Gu Chapter 16 (Patreon)

“Hah! Got em!” Marisa grinned as Peter Weller as RoboCop walked through a warehouse while gunning down criminals. “This is kinda silly, but it’s cool that you can do all of that without magic.” 

She, Reimu, and I all lounged around the shrine for a movie night. We talked, shared a meal, talked some more, and played some board games. Now we decided to finish the night with a movie. 

Unless Marisa was sleeping over, which was looking more and more likely as the sun faded. By the end of the movie it would be dark out, and even the witch who called it home was leery of walking through the woods in the dark of night. 

“Technology isn’t quite there yet, but give the outside world thirty, forty more years and I bet you’ll see some similar stuff” I commented. 

“Well it’s not very impressive. One or two good spells could send that warehouse toppling down.” Although she was dismissive of it, her eyes were still glued to the screen. Even if she was right that guns weren’t enough to match an average supernatural being, I had to disagree. 

“The power of technology isn’t that any single example of it is strong, but that it’s mass producible. One man with a gun isn’t a threat, but what about a hundred? For every hedge mage in the world, there are at least a thousand soldiers, and as science gets better those soldiers will become stronger and stronger. Remind me to show you modern aircraft sometime too. That’s way more dangerous to a youkai than a foot soldier.” 

“I’ll believe it when I see it.” I shrugged, though she didn’t see it, being too engrossed with the movie. I’d always been a believer that someday humanity would become an interstellar civilization. 

Magic was an individual art, one made for the talented and those lucky enough to be born powerful. Technology was made for the masses, and only produced with the collaborative effort of a production chain. Eventually, unless magic had a developmental revolution, technology would surpass it, or magic would someday be just another branch of science. 

Maybe when I became immortal and lived to see a space age I’d have to consider the topic more seriously. That was a thought I’d save for far in the future, and shelved it while enjoying a silly action movie. 

Every so often, one of them would ask me about something in the outside world, whether office life, police protocol, or something else entirely. I answered as best I could without bias. As a pair of societal castoffs trapped in a pocket dimension they were pretty clueless about the outside world. 

But though the temptation to mess with them was strong, I restrained myself. Eventually the movie ended, and not without comment. 

“That was pretty cool. I’ve seen a few theater acts, but that was way better than what they have in town.” Marisa said about it. 

“It was nice. I don’t care for action, though. What other ones do we have?” Reimu asked. 

I got up from my side and started poking through the box I’d filled with as many memorable movies as I could find. “How about the NeverEnding story? It’s got magic, even if it’s not real magic, and it’s not an action packed story, more of a fairy tale.” I passed the box to Marisa. Even if she couldn’t read English, the cover art was telling enough. 

“I’m not sure if I want to see another one tonight. I can come by the day after tomorrow though.” She suggested. 

“What else do you want to do?” 

“Magic stuff. Did you find anything neat out in the outside world? A wand or a spellbook or something?”

“Oh, sure. I got Reimu a spellbook with all the basics for aspiring mages but she didn’t like it.” 

“Eastern?” 

“Western.” She shot up in a scramble, startling Reimu, who rolled away like a disturbed cat. 

“Where where where?!” She demanded, filled with sudden energy. 

“Hold on, it’s a gift for Reimu, not you.” I put my foot down. 

“You can borrow it. Just give it back later.” She waved it away. 

“See? It’s fine, right?!” The witch pointed at her friend for me, in case I hadn’t just heard her say it was fine. 

I sighed and went over to one of the suitcases. One was set aside with the things I thought Yukari might like, the other with outside items that didn’t fit into the shrine properly. A book sat beside it, and I tossed it at the crazy blonde, who snatched it out of the air and flipped through the first few pages. 

“Magic theory, basic theorems, internal and external… aha! Heat theorems and thermodynamics!! Hahaha!” She flipped from the table of contents to her preferred reading and flopped back onto her seat. 

“So you’re staying tonight?” I asked as I got comfortable again. 

