JE/NEWS+SPN- "All's Chaos on the Eastern Front" (4/7)

[peroxide_fic]

When P opens his eyes again he can finally see.

And what stands before him is terrifying.

He sucks in a breath of air as it all washes over him, and suddenly everything makes sense.

It is awful and deeply saddening.

But at least it makes sense.

“Yamapi? Is… is everything okay?” Koyama-not Koyama, but Chamuel- asks him, after a moment.

You can hear me, he thinks, and Koyama jumps backwards at the clarity of it, at the sheer volume as it echoes in his head. He looks around, and realizes the others don’t hear it at all.

Slowly, the eldest NEWS member nods.

“What’s happening?” Shige murmurs to Tegoshi as they watch the two of them stand like that, just looking at each other for what feels like forever. But Tegoshi doesn’t hear him; it’s like he’s seeing something entirely different altogether.

W-why can I hear you? Koyama thinks back at Yamapi, cautiously. I mean, for a while, I thought I knew what you were thinking but…

It is because you are an abomination, P explains honestly, though the look of hurt surprise that washes over Koyama’s face when he says it gives him pause.

“That’s not nice,” Tegoshi blabs suddenly, hand on Koyama’s arm.

P’s eyes turn to the youngest then and he studies him, trying to figure out if he can hear, or if he’s simply talking about the way he is looking at them.

For some reason, Tegoshi seems blurry.

The youngest huffs. “Okay you can stop staring now, leader.” Pause. “Please.”

P feels his eyes tear away as if by divine order and lands on Ryo, whose soul he can’t see at all.

He blinks. “What are you?”

Ryo balks. “Says the angel?”

Johnny’s hand on his shoulder tightens. “P,” he begins, gently, “perhaps you should tell them about what has happened. This is your mission, isn’t it?”

“But…”

Johnny’s expression is significant, not unlike the ones Zachariah have given him, if infinitely more patient.

“Tell us what?” Shige asks, sounding instantly on the alert. A life of trying to thwart what others consider unfathomable incidents makes a person wary like that.

P takes a step back and remembers the mission.

“The demons are trying to free Lucifer,” he explains. “The first seal has been broken.”

Blank looks all around.

“We are to help defend the remaining seals.”

Silence.

Massu’s brow furrows in deep concentration. “Nakamaru always says that if we want to defend the seals that are left, we should start by protecting the polar ice caps. Is that true?”

P supposes that change is inevitable for most things, but part of him is supremely glad that Massu is not one of them.

~~*~~

“Koyama is an abomination,” P repeats again later, after he leaves the rest of NEWS in the dressing room, trying to make sense of the things Yamapi- Perpetiel, P- whatever, has been telling them.

“So you keep saying,” Johnny says, hanging up his coat. “He’s a very good boy.”

P frowns. “He is fallen.”

Johnny doesn’t seem particularly surprised to hear it. “I always did think there was something angelic about him,” he muses, after a moment. Then he turns and gives P a long, appraising look. “So? What will you do? Report him? Kill him?”

P hesitates. “Those actions are one in the same.”

“Then this will be a difficult decision,” Johnny answers, tsking in sympathy. “Who was he?”

P fidgets. “We called him Chamuel, and his song was full of joy. He was my brother, once.”

Johnny looks amused. “Maybe he’s become your brother again.”

P isn’t sure how to respond to that, so he slumps a little and settles for, “His singing was more pleasant as an angel,” instead. It might be slightly petulant.

This time, Johnny just bursts out laughing.

~~*~~

Back in NEWS’s dressing room, Koyama sits with his back against the wall, knees up to his chest. An abomination, his mind offers, over and over again as he tries to figure out why.

Tegoshi sits next to him and pats his back and murmurs, “Kei-chan is the kindest person in the world,” to him. His hand is soothing somehow, easing the voices and the questions away from the back of his mind like a balm.

“Yamapi is right,” Koyama says out loud. “I mean, what kind of person can hear angels talking?”

“In history? Usually holy people,” Shige offers, his own logical way of making sense of his friend’s abilities. “I mean, they’re angels, so at least it’s not anything bad, right?”

Koyama gives him a helpless look.

“Hey, Nishikido-kun has psychic dreams. It’s not the weirdest thing we’ve come across.”

“Fuck off,” Ryo snarls, with no real venom behind it. “I haven’t had a dream since last summer.” He pauses after he says that, giving Tegoshi a strange look. Tegoshi blinks back at him curiously, making the older idol quickly avert his eyes.

“There’s nothing wrong with super powers,” Massu chimes in, in the meantime. “Maybe we all have them. Maybe that’s why Johnny-san chose us.”

Everyone gives him an odd look. “Have you uh, been experiencing anything you want to share with us, Massu?” Shige asks, carefully.

Massu shakes his head, but looks optimistic. “Nothing yet.” He does hold out his demon killing tanto though. “But I’ve got this.”

“Uh yeah. Great.” Pause. “Maybe I should keep a record of this,” Shige murmurs, and grabs a notebook. “So Yamashita-kun is an angel. Koyama hears angels. Nishikido-kun has psychic dreams.”

He looks at Tegoshi next. “What about you?”

Tegoshi shakes his head. “Nope. Same as always.”

Koyama manages a smile. “Well there’s the whole ability to fool people with your cute face thing.”

Tegoshi pouts playfully at him and pushes him a little. “I was just born this way.”

Shige rolls his eyes at them and writes down a question mark next to Tegoshi’s name, though that whole spiritual medium thing seems like a good lead so far if he does say so himself. “And as for me… if I have a power it must be the crappiest one ever.”

“Bad luck might be a power,” Massu offers.

Shige sighs and just puts question marks next to his and Massu’s names too.

“Gee, let me write down how helpful that was,” Ryo drawls, and scrawls “NOT” on the edge of paper over Shige’s shoulder.

“You never know!” Shige sulks, and goes to transfer the list to his phone.

Just in case.

~~*~~

The first seal is the Conversion of the Spirits.

NEWS has never been in charge of saving spirits and monsters before; it seems to go against their very natures, all the things they have trained and fought for in the past. But P simply tells them it’s part of the job, even as he shoves a wounded kitsune into Tegoshi’s arms and tells them they must find a way to release the other spirits from the sigils binding them to the pentagrams all around the darkened, bloody church sanctuary.

“If they’ve swallowed too much blood you must kill them,” the angel adds grimly, and steps further into the depths hoping they will be able to save enough creatures to protect the seal.

“The point is influence,” Shige had discovered, after they’d spent days puzzling over why demons would take the trouble to carve a dozen houkou spirits out of the ancient trees they inhabit. “If Lucifer’s minions can conquer and infect the indigenous monsters with their influence it’ll give them a foothold on the land when they invade. They’ll be able to take the local spirits’ powers and use it as their own.”

