, so Nina took the opportunity to pull one of the goats half onto her lap.

"By the way, Azazel can mentally link to them, but usually doesn't. If they're eating paper, it's not Azazel in control and you should be careful. They didn't have a fun life in the castle so they're nervous around humans."

The other goat was in fact eating paper right now.

"Make it stop that. Too much paper burned up already," Rachel deadpanned.

Azazel still sat in his place, flanked by his goats, looking entirely too ominous. There wasn't any way to make people less anxious about him. The best she could do was distract them and lean on the fact he wasn't going to hurt them in particular. And truth be said, it didn't feel like enough. She didn't want them to hate him, because ...

Why, exactly? She liked people, she liked for them to get along, she liked it for herself and for her friends. It wasn't truly fair, she supposed. Humans and demons alike had plenty of good reasons to hate him.

Had she been at Charioce's side, would fate have her reason like this too? The thought horrified her.

Jeanne mingled into the group the moment cathedrals came up, along with her early admiration for them and what ideas she'd had for people to all find such secure homes. She was easily loved because she earned it.

Favaro blended in with Sarvo's people, pulling Kaisar along to mumble insider information on the castle. Durahanem took to her role as organizer again and sided in somewhat successfully.

Borashne started taking stock of potential allies, their capabilities and willingness to cooperate, while Mimi wandered around the room listening and pretending to be a dog.

John introduced Adva and Tipa to the rest of the Sacred Circle, vouching for their cooperation.

When push came to shove, Nina couldn't ignore other people anymore. There was one more issue to address, but that wasn't for the whole group, so she joined the bundle where Sarvo was.

"We also need a pilot for Dromos," Nina said. "Kaisar, is there a spare bracelet?"

"Nobody but the Onyx Knights and Chabrol von List were aware of it," Kaisar said. "Should the king die, the Onyx Knights have instructions to secure the bracelet at all costs and bring it to Chabrol, followed by a whole plan on how to keep that dude intact. They've got no real back up for Charioce, they were betting really hard on him being the perfect candidate. The entire network of staff is centered around it, hundreds of people to ensure he has smooth sailing."

To her surprise, Sarvo said, "Staff? That would explain the drain on certain funds."

"You mean you have evidence?"

"Not directly. But as you can imagine, Charioce XVII's concept of economy is disastrous," Sarvo said. "Other countries have advancing their military, craft and economy in vast strides, the brief benefit Charioce had from selling slaves would soon run out. He has been making cuts everywhere and relying on donations of the nobility to make up for it without ever providing an adequate direction of the money. Furthermore, we've been tracking where certain workers go : vanishing without reprieve to some unknown location, even though their families continue receiving money."

"So there might be civilians in Eibos?" Nina asked.

"Belphegor has sleep darts," Durahanem said. "That shouldn't be a lethal problem."

"We should distribute those. So what now ... eight days to Eibos. I think we can find some other ways to help. There's time to learn." Nina spun to Trismegistus, who sat far behind. "Everyone, how about pacts? Immortality and magic in exchange for working on a ship for less than two weeks, how about it?"

"Immortality and magic in exchange for a risky plan that will get the entire alliance of this continent on our back," Sarvo said. "Most of us are quite content being just humans."

It doesn't an outright dismissal, but a wall that she had to climb. She looked at some old friends.

Athias spotted her from across the room; she'd informed him earlier.

He stepped to the center, drawing attention.

"I and my colleagues already have pacts with Malphas, we can vouch that it's safe." When that got skeptic response, Athias shrugged and said, "We're fine. She's cranky as hell, but other than being paid in magic and poking at earth with it, it's pretty much like our old job."

To emphasize, he set his hand on the ground. With some concentration, the earth twisted into a vaguely artistic pillar and collapsed the moment he let go, causing him to chuckle. "Yeah, well, I'm actually a painter, ask those guys."

Anton had a more impressive feat, conjuring an archway detailed with relief. It remained steady even when detached of magic, prompting some applause. Anton rather like the attention, so he started on a table and then customized chairs that turned to thrones. That alone got the attention of both humans and demons, enticing questions of how they could rebuild Anatae better.

In the distraction, Favaro took Kaisar by the arm to return him to his cell, saluting Nina as he went.

Marcio raised an uncertain hand. "I'll try."

"Great!" Nina hopped down her perch to peer at the demons. "Uhm, you work with bread and that's like a plant, and you form stuff, so how about Kolraun?"

Kolraun looked positively startled when pointed out, and shrunk away. A shy okay followed.

"He's a plant master, kinda shy, never murdered anyone, very sweet person. He won't make you super powerful, but he's versatile."

Kolraun had never made a pact, so Nina drew the circle for him.

Azazel tch'd before getting up to literary kick the circle into shape, before back off.

Kolraun had short nails, and the pact passed rather mundanely; a few in the crowd found it disappointing.

Upon instruction, Marcio tried to grow a plant, just to the get tiniest weed. "It ... uhm. Get better with practice."

Nina choosing Kolraun wasn't just about bread, but more so that the guy was just so anti intimidating while still visibly a demon. Marcio didn't take long to try again.

When the group mingled this time, it was more relaxed. Getting magic was awfully tempting, and watching it too. People actually started taking more food to relax as they watched.

Nina was content, but could feel Sarvo's lingering doubts. He acted on them soon enough.

"You're gathering a working castle, or cannon fodder?" Sarvo asked. "What are the defenses? Other than him and his monsters."

"We don't have an army other than mine," Azazel said. "Charioce has been systematically killing the strongest demons. If you learn quick, your pacts can be used for self defense though."

The humans went dead silent at him, not so much as giving a word.

Nina said, "The demon division of the Orleans Knights is around, right? Or ..." Did Lao and his friends kill them all? How many had Charioce already sent to their deaths?

"A number of them is among the knights who requesting to work for me," Jeanne said. "Though protocol does not allow them to mingle. I've not yet been able to persuade them otherwise, especially after my ... hypothetical taint. Though, perhaps we might employ Arligau and Mirin and their clan. Since Valeria doesn't slaughter the strongest demons, they have many strong members."

"How would we get them here though?" Nina asked.

The portal to Eibos shimmered again before they figured that out.

Alex and the other men stepped out. Panting, they faced the room.

"We found Eibos full of distorted space. Gravity is off around a pillar of the zommorod's power," Alex said. "Surrounding Eibos is a powerful magical fog that twists the senses of a much more intense variation than the one that afflicted our city."

"It's true we cannot be certain whether the king is attempting to unseal it soon, but there isn't a sign of the gods," John said. "I believe he would risk us as he provoked the gods into war."

"Right. demons or not, we should act on this," Alex said. "Even if that means working with Azazel. If our safety is guaranteed, I will bring in my people and resources."

Nina grinned. "Then we're set. Let's talk about who gets pacts."

· · · · · · ·

Oktober 13

· · · · · · ·

Nina showed up at the upper district's revamped rathaus, early morning, poorly slept and in singed clothing. Perfect for Nina's goals, not so perfect for the poor desk worker at the receiving end of Dietlinde's temper.

"—honestly, you have no idea what I have been through. I have been falsely accused, even though I was abducted for experiments by those disgusting demons, and now you tell me I have to wait five weeks for a court date? Unacceptable!" Dietlinde hollered so loud, everyone else in the room paid attention.

Nina, playing the role of dutiful daughter, patted her on the shoulders. "Mother, please, you'll only make it worse!"

"And another thing!" Dietlinde continued. "You're telling me I don't have a daughter while she's standing right here? A while ago there was a little fire, you twatty self might've noticed it? Her files were burned, but she didn't. I am not going to wait for five weeks to get a hearing, and you want to send me into custody while my poor daughter starves on the streets?"

While this went down, at other ballots more human members of the rebellion had their files checked, a few of them legal, others tweaked a little by Mimi teleporting in and out to place actual missing files into the register. Some of them to match the masks Trisgmegistus had given them.

"I ... well, I really cannot help you with the court date, but perhaps we can help you with your daughter if you can give adequate due for her not being registered in the capital."

Dietlinde provided the most juicy dramatic sigh, and Nina thought some very inappropriate things to summon a shameful blush.

"Look, my girl got involved in the red light district, okay? It was poor association, so when we cut her off, she just went ahead and registered herself in that awful place."

A light dawned on the clerk's face. "I see. Perhaps her files were lost among the demon registries. Honestly, you are lucky she is well. There have been cases of humans being used as slaves, you know. It happens."

As Cerberus had guessed, Charioce's regime didn't run so very smooth when people were afraid to report errors to superiors.

"We'll just issue her a temporary file on behalf of demonic interference. Please proceed to the next room, so we may check you for curses."

Checking for curses involved a doctor and a mage. Dietlinde was diagnosed with throat burns on the inside, and pretty soon the prior clerk suddenly reported that she was indeed viable for asylum at the castle on behalf of the Essenbeck family, and would she perhaps like one of their lawyers?

During her own check up, Nina suppressed her magic as much as she could, and hoped it honed in on soul type. A bit of goo was on her face too to alter her contours, but luckily only her eyes were checked.

"Clear," the man said.

Once they were through, they loaded onto a cart towards the castle : guests of the alliance, using the vast space to host the good citizens that had lost their homes.

She squeezed Dietlinde's arm, and grinned. Good job. That got a grumpy sigh, but the woman was pleased enough to get to use her anger; and probably the reward she was promised.

Sneaking into the castle on false pretenses again. This time though, it wasn't so grim. XVII wouldn't be there.

· · · · · · ·

A natural mist surrounded the island this morning. Birds in the distance and cold black rock against her back, Jeanne found a fragile moment of peace where it should be impossible.

Within a narrow, empty lane, she laid the back of her hand against the machine, finding it slumbering but thriving in ways nobody could see. The humans mulling around the island saw a lifeless magic rock, she wished it could be the same for her. Everything El Mugaro had told her of this sick thing indicated it was nothing worth praying to, yet she did. Not in words, not in thought, but in spirit. She had come to know it silently over the years, rejecting it each time.

She still did, in a way, but it wasn't on the hatred for Charioce anymore. It was the way Kujata did, to reject it, to remove it, meant to take hold of it.

Rachel found her still like that when she arrived later that morning.

"Never thought I'd be back to this damn thing," she said. "You okay?"

"As much as I can."

Rachel dropped a large bag. The rest of the Smaragd Guard had smaller bags that they started to unpack. They set up cloth against the sun and wind, while Rachel's bag stirred.

Out popped Rita, Hamsa and that animated hand; Rocky if she recalled right.

"Belphegor wants us to do a few more experiments with these," Rachel said. "And Rita wants to figure out how to help Rocky survive."

Rita tapped the zommorod while cradling the hand. "It is taking him apart, so consider that a priority."

Hamsa had come along to speculate on soul nature, taking along a modest little test to see whether he was immune despite being born into a mortal form.

He wasn't.

"I'm still a god's soul, you know. Not a hybrid, we could've seen that coming," he huffed.

"Just being thorough," Rita said. "I would like to know what causes the immunity to seek the cure. It's hybrids and pacts that do it so far, yet not you? What are we missing?"

"Souls," Jeanne said, herself not sure why she was so certain now she'd seen this.

Hamsa rubbed his wing over his chin. "Hmm, as reincarnation as I am would fall in the saint category on function, but on the god category in soul. I'm a pretty unique situation. I used to be a god of luck, you see. Not a bad thing happened to me, till I was reborn as this."

"So it's not blood heritage?" Rita said. "That might add up. I rarely handled abortions and know less of those who kept their hybrids. If it's soul, gestation may be the difference. I'll check in on finding hybrids of demon mothers. For now, I have another experiment."

After checking none of the other humans had wandered closer, Jeanne helped set up said experiment. She managed power levels and neuter overload.

