Makoto stared yearningly out into the night through the dirty window of a small abandoned building he and Hikasa were taking shelter in. After Inori had assigned them to find Kai, they’d given every bit of magic they knew into tracking him - from going all the way down the river to finding out he’d eventually got out of it and into another city many miles away. Similarly to Kai and Mion, they also moved and found shelter to spend nights in as quickly and stealthily as they could. About two days went by like that with zero luck, as either of them had yet to find any physical signs of Kai.
Despite their tracing so far indicating Kai was alive, this did nothing to make Makoto less worried. The implications of what they’d seen snapping the bridge cables, along with the fact that Kai could still be with the demon whose motivations were still a mystery to them weren’t comforting at all.
“And he’s still so young and inexperienced, out there alone and completely bare-handed in a part of the human world that even we’re strangers to…” Makoto sighed. “…all while something sinister is boiling under the surface that we don’t know the half of… If only it was possible for us to track down demons too and not just angels, then some of the questions we have could be answered…”
While angels did have a system of magic that alerted them of disturbances caused by any demonic activity within their factions’ designated areas in the human world (like with the hellhound at the beginning of this story), tracking down demons themselves with traces of their activity like they could with their own kind was out of the question. If things really were that easy, then angels would have eradicated every demon in the world already. Of course, the same logic applied to demons as well, so the opposite extreme of the aforementioned scenario was also impossible.
Not wanting to see her friend cause himself so much psychological distress – even though she too had Kai on her mind all the time since the start of the search – Hikasa said, “Kai’s not incapable of looking out for himself. You’re worried, I know, because I am too, especially after those traces of him we found around the burnt subway systems the other day. But that said, surely you also know Kai well enough to be certain he can stay out of any human world troubles. And should there be anything we can’t handle along the way, Inori sama’s promised to send help right away, remember?”
Makoto nodded as he came over to where Hikasa was sitting and sat there with her. “I do wonder what those coordinates the demon uttered that Inori sama said she’d look into means though…”
Hikasa agreed, “It’d better not be anything troublesome, there’s been too much going on already…”
Makoto nodded silently. Even without Kai lost and most likely in danger, the mysterious coordinates kept bugging him at the back of his mind when there wasn’t anything else on it. Added with the fact that they found out of a hell sub-faction existing in the same area as their own sub-faction this whole time, and he didn’t want to imagine the worst case scenario of the coordinates’ implications.
For better or worse, this disturbing train of thought was interrupted when his phone buzzed in his pocket for a call. Hikasa shifted closer in curiosity as Makoto answered, “Hello?”
From the other side of the call came a hyped voice that had to raise itself due to rather loud noises in the background, “Hello, Makoto? It’s me, Ayano! You wouldn’t believe what’s going on right now!”
“Ayano?” Makoto asked in sheer confusion. “What is it? And what’s all the damn noise?”
“You remember those coordinates Inori sama said she’d look into?” Ayano shouted her reply over more loud background noises. “Turns out those were coordinates to the hell sub-faction responsible for the attack several days ago! After Inori sama found out, she spent a whole day revising a plan for taking on this sub-faction along with the rest of us! We all then put the plan into action the following day, and I’ll be darned, the whole thing went over tons better than last time! The angels from the attacked sub-faction were more than eager to join the plan to get back at their attackers and protect our faction, despite Inori sama insisting they shouldn’t put themselves in danger again…”
There was a particularly loud noise that forced Ayano to pause for a second, before continuing, “But they convinced Inori sama to let them in on it as a way to avenge the fallen ones, and that if she intended to strike everyone would need all the help they can get… Ultimately this turned out to work in our favor, because we ended up greatly overpowering the demons by numbers! And Inori sama knew that striking out of the blue with a plan against the unprepared demons would put us at an advantage, just like when they attacked one of our factions! Right now we’re getting rid of the last few ones! Thought you ought to know, since you’re not here…”
Makoto’s phone nearly slipped out of his hands in shock at the news. Considering everything that had happened so far, never in his wildest imaginations could he have seen such an event coming. Even after Ayano ended the call after saying the sub-faction’s leader still needed to be taken care of (AKA finishing off), he just sat there frozen in a daze, not knowing how to comprehend this.
Hikasa was doing the same by his side. After having all her life to form a solid idea of what angels and demons had with each other, imagine her disbelief when she heard a demon had deliberately given the coordinates to his own sub-faction and made it possible for angels to take it down.
Just like that, neither of them seemed to have much to talk about over this before sleep took over.
