Gu Chapter 13 (Patreon)

Michael had to excuse himself to deal with some responsibilities as the head of his faction, leaving me, Sariel, and Gabriel to find an arena and square off. 

My new weapon felt unwieldy in my hands, too light to swing and yet it hit like a truck, some kind of magic in it that made it hit harder than the weight would suggest. The blade within the club was interesting too, in a fancy way that made it so that I didn’t quite know how to use it. 

My weapons and training had always been simple. Hit hard, move fast, and don’t let yourself get knocked down. Swordplay, from what little I knew of it, was much more complicated than that. It took precision, stances, and drills from muscle memory. Brute force and battle instinct wouldn’t quite cut it. 

All of that was for later. For now I stood across a square from Sariel, the angel unarmed yet hovering slightly above the ground. Our arena was a stadium, one with a grass field in the center pockmarked by craters and seating that was clearly tailored for people with wings. Aside from stands, swingsets were suspended from the tall ceiling to give more space. 

It was all abandoned for now, only the three of us present, but it made me wonder what kind of training exercises must have been done here once. And the seating was made to accept a massive crowd, at least fifty thousand if not more. Michael had said that there were only around ten thousand angels in heaven… 

How far they had fallen. It made the stadium feel slightly sad, a relic of a time when the faction was greater. Maybe once, long ago, God had sat here and watched games play out. 

“Aaaaaand… start!” Gabriel, standing to the side of us, completely unconcerned with the possibility of being hit, slashed her hand down, pulling me from my thoughts to make the first-

Sariel was in front of me, a flash of light all that signaled her crossing of the arena. Angels, it seemed, had some innate ability to either teleport or go at near-lightspeed. It was probably a learned skill, like the divine equivalent of a spell. 

The spear hurtling toward my face sunk an inch into the wood of my sacred gear, the kanabo rising to meet her blow. I locked eyes with her calmly. A bloodthirsty smile and faint madness met me, her spear shining brightly to light up her eyes. 

With a heave I blew her away, along with the explosion of the overcharged spear. Through the smoke I felt holy energy condensing, my practice in sensing it paying off. Even half blind I was able to step forward and twist myself to the side, neatly avoiding a hail of spears that littered the ground. From the feel of their energy they weren’t the exploding sort. 

“Some are mass produced and some are special. And you said you were a scout?” I noted, looking up at the angel. With her wings spread wide she formed a silhouette against the sky. 

“I am.” She confirmed as she clenched her fist. Stars formed around her, holy energy ready to be molded into some other attack. 

Well that wouldn’t do. I attacked, my ki lifting me up as I flew straight toward her. With another motion of her hand the stars gleamed and blasted toward me. A barrel roll avoided most of them, save for one that I shielded myself from. 

Face to face once more, I feinted a swing, tricking the angel into beating her wings to create distance between us. A poor move. One of my hands left my kanabo to throw one of my few ranged attacks. 

Ki stretched between us as a rope, my own latching onto hers with ease and sinking hooks in deep before she got too far. As fast as she was, Sariel was no monk and her ki was only as trained as her innate power allowed. I was still as I focused on grasping it firmly, and to my amusement she paused as she tried to puzzle out what I was doing. It took her a little too long, as I yanked as hard as I could. 

A scrap of her life force was ripped from her, and in response she released a shriek of surprise and pain, one hand coming to clutch her heart, just below her ample breasts. Not far away, I grinned as holy power and potent life force washed through me, a temporary boon that I poured into my flight. 

Weakness in battle deserved to be punished, and this time I was the one on the offensive, using my stolen power to press Sariel. My kanabo clashed with one of her spears, a spear that quickly grew from a featureless white rod into something more intricate, complete with a spearhead, shaft, and words of some unknown language spiraling down to the base. 

This weapon seemed less disposable than the others. I wanted it gone. 