“Mhm! If you two don’t mind.” She said without looking away from her newfound treasure. 

“Sure, just take my bed. I’ll take the couch,” Reimu made a noise of discontent. “I mean I’ll sleep with Reimu.” I corrected myself. That soothed her. 

“Cool, have fun. Oh hell yeah, new equations." She muttered to herself. 

“Nerd.” I poked fun at her. 

“Nerd.” The priestess smugly agreed. 

“Laugh it up love bugs, I’ll take what I can get.” She said without heat. That brought something to mind… 

“Hey Marisa, you don’t have any kind of ability or special talent, do you?” 

“Hm? No, why do you ask?” She turned away from her book for that question, sensing that it was more serious than before. 

“Just curious is all. I’ve never met another human who left the mundane for magic before. I’ve heard that those with innate abilities usually get themselves involved as youkai hunters or start striking deals, but never a normal human.”

“I mean, you kind of said it yourself. I’m normal. I got tested for abilities by the Hieda, tested myself for magical power, and even tried seeking out Lady Keine to be her apprentice. None of it worked. So I begged, pestered, and even threw tantrums to get something magical from my dad. The best he could come up with was a few old books on magic that nobody could make sense of. They were western magic, and nobody except Alice practices western magic in Gensokyo so nobody important came looking for them. So I became a witch of western magic, heard about her, and came to the forest to demand an apprenticeship! … And also begged.” She muttered the last part embarrassedly. 

“Why though?” 

“Why not? People want what they don’t have. So I wanted it, I got a little, and now I want more! I really love magic. Aren’t you the same with your life force stuff?” She kept one hand on her book but was willing to set it aside for the topic. Reimu’s eyes drifted back and forth as we talked, the priestess still laying on her side.

“Kind of. I like being strong, tough, and having things that other people don’t have. The rarity of ki techniques compared to magic makes it more fun to learn the secrets of it.”

“Pfft. It’s not like magic knowledge is just laying around, you know?”

“Yeah it is.”

“Nah, you’re wrong.” 

I kept count using my fingers. “There’s Reimu’s family library, small as it may be; the devilnet has free resources for aspiring mages; there are a few friendly youkai you could barter with, like Keine or Cirno; and there are magic shops both inside and outside Gensokyo. You could also-”

“Wait,” she lifted herself up a little more, into a kind of half crouch. I paused at four fingers, ready to keep going. “What do you mean magic shops? I looked pretty hard for some but never found any.” 

“The human town?”

“There’s other- WAIT THERE’S YOUKAI TOWNS?!”

“Yes,” Reimu groaned, rubbing her ear with annoyance. Her friend closed her mouth, seemingly reminding herself to mind her volume. “The oni have one and the kappa keep a settlement around the base of the youkai mountain.”

“Eintei.” 

“Right, that too. The point is that youkai have towns too, just smaller ones.” 

“Uuuuugh, I should have looked there!” She whined to herself. “I could totally have tried to find… hey Shin, don’t you go to the hot springs town often? Can I come with you sometime?”

“Sure. The oni mostly use ki but there’s other races that use magic for things too. There’s a magic tool shop I know, but they don’t offer spellbooks in their storefront. Maybe if you ask they’ll have some in the back or be willing to offer lessons.” I suggested. 

“Nyehehehe! I think I can come up with some things to barter with.” She openly schemed with a grin, stroking the spine of her borrowed spellbook like it was a treasured cat. 

“Just don’t be surprised if some youkai try to beat you up and make you their slave or something.” The witch stopped. 

“What?” 

“They’re oni. If you’re weak they’ll do whatever they want with you,” I explained. “I had Mokou backing me up so they were forced to deal with me, but for you you’ll need to prove your strength. Just find a few youkai to challenge to duels and don’t lose.”

“You’ll, uh, back me up if I don’t, right? I’m good but not that good.” She warned me. 

“So long as you don’t embarrass me.” I said that mostly to encourage her to focus more on practical magic and not just theory. Of course I’d help her if she needed it, humans needed to stick together. That didn’t mean I wanted her to rely on me or think of me as a get-out-of-jail ticket. I already had enough responsibilities as things stood. 