* * *
Meanwhile in a different part of the same city, a different pair was receiving the same news over a phone call, “…a surprise attack nobody saw coming! All these angels just came out of nowhere and now I think it’s just me left! Where in the goddamn hell are you two?!”
Miyu and Daichi also found themselves frozen in shock as they heard the voice coming through the phone in their hands. Aside from the fact that their folks were no more and Kurosawa being the last one standing (though for how long, they couldn’t tell), there was also the matter of how this could’ve happened. Apparently even falling into a river and getting washed away in it couldn’t stop the wretched angel from finding his way back to his faction and telling everyone there about the leaked coordinates, no thanks to that traitor of a demon Mion.
As they just sat dazed in the middle of the hotel room they’d acquired by manipulating the humans at the front desk with demonic spells, the call abruptly ended with some background disturbances accompanied by Kurosawa’s garbled shouts. Then a deafening silence filled the room for a moment.
Not knowing how to properly take any of this in, Daichi expressionlessly turned to Miyu and said, “I… was not expecting that.” The shocking news sinking in had wiped his mind blank momentarily.
Miyu, on the other hand, was trembling with pure fury. Her phone was in danger of crumpling like a paper model as her hands balled into white-knuckled fists, and Daichi could swear the bedsheets of the bed she was sitting on were beginning to smoke mildly.
“He finally did it…” Miyu muttered with the subdued malice of a serial killer caught by the police. “He’s doomed us all and now everything’s gone…”
Daichi didn’t need to ask who Miyu meant by that. The emptiness in him at the shock of his home and everything he cared about besides himself suddenly being gone gradually filled with rage at the sheer thought of the one responsible for it all.
Gripping the windowsill and looking out into the city’s nightscape where he could only imagine where Mion was, Daichi felt like reducing everything in sight to rubble out of spite. As if destroying everything would also destroy the traitor who lost them their lives as they knew it, leaving them here with nothing. But in spite of himself, all he actually did was growl, “What are we to do now?”
Miyu almost instantly replied, not even caring about the bedsheets beneath her smoking more and more in her intensifying anger, “We’ve got nothing left but to track down that little shit and make him pay for what he’s done. No matter what we have to resort to for it.”
Daichi glanced back at Miyu over his shoulder at this, and Miyu returned the gesture through the ever-increasing smoke, “It’s not like we have anything else to lose, so why bother holding back?”
Daichi nodded, having understood. Nothing more to say about it. Nothing else mattered anymore except making sure Mion got what he deserved, regardless of what happened in the process.
* * *
Kai and Mion was suddenly awoken in the middle of the night by a cascade of sudden chaos. No sooner had they exited their shelter for tonight, they were greeted with the unexpected sight of fire trucks and police vehicles filling the streets, visibly rushing to some sort of great emergency. Said emergency turned out to be, as Kai and Mion found out from news reports on TVs displayed in front of an electronics store nearby, unexplainable phenomena breaking out somewhere in the city consisting of fires, destruction of property, and animal attacks. To make matters worse, whatever was going on must’ve been happening closer to them than they thought, because even as they began moving, they could sense the noises of the disturbances not getting any more distant.
“Just what is going on-“ Kai began in confusion as he watched a TV showing crowds of screaming people running left and right, when he faltered at the sight of what was causing the terror.
Between the blurry shapes of fleeing citizens and the shaky news footage, Kai could unmistakably make out the monstrous figure of a hellhound.
Kai was about to make a comment on this to Mion, but found the demon’s sight fixated on another TV showing aerial news footage from a helicopter, where car-sized demonic black birds were flying all around. The reporter could barely even be heard over the evil screeches they emitted from their razor-sharp beaks as they swooped over the streets, clearly in search of something… or someone.
Neither Kai nor Mion had to ask each other to confirm their suspicions of what the cause of all this was. Kai however, did have to wonder aloud why the demons chasing them would suddenly do this, to which Mion replied, “They must’ve either run out of patience or gotten completely unhinged to resort to summoning beasts from hell to track us down better… they don’t give a damn anymore…”
For the umpteenth time since he first met Mion, Kai felt another internal dilemma stir within his mind. One side of the mental tug-of-war was telling him to do the logical thing of continuing to run in order to survive, while the other side tried to counter the thought with a sense of powerlessness – powerlessness towards all those humans the demons were putting in danger in an attempt to find him and Mion. Needless to say, his responsibility and duty as an angel made him want to protect the humans from harm. Yet that would give the demons exactly what they wanted, which was to kill Mion while capturing him alive to possibly torture his sub-faction’s coordinates out of him. And the less Kai thought about the consequences of that scenario the better.
