JE/NEWS+SPN- "All's Chaos on the Eastern Front" (7/7)
It seems like there’s some chaos going on in heaven’s blue room.
Kusano sits at the table, surrounded by hamburgers and beer and bored out of his mind. It feels like it’s been hours since he’d last seen Zachariah, since the angel had mojo’d him into this nice little reception area only to stop suddenly and clench his jaw, like he’d been hearing something comparably pleasant to nails against chalkboard in his head. Eventually he’d snarled, “I’ll be back,” to Kusano, muttered something about the thrice-damned Michael sword, and disappeared with a rush of displaced air.
Kusano raps his fingers on the table in boredom.
On the far wall, the antique grandfather clock ticks to the same damned minute for what feels like the thousandth time.
This wasn’t how he’d thought the apocalypse would go.
~~*~~
Tegoshi sprawls out on Yamapi’s sofa bed trying to regain his strength while Massu carefully wipes the gashes over his forehead clean and helps him bandage his hands and legs.
He winces at the bite of antiseptic, and Massu looks apologetic. “Sorry,” he says. “It must be pretty awful.”
“Yeah,” Tegoshi tells him, and tries not to be angry about the whole thing. It doesn’t seem fair though, to suddenly be told he’s the second coming or whatever, and then to not be able to do anything with that to help anyone.
He knows he’s supposed to save people, but he isn’t sure how if his powers aren’t even strong enough to deal with one demon.
He huffs a sigh and looks at P, who is debating with Shige over the merits of trying to go back in time, either to stop Kusano from leaving or to try and keep Agaliarept from infiltrating the jimusho.
P seems to think that either option is preferable to Shige’s belief that the attempt would kill P given his weakened state as well as create some sort of unfathomable paradox that might destroy all of space and time.
“Either way,” the future prophet insists, “let’s wait until Koyama and Nishikido-kun get back.”
Tegoshi finds great comfort in knowing that Shige can still be so rational when the world is crumbling around them.
He thinks he wants to save that, for the future. He wants to save the Shige who can always be smart and superior, just like he wants to save the Massu who loves food so unabashedly, the Ryo who says mean things one second but writes beautifully kind lyrics the next. Tegoshi wants to save the Koyama who can’t have a bad thought about anyone and the P who is just starting to learn the value of being mortal, through all the tiny joys that build up and build up until they become the size of an entire human lifetime.
Tegoshi wants to help everyone, and can’t help but feel the uncomfortable stirrings of frustration at the thought of having all this power and somehow, not being able to save anyone in the end.
He wonders what his role in all of this is supposed to be.
~~*~~
Koyama clutches at his head as a flash of words hit him while he’s behind the wheel.
Luckily he’s currently stopped at an intersection after he’d finished dropping the last of the kids off; the impact hits him like a cannonball and he suddenly wants to curl up and hide in a hole somewhere, for how the news he receives makes his blood run cold.
Lucifer and Michael have their vessels. It begins. It ends. So it was written.
The angry beeping of the car behind him makes him look up, to the green turn arrow just turning yellow. He slams his foot on the gas.
~~*~~
It isn’t until Massu is finished tending to Tegoshi’s wounds that he notices that something seems off.
He stands in the living room for a moment, holding the bowl full of dirty cloth and bandage scraps.
“What’s wrong, Massu?” Shige asks, when he notices his friend’s odd behavior.
Massu’s brow furrows. “Has anyone seen my tanto?” he asks.
~~*~~
Ryo surveys the bodies of the demons scattered around his feet.
The last surviving demon smiles at him. “We don’t need you anymore,” it informs him, somehow superior despite the sigils he’d carved into its skin, keeping it inside its host. “Lucifer has the vessel. He is unstoppable.”
“Great,” Ryo answers, darkly. He cuts open the demon’s throat with the razor’s edge of Massu’s blade.
And then he steps in close as it dies, takes the body into his arms, and presses his mouth to the wound.
He drinks.
~~*~~
“Let’s get this show on the road,” Zachariah declares, and startles Kusano into dropping his burger when he appears out of nowhere.
The angel seems to be in more cheerful spirits than he had been earlier. He grins and snaps his fingers at Kusano in the same cheesy sort of way Kusano remembers old TV station representatives doing when they were explaining what they wanted the idols to do for them during a filming. “I need you to say that one, pretty word for me, Kusano, and we’re off on the road to paradise.”
Kusano swallows the mouthful of burger he’d been chewing and nods.
“Yes.”
Zachariah claps his hands. “Perfect. You win for being my best customer this apocalypse.”
And then he turns with his arms extended to the sky and begins to chant, a solemn, foreign spell that seems so odd coming from such a smarmy looking guy.
Seconds later, Kusano hears the angel Jophiel’s voice for the first time.