“… I’ll put some polish on my offensive spells before I do anything. And maybe we should stick together if we go down there.” She decided. Marisa flipped her book over and was about to get started reading again when a thought occurred to her. 

“What about you, Shin? How’d you get started? You have an ability or something?” 

“Kind of. I have an impure reincarnation so I remember part of my past life. I got labeled a cursed child until Lord Hakurei came by and cleared things up. When the sun got angry and he died I came by the shrine to steal knowledge on ki.”

“Whoah whoah whoah you what? Dang, I didn’t think you had it in you.” She said with a raised eyebrow. 

“He shouldn’t have done it.” Reimu said simply, giving me a stink eye. 

“I spent a lot of time making up for it, sleeping in the forest where Reimu couldn’t find me and eventually getting drawn in.”

“So old Lord Hakurei told you to come by or something?”

“Fuck no, that asshole told me to get back to farming and beg the Eiki Shiki for a job after I died.” She guffawed at my sudden vitriol at the once-great man. For all that I respected his power and the fulfillment of his duties I still thought he was a prick. 

“What the hell?” She asked between bursts of laughter. “Aren’t you nearly as strong as Reimu now? And he told you to be a farmer?”

“Pretty much.” I nodded. 

“It’s a part of my bloodline. The Hakurei have a history of being stoic.” Reimu cleared up. 

“You’re a lot better than he was.” I freely praised her. 

“How’d he figure that whole thing out with your ability and all?”

“My ability doesn’t help me out with combat much at all. My ability doesn't help much in combat. My ki is a little stronger than normal, which gave me a head start in sensing it. There's also something else I need to keep secret, but your average youkai has a lot more ki than I do. I stand out for a human, but compared to anything actually dangerous I fell short.” 

“I didn’t know that… huh,” she looked at me in a different light, eyes appraising. “Hey, Shin, want to go mess with magic?” 

“Now?” 

“Yeah, sure,” she fully closed the book and set it aside with all the care someone would give a newborn baby, then stood up and stretched. “It’s only what, ten o'clock? Nobody’s around but Reimu, right? So it’s fine to make some noise.” 

“I guess so. Genji could sleep through the whole shrine exploding so he won’t care.” The old turtle could still fly and cast a few magic spells, but was nearly geriatric after his years of service. Come to think of it, he had probably been in Reimu’s family for a few centuries at this point. What kinds of things had he seen? 

“Are you two sparring?” Reimu asked, still not getting up to come with us yet. 

“I’ll throw some spells, he’ll put up some barriers… nah, not a spar. Just messing around!” 

“You can fly, right? Are you fast?”

“I use my broom, and yeah I’m fast!” She stated proudly. The two of us made our way out the doors of the shrine, and after a few more seconds of thought Reimu came out with us while carrying one of her meditation mats. Once outside she tossed it on the ground and resumed lounging while Marisa and moved away to avoid damaging anything. 

“Wanna trade blows?”

“Come at me.” I decided to try enduring a spell with pure body strengthening first, cycling my ki and forming a skintight barrier. Marisa hopped onto her broom and floated above me. Her hand disappeared into the sleeve of her dress and pulled out some kind of rock. 

“What’s that?” I had to ask. 

“My mini-hakkero!” 

“Like the furnace from the Journey to the West?”

“Yup! A friend of mine made it for me. Now put your guard up and clench your teeth! Stardust missile!” She declared her attack while pointing her spell focus at me. It glowed with energy, then from around her tiny portals opened up to spit out projectiles. 

I didn’t even flinch, nor did I put up my hands. The missiles peppered me while feeling like punches from a baby. For ten whole seconds she kept up the firepower, then became insulted when I didn’t respond. 

“Needs more power.” I commented. The witch pouted. 

“It works on spellcasters.” 

“With physical fighters you need something with more punch. Almost all of us learn some kind of passive defense at some point.” 

