A treat for track_04

[jefriendlymod]

A treat for: track_04
Cooked up by: A Friendly Chef

Title: Blink
Characters/Groups: Ryo, Aiba, Yoko, Jungmin and Xander, for the most part.
Genre: AU, mystery/horror-ish.
Rating: PG-13.
Warnings: General insanity?
Author's Notes: For track_04. I'm pretty sure this wasn't what you had in mind, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. ♥ 5.585 words. Inspired by the prompt "Never run from anything immortal. It attracts their attention" along with the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who.





"Angels," Aiba says.

Ryo looks up from his computer and blinks at him in confusion. "Wha'?"

"Angels," Aiba says again, and holds up a black DVD case. "Come see."

He doesn't wait for a reply as he walks over to their small TV set, popping the DVD in and pressing play. It's not the first time Aiba has come back with some mysterious DVD, but most of the time the contents tend to be the kind of video best watched alone, so Ryo is a bit vary of rushing over immediately. Yoko and Jungmin has no such qualms, however, leaving their own computers within seconds in favor of watching whatever movie it is that Aiba has dragged in this time. Then again, they're both perfectly happy watching anything.

And that does mean anything.

The TV flickers to life and a man pops onto the screen, dressed in a blue suit. He looks nervous and jittery, and something about it catches Ryo's attention. This is definitely not porn - thankfully, Aiba does bring some actual and legit cases back every now and then, otherwise Ryo would've fired him a long time ago.

"They're the lonely assassins," the man starts - in English, before he stops and grins at them, then repeats it in Japanese. "They're the lonely assassins, creatures of the abstract, scavengers of this world. They're as old as the universe, or at least that's what we think, because nobody really knows where they come from. Don't try to figure out their origin, it doesn't matter."

By now, Ryo's definitely interested, and he pulls his chair over to get a closer look, frowning slightly and, by the looks of it, taking the video a whole lot more seriously than the rest of his team. Then again, they can never manage to take anything all that seriously. "Where did you get this?" he asks Aiba, prodding his shoulder.

Aiba shrugs and waves him off. "Mailbox. You know, one of the secret ones."

"Uh huh," Ryo says dryly. Sometimes, it's better not to know.

The man on the TV screen looks over his shoulder and then back to them - it feels like he's staring at all of them, individually, as if he can actually see them. Ryo wouldn't rule it out; he's seen stranger things. "They're known as the Weeping Angels," the man continues, a bit more rushed now. "They're deadly. Sure, they will kill you nicely - probably the only murderers in the universe that will be nice about it - but they will still kill you. And a group of them are in Tokyo, hunting for new victims. You've noticed it, haven't you? Increase in disappearing people? Someone needs to stop them before they call on the rest of their kind. Someone needs to stop them."

"What," Jungmin says, frowning. It always takes him a bit longer to catch on; his Japanese isn't perfect yet. Ryo still doesn't know why he fled from Korea to seek refuge in Japan, but he figures it's better not to ask. What he doesn't know won't hurt him. All he knows is that Jungmin fits right in and that he's just one more crazy, loud idiot that Ryo has to deal with on a daily basis.

"See. Told you this was interesting," Aiba says, practically beaming. He's probably the only one Ryo knows who could be happy to find out about a group of psychotic murderers.

"You didn't say that it was interesting, all you said was that there were angels," Yoko points out. "And to be honest, I thought you meant a more, you know, naked kind of angels."

Aiba shakes his head, not even having the decency to look ashamed. "What, on company time? Never!"

"Yeah? Then how about last week?" Yoko asks, eyebrows raised.

"Twice last week, actually," Jungmin adds. When it comes to porn, he's pretty quick on the uptake.

Ryo sighs. "Could you all shut the hell up? The video isn't over yet."

"Right," the three of them say, focusing back on the video, which they have to rewind in order to pick up on the things they missed in favor of talking about porn. It's strange how that always seems to happen, whether they deal with werewolves, time-travelling horses, creatures from the sea or small dinosaurs that really should've died a few millennia ago.

"What you really need to know," the man in the video says, "is that the Angels' physiology is quantum-locked--"

"Oh, crap, not more of this science stuff again, I hate that," Aiba groans.

"That's because you're an idiot," Yoko points out.

"--and that because of this, they can only occupy a single position in space when someone looks at them. In other words, when you have your eyes on the Angels, they cannot move. They look like ordinary stone statues when they're being observed. It's the ultimate defense mechanism, turning to stone. Because you can't kill a stone, now can you?"