With one hand I grabbed the spear, yanking it down while I raised my club and brought it down on my opponent. Her legs pressed into my stomach as she tried to push me away, yet gave that up quickly to raise an arm and form a shining gauntlet from her light constructs. 

A bad move. I crushed the last-ditch defense, letting go of the spear as I slammed her down into the dirt. Sariel spiraled down to the ground, only barely flaring her wings to avoid a nasty landing. At the same time a foreign rush went through me once more, my club biting into her ki in the same manner I had just done, only saving me the need to focus on a technique to do so. The power bolstered me further, my life force burning as brightly as if I had gotten drunk on oni sake! 

I flew down to press the advantage once more, only being repelled as she whirled and thrust at me, earning a hasty backpetal. 

A look at my hand showed the cost of my maneuver. I hadn’t noticed it in the triumph of my first blow, but she had manipulated the spear to grow barbs from the shaft, impaling my hand as a consequence for grabbing her weapon. 

And then she’d been pushed away, ripping the barbs through my hand and thoroughly mangling it. Bloody tracks tore their way down my hand through the webbing of my fingers. 

With a pulse of ki I would never feel the pain of it, as the damage was healed before it made a difference. Looking at Sariel, a faint light shone around the shoulder I had impacted, and she rolled it back cockily. 

“A game of endurance?” I questioned her from the air, drifting along as I calculated vectors of attack. 

“Brute strength is certainly your forte. You ought to be proud of it. I’m more capable of light manipulation than my peers, and my physical training has suffered at the expense. Still, surpassing me is extremely impressive.” She complimented me. 

“Touki is great, isn’t it?” I was constantly empowering myself with my ki, cycling it throughout my body as needed. It was costly, but let me hit well above my weight class while I had fight in me. And with my new club I’d last even longer and could go on the offensive more. 

Lifesteal really was the best enchantment! I could get drunk on the rush of a good blow. And I hadn’t even tried the sword yet. 

“That said, I feel that the battle is in my favor.” I quickly tried to think of why that was. I had scored the only hit and was basically untouched. If anything I was in slightly better shape than I was at the beginning of the fight thanks to feasting on her life force. 

“Oh?” I provoked her. She smirked. 

“You don’t really expect me to just tell you, do you?” An opening. 

A faint pulse of ki left me, then I thought better of it and let loose a more powerful one. Sariel wouldn’t notice, she’d proven to be fast and a technical fighter but not the most perceptive. I whispered thoughts into her head through it, trying to make her feel cocky and take pity on me. 

‘He’s only a young human. It would be honorable to reveal some of my techniques. It’s not as though he stands a true chance to embarrass me in front of my sister anyway.’ 

My many hours with Mokou added onto this. I was growing old enough that I would be shifting to a more masculine persona when I wanted to achieve something, but for now acting cute and innocent would still work, and doubly so since angels seemed to be naturally kind and empathetic. “Please? I’d love to learn from you, and I’m not sure I could figure it out on my own.”

She hesitated, weighing the options, then chuckled. “Alright. It’s only fair-”

“BEDROOM ARTS?!” Both of our heads turned to Gabriel, who quickly flushed and held a hand to her mouth. Sariel’s eyes widened in realization. 

“Oh come on!” I complained. “Foul play! Interference from the referee!”

“Shin,” Sariel spoke slowly. “Did you just use a concubine’s technique on me?” 

“Yeah, of course I did. And it would have worked if it wasn’t for someone.”

“I’m sorry!” Gabriel cried, and as best I could tell, truly meaning it. Her sister made a twisted face at the knowledge. 

“Ugh… mind control. I’ve always detested such arts, but ki is especially insidious in that field. You would have succeeded too. Obviously I won’t be revealing my tricks, but I will concede that the match is invalid because of this. Now prepare yourself, let’s have another bout.” I tensed, and at a silent agreement we both struck again. 