The comatose kitsune stirs in Tegoshi’s arms, her white eyes blinking open as she bleeds on the idol’s arm. They flash black for a moment, and she lets out a pained whine, writhing and feverish as she fights off the demon blood they’d poured down her throat.

“Get her out of here,” P instructs the youngest member, and Tegoshi nods before taking off running down the corridor.

Behind him he hears the roar of the gotokuneko, the wild howls of the hibagon and the dazed murmurs of the gyuuki; a veritable zoo of his country’s spirits, chained to the symbols of Lucifer’s influence and forced to drink the blood of his children.

In his arms the kitsune shivers; he murmurs, “You’re alright, you’re alright,” into her ear over and over again like a prayer, like it will help.

By the time he makes it back outside she’s stopped moving, white fur still against him, eyes closed and body limp.

“C’mon,” he breathes, and wonders if it’s because she reminds him a little bit of Tinny that he gets on his knees and begins rubbing her back, firm and fast while promising, everything will be okay deep in his heart.

“Demon blood means nothing,” he says out loud. “You’ll beat it.”

And as he does, her eye open again, pools of liquid black that make him stagger backwards, reaching into his pocket for the vial of holy water there. There is a low growl in her throat, and her lips pull back, baring rows of neat, sharp teeth.

And then she starts to vomit.

Dark, black blood dribbles out of her mouth, spatters on the ground as she coughs and shakes and glows, soft and white like he remembers fox spirits do.

His hand loosens around the holy water. “That’s it,” he encourages her, hopeful. “Good work.”

When she looks up at him again, her eyes are clear and she isn’t shivering anymore.

Her head tilts with wonder. “What did you do?” she asks, voice a whisper against his skin.

He blinks. “I uh…I carried you. Are you okay?”

Her laughter is like bells. “Yes. You carried me. Of course you did.”

He smiles and crouches down in front of her, petting her head like he would Tinny’s. It is either incredibly intuitive or incredibly condescending of him; he isn’t sure which. “I’m glad you’re better,” he offers, after a moment.

“I would promise you thanks for your aid tonight. Protection, ” she begins, and arches when he scratches behind her ears. “But there is nothing I can offer you that you don’t already have.”

He smiles. “Just don’t get trapped by anymore demons and we’re even,” he says, before the wall-shaking howl of one very angry kirin reminds him that there is still work to do tonight if they wish to protect the seal. “You should probably run now.”

She regards him a moment longer as he stands again, preparing to return to his friends’ side. “What a strange creature you are,” she murmurs, and then is off like a shot, form melting into a long streak of glowing white light that melts into invisibility along the scattered patches of moonbeams.

Tegoshi doesn’t have time to wonder what she means before he heads back into the church again.

~~*~~

Ryo stares at the blood on his knife as he stands over the body of the sad-eyed houkou whose throat he’d just slit, the dog-like, man-faced beast writhing once more in agony before the blackness finally drains from its eyes and it sighs in death.

He wipes his chin and mouth, the corner of his lips where the blood had spurted when he’d cut the tree spirit open. His eyeballs feel like they’re throbbing.

“Ryo-chan, is something the matter?” Koyama asks, emerging from the other side of the room with a softly glowing doji nestled in his arms, it’s long, white-feathered wings stretching out on either side of his shoulders, seeming to bask in the glow of the older idol’s gentle attentions.

Ryo swallows and tears his eyes away from the blood, wondering what’s wrong with him, wondering why he’s so freaked out by a little demon blood. Nothing he hasn’t dealt with before. His heartbeat drums furiously in his ears, like he’s just had the energy drink to end all energy drinks and not a face full of tree-spirit blood with a twist of demon juice in it.

Koyama’s brow furrows in concern. “Ryo-chan? Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m fine. Just…this one didn’t make it,” he says, before sheathing his knife again. “We good?”

Koyama nods, tiredly. “Yeah. Yamapi says we helped enough of them to save the seal.”

Ryo nods and steps over the pools of red on the floor. “Great.”

~~*~~

The second seal they protect, ironically, involves false idols.

“The Koreans aren’t going to be happy with us,” Shige whistles afterwards, half amused and half horrified as he watches P remove the spike of holy wood from the chest of what was formerly a very good looking (if somewhat evil) young man.

“But Johnny might get a kick out of it,” Ryo adds, and they all janken for who has to clean up the body. P is once again barred from using angelic mind-reading powers.

In the end, Shige still loses.

Massu, out of pity, offers to help.

~~*~~

“We have saved ten seals,” P reports to Zachariah with some pride, when he returns to heaven to confer with his brothers.

Uriel snorts. “Save ten, lose fifteen. It’s still negative five.”

P frowns, but Castiel says, “Losing only five is still better than twenty five. You’ve done well, Perpetiel.”

Zachariah looks bored. “Boys, boys. Do we really have to argue about whether losing slower is better than losing quick? We’re still losing, aren’t we?”

“Because we’re giving these stupid mud monkeys enough power to control the outcome of the battle,” Uriel growls, with a significant look at Castiel that P can’t quite read. Castiel ignores him.

“Losses would occur with or without the humans,” Castiel offers, reasonably.

P agrees. “My humans are very competent,” he adds, perhaps with a bit too much of Massu’s guileless optimism.

Uriel’s glare turns to P. “Your humans, Perpetiel? Be careful, you almost sound as bad as Castiel.”

“The humans I’ve been battling alongside,” P corrects, a measure of pride in his tone. “They have been fighting bravely to protect the seals in their land.”

Zachariah snorts. “If they’re as good as you say they are maybe I should come down and meet the team. They sound… interesting.”

Something like panic flares in P’s chest, at the thought of what might happen if Zachariah sees them, truly, as P had. “You don’t have to waste your time, Zachariah,” he says quickly, head bowed. “I promise to report anything significant directly to you. They’re skilled enough that your supervision would be superfluous.”

Uriel is incredulous. “You like them,” he mutters, sounding like all of heaven is going mad. “You’re proud of them.”

Zachariah isn’t as worried as Uriel. “Well, don’t get too attached either way,” he says, offhandedly. “You know how these things go. Fragile things, humans. Just the littlest thing could snap them right in half.”

The way he says it, the smile he says it with, makes P feel dread.

When he looks at Castiel beside him, he is somewhat relieved to see that his brother seems to feel the same.

~~*~~

After that it’s a steady pace of concert tours and saving seals, sometimes both in the same day. Shige likes to think he’s becoming fluent in Latin while Ryo feels on edge all the time, ever since that night in the church, like there’s an itch somewhere on him that he can’t quite locate, that he can’t quite scratch.

The voices Koyama hears become louder and more insistent and just when he thinks it will drive him crazy, Yamapi gives him a strange look and tells him to Concentrate on my voice and my voice alone. Even when I’m not speaking to you, hear me.

