"Is he going to die?" a young girl's voice asked on the edge of Naoya's hearing.
Abel sighed, sounding frustrated. "No."
"But I wanted him to be my friend." After raising his little brother so many times, Naoya could hear pouting.
"People actually make better friends if they're not zombies," Abel tried to explain, trying not to sound too annoyed with this girl.
Zombies now? They were disgustingly trendy, but what was this about making friends with them? Naoya made something of an effort to speak but all he could make was a, "Hnn?" sound.
"Naoya!" He felt hands that had to be Kazuya's grab one of his: from the smell of this place, he was in a hospital bed. Although was that… Yes, it was the smell of gunpowder. So he was under guard.
"Bless," the girl said, as though she was saying a word much worse than damn. "He's waking up." So he might live and not become her new friend. "I wanted a new uncle."
"Hnn?" Naoya managed to say again, before yawning.
"This is Alice," Kazuya explained. "Remember Belial? I also fought this demon called Nebrios that I think Lucifer sent… Anyway, Nebrios showed up with her and said that the two of them adopted her, and since Belial was a part of me now I had to watch her at least every other weekend. She calls both of them her uncles, and since you're my brother that would make you her uncle too. She's a ghost, or she was," she was a very powerful demon now, "so all her friends were zombies. No, I'm not killing him for you, Alice."
"You're, you're not my real uncle!" The girl stamped her foot on the ground and said, "I hate you!" Naoya felt her vanish in a huff.
Maybe it was a good thing Kazuya probably hadn't gotten Beelzebub this round, Naoya thought muzzily, or Lucifer might have come demanding his secretary and chief flunky back. Of course, Lucifer was probably too busy partying to care. Naoya hadn't managed to find anyone to celebrate with except Haru, and she'd mostly amused herself getting him drunk and anticipating his future pain and Gin's return. Such a cruel woman, just like his brother.
"Can you open your eyes?" Abel asked him.
Naoya shook his head just a bit after trying for a moment. "My eyelids are heavy. They've been keeping me drugged, haven't they. Something new, since 1943 anyway. I need to look into medicine again, it's hard to keep current in so many fields at once these days…" Another yawn.
"Why 1943?" Abel asked him. "Were you a doctor?"
Ha. That took money he hadn't had a chance to get his hands on at the time. "Austrian resistance. Good thing I'd worked out how to make colored contacts a few centuries ago…" Otherwise he would have been in trouble just for seeming to be an albino, forget his hatred of any sort of superior race ideology after millennia of hearing tribes fight over who exactly were God's Chosen as though that was anything to be proud of. Talking about a thousand-year kingdom of law had made him suspicious the angels were involved, so he'd dug up some old recipes, like those for Greek Fire. "I'm not sure what kind of relatives we were back then. I'd gotten put on an orphanage doorstep, either because of the eyes or because someone had a vision and I didn't find you until years later when you were being herded onto a train with a lot of other miscellaneous undesirables. Your family was probably dead and you didn't want to talk about them even when you started talking again."
Naoya's shoulders itched suddenly, and it took all his focus to rub them against the back of the bed a bit, trying to get rid of it. "Someone tried interrogation chemicals on me after I'd used myself as bait, since their spells were obviously failures. For future reference, unicorn horns purify the air around them as well as any liquids they're immersed in." So if you had a boy to look after who would be sent to the gas chambers right away if captured, since he was too young to be useful slave labor, sewing a unicorn summoning circle into a handkerchief for him to hold over his mouth and setting it to draw power from nearby death-by-poison and the desperate wish for salvation was a good way to have him busted out if you were otherwise occupied keeping a sorcerer too busy to notice his perimeter wards blowing up. Especially a unicorn that knew recarm and could send bullets right back to those who fired them.
"Using yourself as bait, like when we broke out of the lockdown." Abel sighed and Naoya felt the mattress shift a little as Abel sat down at the edge of the bed.
Naoya smiled. "You can complain about me taking the more dangerous parts when you're stronger than I am again." Until then, Naoya would do what he could, even though he couldn't visit the demon world, or… So much else Abel had been able to do.
"Like when I was the King of Bel, right?"
