Chapter 8: Brownout in Northeastern Tokyo
The Hunters Association Bar was busy with Hunters who'd come in from the emergency broadcast. There were lots of whispers and grumbles about what was going on, even about the bridge that had been destroyed a week back. Thankfully, Nikkari was respected enough that he got them a table easily.
The boss, also Asahi's dad and Nanashi's caretaker, came over immediately. "Oh good, you four came in safe. You all alright?"
"We're fine," Nikkari said. "The poison down south has spread back out, so we weren't able to get where we were going. But that may have been a blessing in disguise when the power started going unstable."
"It's too bad because we were making good progress down to Toyosu for a while there," Manubu said. "We could really use the access to the storage units."
"Yes, and we don't want to lose even more to that swamp of poison," the boss said. "Where'd you pick up that box, though? Looks like a genuine antique."
"It got dropped off in the terminal room for me," Nanashi said, untying the cord so he could use the key. "Don't know who from, but the terminal guardian says it's not dangerous."
"That's strange," the boss said, grabbing a seat from another table to join them. "But then we can't get regular deliveries from the rest of Tokyo now, what with the poison swamp and the lost bridge by Ueno."
"Right, so we have to rely on the Ashura-kai unless we can reach Toyosu," Manubu said, not happy with that.
He had the key now, so Nanashi put it in the lock and turned it. Despite looking so old, it came open easily. Maybe it had been taken care of well. When he opened it up, there was something sharply contrasting the box inside: some kind of metal glove with electronics installed in it, like an arm-mounted smartphone holder. It was placed on smooth blue satin as if it were a precious treasure. There was also a brown and black card in there, like it was from a trading game.
"Whoa, that looks like some heavy-duty equipment," Manubu said, impressed.
Meanwhile, both the boss and Nikkari gasped. "Wait, is that a demonica?" the boss asked in disbelief.
"It certainly looks that way," Nikkari said, then glanced at Nanashi. "Do you mind if I look at it first?"
"No, go ahead," he said, not sure what they meant. Something felt familiar about it, like he should know it but didn't quite remember it.
Nikkari took it out of the box and searched for an identification mark. "The ink's all faded, but there's still some impressions." He mumbled some numbers as he felt them, then bit his lip. "Right… this is a JGSDF issue Demonica COMP."
"Isn't that the old military group that was fighting demons before the Firmament went up?" Asahi asked in wonder of it. "Wow."
"Right, this would be top-grade military hardware for someone who commanded and fought demons," Nikkari said, passing it over for the boss to see. "And somebody sent it to Nanashi."
"We lost all of them in the conflict around Sky Tower," the boss said, looking at it. "But why Nanashi? He's just a kid."
"He's fifteen, that's not a kid," Asahi said.
"We think," Nanashi reminded her. When he'd been brought here, he'd been unable to give them any information about who he was as he'd been very ill from the poison swamps down south. That and more… he wasn't quite sure himself since anything of those days was hazy and nightmarish in his mind.
"We might not be able to answer that until we can get the comp activated," Nikkari pointed out. "And they are biologically locked to specific users. We can't simply put that on anyone and expect it to do anything. Since it was given to Nanashi, it's most likely that he can activate it."
"That would make sense," the boss said, passing it back to Nikkari since he was next to Nanashi. "Just please don't do anything reckless with that."
"You're dominant with your right hand, so we'll need this to go on your left arm," Nikkari said, undoing one of the latches. "Hold your arm out for me."
"Sure," Nanashi said, putting his left arm over the table so Nikkari could strap it in place. It seemed to have been made for an adult, as the only way Nikkari could get it snug was to use the shortest part to latch it in place. Panels moved aside to reveal a black screen, which went green with a loading icon. "That's it?"
"It's already turning on, so it must be linked to you somehow," Nikkari said. "Maybe it belonged to one of your parents."
"Maybe," he said, although he had to fight a shiver at trying to remember them. Not them, but rather how they and everyone else had died… he didn't want to think about that now.
A screen came up, quickly covered by a pop-up of a holographic woman. "Welcome back, Master Akira," she said cheerfully. "It has been fourteen hundred and thirty-two years since you logged on. Would you like me to run an internal scan to make sure everything is working appropriately?"
"Uh, yes please," Nanashi said.
"Please what?" Asahi asked.