"Problem solved, then," Yoko says. "We'll just assign Jungmin to watch them forever; he's not doing anything useful anyway."

"Screw you," Jungmin counters, but he's too busy paying attention and trying to understand the rapid Japanese to come up with a cleverer comeback.

The man on the video leans closer, and they all lean back, instinctively. They have bad memories of people coming out of TV screens. He doesn't come through the screen, however, and instead he just points at them, expression darkening slightly. "Be warned. When the Angels are not observed, they become a quantum wave form and they can move incredibly quickly. And I do mean incredibly quickly. And so, the only advice I can give you is this: Don't turn your back on them. Don't take your eyes off of them. And do not blink. Whatever you do, don't ever blink."

With that, the TV flickers again, and goes black.

"Well, shit," Ryo says, as the others turn to look at him for instructions about what to do next.

--

Two days later, and they're absolutely no closer to finding any angels. They've done the research (it turned out to be fruitless, and all they could find was a couple of pictures in old, dusty books), they've tried to come up with plans (somehow, they all seem to end in either all four of them getting killed or paying people to keep staring at the angels non-stop, neither of which seem like particularly good plans), they've roamed Tokyo trying to actually find said angels (they've found stone gargoyles and stone vampires, but no angels). They've kept busy, and they have absolutely nothing to show for it.

"Two more disappearances last night," Aiba says, putting the newspaper articles on the desk in front of Ryo. Even Aiba's more serious now; joking about disappearing and possibly dead people isn't something that he'd do. Unless he's the one possibly getting killed. "Two more, Ryo."

"I know, I've seen it already," Ryo says tiredly. He has barely slept and the office is in shambles, and it doesn't particularly help that Jungmin's three hours late. It's not all that unusual, but it's far more disconcerting when there are people disappearing every single day.

Aiba flails in a frustrated sort of way, and Ryo knows exactly what he means. He feels the same way - they're normally pretty good at finding information and finding solutions for people's mystical or supernatural problems, but this time... This time is different.

Ryo's just about to call the police to report Jungmin as missing, when Jungmin bursts through the door, slamming it into the wall so hard that the other three jump. He's not alone, either; in his wake is a guy that looks like he could be about a dozen different nationalities. "Hi," Jungmin says brightly, as if coming to work three hours late and with company is a perfectly normal occurrence.

Ryo, Aiba and Yoko just stare at him.

"Oh, right," Jungmin says, seizes the other guy and pushes him to the middle of the room. "This is Xander. He's Korean too. Sort of. He just moved into my building and he's looking for work, and since we're overworked I figured that he could come work with us. That's cool, right? Right?"

Ryo, Aiba and Yoko stare at him some more.

Eventually, Ryo sighs and nods, looking Xander over and deciding that yeah, it probably wouldn't hurt to have an extra pair of hands to help out right now. Even if it does mean having another Korean around. "Yeah, it's fine. Just as long as he doesn't get in the way and he doesn't mind being in mortal peril every other day."

Xander's eyes widen. "Mortal peril?" he squeaks in Japanese (more accented than Jungmin's, but still perfectly understandable), his voice rather shrill, and then he launches into a rant in Korean to Jungmin. Ryo has never been so thankful in his life that he doesn't know any Korean apart from "thank you" and "get out of the car".

Jungmin just waves him off, and Xander switches to English - Ryo recognizes more of the words, just about enough to get the meaning, and he holds up his hands to make the new guy shut the hell up. Which he does, reluctantly. "How many languages do you speak?" Ryo asks.

"Seven. Give or take a couple," Xander replies, switching back to Japanese with impressive ease.

"Great," Ryo says, grinning, because apparently, Jungmin isn't a total idiot after all. "We do need an interpreter and translator, you'd be perfect. A lot of our sources are English or other languages, and well... We had a case with rogue chess sets, but all the sources we could find were in French, and we kept thinking that chevalier was horse, and have you ever tried to transfigure a horse into a chess piece? It doesn't work all that well. Pisses the horses off like nothing else you've seen."

"I don't speak French," Xander says. "I'm pretty good with Portuguese, though."

"Either way. Welcome," Ryo says, reaching out and shaking Xander's hand. "We can't pay you much and it is kind of dangerous, but we do have fun. Most of the time."

Aiba snorts. "Yeah, tons of fun. I just love ending up in the hospital every other week."

"Or being blinded by acid from sewer lizards," Yoko adds.

"Or clubbed in the head by mountain trolls," Jungmin says.