I went for grapples this time, while Sariel chose to use mines. Somehow, she made a number of invisible spears that were tied to some kind of invisible tripwires, forcing me to stay alert as she jabbed and probed me for weaknesses. I came out the lesser in that battle, only scoring a glancing blow on her knee and taking a number of indirect hits in the process. 

She was playing things more carefully now, having felt her life force ripped away from her twice to empower me. I wasn’t given enough time to focus and rip hers away, nor a clean hit aside from my sweep of her legs. 

That glancing blow gave me a sample size of two, in which the first gave me much more stolen ki. I felt like it was safe to assume that a stronger attack would give me more ki. If I was wrong then I might be able to just hold my weapon to an enemy’s skin and sap their life force, but that just didn’t feel right. 

As we wordlessly moved in for our third engagement I saw her ki suddenly split away from her body before going still, much like the angel from the Vatican. The Sariel that advanced toward me, a lifeless husk, still shined with holy energy and thrust with her spear. I cautiously deflected the attack, noting that she was no slower or weaker, and neither was she a basic illusion. Her attacks hit just as hard as before. 

We clashed and the invisible clump of life force crept toward me. With an enemy in front of me it was hard to pay the anomaly my full attention, but I kept track of its position easily. 

Making a gambit, I turned my back to it, keeping the hollow Sariel in front of me. After another swing of my club the life force lunged. 

Above my head I slid one hand upward and twisted. The kanabo fell down into the grass, revealing the sword hidden within. My ki flowed through it, making the blade glow a deep and ominous blue. 

I pivoted to face the opposite direction, toward Sariel’s life force. A spell dropped, the angel coming into being as if stepping out of a mirage, her spear lowered in a charge. 

Of course, the other one had been a clone made of hard light. Only the one before me was real. My blade lowered, greedily sucking the life out of me as it screamed with power. 

Her eyes widened and she threw herself to the side to avoid the attack, her form shimmering once more as she tried to turn into light. It was to no avail. My ki held her in place as I did my best to hold her soul. I couldn’t touch the body, but there were no spiritual shenanigans she could use to wiggle her way out of my attack. 

The blade came down, shrieking and vibrating in my hands with pure power. Sariel grimaced and pulled out one more trick from her sleeve. The spear in her hand, one of the finely made ones with adornments and defined features, was cast aside where it glowed and exploded, blinding me once again. 

Not that it did anything to stop my perception of her. I felt my opponent ride the shockwave of the explosion to dodge as much of my attack as she could. The attack still fell, and as my vison cleared I saw Sariel still standing, now stripped of the wings on her right side except for a few nubs of white down, the middle of which revealed light, not flesh. 

I had sheared the wings off of an angel. Sweet. 

That was all I got to see as she struck, and the sudden drain of my ki had winded me. I’d recover quickly, but it didn’t matter. 

It deserved to be restated: weakness in battle deserved to be punished, and I was certainly weak at the moment. 

I dropped the blade and struck with my fists, landing three blows and spiking toxic ki into the angel that clearly hurt but didn’t do enough to put her down. Her spear jabbed into my flesh five times in exchange, piercing a lung, my kidney, and several other organs in my chest and belly. 

She took a haymaker on the cheek and struck one more time through my shoulder, her weapon going all the way through. My retaliatory blow missed entirely as she leaned back all the way, going off of her feet while clutching her spear. 

Sariel was wearing one of those pure white dresses angels seemed to like, and I got a good look down her skirt as her legs were pulled back. Pure white panties flashed me before she yanked on her spear, beat her wings, and kicked me across the entire field. 

I ended up rolling to a stop on my back, feeling my broken ribcage and open wounds. It had been a while since I’d been beaten this badly. Still, I dredged up my recovering ki and got to work mending my injuries. This was no flesh wound, though, and would take a few minutes. 

The blue sky above the stadium was blocked out by a worried face framed by golden hair. “Please be still.” She ordered me before kneeling down and placing a hand on my battered chest. A torrential flood of holy energy entered me, too much to block out even if I tried. I got the strangest feeling of a cat rubbing against me with a purr, companionship and platonic affection in equal measure kissing my wounds. Before I knew it I was healed. 