“Hmph. Illusion laser!” She tried again. This time a singular beam shot from her mini-hakkero directly onto my chest. I winced and raised a hand to block it with a ki shield. The attack was much more focused, and I felt a mild burn on my chest. 

“That’s way better,” I approved. “My turn! Regular kick!” I leapt, directing my flight to the witch. She drifted on her broom to avoid me to no avail. My roundhouse kick caught her in the abdomen, sending her spinning away clutching her stomach. 

“Guh! Yup, that hurts!” 

“Need a minute?” 

“Don’t think that I’m some kind of wimp! Witch leyline!” Determined to prove me wrong, she cast some kind of enchantment on her broom along with a conical shield in front of her, then tried to ram me. 

Of all the crazy things she could do I didn’t think charging me was one of them. Any sane magic user stayed away from warriors like me. And it was for good reason, as I reached out to grab the shield and flipped Marisa around, a maneuver that failed when she cut off the spell. 

“Man, this is rough,” she scratched her head and muttered. “You can take more?” 

“I’ve barely gotten started.”

“Good! Me either!” 

“Sonic boom!” 

“Eight trigram-” The burst of ki that ripped through me propelled me at the witch faster than she could react. An open-palm thrust at her met a shield she had wisely erected and pushed her far away again. Whatever spell she had been preparing was cut off as she hurriedly got a handle on her flight and repaired the shield. 

“Grrr! Fine, long range then!” She stayed up high and refused to come down. Her next spell wasn’t announced. Her spell focus was raised into the sky and she beckoned down some kind of astral beam onto me. Sky lasers were new, and I was momentarily torched before I was chasing the witch through the sky. 

“Use focused attacks!”

“I’m a power-type magician, not technical!” She complained while blasting me with several of her illusion beams. The witch had good instincts for combat, no other spell had done the same amount of damage as the beams. 

“What’s that mean?” 

“It means I can only blast stuff, and I don’t want you to turn into ash!”

“I’ll be fine, quit whining or I’ll break your shield!” In another burst of movement I kicked her shield, cracking it and sending her careening off into the air again. 

“Fine, you’re asking for it!” She snapped. In a flash her mood changed to excitement as she took a few seconds to prepare a much larger spell than the others. Her spell focus glowed with power, enough to make the air around it shimmer with gathering heat. 

“Master… SPAAAAARK!” Her mini-hakkero glowed and for the first time in the fight I sensed actual danger. I prepared an empowered punch and swung just in time to split a massive oncoming beam. Unlike the single shot I had expected the beam only grew more intense, not stopping as I expected but washing over me. My skin cracked, peeled, and I began to take genuine damage. Had I taken the attack head on my eyeswould have expanded and popped from the heat. 

… Mokou had done worse to me. I knew what to do. My ki spread outward in a spiky formation, forming a barrier that dispersed heat. Instead of letting it wash over me I was dispersing it, only needing to focus on holding the formation, particularly the front of it where the spell was impacting. 

The witch noticed my efforts as they bore fruit, and instead of giving up and trying another strategy she doubled down. More energy was poured into the spell as she tried to overpower me. And to be fair she did an excellent job. It took real concentration to uphold the formation. Fire and heat based attacks were something I was more used to as area attacks, not a single sustained beam. 

It was just bad luck that I had been trained against fire magic. When she was worn out the beam sputtered and faded. Marisa was left panting, her brow wet with sweat and her mini-hakkero glowing a cherry red at the front. 

“What the heck? You blocked it?” 

“Dispersed it.” I explained while I brushed flakes of ash from my skin. My shirt had been burned away in the front of my body, and I balled it up to toss later. There was a nice jorogumo in the hot springs village who made plenty of disposable clothes. I’d need to order a new bulk order from her soon. 

“How? I didn’t sense a shield.” 

“Ki formation. Try one of those illusion lasers again.” 