"Good thing you're so thick-headed," Aiba says, in an innocent tone of voice that Jungmin doesn't buy in the least bit, and he retaliates by throwing a book of Latin spells at Aiba's head. Aiba ducks, and the book crashes into the window, shattering it into a thousand pieces.

"Whoops," Jungmin says.

Xander looks partly amused, partly horrified.

"Welcome to the mad-house," Ryo says and rubs his temples. He thinks he's getting a headache.

--

They get a lead in the form of a phone call from Jin, telling them about an abandoned church a few miles away. Jin's not the most reliable source, but he insists that it doesn't come from him, it's Pi who found it, and Ryo's inclined to believe that it's a decent lead if it comes from Pi. They both used to work here, but quit in order to open up a music store. That doesn't keep them from keeping an eye open for interesting cases or leads, however, and in return, Ryo bought a guitar from their shop and gives all his actual clients a flyer to Jin and Pi's shop. It works pretty well, in a slightly weird kind of way. Then again, that's how their friendship has worked for as long as they've known each other.

"Come on, let's drive over there, it's worth a look," Ryo says, shoving a couple of books and the file he has on the angels down into his backpack. He's always in charge of the paperwork and the reading material - partly because he's the one in charge, partly because he made the mistake once to leave Aiba in charge of the filing (he filed kappa under N for "nasty little things"), and he's sure as hell never doing that again.

"My car's not working," Aiba says, grabbing his backpack filled with things that come in handy for spells - out of all of them, he's the one who has the best luck whenever they have to use spells in order to deal with things, despite the fact that he doesn't actually know a word of Latin.

Yoko snorts, strapping a belt with weapons around his waist. "You mean you couldn't afford gas this week."

"Hey, I don't see you offering to fill up the tank for me," Aiba says, hitting Yoko's shoulder, the small bag in his hand bursting and sprinkling Yoko with little white crystals.

"Careful with the salt, we might need that!"

Aiba pouts, aiming a kick at Yoko's shin that Yoko easily dodges. "Well, then, stop making fun of me!"

"Stop making it so easy, and maybe I will." Yoko grins and grabs a handful of the salt, throwing it at Aiba, who shrieks and starts chasing him around the office, nearly knocking both Jungmin and Xander over in the process.

Ryo is very, very tempted to throw them both out the window.

Instead, he tells them to shut the hell up and get ready, and calls Nino from two floors above, asking to borrow his car. "You'd better not get it covered in slime like last time," Nino warns when he comes down, tossing the keys over to Ryo.

"I promise," Ryo says, because he's pretty sure that stone angels wouldn't produce any slime.

"I mean it, Nishikido, you owe me already," Nino says, but Ryo doesn't pay him much attention as he pushes everyone out the door, wondering why none of them can ever get anything done without specific orders. He has no idea when the entire world suddenly became incompetent, but it's highly annoying.

With five people, it's pretty cramped, but they manage to get in - Ryo takes the driver's seat and orders the three idiots into the backseat, allowing Xander to sit in the front because he thinks it's a bit too early for him to get that up close and personal with them. "Favoritism," Aiba mutters, and Jungmin kicks the back of Ryo's seat.

"Shut up and talk about something else," Ryo says.

So they do. It seems like whenever they just talk, the conversation turns to past cases. "Remember that doll that came to life and kept strangling young women?" Aiba says.

Yoko nods. "Oh yeah. Fuck, that thing was creepy, going around asking for its mother all the time."

"What happened with it?" Xander looks interested and horrified at the same time (so far, he's been making that face a lot), and Ryo's sure that he's wondering what the fuck he's gotten himself into right about now.

"It's a good thing Aiba can pass for a woman; the doll latched onto him long enough for us to stab it with a silver knife. You'd be surprised how many things a silver knife can kill," Yoko says, patting the knife strapped to his belt.

"Screw you, it just liked me because I told it it was pretty," Aiba says, smacking Yoko's shoulder.

"Uhm," Xander says, and Ryo thinks that pretty much covers it.

--

The church is like taken straight out of every horror movie that Ryo has watched, and it feels like it's leaning over them as they stand in front of the large front doors, looking up. "Are you sure Akanishi wasn't just messing with you?" Yoko asks, sounding vaguely hopeful that that might be the case, and that he won't have to go inside.

"He wouldn't do that," Ryo says, taking a step forwards to push the door open.

It's not difficult to hear Aiba muttering behind him, "Yeah, 'cause that time when he sent you into a house filled with poltergeists and you barely got out alive wasn't his idea of a joke at all, sure."