“I suppose you’ll do,” it says, and before Kusano can ask what the hell that’s supposed to mean, his entire body is engulfed in a white hot, searing burst of light.
~~*~~
Shige has had migraines before. He’s a Johnny, and he’s smart, and the combination of the two in his life just kind of seems to suggest that he is a person destined to have a lot of headaches.
That being said, Shige has not had a real migraine before until now.
It hits him suddenly, when P is in the middle of reporting that Jophiel is taking his vessel.
He pitches forward at the table when the first wave hits him and he barely manages not to scream, clutching the edge of his chair instead, until his knuckles go white.
He slams his eyes shut, dimly aware of P’s concerned voice in the background, asking what’s wrong.
He can’t answer, can’t move his mouth or think or even breathe.
He sees flashes of things behind his eyelids, rapid-fire blinks like a Hollywood action movie montage playing out in his head without his consent.
The blood drained bodies of demons as Ryo cuts them open drinks them down.
The holy light of an angel’s Grace as it settles into Kusano’s body.
High noon, in a cemetery somewhere he doesn’t know, as a big, black foreign car pulls through the rusty gates.
The door to the jimusho being kicked open by a wild-eyed, bloodstained Ryo, Massu’s demon killing blade clutched tightly, joyously, in his hand.
The tick of a grandfather clock’s hands as it chimes two am in a room full of burger wrappers and dark blue paint.
Ryo’s neck snapping with a sharp crack, prompted only by an archangel’s glare.
Jophiel and Agaliarept facing off on the roof, their battle razing all of Tokyo to the ground, leaving nothing behind but a giant, smoking crater.
P exploding like a water balloon full of chunky soup.
A hole in the world where Japan used to be. In the smoking remains, Johnny and Kusano’s lifeless, burned out shells.
Silence.
Nothing but dead silence.
“Shige? Shige!”
P slaps Shige hard across the face. The harsh sting of the angel’s open palm manages to stir Shige from the swirl of images bludgeoning his brain; his eyes snap open and he remembers to breathe suddenly, sucking in lungful after lungful of air as he slumps over P’s kitchen table, pressing his forehead to the cool wood underneath. He tries to push back the pain, tries to ignore the throbbing of his head and the pounding of his heart in the strange, pulsing counterpoint rhythm they’ve created with one another while the blurry edges of his staticky vision struggles to get back in focus.
When it finally does, when it no longer feels like his heart is trying to hammer through his ribs, Shige turns sideways a little, and regards Yamapi with wide, surprised eyes. “What that… I mean, did I just…” He finds he can’t actually say the words.
P seems to understand him anyway and nods solemnly. “What did you see?” he asks.
Shige runs a shaky hand through his hair and quite honestly doesn’t even know where to begin.
~~*~~
Their plan is not very good.
Koyama doesn’t say it out loud, mind still spinning from everything that’s going on, from how everything had changed since he’d stepped out of P’s door earlier today, with six traumatized juniors. Ryo is off on some sort of demon-blood-powered binge.
Kusano is host to an archangel, possibly lost to them again if that angel is as strong as P says.
Tegoshi isn’t strong enough.
P is getting less and less strong with each passing moment.
He and Massu are human.
And their plan sounds like suicide. Koyama has to forcibly avert his eyes as Massu picks up the kitchen knife from P’s knife block and looks at the angel apologetically.
P just nods at him and unbuttons his shirt.
The first slice of blade into P’s chest creates a trickle of warm blood that slips down the sides of his ribs.
Massu grits his teeth and keeps carving.
They don’t have a lot of time.
~~*~~
It is nearing two am when Koyama’s car pulls up in front of Johnny’s jimusho again, the city eerily quiet despite the numbers of people living tight-packed within its limits.
The NEWS members inside Koyama’s sporty SUV all stop for a moment, looking up at their work place, and for the first time since their auditions here as children, they feel trepidation at the thought of walking through those doors again.
They share a look that is as much goodbye as it is good luck.
And then they split up.
~~*~~
When Ryo bursts through the back door Massu is already there, and as hopped up and energized as Ryo is, Massu is damn lucky that he avoids getting stabbed in the face with his own sword when he approaches his groupmate.
Massu thinks it looks like a bad case of caffeine jitters, like how he’d felt during that very first all-night rehearsal session as a junior, when his senpai had given him an iced coffee to drink and his small body hadn’t known at all what to do with the new rush of chemicals inside of it.
“Out of the way,” Ryo tells him brusquely, when his unfocused eyes finally realize that it’s Massu. He tosses Massu his tanto and continues down the hallway towards the front lobby. “I don’t need it,” he explains, with a confident sneer that makes Massu think of Zachariah. Ryo doesn’t notice Massu’s reluctance; he just keeps walking.