Rachel and company sat around the circle Rita cast, trying to control the black matter.

Jeanne set fingers around the hand's zommorod and pried it out using Joyeuse. It sprang away, clattering over the cold surface, but remained connected to Rocky through thin threads and strong power flow that Jeanne could not breach.

Rocky twitched closer to the rock. Jeanne shattered it, but the shard and Rocky still moved closer. The hand started disintegrating. Rita grabbed the larger shard and shoved it to the flesh. As this happened, the smaller fragment stilled, no longer begging to be return.

"We'll find some other way when your child is back," Rita said. "There there, Rocky, hold on a little longer."

El Mugaro finding out a new way might be all there was left. The laws of magic were so insufficient.

Jeanne summoned Joyeuse, just to slip the shard into the same subspace as the sword.

"For later testing," Jeanne said. "Right now, I believe I should try introducing you all to Kujata."

· · · · · · ·

Mugaro reconsidered. Being a naughty child was the best. Maybe not steam ahead with wars, but all this breaking down doors and sneaking around was rather fun. Right now, ne was inside the old office of Michael, which Gabriel had ordered to be locked down but preserved — she had trouble getting over their deaths.

Michael's password was the glow of the red eye. Most of the information on his computer was boring law stuff, but soon ne found reports of cooperation with Raphael on exiles. No coordinates, but Mugaro pretended to request a transport and got into the flight routes. From there on, ne got the coordinates to Dudael.

The map was easy enough to read, the numbers meant nothing to nur. The map would have to do.

Mugaro spent an hour or so reading up on divine visions before focusing very hard on the leyline of Augustin's prayers.

· · · · · · ·

Favaro really had no good luck getting drunk because that priest guy insisted he go around and find everyone for a divine mission.

· · · · · · ·

Jeanne arrived in the cave by unicorn gate. Messier than ever, her divine armor had dulled to gray and her wings smudgy gray.

Azazel waited in the corner till she was done greeting her human allies, and dealt with Belphegor and her instructions.

Jeanne approached him once all were gone. "I believe we have matters to discuss."

"Hardly. You knew precisely what I was," he said.

"I did, but with the experience you were kinder than before, perhaps I deluded myself you were better too. To what degree was I wrong, Azazel?" Jeanne said.

"No murdering anyone without checking for the political ramifications. Did Nina get that right?"

Jeanne gave a perfectly stoic, trained nod. Almost too well, considering she turned around and started fussing with whether or not the Smaragd Guard would be able to deal with angels. Still all perfect in his display. Damn human.

The coldness between them remained.

While the unicorn and Aurora began opening gates, he finally joined the group.

"Don't let it get to your head," he said to Jeanne.

"I'm not," Jeanne said. "I have been through any potential chism I have with the—"

"I meant your thing Sofiel. Pay attention or you'll forget about the rest of us."

She gave him a weird look. "I just went over the strategic elements of the ordeal precisely to avoid needless trouble. How am I forgetting?"

"Cerberus said you were in love with her, don't play dumb."

"You know better than to underestimate my dedication to my duty. Whatever may go down, I am first and foremost a knight."

Oh, what did she know. People in love became these all consumed fanatics with their obsession, walking into Dudael? Ugh. He could only hope she was one of the better cases, but to some degree lovers always screwed up.

Romance was bullshit meant for breeding that got people to overvalue someone as the center of their universe, and once that crap was over and got into perspective, it looked so stupid.

Gotten a lot of fools killed.

Hell, he'd been one. Thank chaos he got over it.

· · · · · · ·

While everyone busied around, Favaro sneaked off into prison, just to find Belphegor already there.

"Yo, Bel, haven't seen you in a while. Here for Kaisar? I was just heading there to complain to him."

"Hello, Favaro. No, I've come for tactical support," Belphegor said. "Azazel told Lucifer he's going to invade Dudael to prove everyone he's not the cause of Jeanne's corruption, I am making the tactical call to supply my Smaragd Guard. I can only hope it does not backfire. I was actually looking for you, lord Lucifer would like me to bring you along."

"Sure, why not? Lemme just get in a word with Kaisar for now. Wanna come?"

The cell was just another cave with some metal bars crossed through the middle. A smart person might escape, but Kaisar didn't appear to have tried at all. It reeked of sweat and poorly built sewage, the food had been untouched. Kaisar sat slumped over against the farthest wall.

"Hey there," he said lightly. "How's martyrdom for Charioce?"

"Not wonderful," he said, just as lightly. Favaro was used to such air, but for Belphegor it landed on very different earth.

"That's it? That's all you'll say even now? Why are you so desperately devoted to him?" Belphegor blurted out. "I need to understand. We're risking our lives when we could have imprisoned him and forced him to reveal his project by sheer need. How many more must die before you give up on him?"

Oh yes, Belphegor absolute had been hovering around the cell area for an excuse. Favaro took a chair and sat back.

"Hey, hammerhead. Be courteous and explain the lady why you're like this. You owe her that."

Kaisar took a deep breath and sat straight.

"I almost killed Favaro," he said through gritted teeth. "I was so certain vengeance was right, only to learn he was innocent and—"

"For fuck's sake, Kaisar," Favaro said. "You were hunting, these guys are defending themselves."

"Don't you yourself always say it's better to look ahead, to tomorrow?" Kaisar said, more tired than frustrated. "We must take build a future on something other than hatred."

Belphegor said with remarkable self control considering she was a scientist, "That is not how building works."

"Yeah, and that's not how my quote works either," Favaro said. "Thing is, I can afford that in ways demons right now can't. I just go from day to day, live in the moment, no great causes, and that's easy except when it's not. Too many times my horse had a problem and I couldn't pay for a doctor or blacksmith cause I'd thrown away all my money. It's simple, I didn't plan once. Doesn't mean I ain't gonna fight to survive now, or that you gotta shape your whole life by my old motto, or your murder attempts."

Belphegor slapped her hand to her forehead. "I can't believe you still have the patience to give him that much words."

She still had that restrained seething, but Favaro heard something in Kaisar that he liked to prod at, so he said, "He's just hung up on the man and thinks it's gonna get him something. Honor. Glory. Names."

"It's not about getting something in return," Kaisar said. "Devotion to the foundation of a solid kingdom And he is ... he wasn't a bad—"

Belphegor slammed the door on her way out.

"Man, doesn't that spiel get stale? Let's skip it and see what's at the end of your failed knighthood."

Kaisar looked almost hopeless, opening his mouth a few times before he finally said. "There's just me."

"Nobody else? Too bad, I wanted to hear about how I, savior of the world and almost slave and victim of your dear king, fit into your new modus operandi. I'm actually trying to die, in case you didn't notice." Favaro grinned all along those words.

Kaisar breathed heavy, as if he had to struggle against what he said next. "How can you not be angry with me for hunting you for years?"

"Now we're getting somewhere." Favaro just grinned. "I bet my previous answers aren't enough then?"

"Azazel said you'd played along to give me a reason to live. Sometimes I wish you had defended yourself against it," Kaisar said. "In words, I mean."

"Would that have worked?"

"If my causes are always wrong, what's the point or pursuing them? You might have gotten me to rethink my ways. I can do that, you know!"

"Bla bla bla honor and moral purpose. Look, I don't wanna play your self pity thing again. Your causes suck cause you're too busy with your own honor shit. How about you talk, to me, about what you can do? You were going pretty well helping us break Rita out."

Kaisar put his hands through his hair, which'd long lost the gel filled shine. He didn't answer. No shouting, no retaliation. With Kaisar, that meant progress.

"My father and yours both had wildly different ideas on how to make the world a better place," Favaro said. "As is it is, neither of us have followed those footsteps. I know that, but you? You're still pretending to be a noble knight.

And you know you're not a knight cause you're so damn compassionate. How many drunk nights did I hear you blubbering about the legacy of your father? Come on, stop pretending. You wanna follow my lead on not being grudgy? You gotta embrace that you're shit too. And your king is shit, and he's going to kill a lot of people by bringing Bahamut to the capital. We're all shit. I bet you know this, so why is it so important to prove you're not vengeful anymore? It can't just be cause of me."

"... it isn't all, but it started with you."

Something in the way he said you had Favaro pause.

"I almost killed you over something so stupid and you just acted like there was nothing to forgive! Didn't our friendship mean anything?" Now he looked up with the indignation Favaro was used from him, but Favaro had nothing more than another grin.

"Still thinking about yourself, eh? You know, there's one thing I'd have liked from you, but you're too high up the conservative ass. I bet you were taught to hate that too. But not the king, and you only care for what, two demons now? Could you at least think about keeping those suckers alive?"

"And for you, you dumbass! I can't be like that again when I almost killed you over it!"

Hearing him say that was a lot more fun than he'd expected. But Favaro wasn't that nice either.

"You almost got me killed with your unconditional support of your king too, you know." Favaro leaned back. "You should've joined me and Amira helping, but she took one look at you here and said not to trust you. Too bad. I almost missed you."

"It's not how I can live my life."

"It's how a lot of innocent people die. Y'know, the kind you're sworn to protect?" He stood up. "Anyway, right now, it's the eve of Bahamut. I've got a lot of new buddies. You're either with us, or against me. Pick what you like, I'm used to either."

Kaisar fell back into one of those brooding silences, and didn't look at him anymore.

Favaro actually wasn't satisfied with this, but he pretended he was and didn't think about it again.

· · · · · · ·

There was a lot of paperwork that Cerberus was messing with so anyone who asked didn't ask too far. She didn't get any of it, but hey, that's who she'd asked others for help.

One of Sarvo's people here, working in the kitchens. There, a doctor had moved into the refugee quarters too.

Nina pretended to be just a random human eager to not be bored, so she took on a job in the laundry unit. Like this she snuck around gathering people's clothes on the surface, and helping out the project in secret with her super strength.

The hangar was still damaged from the fight and a fair chunk of the outer wall of the castle was missing. Nobody seemed in a rush to fix it. Good. They'd have to break open all of this floor to get their island out and there was only so much room for the skybeasts to maneuver. She'd need to ask Malphas about the best way to help breaking the rock down, once she was a dragon.

Well, if. She still had no reliable way to trigger her transformation. That magic eluded her, but she had something else.

Amid the strange faces, it was easy to recognize a fellow infiltrator. She just knew. Sometimes it almost was like seeing little flames over the head; maybe this was how Aurora saw her stars?

When Nina got washing duty, she left the castle perimeters to the riverside with other women. There she spotted a black feather next to the path. One further down, meant to lead her along, but she didn't have to follow it. A little flame was aside of the river, far into the undergrowth.

She went to the river, worked a bit, excused herself for a pretend bathroom break, and found Azazel waiting behind a batch of rocks.

"Took you long enough," he grumbled.

"Hey, I have to keep my cover! What are you even doing here? You could be seen."

"I'm going to Dudael with Jeanne. Mugaro got us the coordinates. In case anything goes wrong, go to the gods, not the slums."

"Got it. What's Dudael?"

"Sofiel is captive there," he said. "The dungeon below the mountains where angels are sent to fall."

"Won't that be hard for you, going back there?"

He smirked. "No, not at all. I'll like getting back in there to shred it."

An act of confidence, she was pretty sure. He hadn't been fine in the arena ... though that's when he had his heart. Maybe it was different with Dudael.

"If you're in there and it starts to hurt, don't lie about it, okay?"

She couldn't read the look he gave. Maybe he himself was confused.

Before she could figure it out, he'd dropped into the river, swimming away below the surface.

Restless, she returned to work, waiting for tomorrow to be over and them to be back safe.

· · · · · · ·

October 14

· · · · · · ·

The unicorn's gate opened in a crevice next to the mountain. While Jeanne and the Smaragd Guard came through, Azazel flew up to scout.