He pointed to the screen. "She asked to run a scan for errors; didn't you hear her?"
"No," she said.
"The AI in the demonicas is capable of addressing only the user," Nikkari said. "I only got to use one for a brief time, but they were much like smartphones."
"Did the AI mention anything else?" the boss asked.
"She said it's been fourteen hundred and thirty-two years since she was last activated, so there probably is some error," Nanashi said, which made Nikkari frown and check something on his smartphone. "She also addressed me as Master Akira."
"Akira?" the boss asked, his eyes wide. "But, but that's..."
"Maybe it's his father's name, if the demonica belonged to him?" Manubu asked. "If they can activate to a son's genes instead of the father's."
"That is possible," Nikkari said, still looking at his phone. "And there was a demon hunter by the name of Akira when the SDF was still active. It's odd, but possible that Nanashi could be that Akira's son."
"No, that doesn't make sense," the boss said. "That Akira… well, he disappeared around nineteen years ago, with the Sky Tower conflict. No one has been able to get up or down the tower since then. So unless Akira was actually in Minami afterwards, that shouldn't be the case."
"Who are you talking about?" Asahi asked, leaning on the table with interest in the conversation.
"I hate to say it if Nanashi is related to him, but Akira is considered a traitor by most older Hunters," the boss said. "Nobody really likes to talk about it, but it does relate to how we lost the demonicas when we could have really used them."
Nikkari set his phone back in its holder. "That's not the whole story, but there are still some secrets to be respected. Perhaps if we get more certain evidence, we can tell you three about it. But, I don't think it's all that impossible for Nanashi to be Akira's son even if Akira disappeared nineteen years ago and Nanshi's definitely not that old."
"I don't even think Akira was that old at the time of the Sky Tower conflict," the boss said. "Which makes it all the stranger."
Nikkari held a hand up to him. "But I can tell you guys a little something. You see, the Sky Tower conflict involved a group of us tunneling up to top of the Firmament, through the tower that's always been near here. We broke through and were soon confronted by angels who drove us back down relentlessly. One of them even stole the demonica COMPs from us. But the important thing to this matter of Akira's demonica here is that time," he snapped his fingers, thinking, "time acts strangely once you break into the Firmament. You could be spending days mining out the tunnels up there, and then come back down to find that only a few minutes had passed in Tokyo. Actually, we realized what was going on primarily because of Akira, who went from a teenager younger than you both to nearly being eighteen because of some problems with the elevator. But if Akira did come back to Tokyo, it's very strange that he went completely silent instead of trying to clear his name."
"No errors have been found," the AI said. "There is an urgent request for you from Flynn. Someone at Kasumigaseki is going to launch short-range missiles at the town of Akihabara. Would you like to log into the Kasumigaseki mission control in order to stop the missile launch?"
"Y-yes," Nanashi said, feeling a chill in his blood. "She says someone is going to launch missiles at Akihabara."
"What?" the boss, Manabu, and Nikkari asked in alarm. Asahi just stared at him. Manabu asked, "But how? And why? It'll cause us all kinds of problems here even if we're not the main impact site."
"I don't know, but apparently I can log into Kasumigaseki's computer system and stop the launch there," Nanashi said.
"Akira would have had the authority to do that," Nikkari said, getting his phone again at the same time the boss did.
"You have some authority, but someone has hijacked the JGSDF system," the AI said as the screen shifted to a different display. "But the mission notes state that the demon on the DDS card with this unit, Virus Trojan, is capable of locking the hijacker out of the system. Would you like to scan the DDS card to unlock Trojan?"
"Yes," he said, starting to reach for the card in the box. But something came to him; as long as he pointed the camera at the card, it should work. He set the unit to see the card better.
"Scanning… Trojan unlocked and added to active party."
A very small demon then appeared over the table; it appeared to be a little toy horse on a cart, but a multitude of wires came out of the cart's back. "Dah dah da dah! /virustrojan, #atyourservice."
"Trojan, can you block whoever's trying to launch these missiles out of the Kasumigaseki JGSDF system?" Nanashi asked.
"Aren't viruses bad things?" Manubu asked.
"It's a demon, so who knows," Nikkari said with a shrug.
Meanwhile, Trojan had come by the gauntlet. "Doot doot doot… #InSystem #easyaspie." It then vanished into the demonica.