It’s confusing at first but as the days drag on, the two of them start to get really good at that whole mind-talking thing, though whenever Koyama asks why he can do that in the first place Yamapi frowns and temporarily severs whatever connection they’ve made. “It is an ability you were created with,” is all he says-out loud- sounding stiff and betrayed and infinitely gentle somehow, all at the same time.

Koyama doesn’t ask much after that and doesn’t tell P about the other voices, the ones from far off that he hears sometimes. Once they say Samhain and after that he hears witnesses, but none of it makes any sense to him beyond the shock of defeat that comes in their wake. When he sees Yamapi on the mornings after he hears those things he thinks that maybe the angel already knows he knows anyway.

At night, Yamapi helps him dream in silence.

Tegoshi and Massu start a game about comparing battle scars one afternoon, only to discover that Tegoshi doesn’t have any. “That’s weird,” Tegoshi says, examining his elbow where he is certain there should be one, from that time a vampire had thrown Massu into him.

“Lucky as always,” Shige mutters with a sort of long-suffering fondness, while Massu just says it’s not the kind of game that would really have a winner anyway.

~~*~~

As the winter drags on, 2008 bleeds into 2009 and NEWS finishes a long, hard fought concert tour, successfully defends most of their seals, and has no idea that their successes are on the losing end of a much larger effort that lays an ocean and thousands of miles away.

~~*~~

When the demons start coming for Koyama, P realizes that it’s only a matter of time.

They are hunting Chamuel, and the human Koyama does not know why.

It should be an easy decision; it would have been, before. A mortal who has the knowledge of the angels should have been purged from the earth the minute P had seen him for what he truly was, especially in times of war, when that knowledge could be twisted by Lucifer’s agents as an advantage.

Less than a handful of years ago, the angel Perpetiel would have seen Koyama as an abomination. In the midst of the battle they are facing now, that same angel would have struck Koyama down in order to maintain the integrity of heaven’s plans.

Years mean very little to angels; they are nothing more than a blink in time, the same as a second is to a human.

And yet these few years seem to have opened up a gulf, have changed the landscape of P’s Grace as surely as the winds and waters of the earth shape its grounds with their constant activity.

The angel Perpetiel, as he is now, feels nothing but disgust at the thought of destroying his brother, one who has become more a brother to him as a human than he had been at the apex of all his glory in heaven.

P cannot-will not-kill Koyama.

Instead he makes a decision.

P thinks that for him, these last six years have been like the first six days of all creation.

~~*~~

Whenever Yamapi wishes him good night, whether in person or on the phone, Koyama always ends up dreaming of Okinawa. It’s the same still waters captured in the pictures he’d taken when he’d come here with Shige, vivid blue and green and quiet peace as far as the eye can see.

He fishes sometimes, here, but he never catches anything. It’s fine by him; Shige is the one who’s starting to get interested in fishing and Koyama thinks that if a fish looked up at him while he was preparing to gut it he would probably let it go, no matter how hungry he was.

He sits on the edge of the water and lets the calm of the waves lull him into stillness.

It’s nice. It’s not like the real world, where things have been trying to capture him and torture him over the last few weeks. He’d been thrown in the back of a car with a bag over his head, had been attacked on his way back from a radio show filming, drugged at a bar, knocked unconscious coming out of the men’s toilet.

On top of it all, the voices in his head have gotten louder again, no matter how much he tries to concentrate on the familiar cadences of Yamapi’s even tones, no matter how much he’s tried to distract himself with the rhythms of their music and the endless stream of his own thoughts.

Who is this? he hears sometimes, booming loudly in the back of his brain like the question is directed at him. What are you doing?!

He never answers; instead he thinks of these Okinawan waters, of vivid greens and blues and quiet, solitary dreams on white sand beaches.

But tonight, he is not alone.

He looks up at the familiar flutter of wind as Yamapi suddenly appears by his side and smiles; his own guardian angel.

“You’re fishing again,” Yamapi points out, after a moment. “Do you really enjoy it?”

Koyama laughs. “Not really, but it’s peaceful, even if I never catch anything. Do you want to try, leader?”

The angel fidgets, like he’s adjusting his wings. “This isn’t a social visit.”

Koyama blinks. “Is something the matter?”

“Yes.”

Koyama hastily stands. “Is it a seal?”

Yamapi shakes his head. “We can’t talk here, it’s not safe. Can you meet me at my apartment in thirty minutes?”

Koyama frowns. “I can try.”

“Good.” Yamapi nods, and without another word of clarification, takes a step forward and disappears in the blink of an eye.

When Koyama opens his eyes moments after that, he sits up in bed and hastens to his closet to get dressed.

Feeling a deep sense of foreboding about the whole thing, he also calls Shige on the way and asks if he’s busy.

Shige’s answer is a snarled, “Yes. I’m sleeping.” But he agrees to go with Koyama anyway.

It’s what friends do.

~~*~~

When they reach P’s apartment and knock on the door, there’s no answer.

“Are you sure it wasn’t just a regular dream?” Shige asks, because while Koyama talks to him about this whole angels-can-dream-walk thing, part of him still doesn’t discount the fact that his friend is a little bit stupid sometimes.

“It wasn’t,” Koyama answers hastily, and knocks a little bit harder, clearly worried. “He said it wasn’t safe, do you think something happened?”

Shige gives him a long look. “Are we really doing this?”

Koyama’s returning expression is grateful. “I’ll keep a lookout,” he says.

Shige rolls his eyes and pulls his lock picking kit out of his back pocket.

Massu’s the best out of all of them at it, but Shige still manages to get the door open after about ten minutes all the same.

When they step into Yamapi’s apartment, it looks like a tornado touched down inside. Furniture is strewn everywhere, all of the lights and glass fixtures are shattered. Shige tentatively steps over the remains of a splintered dining room table and wishes he had more than the silver knife tucked inside his boot.

When they find Yamapi a few moments later, he’s unconscious on the floor under the upended remains of the coffee table and the sofa cushions. He’s alive.

Koyama hastily carries him to the couch, which Shige rights and puts the cushions back onto.

“He’s unconscious. Do angels get unconscious?” the younger idol asks, and doesn’t know if he wants an answer to that question.

“No, they don’t,” Koyama answers, like he’s the authority.

Shige wants to ask how he knows, but before he can, Yamapi’s eyes snap open and he sits up with a gasp and a shudder.

“Yamapi?” Koyama asks, grabbing his leader’s shoulders to keep him steady. “Are you okay? What happened in here?”

Silence.

“Yamapi?” Koyama repeats, softer this time.

Disoriented brown eyes meet his, and when Yamapi opens his mouth, the answer he gives them is, “I’m not P.”

~~*~~

Ryo’s phone goes off right by his ear at precisely three-thirty in the goddamned morning.

When he picks it up he snarls, “I’ll kill you,” by way of greeting, and gets Shige’s frantic, unapologetic voice in response.

“Something’s happened to Yamashita-kun,” he says, curtly. “We’re coming over.”

Ryo groans and goes to make coffee.