The empty desert all around hadn't change, with its scarce but thriving life to mock those few who managed to look out the windows.

He swooped over the mountain. The hole Lucifer had been patched so seamless there wasn't even a sign of it, but he remembered.

Breaking back into Dudael had been a distant plan once; to break out fallen angels the way Lucifer had done for him. Going here for a holy angel? What had become of him?

When he landed, the magic around the mountain braced enough to electrify, but it didn't attack yet.

The unicorn jumped up, carrying along a perturbed Jeanne.

"She is here, the unicorn can tell," she said.

He just nodded.

The animal went to fetch the others, while Jeanne peered around.

"I don't understand why she would be sent here, rather than just chastised or exiled like Bacchus," Jeanne said.

"Gods like Bacchus are seen as ascended humans, always struggling against their flawed nature, ever upward. Faltering is expected. But winged gods, the true born of El Elyon, if they err it is seen as a conscious choice of defiance. A perfect choice, just against the order of the almight god. There is no redemption for angels once they fall. They kick us here to make it go faster. Only a few pull back."

He tapped the rocks again. "You ... unicorn ... whatever you are. Make a gate circle right on top of this to destabilize the barrier.

It did so. Azazel flew up, spread his wings far above and speared down at the mountain. Impacting on knees and claws the rock cracked, but didn't collapse yet. The circle glowed harsher.

The rock started to mend, but he teleported back up and hurled himself down again. This time the cracks were wider and the unicorn expanded the gate. Like a veil that was torn wider under resistance, Azazel repeated three more times before he could pull the rocks loose.

· · · · · · ·

Favaro probably shouldn't have drank so much, because he was still here on Lucifer's ship, hanging around with Paracelsus and his experiments. Or was. They sent him off at some point when he was summoned to the castle.

"Yeah, I was just helping Paracelsus experiment on how this immunity thing works," Favaro said. "His boss really wants to know."

To the minister of Valeria.

· · · · · · ·

A loud creak had Kaisar look up. To his utmost surprise, there stood Allesand.

"Hey there captain. You don't look so good."

"Your legs ..."

"They got all better thanks to this!" He raised his shirt and a black wrap below, revealing a zommorod embedded in his solar plexus.

"No! It'll destroy you!"

"We'll just take it out later, like with you!" He grinned nervously as he looked at Kaisar's missing hand. "You're fine."

"That's different. Listen, my hand didn't regrow at all, it was the same hand I lost. My friend Rita revived it. That rock is still embedded in Rocky."

Allesand had been listened with growing horror, only to burst out in laughter at the last word. "You almost had me going there, captain. You just happened to name your reanimated hand Rocky? Come, on. Glory awaits us once we save the kingdom."

"No, only death. This city is not safe, the king will—"

"Bring Bahamut here, I know now. Don't worry, captain. All these fools will see his worth and come around. They'll realize the error of their ways. Now get back to the castle, that Essenbeck guy's looking for you."

· · · · · · ·

The unicorn leaped down silently. Azazel landed next to them just as quiet. The rest of the Smaragd Guard got a lift through a gate the unicorn forged from the inside.

The hall stretched out cold and dry, with rays of light from windows they hadn't seen from above.

"This way." Azazel started walking one particular way, the unicorn followed.

"Could you go around here freely so that you could memorize it?" Rachel asked.

"No. Sofiel will be that way."

"How can you be so certain? I cannot sense much in here, everything is crowded with magic," Jeanne said.

He sighed. "There's sections depending on sin."

If she was smart, she'd stop talking. Then again, there wasn't a lot he could do to stop her from asking.

"We'll spread out," Rachel said. "There's guards, right?"

Azazel nodded. "They're not great fighters as they double as concierge, but when the alarm is triggered so stronger angels can gateway in. Not being seen is more important than taking down as much as possible. Getting Sofiel out will be noisy, so clear the area."

"Got it. Folks, spread out."

They left, while Jeanne and her unicorn followed him.

They rounded a few corners before the encountered the first guard machine, accompanied by a scanner and an angel. The unicorn raised a dulling field around them, keeping their energy hidden.

Awfully useful, that creature. Why had they hidden until Mugaro came around? What was it anyway. Unconditional help from heaven. Nothing he'd known before.

Eventually they hid in a crevice to wait for a passing cleaning machine. That's when Jeanne lost to the temptation to ask. Just half a sentence, why did you ... before she changed her mind.

He could just be silent, brush it off with need for silence. Lock it out. Lock it up. Hope Sofiel wasn't a snitch.

Maybe she'd read it in his files one day. Jeanne finding out like that bothered him, so the words escaped. She wouldn't mock him for it, at least.

"I fell in love with a human."

"Only such a transgression? You entire fall for ...

"That is enough for an angel to be damned. It's also easy enough to hide as a Watcher if you're careful, but I took it further with rebellion."

"That's ... " She trailed off in thought. "I expected something harsher from you."

A scathing laugh escaped him. "What, you thought I just felt like rebelling one day? Rest assured, I killed a human or two down the road. A few gods too."

That should've been the end, yet Jeanne asked, "What was this person like?"

He considered whether to answer that at all.

Maybe she wondered about her deal with Sofiel more judging him. Hell, she probably was the least likely to do so.

"She was an exceptional human ... that's how I justified it at first. We'd been sent to help protect a city against a demonic plague. She was some nobleman's daughter tasked with entertaining us in down hours. I taught her how to wield blades and handle make up better, and ... it doesn't matter. It didn't go anywhere."

She was somewhere out there, still alive perhaps. As an angel, he'd turned her into a hallow. When he'd returned, she had not wanted to do anything with a demon or the life that brought. Maybe she'd noticed he hadn't felt anything for her anymore.

Missing her was his first cue his little amputation didn't stick the way he wanted. By then, there wasn't anything to do with it. Serving Lucifer was grander, running amok on the world more entertaining. Desires for some fair maiden to hold were pale next to that.

He didn't know whether she'd only favored him in particular cause he had an interesting set of talents, and time had gone long past the point he cared to ask her whether it'd been more than that. They had parted as strangers.

That thought had always satisfied him, to have been above it. He suspected Jeanne and Sofiel's story would not end that way though. Rebellion had come to mean something very different recently, in a world where darkness wasn't the mark of sin anymore. Jeanne wouldn't let go from the look of it.

"I never regretted my fall away from those sanctimonious bastards," Azazel said. "You shouldn't either."

That guilt right there she might not be able to let go of either.

· · · · · · ·

Malphas's team was reconstructing floaty rock to fit together into an island, under the pretense of preparing things for transport. Technically the rock belonged to Cocytus, but heaven was prickly and wanted to ensure none belonged to heaven. A handy bureaucrat loophole. Nina had very little to do with it other than stand guard and sometimes move a few rocks so Mimi's file shifting matched with facts.

The game was to pretend they were moving the stolen matter to load away, while bringing it all into the ruined part of the hangar. From there on Malphas and Belphegor designed a way to put it all into a giant sky carriage, but it took some forging of stuff into pieces. Nina walked around here pretending to gather laundry for the workers, and smuggle around maps, rocks and instructions.

The most annoying part was pretending to be weak, and now her friends were doing something dangerous, her mind wandered. In the past hour she'd almost slipped up and lifted something a human could not.

That was how she ended up in a storage room absentmindedly stacking pea bags. A knock on the door sent her current bag flying as she whirled around, caught ...

There stood a man with long hair under a wide black hat, somewhat familiar.

"Might we have a word, miss?"

"Wait, you're one of the people Azazel revived," Nina said.

"The name is Athos. I believe we have met in passing," he said.

Nina braced herself. "Before you abandoned us."

"Pardon me, but I abandoned a ruthless murderer whom I only contracted with for the sake of my kingdom," he said. "I had no idea I got myself into worse, but now that better job opportunities have presented itself I have taken them. Surely you of all people understand that this king is good at making first impressions."

She looked down. "Yes, that's true."

"Now that Manaria, Essenbeck and Valeria are in each others hairs over government, I've had trouble deciding where to put my lot. I wondered where Jeanne d'Arc had gone, could you lead me to her?"

"Nope, Jeanne's on a mission right now," Nina said.

"Well then, might we have a word about my former employer? You must understand I have a lot of reservations about alliances when Azazel is ... how informed are you?"

"I have a pretty good idea," Nina said. "Spirits, we've had a lot of trouble cause of it. Wanna talk somewhere less crowded?"

"Gladly."

· · · · · · ·

Sofiel fought off herself to return to who she had to be. One loss of another. Hell's blood would destroy her. She had lived once as a faith bound angel, surely she could do it again, yet the threads always slipped when Jeanne inevitably came to mind.

A human, a mortal whom she had known such a short time compared to the centuries. An ideal, words from Michael and images from afar. Was she older, if ever, perhaps she would look back on all of this as foolishness.

And yet, she kept looking back.

As a god her duty was to care for all life, to have such favor for only a single human was unfit. She began to see it anew each time, but couldn't feel it.

She still looked back, and hell was around Jeanne.

In heaven lay the answer, but who would she be then?

There was no right answer either way, so, ... faith was closer.

Faith was easy, if she bypassed her blockage.

The answer lay before her : see Jeanne as the enemy now. The temptation. That answer it offered, now.

How long she struggled with that she didn't know, but the final tick came when the wall exploded.

Dull, she stared at the figures who struck her as absurd. The world wasn't ever supposed to be like this, Jeanne with a demon and with cursed humans.

Jeanne ran forwards, pulling her in an embrace she couldn't return quick enough, or at all. The chains held her down.

Human hands ran over the darkened patches of her hands and her withering wings. "What is happening to you?"

To Sofiel's dread, Jeanne's own wings had come to mirror hers.

"I tried to align myself back to the ways of divine faith," she whispered. "I am sorry, I could not return to you as I should."

"Don't be ridiculous," Azazel said. "You're not a rebel. You've got some other divine shot going on, this is happening too fast."

"It is happening in accordance to my effort. I must get out as soon as possible and take my place in heaven, for the world and you," she told Jeanne, though irritation with Azazel kept itching

"You need to do nothing with faith," Jeanne said. "Hold still."

Azazel sent his serpents into the walls anchoring the chains, tearing loose a huge chunk. Jeanne helped her stand up, but barely had Sofiel taken a step outside of the area or the world violently flickered, and she herself and the broken floor were teleported back into place. Not even a crack in the rocks remained.

"Dammit, this worked last time! Sort out your mind, I don't know how to undo this."

Jeanne's worry grew almost desperate, Sofiel hated to see her this way. She couldn't ever hate her herself.

"Only faith can move the shackles," she murmured. "Only that leads the righteous path."

Azazel barely registered, until he snapped in the most annoying way possible, "Then just stop believing in that crap!"

"I can't just stop it! This place obliges by purification alone. Surely you know. Had it not been for my ... attachment to Jeanne, maybe I could have."

"Pfffft. That's not your problem. Just tune down the romance goddess crap for five minutes."

As if it was that easy! Sofiel felt like hell, but being the goddess of love, romance oriented more than anything, made Azazel ignorance so grating.

"Not my problem? What is that supposed to mean?"

"You're not acting like it at all. Even Jeanne barely does."

"Then what did you expect it to look like?"

"It encompasses everything about your thoughts, it's the most important thing and everything else is secondary. If you can still think about throwing her away to be a proper god, you don't have it."

He had to be kidding. He had to.

"You speak of limerence," Sofiel said. "To simple it down for you, that is more obsession. Thankfully that is not the only—"

Sofiel crumbled together as her wings spasmed out, turning darker. Her skull began to bleed.

"Please, fight it," Jeanne said. "How can I help?"

"She's falling," Azazel said. "And she's pathetic for it. It's not supposed to bleed."