A message popped up on both the boss' and Nikkari's phones. "Someone is trying to launch missiles from the old base," the boss confirmed.
"Right, and Fujiwara says he can't get in at the moment to stop them," Nikkari said.
Watching the security screen, Nanashi saw some things change. Somehow, they made sense to him. "I think Trojan's got it handled," he said.
The rush of water surrounded him, as did the hum of godly magic. The… constraints of godly magic, with an active guard close by. He could not move; he could not do anything to escape on his own. But, he could sense the flow of the world going on without him. The balance of powers; the balance that was taking a very strange turn.
"This is different," Krishna murmured to himself. "Is this your time? This change… it's fundamentally confused those who constantly monitor the balance and try to swing it in their favor. Hmm..."
The threads of fate felt strained, perhaps even frayed. There was a plan for the events that should unfold, a map for those chosen to follow. But the plan already seemed toppled, the pieces scattered to unexpected places. Did they realize their carefully laid plans were already in shreds?
"Perhaps in this kind of chaos, we can rise," he said. "Or you could. I could make this work for me. You told me not to forget my purpose even if it is empty for now." He grimaced, caught between ideas.
His own plans were potentially rendered useless (and possibly fruitless if these visions were real). But, Krishna had the gift of being adaptable. Most gods considered that a minor thing compared to being dependable and consistent. But then, that was why they often fell to humans; their adaptability to situations like this was not good.
He focused himself. The seal reacted and tightened around him. While it threatened to choke him out of consciousness, Krishna focused and put all of his energy into doing this. He could not break the seal himself. But, with great effort, he could get a message out.
After a gasp trying to find his voice again, Krishna said, "Maitreya..." the seal tightened; anything outside of his focus blurred to nothing. "Send someone… now."
He loosened his focus and immediately passed out from the seal's constraints.
'Maitreya… send someone… now.'
A person in the red garb of the Ring of Gaea paused on hearing this. Unlike the rest, it was difficult to say if this was a man or a woman. In truth, he wasn't even human, and far from the only non-human in this temple of Tsujiki Hongwanji. Maitreya was the only one who would receive that message, though.
Something had changed; Maitreya had felt it too, a shifting of the world's balance. It felt like some carnival charade, with powers being shuffled around until the poorly observant were dizzy with confusion as to where the real power lay. Unfortunately, he was not able to determine what had actually happened either. He had the wisdom of hundreds of thousands of worlds. And yet, this eluded him. It was always frustrating when something like this popped up.
Getting up from his meditation pose, Maitreya headed off with a particular person in mind. Krishna might be able to sort it out; he had an unusual mind for a god. Perhaps he already had, or perhaps he felt the shift was something to take advantage of. Either way, it seemed they'd be moving earlier than projected. What would come of this?
Fortunately, the person Maitreya had in mind was here in the temple. "Kaga," he said, going into a meeting room that others were coming out of. "May we talk about something?"
"What is it, Maitreya?" the tall woman said, looking to him with harsh eyes. "We were headed out to investigate Ikebukuro."
In this situation, the truth would work just fine. "You know of my colleague, Krishna? I have been searching for him, sealed somewhere in this land. I've finally located him and I believe you would be ideal for releasing him. You see, this isn't a seal I can undo by myself and he is an honorable god. He would agree to help you with Xi Wangmu in exchange for freeing him."
Though, that last bit was a lie. Krishna might see some worth in exchanging the favor, but they had much higher goals that superseded the idea of honor. There were many others in the ring that would agree if Kaga didn't. Most of them would be more gullible than her too. But, Maitreya acknowledged her passion and determination. He would give her a chance at doing this great deed.
These humans were shooting themselves in the foot again, perhaps more severely than usual. Mastema remained quiet about it. He was used to humans being fools. For one thing, they were amusing fools, adorable in how they tried. More importantly, the fools made those of real talent and genius stand out far above the rest. He was willing to wait for such shining souls, and to see what would come of foolish things. There was also finding ways to lessen the overall impact of such decisions…
Akira was back.
Closing his eyes, Mastema attempted to feel out where Akira was. There had been a change recently, a significant shift that could have triggered his rebirth… no, wait. Akira was already using his demonica. That was where he had sensed his presence. Once again, Akira was a boy in Tokyo. Or, was he? Something felt off. This was unprecedented, at least in Mastema's experience.