Ryo grimaces and pauses for a couple of seconds, but then he shakes his head and pushes the door open, stepping inside the church. It's cold and large, with broken windows and equally broken furniture, no lights and an echo that could send shivers down anyone's spine. It's like the picture perfect model of a haunted building, and Ryo flinches when the door blows shut behind them, sending reverberations through the room.

"Well. I don't know about you guys, but I've never felt as safe in my entire life," Jungmin says, sounding more like he's about to turn around and flee.

Aiba laughs, and it doesn't even sound forced. "Oh yeah, of course. This isn't a bad idea at all, we'll just go wandering around here until we find the angels and they kill us, one by one. Brilliant, isn't it?"

"Could you be less helpful?" Ryo asks, trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice as much as possible. He doesn't think he's all that successful.

Aiba just grins. "Oh, yes, I could be a whole lot less helpful. Want to see?"

"No, thanks, I'll take your word for it."

Yoko pokes his back, holding up a flashlight and lighting it, sending a cone of light into the darkness; all it illuminates is a couple of broken benches and a floor covered in dead leaves, rats scurrying out of the way as the light hits them. "Do we actually have a plan for this?"

"Maybe you two should dance," Aiba says helpfully. "That would make any creature want to kill itself."

"You're hilarious," Ryo says, resisting the urge to hit Aiba over the head with the heaviest object he can find. Might not be the best idea to knock out one of their group before they find the things that will no doubt attempt to kill them.

Jungmin nudges Xander and they both light their flashlights, sweeping the beams over the main room of the church - there's more furniture, more leaves and more rats, but not all that much else. "This place looks dead," Jungmin comments.

Before shrieking.

Ryo jumps and Yoko grabs his arm, his fingers digging into his skin so hard that Ryo's sure that he'll be left with lasting bruises. "What the fuck, Jungmin," Ryo chokes out and follows Jungmin's gaze, inhaling sharply when his eyes fall on a statue of an angel, its hands covering its face in a way that makes it look like it's crying.

"Oh," Ryo says. "Jin wasn't messing with us, then."

"Looks pretty harmless," Yoko says, but they've all been around for long enough to know that some things that look harmless are anything but. Well, Xander hasn't been around long enough for that, but he's not exactly rushing forwards to give the thing a hug, either.

Jungmin swings around, pointing the intense glow of the flashlight right in Ryo's face, blinding him. "Fuck, Jungmin, what--"

There's a rush of sound, like a hundred feet thundering over the stone floor, and Jungmin whips back around, the light falling on the same spot. Except that the angel isn't there anymore - instead it's several feet closer, it's arms now raised towards them. They collectively gasp, because the angel doesn't look like it's crying anymore, its face is contorted into a silent scream, stone eyes filled with rage and mouth opened, its teeth nothing more than sharp fangs.

"Now there's a face only a mother could love," Aiba says, and he actually takes a step closer to the thing. "I guess it's a bad idea to take the flashlight off of it, huh?"

"Apparently," Jungmin says faintly. The light is shaking slightly because his hand is trembling, but at least he isn't moving.

Ryo takes a deep breath, glancing around him - the darkness is suddenly feeling very, very dark. "Okay. Now we know they're here. That's one thing crossed off the list."

"Yeah, now we just have to stay here until the end of time and stare at it to make sure it doesn't kill anyone else," Yoko says.

Xander grins, even if it's rather shaky. "Problem solved, then."

"Shut up," Ryo says, almost absentmindedly. It's almost become second nature by now to tell Aiba, Yoko and Jungmin to shut the hell up, so he might as well include Xander in the list as well, even if he sighs inwardly at the thought of having another person around who will merely joke in the face of death and not take anything seriously. But it's better than screaming and running away, at least. Probably. "For now, we just have to keep our eyes on it. Remember what the guy in the video said. Don't look away, don't blink."

Aiba snorts. "You know, telling me to not blink under any circumstance just makes me want to blink a whole lot more."

"Go ahead and blink, then, but don't blame it on me if you end up dead because of it."

"I love how concerned you are for my safety, Ryo-chan," Aiba sighs and blows Ryo a kiss.

Ryo makes a mental note to empty a bucket of ice water over Aiba's head when they get back to the office. If they get back to the office. "Jungmin, stay here, keep your eyes on it, no matter what else happens. Keep it trapped. Understood?"