Massu tries to stop him. “Wait, we can’t just…”
But Ryo ignores him and goes right out into the open, until he’s standing in the middle of the lobby and daring anyone there to come and take him on. Which is what Agaliarept’s minions do, darting forward in the borrowed bodies of security guards and idols alike. They grin at Ryo as they surround him, because they are no longer under orders to keep the backup vessel alive.
Ryo doesn’t seem to mind, because the minute they form a circle around him he holds out his hand, his eyes flash black like theirs, and Massu sees what is tantamount to ten small black-smoke explosions from inside each of the possessed humans.
It is the demons holding them popping like firecrackers, leaving a string of slumped bodies in their wake. Massu is a mixture of horrified and relieved at the sight; he sheaths his demon killing knife and carefully starts to pull the bodies of friends and coworkers aside, murmuring a silent apology to Nakamaru as he leans him up against the security desk, out of view from the main floor.
Ryo whistles, looking at his own fingertips appreciatively. “We end this now,” he says. “C’mon, before this junk wears off.”
Massu swallows and nods, and when Ryo turns to go to the elevators, Massu very regretfully slams the hilt of his knife hard into the back of his groupmate’s skull.
Ryo drops like a rock, and Massu handcuffs him to the door. Then he heads to the stairs alone.
~~*~~
P waits on the roof, head turned towards the sky.
He doesn’t startle when his watch alarm beeps at two am exactly, or when a swirl of wind that signifies the start of a hurricane brushes across the ground at his feet, knocking him back several steps.
Instead he turns to face Kusano, the shadow of Jophiel’s wings immense behind him as he lands on the roof beside P.
“Jophiel,” P greets, solemnly. He bows his head slightly because old habits die hard. “Leave Kusano.”
Jophiel is puzzled by P’s lack of respect as he studies his former brother, the wounded, incomplete creature with tattered wings before him, dripping blood on the pavement and nearly too small to stand in the archangel’s immense presence. “You were a shadow of yourself when I last saw you, Perpetiel,” Jophiel says, sounding infinitely sad. “Now you are less than a speck. You diminish with each moment that you exist.”
“I’ve been told that is life,” P answers flatly. “Leave, Jophiel. You have nothing to do here.”
Jophiel tilts his head sideways, less mournful now. “You’ve become insolent. More and more human, I see.”
The ghost of a smile edges of P’s features. “Yes.”
Jophiel reaches out a hand. “Then let me purify you. Have no fear of what is to come. Trust in our Father.”
“Go to hell,” P responds, and rips his shirt open, revealing the sigil carved in blood on his skin.
From there, there is an explosion of light and a scream that shatters all the glass in a two block radius.
~~*~~
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Shige hisses, as Tegoshi blinks him, Koyama, and their step ladder into the space just outside of Johnny’s office.
“Don’t worry, he can’t hurt you, remember?” Tegoshi reassures his groupmate. “Prophet of the Lord.”
Shige glares as he and Koyama set up the step ladder. “I mean for you, you idiot. You nearly died earlier.”
Koyama nods. “And you’re still injured, Tego-nyan.”
Tegoshi manages a smile at them that’s braver than he feels; he holds up his bandaged hands. “It’s fine. Nearly healed already.” Pause. Chuckle. “And hey, as far as the stories go, I’m supposed to die for you, aren’t I?”
“Not funny,” Shige mutters, and as he climbs up the ladder, their watch alarms go off in perfect tandem at two am.
“Showtime,” Tegoshi breathes, before nodding once at Shige and Koyama in the lamest possible I’ll-see-you-on-the-other-side gesture ever. He blinks into Agaliarept’s lair.
Koyama mutters a quick prayer for their deliverance before Shige pulls the chalk from his pocket and starts etching.
~~*~~
“Back again?”
Agaliarept doesn’t seem particularly distressed to see Tegoshi in his office again so soon.
He grins as he finishes pouring himself a glass of good brandy from Johnny’s mini bar, turning his head to find the young demi-god leaning against the edge of his desk, the human’s back to the huge full-wall window with a perfect view of the mountains during the day. “So, did you learn some sort of cosmic super move in the last twelve hours that’s going to give you the edge? Or are you just tired of living?” the demon asks conversationally, as he sips his drink and walks to the center of the room.
Tegoshi doesn’t waste time talking; he closes his eyes and prays under his breath instead, concentrating on the words Shige had given him earlier, the ones they had practiced together until Tegoshi had them by memory, until they come to him as easily as the lyrics to a raunchy love song.
“Deus, qui ad salutem humani generis maxima quæque sacramenta in aquarum substantia condidisti: adesto propitius invocationibus nostris, et elemento huic, multimodis purificationibus præparato, virtutem tuæ benedictionis infunde.”