“There. All done. And Sari,” the angel stood and turned to her sister. “Couldn’t you have been more gentle with him? There was no need for that final blow.”

“Shin is tough. If I had broken a leg he’d have tried to bite my ankles or something,” she said shamelessly. “And I don’t think he’s mad, right Shin?” A devious idea occurred to me. 

I sniffled. Both women froze. Ki pulsed. “Sorry about that last attack, okay? I just… the sacred gear got away from me. Why’d you hurt me so badly? I thought this was just a spar.”

Gabriel turned on her sister with a fearsome glare. She stepped in front of me with arms crossed protectively and I got a great look at her ass. Having seen her back and front I could safely conclude that she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, hands down. 

Others had their own charms, but classical beauty, a warm heart, and massive tits and ass were a combo that was seriously hard to beat. 

“I knew it! You went too far, Sari! Really, stabbing a child?!” She tore into her sister. I got up onto my feet and dusted myself off. While Sariel was looking down abashed as her sister tore into her I peeked around her and smirked mischievously. When she caught sight of me she paused, the guilt replaced by concern and then anger. 

“HE DID IT AGAIN!” She pointed at me accusingly. I chuckled in response. Gabriel stopped her tirade and turned to me, betrayal and disbelief in her gaze. 

“I was mostly raised by youkai. What’d you expect?” She didn’t even say anything, just shaking her head with disappointment. I felt a little bad, but that only lasted until Sariel stomped up to me and formed another spear to point at me. 

“Round two!” I grinned and ran to retrieve my weapon. Spears began to fly toward me before I even reached it. 

I lost that round too. The difference between myself and an eight winged angel was just too vast to overcome, both in physicality and experience. That was fine. I had learned enough about her that I came to a conclusion that satisfied me. 

If Reimu and I fought her together on an even playing field we had better odds of winning than losing, and we were both still growing. Knowing that the gap between us could be bridged in time was enough for me. 

Because I would get there. I wouldn’t be left behind. 

The rest of my time in Heaven was spent in peace, tranquility, and occasionally finding a good fight. 

Gabriel managed to convince me to spend one more day seeing the sights and fighting a few of the six and eight winged angels she could round up. My win/loss ratio was around 60/40 with the six winged angels and against the eight winged ones a total loss. 

They had some crazy stories to tell though. One of my favorites was a big guy named Galgaliel, who was extremely skilled at making his light burn with heat, even if he was crap at shaping it. Even with my skill in fighting fire mages he was an expert at creating and riding the updrafts he created, a tactic that I couldn’t compete against. 

He told me about how he used to fight swarms of bioengineered monsters back in the great war, turning fields of them into ash, and later how he disguised himself as a priest of Apollo during the early days of the Roman Empire when Christianity was outlawed. He had a million stories from those ages to tell, doing everything from conducting cremation ceremonies during the Crimean war to being an Arizona ranger back in the days of the American wild west. 

Unlike Japan, where the youkai were very insular, Angels were everywhere Christianity reached, and they were very enthusiastic about doing their due diligence and staying industrious, leading to a lot of experiences that piled up over the years. 

Every angel I met was a historian’s greatest fantasy, and I thought they were some of the coolest people I had ever met. If I had a week in Heaven I’d have happily spent it listening to them tell me stories about something or other. 

The only issue I had with it was that they usually tried to add some kind of meaning or moral lesson to their stories. Really, I didn’t need a reminder not to rustle cattle. The same went for religion. Many of them were pretty annoyed that I was standing in Heaven but not a Christian. I could tell that although I was polite, I was only a guest, and so was careful not to overstay my welcome. 

Besides, Reimu expected me home soon, and I had errands to run before I flew back to Japan. 