Meanwhile Mion also seemed to be suffering from a troubled mindset himself. For a moment he just stood there before the TVs muttering, “We can’t stay here… until he eventually heard the distant noises growing louder still and grabbed Kai’s hand to say, “As long as we’re alive, they haven’t won!”
However, not even this could fully bring Kai back to reality, as he stumbled over his own feet at Mion’s attempt to drag him away from the not quite nearby but still imminent danger, stuttering, “H-how are… what can we d-do- all those people-“
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Mion stopped briefly to help Kai catch his balance and said, “What are you on about? Snap out of it and look what’s-“ but even he didn’t have a chance to finish his sentence upon spotting something over Kai’s shoulder in the middle of the street, merely just several feet away from them.
A lone hellhound was standing there staring at them. The moment Kai felt something was wrong and turned to see what had caught Mion’s attention, the creature’s yellow eyes narrowed and its teeth bared in what almost looked like a smug sneer. Barely a second after this registered with Kai and Mion, the hellhound arched its back to face the sky with its mouth wide open to let out a roar.
“NO!” Mion screamed in a panic and before any proper sound could fully escape the hellhound’s throat, he’d brandished a crimson shuriken in his hand to throw straight at it.
The weapon zipped through the air and without another moment to spare, it sliced across the front of the hellhound’s neck. Its roar was immediately cut off in a loud half-second sound to be followed with weak gurgling canine whining as it bled uncontrollably out of its mouth and slashed neck.
Mion caught the shuriken coming back to him like a boomerang and said, “One alerting roar out of it and it would’ve let the other beasts, and likewise their summoners know of our current location.” While keeping his eyes on the bleeding hellhound to make sure it dropped dead, which it did.
Not feeling safe unarmed after that, Kai summoned his crossbow. And it was a good thing he did, because a split second later a loud smashing noise came from the other side of the street. The front glass of a nearby building had shattered as another hellhound leapt through it and looked around. Its head first turned to the dead hellhound, before turning to Mion himself, grinding its teeth in rage. No doubt it heard its companion’s interrupted howl from nearby, however short it had been.
It also must’ve deduced how the first one had died, because rather than howling to alert the others, this hellhound attacked immediately after setting its eyes on its target. Kai and Mion leapt out of the way just in time, with the former also acting fast enough to shoot an arrow at it.
Unfortunately the arrow didn’t hit its mark in the proper area, only managing to embed itself in the creature’s left thigh. So when Kai hit the ground from dodging the attack, he was met with the hellhound limping but surely advancing on him as he tried to scramble back to his feet.
What with the hellish canine distracted by the one who injured it, that gave Mion the opportunity to brandish a sword in his hand and get ready to strike from behind. And speaking of which, before Mion could do just that he felt a pair of sharp talons grab him from somewhere behind him. The next thing he knew, he was lifted off his feet even though his wings weren’t even out.
One of the demonic black birds they’d seen on the TV had found them as well and had swooped down onto one of its intended targets to attack. Mion had just enough time to realize this as the bird began to open its beak wide for an alerting screech, like the hellhound had tried to do earlier.
“Oh no you don’t!” Mion shouted and spread his own wings to reach up towards the bird’s beak and clamp it shut with both hands. “Never again!”
The bird’s talons still gripped him firmly, even clawing into his skin to draw blood, so Mion couldn’t free himself from it just yet. Despite this and the pain, he held on tight to the bird’s beak and neck, doing everything in his power to prevent it from making any noise. Likewise the bird couldn’t shake Mion off and kept writhing in midair with muffled high-pitched noises leaking out its covered beak.
Back on the ground, Kai had drawn a sword of his own and had just slashed out at the hellhound with it. Even with an injured leg, the hellhound leapt back surprisingly well to dodge the strike, then leapt forward again immediately before Kai could swing his sword at it a second time. While this move by the hellhound came off as slightly clumsy due to its injured back leg being a hinderance, Kai was still caught off guard by it enough to jump backwards straight into a wall.
“Ow!” He groaned as his backside made very painful contact with the sheer mass of concrete. But now was not the time for wincing. The hellhound was coming at him again, and this time Kai knew the right direction to go was not backwards or sideways, but up.
With one mighty flap of his wings, Kai shot upwards right as the hellhound pounced at him a third time. Being unable to stop itself mid-leap as its target went out of sight, all the hellhound could do was simply crash into the wall in front, while Kai hovered over it with an arrow locked and loaded.