Agaliarept barks in laughter when Tegoshi ignores him. “I really wish I could see your mind,” he murmurs appreciatively. “What could possibly going on in there right now that thinks this is a good idea?” He pops one of the peppermints Johnny always keeps in his pocket into his mouth good naturedly.
“Ut creatura tua, mysteriis tuis serviens, ad abigendos dæmones morbosque pellendos divinæ gratiæ sumat effectum; ut quidquid in domibus vel in locis fidelium hæc unda resperserit careat omni immunditia, liberetur a noxa.”
Agaliraept sighs. “You and your little friends, running around like ants even though Lucifer has taken his vessel, even as the angels are forced to use their backup plan. Like you think you can still make a difference. Truly priceless.”
Tegoshi keeps praying. On the other side of the door behind Agaliarept, he knows Shige and Koyama are both scribbling quickly away, doing their best to recreate the most complicated devil’s trap P had been able to show them.
“Non illic resideat spiritus pestilens, non aura corrumpens: discedant omnes insidiæ latentis inimici; et si quid est quod aut incolumitati habitantium invidet aut quieti, aspersione hujus aquæ effugiat.”
His eyes open once he nears the end, and when he finally deigns to smile back at Agaliarept, it is not in the spirit of heaven so much as it is made in the likeness of hell.
“Ut salubritas, per invocationem sancti tui nominis expetita, ab omnibus sit impugnationibus defensa. Per Dominum, amen!”
Tegoshi twists both of his hands then, and in the ceiling above them, the sprinklers comply with the order, just as they had before.
But this time, they’re packing holy water.
Agaliarept screams just as lighting flashes in the skies outside.
~~*~~
Shige marvels at their good luck so far as Tegoshi blows open the door of Johnny’s office right on time and Agaliarept stumbles through it, skin smoking and bubbling under the assault of the holy water.
And then he stops dead in the devil’s trap Shige has drawn on the ceiling above his head.
“Oh, very clever, little bugs,” he snarls, skin still smoking.
Koyama sighs in relief and pockets his chalk. “I can’t believe that worked,” he murmurs to himself, knees shaking violently as Tegoshi turns off the sprinklers in Johnny’s much abused office and blinks out next to the two older NEWS members in the hall.
“Good plan,” the younger idol tells Shige with just a touch of weariness in his voice, and rather than complain about being talked down to, Shige allows himself a moment to preen instead.
No one notices the way Tegoshi’s wounds have opened again, or how they slowly begin to bleed through the bandages.
The peace and its accompanying rush of success last for about five minutes.
~~*~~
Downstairs, Ryo groans and slowly opens his eyes.
He rubs his head irritably with one hand, but when he tries to move the other he finds it handcuffed to the door.
Scowling, he digs into his pocket for his lock picking set.
He’s going to kick Massu’s ass for this later.
But first he’s got a demon to kill.
~~*~~
At five minutes after two, the angel Jophiel reappears in front of Johnny’s office, looking irate but none the worse for wear.
“Shit,” Shige starts, and can’t say anything more before the angel steps forward with unfathomable speed and presses two hands to his forehead.
He drops like a rock.
Koyama barely has time to open up a cut on his wrist to try and draw another banishing sigil before he is forced to follow.
Tegoshi stares, before squaring his shoulders and murmuring, “Stop.”
Jophiel looks at him slowly. “Your wounds,” he notes, without stopping at all. “Your powers aren’t enough like this.”
That said, the angel barely spares him a glance before turning to the demon trapped in Shige’s circle. “You and I have a destiny to fulfill,” he states blandly, and erases the devil’s trap from the ceiling with a thought. “We must go. We’re late.”
Agaliarept snorts. “If I were you I would have killed me while I was trapped.”
“There’s time for death yet,” Jophiel says.
And then, in a blink, Jophiel and Agaliarept are gone.
Tegoshi sinks to his knees and that is how Massu finds him a moment later, when he finally makes it up the last set of stairs.
Angels really suck sometimes.
~~*~~
For a while, P thinks he is dead. He thinks he is dead and this place he is in is purgatory, the in-between where angels go to die.
It smells that way, in either case.
But then startled voices start swimming into his ears, and when he opens his eyes again, a family of Vietnamese fishermen blinks down at him, faces frozen in terrified awe.
P stands and shakily, begins to limp back to Japan.
His Grace is dying.
~~*~~
The roof sports some fresh cracks and smells of burned cement when the angel and demon appear on top of it.
At the roof entrance, Massu reluctantly drags an insistent Tegoshi into the heart of the fray.
“I feel like there’s something I need to do,” the youngest member murmurs, and Massu finds himself strangely unable to argue.
“I am to kill you today, Agaliarept,” Jophiel says, ignoring the presence of the humans as he draws his sword. “It was written as thus.”