"Yes, but--"

"No objections. Everything we've found out suggests that there are at least three of these things, maybe more. Now we know where one of them is. We need to find the rest," Ryo says, forming a plan for how to deal with the angels. Granted, maybe it's a bit late to come up with a plan now instead of before they went in, but it normally works out pretty well this way.

Jungmin doesn't move, but the other three turn their head, staring at him. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?" Aiba asks.

"That we should leave Jungmin here and go eat ice cream?" Yoko adds. Xander, bless him, refrains from commenting.

"We're going to find the rest of the angels," Ryo says, and ignores the groans of protests. "We're splitting up and tracking them down, and luring them back here."

"Oh, great. Instead of just trying to fight one of these things, we'll be fighting all of them at once. Excellent plan," Xander says dryly. Apparently he has impeccable sense of timing for when he wants to jump into a conversation.

Ryo shakes his head and just waves them off carelessly. "I have a plan, trust me. Just go find them. Yoko, you're on your own. Xander, stick with Aiba. You're new; we don't want you to accidentally die on the first job, that would be bad. Scream if any of you get in trouble?"

"Do you have a plan for miraculously saving us if we get in trouble?" Yoko asks. He doesn't look particularly happy about having to look for one of the angels on his own; normally he sticks with Aiba, no matter where they're going or what they're doing.

"No, but at least the rest of us will know if you're dead," Ryo says in a cheerful tone of voice that makes the rest of them go several shades whiter. "Be careful," he adds, because he is supposed to be the leader, after all, and he should probably be concerned for their safety. "You have to take your eyes off the angels to make them chase you back here, but don't look away so long that they get a hold of you."

"Because that would be bad," Aiba says. "So we should get in a little bit of danger, just not a lot."

"Pretty much," Ryo says, grinning, because at least grinning is better than crying. "If you can, try to position them all in a circle, facing each other."

"Anything else, oh great leader?" Yoko asks, not even trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

Ryo nods. "Yeah. Make sure that they don't have a chance to see each other. Block their view of each other any way you can."

He doesn't elaborate on his plan, because if he made sure that they all understood every aspect of their plans, then they would never actually get anything done. It's much easier to just tell them what to do and leave it at that. Ryo waves them off, watching for a couple of seconds as Yoko goes right and Aiba and Xander go up the stairs to the second floor. "Just keep your eyes open, okay," he says to Jungmin, before heading off to the left, trying not to stumble, crash into something, or get attacked by stone statues.

There are a lot of rats and a lot of rotting wood. There's a lot of dust and even more dirt, and Ryo coughs as he kicks up a particularly big pile of it, cursing because it'll no doubt be close to impossible to get the dust out of his new jeans. There's a whole lot of garbage, but Ryo doesn't find anything else for several minutes - apart from an intense dislike of empty, abandoned churches that he didn't know that he had until now.

"Holy shit, this thing is ugly!" Yoko yells from the other side of the church, and Ryo stops, trying to figure out what's happening. He sees a couple flashes of lights, hears running, but he doesn't hear Yoko screaming, which he takes as a good sign.

He's not sure how to take the string of curse words coming from the second floor, however, because they're in a language he's pretty sure he's never even heard before. "Careful!" Aiba yells, and there's a sound as if someone's falling down the stairs, then silence.

When Yoko and Aiba are involved, silence is never a good thing.

"If everyone all right?" Ryo calls out, feeling a flash of panic at the idea that they might all have been called and that he could be alone in a big church, alone with a group of murderous angels all around him.

"We're fine, we're fine," comes Aiba's answer a few seconds later. "These things are so fucking creepy, Ryo, we're never taking them on again."

Ryo feels like facepalming. "Could we please have this discussion later? Did you find any more of them?"

"I found three," Yoko says. He sounds very pleased, but also rather freaked out. "And Aiba and Xander found one as well. Do we know how many there are of these?"

"No, but... Ah!" Ryo turns around, finding himself face to face with another of the angels. Literally. The angel is less than a foot from him, arms stretched out on either side of him, and Ryo feels kind of sick at having its angry, silently screaming face this close to his own. "I think I found another one."

Even if he's on the other side of the church, he can still hear Aiba's laughter. "You mean you stood still, talking to us, and the angel found you and almost killed you."

"I... Well. Shut up!" Ryo calls out as he inches away from the angel, keeping on looking at it, staring into its face, trying very hard not to blink. But it really is practically impossible to keep from blinking, especially when you're trying not to, and eventually, Ryo blinks. Just for a second. He opens his eyes again to find the angel's hand curled around his flashlight, having such a tight grip on it that Ryo's forced to let go, whether he likes it or not.