"Why?" Jeanne said. "Why would she even turn demonic over divine advise?"

"Some divine advise. Don't ask me, I didn't program this place," Azazel said.

"It is a spell," Sofiel whispered. "A prayer. One only leaves when truly faithful."

"Can you be faithful to something else, or must it be Vanaheimr?"

Jeanne sounded so desperate, Sofiel wanted to give another answer.

Before she found her breath, someone else gave it. "Vanaheimr."

They turned to the voice in the door opening, where Urlain stood. "What even brings you here to disrupt such a sacred challenge?"

Azazel smirked. "You see me and need to ask?"

"I had hoped for better from Jeanne d'Arc. The stories going around continue to be contrary, that cannot be good."

"You'd be Michael's successor, wouldn't you?" Azazel's sword flickered into his hands. "How fit you begin by putting the competition out of the way."

It'd been Gabriel, and there were three spots and only two candidates. Sofiel knew as much, but was too tired to argue.

Those infected humans poured in, throwing around faulty versions of their accursed power.

The fight that broke out felt almost trivial as the greater binds pulled her back to the argument that begged her to consider heaven.

Jeanne stayed close, unable to wield her sword for anything but dispersing wayward attacks. In the rush of green and black beyond, the angels slowly gained the upper hand. Azazel was powerful, but Urlain had experience and control of Dudael's very walls, and less interest in avoiding to harm the humans.

Her people as they were now, and the magic began to say she could correct this as a god of faith, destined to stand atop the world, one of four.

Was this fate, then? They had crafted this magic as a prison, or fate was speaking, and neither mattered.

Urlain fell down. Azazel held nur down while facing Sofiel. "Make up your mind already! You're either a demon or a god."

No, the choices were just burning darkness and cold light. Neither worked for her.

Jeanne stood up, facing Urlain, while the other gods lined around them. They saw a hostage in their leader. Perhaps he was, but they had a few hostages of their own in the weaker humans. Most of them stood in a circle around Azazel by now. An upper hand that'd fall apart if anyone tried to leave.

Jeanne must've figured the same, for she tried reasoning.

"Lord Michael advised me to tell you he wishes that I am aided in my quest to unite the realms. He still believes in the old order, but I cannot go this way anymore. Not now I see what you do to Sofiel. How can you stand by when she is torn to pieces? She cannot be either a god of faith, or a demon of hell." Jeanne stretched her arm at Azazel. "And him? Do you choose the most straying angels to push over the edge, or do you sincerely believe spiritual torture leads to salvation? Look at him, look at lady Sofiel. Heaven makes its own villains."

"Heaven has preserved the world where it would have fallen to chaos in the wake of Bahamut," Urlain said. Old, practiced words become hollow.

"Don't be ridiculous," Azazel said. "They didn't decide that. I would have turned on them anyway. They're worthless, dressed up to pretend value. It's the way I fell I hate. I wasn't give a chance, they just put me here."

Jeanne turned her eyes to the ground. "I see. Yes, you probably would. If there is no right answer ..."

No ...

Jeanne cut the top of her palm on her sword and pushed a zommorod in. "We take a third road."

· · · · · · ·

Kaisar told them the rebellion had moved into the castle, and couldn't figure out for whom the guilt he felt even was.

"That girl! If I had succeeded that day, none of this would have happened," Allesand sputtered again. He'd been pacing the room.

A few of the Orleans Knights and Onyx Knights had united around a vague plan to ensure the king's return to Anatae would be as smooth as possible. They wanted to target the rebellion, and Kaisar was to inform them who the key figures were.

He named Azazel and Jeanne and Cerberus, whom they would already know about. They wanted to know about the girl he'd smuggled into the kingdom, wanted to know to what degree he was aware she'd been a trap of that sort. The Orleans Knights trusted him to have been deceived, had truly meant to trap the rebellion, the Onyx Knights didn't.

As the former outnumbered the latter, he let the lie go on. Feigned ignorance, leaning heavily on his imprisonment, and even the Onyx Knights had to concede that he had protected the king plenty of times.

Not a single code of honor broken. Kaisar didn't know who he was, but he saw himself in Allesand a little now. Poor boy, driven to gain honor rather than live it.

"You are too focused on that girl alone," Athos said. "Keep your head clear, we will get to her as soon as we know the risk and circumstances."

"She's the one who broke my legs! She almost ruined my entire career, my life. Just like with the king," Allesand blubbered, turning to Kaisar. "You agree, right, captain? It all started with her, back in that day when she attacked you on the street. You agree, right?"

"How would you even know it was—"

"I met her in the brothel, that black demon almost killed me. Then they convinced Cerby to cover for them. You know I lost all my good credit after that? The rumors even reached the upper circles!"

The mantra of vengeance causes only more vengeance played through his head. It tripped over itself now. If Azazel had killed Allesand back then, Allesand would've been replaced by someone less aggressive. Probably. It was all an empty gamble.

Athos took Allesand by the shoulder, forcing him to sit back down. "Quiet, or I'm sending you back with Kaisar."

Kaisar finished drawing out a map of the underground that was more or less useless. He wasn't sure whether it was the girl he left to die, or Allesand.

· · · · · · ·

It was sickness that tore into her in ways where Kujata was merely unsettling. But she pushed through it, forcing the power of the shard into her sword, setting it ablaze as emerald. At last, potential more purposeful than a conduit alone, more of herself than even when Sofiel had blessed her.

At once she slashes it sharp across the angels, cutting the air with the hostile power. "Release them!"

The angels froze in the green glow. Pain coursed through her bones, reaching further behind her eyes, and she settled in it as her duty.

Azazel took their distraction to curl up and turn into a clutter of black serpents, throwing the angels back. Broken wings and cracked limbs abound, but they didn't die; either for his lack of effort or greater reservation, she could not tell. The world simpled down to controlling the leeching power and survival — of herself, of everyone here, friend and enemy alike.

Jeanne shot ahead and slashed apart every weapon, injured as many as she could without killing. Azazel caught on, using his serpents to hold down her targets.

Spheres of green power offered themselves, countless wired together. She seized control through her spiritual flow, each grabbing one of the gods. The scream at the back of her throat wasn't allowed to leave. Biting through the infection, she threw the gods all over the hall. Knocking them out, as if she herself stood over them.

When the last lay brittle on the ground, she fell to her knees. She ached all over.

Azazel threw them out the door and collapsed the entry.

Jeanne forced herself back to her feet.

Sofiel was still stuck as ever, and looked so close to giving up.

What could she say? No optimism would affect the system. It obliged a rigid concept of faith, it wasn't moved by it.

"Do you really think she should make up her mind to be a demon?" Jeanne asked Azazel. "Would she still be herself, or ..."

"Like me? No, I did this to myself," he said, holding up his arm. "And to my mind."

He nodded at the walls, where old, red drawings were. He spoke in a whisper.

"Here I used up all my red blood and got purple in return. When I ripped my arm off to get free, it regenerated into black. When Cocytus fell, I lost three horns. And when Rita revived my arms, they were monster goats. Whatever governs our shape doesn't make sense anyway," Azazel said. "We change in accordance to who we are. She should never be a demon."

"So it's nothing spiritual at all? Just tech?" Rachel asked. "Why didn't you just say so before?"

"Huh?"

"I'm just more technology making shapes, like Dromos turning into a hand."

Jeanne's hands dropped. Perhaps that was true, but she was so used to seeing everything as spiritual that it didn't feel right. Nothing working though, perhaps they really ought to treat this like injury. Even Azazel's self mutilation.

She planted her sword into the ground and thought of extending the tear that the zommorod felt like onto the entire structure. One foot in the realm of Kujata, she twisted the sword and began to bleed black as she forced the ceiling to break.

As long as it wasn't Sofiel pushing further into sickness. Those marine eyes were on her in shock the entire time. Sofiel would have told her not to take this risk, had she known, but Jeanne wouldn't regret it.

The ground exploded, the magic tore. On the other side of the door the gods screamed.

Jeanne cursed it all to the end, finding the magical roots itself and tearing them loose. Absolving the earth from heaven in the language of a true traitor. Dark veins covered her skin, she had exerted too much at once. No wonder the Onyx Knights were so cautious nowadays.

Jeanne reached for Sofiel's chains. Using the power of Dromos, she dissolved heaven's energy from it while Azazel cut the physical matter.

With her clean hand, she helped Sofiel onto the unicorn. At least she was was conscious enough to hold herself steady.

Rachel nodded at Jeanne's hand. "Was that really necessary?"

"If it got us out, it was," Jeanne said before turning to Sofiel. Ever so careful, she touched her hand. "Sofiel, can you hear me?"

Sofiel nodded, but her eyes remained unfocused.

"You're free, we're going home. Just hold on a little longer."

"How did that alarm go off? We knocked out everyone we found, shut down each magical flow," Rachel said.

"You missed something," Azazel said, though he didn't know what.

Jeanne suspected fate. Fate had done this to Sofiel now she'd gotten in the way. It had to go down.

· · · · · · ·

Nina found an unused craft room, where she paused to consider how to argue Athos should just join them and leave the human government altogether. He was familiar with demonic business—

The door shut just as she registered the second person in the room.

Nina barely saw Allesand jump at her, the next moment she lay sprawled on the floor. Her head throbbed.

"The Onyx Knights were much too enamored with their armors," Athos said somewhere behind her. "Your passive immunity helps nought against speed."

She rolled over to face him, teeth gritted, instincts priming her for the next attack.

He flipped his sword around in his hand. "Nor does it counter actual sword skills beyond such primitive wrist blades. Pathetic, truly."

She didn't need to ask. Still Chris's execution order. And he'd win if she betrayed the project by transforming here. Just one person walking through the door and it'd be done too. This needed to be over quickly.

"Oh, let me do it!" Allesand said.

Nina stayed on the ground, pretending to be too hurt to get up.

When Athos nodded, Allesand drew his own sword and loomed over her.

Nina's wing shot out, all force ready to beat into the sky. Allesand was caught within the magic, thrown only to be caught in the curve of her wing. She slammed him into the ground. Blood broke from all his skin as she pushed all kinetic magic out.

Athos shot around her and slashed at her from behind, Nina just barely ducked. Now on the brink of transformation, she had to force the magic away while she bled. The wound was too deep.

Allesand crawled to his feet, settling a maddened glare on her. He drew a dagger.

"What's going on here?"

A lot of feet approached. Athos cursed below his breath and went for them.

Allesand flashed at Nina, driving the dagger into her stomach. Her wings curled forward again, throwing him away.

Bloodier yet, he crumpled against the opposite wall.

Athos's sword glinted closer, but then the earth broke open, revealing Athias and Belphegor.

Allesand grinned manically before hurling himself at her.

Belphegor backed off, Athias closed the walls just in time to catch Allesand. Nina couldn't see much else, but Allesand started to gurgle and struggle.

The walls turned brittle as Trismegistus emerged. Something shot at Athos, chaos ensued, and Nina almost blacked out.

People screamed, Allesand stopped making noise, and her friends started making more — worried sounds, requests for help, blood, too much.

She couldn't transform here, she'd betray them all. The light grew fiercer, the dragon begged to rampage.

"Nina, stay awake!"

She opened her eyes to Marcio.

He helped her sit up, mindful of the dagger in her stomach. She reached for it, but he grabbed her hands. "Don't! You'll bleed out."

She let go and fought against the pain. Spirits, the walls had to die.

Marcio struggled to grow magic vines, trying to wrap them around the hole in her stomach. Belphegor dropped on Nina's other side, expertly weaving a cloth below to cover the found.

"What's going on there?" someone far away called.

"Nothing! Someone fell down and broke something, but we got it covered!" Burkhart called.