There was a sharp twang. Two out of two hellhounds on the scene down for good. And then a dull, feather-filled thud to the angel’s head from above, resulting in him losing his balance and falling hard onto the ground, where he lay knocked out.
The demonic bird had flown down at Kai in an attempt to attack him. If not for Mion still wrestling it by the head and neck, the bird would’ve had more luck with piercing Kai’s head using the razor-sharp end of its beak. Thankfully Mion’s grip on the bird was just as persistent as its grip on him.
“This shit ends here NOW!” Mion struggled with all his might to get the right grip on the bird with both arms, and gave all the strength he had into them for a lethal neck crack. This instantly loosened all the grip the bird had on Mion, and he let the lifeless feathery beast fall to the ground. He then quickly flew down to Kai and shook him awake, “Are you okay? Nowhere hurt?”
“I’m alright, what about you?” Kai asked back, and Mion winced a little as he was reminded again of the wounds the bird’s talons had made on his shoulder, saying, “Could be worse…”
Kai stood up and looked for signs of other beasts, saying, “We gotta move, we’re sitting ducks here.”
“We gotta move more stealthily.” Said Mion, doing the same as Kai. “Being out in the streets was a mistake, they could apparently see us clear as day with nothing to shelter us from their view.”
“So what do you suggest?” Asked Kai. “That we move by hiding ourselves inside or inbetween buildings or something?” to which Mion replied, “You read my mind.”
Just then, both of them heard what sounded like a muffled scream from somewhere and jumped, expecting something or someone to come leaping out at them again. But it turned out the noise was from one of the TVs in the electronics store they’d seen the news footage on moments ago.
As their attention turned to it, they saw that the news camera’s POV was now lying lopsided on the ground, showing a nighttime street still raging with hell beasts at a tilted angle, and a familiar pair of legs approaching the camera. Then from somewhere offscreen another familiar voice was heard asking, “What’s that you got there, Miyu?” to which a second voice – belonging to the same owner of the legs – replied, “Looks to me one of our beasts chased away the news crew holding this.”
Miyu’s legs now paused right in front of the camera as her voice muttered, “If they were reporting all this, no doubt our little traitor will hear of it one way or another… then maybe he’ll think twice about backstabbing his own kind and leaving them with no home to go back to – before he dies at our hands, that is.” Then her feet angrily kicked at the camera, reducing the TV screen to static.
Terrified at this, Kai and Mion instantly went moving, in search of another place to take shelter in.
* * *
They eventually settled inside an unoccupied caravan parked on the side of a road and tended to their minor injuries the best they could before trying to comprehend what they saw. Unsurprisingly, Kai noticed Mion was unusually quiet and still from where he was sitting. He inched closer to him with concern and saw his eyes were blank and his brow furrowed, visibly disturbed.
“Hey-“ Kai started, and Mion, having not noticed the angel this close to him, jumped a little, before settling down and saying, “Sorry – I was too deep in thought over what we just witnessed…”
“It’s fine…” Kai replied and nodded. “Wish I could say the same for our situation though…” To which Mion sighed deeply and said, “You heard what she said? About them having no home to go back to… This can only mean their sub-faction’s no more, and so nothing will prevent them from pulling any punches to hunt us down… no demons to think they’ve gone rogue and set out to stop them…”
Kai thought back to when Mion had told him his sub-faction’s coordinates for the angels secretly eavesdropping on them to also hear. Between that and what was happening out there now, he could guess what sort of events had gone down to lead up to this. But still being unable to bring himself to tell Mion of this, Kai just nodded again and kept listening as Mion continued, “At the rate things are going now, running to buy ourselves time for a real plan won’t save us…”
Kai knew what Mion meant. The night wasn’t even half over and things were getting out of hand. They could only run so much from a disaster of this magnitude before it caught up to them. And no plan that just the two of them could afford to pull off would be enough to handle it either.
Bringing up the subject of running reminded Kai once again of the dilemma he had with himself earlier regarding his duty as an angel. Now he was feeling guilty over the thoughts of whether their well-being was worth leaving countless humans in the wake of the demons’ devastation.
Don’t be stupid, of course it’s not worth it, his mind told him. How could he abandon his life’s responsibility out of something personal? Yet how could he also bring himself to abandon his efforts to help and save a troubled soul in danger, no less one who was his dear friend?
And speaking of, he also began feeling guilty again over ever doubting his friend to agree to Inori’s plan in the first place. True, there was no knowing how things could’ve went down if he didn’t agree. But there was no denying it was because of his short-lived but otherwise foolish doubt that he let his fellow angels listen in on him and Mion at all, prompting them to destroy a hell sub-faction and leave the few demons still out in the world to become unhinged as a result of that.