“Your side will lose,” Agaliarept answers. “God is dead. Lucifer walks.”
Power crackles all around them, filling the air with the smells of ozone and rain as two warriors of heaven and hell prepare for a battle that will forever scar the face of the earth below them.
“God is always with me,” Jophiel says faithfully.
“Hey, idiot moron!” a third, unexpected voice interrupts.
The angel and the demon turn just as P reappears between them, launching a flaming bottle of holy oil at Jophiel.
The angel shrieks as it lights up and dissolves into ashes.
Massu turns incredulous eyes at P, Tegoshi still draped and bleeding over his shoulder.
“Idiot moron?” he asks.
P shrugs. “What?”
Agaliarept just laughs. “Did you idiots seriously just deep fry your best chance at beating me for a grudge?” He looks about as tickled as any demon can be. “Oh, humans really are priceless sometimes.”
“You’re next, chuckles.”
Everyone turns back to the roof door as an angry Ryo walks through it, to join the party his eyes flashing black at the sight of the demon on the roof. He extends his hand towards Agaliarept, and the demon makes a strange, choked noise from the back of its throat.
“Ryo-kun?” Tegoshi asks, deeply wary as he struggles to stand under his own power rather than Massu’s. “Is that you?”
“Yeah,” Ryo grunts, concentrating so hard blood starts to seep from his nose as he forces Agaliarept still. “I’m in here. I never felt better.” He grins and closes his hand into a fist, making Agaliarept stumble.
“It’s the demon blood,” P murmurs. “Its power comes at a price, as most things borne of Lucifer.”
Ryo snorts. “We’ll work on that after the apocalypse. Right now, I’ve got a score to settle.” He manages to force Agaliarept to his knees. “Ready to die?” Ryo asks, voice heady with power.
Agaliarept croaks, and for a moment, the black clouding Johnny’s eyes recedes.
“Yes, Nishikido-kun,” Johnny says then, full of gentleness and pride, “you must kill me. Do it quickly.”
Ryo falters.
And then, as the strength of Ryo’s conviction wavers, Agaliarept smirks, eyes going black again as he stands and knocks Ryo backwards with his own mental counter attack.
“Almost,” the demon chortles. “Using your advantage as Lucifer’s vessel was pretty smart. But it looks like you’re still just a little too soft. I guess it’s why you were never our first choice.”
Ryo glares at him.
It lasts up until the moment the demon flicks his fingers through the air in a single, fluid cutting motion.
Ryo’s neck snaps in time with it.
He slumps to the floor.
Tegoshi winces and turns his head away.
“I’ll destroy you,” P vows angrily, while beside him, Massu stumbles to the ground, pale and shaking at the sight of Ryo’s unmoving body. P advances on the chuckling demon, intent on using the last of his Grace to burn Agaliarept out.
Massu and Tegoshi barely have a moment to register Ryo’s loss before there is a snap of fingers from their left.
P explodes.
And Jophiel steps forward, wiping bits of his brother’s entrails from his shoulder.
Massu retches.
“We were about to begin,” the archangel says blandly, starting right from where they’d left off, as if nothing at all had happened in the interim.
The wounds in Tegoshi’s hands and feet throb again, blood seeping freely through the gouges as the youngest NEWS member stares incredulously at the pair, an emotionless angel and an unscrupulous demon.
He suddenly thinks that it isn’t right.
It isn’t right that beings such as these, with powers such as theirs, can judge that man is to be destroyed when all Tegoshi can see is that they’re even more corrupt than humans. Maybe not as petty or small-minded or temperamental as humans, but it’s not like they’re without sins as well. As far as Tegoshi is concerned, their sins are far worse.
Angels and demons are full of ignorance, apathy, cruelty.
They don’t understand pain or suffering, they don’t know love or loss. They don’t know friendship or mercy or sympathy.
They can’t feel anything.
Their sin is that they’ve forgotten how.
It is like a moment of clarity in the movies, one that slows everything else in the world down; at that moment Tegoshi thinks he could follow the life of a single drop of rain all the way from heaven or the windswept path of a single grain of sand around the planet with his eyes.
“Your powers are not enough like this,” is what Jophiel had said to him.
He’d been right.
But maybe it’s because the powers of the messiah and the Antichrist aren’t supposed to be the same thing at all.
Tegoshi finds himself standing straighter suddenly, hands and feet and brow dripping blood faster now, in small rivers. Dimly, he is aware of the sound of Massu calling his name, but it gets carried away by the wind, by the crackling of force that surrounds the angel and the demon on the battlefield as they prepare to fight.
Jophiel raises his sword and Agaliarept summons his, and as the two forces charge at each other like lightning bolts on the rooftop of Johnny’s jimusho, Tegoshi can suddenly move fast enough to step between them.