He swallows roughly and tries to keep calm, taking step by step back towards the others. Not having a flashlight gives him a dilemma - if he closes his eyes again, the angel will chase him, but it will probably also let go of the flashlight, which will mean total darkness, which in turn means that Ryo will meet a very quick and very un-fun death. "I am so screwed," he mutters to himself, backing up as quick as he can because he'll no doubt have to blink again soon.

Without meaning to, Ryo turns his head to see how far he has left to go, and there's a rush of air as his area of the church goes dark and cold, and without pausing to think about it more, Ryo sprints back towards the others, glad that at least he has their flashlights to guide him. He all but falls into the circle, turning around as he crashes against Jungmin in order to stare into the angel’s face, gasping for air.

"Very graceful," Jungmin comments, steadying him and handing him a spare flashlight.

"Thanks," Ryo gasps, choosing to ignore the snickers from Aiba and Yoko.

For a few moments, all five of them stand there, looking at the angels all around them in a circle. Six of them altogether, and Ryo is willing to bet that there aren't any more. Both because everything they encounter seems to come in sixes, and because if there were more of them, they would no doubt have come running to kill them by now.

"So," Yoko says eventually. "What now? Do we stand here until we die of old age? 'Cause I've got to say, that would be your worst plan as of yet."

"Give me some credit, would you?" Ryo says, taking great offense to being called an idiot - however indirectly - on a regular basis. "The angels are forced to stay like this, like stone, as long as someone is looking at them, right?"

"Yeah?"

"And right now, they are all facing each other in a big circle, right?" Ryo says, wondering who will be the first one to catch on.

"Ah!" Xander says, gesturing to the angels. "If we're not here, then they would be looking at each other!"

Ryo nods, grinning. This guy is going to fit right in, by the looks of it. It takes the other three a few more seconds, but then they get it as well. "And they'd be locked like this forever," Jungmin says, looking vaguely impressed. "The only problem is that we're still here, and if we just close our eyes, then they'll get us."

"That's why we're going to duck," Ryo says. He glances around to make sure that there's enough space in between the angels for them to get away again. "Hold up the flashlights as we duck, to make sure that they really catch each others' eyes. On three, okay?"

The rest of them nod, looking focused. For a change.

Ryo takes a deep breath, then nods to himself, hoping and praying that this will actually work. "One... Two... Three!"

They all duck, on cue, and there's a loud screech from the angels before everything goes quiet. Ryo glances up, careful to not come into the angels' line of sight, and grins when he sees that all six of them are staring at each other, locked in each other's gazes. "Perfect," he whispers, as if they can hear him. "Now get out of the circle, and be careful not to come into their line of sight, it would completely undo it again. And keep the light on the area."

"So bossy," Aiba complains.

"Yeah, well, that's because I am the boss."

Jungmin crawls out first, followed by Xander, Yoko and Aiba. Ryo's the last to go, sighing in relief as he gets back onto his feet a safe distance away. He tells Aiba and Yoko to keep the lights on the angels, then takes Jungmin and Xander to take down the boards covering the windows, keeping light from streaming into the church.

"What about at night?" Xander asks. "If it's completely dark, they could get free again, right?"

Ryo nods, yanking down the final board, watching in satisfaction as daylight bathes the church. It makes it obvious how run-down and dirty it is, but it also makes it a whole lot less scary. "True. I'll call the city officials and get them to set up floodlights that shine into the church at night. Should do the trick. And if it doesn't, well, then we'll just have to come do this all over again."

"Can't wait," Jungmin says, sounding rather exasperated at the thought of having to deal with the angels a second time.

They stay careful as they scramble back outside the church, slamming the door shut as hard as they can. "Next time, we're dealing with fairies. The cute kind that wants to braid our hair," Yoko comments as he leans against the door, looking like he's ready for a very, very long vacation.

--

"So. Those were angels, huh?" Aiba says when they get back to the office, still covered in dust and grime. He flops down onto the couch and drags Yoko down as well, paying no attention to his protests. Jungmin crashes down onto the other couch, leaving just enough space for a very pale Xander to sit down.

Ryo nods and pushes the file into the bookshelf, having to force it in because they're rapidly running out of space. "Yeah. Angels. Fun little things, aren't they?"

"I hope we'll never meet demons, then, if this is how angels act."

Ryo grins and pulls out another file, tossing it over. "Demons are scheduled for next week."

Aiba just groans in response.