Even as his mind was constantly being torn apart by all sort of guilt, Kai still got himself to keep paying attention to Mion’s words, as he wasn’t done talking yet, “Even if your kind become aware of these disturbances and try their best to end it, all they’ll be able to focus on are the beasts because there’s already so many summoned. And I bet Miyu and Daichi won’t hesitate to summon more if it means they can distract the angels well enough to slip away and continue chasing us.”
Kai sighed and added, “This is so complicated as much as it is dangerous… what to do?”
Gazing out of one of the caravan’s windows with a distant look, Mion replied, “Assuming your kind will indeed come forth to subdue the problem raging out there, then the core source of that very problem must be dealt with in order to end everything without any loose ends.”
“Miyu and Daichi.” Said Kai, nodding to show he got it. If those two could be taken down somehow, then it’d mean him and Mion wouldn’t be in any constant danger anymore, while the trouble with the beasts could also be resolved once and for all, what with those responsible no longer around.
Mion nodded back and turned towards Kai. Now his eyes were full of a strange mix of determination, fear, and even compassion as he said, “I’ll do it. Alone with no one else.”
“What?” Said Kai in confusion, and Mion explained, “I told you, if they catch you they’ll torture your sub-faction’s location out of you, and then your folks will be in danger too. You can’t be out there, or you’ll be giving them exactly what they want. Now’s a better time than ever for me to make sure you’re safe, I can’t drag you into a danger you did nothing to deserve being a part of-“
Suddenly, the moment those words escaped Mion’s lips, a sort of epiphany struck Kai like a lightning bolt. Memories of the times Mion saved him from the other demons flashed by him. As did other memories, like when he had to be saved from that hellhound ages ago by his fellow angels due to his own slip up, when Makoto found out about him meeting with Mion but ultimately never told Inori of it, and last but not least, when he saw on TV the humans being terrorized by the hell beasts.
“No.” Kai said firmly, cutting Mion off mid-sentence. This seemingly out-of-the-blue attitude threw Mion off guard for a moment and he sat staring at the angel in confusion. Kai however, stood firm and spoke again, “You say I don’t deserve to be put in all this danger, but what about you?”
All Mion could say in response was a baffled “Huh?” while Kai continued, “I’m done running from problems or hiding behind others’ backs while they deal with them for me. I’m no longer going to drag others into or leave them to face any troubles – whether they’re of my doing or not - because they too don’t deserve to unwillingly be dragged into them… my own kind, the humans out there…” He then paused to look directly at Mion as he emphasized the end of his sentence, “…and you.”
Mion could tell where this was going, and he couldn’t allow it. He stood up and said, “You can’t! Haven’t I told you enough times those two are hell bent on killing me and then capturing you-“
“Meaning they can’t afford to kill me even if I put up a fight.” Kai interrupted. “Wouldn’t that make me have a better chance against them than you, who they just want to kill and nothing else?”
“You’re talking mad.” Mion insisted. He slowly inched towards the caravan door trying to block it, feeling if he didn’t, Kai would barge out of it before he could make another argument. “There’s only one of you and two of them, plus a shit ton of hell beasts at their side!”
“And I suppose you can face them better than me alone?” Kai asked. He was making up arguments hoping they would sound reasonable enough for Mion, as he was desperate to not let the demon go no matter what just as much as Mion was to not let him go. That said, he did know what he was saying when he spoke the following, “Earlier in the streets, we were drawing too much attention to them by just being out in the open for them to spot us while on the move. You said it yourself, remember? I’ll be as stealthy as I can when approaching them for the confrontation-“
“A confrontation you ought not to make if you value your own life!” Snapped Mion. “How about just waiting the best we can until your kind hopefully notices-“ But Kai cut him off to keep saying, “Now you’re contradicting yourself. You said my kind arrives at the scene, Miyu and Daichi can just sneak away from there and keep coming for you all while the beasts keep my kind distracted, and that’s even if I’ll be able to tell them about those two demons!”
Mion went silent after that. He couldn’t think of anything else to make Kai stay. He couldn’t even bring himself to make any moves to stop Kai as he walked past him and opened the caravan door.
However, having sensed all this based on Mion’s behavior – or rather the lack of it – Kai turned one last time towards him and, doing his best to sound reassuring, said, “I’ll do my best to come back, you have my word. And should the worst case scenario happen and I don’t, just know that I don’t regret my decision… since I did it all for my dear friend.”