If he hadn’t been sleeping well just now anyway, no one has to know.

~~*~~

Tomohisa blinks at the five sets of eyes looking intently at him.

Then he goes back to wolfing down the burgers he’d insisted on having the minute he’d seen the golden arches through Koyama’s passenger side backseat.

“Mmmmmhhh,” he moans, around a mouthful of beefy goodness, and the five sets of eyes stop staring at him for a moment before turning to look at each other so they can have have a weird, silent conversation that doesn’t make any sense to him.

“So,” Ryo begins, after an uncomfortable few seconds of this, “angel. What’s that like?”

Tomohisa pauses to think. “Uh, like living in a 24-Hour Tag marathon on loop, probably,” he explains after a moment, and the others wince in sympathy at the mere thought.

He unwraps another Big Mac.

“Yamashita-san,” Koyama begins, after a moment, “Yamapi said that he had something important to tell me. Do you uh, do you know what happened?”

“Or what it was?” Shige adds, logically.

He deftly slaps Tegoshi’s hand away when the youngest member looks like he wants to poke Tomohisa, just to make sure he’s real.

“Nope, no idea,” Tomohisa responds, looking thoughtful.

“Just think about it a little harder, will you?” Ryo demands, getting impatient with the cheerful airhead sitting at his table, dribbling special sauce all over the place.

“Do your best,” Tegoshi adds, encouraging in an unintentionally superior tone as he looks at the vessel his group leader usually inhabits.

Tomohisa’s brow furrows. “I don’t know, ne,” he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “everything that happened was kind of a blur. There was lightning, and then P told me to stay back, and then a bunch of flashes and he was gone.”

The other members of NEWS look horrified. “Gone? Like… dead?” Koyama croaks.

Tomohisa instantly looks apologetic. “Not like that! I think they took him home.”

He points up.

“Wait, his own side ripped him out of you without explaining anything?”

Tomohisa nods. “Angels aren’t really good at that, I don’t think.” Pause. Frown. “All I remember was…they seemed angry.”

“Angry about what?” Ryo asks again, and thinks his patience is wearing thin. “What did he do?”

Tomohisa shoves the last of the fries in his mouth while making the same kind of face someone gets when they’re in the middle of a particularly awesome makeout session. The members try not to look fascinated at the range of undignified expressions currently washing over P’s normally placid features.

He chews with his mouth wide open.

Eventually, Shige turns to Koyama and murmurs, “Is it weird that I want the angel back?”

“No,” the others all answer.

Luckily, Tomohisa is too busy with his chicken nuggets to notice.

~~*~~

P opens his eyes-all four of them- and finds himself in a great white room, surrounded by nothingness as far in any direction he can see.

Beside him he feels the warmth of Castiel’s Grace as it flickers and flares and comes into awareness as well.

What happened? Castiel’s true voice asks. He sounds dazed.

P shakes his head. I’m not sure. I was pulled from my vessel.

I see. Castiel doesn’t sound surprised. You doubted.

I did not doubt, P insists, hotly. I made a decision based on reason.

“Oh I wouldn’t call it reason,” an outside voice declares, sounding amused in a razor’s edge sort of way.

The two angels turn to face Zachariah, his vessel’s face all smiles as he walks around the empty, eternal prison. “More like…emotion. And how unlike you, Perpetiel.”

P flares indignation. I…

“Ah, ah,” Zachariah holds up a hand, silencing him. “Either way, it wasn’t your decision to make. When were you going to notify us that you’d found Chamuel?”

P feels Castiel’s surprise wash over him in a wave. Chamuel. You found him. Pause. How… is he well?

He is human, P says, and can’t answer whether that means he is well or not. He is in danger now, more so than ever, now that P isn’t there. The demons are still after him and heaven is coming.

Zachariah snorts. “He’s an abomination,” he says, very slowly. “And instead of destroying him the moment you realized this, you chose to try and hide it from us?”

Zachariah tsks like a disappointed school marm scolding disobedient children. “Angels have fallen for less, Perpetiel.”

I feel killing his human form would only hurt us in the long run, P argues, trying to remain sensible. He’s a good hunter.

“The problem is the beginning of all that,” Zachariah informs him derisively. “You shouldn’t feel anything, Perpetiel. You shouldn’t like your humans as much as you do. You shouldn’t worry for them or care for them or understand them. That is not our place. That is not our duty. All our Father asks of us is that we obey. Do you remember?”

P looks away. Yes.

Zachariah is unconvinced. “I don’t think you do. And I also think we all have to spend a little while here in time out and remind you of what your job is.”

Zachariah shakes his head sadly before turning to Castiel, who sits, regarding the conversation with mixed sensations of curiosity and penitence. He sneers. “And I don’t even want to get started on you, Castiel.”

He cracks the knuckles of his vessel’s hands anticipatorily. “Honestly. The both of you are just a mess.”

From there, the white room reverberates with the screams of angels.

~~*~~

If Zachariah considers P a mess after years of human influence, NEWS is an even worse mess without P around.

They discover that when Tomohisa is Tomohisa he is fun and lively and generally cool to hang out with.

But he lacks the steady leadership qualities P has, both as an idol and as a hunter.

It is difficult to fight a battle when you are missing a general.

As evidenced by the demons who have taken Tomohisa’s mother and sister hostage; demanding that they hand over the vessel and Koyama in exchange.

“Why do they want me?” Tomohisa frets, pacing back and forth in the room as they go over their options. “I don’t know anything.”

“They don’t know that,” Shige reminds him. “I bet they figure they might as well get the angel vessel and the guy who’s got an antenna hooked up to angel radio in one fell swoop.”

Everyone gives him a weird look. “Angel radio?”

He looks self-conscious. “It just popped into my head, okay? Can we please focus?”

Tomohisa continues to pace the length of the room. “P said he’d take care of them. He said everything would be fine for them, so why is this happening?”

Koyama looks miserable. “It’s my fault,” he murmurs, curled up on the couch with his knees against his chest. “He was trying to warn me and now he’s being punished.”

Ryo scowls. “Angels are dicks.” Pause. “Except for Yamapi, I guess.”

“We’re running out of time,” Tomohisa reminds them. “We have to do something.”

Ryo snorts. “Like what, give in to their demands? You do know they’ll just kill everyone once they get what they want, right?”

Tomohisa looks stricken, which prompts Tegoshi to give Ryo a look.

“Maybe they won’t kill everyone,” Ryo amends, unconvincingly.

“They’re my family,” Tomohisa reiterates.

And even if NEWS doesn’t know this person very well, they all understand, at the very least, what it feels like when someone important to you is in trouble.

Ryo sighs. “I guess we’re suiting up.”

They all suppose that if they die tonight, at least it means they’ll be able to head upstairs to try and save Yamapi next.

~~*~~

Demons are no good liars, Tomohisa thinks later, as he wraps his arm around the rapidly bleeding gash in his middle, trying very hard not to pass out as his blood pressure drops.