So I bid Sariel my goodbyes, the woman giving me her thanks once again and her well wishes. Michael and Gabriel joined in, the two of them giving me a phone number I could use to reach them or Sariel, as well as agreeing to connect us when we both had phones, though the concept of instant messages was foreign to their once-imprisoned sister. 

They beamed me down from Heaven back to the Vatican, where I took a ride to Rome and booked a hotel for a week before going shopping. 

Sariel was my main priority, but Yukari had given me some money to spend and I had an interest in whatever I could find from the magical side of the world. 

Buying a few computers, phones, and several dozen games was a necessity. Gensokyo didn’t have cell service, but I missed modern life. Even if it distracted me from my training every once in a while it would be worth it. 

The year was 2001, but a weird alternate history version of 2001. There was a publicly available smartphone from Apple, which wasn’t supposed to exist yet, and it was several years ahead of its time. Playstations flat out didn’t exist, leaving Xboxes as the monopolistic consoles of the time. For some reason Sony didn’t break into the video games market, though they did dominate cheap electronics like in my old world, along with a few other Asian companies that jostled for economic power. 

The end result was that I got what I needed, even if the modern brands weirded me out. It was like they were an uncanny valley version of what I remembered, something I attributed to the supernatural intruding onto the mundane. Most of the high-level conglomerates were in names I didn’t even recognize, and what fruitful research I could do indicated that they were all family owned or owned by a council that was either mostly or entirely anonymous. 

Crackpot theorists might assume that the financial elite who owned the largest companies in the world were lizard people. There might have been some truth to that statement, but I was more partial to demons, angels, gods, and spirits. 

Nirvana pharmaceuticals, based out of India, was a little on the nose, for example, and were very generous in their donations to Hindu temples. 

The same went for NineTails, Japan’s most prominent media publishing and broadcasting company, which had a branch of the company dedicated to historical and cultural preservation, particularly in urban areas. 

That, and the owner of the company was the reclusive Kyūkon Yasaka. Literally nine tails Yasaka, who claimed that she named the company after herself and her auspicious family name, to which she credited her good fortune. 

Yeah right. 

As soon as the pattern became clear I stopped bothering to look. To most it was either a series of coincidences or just the way the world was. People were used to it, leading to things that were otherwise obvious being easily overlooked. 

Outside of tech and more on the magical side I only found one easy lead, a hedge magician who was walking around Rome and living a normal life. I chatted him up to get a referral to a magic shop that sold spellbooks, thankfully sold in Euros, Lira, or gold, of which I paid in the latter. Reimu might appreciate some foreign magic, and I grabbed a few cheap enchanted doodads for her to mess with as well. 

My questions about life force manipulation had gotten me a complete dismissal, the shopkeeper stating that he didn’t know anything about ‘Eastern oddities’, and recommended I go check out Kyoto if I was interested in that kind of stuff. Ki manipulation wasn’t a universal art, it seemed, mostly reserved for certain Christian sects, martial artists, and youkai, all of which were fairly secretive. 

I hadn’t expected much. It just confirmed that I was already getting one of the best educations in my specialty field as anyone could ask for. 

That purchasing and research took the entire week I had planned out and woke up the morning of my flight feeling good about the progress I had made. There was still plenty to do, but for a brief trip across the globe I’d made good progress. 

I loaded my suitcases into the trunk with the driver, an African guy, and stepped inside. After a few minutes driving through the streets he struck up a conversation. 

“So where you heading, sir?” He spoke with a thick accent. 

“Back to Japan now. I was only here to visit and do some tourism.” 

“Ohhh! Where you visited?” He asked as he paused at a stoplight. 

“The colosseum was nice. I liked some of the shops too. My favorite was a day I spent around the Vatican.” 

“Vatican! You Christian?”

“Shinto. It’s a beautiful city whether you believe in Christ or not.”

“Yeah, yeah, I need to visit some day.” I paused, feeling something off. I didn’t know what, but I trusted my gut. 

