Chapter Seven: Jesus is Just All Right With Me

"Wow." Messiah said appreciatively, looking down at the Earth. "You really did ruin the world, didn't you Yosuke? I mean, in just the few hours of angel/demon warfare, nearly three billion people have already died! That makes you responsible for more deaths than any other human being in history, in case you were curious."

"It wasn't on purpose!" Yosuke said defensively.

"True, and that's why I'm agreeing to help you." Messiah said. "Now, let's get to saving the world. Don't worry, I do this sort of thing all the time."

"Really? Like when?"

"Well… remember awhile back, when the incarnation of Death came out of the moon and destroyed all life?" Messiah asked.

"Um, no?"

"Exactly."

"… Aaaaaaaaah." Yosuke said. "I get ya."

"That was some of my best work." Messiah said wistfully. "Though I'll admit I couldn't have pulled it off without those crazy kids and that robot. And the dog."

"Okay, I'm currently involved in a case to solve murders behind the television with a talking bear, and even I think you're making that up." Yosuke said.

"I don't blame you. The whole experience was kinda trippy." Messiah admitted. "But lately it hasn't been that interesting. My main thing recently has been trying to keep your friend Souji under control."

"W-what? Souji's going to destroy the world?!" Yosuke asked.

"Hmmm… not directly. It's just that I have to keep suppressing his powers as a chick magnet, or he'd attract every girl in your hometown to be his girlfriend. This wouldn't matter, except that one of them is dating a guy who goes on to work as a scientist in about twenty years. If he's happily married, he invents a new type of power plant that turns pollution into electricity. But if he gets his heart broken in high school, he becomes bitter and invents a satellite that shoots lasers, and… well, you've met Satan."

"…ah. I see the problem." Yosuke admitted.

"Yeah. And now you… it's like I'm saving the world from your world-saving group twenty-four-seven these days." Messiah said dryly. "Luckily, you are a simple case. Y'see, God and Lucifer both tend to miss out on the little things. Sometimes, one small change is enough to rock the whole world. And for you, that one small change is: duck."

"How is a bird going to…"

"Not that kind! I am going to send you back in time. You will, while astrally projecting, possess your former body, and when the time comes for you to die, you dodge it! Simple, right? If you never die, none of this ever happens!"

"Aaaaaaah! Okay, that makes… wait, I can possess people?!"

"Of course. Didn't Metatron tell you?" Messiah asked in turned to Metatron, eyes narrowed.

"I am pretty sure I told you that!" Meta shouted.

"You know what? You're not worth it." Yosuke said. "Okay, so I keep myself from dying. Won't that make a time loop or something?"

"Hmmm… maybe a little. There will be some chronal baggage, I'm sure, but since you'll be possessing your own body it shouldn't be too bad. I think you'll just kinda merge into your past self. It's all very zen."

"Oh, that's good."

"Or space/time will collapse. But the world is ending anyway, right?"

"Yeah. Less good…" Yosuke said. "But like you said, might as well give it a shot, right? Okay. Let's… let's do this."

"Yosuke Hanamura!" Metatron shouted. "It was… good to know thee! Thou shalt be missed!"

Yosuke considered this confession, and said the only thing that came to mind. "Can't say the same."

"I was largely useless!" Metatron shout-admitted.

"Not unusual for you, sadly," Messiah said dryly. "All right, Yosuke, hold still, and if it feels like the universe is melting that's just because your feeble human mind is being overwhelmed by the sheer crushing flow of Time Itself. Just close your eyes and think of math."


Yosuke hit the ground running.

Well, okay, no, he just hit the ground hard. Turned out that going back in time wasn't terribly different, in terms of impact, than just going down to Earth in general.

"Ow," He said. But at least it seemed to have worked; looking around, he saw not even a little bit of demons. Demon-free zone. "All right! Now I just need to possess myself and..."

Oh, shit.

He was right there, right on the street. And the truck was already approaching.

"A buffer zone would have been great!" Yosuke snarled, rising to his feet and sprinting toward his past self. For the love of Go... er Messiah, he had no idea how to even do this. How did one go about possessing oneself?