Oh. Yes. Naoya's brain really was still very slowed down. "So you've put that together," he said, pulling Abel down so the top of his brother's head was under his neck. Yet it still felt like too much effort to open his eyes. The fact that someone had raised the head of this bed (more proof this was a hospital bed) helped make it comfortable. "I shouldn't be surprised, after you found out about the song." Gathered so much information so fast. "Of course you had Atsuro to help you, but he's good with search engines and databases, not people and legwork."
"Naoya?" Abel asked as Naoya breathed in the scent of little brother, with no trace of blood or illness, just soap and a recent shower.
"What is it?"
"Why did you let yourself get captured?" Why hadn't he just vanished somewhere he'd be safe even if Abel didn't ever get to see him again.
"Abel-Kazuya," Naoya said, "Do you remember what I told you after Metatron left about taking responsibility?"
"That it would be a good world if we did?" Something like that. There had been a lot of other stuff going on.
"This is our world now, humanity's world, the way it was supposed to be," Naoya told him. "We can't get complacent: you threw the angels out before, but this time they'd hopefully have to sacrifice their pride to come back, although Enoch is too damn good at finding ways to weasel out of…" Naoya tried to make a fist, but his fingers still had that 'just woke up' weakness. "It's ours, we have free will, so we are the only ones responsible for our actions. But that still doesn't mean we don't have to take responsibility. It's because the three of you returned to the Lockdown to take responsibility for your actions that we have this chance. I'm probably looking at a life sentence, but that's a small enough price to pay for actions that freed this world." And kept you alive. "And you can come visit me, so what's wrong? Won't you prefer that to having me on the run, never seeing me again?"
"I guess, but…" Abel clasped the hand that was hugging him to Naoya in his own. "I was going to move in with you when I started college."
"So? This way, there'll be room for you and Atsuro." The building was still fairly intact: thanks to his wards there hadn't been any demon attacks there aside from what happened to that punk kid who had 'stolen' one of Naoya's comps on the day he'd summoned his little brother and his friends to Tokyo. "There's a trust fund set up that will more than cover the rent and utilities, and I already set up all of that to be paid automatically." Since Naoya couldn't be bothered. "Oh, did you get your drinks?"
"Yeah, Haru made sure we did. Atsuro got so wired." Kazuya and Naoya both grinned: they knew Atsuro and Naoya could just picture it.
"Once I'm allowed up and about, I'll see what I can do about throwing a proper party for all of you," Naoya promised, finally opening his eyes enough to see Abel's distinctive hair and those headphones of his. "I've run background checks, but I still should meet all my little brother's friends."
"You've run background checks. Even though we couldn't get at the internet in the lockdown."
"Of course."
"Haru's right, you really do have a brother complex."
"I've seen you die too many times," Naoya said finally. "I don't want to see that happen again. I thought you were safe when you came back to life the first time: you were the King of Bel, protector of the world, and I was just a human with a curse who kept reincarnating. You were immortal, and you were always there when I found my way back to your city. Then came the ordeal, and the angels shattered your soul and destroyed all the civilization we'd worked to create, trying to grind mankind down into the dirt. Until you have the rest of your soul and your power back, I'm going to worry about you. And even then." He lifted his hand to stroke Kazuya's hair, vaguely aware of but ignoring the hangers-on in the background who weren't interrupting the brothers' reunion. "I do try to be a good big brother."
"Even when you're a jerk," Kazuya said, and smiled up at him.
"First, it runs in the family. Second, all big brothers have a responsibility to toughen their younger siblings up a bit. I'd have thought you'd be used to it by now." Naoya tapped his nose to see him go cross-eyed. "Now. Exactly how much trouble am I in?"
"Actually, Mom and Dad are being surprisingly laid-back about the entire thing. It's actually really suspicious," Abel told him. "It's like either they knew all along and were able to spy on us somehow to make sure we were fine so they didn't get worried or they're comparing it to what they did in their teens and twenties and going, 'Well, at least nobody got nuked and the world wasn't conquered by angels for more than a day or so.'"
Well, that was a surprise, but Naoya would deal with it later, when he was a little more awake. "Who do I have to talk to in order to get the needle out of my arm? Or are they planning to put me under again as soon as you leave?"