Angels are too.

He can hear his mother’s sobbing as the demons hold Koyama and the others back, as one of them heads for Rina, tied up and unconscious in the middle of the room.

You promised, Tomohisa begs, and wants to curse P with his dying breath, you promised you’d take care of them.

And then Rina sits up in her chair, eyes flashing, floor rumbling underneath her. Her voice sings with familiar power as the ropes tying her down unravel, as she stands and stretches one thin arm outward and burns a demon out of its stolen body with a touch and a whisper.

Oh so now you show. Thanks, P.

Tomohisa’s vision blurs around the edges as he sees her kneel before him. “I’ll keep this promise,” she tells him, voice soothing. “I will always keep this promise. All you have to do is say yes again.”

Why should I? You nearly got them killed.

A gentle hand sweeps across his brow. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Oh. Well I guess that’s… I mean…

“Just say yes,” P pushes. “There isn’t much time.”

Right. And as Tomohisa’s blood pumps out of his wounds and his heart starts to stop, he manages to breathe that one last “Yes,” again, just before everything goes bright and hot.

~~*~~

P burns sigils on the ribs of Tomohisa’s mother and sister that will keep them safe before he erases their memories of this night. Tegoshi and Koyama very sweetly help them into a cab afterwards, and P hears it when Rina’s heart thrills at the brush of Tegoshi’s hand on her arm.

He stretches inside of the familiar vessel for a moment, full of equal parts relief and dread for what must be done.

“What happened to you?” Shige asks after the cab is gone, looking at his leader carefully. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” P answers, but doesn’t sound it. “Heaven simply felt the need to remind me of what I am.”

Ryo snorts. “You forgot you were an angel?”

P very seriously answers, “Yes. I forgot my duty. Those are one in the same. They feared I sympathized too much with my charges.”

“Isn’t sympathy a nice, angel sort of thing?” Shige questions, and is already on the alert, already suspicious when someone uses words likes that.

“Love too,” Massu chimes in. “Angels are supposed to care too, right?”

“No,” P tells them plainly, eyes shadowed as he turns and heads towards Koyama with a grim set to his shoulders. “Being an angel is the same as being an idol. We are nothing if we don’t do as we’re told. Our feelings are immaterial.”

He stretches his hand out towards Koyama then, who smiles at him in relief-trusting, so trusting-as he waves back.

But then the smile fades.

And Koyama starts to gag.

~~*~~

Tegoshi thinks he has never experienced true horror in his life until the moment he sees Yamapi trying to kill Koyama.

Demons and ghosts and spirits and monsters he can deal with. Those are things that are supposed to try and kill them. And make no mistake about it, there have times when it’s been close.

But it isn’t until he sees their own leader making the attempt that something truly cold and awful shoots down his spine, makes him still, makes him angry.

This isn’t Yamapi, he thinks, something’s wrong. They did something to him.

Koyama starts to go blue around the mouth as it becomes impossible for him to breathe and the others don’t know what to do; Massu and Shige jump on the angel, try to pull him away, but he throws them off easily, not looking away from Koyama, intent. Ryo throws holy water, trying to exorcise whatever demon has gotten into P. It doesn’t work.

When Koyama’s knees hit the floor and blood starts seeping out of his nose, Tegoshi sees it, that flicker of regret on P’s face, a moment of genuine sorrow.

And that makes him even angrier.

“STOP IT!” he shouts, and gets in-between Koyama and Yamapi, throwing his arms out. “Why are you doing this if you don’t even want to?!”

And then Yamapi finally reels, as if he’s been struck by the word of God, staggering backwards and eyes wide. “My orders,” he begins, sounding breathless as Tegoshi glares at him (though it really just looks like an almighty pout).

In the distance, lightning flashes, while Koyama sprawls out on the floor, gasping for oxygen and bewildered. Shige is immediately at his side, helping him up, giving a wary look over his shoulder at Yamapi.

“Why do you want Koyama dead?” Shige questions quietly, and everything feels like it’s frozen in time somehow, like they’re in an alternate universe and Tegoshi is sure that this isn’t Yamapi, not the one he’s known for the last six years.

P sets his jaw. “I can’t answ…”

Tegoshi still feels the sparks of fury from earlier jumping in his belly; he narrows his eyes. “Answer him,” he says.

“He was my brother,” Yamapi reveals, and the words fall out of him like water over a cliff, pulled by the undeniable forces of gravity. He turns incredulous eyes on Tegoshi.

“Brother? What do you mean bro…” Shige stops, eyes going huge in realization, in the same kind of way someone’s does when they get slapped in the face. “An angel?”

Koyama coughs and sputters disbelief alongside him, the air he’d finally been able to get back into his oxygen starved body sluicing out again in surprise.

“Fallen and reborn as a human,” Yamapi reveals reluctantly, with another wary, sideways look at Tegoshi. “His name was Chamuel, and he loved humanity more than any of us.”

“Figures,” Ryo murmurs, under his breath with his arms crossed, as if trying to hide the rapid beat of his heart from the night’s incomprehensible events.

“If… if Koyama is your brother, why are you trying to kill him?” Massu’s eyes look up at Yamapi with the same expression he imagines Massu would make if all the gyoza in the world were suddenly gone.

Yamapi feels the rigidness of his shoulders slump slightly in the face of that; as powerful as heaven’s persuasion can be, clearly there are some things much more daunting. “He’s dangerous. The demons want to use him to spy on heaven’s plans.” Pause. “Beyond that, he’s a symbol of disobedience. And that has always been the greatest threat against heaven.”

Koyama looks stricken, and Yamapi is forced to turn away. “I was pulled back to heaven because my superiors suspect I’m too sympathetic with you. They…convinced me that this has to be done.”

Tension rockets again in everyone but Koyama, who smiles thinly up at Yamapi. “If I’m dangerous than maybe you should hurry up and…”

Ryo punches him in the side of the head. “You shut up.”

Koyama yelps and holds his head, while Shige gives Ryo a dirty look.

Yamapi’s mouth is set in a grim line. “I have to do this.” He extends his hand again.

Tegoshi frowns. “You won’t.”

Yamapi’s hand slings back down to his side as if shoved.

“Um,” Shige murmurs, looking at Tegoshi after a moment, “how are you doing that?”

The youngest member blinks. “Doing what?”

“That!” Shige repeats, incredulous that Tegoshi hadn’t noticed. “Stopping him! He’s an angel.”

Tegoshi is confused. “I’m just asking.”

“Uh, by asking you mean ordering,” Shige scoffs, because he definitely hadn’t heard any question marks in the last few thwarted Don’t Kill Koyama demands. Not that he isn’t grateful, but everything is very, very weird right now and Shige’s is a mind that always tries to make sense of things.

Yamapi looks equally as confounded. “I…can’t kill him,” he reports, after a moment of what looks to be mighty struggling.