Their blades slice deep into him, one after the other. Jophiel’s slides up under his ribs in one smooth motion, while Agaliarept pierces him through the heart.
But it doesn’t hurt.
Tegoshi grasps both of their swords in his bleeding hands, still deep inside him, and smiles a little. He gets it now.
It isn’t about power. He’s never been about power.
The thing he’s supposed to do is save.
“For your sins,” he tells them quietly.
His eyes flutter closed.
~~*~~
Massu screams as he watches the blades slide into Tegoshi’s weakened body, going through him in fluid, ugly motions. Blood pours out of the wounds in a steady stream and Massu thinks he sees Tegoshi smile before the light in his eyes flickers out, before the earth begins to tremble beneath them, sending a sharp crack of thunder ripping through the air over the roof of the building.
The very sky itself starts to open up then, a swirling, pulling wind that stings Massu’s eyes, that whips his hair into his face and swallow his shouts with its a cold, earth-rending roar.
All he can do is stare helplessly on as the crack in the sky swallows Tegoshi, effortlessly pulling a wide-eyed Jophiel and a shrieking Agaliarept into the hole with him.
Tegoshi had looked like he was at peace.
And then there is silence.
~~*~~
Back inside the building, as he lies on the ground in angel-induced slumber, Koyama hears the voices.
All is lost, the angels mourn. Humanity remains.
Tears fall from his eyes even as he sleeps.
Beside him, Shige dreams and sees everything.
~~*~~
When Tegoshi opens his eyes again, he sees far more than he’s ever been able to see before.
A short man with bloodshot eyes and a mess of dark brown hair blinks back at him, looking equal parts amused and relieved.
And in that moment, Tegoshi realizes that just looking at Him is the same as knowing.
“Chuck,” Tegoshi says, and the words are not in a language he’s heard before but one he knows all the nuances to nonetheless.
“Hey, kid,” Chuck responds, looking him over.
A moment.
Then, “I thought you’d be taller,” they both say, and not simply because they are part of the same whole.
Tegoshi turns his gaze downward then; there is a floor in the place where he is standing but there is no floor, he can see nothing and the entire universe through every moment of time all at once.
He sees Massu, on a rooftop, with Ryo’s lifeless body cradled in his arms.
He sees Koyama and Shige wake up in the wet mess of an empty hallway, disoriented and aching.
He sees a man in Kansas whom he does not know but who he knows, sitting in a graveyard, bloody and battered and staring at the spot on the ground as if his entire world has just fallen through it.
He sees the angels die.
Tegoshi sees all of this, because time is still for him.
“So,” Chuck says, after a moment, “looks like you got things taken care of on your end.”
“Was this your plan all along?” Tegoshi asks, even though he should know. He does.
But he is still more human than not, and asking gives him comfort. Hearing his own voice, his own words, give him comfort.
Chuck shrugs. “It’s just how things worked out.” And then He looks at his watch, as if it means something here. “My end is done, your end is done. I think the Holy Spirit is finishing things up with Satanchia in Europe right about now too.”
The information washes over Tegoshi in a wave. “This is weird,” he admits.
Chuck grins. “Yeah, kinda. I mean, I don’t mind it so much though. The splitting into three thing. But if you want to, I guess we could…”
Tegoshi shakes his head. “I like being my own thing too,” he clarifies. “I want to be…me. That was the lesson of all this in the end, wasn’t it? For them and for us.”
“Maybe,” Chuck answers, smiling gently. He looks philosophical, a little bit wry. He smells strongly of alcohol. “Choosing your family over your destiny, choosing who you are and where you want to be. They all seem like good themes. Pick whichever one you like best.” He shrugs.
Tegoshi supposes that makes sense and looks down again, at the world frozen in a moment of time, in a moment of grief, of hope, of rebirth. He sees the parts of NEWS that remain, terrified and waiting for something-anything- to happen. There is a hole in the universe where P used to be too, and another one opening up where Ryo and Johnny had been, ripping through the fabric of Tegoshi’s worldview. He feels his lips start to curve upwards in a smile when he gets it. “Choosing family, huh?”
Chuck nods. “Yeah.”
Tegoshi can’t tear his eyes away from the earth under his feet, from the people there who mean the world to him. “So… now what?” he asks, eyeing Chuck warily.
Chuck shrugs and simply says, “You choose, kiddo. I mean, that was the point, right?”
Tegoshi takes a deep breath and gets it. “Yeah.”
He snaps his fingers.
~~*~~
Down below, Massu startles as P stands in front of him again, whole and light and serene. An angel of the highest Grace with the genuine smile of a human.