"You should leave," Marcio told Belphegor. "Go deeper underground, in case someone finds the body."

"Let me handle the body," Belphegor said. "Tell me, did Athos have a zommorod?"

"Definitely, we saw him throw green stuff."

The conversation became blurry sound.

Allesand lay nearby, a bloody mess. She didn't want to think about how much of that was her doing, but couldn't unsee.

He twitched still. A shiver ran over Nina and she kicked herself back. When the knife twisted, she cried out.

There she remained on her back, panting and clenching her teeth. Tears again, both for the pain and the betrayal.

The haze faded, the echoes didn't.

His orders once more. That remained clear in her clouding mind.

Shouldn't it begin to feel natural he'd gift her death? It shouldn't get heavier. It wasn't news.

People crowded around her, drawing her attention back to the present. Through the haze of tears and pink light—

"Please leave," she said. "I-if I transform he-re ..."

Someone's hands on her shoulders. Couldn't. Not here. Nina slung her wings out, thinking to fly away.

"Nina, please stay still, I'll get you out of here," Belphegor said. Careful, she lifted Nina. "Athias, close this tunnel after me as well as you can, I'm taking her outside. We'll deal with that body later."

Belphegor ran at top speed. Nina didn't know whether to hold onto her or the knife, but the pain demanded the latter. Every jostle hurt her, the pulse of the dragon instified.

Just when she feared she'd lose it, daylight hit her. Belphegor released her and Nina beat her wings

She was above the water, some distance from the city.

"Go!" Belphegor called.

That was simple enough for Nina's fraying mind to follow.

She kept flying until she was further down the river, where she collapsed onto the rocks. Only then did she removed her hand from the knife.

The water was cold against her legs.

Her pulse steadied, while she remembered all the times she turned into a dragon. The urge to fight and flee and protect ever strong, but never grounded.

She pulled the knife out. The blood on it stood warm against the sky and her hand.

This was his command : her death for his ... it didn't matter why he did it, the fact was he had done it. All of the world he had created was put together to kill people like herself. The end of his short mercy.

As she threw it, the dagger clattered on the stones in rhythm with her labored breath.

She would survive him, and accepted she had to. Over and over again, and it wouldn't end until he was gone. Far from their first meeting, the more she had come to know him, the more he was an abstract. Pieces of pain and blurs of a dream cobbled together into the the distance that shaped her life.

Near her heart she found all the tears she had hidden, and let them go. It was slow at first, sobs stifled by the pain in her stomach. So close to death, she still kept the transformation slow. The light broke as she cried, slow still, keeping herself just long enough to be aware as a beast.

At her first blast the water exploded, steam raising a wall around her. Dragons wept with fire.

· · · · · · ·

Silly girl, making such a scene. Soldiers broke from the castle broke loose to detain her, perhaps kill her, and Rita felt very uninspired to do anything about it. Unrealistically so, to be sure. She had no reason to believe Nina would be fine. A little bit of a tipping point for fate perhaps, since herself sitting back and watch Nina fight wasn't unreasonable.

The humans might have something other than a zommorod squad though, so Rita flicked her staff to do something about it. A handful of mosquitoes was all it took.

Good thing too, since a godly ship landed in the hills and pretty soon, Azazel brought in two patients. While those got settled in a special cave, Azazel noticed the distinct lack of Nina.

"No, she actually isn't still at the castle," Mimi said. "She got stabbed and jumped into the river hoping to trigger a transformation. Not sure where she is now—"

"Thataway." Rita pointed up the river's stream, hoping nobody would ask how she knew.

Azazel shot off after ripping some curtain loose, while Jeanne just shot Michael a prayer; Rita guessed she asked him for locations.

"She's alive," Jeanne declared pretty quickly.

"Good. Now let's make sure you remain so too," Rita said. And find out what this meant.

· · · · · · ·

He found signs of trashing and fire further up the river, but none of Nina herself. He rushed over the canopy in circles until he spotted a blotch of pink sitting against a tree.

As he landed, Nina stood up. Tactically looked away, he tried to put the curtain around her, just to end up with her arms closed around him.

"Glad you made it back." It sounded weak.

"Nina, what the hell happened?"

"Remember the guy I once asked you to spare? He and that Athos guy came for me."

Chaos dammit. Them.

One whom she spared, and one whom he had empowered just to lose him to Charioce. For himself it was just a matter of having had to kill them after all, the way he should have killed Kaisar once. For her, she had all these things about knowing people and Charioce. And himself. Telling her to just kill quicker next time would just kick her down further, so he dodged that topic altogether.

"And whom did you fight over there?" he asked because that was definitely a solid question and not at all avoidance.

"Nobody. I just trashed a bit ... just to let off steam." She chuckled, mingled with a sob. "I stayed all of myself this time. I think it never worked the previous times cause I wasn't, but I feel—"

"You better not say you're okay now." He fumbled with what to do, hands full of cloth and mind empty of answers.

"Yeah, I'm not, but it is better." She leaned back to look up with blurry eyes. "I'm almost used to it. That's probably good, right?"

"What the hell, you're not supposed to get used to being murdered." He wiped some of the damp hair out of her eyes; she'd definitely been crying but he could humor her to pretend it was the river. "Can you fly back?"

"I thinks so. I just sat down to steady myself." She stood back and unfolded her wings close around herself. "I got so close to killing him. I was aware and I hated it, but it was a reflex. I didn't hesitate. It's more like when I killed as a dragon than ... but now I hate it again."

"Then go ahead and hate it, just do the same with what he's doing to you." Azazel pulled the curtain around her, over her wings and all.

She pulled it closer, and went behind a tree to wrap it better around herself. When she returned, her eyes were dry.

"Athos got away," she said. "I'm a little afraid of going back to find the entire project has been uncovered."

"No sign of that when we got back," he said. "Athos is sneaky and practical, if he works for Charioce still he won't march up to other rulers to give himself away."

"Oh ... so did you find Sofiel?"

"Yes. She and Jeanne are both sick now. Can you believe Jeanne infected herself for a zommorod?"

"Yes, I can." Her face turned a weird kind of sad where she still smiled. "It's still better than the worst, right? We'll find a way to cure that. Don't worry, once Mugaro comes back all will be fine."

She was brushing off what had happened to her again. Like hell he wasn't going to worry, but he couldn't exactly say she should've come with them. It hadn't been safer in Dudael.

Let's go back was on his tongue, but it felt like throwing what had happened behind them, so he flipped out : "You should figure out transformation more than telekinesis."

"It'll waste time right now. A hybrid is what I am," she said with a shrug.

And just like that, she brushed it off and flew away. That reminded him way too much of himself, but as usual, he didn't know what to do about it. Nothing felt complete.

· · · · · · ·

Allesand lay motionless on the table within the castle, unattended yet. He'd been found dead in an alley, deemed victim of a poorly installed zommorod by those who'd found him, but upon arrival, the doctor had seen found a poisonous dart in his stomach, half buried in the flesh. It must've been a demon's work, and sloppy at that.

Kaisar both feared and wanted to ask whether they'd killed the girl. For bad reasons, he admitted to himself. A certain irony existed in this whole situation : Azazel's mercy leading to the death of a loved one. Same for the girl, who had spared Allesand twice now.

It was good revenge. At last it caught up to Kaisar : he had always considered it equal, that the demons suffer and die and not resist to the humans. At best they mattered less, but maybe it also catered to his sense of revenge. Gods and demons below, he didn't even know what that word meant anymore. The codes of honor said nothing about it.

He had been raised to follow people the crown. Doing so was the one constant in his life, so natural, so unquestioned. Just one time, he had followed Favaro for Favaro's sake. He started to wish he'd kept doing that.

When Athos joined him in the mausoleum, he only briefly looked over the corpse. It was the dart on the shelf that had his attention.

"As you can see, we failed. We had not expected that particular demon to show up. Imagine that, that pest with the blow darts. Such a simple little thing, lacking magic, fast as we are. The fool might as well have thrown himself onto the tip." Athos turned the dart over between his fingers, before tossing it to Kaisar. "They had a lot of these loaded into the walls itself, and humans controlling the rock. I had intended to wrap up whatever went down there after killing the main threat, but that wasn't the girl. They got clever, we need to take out that demoness first. Wouldn't want her to interupt our king with blow darts again, now do we?"

The girl dying was some distant fact, Belphegor another altogether. He'd never had reason to hate her, and she didn't rage the same way.

"I didn't report yet, so you have some time to come up with an explanation for how we broke out out of the slums. Now I've stolen a zommorod, I cannot go report to any of the foreign staff of the suspicious events down there. They'll suspect my loyalty to the king, so you need to do it."

"I understand. Give me some time to think up an excuse to be suspicious of the people in the hangar," Kaisar said. Maybe he lied.

"Naturally," Athos said. "I'll find a way for the others to remain hidden and will meet with you in the morning. We will make a plan to deal with the threats in greater number."

Kaisar had been a bounty hunter once, a system of god and humans aligned : sentence without trial. Judge, jury and executioner. It had never bothered him. It still didn't.

He wondered whether the dart in his hand still had enough poison.

· · · · · · ·

October 15

· · · · · · ·

Still at night, Belphegor was secretly glad when Azazel interrupted an organization meeting to invite her to Rita's laboratory, in exchange for watching over the clan's ground organization for her. Her clan. She still needed to get used to that.

Azazel offered her a goat to go there swiftly; she took along Adva, while Durahanem and Kolraun accompanied him.

He said she'd see why, oh, see she did. Sofiel was back from Dudael, sick in ways she didn't understand. Rita had Sofiel in the middle of that weird machine from Olivia, and Jeanne infected by a zommorod on a nearby sickbed. Nina was at her side.

Jeanne told her in methodical terms what Dudael did and it was interesting because of what it implied, putting aside how harmful it was for the afflicted. And strange. Petty arguing with Azazel about romance had caused a regression, for order's sake. Falling angels made no sense.

Sofiel was within an unwarranted transformation, and could not be healed without Mugaro; Aurora had been sent to heaven, but returned without having been able to pass into Gabriel's inner sanctum. Now they hoped to help Sofiel with what they had.

That wasn't little.

Olivia regenerated from supernatural wounds by somehow cheating the transformation protocol, the way Nina herself regenerated to heal. The possession itself was a mystery, of course, but one that shouldn't have that effect. Mugaro had reported that she had a connection to all the humans involved. Said humans appeared to be without a soul, but were entirely themselves.

Klarimiani was herself once she was given a new soul, didn't matter it was an ichor soul, but Furfur seemed to peak through.

None of these facts appeared to connect to anything related to Dromos, yet Angra Mainyu had gone out of her way to bring Olivia here, and it shaped up that she was perchance involved in Furfur's reincarnation too.

Now it turned out that mental fortification of the wrong sort attracted infernal ichor, and transformation induced by location.

This, the plan was to try observing what was wrong since Sofiel and undo the spell manually.

The machine on the surface was pipes and vessels and construct of copper and other metals. A lot of the parts must have been ransacked from other machinery. Most containers had magical items of the sensory variation, all connected to small drops of pure ichor. These in turn were hooked up to recording machinery of the medical variations; Rita might actually be able to handle them better.

Rita as a doctor was less equipped for technology, so she'd prepared a seat and observations behind the controls for Belphegor.

"Fate just tried to kill Nina now because it was easier without Azazel and Jeanne around," Rita muttered. "Or, fate suddenly got twitchy because we might be running into something it doesn't want us to know."

She activated the central circle into a reading modus. "Nina, why don't you try your trick in helping her?"

Nina stepped into the circle, disjointed the entire balance and ... tapped Sofiel on the shoulder. "You look lousy, I hope you get better soon. It's mind sickness, right? Just like Azazel's snakes. I have a trick for that."