Everyone sighs in relief.

Tegoshi manages a smile. “Good,” he says, looking suddenly tired. “I’m glad you changed your mind.”

“I didn’t. You’re stopping me.”

Less relief now.

Tegoshi looks irritated again. “You don’t even want to kill him, why are you trying?! Just… just stop okay!”

Yamapi stops. Everything. Moving, blinking, breathing.

The rest of NEWS all turns to Tegoshi as one. “Um,” they say, because there’s really nothing else.

Tegoshi looks as confounded as anyone at that. “Unfreeze?” he attempts after a moment, cautiously.

Yamapi reanimates with a gust of air. “How are you doing that?” he asks, voice booming. Wind starts to pick up around him. “What are you?”

Tegoshi takes a step backwards. “I’m just…me. I mean, I’m pretty sure I am.”

Yamapi steps forward, hand clamping down hard on Tegoshi’s shoulder.

All anyone can do is stare as Yamapi’s eyes start to go blinding and white. A moment later, Tegoshi’s start to too.

The others hurry to cover their ears and close their eyes, and as the brightness grows and grows, there is a shout, an explosion of brilliant white, and then, silence.

~~*~~

When Tegoshi opens his eyes again he is fine. Everyone is fine.

The back of the warehouse however, is not quite so lucky. It has been blown wide open, wiped off the face of all existence. There isn’t even any debris left from the impact of Yamapi’s blast.

And Yamapi himself might be gaping a little, in so far as angels can gape, which is kind of interesting to see, because Tegoshi is pretty sure it’s never happened before.

“What happened?” Tegoshi breathes, wide-eyed as Yamapi’s hand continues to rest on his shoulder, a handprint-shaped burn sizzling through his clothes.

When Yamapi removes his hand, the skin underneath is perfect and smooth, no warmer than normal human body temperature.

The angel takes a step back, shaken. “You tell me.”

Cautiously, the other members open their eyes again, stand again, and whistle at the damage.

“What the hell is wrong with you, P?” Ryo snarls, gesturing to the nothing where there used to be a wall. “You’re reconditioned and now you’ve decided to try and kill all of us tonight?!”

He sounds more hurt than angry, and Koyama pats his arm, because of course Koyama is the one trying to comfort people after Yamapi tried to choke him to death like they’ve suddenly all become KAT-TUN or something.

Yamapi slumps slightly, and it’s almost one-hundred percent human. “It was a test,” he says, by way of a lame defense. “It wouldn’t have killed him.”

“Thanks for the warning, asshole,” Ryo sulks.

“And the test results?” Shige asks, because he can’t help it. He’s always, always known something extra weird was going on with Tegoshi, beyond just the consensus that he is some sort of weird spiritual medium who also happens to be blessed with some incredibly good luck. The desire to discover what Tegoshi actually is flares bright inside him, especially at the prospect of finally getting an answer. “What is he?”

Tegoshi pouts. “Just me.”

Yamapi just seems tired somehow. “The test was inconclusive,” he admits to Shige, shoulders hunched.

Silence.

Massu’s voice is the one that asks, quietly, “So what now?”

Koyama suggests alcohol.

Lots and lots of alcohol.

~~*~~

“If I disobey,” Yamapi tells them, still marginally sober after what Shige thinks is enough alcohol to kill a team of marines, “I will fall.”

“What does that mean? Will you be reborn as a human, like Koyama?”

Koyama twitches a bit at the reminder, clearly trying to see if he can recall being an angel while wondering why he ever would have wanted to stop at the same time.

To everyone else he looks kind of constipated, but even half-drunk, Shige knows his best friend like the insides of his own eyelids.

“Or,” Shige pushes, coming to a sudden, dreadful realization. “Would it be worse than that?” He ignores Koyama’s look of protest at the word choice. “Would you become like Lucifer?”

“I’d lose my power,” Yamapi affirms, swaying a bit in his seat against Massu’s shoulder. “Beyond that, I’m not sure. Chamuel forcibly ripped his Grace out so he could be reborn. I wouldn’t.”

Koyama tosses back another shot of Jager. “Can we um, can we not use that name in the conversation anymore, maybe?”

Yamapi turns serious eyes on him at that, though he looks like he’s starting to have trouble focusing them on any one specific target. “That is the name our Father gave you. It is a good name.”

Koyama winces a little. “But I like the name my mother gave me.”

Yamapi seems to consider this. “Fair enough.”

Shige feels this is starting to get into the realm of the ridiculous. The ridiculous-er. Perhaps they’ve ordered too much alcohol.

Eventually, he manages to hold up a hand. “What are we going to do, then?” he demands, and maybe liquid courage has something to do with how decisively he says it. “You’re not going to kill Koyama, right?” He points right at Yamapi’s face when he asks, and as he does, realizes that liquid courage probably has everything to do with it if the mild-mannered Kato Shigeaki is suddenly bold enough to almost poke an angel of the Lord in the eye.

Yamapi looks genuinely sorrowful. “I don’t want to kill him. I was only going to because heaven can be very, very convincing. And scary. That as well.”

Not the answer. Shige crosses his arms sternly. “Are you or aren’t you?”

“Don’t I have a say in this?” Koyama asks, voice small.

“No,” everyone tells him, because he’d pretty much given it up back at the warehouse earlier and thus rendered his vote null.

Koyama makes a strange noise of indignation in the back of his throat and steals Massu’s rum and coke. Tegoshi pats his arm soothingly.

From there, everyone turns their attention back to Yamapi, who is concentrating very, very hard on the half-empty bottle of tequila in front of him. “I… won’t,” he decides, after a moment, with a sigh, and a vaguely apologetic look to Koyama. “I also like the name your mother gave you.” He finishes off the second half of the bottle, then chuckles to himself, darkly. “It’s strange,” he begins, and trails off.

“What is?” Tegoshi asks, obligingly.

“NEWS,” Yamapi answers, without hesitation.

“I guess we’ve been called worse things,” Shige surmises.

Yamapi grabs Shige’s drink out of his hands and downs it. “I am an angel of the Lord. I’m not supposed to like anything. Cham…Koyama is a fallen angel. Everything that we loathe the most.”

Koyama shrinks down in the booth a bit.

“But I still like him,” Yamapi says. “It’s strange.”

“Not really, Kei-chan’s the best,” Tegoshi chimes in, once again, completely superior without meaning to be.

Yamapi eyes him next. “And you,” he starts, finishing off the last drops of Shige’s vodka and Red bull, “you I have never been able to place. You’re even stranger than Koyama.”

Tegoshi starts to look nervous now. P doesn’t notice. “You’re fuzzy all the time. Like you can only be noticed when you want to be noticed.”

Shige snorts. “He always wants to be noticed.”

Yamapi looks like he agrees, eyes blinking owlishly at Tegoshi. “But you’re oddly compelling at the same time. You’re confusing and incomprehensible but somehow, something about you doesn’t make me dislike that, even though you’re probably an abomination also.”