“Hold on, I overheated the hakkero. Gotta do it manually.” I watched her focus to form a spell circle and fire it at me. It was much weaker than when she was using the hakkero, and it spread throughout the formation to dispel harmlessly into the air around me. 

“Aw crap, you’ve got a heat shield,” she groaned. “I mean, I knew I’d run into one eventually, but that sucks.” She drifted down on her broom, the two of us both on the same page in agreeing to a truce. 

“Yeah, totally,” I agreed. We were a terrible matchup unless we agreed to restrict ourselves. “Do you have other damage types?”

“Heat and power is my specialty, though I have my raw magic like the magic missile and some kinetic attacks like my ram. If a big laser won’t kill you, well, I haven’t got much else.” She admitted. That’s when it occurred to me what she had been doing, and why she’d been so reckless at the beginning getting in close to me. She’d been trying out different damage types, prying for a weakness. 

“No hexes or curses? Space manipulation? Time magic? Maybe plant magic?” She shook her head. 

“I’ve got some light based attacks, but they’re kinda weak. Light is hard to make offensive without a heat component.” 

“What about hard light?”

“Like constructs? I haven’t figured those out yet.” 

“Well how about you taste this then?” I raised my hands and waved them about in a silly display, leaking enough ki to make them faintly glow. “You are getting verrrry sleepy!” 

‘It’s late. I should go to sleep, and I’m beat after that master spark.’

She giggled, then yawned. “Yeah right. What’s this, fortune telling?”

“Spooky hypnotism. You are falling under my control~.” 

‘As if. I’m prepared for mind attacks and I don’t feel anything. I guess I can humor him. He’s been a good sport and I can’t think of a way to beat him so I may as well forfeit.’ 

Marisa resisted my latest suggestion strongly and almost realized that something was wrong, which would have forced me to use a much blunter approach. Some biological manipulation stopped that. Cooling her blood after the battle and making her feel calm and tired helped make my suggestion that she forfeit seem much more reasonable.

For the future, though, I noted that Marisa was hyper-competitive. I’d need to work around that if I wanted to influence her. 

“Hmm,” she considered, putting a finger to her chin. “Yeah, I guess I’m out for tonight. You win.” With a grin I jerked her emotions the other way noticeably, putting the fire back in her belly. Her eyes shot open as she realized what I had done. 

“AHHHHH! CHEATER! No, I DO NOT give up! Come at me!” She insisted. 

“Nuh uh, you forfeited!” 

“I was mind controlled!” She soared up into the sky and stuck her tongue out at me petulantly. “And I figured it out anyway so it’s null and void! Get back up here!”

“What, best two out of three?” She audibly growled with frustration and pointed at me. 

“Best one out of one! Because that totally didn’t count!”

“It totally did!” I flew back up to her and we got back to screwing around, our unserious sparring playing out more like a game of tag. 

Below us, Reimu watched the lights of our duel as though they were fireworks. She dozed on her meditation mat, waiting for us to tire ourselves out, while Marisa continued muttering complaints about the first round. 

“Next time you two want to play fight, start earlier and I’ll join you.” She told us while we went inside. 

“You always win. Hey, what about a 2v1?” Marisa suggested as she opened the door. 

“Reimu wins against me more than she loses, but I bet we could turn the tables if we worked together. Want to come by the day after tomorrow?”

“Yeah totally! I’ll get back to work on master spark. Apparently I need more power.” 

“What about adding a holy or unholy element to it? Or lightning or raw magic? Some kind of secondary element other than heat?” 

“That’s kinda hard on the mini-hakkero, and I’m not a priestess. Hmm, maybe an explosion. Yeah, that’d be cool.” 

Behind us the shrine door closed, and soon we were in our beds, each of us falling sound asleep. 

It was bliss. 

In the outside world things had changed. Stray devils were more common, the politics more tame, and violence directed at the weak, not the strong. Gone were the days of fierce battlefields and skies filled with spellcraft. 

Gone was her Father… 

Heaven, though, had not changed, or at least not so much that she had difficulty recognizing it. The old tourney arena still stood tall. Her favorite tree in the Garden of Eden still had a crook in its boughs that supported her back as comfortably as before. Most importantly, her siblings still fought and lived with the same kindness as before.