Sofiel looked through unsteady eyes at Nina holding out her hand.

"I tried channeling it away already," Jeanne said. "It does not work the same way as received power."

"Yeah, but you're sick too. Lemme try."

Nina plopped down crosslegged before Sofiel, held out her hands and —

All the machines went haywire in recording. Sofiel's form contracted and turned to light before violently reforming back to a goddess.

Stunned Nina watched, hands still out. "That didn't happen last time."

The device just plain didn't know what to read about it. The absorption crystal in the cylinder tried to intake both holy power and expulsed dark power. The electric rod insisted power was flowing through and away at the same time. The case with vision water flickered through countless random shapes. The life stats reported both death and hyper vitality.

Once the light was all but subsided, Sofiel was physically as before, though her clothes had changed somewhat and a halo now stood bright and constant over her.

Nina had a small, fading flame over her head.

Two readings then. "Rita, help me separate the data, I don't know which belongs to whom."

Jeanne approached, though she was careful to keep her infected hand behind her back. She set down a pillow for Sofiel, briefly touched her hand, and then moved back.

As the fluctuation faded, Sofiel's rot partially returned. Hmm. Whatever Nina had done was more like a boost, rather than healing. Cordord? Oh, if only they knew what they were looking for.

The little flame over Nina's head faded entirely.

"It's alright, Nina," Belphegor said. "No one expected you to fix that."

"I tried to help Azazel and it launched him to connect with his goats, but this was more like it clicked? I took over for a moment, but it didn't last. Why?"

Belphegor adjusted a few things to focus on the flame.

"Cerberus, please go over there and switch on the tracking protocol we designed for linking your power to Nina and Mugaro."

That got her an annoyed look, but Cerberus did grudgingly put the scanning device over her nose. "Does this even work without an energy reader?"

"We're not looking for someone ..." She adjusted a few more things and cancelled others out, focusing solely on the energy flow. "Adva, Tipa, Augustin, please activate the healing mist. Nina, stay put. We're not healing someone, we just need insight."

The song brought about its mist and illusion. Around Nina lay a web of flow, fading but connected to Sofiel. Similar to Sofiel, and Cerberus too.

Azazel had the most pronounced quirk of magic though, albeit under unusual circumstances. Scapegoats, fitting to a theme before he'd come to embrace that. Scapegoat was simply a folk saying among humans, which he didn't care for, so why ...

Nina was tied to almost everyone in the room.

Cerberus, Nina, Sofiel ... but herself, Azazel, Adva, Tipa, Kolraun and Durahanem were of another kind altogether.

She adjusted a few settings, and the mirage shifted. In the fog, Belphegor saw a wall of bricks around herself, or rather, compact magic of all kinds, and facts, and ... threats and gears ... and it was all hers to ...

That was it.

"Táxis! Rita, bring in Rocky! I figured out why Rocky could host a zommorod. It was my zommorod, to my assistant. I am the demon of innovation."

"Nina, go fetch Rocky," Rita said, at which Nina jumped up.

"Magic is a program," Belphegor said. "They override nature in times, or adjust it. We get powers according to themes. Nina messing with energy channels doesn't just send energy away, it connects it to others because subconsciously she's about that. What she did by hooking into Sofiel just now has to do with similar themes.

When I worked with Rocky, he became my assistant working with my zommorod. They were both classified under my umbrella. On some level, I reclassified Rocky as assistant, and through that the zommorod as tool. It still is magical programming that controls them. I short cut the programming unwittingly by recategorizing it.

I think Olivia hoped to test Azazel for this : to observe in detail what happen if he started to embrace his true nature, using her best guess at what said nature was. Angra Mainyu encouraged me to take over the equipment, so it's fair to say Angra also is after this knowledge. In other words, they were trying to get a reading on the magical system that assigns gods and demons their powers."

"Hmm. That is contrary to how I approach magic as technology. You suggest it works on association and assignment," Rita said.

"Your method is not necesarily wrong, our evolution merely gives unique, limited short cuts. They can be transferred in some way, which is why Trismegistus benefited more from Azazel than the other way around; he could give pacts with magical ropes that work like snakes, but not take control of matter himself. Themes do matter."

"Hmm. And mine would be?"

"You've still got a pelos soul, though perhaps we should question your absurdly powerful link to hell's energy and your vast zombification range, but I have so much data I cannot make sense of." Or details, like why Angra Mainyu had visited both her and Azazel, and possible Cerberus's soul. Perhaps she was trying to observe their changes too ...

Nina returned not just with Rocky, but also Augustin. The man was rather offended to be snatched away, complaining about John not doing the job right, only to quiet when he saw Sofiel in her miserable state.

Fascinated, Belphegor and Rita watched what unfolded : after Jeanne explained what had occurred to Sofiel, he fell to his knees and apologized. He had been the one to inadvertently inform heaven of Sofiel's behavior.

Still pacted to Mugaro, to him the affliction was impossible to deny as a sickness even if his faith previously had him convinced the gods would know best. They could only guess at what he saw, but it had to be in greater detail than their machine.

Nina's energy spiked again; and subtle questions rounded out. She'd known just where to find Augustin and brought him here within a minute. That strange little fire burning all the time.

Augustin tried to heal Sofiel, but it didn't catch until Nina joined in.

Faith, belief, and attitude, choosing and electing.

Rita leaned closer to Belphegor, whispering, "She's doing what I do when I create zombies."

Belphegor almost dropped the tablet she'd been holding as something clicked into place.

"There's an underlying principle to life and shape then. Angra Mainyu's been trying to observe this principle."

"That's silly," Nina said despite not being in hearing range, and not responding to other sounds in the room. "She could just ask Mugaro and others."

Well then. Speaking of angles to be explored ...

· · · · · · ·

"Hey, Mugaro!"

El Mugaro startled as Nina's voice came from entirely too close by. Reflexively ne looked around, but of course she was nowhere. This was an unusually clear prayer.

"Can you come back? We found Sofiel and she's really not okay. They tried forcing her to become a demon and she got really sick. Jeanne's sick too, but she wants to pretend she's not."

The door bell rang. On the other side stood gods ne recognized a little; Odin's guard.

"Come home, your hallow guys say there's weird stuff."

Likewise here, the energy around the door turned weird.

"Hey, maybe we can send Aurora of the unicorn—"

The connection grew hazy just as the door burst open.

Odin's elves rushed ahead, rife with their magic to encompass nur into another metanoia spell. Ne threw them back, only for a flock of elves to enter through the window.

Someone grabbed El Mugaro from behind. It wasn't a gate they passed, but rather a tear in space itself. For a dizzying moment, ne was aware of nothing but the one holding nur : the Magedatidot.

When they reappeared, it was within a small backwater chapel thing, full of scraps.

"This ought to buy some time. Fate cannot inspire people to act on what they never thought of, such as invading a small backwater chapel thing full of scraps."

Wide eyed, Mugaro stared at vun. "Did you just read my mind?"

"Oh no, I can do no such thing. I can merely read fate's intentions," the Magedatidot said. "And just now, Nina went down a road fate is not at all pleased with. It once used to favor her survival and would interfere with Charioce's attempted murders, but now it will let them play out, and possible worse. It hasn't decided what its next move will be, but it knows it wants you not to do what she asked."

"Fate can't control me?"

"Right. Nina can be influenced, but not mind controlled outright and she just declared war on fate." Ve clapped vun hands together. "Favaro did so too, once, and it was an asset to fate then. Now though, all bets are off because Nina's supposed to think fate is romantic. Azazel, Jeanne, everyone who was disaffecte dby fate, they've done too much damage. And you're a threat. Should we go all the way, you think?"

"I don't understand."

"We see different things about the world. Shall we see?"

El Mugaro frowned at her and crossed nur arms, trying to make the words as clear as possible, "I am really, really tired of cryptic adults. If you're a prophet, you should know that already."

"Actually, I do not. As you are outside the immediate control of fate, visions around you are limited to how fate handles you getting in the way."

"That doesn't mean you have to be cryptic!"

The Magedatidot folded vun dress up to sit down. "Alright. Fate will attempt to murder me if I do anything to obstruct it too much. It already has it out for you. Prepare to flee at notice."

The talk about fate at the rebellion hadn't bypassed El Mugaro, but ne didn't really get how it worked.

"Wow. Fate really didn't like the way you're thinking right now," ve said. "Say, let's take a trip to the mausoleum. You just need to destroy the alarm around it so we can question Michael in peace. I'm really hoping Nina tempting has a nice ripple effect."

"But he's dead."

Ve held up a small glass sphere. "A soul vessel. They used to be the equivalent of a nice waiting room where they serve you tea and cookies while one adjusts to go back home."

"Home where?"

"Outside the world."

· · · · · · ·

The cave where Klarimiani waited was empty and full at the same time; devoid of people, yet brimming with junk and anxiety. Like stepping into the fumes of an kiln, if it simmered with cold rot. Contradictions were almost tangible in the air.

Klarimiani sat hunched over at a table, a cup of tea steaming before her, a bottle of rum aside. Her disheveled hair shielded her face.

Quietly, Nina sat opposite of her.

"Yesterday, I had another run in with your son's death sentence on me. I survived him again. By now, I don't know what to tell my own mother anymore about what I'm doing here. I wonder, did you raise your son like this?"

"I raised him to be ... a noble man. Nothing I said steered him away from what he's done, I just didn't think it'd ever matter. Who cares for demons and gods, right? Maybe if I wasn't this disgusting thing, I might've even come around to my son's madness, who knows."

"I would have," Nina said. "It's my ordained destiny before fate decided I wasn't useful anymore."

"Fate. Damn it to oblivion. It's nothing but a curse, and not the good kind that I ... it ... used. Not nourishing, just stagnation ..."

Nina looked at her in shared sadness. They were nothing alike, save being compliments from fate to Charioce.

"How are you dealing with being the footnote to all of this?" Nina asked. "Are you okay?"

"How can I ever be? Some whore, some discarded thing with a child, some dead mother to be kept ... and now this ... it's always this. I match better with him than anything else. Lost things thriving on hope."

"Who are you talking about?"

"This ... this thing that that damn doctor put in me. A demon's soul. It's got memories."

"Could you tell me who that demon was? Please? I do not like what Angra and Olivia have done at all, but maybe it's got something we can use."

"Hah, of course you came for my use. Well then. A demon of despair who fed upon souls. Olivia and Angra Mainyu took an interest because of that ability, to take souls out of their socket. They said they were curious about exploring the options of the world.

Olivia figured out that the diminished powers of the demons was only for those who thrived on fear. She specialized herself into being a demon of hatred, and so had much more potential to explore. She investigated possession, for which she invoked Furfur's ability to remove souls so she could slip in the spot."

"Oh, like I regenerate," Nina said. "Except my soul doesn't change and—"

"Like spirits once did. Do you know what Furfur means, dragon? The husk, the blight. I'm just a woman from the slums, always hoping to get out. And the other me, just a spirit from primordial ages, hoping to get out." She began to sob. "To a world doesn't exist anymore for us. I was beautiful once, and it got me somewhere. He was such a good boy then, always taking care of me. I don't want him to do all this. Or be like this. I wanted to go back to the castle, not this."

Her wings twitched, losing a few of the already sparse white feathers.

"He wouldn't let me out." Those last words came out in a monotone similar to her son, but her face was twisted in grief. "And we can't get out of this body. Not back to the way it is supposed to be."

"What do you mean?" Nina asked.

But Klarimiani's eyes shifted to the doorway.

Nishaol stood there. "Nina, are you done? I just wanted to suggest a place where you can do this better."

· · · · · · ·

In the center of Vanaheimr's mausoleum, the Magedatidot put the marble at the center of the farthest dome.