The tear tracks are wet and helpless against Massu’s face, but they stop at the sight of his friend, and he opens his arms without question when P crouches beside him, revealing Ryo’s pale, broken form.
P presses his fingers against Ryo’s head.
And then Ryo gasps awake, as if returning to consciousness from a dream, just as Koyama and Shige stumble through the doorway together.
Ryo sucks in air, eyes stung by the shine of the stars overhead. “P, are you God?” he murmurs after a moment, shaking and warm and alive between the angel and Massu.
P just smiles and shakes his head no.
~~*~~
Chuck grins as He watches the scene unfold from his spot beside Tegoshi. “That’s not a bad idea,” He says, after a beat.
And then He snaps His fingers too.
The sound echoes across the universe.
~~*~~
“I guess we won?” Shige says a little while later, as NEWS solemnly rides the elevator down to the first floor again.
P, supporting Ryo’s weight on his shoulder, nods grimly. “Yes.”
Koyama shudders. “But Tegoshi…”
“Fulfilled his destiny,” P answers, though it sounds empty.
“Bullshit,” Ryo breathes, voice hoarse. “That’s bullshit.”
“Have faith,” P tells him. “The messiah is supposed to die to cleanse our sins from the earth.”
“I’m going to punch you in the face, archangel promotion or no archangel promotion,” Ryo threatens.
P suddenly drops him.
The others stare. “Uh, that was kind of extreme,” Shige begins, while Ryo groans a bit on the floor.
“I have to go,” P explains.
He disappears in a flutter of a thousand wings.
~~*~~
“So, does this mean you’re going back? Taking over as God again?” Tegoshi asks. “I mean, now that everything’s done.”
Chuck shakes His head. “That would be beside the point, wouldn’t it? Just after everyone learned how to make their own decisions.”
“Not everyone,” Tegoshi reminds him.
A shrug. “Some people have a steeper learning curve than others.” Chuck smiles, and the radiance of all creation is inside of it. “But I think Castiel and Perpetiel seem to have a good handle on things. It’ll have to be up to them to catch the rest of the class up.”
Tegoshi seems satisfied with that. “So what will you do?”
Chuck shrugs. “I was thinking of maybe trying my hand at painting next. I kind of like the arts.”
Tegoshi snorts. “I think I’m just going to go home.”
Chuck grins. “Beauty of free will for everyone, right?”
“Right.”
Tegoshi leaves.
~~*~~
When P returns to heaven, it is in chaos.
But Castiel is there too, alive and strong and confident as he takes charge in Michael’s absence, after the deaths of Gabriel and Uriel and Zachariah and the loss of Jophiel.
He seems far different from what P remembers.
The archangel Castiel is not like any angel P has seen before. He lacks Michael’s strictness, Gabriel’s capriciousness, Uriel’s anger, Zachariah’s sniveling, Jophiel’s coldness.
The archangel Castiel feels wise.
You as well, Perpetiel, Castiel says, interrupting the free flow of P’s thoughts. Or do you prefer Yamapi, now?
P stops to think, reaching out with his mind for Castiel’s as well. I do, he acquiesces, after a moment. Then smiles a little. Cas.
Castiel smiles back. There is much work to do.
Is this what you want to do? P asks.
Yes, Castiel admits. For now, the answer is yes. Pause. What about you?
I… P hesitates, looking uncertain.
C astiel’s eyes are gentle. Don’t fear what you want, Yamapi. I believe this is what our Father wished to teach us.
Somehow hearing that seems to make it so, as if Castiel’s Grace has been imbued with the will and the word of God. I wish to return to earth, P admits then, and the vessel he wears hums in agreement, Tomohisa’s gentle soul lighting up in hopeful encouragement.
Your humans mean a lot to you, Castiel realizes. He looks understanding. They are…compelling.
P snorts, and it is as human as any angel can be. Yes. I suppose they are.
And your vessel? Castiel asks. Does he agree?
Yes, P says, just as Tomohisa does as well, a faint, but fierce echo from deep inside. We are part of the same whole now, he explains, and means NEWS as well.
Castiel chuckles, deep and rich. Very well. Though if I could have your help first…
P nods. Of course.
It is at that moment that Raphael returns.
What blasphemy is happening here?! the more senior archangel booms, wrath and rage and heavenly justice all in one Grace as he takes in the sights of heaven, the legions of angels at P’s and Castiel’s command.
P and Castiel share a look.
And they both decide it is their solemn duty when they punch Raphael in the face.
Bitch, Castiel thinks, as Raphael flies through space and time and lands somewhere amidst the height of China’s Xia dynasty.
P’s laughter in heaven is as bright as the sun.
~~*~~
Shige knows that P is coming back ten minutes before P shows up at Ryo’s apartment. He has a beer ready and waiting as the elevators ding outside and NEWS’s leader knocks on the door.