In so many ways, nothing had changed. The relief she had at the realization had stripped away decades of stress. Her captivity had burdened her with scars. She knew that as well if not better than anyone else, but even so she would someday heal. 

Bliss. 

Or so she thought.

“Pardon?” She asked with alarm. Across from her Uriel stood as strong and steady as ever, the mountainous man one of two angels still wearing their armor, the other being Michael. His skin was lightly tanned like that of a sun-kissed common laborer and his muscles were corded enough to be visible. 

Many of her siblings wore a softer guise, one that wasn’t so intimidating to mortals, herself included. Her commander was different. He had always been the tip of the spear, the Fire of God, and presented himself with nothing but that singular purpose in mind. 

The man wore a serious look as he stared down at her. 

“There is no need for your services for now, Sariel. You are to stand down and await further orders.” He rumbled. 

“Lord Uriel, the devils are still out there among humans, we haven’t won! They still prey upon mortal souls!” She waved down below tellingly. By the look in his eyes he already knew this well. 

“Less so than before. Much, much less so. I am not commanding you to lose your edge or befriend Helel’s army. I am only ordering you to follow the same orders I have been given. We are not to initiate hostilities.”

“Initiate-! Their mere presence upon the mortal world is a hostility! What shepherds are we to sacrifice sheep to wolves?! To turn a blind eye to their malice, their-!”

“Sariel!” He raised his voice and she immediately shut up. Only a few times had she ever heard him do so. “Do you think I enjoy watching and doing nothing while they predate upon Father’s children? That my hand doesn’t ache to set them ablaze once more? It doesn’t matter. We have our orders, and we will follow them.”

“Orders from whom?”

“You know who. Michael, who fills the throne in Father’s absence.” The same pain that she felt was mirrored in his eyes then. None of them had ever recovered from the loss. 

“Michael is not Father.” Her commander looked at her warningly. 

“I will not censor your thoughts. But you will mind your tongue, lest I discipline you. Michael’s burden is immense, and he cares deeply for the wellbeing of all of us. Do not slight him by such an unfair comparison.” She immediately felt bad, not only because it was her commander reprimanding her, but because he was right. 

No matter her feelings, one only had to look upon Michael to know that leadership of heaven weighed on him heavily. 

“Yes sir.” She choked down any other complaints she had and bowed, waiting to be dismissed. Uriel stared at her silently before shaking his head. 

“Nobody bows to me anymore, Sariel. The army of heaven is all but disbanded. Go hone a craft. Stake a territory and ward away devils from it. We have been warned against initiating hostilities, but we may always fight back if attacked. Helping humanity in whatever ways we can is common practice these days. Dismissed.” Her lips twitched upward, just beyond his view. 

Even if he claimed that the army of heaven was gone, he still instinctively responded with the same military discipline that they were used to, and as she walked away, she noted that he didn’t correct himself either. 

Maybe heaven was no longer militarized, but the bones of the command structure remained, waiting to be revived again at her eldest brother’s word. She was easily among them. Battle was in her blood, and while she’d permit her weapons to adorn a mantle, she’d remain ever ready to wield them again. 

That was her resolution as she left her old commander to find Gabriel. Seeking an archangel's attention was presumptuous, let alone the attention of two in one day. However, her sister had given her permission to approach and ask questions.

Questions which now included what to do besides wage war against heaven’s enemies. She had started what sounded like a healer’s order, one devoted to children, and served in another order for animals. 

Sariel wasn’t a healer, not beyond the abilities Father had granted her upon her creation. She just didn’t have any joy for the craft. She could learn, but surely there was some method of aiding humanity more suitable to her talents? 

Not that she had many. Again, battle was all she really knew. She had tried other pursuits, but none had fit her even slightly as much as war. It was part of why she was a scout. Few other angels could be trusted to handle themselves in enemy territory, both as a matter of strength and independence. 

