“U-re?” I frown. “Why are you here -- wait...can you see all of this?”

This is honestly far too much for one day. By this point, it’s beyond far too much for a whole fucking lifetime.

“You’re making quite a scene,” he looks at Coach, who only looks at him really intensely.

“Rami’el,” Gabriel grins. “Where have you been lurking this whole while?”

Ramiel?

“You’re joking.”

“Sorry, Hyun,” U-re, grins, and he at least has the decency to look embarrassed. “Marching orders are marching orders.”

“Enough of this,” Michael steps up, ahead of what I see is a huge mass of light waiting behind him.

The army of Heaven has arrived.

I love these guys here and all -- ok, well, maybe that’s an exaggeration. But I guess they’re good fighters and they’ve kept me safe and I trust them. Most of them. War’s still on my shit list.

But Michael has an army.

“I would avoid bloodshed, brothers,” he calls across the ice. “Let me do my duty. Let me stop this before it gets any worse. One life for humanity.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“If you do not see the value of two lives,” Coach snarls, “then you are not the brother I knew.”

“What would you know of caring for anything but your own pride, brother? Covet the boy all you wish: the will of our Father shall be done -- and the army of Heaven shall smite you all from this Earth, as it has before.”

I look at the others. All of their faces are grim, except for…

“Why are you smiling?” I ask Coach.

Coach starts laughing and that glow about him gets brighter -- the sun rising on a winter morning.

He was rightly named the Morning Star.

“Oh, Mikha’el,” Coach laughs. “My dear elder brother, have you forgotten? I have been here all these long years.”

“What of it?” Uriel frowns from across the ice.

“Geonbehaja like a thunder…” U-re hums to himself with a wicked grin. Something about it makes me shiver.

“Really?” I ask, trying to let the distraction cut through my tension.

He shrugs, “Felt appropriate.”

“Gravity never was your strong suit,” Gabriel snorts.

U-re barely misses a beat, scoffing back, “Like it was ever yours.”

They’re all completely four-dimensional.

“Brothers,” Coach’s voice booms across the frozen lake. “I tremble not at the might of Heaven because, you see, Hell is empty…” Coach grins. “And all the devils are here.”