“Never been? How long have you been in Rome for?”

“Four years! Been driving ever since I arrived. Good money working here, good money…” Watching the roads it started to dawn on me what was wrong. We weren’t heading the right way to the airport. 

“Four years? Are we taking a shortcut then? The airport is that way.” I pointed, making sure he could see my hand in the rear view mirror. 

“Yes, shortcut! Main streets are always busy. Lots of other tourists head to the airport at this time of day. I’ll get you there on time, sir, don’t worry!” He assured me. I frowned but, well, whatever. Even if I was being scammed I didn’t really care. Money was easy to get, and the guy was really just some guy, nothing supernatural about him at all. 

We talked a little more as we went, and while we did start getting closer to the airport I realized that something was seriously wrong. 

“You know what? I feel like walking. You can just let me out here.” I said, leaning forward, putting a hand on the back of the guy’s seat. 

“No no no, no need for that. We’re almost at the right street. Straight shot to the airport, never any traffic from there!” 

“Uhuh.” I focused on my senses, wondering whether there would be a gang ahead ready to pull me out of the cab and steal my luggage or something. Strangely enough there wasn’t anything. 

But there were people behind me, although their life force was… muddled. My focus slipped off of them once, causing instant alarm. 

“Stop the cab.” I said seriously. 

“No, I-” My ki pulsed, flooding the man with artificial fear. He slammed on the breaks, stopping us in the middle of the isolated street. I pulled the handle to step out. It was locked. I kicked, blowing the door off of its hinges. 

“Unlock the trunk,” I ordered. He did so. “Who are they?”

“I - I don’t know! It’s just a job!” He said fearfully. I took my luggage out of the back and pushed it aside. Meanwhile the man was muttering a prayer in a foreign language. 

“Get out of here.” He booked it, leaving his spare car door behind and leaving me alone in the street. I looked at the life force signatures. Even if I couldn’t fully focus on them, I could determine the direction they were in. 

“Show yourselves or attack me, I have a flight to catch.” It only took a few seconds for them to do as I asked. Two devils, their wings displayed prominently, dropped some kind of invisibility spell, and in doing so uncloaked their energies, both standing in the street with me. 

Each of them were reincarnated as well, so backup for a king. And then the third energy signature appeared, this one flying above them. A male devil with his wings spread wide wearing a crimson robe looked coolly down at me. He drew his hands together before making a popping gesture and a paper-thin barrier encompassed the area. From what I could tell it was a weak yet intricate spell made to ward off mundane eyes. 

Not that weakness was shown in any part of him. He seemed as if he was carved from stone, and contained in him was ten wings worth of magical potential, even more than Reimu had, all leashed under an iron will.

“Greetings young man,” he spoke. The man had a very smooth cadence, as if each word was practiced. It gave his words a constant, hypnotic feeling. The voice was the kind that would be reading audiobooks if all went well. 

“You’re quite perceptive for your age, and wise to leave that conman. My apologies for the deception, and please have no fear for your safety. You have my word that you will leave this meeting unharmed. I am MacGregor Mathers, bishop to Sirzechs Lucifer. Accompanying me are two servants of the Berith household, here in their capacity as witnesses.”

“A servant of Satan?” The news briefly shook me. I tried not to let it get to me. The man had ten wings worth of power, but that was all power, not skill, and anyone who Satan himself deemed worth recruiting to become a servant was obviously dangerous. His offer of peace was one I would happily accept. “A pleasure. What’s your business with me?”

“I am investigating the death of one Elis Berith, a member of the main family who went missing recently. You were recently spotted with a prime suspect in her potential kidnapping or death, an angel by the name of Sariel.” I narrowed my eyes. 

The demonic bishop had sharp, handsome features and a mixture of black and gray hair along with a salt and pepper beard. His expression was strictly controlled, giving nothing away, and even his ki was disciplined. 