Luckily her elder sister was happy to receive her and tell her all about her pursuits, requiring only an hour before she was available. When she had her meeting it was at her mortal office, where she was introduced as Gabriel’s cousin and met various mortals who worked with her for ‘career guidance’. 

The whole pursuit felt slightly awkward, as the various men and women who worked with her advised her on her various passions, each surprised that she was martially inclined. Most agreed that she would do well as an athlete, but given that such a vocation would be inherently unfair to the humans, she declined the prospect. For their second choice it was more varied. 

There was a place for those who enjoyed medieval arms and tactics in renaissance reenactment or the sale of antiques. She was well versed in the construction of battlements. Professional stoneworkers were rare in modern times, as concrete and steel had become the building materials of choice instead of stone and lime mortar.

Forestry was another option, becoming a ranger and maintaining some territory of wilderness. That was the option most appealing to her, as it would also allow her to police the local spirits who might seek to harm humanity. America might be a good choice for that, as she had heard of wendigos, bakwas, and wechuges. 

Better yet, if any devil stepped into a park she claimed then she could threaten aggressions. She said nothing of that thought to her sister, of course. 

By the end of the ordeal, she was tired. Although she remained uncertain about her future, she knew she wouldn't be working with Gabriel, not in her sister’s current pursuits. Choosing a mortal guise was stressful, to say the least. 

After it all she and her sister left to sit atop one of the many towers of downtown Berlin, where her sister’s main clinic was based. An illusion kept the humans from concern and they talked about her options. 

“There’s always magical professions too,” she suggested helpfully as Sariel watched the cars go by. Mechanical carriages… how fascinatingly innovative. “I remember that you were always a deft hand at enchanting, and human magicians focus more on collaborative efforts. Classical methods are in demand.”

“Hmm.” She pretended to consider it and failed to hide it from her sister. 

“Sari,” she spoke with soft disappointment. Of course she flinched at the tone. Gabriel never yelled or acted in rage. “I know that you were always devoted to warfare, but… it’s not feasible now.”

“I just don’t get it.”

“What about it?”

“Why would we stop?” They sat in a silence that percolated for a minute until her elder sister found the right words. 

“It was killing us, Sari. All of us… and it was hopeless. What have we really accomplished? The devils are stronger than ever, so much so that they’ve even begun to war among themselves. Every death weighed on me, on Michael, on Raphael and Uriel and everyone else. We only weakened ourselves while for every devil lost they seemed to create another. Before the Evil Piece System, maybe we could have stood a chance. But now?”

Her wings drooped, her eyes hanging low. Even when she felt down Gabriel at least tried to smile. Now she couldn’t muster the effort, or maybe felt that to do so would dishonor the ones who had died on their behalf, for an ideal they had at some point felt that they couldn’t accomplish. “We were all willing to die for Father, and would happily do so even now. But would we give up our siblings?” 

“For every one we killed two more spawned, and all that we lost vanished eternally as they bred more.” Sariel said quietly. They had lost. She wasn’t even surprised by it, the writing had been on the wall as soon as Father died. 

“If we could stand against them, then of course we would, but what would be the point? It hurts to wait and do nothing, but our sacrifice would be meaningless. Even if we all stormed the underworld and slew every devil in sight, even if we prevailed and Lucifer’s children were cleansed from creation, what would we leave behind? Pagan gods and humanity left unguided.”

“So you wait and devilkind grows stronger and more numerous.” 

“And more divided, and more indolent,” for a moment a more fearsome glint appeared in her sister’s eyes, revealed for only the briefest instant. “Fat wolves are weaker than veterans, sister, and words can be weapons in times of peace.” 

She felt sickened. Gabriel was not wrong, not at all, but it felt wrong. 

“So that’s it, then? We let them feast on humanity, plunder Father’s gifts and…” At her sister’s visible pain she stayed her tongue. 