“Uh, thanks?” Tegoshi answers, clearly unsure as to how to respond.

“At least he’s not trying to smite you,” Shige reminds him.

Yamapi’s hand lands squarely on Shige’s shoulder, making him jump. “Shige is special as well,” he vows.

Shige isn’t sure he likes the sound of that. “Pretty sure I’m not,” he says, slowly. “Maybe you’re drunk.”

“No, no. You’re seared into my brain.” The angel points to his temple knowingly. “It’s just not time for you yet.”

“Um,” Shige says, “you’re definitely drunk.”

“Yes,” Yamapi agrees. “But I’m telling the truth because I don’t know how to lie.”

Ryo and Massu look at each other and both silently agree that they don’t want to know what’s special about them if they can avoid it.

Yamapi opens his mouth to tell them anyway. “For some reason I can’t see you at all,” he says to Ryo, secretively, then turns to Massu. “And you seem normal, which either makes you very good at hiding it or the scariest one of us all.” Massu just blinks and doesn’t know what to say.

Ryo does. Sort of. “You can’t see me? I’m right here, douchenozzle.”

Yamapi frowns. “I don’t know what that is. But I can only see you with these eyes.” He points to the only eyes he has, right in his face. “Not my other…eyes.” He gestures to the air around the sides and back of his head vaguely.

“Maybe you should stop drinking now,” Shige offers, and tries to pry the angel’s latest pilfered glass out of his hand. It’s immobile.

Yamapi keeps talking.

“NEWS is full of strange, special people. So special that my brothers would strike you down without hesitation the moment they saw you. That’s what angels do, you know.”

Then he stops, brow furrowed. “I guess I’m not an angel anymore, then.”

He looks strangely lost after that realization, but before he can think any more about it (or talk any more about it) Ryo hastily waves their waitress over (again) and orders another bottle of whiskey. “The good stuff,” he intones, and pulls out a fat cash tip for her to hurry.

She nods and practically runs to get it.

They pour a round of double shots for everyone out of the fresh bottle after it arrives and before they drink, Ryo stands in the booth with his glass held high in the air. He gives a grim salute with the drink. “So I guess, uh… here’s to falling,” he announces, awkwardly. “I think I speak for all of these idiots when I say we like you better not killing us anyway.”

“Cheers,” the others agree, and upend their shot glasses, half expecting to be struck dead by lightning at any second now for the blasphemy.

Yamapi forlornly drinks straight from the bottle.

~~*~~

As it turns out, Zachariah and the rest of the heavenly host are too busy dealing with other things to notice P’s rebellion right away, as the battle across the ocean changes course abruptly.

We will end the plague of humanity on earth, Zachariah declares over angel radio the morning after, and the rumbling of it shocks P awake and sober in a heartbeat. Lucifer will walk, to begin the apocalypse, and will be struck down by Michael to end the world. This is the path we walk to paradise.

Koyama moans from the floor of Ryo’s apartment, like he’d heard it as well, but had not been able to comprehend its true meaning, not in his current state. To him, it had probably just sounded like an ache would, if aches made noise.

“Yamapi?” he croaks after a minute, clutching at his throbbing head and looking miserable and still half asleep. “What’s happening?”

“The end,” P answers.

“Oh.” Koyama rubs dried drool from the corner of his mouth and goes back to sleep.

P lets him, sitting awake and alone for what feels like a very long time. He wonders if this had been Zachariah’s plan all along.

He doesn’t know what to do.

~~*~~

Sometime later, he feels it when the final seal breaks, as surely as he feels Raphael’s fury, Castiel’s death, Zachariah’s joy, and the Grace of the devil as their banished brother rises from the fires of hell to freely walk the earth.

P, helpless, shuts his eyes and prays to his Father for guidance, for instruction.

On the couch, Shige curls around one of Ryo’s cushions and murmurs something vaguely coherent about water balloons and chunky soup in his sleep, before rolling over again and scratching absently at his head.

After what feels like hours of unanswered prayer, P forces himself to stand, trying not to feel bitterness at his Father’s absence. Inside him, Tomohisa’s soul pulses with sympathy and mutual understanding for deadbeat dads.

The angel sighs and goes to get everyone lunch; he supposes there will be much to talk about when they finally wake up.

No one should face the end of the world on an empty stomach.

~~*~~

Halfway through 2009, P falls, Lucifer is freed, and the members spend the summer months preparing for the apocalypse by taking turns doing decoy work (officially called “solo activities” in the jimusho) in the hopes that it will satisfy the public enough so that no one will wonder what the rest of NEWS is up to in the meantime.

The world is starting to end at that point, and even still, it has been the kind of year that, after everything is said and done, the future NEWS will look back on as only the beginning of all the things in their lives that truly suck.

The future is not bright.

3. Now

He hasn’t dreamed for a very, very long time.

Not since Cold Oak, not since he’d heard that voice calling out for help in his head, since he’d seen the images of demons under human control, of people a little bit older than him killing each other for seemingly no reason.

After that day in the van, it had been his last dream of that kind until now.

Which is weird, because up until a minute ago, he’d been certain he was still awake.

He watches in stunned silence as the world suddenly goes gray and black and red around him. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees it when his guitar case starts to flood with thick red liquid, making the resin and the dust cloth float up and over the edge, splattering blood everywhere. Where are you? a voice whispers from the darkness.

His heart starts to pound in his chest, hands clenched tight enough around the neck of his guitar that he can feel the strings pressing hard into his skin. There’s a rush if air in his ears, and then the blood is flooding over, crashing towards him in a wave and he finds himself opening his mouth, feeling the warmth of it hit the back of his throat and slosh deep down inside, making him feel strong, making him feel drunk on power and courage.

He drinks greedily until-

--a hand lands on his shoulder.

His eyes snap open as he wakes with a grunt.

“Ryo-kun, you’re going to hurt your hand,” Tegoshi’s voice interrupts, and when Ryo blinks the world is back to full brightness and color, the youngest member’s voice quizzical and charming and like an incantation breaking a spell.

Ryo starts and feels the throbbing in his palm from where the strings are digging in to his skin, leaving red-pink lines across his hand. “Huh,” he mutters, shaking his head to clear it.

Tegoshi grins. “Thinking of a new song?”

Ryo’s heartbeat is still roaring in his ears, arrhythmic and jarring and definitely not in the kind of state that would lead him to writing the sorts of songs Johnnies perform.

“It’s not a very good one,” he answers Tegoshi after a moment indulgently, looking up at the younger idol with a puzzled kind of gratitude. He wonders how the brat always seems to save him without knowing it.

Tegoshi, unaware of Ryo’s thoughts, just looks convinced that the song-that everything-will all eventually work out for his friend. “Ryo-kun will turn the song into something good,” he says with certainty, before flouncing off to do cute things with his hair.