I tried determining if he had any kind of truthtelling spell in play or if he was preparing some magical trick, but sensed nothing. Whether that meant that he was too good to be detected or was dealing with me honestly was hard to tell. I would wager that my magical senses just weren’t good enough to pick up on his tricks. He was Satan’s bishop, after all. Even without knowing his reputation, his position was more than enough to assume competence. 

“I see. And this information comes from the Berith family?”

“Indeed.” 

“I’m sorry to say that the young Lady Berith is dead. She trespassed into Gensokyo and was punished by the authorities.” I doubted that the man would truly keep his word. He could easily detain me for later and have his master decide on a summary execution or some other punishment. 

“Japan.” He said neutrally. It still sounded like an accusation. 

“Gensokyo is a sovereign state under the leadership of Yukari Yakumo. It keeps private territory and keeps the strength of arms to retain said territory. It is not directly affiliated with either the Eastern or Western Youkai factions.” 

“I understand. An enclave, then?”

“While I don’t know the formal definition of an enclave under devil law, it does reside in a pocket dimension and doesn’t accept outsiders without an invitation.” He frowned. 

“And the young Lady Berith intruded upon it?”

“She did.”

“That is a lie.” One of the attendants interjected. “Lady Berith was on vacation in Japan with a vista given by Lady Yasaka. Neither she nor we have ever heard of this Gensokyo.” I shrugged. 

“Your ignorance is not our concern.” 

“Our?” MagGregor caught on before the attendant could get another word in. Shit, that had been a mistake. While I deserved to be slapped for it, I didn’t have the time to make a fool of myself more than I just had. 

“I’m a servant of Yukari’s.” 

“In what regard?”

“Errand boy.” His lips minutely twitched upward, steadying before any real emotion could be expressed. 

“Amusing,” the man’s tone didn’t match the words. “What part, if any, did you play in the young Lady Berith’s death?”

“A brief but harmless altercation prior to her death. I also admit that I freed Lady Sariel from her bindings-”

“Bindings?” He interrupted. 

“Lady Sariel was being tortured by Elis when Gensokyo found her. She was wanted for some minor property damage and to be questioned for her trespass into the region.” 

“And then?” 

“She resisted lethally, and in the altercation Lady Sariel’s holy energies entered the mix somehow. No healers in Gensokyo are well versed in treating injuries to demonic beings, leading to her death.” I claimed. It was truthful, but didn’t give any names except for Sariel’s and the Berith’s. 

I should have known that killing a noble devil would bring trouble. Seriously, though, what were the Beriths doing torturing her? They clearly learned about her somehow, but what was the point? Was it to get her to fall? To foster a grudge? Gensokyo didn’t seem to come into play in their plans, given that Elis had tried to tell us to get lost when she first met Reimu and I… 

This smelled like some kind of plot that we had gotten dragged into. 

“Who attacked Lady Berith?” The attendant phrased the next question.

“None of your concern. If you want her body, it’s been kept, the same with her servants, Sin and Gyoku.” I should probably kill those two. Or maybe their lives could be used as leverage somehow? Probably not. 

“Please deliver it to the Japanese embassy as soon as possible.” MacGregor requested. I nodded. He spoke singularly, so perhaps he only cared about Elis’ body. The other two didn’t have a clan trait and were weaklings, so no wonder. “And let me clarify the last question. Who struck the killing blow on Lady Berith? This will be our final question.” 

“Then before I answer let me ask you one of my own. Why is a servant of Sirzechs Lucifer concerned in the death of one lawbreaking devil?” 

“The Berith clan has worried, rightfully so, that one of their clan members had gone missing, since she missed her last check in and wasn’t responding to their summons. For reasons they’ve kept private, they said that she was in contact with an angel by the name of Sariel in her last communications. They brought the concern to my king, who agreed that hostilities between an angel and a devil would be… problematic for the current political climate. Doubly so, since holy light is one of the few things capable of bypassing their clan trait.” It sounded like he was choosing his words very carefully there, even as he enjoyed explaining things to me. 