The mirage of Michael settled on it. His projection became animate and color overtook the blue shine.

He had a similar dark vest as El Mugaro and the same heterochromatic eyes, but other than that ne didn't know what to think. This man was just distant stranger, whose presence ne had never quite been able to feel. He must've been around sometimes though, cause he was familiar.

"My son, I am glad to meet you face to face at last, even if it must be under such circumstances."

El Mugaro looked away. Thinking of him as father was strange when he'd never been part of nur life.

"Such circumstances indeed," the Magedatidot said. "We both have a few questions pertinent to the, ahem, circumstances of usual world destruction. Your random decision to create a nephilim threw a blockade in the path of more than a few, and—"

"Why did you name me after El Elyon?" El Mugaro wasn't used to butting in, but there actually were a lot of questions.

"My intent was to name you Eleleth. I did not hope for you to thread the footsteps of Elyon, but to reveal the truth to my beloved Jeanne," he said. "There was no grand plan for your life, though ... I had no grand plan for Jeanne either, and she took one up regardless. Now I see you so alike to her, am I wrong to assume you do the same?"

"You're right, I want help people too. That's why I'm here. You once thought you served fate and the salvation of the world be recruiting mother as a vessel for Zeus. Right?"

He nodded.

"Well, fate's mean and wants to kill me. Ve and a lot of others will help me, and I hope you too."

The Magedatidot nodded right when Michael cast vun a strange look.

"We were under the belief that fate is the will of El Elyon persisting despite the destruction," Michael said, now drained of much of his former warmth.

"You knew El Elyon?" the Magedatidot asked. "Pardon my inquisition for what may seem obvious to you, I have not been to this world before the void claimed that one."

"Who are you?" Michael asked. "From this side of the world, you are not of us, I can see."

"I'm not certain we should say, but ..."

· · · · · · ·

The mausoleum of Anatae lay empty in the night, closed off far as far as it had been completed. Klarimiani struggled to the center of the hal and spread malformed wings from her back. Small white fathers poked from her shoulders onto the membrane.

Hesitant, Aurora stood at the wall and activated the projections. Klarimiani, or perhaps Furfur, laid their hands into the strings of light.

Nothing happened.

Aurora tried fiddling with the settings to no avail.

"Hey." Nishaol pushed her aside. "Let me try."

"Huh? You know about—"

The blue light turned more diverse, while the walls dimmed with darkness. Nishaol nodded at Klarimiani and Furfur. "Proceed."

But they stopped. "What do you want?"

Confused, Nina approached, but Aurora rushed to her side, clinging to her arm to keep her back. "Something's wrong."

"I want to know how this world works," Nishaol said. "That is why you are here. Simple."

"Degraded to a tool, it doesn't look like that to us," Klarimiani said. "Tell me what you want or I won't move."

"I am just curious," Nishaol said. "I want to learn. That is rather rare for my kind, wouldn't you say?"

"I know nothing of your kind of demon and we don't want to," Furfur said, the voice growing colder with every word. But it was Klarimiani who followed iup with, "What would you even do with what you learn?"

"There is no bigger secret," Nishaol said, drawing a blade from her back. "But I could get you acquainted with the void outside the world, see whether you talk then. I have more time than you do, and more time to lose. Testing my patience follows different rules than yours."

"Distant rules," they hissed back. "Old thing, you haven't lived like we have."

"My rules now too," Nishaol said. "The primordial deities are all gone, we must make do with this chaotic world. We could help one another."

Swifter than could be seen, Nishaol pushed Klarimiani to the ground central to the circle.

"Enough! What are you ..." Nina jumped ahead, only to freeze when Nishaol looked up with empty eyes. "... doing?"

"Helping, in theory. I would like this architect to speak." Nishaol took a step closer to them.

Nina grabbed her arm, and Nishaol's head whipped back.

Under her touch, Nishaol melted away for a dark purple skeleton that rapid grew horns and lost its eye sockets.

There was Angra Mainyu.

· · · · · · ·

"Well now, secret's up. You may call me Spenta Mainyu from here on," said with bright smile.

"Okay," EL Mugaro said. "Why'd you not say so ... before ..."

Michael stared in abject horror at Spenta.

"Why are you here?" He floated higher, as to look down on vun. "This is not your world."

In return, ve's ever peaceful demeanor drew harsh. "Not anymore than is yours. You took no lesson from the end of Behemoth and Leviathan. Look what we found, a world encased with diminished free will, stagnated and unstable upon the eternal sea! Would Ahura Mazda and El Elyon see this, what but shame would be their answer?"

"We have no judgment to receive from the children of other deities."

"Yet you host pantheons from more than one other cosmos on this one. You felt quite fine judging them," ve said.

"Someone must."

"Ah, someone. My task. To find Arbiter Mortis and other children of El Elyon, having claimed dominion over the world without Kujata's approval. You were never meant to live within matter, so you should have adapted, not dominated what you do not understand."

"It is not yours either," Michael snapped.

"And we do not defile it, unlike you, because we understand it just a little better. Or ... do you even understand what has been done to this world?"

· · · · · · ·

"Why?" Nina asked. "What did you do this all for?"

"Curiosity. I meant to slumber on this forsaken world until the end of time. What had grown on this world, this what you call fate, is a plague hard to decipher. We had long since given up, but Amira stumbled into disrupting it. Perhaps a chance after all, lest I'd be alone in the void to struggle against what lies out there. So I am in concord with an old ... well, adversary. Once, before we understood how small we were.

Now, we try to help Amira along without fate seeing too much of us. Who knows? Fate doesn't, and that is to our benefit."

· · · · · · ·

"You want to do what?" Azazel said, well aware his tone was on the brink of tolerance and not caring because what.

"Paracelsus will seize control of the Valerian automatons while they are in the process of moving it and load it onto our ship," Lucifer said. "Grigori did not explain well enough?"

Grigori had been sent to inform Azazel of more or less that, but not why now. Could he stall for time?"

"Where is Paracelsus anyway?"

"Late."

· · · · · · ·

"Eons ago, creatures beyond your understanding created numerous worlds in a state of Eden. A delicate balance of entities, governing worlds on the ride of the primordial sea. The first holy beings, unicorns, existed to monitor the balance of the world and herald the chaos waves, so the worlds could protects themselves against the monster outside.

Spirits would always listen and oblige upon the visits of the supreme entities. In the old world, flesh was but a vessel for the spirits. I was among El Elyon's loyal servants, vun old pantheon. Upon the destruction of our old world, we adopted this core world and maintained it."

As Michael spoke the images of the earth unfolded, countless ground full of strange plants and metal structures, lines without rhyme.

"And El Elyon did well from what we gather. But altogether you were still in a system not of your own making. You saw a harvest field. We do not know yet what it truly was. Mugaro, have you heard the tale of Eden?" Spenta said.

El Mugaro nodded. It had been covered in the lessons Gabriel had nur take, albeit just briefly. The ideal state of the world.

"This is Gan Eden," Spenta Mainyu said. "The garden of El Elyon and two before, where that one came to rest and replenish from the routine of tending to the universe, and bring to the stars a harvest."

· · · · · · ·

Nina found herself dreaming of an early dawn with a calm wind brushing across the wide field. Countless automatons lay here, some half buried by soil, others fresh on the earth.

Between them glowing crystal spires shone in the dawn. Heaven soon draw her attention as it set ablaze with lights : spirits raining down, twirling and shooting into the automatons. Others took possession of animals, and springing to life were countless humans preserved within the automatons.

As Nina closed in, the humans emerged not from any fancy beds, but small stones, not unlike those bounty hunters received after a kill. More complex though, engraved with names on the other side.

Her guide hovered next to her, running a pale hand over the edges. "Claims, preferences, permissions. These contain the spells, so to say, for any given new body to reform. They often have the same pilots. Brains were not complex at that time, adapted to receiving new information. When the body was no longer used, this is what they became."

Before her eyes, a tablet forge itself into a living human, clothless as much as sexless, though not all were such. Rather than clothes aimed at modesty, they wore worker's clothes full of belts and tools.

The embodied spirits went to work, simple and quick in breaking the crystals as automatons, or carving intricate structures and spells into them with versatile human hands. Unicorns often emerged from crystals, speaking with the spirits through telepathy of what needs had to be met this day; children of Kujata.

Nina floated around them, somehow able to understand their language just fine. Chit chat, for most part. They discussed plans for heaven's hymns, others spoke of progress in natural wonders they had invented, new animals coming to be, creatures and monsters to be inhabited one day, games and challenges to play.

Peaceful, though not perfect. Here and there was painful silence, or soft griping.

Two spirits came to a fight when an automaton exploded, their rancor soon rising, and the elements around them distorting.

The supervisor called for order, and order was given : both bodies fell lifeless to the ground, and the spirits fell through the ground. Furfur pulled Nina along, deep into the bowels the earth.

"Spirits do not cry, do not rage, do not process the same way your modern humans do," Furfur said. "They do not inhabit the way you do. Here they express all, whether it be slight grievances or long mourning, and the world gives them as much energy as they need for this purpose. At that time it was always simple matters, none of the complicated themes of these days."

Barely humanoid monsters rose from the darkness and fire, endlessly throwing themselves into rushed battles and crawling in the darkness. All eventually stilled, and died, and the spirits returned to the firmament to resume peaceful life.

It was no game of war, but they all understood the harm they caused here would not last; two titans struggled and tore at each other to the point of bleeding, only to return to heaven together.

"Catharsis in the darkness," Furfur said. "Violence was a kindness we did to each other in this world. The wounds never lasted, and all could opt out at will. Scars were scarce, and if anything, learning to bear pain was training. There was but one time one had to endure such for duty and purpose."

Furfur drew her through to the earth, back to the surface.

A black and green lined mass leaked up from earth, rising around a green pillar of light until it became a tree. The pillar became a star so far above the sky, it distorted the blue.

"When the world tree rose, El Elyon descended to earth," Furfur muttered, his voice strangely soft now. "Some times it was peaceful, other times Bahamut was in turmoil and raising Dromos took effort. Took blood. It was always worth it."

Descended through the pillar was a stars so bright, it hurt Nina even in this shared memory. Furfur or maybe Klarimiani put hands over her eyes. She could only see the foot of the tree, now crowding with automatons and small humanoids, unicorns and dragons.

Soon lights fell from the star, small like humans; the angels that had come with El Elyon. It was the unicorns who offered the harvest of zommorods to them, which followed them like rivers.

The angels mingled with the spirits in the flesh and by mind. The sensation of days, weeks and months passing was impressed on Nina, during which a slow rising hum echoed between El Elyon and someone beyond hell.

"That is Kujata, who upholds the layer of emeralds that are harvested, whom we are too small to comprehend. Yet I supposed we fancied we could, because we believed El Elyon could not die. We believed them foundations of the world.

When El Elyon died regardless, our paths disintegrated over time until we were stuck. The actual angels and demons, those who bear wings, arrived some time after El Elyon's death to tend to the world."

Klarimiani's voice had begun to mingle with Furfur's. As they spoke, the countless spirits trapped in mortal coils disintegrated.

Another deity arrived.

The one called Furfur now saw hope in the spirit so alike to El Elyon, yet this one did not descend in the vessel of Dromos.

"None can see El Elyon to the face and live, and we lived to see vun face, but still ..."

The spirit looked deeper to them, terrifying in its existence. It pulled together power until the system acknowledged it, and provided a form : appearing as a blond woman in white and blue gown, regal and cold. A lopsided halo floated over her head, centered on a blue crystal. Wide white wings curled forward to encircle a staff with a black sphere and a golden scale in her hands.

"The Arbiter, Mortis," they said. "The first of the clan we now call gods to come to this world. She had only been to this world before during rare times of settling disputes, never a permanent resident."