“I know.” And for all that she hated the methods, Sariel agreed. There was no easy decision. It was shameful to retreat and live another day, but dying pointlessly in the name of Father’s mission was not so different from abandonment. Even if it was shameful, Sariel would stomach it. 

Because her siblings promised that it was necessary, and she believed them. She believed in them. Hope was not lost, though the hour was dark. 

“Humanity seems stronger now.” She changed the topic, unsatisfied yet doubting that she’d ever be. 

“They are,” Gabriel confirmed, her mood rising. “There are many who revere Father even now and fight in his name. We might be forced to stand back and witness atrocities, but they can fight freely against devils. It is their burden and their privilege. “Vasco Strada, Griselda Quarta, Dulio, and the many exorcists who face the supernatural with prayers on their lips and weapons in their hands are all excellent warriors of faith.”

“There are more still. I would add Shin to their ranks, and perhaps even Reimu. Even in pagan lands, humanity resists.” She included them with pride. 

“Absolutely. He stood up to even a servant of Sirzechs without flinching.” Sariel paused. 

“What?” Gabriel blinked in confusion, then froze. 

“Ah, right, I had decided not to tell you until you were further settled in.”

“Sister, please explain.” Though she framed it as a request, her tone was anything but. 

And Gabriel obliged, explaining her brief but telling encounter with MacGregor Mathers, bishop of Sirzechs Lucifer, and setting her mind ablaze. 

When the story concluded, Gabriel gave her an inevitable look of concern and withheld judgment. It was understandable. If she did anything rash she could endanger an age of peace. Of course, she soothed her sister. The white lie did no harm and was hardly a lie at all.

She didn’t intend to go after Mathers for his blatant overreach into heavenly territory, or for believing one word of those lying, treacherous, sadistic fucks related to the devil who sought her out only to torture her in a perverse desire to make her fall from grace. 

He had to have learned about her somehow, and there were only so many places from which such information could have leaked. But she didn’t know where to begin, and the modern methods of information transit were all woefully foreign to her. She needed a guide. 

Luckily, she knew just the person. The next day, after making sure that her siblings weren't keeping track of her, she descended from heaven.

“Lint Selzen,” Sariel called as she appeared before the nun in a pillar of light and knelt beside her while she performed her morning prayer in private. She looked up at her with awe and recognition. “You have been pious and good. It is clear that the Lord works through your hands. That is why I must ask you once more to rouse yourself for holy work, if your faith still shines as brightly.”

“It does, your divinity,” she spoke ardently, as Sariel had known she would. “Please, tell me how I might serve the Lord!” 

“You will not do it alone. I will be there with you as your guardian, though our goals will not be so meek as they once were. The forces of Satan beset my savior, Shin, upon his journey home,” the nun gasped in response, her hands still clasped tightly in prayer. “Fear not, he escaped unscathed, yet it calls to question who whispered in the Serpent’s ear. Someone knew of him and succumbed to sin. It falls to us to discover who. Will you aid me?”

“Yes!” She cried, rising to her feet. Sariel looked into her eyes and saw in them the same holy fury that burned in her own heart. 

“Our first suspect shall be the priest who provided us with lodging and summoned us to the Vatican. Though I wish to think the best of mankind, I am not blind to the possibility of heresy. In this quest, I name you an inquisitor of the Church, insofar as I have the authority to do so. Together, we shall root out the Judas in our midst. Let us go forth, knowing that God is with us.”

AN: DEUS VULT DEUS VULT DEUS VULT!

Ahem.

Great chapter, and I'm curious if you all noticed that I did something different this time. I tried running the chapter through Chat GPT for spelling mistakes and weird phrasing, which I think happens a lot in my first drafts. I don't generate any text from it, to be clear, just for grammar and phrasing suggestions, not all of which I accept. If you noticed anything, do you think it made the chapter better or stripped it of personality? I mostly did this because I hate editing my own work. It's monotonous to read over what I already know, going sentence by sentence looking for errors. I feel like I don't do a good job of it anyway since halfway through my eyes glaze over. So, thoughts?

Thanks for reading, as always!