“It sounds to me like the Berith clan is crying crocodile tears.” I pulled my phone out. The bishop watched it but said nothing. 

“It’s not my place to judge such an accusation.” 

That was all I really needed to know. This was another attempt to avoid tensions that could reignite the Great War. Telling the truth would bring Reimu or myself under fire, but pinning the blame on Sariel, while sidestepping that issue, would really fuck over both Heaven and the Underworld. 

If the Great War started back up again I didn’t want to be the guy who sparked the fires. But I also didn’t want to confess to killing a noble devil, whether it was in self defense or not. 

“I see. Please hold for a moment.”

“Who are you calling?” His tone shifted sharply to suspicion. I heard one ring, then two before the other end of the call picked up. 

“Shin? Hello! Are you-”

“MacGregor Matthews ambushed me.” 

“Ambushed?!” The devil sounded offended. 

“You hired a cabbie to take me to a secluded location and stalked me under invisibility. You call this civility?” I looked down at my phone. The call had been interrupted. 

The funny thing was that I didn’t even care about that. It was annoying, sure, but I really just didn’t want to answer his questions. 

“Do you expect us to accost you in public? You possess no public identity and this is a sensitive investigation-” 

The teleport between us was anything but subtle. I had gotten used to being blinded by angelic magic by now and flushed my eyes with a technique I’d developed to clear the effect. Standing in front of me, twelve pure white wings bared, was Gabriel, already gripping a spear of golden light that rippled with power. 

“Mathers,” she spoke wrathfully. “Italy is heavenly territory.”

“The Vatican is heavenly territory. I am breaking no laws.” He corrected her, not losing his composure for even a second. It was impressive, since I could feel the holiness emanating off of the woman before me. To a devil, who were known to be sensitive to it, he had to be in serious discomfort if not pain. 

“You are skirting them, and assaulting a diplomat on his journey home after delivering one of our lost sisters.” The man’s lips pursed. 

“He has not proclaimed himself a diplomat.”

“I clearly stated that I was in the service of Lady Yukari Yakumo, ruler of Gensokyo.” I had said that I was an errand boy, sure, but this entire thing was rules-lawering and pointed fingers. 

“It matters not. Mathers, whatever your reason for stopping and interrogating this child, cease it. Heaven owes him a debt. Persist, and I will be involved.” He looked between me and the archangel, clearly weighing his decisions. 

He bowed, the motion smooth and elegant even as he was suspended in the air. “Understood, Lady Gabriel. Please accept an apology on my king’s behalf. We won’t impose on your time any more.” 

“Leave.” The man’s hands grabbed both Berith servants by their collars and a sigil flashed beneath him. In a blink they were gone, leaving me and the angel standing in the street. 

I sighed. “Thanks.”

“It’s no issue. They should never have been this close to the Vatican in the first place. They must have gotten impatient waiting for you to get farther away. Would you be alright being teleported to Japan?”

“Sure, that’s fine. But before we go, you ought to know something.” 

“Hm?” She tilted her head at me. 

“The Beriths are trying to find someone to accuse of murdering Elis Berith, the devil who was torturing Sariel. And it looks like they’re trying to pin it on her.”

“Another house under the banner of the Old Satan Faction,” she shook her head in disappointment. “It’s just noise. Saber rattling.”

“You’re sure?” She smiled kindly at me. 

“I am.” 

I could feel her ki. She was lying. 

AN: Hoo boy, I love my politics! And For those wondering, MacGregor is a canon member of Sirzechs' peerage. Is anyone actually surprised that the Old Satan faction are doing some bullshit with the death of one of their own?

But surely this plot thread has been neatly tied up and will in no way lead to further developments. Nope, it's all going to die down and nothing will happen!

... Lol. Yeah, right.

Edit: I screwed up the date. I wrote 2006 when it should have been 2001.