"Probably Commander Fushimi, he's the big hero of the whole thing," Abel said, "Which really embarrasses him since he thinks I should get the credit." So he wasn't much trouble for Kazuya to deal with. "Did you really do something like phantasm to get out of your handcuffs? You have got to teach me that."
"I did?" If so, "Damn." It wasn't as though there'd been much chance they'd trust him to begin with, but temporarily escaping after he'd turned himself in?
"Do you remember any of it? Like, at one point I heard from Izuna that you tried to make out with Gin."
Naoya peered at him. "…What?" Who did Captain Izuna think she was, and why did she thinks she could get away with telling his little brother a story like that? "I'm fairly sure that didn't happen. I vaguely remember Haru hitting on me, though."
"Haru hit on you?" Now Kazuya was the startled one.
"She said I had the same dangerous scent about me that you do. It seems you have a fan, little brother." He ruffled that hair, practice keeping his hand from getting caught by those wires.
"…Amane's also getting charged."
"And I presume you're nervous about saying that because you want me to help someone who tried to convince you to help the angels conquer humanity by being the face they could put on the campaign." And he'd also said it to change the subject, of course.
"Well, she got possessed by Remiel because she needed help fighting off Jezebel, and if Jezebel is a part of me, then I kind of started this by using her to kill Jikoku…"
Naoya sighed and patted the cat-earphoned and equally sly-hearted boy on the head. "I'll see what I can do." At least Kazuya was more worried about the Shomonkai maiden now than about Naoya. He'd sunk pretty low, as he'd said while describing the plan to break out of the lockdown, if someone who was currently practically a normal human was worrying about him. Speaking of which, "You didn't absorb Belberith's power, did you."
"I wanted to stay human," Abel confessed.
Naoya sighed again. "All of the bels are just parts of you, and we humans have free will. It's perfectly possible for you to be King of Bel and remain human. Do you really want him and Jezebel to be out there making trouble? They are parts of you, after all." And if Kazuya felt enough guilt over Jezebel's actions to try to manipulate Naoya using them… "Both of us are human, but we're not normal. We're the children of Adam and Eve, grandchildren of that bastard who is… who was always looking down on us from the sky. Most humans these days have angel, fallen angel, nymph… all sorts of blood that isn't human, and so their souls are also part demonic. Your soul has so much power because it's human, not because it isn't."
"I… Guess that's a relief." Except for the implications.
"As you've probably just guessed, megalomania also runs in the family. Our father was intended to be God's equal, the rank he later gave to that toady Enoch, also known as Metatron." Naoya scowled. "We were meant to be gods, and they tried to turn us into…" No, whatever was in his blood would make it too easy for him to fall into a rage, and that wouldn't help his case at all. "Slaves with our tongues cut out and worse," was what he settled for. "And now we're finally free." That knowledge calmed him, let him smile again. "And it's all thanks to you. I didn't foresee that happening at all: I thought it would take a war and our only hope was to strike before they took our ability to communicate away from us."
"With what the angels did all over the world, it's too late to try to cover up the existence of demons," Abel told him.
Naoya frowned. "I figured that much out." Did his brother think him an idiot now?
"Sorry, but that means people would be more likely to actually believe that you're Cain, and there are a lot of people," even among his friends, "who see him leaving us alone as a bad thing."
Naoya chuckled. "If you're worried for me… Don't worry, I'll be fine either way." Even if someone managed to sneak in to kill him, since Japan didn't have the death penalty. What was really concerning him was, "Since Jezebel ran away to the demon world and abandoned him, Belberith will probably devour her, so either way there's only one demon you need to kill in order to be complete…" If he'd absorbed Belberith like he should have, Jezebel would have remained.
"You're still thinking about that?" Abel asked him. When Abel had just told him that Naoya would probably have fanatic assassins about him, Naoya was still thinking about the Bels instead?
"Of course. You are my brother, after all, and first I…" It took him a moment to say it. "Killed you, and then I failed to protect you from those damned angels. I may be taking a break to celebrate," and recover, "but I'm not going to give up on making you whole again." For the benefit of the listeners, he added, "It will have to wait until the next life, though. I'll want to give Belberith plenty of time to revive and track down Jezebel, and he'll be on guard against being hauled into this world to be slaughtered."