With no other options, Yosuke took a flying leap into his own chest.

The sensation was... unlike anything else. Like trying to squeeze toothpaste back into the tube, only he was the toothpaste and his body was the tube, and... actually, that didn't really describe it either, because at the same time, you suddenly went back to things like needing to breathe, having a heartbeat, a million little sensations that all hit simultaneously and...

Crap, piano! Yosuke thought, a loud sound filling him with the knowledge that the collision had occurred and a really heavy thing was rushing at his head, this new intelligence quickly overcoming the feeling of having a body again. Yosuke, not one to turn down good advice (usually), did as Messiah had suggested.

He ducked.

Now, to him, it was nothing. He knew it was coming, and ducked before anything became an issue.

To his friends? It looked rather like he had just dodged, in an impossibly smooth motion, with Matrix-like reflexes, something he had not even seen coming.

"... Damn," Chie said.

"Yosuke?" Souji asked, eyes wide. "How the Hell did you do that?"

Yosuke smiled at them, happier than he'd been since the first time he died. He was alive. He was back! He'd survived and time was still there, even! All that remained was the most important part: witty closing comment, to bring this whole story to a perfect close.

Yosuke smirked at his best friend. "How the Hell? More like how the Heav..."

Before he could finish the word, a horrible shrieking metal-on-metal noise resounded through the street. Something huge and black slammed into his field of vision, and the world went red, then dark, as he felt something snap in his neck.

"Holy crap!" Chie screamed.

"... What," Souji said.


When Yosuke opened his eyes, he groaned to see the fluffy white clouds.

"Welcome back, Yosuke Hanamura!" Metatron shouted. "How went thy quest?!"

"Meta... if it had gone well..." Yosuke growled. "I wouldn't be here!"

"Aaaah! Yes, that makes sense!" Metatron agreed. What a clever angel.

"What happened?! I dodged the piano, so what killed me?!" Yosuke demanded.

Messiah rubbed his temples to fight off the headache. "You got hit by two pianos, champ."

"... Son of a bitch!"

"Don't worry, don't worry. I'm the living manifestation of the divine impulse of salvation that protects all sentient life," Messiah said. "I can handle a few more runs on this. We'll just rewind the causality of the universe an eensy bit, and try this again. Just try to remember to duck, and then kinda move out of the way, okay?"

Messiah waved his hand, and Yosuke vanished in a puff of destiny. "He'll be fine, I'm sure. Right?" Messiah asked Metatron. "He's an intelligent guy. I'm sure that this first time was just a fluke."

"Verily, I doth have the greatest of faith in Yosuke Hanamura!" Metatron said.

Yosuke then appeared on the cloudbank in exactly the same spot he had been less than five seconds ago. Messiah sighed and rubbed his temples. "Yosuke. It went piano, piano, car. Did you remember the car? Did you?"

"Not... in the strictest sense," Yosuke admitted sheepishly.

"I am trying to preserve your corporeal existence, Yosuke. I am really putting in so much effort," Messiah grumbled. "You could at least put an equal amount of energy into this, considering it is your own life."

"Hey, I'm trying!" Yosuke said. "It's not my fault I had the most complicated death in the history of time. It's hard to remember all the details!"

Messiah sighed. "Yes, yes. I'm sorry. I know it's not like you're doing on purpose. You're not Metatron."

"I am far shinier!" Metatron said, confirming this.

"You have a long way to go before you're Metatron. At least you're making a vague effort," Messiah said sadly. "All right. Hold still, and remember: piano, piano, car. We can do this, Yosuke. I know it's possible."

Yosuke nodded in determination. "Definitely! This is the time I'll get this done."

Seventeen Attempts Later...

Messiah sighed as Yosuke re-appeared. "Again? Really? I thought we had it this time."

"I did exactly what you said! I turned and ran back into the school as soon as I landed, then hid under my desk!" Yosuke protested.

"And how did you manage to die despite this?" Messiah asked. "No, wait, mostly omniscient. Somehow a piece of shrapnel from the car exploding shot up through the window of the classroom, ricocheted off a support beam in the ceiling, and exploded your skull."