“Did he really just knock?” Ryo asks incredulously, as Koyama goes to open the door.
Shige shrugs, and for once, feels like he’s got one up on everyone else. “That’s what people do, Nishikido-kun.”
P takes a seat on the couch between Massu and Ryo and sips his beer thoughtfully.
He makes a face.
“Well?” Shige asks, while everyone wonders what the hell is going on now.
“It tastes bad,” P diagnoses.
“You didn’t complain before,” Ryo reminds him.
“I didn’t have to use my taste buds before, Ryo-chan,” P answers honestly, and for a moment, everyone stops what they’re doing.
After a moment, Massu grunts in realization. The rest of NEWS decides that it’s as good a reaction as any.
They sit in Ryo’s living room for the rest of the evening and raise a toast to Tegoshi.
~~*~~
None of them is surprised when, the very next day, Johnny’s jimusho is the same as ever and none of the other idols or employees remember anything out of the ordinary happening that week at all, except maybe that Koki had gotten in trouble for getting caught taking a smoke break out on the roof. Apparently he made a mess of the place.
In the meantime, Johnny sits in his office, collected as ever, as Kusano stands across from him, looking sheepish and a little bit haggard but otherwise whole and new and very different from the person he’d been all those years before. P lurks in the corner, and Kusano flashes him a grin.
“No hard feelings?” Kusano asks, hands in his pockets.
P’s lip quirks upward. “No. Not if you’re sure.”
Kusano nods. “I’m sure. After everything I’ve seen, everything that’s happened, I can’t just go back. There’s just…stuff I feel like I gotta do, you know?”
Johnny smiles. “You’ve grown.”
A nod. “Everyone’s grown.” Kusano steps forward then, and offers a hand to the angel. “Maybe you the most, right?”
P takes his hand, squeezes it gently in his own. “Yes,” he says, because he’s not sure what else to say.
Johnny’s chuckle is infectious. “Goodbye, Hiro. Good luck.”
P agrees, as he slowly lets his hand go. “Stay in touch.”
Kusano grins and nods. “Don’t worry. I’ll call you every day, babe.”
P blinks. “That’s not necessary.”
Kusano just laughs and walks out the door.
The overhead lights flicker and die as the door to that office closes behind him, for the last time.
Johnny chuckles and simply calls maintenance to have them replaced.
~~*~~
On the third day, Shige sees it.
He nearly cries in relief as the image washes over him, painful still, but in a different way than all the other visions had been.
He watches P extend a hand over the small cross they had set up at the corner of a soccer field near Tegoshi’s apartment. P is patient, always patient, as he waits for what is coming.
And his efforts are rewarded when an answering hand breaks through the earth at exactly that spot a few moments later, its fingers instinctively, easily intertwining with P’s.
P pulls then, and clumps of dirt and grass and rocks easily tumble loose as Tegoshi stands, covered in grime and showered in light. He is one of the most beautiful things Shige has ever seen.
He lives.
The two celestial beings smile at each other and embrace then, and Tegoshi says, “It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve seen you,” against P’s collar.
“Not forever. You have always risen on the third day,” P says matter-of-factly, as together, the two of them brush the dirt from Tegoshi’s clothes and return to NEWS.
“What are you smiling about, Shige?” Koyama asks, when he walks by and sees the strange look on his best friend’s face.
“You’ll see in about six hours,” Shige answers with a half incredulous, half euphoric chuckle, and doesn’t feel the need to elaborate any more than that.
Instead he simply closes his eyes, and in the back of his mind, listens to the sound of Tegoshi,’s voice, bright and cheerful as ever as it says, “I think we should have a concert now that we’ve saved the world. Wouldn’t a concert be nice, leader? ”
Shige sees P smile.
4. The Road Ahead
Whenever Johnny looks at NEWS he thinks that they will never be the biggest or the brightest of all his idols.
They won’t be an international phenomenon across Asia like KAT-TUN. They probably won’t have the prosperous longevity of Arashi or the consistency of V6. Their fanbase will always be small but devoted, their fortunes will fall more often than they rise, and the six of them will always be very different in every aspect except for the important ones.
And that is that they are all still just a little bit incomprehensible to Johnny whenever he looks at them, even now, even after everything has been said and done.
They remain a wonderful, beautiful mystery.
And it doesn’t require any sort of second sight to know that this is the reason why they’ve been able to accomplish so much together, despite everything.
Even more, it makes Johnny think that they aren’t finished quite yet, that there is still work for them to do in the future.
He sits back and looks forward to what adventures the future will bring.
He thinks NEWS will be more important than anyone can imagine.
END
Sources:
- Latin exorcism taken from: http://www.sanctuary.frih.net/node/46
- Holy water blessing taken from: http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/424274
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