Mortis settled in heaven, where she wrought herself a throne by sheer willpower and declared that the world was safe. She would tend to it, and oh, did it need it.

She did not seek a solution for the spirits trapped within their forms, declared such a caste might exist just as well as they were. This was humankind. And those who exist without form might still tend to their world in their best capacity. This was spiritkind.

They did not know what to do against her, for she existed deeper, more solid. Mere injury could not harm her, she regenerated by virtually all mortal means.

"It's because their souls exist on a different level," Nina said. "One of my friends can see this, ne's the child of one of ... hey ..."

Five more angels joined with Arbiter Mortis, one of them Gabriel. Another resembled the one Jeanne had prayed to in the mausoleum, he had to be Michael. The other three then were Uriel and Raphael and ... Lucifer?

"Her council to tend to lesser matters while she meditated," they whispered. "The five archangels in her name. With them, Arbiter Mortis was the scourge of this world as she instilled suffocating order."

· · · · · · ·

"Arbiter Mortis was the salvation of this world as she instilled strict order," Michael said. "It could no longer function in its old ways where it was sufficient for the spirits to be simple tenders. However, we could not and sought not to undo the fundamental laws of this world. We simply adapted. If power were granted, it still depended on nature.

Ours of course was faith, our very nature to instill in the ways of El Elyon upon the world. Mortis instilled a rigid structure to the world, under which it flourished to old glory despite the lack of divine guidance. We became new supreme divinity, reigning over the trapped spirits."

"It worked out quite wonderfully too," Spenta Mainyu said. "Oh, was it up to me the love goddess would have taken your place much sooner. Now she is all corrupted and any other candidate I preferred nowhere even close to the throne. Fate dealt with them already, it does not like me at all. I wonder why it gives you favor."

"The system still recognizes us as maintainers. Past spirits invoking this system as overseer could specialize in certain functions and were granted power and potential based on this. We continued in their same vein—"

Mugaro flared all nur powers, though it hardly touched the spirit.

"This isn't that world anymore! They're all humans now, not spirits anymore," Mugaro said. "I never saw anything wrong with them, they're not stuck. Did you even know that when you decided they'd be inferior?"

Michael closed his eyes for a long time.

"We took upon us the role of maintainers, and refined it into guardianship. We were greater than them, they were faltered, but the system worked for us. That was proof of our capabilities."

Mugaro's shoulders dropped. "You know mother will be very sad when she hears you talk of her and everyone else like that?"

"I know. I perhaps do not agree with the harshness with which we ruled anymore, and I will not speak of her is inferior. I merely try to explain how we came to be."

"Well, it's poor and I'm going to change it."

Spenta clapped. "That's the spirit!"

Both Mugaro and Michael glanced at vun. Really, a pun?

"Yes, I am that old," ve said.

· · · · · · ·

The world continues to rot around Nina, or so Furfur saw it. Humans sometimes became demons, and rarely spirits went down the same path. Wingless gods became a reality welcomed by heaven, though Furfur could not see under what reasoning, nor cared to learn from Nina's guesses ... Klarimiani did, though, wherever she began.

Furfur had been an architect once, content with steady work, but no longer caring for it.

"Then why are you here if you don't care?"

"Angra Mainyu brought me into this with the promise of recovery. If I must either be stuck here or the void, I might as well risk the chance to escape the rot."

"Even if that means Bahamut will destroy the world?" Nina asked.

"It has scourged the world countless time, but never ended it. It always regrows, and besides, I know the trick. I can get a new body if I need one; spirits are unharmed by Bahamut's fire, after all."

"Bahamut doesn't harm spirits?"

"Of course not, these are all physical attacks. Spirits are a large part of why the world can recover afterwards," Furfur said. "Your home has much spirits about, right? You don't know?"

A rumbling overtook the vision.

"That is not part of the vision," the chimera hissed. The vision snapped out of Nina's mind so fast, vertigo knocked her off her feet.

While still clutching her head, the roof came down, and she was on the island again.

· · · · · · ·

A green beam of power shot from the castle, just a glimpse on a vision screen and that was it. Absurdly quick before Lucifer's entire skybeast collapsed onto the ground. Before the room caved, Azazel teleported out of the collapsing castle, above it.

The beast writhed its tentacles across the riverside, the slums flooded, and he rushed down to help.

· · · · · · ·

Malphas found them in time, perhaps. They salvaged what they could of the equipment, while Belphegor herself joined the evacuation of those few who'd made it this far below the city. What had caused the collapse she did not know, only they had to move below the upper ring.

Into the tunnels, further, quicker, hurried. Divesepid met them in a wider tunnel, said something was wrong at the castle. The humans had become hostile again.

Her priority, head count her clan, her second need, get the equipment safe, her third ... she didn't have one.

· · · · · · ·

Sofiel could barely walk, so Jeanne pushed her onto the unicorn and sent her through a gate, hoping the unicorn would choose a good destination. She remained behind, sword and powers out to obstruct what little she could of the collapsing walls. Her people needed her.

· · · · · · ·

Kaisar sat alone in a chair in the study his father had once occupied. The rumbling outside, the sound of a battle overhead didn't stir him. Downstairs, Felicia yelled something. People came up from the kitchen. Belphegor's voice. Jeanne, later. Favaro didn't come.

He stayed still.

· · · · · · ·

Cerberus teleported all across Lucifer's collapsing castle until she found Coco locked up. At least, what ought to be Coco. He didn't really smell the same way and was stuck in monster form, except he had an all black body. When he didn't respond, Cerberus let go humanoid form and merged with Mimi. Together, they tore Coco off the makeshift body and planted him back onto their bleeding shoulder.

He woke up, at last, and they remembered together.

· · · · · · ·

Favaro hadn't meant for this. He'd been so sure he was aware when fate was giving him ideas, but here he was in the castle, hot off of telling the humans the worst information they could get, and now the gods were considering to get busy too. Oh Amira, she would be sad all over.

· · · · · · ·

Rita followed Belphegor right up to the kitchen, found an empty room, and from there zombified every corpse from that convenient crash.

· · · · · · ·

His goats who found them first; Belphegor and a whole host of her tribe had made it into the upper ring tunnels.

Elsewhere, Cerberus was going around unearthing people, bringing them in a cave down the other end of the slums that hadn't collapsed yet.

By the time he arrived there, Cerberus had already brought in Nina. Goddamit, this was like what, the fourth time he'd left her just for her to nearly die? Why did— was this fate? It kept him away, or ... but everything he'd done seemed to make sense. He wasn't supposed to be influenced directly ... was he?

In a fleeting moment he had an idea why Merlin had had her moments of desperation long, what she must have seen when fate won her back.

Nina meanwhile saw nothing and responded to nobody, not even the goats or him. She just sat there on a rock as far away from the walls as possible.

"Nina?"

When cornered the responses tended to be fight, flight or freeze. He'd seen it on her a few times before, usually when in tunnels. It was worse since their return to Anatae but never this bad.

Nina's personal business was his job to pry into as far as it concerned Charioce and the rebellion only.

Maybe take her away from the underground at least.

He set a hand on her back, she startled.

"Come along."

They emerged from a small tunnel on the hills, overlooking the now browning forest. To their right the hills were full of demons under the shadow of the writhing beast.

The wreckage of the castle crumbled from the tilted head, tentacles crashing against the collapsing riverbank. Water flooded in, destroying what little of the slums still remained. The other end reached to the hills and had taken down the mausoleum, countless scorched houses, everything.

"Why now?" Nina whispered. "We were so close. I didn't think it was that literal that fate doomed me."

Still shaking, her eyes drifted towards the hundreds of now homeless demons.

He pulled her back to sit on a nearby rock. "We'd go home anyway. Until then, they'll live on the beast."

Or in it, if it died and could be hollowed out. The humans had stopped firing, maybe a truce could still be reached. Jeanne must've done something.

Nina leaned back, breathing more steady. Whatever weighed on her, her father, the island, the castle, diminished a little. Enough that he expected she'd be fine finding her way to the others. He still held her a little longer,

He had so much to lose still, it all was too close to the end now. All his people in the hills whom he couldn't protect good enough, or her. The way he hated Charioce had gone into detail than broken demonic pride, fallen in the shadow of protection. None of this was good enough for his people, and he was too weak still to keep anyone safe enough.

"Can you do anything for them?" She sounded steady now, again.

He let go. "I don't know. I'll try."

Nina looked up. "Can you do anything without provoking Lucifer?"

"Tch."

"They don't need a scapegoat, we need a leader of their own," Nina said. "That whole complicated court stuff."

"I'm not for that."

"No, but you're the only one who can even try," Nina said. "I just saw Cerberus, all she does is gather her pack and put her tail between her legs. Belphegor doesn't have connections, right? I don't see them the way I do with Cerberus. And you have potential, and power."

He paused. "You can see things now?"

"In a way," Nina said. "But all it does it confirm things a bit that I already can figure out if I try. It's a short cut, and so are you. We need that short cut. So please try something other than hurling your whole self at a problem."

There she was worrying for him again. He let go abruptly.

"Go to Kaisar's place. I'll be there soon."

· · · · · · ·

Bacchus burst into the forum where Mugaro was getting a very boring lecture.

"It's war," he panted. "The truce is over, the demons are trying to take Dromos."

Gabriel sprung to her feet. "Assemble the forces. Bacchus, contact Odin on our behalf."

"Did that already, he doesn't want your help," Bacchus said.

"He must! Open a line of communication now."

Mugaro waited quietly until Gabriel failed and wrapped up to storm out. Bacchus lingered in the hall, and ne approached.

"Bacchus, we need the gods and demons to realize Bahamut is coming as soon as possible. I can't leave without getting a load of gods after me, but you can. You need to help my mother and the others take Dromos to Eibos."

He ran a hand over his bald head. "But, uh, look it's one thing to spy on Odin, but—"

"You can get in the middle of things exactly because of that! Come on, Hamsa's already down there. Surely you can help? I'll be up here and see what I can do."

"You really sure this is the best course?"

"You must," Mugaro said. "And so do you, Michael. Do you hear us? If you want to make up for heaven's neglect, then help us."

"He cannot."

They turned, finding Spenta Mainyu hovering nearby them. "He is a whole soul and might act in accordance to fate. Bacchus at least we can keep an eye on."

"Can't we make them immune?" Mugaro asked. "My mother is immune, right?"

"Wards are always immune to fate's cognitive inspirations," Spenta Mainyu said. "The system of fate is, presumably, based on the leylines of the spirits. It only works on what it recognizes. Those with damaged souls, such as Azazel, we can only poorly predict."

Mugaro frowned. "Poorly predict?"

"Of course I can guess."

Mugaro crossed nur arms, trying to be intimidating. It just got a chuckle.

"Alright, alright. I actually did arrange Azazel's entire wall of wards, hopefully in a conspicuous enough way that fate couldn't guess which we hoped he'd take. We were gambling hard on his attention rate, and his ability to tell which bounties were botched enough to still have souls attached. The latter worked, the former less so. Merlin was all but unavoidable, she was his most powerful ward," ve said. "I had hoped he would take the regenerator, the stealth warriors, and a number who had been able to inherited his teleportation potential. Unfortunately, the only one he grabbed that we intended for was Walfrid."

"What were you trying to do?"

Spenta fiddled with vun fingers, glancing away. "In the long run? Grab fate. Bahamut messing up all our efforts tends to set us back so I never got very far even with research. We're not sure yet, we just would like one of the last worlds in the universe to not perish to itself, so we want to take over this flawed fate."

"No. We're going to heal the world. Isn't Nina already doing something? I just need to know what I can add."

"Hmm, we're not certain how much we want to rely on Nina. She was made by fate, after all, and I cannot tell how it leads her."

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