"The universe appears to deeply want thou dead, Yosuke Hanamura!" Metatron said helpfully.

"Yes, thank you, Meta," Yosuke said. "We need a plan to get around that."

"Indeed!" Metatron shouted helpfully. "In many cases, cool-headed, logical planning can indeed aid thee in snatching victory from the jaws of defeat!"

"Do you actually have such a plan, Meta?" Yosuke asked, presumably because he was a glutton for punishment.

"It might shock you to learn that I do not!" Metatron roared.

"Not so much as you might think," Yosuke muttered. "So, are we just boned, then? Because I'm going to be honest, this is the tenth or so time I've died..."

"Twentieth, counting the original time," Messiah murmured.

"... And it's getting kinda old," Yosuke finished. "Maybe we should just find some lawnchairs and watch the Apocalypse. It has a lot of pretty lights."

"No!" Messiah snarled. "I have saved your infantile monkey-species from worse threats than this! When the first of you to discover fire almost incinerated the forebears of your race by accident, I made it rain and stopped gerbils from becoming the dominant species on the planet. When you discovered nuclear power, I'm the one who altered the composition of the gasses in your atmosphere to make sure it wouldn't ignite and scour the world in atomic death. And don't even get me started on all the finagling I had to do with the Great Chicken War!"

"Um, I don't think there was ever a Great Chicken War..." Yosuke said.

"Exactly!" Messiah snapped. "Sweet Me Christ, I have saved your world from itself a thousand times in a thousand ways, and I am not going to let it all be undone right now by the death of one absolutely insignificant twerp from Japan!"

"... Harsh, dude," Yosuke muttered.

Messiah sighed, rubbing His temples. "Yes. Yes. I know, and I'm sorry. I'm just a bit frustrated, Yosuke Hanamura. I mean, nothing personal, but saving humanity usually doesn't take this much effort. You just seem to be going out of your way to make all My best efforts flop around and die like... well, like yourself. And I know you're not doing it on purpose, but it's just very hard not to take it personally when I'm tired like this."

"Um... well. I could always try like, running off down the street, and maybe hiding under a parked car..." Yosuke began.

"Tried that seven attempts ago. You got attacked by a rabid cat that was hiding under the same car, and it chased you back out onto the street where you were trampled to death by a crowd fleeing the scene," Messiah said wearily.

"Oh, right," Yosuke said, chuckling fondly. "That was a pretty crazy one. I totally got to see up this one girl's skirt as she stomped my face..."

"Yosuke! This is not the time for your perversions!" Messiah scolded him. "The time and circumstances of your time of death appear to have somehow been a multi-tiered transcendent death-trap formed specifically to hunt you down and obliterate you with no hope of escape, and finding a way out of that is a bit more important than reminiscing about underwear!"

"... They were white," Yosuke said.

"I have never hated anyone or anything in my entire existence," Messiah said gently. "But you may be the one who finally teaches me how."

"Well, I'm glad I was able to help you out a li-"

"That was not a compliment."

"Oh."

"The problem, I fear, is that Yosuke Hanamura is a squishy weakling! Tiny is his body, soft and brittle are his bones, pasty and unhealthy is his skin! He seems, indeed, to have a being created entirely to die!" Metatron roared helpfully.

"... Gee. Thanks, Meta," Yosuke said.

"Thou art quite welcome, dear friend Yosuke!" Metatron screamed gratefully.

"Wait. Waaaaaaaaaaaait," Messiah said, a slightly deranged spark entering His eye. "Metatron has a point. If we can arrange things right... yes, it will be breaking a few rules, but if he acts right... and we'll need a wig, of course, can't pull it off without a wig. The wig is what makes the whole plan."

"... Why do we need a wig...?" Yosuke asked.

Messiah smiled, his expression visibly unbalanced. "We need to make a Yosuke."

"I am... so confused," Yosuke said.

"Don't try to think. Just grab Metatron and help me find a brown wig," Messiah said with a gleeful cackle.

"I am the center of attention!" Metatron roared proudly.