Ryo stares at the marks on his palm from the guitar strings after Tegoshi leaves, and for a moment he can see five perfectly straight rivers of blood flowing from his hand.

~~*~~

It isn’t the hordes of hell that attack them first. It isn’t a demon, or Lucifer, or even a hell hound or a lame monster of the week.

At the start of the apocalypse, the angels strike first.

Zachariah appears in the middle of a war meeting one afternoon, red-faced with anger, the thoughts of a thousand betrayals buzzing in his head.

When he shows up, he grabs Koyama by the throat and picks him up out of his chair, squeezing hard as he examines the eldest member like he’s a particularly nasty looking sort of insect.

“Really?” he demands, incredulous at just about everything as he turns to P. “You fell for this?!”

P stands hastily. “Put him down, Zachariah.”

“I ask you to kill one, measly traitor and instead I end up with another one. Another one! Tell me, Perpetiel, is falling a fad or something? Is it what all the cool kids are doing these days? Did I miss the memo while I was busy trying to clean up Castiel’s mess?”

Koyama struggles weakly in Zachariah’s hands, striking ineffectually against the angel’s wrist. Zachariah wrinkles his nose in distaste and pitches the idol across the conference table, slamming his head against the edge it. “I am going to turn every single one of you worms into dust,” he declares. “As painfully as possible.”

He glares at Ryo then, who is sitting to his immediate right. Ryo instantly collapses out of his chair with a groan, coughing up blood. “Aw, you miss having a stomach?” he asks the writhing human conversationally. “Wait until you see what happens without kidneys.”

Ryo makes a sound like a wounded dog.

“Stop this, Zachariah,” P demands, throwing himself over the table at his brother, angel killing blade in hand.

Zachariah twists and dodges, grabbing P’s arm on the first thrust and slamming an elbow down into it, causing the sword to clatter onto the table top. He throws P against the far wall like a rag doll and the fallen angel sticks there, held up by some invisible angel glue.

Zachariah looks beyond disgusted. “You’d even raise your sword to your own brother for them? Honestly, between you and Castiel, I can’t decide who was worse.” He sneers. “Well, at least you’ll both be dead soon.”

Tegoshi kneels at Ryo’s side and panics as his friend’s pallor starts to change, health rapidly declining. “You’re okay. It’s going to be alright, okay? Promise.”

Ryo nods and tries not move any more. Blood oozes out of his mouth.

In the background, Massu gets halfway through drawing a banishing sigil on the wall with his own blood before his arm gets broken with a thought. He hisses and tries to finish with the other hand, but Zachariah snaps that too, and then both legs, just for emphasis.

Shige manages to catch Massu before he hits the floor and it’s all he can do to help, all that’s possible for someone like him when facing the wrath of a fully-charged hammer of the Lord.

They’re helpless like this, with P pinned to the wall and unable to move, their personal angel depowering just a little more every day.

“Oh, you,” Zachariah sighs, when he lays eyes on a terrified Shige. “You’re lucky.” He simply advances on the cowering human and rests two fingers against the startled idol’s forehead, dropping him unconscious to the floor in a heartbeat.

And so the room is rendered defenseless in a moment. Zachariah claps his hands once, in delight. “Are you watching, Perpetiel? The things you lost everything for are dying like flies in front of you. Was it worth it?”

P doesn’t answer, just glares from where he is, stuck to the wall by his brother’s fully powered Grace.

Zachariah grins. “All right, who’s left? I want to make this last, if possible.”

Tegoshi reluctantly lets go of Ryo’s hand and stands, looking down at the older idol’s bloodstained lips and feeling a cold fury he hasn’t seen in a long time.

Zachariah is all smiles when he lays eyes on Tegoshi. “Ah, so it’s down to the prettiest unico…”

“Shut up,” Tegoshi tells him, angrily. His voice is like ice.

And to both his and Zachariah’s surprise, Zachariah’s mouth snaps shut.

Yamapi seems hopeful at the development, the familiarity with which Zachariah is subdued. It is just like that night, back at the warehouse. Whatever Tegoshi’s power is, it is all they have now.

With some effort, Zachariah pries his mouth open again. “What was that?” Pause. Glare. “What are you?”

“A hunter,” Tegoshi answers automatically, part of him still waiting to be struck down by heaven’s almighty power.

Zachariah doesn’t disappoint him. He waves a hand at him, muttering, “Whatever you are, we’ll see if you can shake off a crushed spine.”

Tegoshi winces.

Nothing happens.

“Impossible,” Zachariah breathes.

Tegoshi looks questioningly up at Yamapi, who is still pinned to the wall. Yamapi, wide-eyed, slowly nods at him. It’s worth a shot.

“Fix them,” Tegoshi says next, on a whim, and Zachariah looks wildly indignant at the idea of obeying. Honestly, Tegoshi doesn’t look like he believes Zachariah will either.

But then Massu stands up. Ryo stands up. Koyama and Shige both stand up. They all look fine. Shaken, maybe, but alive. Whole.

“Let him go,” Tegoshi adds next, confidence growing as he motions towards Yamapi.

Yamapi slowly slips back to the ground again, looking ruffled but unharmed.

Zachariah sputters. “How are you doing that?!” he snarls. “What kind of demon spa…” he trails off abruptly, eyes wide. “Cambion. You’re an…”

“Don’t say abomination,” Tegoshi mutters, and Zachariah’s jaw snaps shut again, hard enough to click this time.

“What the hell, Tegoshi,” Ryo starts, but Yamapi silences him with a pointed look.

Tegoshi takes a deep breath. “Leave us alone. All of you. Don’t come here to hurt us, or talk to us, or even look at us. Just let us do our job in peace.”

Zachariah manages to open his mouth again.

“Don’t,” Tegoshi says. “Just go. I don’t ever want to see you near us again.”

Everyone blinks as the place Zachariah had been standing is suddenly empty, a lone gust of wind the only sign of his departure.

Tegoshi, legs shaking, slumps back into his chair.

His groupmates stare at him.

“Um, so what the hell, Tegoshi?” Ryo repeats, when he can’t hold it back anymore.

Tegoshi, purses his lips and stares straight ahead, at the smooth hardwood of the conference table. He is clearly deep in thought. Which is understandable, Shige supposes, considering every life-altering thing that had just happened to their youngest member. He’s probably trying to figure out what the heck is going on too.

Everyone holds their breaths and waits for him.

And then, about a minute later, a piping hot sweet potato pizza suddenly pops into existence on the table, cheese bubbly and wafting steam and good, buttery smells all over the room.

Tegoshi grins and wipes some sweat from his brow, clearly very pleased with himself and not thinking about life-altering things like universe-changing powers very much at all. “Today must be my lucky day or something,” he breathes, opening the box. The others stare at him.

“Pizza?” he offers them, politely.

Shige slaps a hand to his forehead.

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