"You're not going to unleash demons again, are you?" Naoya knew Abel, too, was asking this for the sake of the listeners.
"Of course not. It won't be easy, since he is a part of you, but summoning one demon is a much simpler proposition than training a population to resist an Ordeal. You saw the devil auction: humans have been doing it for thousands of years and it wasn't until the Lockdown started and people became desperate that it became a problem."
"…That was boot camp?" It wasn't Kazuya that demanded an answer to that startled question, but one of the guards.
"Ah, Agent Izuna," Naoya drawled, although she must be aware that they'd never met. "What's this about telling my little brother that I hit on some insect?"
"You were arming the populace of Tokyo?" she asked again, ignoring his question.
"You didn't figure that out? Of course you didn't." They were such fools compared to him, trying to treat with angels as though angels would respect human governance in the first place. Those who didn't learn from history were doomed to repeat it, although he'd been forced to recognize that millennia ago. "The Shomonkai instructed everyone who joined them and gave them comps, as well as trying to protect the refugee camps, but I knew that Azuma and others would yield to temptation and sell them on the black market." Izuna had seen what happened when Yakuza got their hands on comps. "Should I have left all the civilians defenseless against the attacks of human criminals, the Bel demons and the angels? The servants of the Bel demons, both demons and human cultists realized they could use the comps, but they would have turned Tokyo into a battleground even without them."
"But what you were really doing was forcing them to learn to fight the angels for you," she accused him.
"Yes," red-eyed Cain agreed. "That, too. The Bel demons and loose demons weren't the major threat to humanity: shouldn't you know by now?" He looked her up and down. "Someone who's more than half-demon herself should be aware that demons aren't necessarily evil, much less the biggest threat to humanity. They aren't organized the way angels are: most of them will happily take advantage of us if we're weak, but they treat each other the same way. They aren't dedicated to reducing us to a lesser race because they adore God and they're jealous of the attention he gives us, no matter how abusive."
She took a step back, orange eyes glinting with anger obviously covering fear, showing her teeth in a threat instead of a smile. "How dare you say I'm half-demon!"
"Because I know basic genetics. Don't worry, it's probably not true that one of your parents is a demon. You need demonic ancestry on both sides to have quite a few of your physical traits: they're recessives." Cain grinned. "Why make such a fuss about it? There's no such thing as a pure human anymore, not genetically, anyway. It's been thousands of years, and the strong survive, especially when heaven gives us no help, unless you consider smashing our civilizations 'help.'"
When she didn't have anything to say to that Naoya laughed. "I think it says very good things about humanity that after all these millennia of persecution, we love God far, far more than he loves us. Humanity has forgiven him over and over for all his crimes against us and still believes that he's a good person despite everything… Of course, I've noticed that children abused bytheir parents act exactly the same way. We don't want to believe that we were brought into this world by monsters, that the ones giving us guidance see us only as convenient slaves or …toys." The pause before the world toys left no doubt as to what kind of toys Naoya was talking about.
Kazuya elbowed him in the side, hard. "Don't be a jerk. And don't try to tell me that you think it's okay just because it runs in the family."
After Naoya caught his breath he smiled at his brother. "Point taken. Don't worry, Captain Izuna. As I said, there hasn't been a genetically pure human in ages. Anyone who tried to discriminate against you would have to discriminate against everyone. If it becomes an issue, let me know and I'll draw you a testing spell you can use on whoever's calling the kettle black." He hated hypocrisy, people who considered themselves better, holier than others.
"You can draw spells?" she asked him, professionalism back.
"Yes, and so can a lot of people. Ofuda, for example. I experimented with quite a few methods of spellcasting before computers. Before paper, for that matter."
"Is there any way to seal your powers or verify that you're not casting magic?" Because otherwise, that needle was staying in his arm and he was going right back to sleep after this.
Poor Alice and Nebrios. Unless Abel lets Belial out to play (and be a bonus boss in DS2), he's destroyed their little family. I would feel very sorry for them if it weren't for the whole killing people thing.