At the time and place of Yosuke's death, the gang walked forward blissfully unaware of what was to come. Twenty times before they had trod this path, as time wound and rewound around them. The rest of the gang walking ahead. Rise falling behind, kneeling to tie her shoes. Yosuke stopping to look at her. The truck turning the corner, driver asleep at the wheel.

This was when things changed.

There was a flash of light, and Yosuke was gone. In his place was a being of solid, silvery metal, who stood at least ten feet tall. His chest was carved into the appearance of muscles, and great clockwork wings extended from his back. On his head, atop the metallic black hair, he wore what appeared to be a brown wig.

"I," it roared, "Am Yosuke Hanamura! Stand in awe of my power and glory, mortals of the earthly realm!"

Souji reacted to this in the only way that made sense. "... What."

The truck approaching them snapped around, suddenly, its driver desperately turning in an attempt to avoid Rise and sending the trailer snapping like a whip. The cargo shifted violently, bursting out of the container. The piano flew through the air...

... And slammed into the metal creature's head full-force, shattering on impact. The metallic giant was not only not harmed, he wasn't even moved. His head didn't so much as budge from the impact.

"That did not actually strike me, and therefore I am logically not dead!" 'Yosuke' shouted. "Indeed, for the body of a frail human such as myself, Yosuke Hanamura, could never survive such a thing!"

With a hideous shrieking crunching noise, a second truck slammed into the first one. This impact apparently dislodged something, because a second piano flew from the wreck... to once again shatter harmlessly on impact with 'Yosuke.' "And again! I must state unto all of thee that any appearance or memories that thou hast of a piano striking myself, the perfectly normal human schoolboy Yosuke Hanamura, wert nothing but an optical illusion! Ignore me, for I am perfectly human!"

"... ... ... I... that... what...?" Naoto said, her brilliant detective's mind clearly going full-throttle.

"I enjoy electronic games, watching sporting competitions, and viewing the bared bodies of female humans, as is proper for a human male of my developmental status!" 'Yosuke' roared as a car slammed into him at full speed. He did not appear to notice it.

Rise's mouth kind of opened and closed a few times, but she did not say anything.

"Did Yosuke-kun get taller?" Yukiko asked.

Kanji reached into his backpack, withdrew a bottle of saké, and threw it into a nearby trashcan. "Never touching this stuff again..." he muttered.

A second car slammed into 'Yosuke,' and exploded. A pair of very dazed drivers leapt from the flames, rolling to put them out as best they could, followed by 'Yosuke'. He was on fire too, he just didn't appear to notice, his metallic skin glowing red-hot. "Thou art imagining all of this!" he said once again. "Come, friends, let us forget these events which art logically impossible, and go now the local municipal store that we might consume frozen treats!"

"Holy crap," Chie whispered, her mouth hanging open in awe.

"What." Souji said.

A massive wave of snarling, feral gerbils and rabid cats, their eyes glazed over with bloodlust, came roaring down the street. 'Yosuke' waved his hand, incinerating them all with a wave of pure white flame. "I have smote my enemies with Holy Flame, as normal teenage boys are wont to do! Gaze upon my averageness and tremble!" he roared.

A military drone flying overhead lost control its onboard computer and fired several hunter-killer missiles, which 'Yosuke' blasted out of the sky with his normal teenage human laser eyebeams.

"Together we shall go to the local sock-hop! I shall wear the prettiest of all dresses!" 'Yosuke' said.

"... the what of all what?" Naoto asked, her keen investigative mind once again leaping to the forefront.

"Farewell, my human friends! I go now to return to the heavens above!" 'Yosuke' shouted. "Or rather, that is what I would say, were I not a normal human teenage boy who is going to stay exactly where I am now!"

There was a second explosion of divine light, and Yosuke was once again... Yosuke.

"Um... hi, guys?" Yosuke said.

"What." Souji said.


Author's Note: METATRON WAS USEFUL! HUZZAH, AND PRAISE BE UNTO HEAVEN!

As always, check my profile for additional works, fanfic and original fiction alike. Hope you enjoy!