A/N: Written for:

Diversity Writing Challenge, g35 – fic that explores death
Endurance Challenge, weeks 9-10 (first two chapters)
The Side-Stories/Spin-offs boot camp, #026 – explode
The Becoming the Tamer King Challenge, Steamy Jungle task

New series…kind of. The first fic was actually planned to be my love-buckets one (so that'll crop up towards the end of the year), but I needed something for Endurance that would last only a couple of weeks and had no multichaps that were close enough to completion – so cure new really short one, and cue another fic in this verse that winds up coming out first. XD

I used the word "gods" here, but I don't mean it in a religious sense. It's more like the gods in final fantasy – Shiva and Bahamut and such – that also wind up being summons or eidolons: weapons in the hands of humans. And when thinking what to call their protectors…angels. Demons or devils will crop up somewhere too, because what else to call the opposite of an angel, right?

This is also a side-story from Yutaka's viewpoint and Yutaka's not directly involved with this particular incident. There'll be a more detailed fic focusing on the main players, though I don't expect to be writing that particular fic until at least 2018 (too many other things vying for attention :D).

Gods and Angels

Grounding Angel
Part 1

The appropriate emotion is mostly dread, and he feels it in abundance, but far too much of it is aimed at the wrong person. Or not wrong precisely, but inappropriate in the current circumstances. After all, Tomoki is perfectly healthy and safe, if equally worried, beside him.

It's a friend and mentor on death's bed and he's only thinking of how easily it can be his little brother, the next time.

At least he understands, now, the difference between an angel and a god. Not servant and master, or protector and protected, but one whose heart belongs to only few people versus one who encompasses the world. Hearing the words those years ago is different from seeing it playing out now, with other angels and gods. And the reports are so muddled, no-one's the least bit sure as to what's occurred.

Yutaka knows enough, though. He cares about few people and his parents and little brother were pretty much it a few years ago. But that was before Tomoki transcended the plane and he became one of his brother's angels: his guardian and his protector as well as his older brother. Before they were both trained, separately and together, and sent out numerous times to protect this world of theirs. Before he grew closer to certain angels, and farther from others, and Tomoki grew close to certain others too: both angels and other gods. If there's a particularly large problem, then they all go out together because they work best like that, but typically it's only one god and whoever many angels they have because the Hall doesn't let problems get that big.

Typically, gods don't come back in a casket either. It's not Takuya though, thank goodness, but that also means he's the god-slayer because angels can't kill gods. It's a law of nature, or the natural order and there's some unseen force above even the Hall that oversees it. There's a dead god though, and two angels and thank goodness those aren't the twins but everyone's in a bad way. And, honestly, everyone's worried, because they might be two different gods and their angels, but they're still supposed to be on the same side.

And gods and angels leave marks in a way no darker creature can, and so the unconscious god is condemned. But not now. The Hall isn't so cruel. Three dead and three survivors, but all three of them are unconscious and injured and carried into the Healing Room. Battle marks adorn all of them, but one of the angels is badly burned as well, and not by fire.

And it can very easily become tragically ironic, since the god they protect is a fire dragon. But it's not fire. The healers can tell that quickly enough, and none of their burn salves work on it. It's not quite energy burn either. Lifewater doesn't accomplish much and three days later, rumours spread of a casket burning.

And at that point, not even Tomoki can distract his big brother. Rather, he gets to witness a rare display of anger. Because angels love and protect their gods beyond anything, but that doesn't make them incapable of loving others. And Tomoki has Izumi, like an older sister to her, and Junpei who's like an older brother to the both of them (and Yutaka's the oldest of them all in that little family knot). But beyond that, Tomoki has Takuya as well: another god and a mentor, and Takuya's angels who've trained and supported all of them. Mentors and mentees and friends, all of them. And while Tomoki is at the top of his list, he cares for all his friends.

And so he flies into the Healing Room and manages to cause even the stoic Kouji to wince and turn. They're up now, Kouji and Takuya too. Kouichi still sleeps though, burning with something not even their best healers can grasp.

'They're just rumours,' Kouji sighs, turning to his brother's still form again. The healers were trying to adjust the burn paste, and the burns were a softer black now, but nothing else had changed. 'Since the Hall can't question us until he wakes up.'

What will the Hall do if he never does? But he can't ask that question aloud, and it has nothing to do with Kouji being right there, either. Voicing that thought makes it too real a possibility to ignore. And all I could think about at first was how easily it could have been Tomoki like one of them instead…

'Stop that.' Kouji rubs his arms a little.

'I'm sorry.' And Yutaka takes a few deep breaths and tries to reign his power back in. Ice and fire are equal and opposite poles in normal times, and perfect sparring partners (whereas two fire elements can burn a camp to the ground if they go too far into it) but this isn't a normal time. Kouji's power is exhausted. Takuya's even more so: he's bundled into a blanket even now and apparently his skin had been ice cold those three days before.

Kouichi, on the other hand, is cold then and burning now: burning from the inside and maybe that's the cause of his external burns or an effect. The healers don't know, and nobody knows their bodies better than the healers or they themselves, and Yutaka and Kouji and Takuya and all their other friends and families can think all they like and never come up with a better explanation.

At least, when Yutaka brushes his palm against his mentor's slick forehead, he pulls away a little of the excess heat.

The healers call Tomoki in after that, and the two brothers take turns fighting the fever until it breaks a week later. By then, Takuya's back to normal as well though Kouji's still shaky (and the healers think there's no helping that at the moment because he's a twin and twins have some overlap with their souls). The others are impatient: impatient because they're frightened, because they want to know, because they want to move around like they always do but they can't with two groups rooted to a single Healing Room.

In actuality, only Takuya's group is stuck. Tomoki can leave if he wants but he put in a request to stay and the healers backed it up. It was the fever, mostly, but no-one calls for a retraction and so they skip through the loophole and remain. Friends will do it anyway, if the Hall is feeling generous. But they're impatient too. They keep on sending the baron, and he goes back empty handed because neither Kouji nor Takuya have much to say.

All they know is that Takuya doesn't recall doing anything that could have killed the other god. 'I was so far outmatched, anyway. Went for one of his angels instead hoping that would stop him, but…'

But instead it had only angered him further, from the sounds of it. And after that is a muddled mess. Kouji claims he killed the other angel, but the death of the other god and his brother's injuries are still unexplained. And it's nerve-wracking, waiting, even if the possibility of a crime has been vetoed because there's an unanswered question there and a question possibly Kouichi won't be able to answer as well, when he awakes. But it's dangerous knowledge, since it's not easy to kill a god at all.

In the last visit, the baron tells them they'll probably be reassigned to the World Tree, if there are no answers forthcoming. Protecting the stairs to the Hall without ever stepping off the bottom one and killing anyone who approaches without explicit permission from the Hall. It's a mind-numbing and lonely job, far more a punishment than a reward, but the Hall has always felt it best for those whose powers can't be controlled.

Which leads to them hoping that Kouichi does have some idea of what's going on and Takuya almost searing a hole through the wall of the Healing Room under the weight of worry and self-blame…

And there's little the rest of them can do but be there.