"We're ready to launch, sir," the man at the operations chair said.
Nearby, the leader of the Ashura-Kai nodded. "Then launch them," Tayama said. "If it truly is a large cache of smartphones, we can't let those rebels distribute them freely."
It wasn't going to work. Mastema could tell Akira was already working against this. And such an interesting way to do this, using a Virus demon. He had thought all of those creatures had gotten wiped out by the death of worldwide networking; most of them couldn't even exist outside of programming.
"Launch inti..." the computer operator said, then stopped as a red warning blinked on the monitor. "Err, no, the launch has been aborted."
"What?" Tayama asked, going closer to the operator. After a moment, he slammed a hand on the chair. "Who's done this?!"
"I don't know..." the screen went blank, with just an error message. "And I've been kicked out of the system, hang on..." he clicked the icon to log back in. Several attempts later, it was clear that his password was not going to work. "What's going on? It should recognize me."
"Let me try," Tayama said, then leaned over and tried his own account and password. Again, it was denied multiple times. "Damn; I didn't think Fujiwara was this bold anymore. I'll have to speak with him. Mastema, let's go."
"No," Mastema said, clasping his hands together in front of himself.
Tayama immediately turned to him, his eyes full of anger. "What?"
"I have made it clear that this was only a temporary arrangement, yes?" Mastema said. "I have others that may give orders of higher priority to me than you, and I've just received such orders."
"Does it have anything to do with this?" Tayama asked, though he scaled back his emotions and demands. Then he did remember.
"Who knows?" he said. "It is unlikely that I will return to you unless you prove yourself in the traditional means. Therefore, I will consider our agreement complete. Goodbye." He then teleported away, partly because he didn't want to deal with Tayama's retaliation.
Akira… he was in northeastern Tokyo, in one of the guarded towns. Mastema wasn't an ordinary being who could be kept out by their security measures, but he'd certainly trigger alarms coming in physically. Instead, he recalled himself to Akira's demonica. Now, what was the situation he was in?
In one of the Association bars, at a table with several others. The place was busy, full of nervous people due to the sudden lockdown of the area. Mastema knew why that was so; getting old missiles ready to fire safely (for those at the firing location) took a lot of power. Even though the reactor powering this city was effectively infinite, a huge usage like that would still cause instabilities along the following lines. It should all be settling down soon, although the demons drawn out by the surge in power could take longer to drive off.
"Trojan did it," the boy with Akira's gauntlet said, surprised and grateful for it. He felt similar to Akira, but not entirely like him. "They can't launch the missiles now."
The little virus materialized; it was definitely a strange specimen. "#AllDone." it reported.
"That's great, but how did you get in the system?" one of the men there asked. "I thought they purged accounts of deceased members to prevent hacking like this."
"The Sky Tower conflict was a chaotic time, so it might have slipped under the radar," the other man said. "Since he does have a working demonica, we should upgrade him to a rookie Hunter instead of a trainee."
"He's still young, though," the other man protested, in the way overprotective parents often did.
"We need every Hunter we can get," Nikkari said. "And the demonica itself is a valuable tool. Don't worry, I'm still training him and will make sure he can handle things on his own in time."
This wasn't a good place to come out and discuss things. Mastema waited.
It didn't take long for Lilith to identify the person whose name she had been given. But, there were so many unexplained things with this. For one thing, she'd been given a girl's name. The patriarchal mindset still held strong, so it was unusual for a girl to be called to the role of a hero instead of a supporting heroine. And when girls did get called to be a hero, it was usually on the side of Law since cohesion to a group and other traits were considered feminine. Lilith couldn't recall another girl being called to be a Chaos hero, a role that held many masculine leaning traits. Then again, she liked the idea of working with a girl this time.
The other unexplained things were more worrisome. Like how this was a girl in Tokyo when all signs had pointed to the Spirit of Spite going to someone in Mikado. And how something about the Law hero had caused Gabriel to thoughtlessly shut down the D-gene that Lilith was counting on to make her plans work. Having a girl hero for Chaos also made some other parts of the plan iffy, unless said girl was attracted to other girls.
And then there was who this girl was: Toki, one of the secret assassins that the Ring of Gaea had been training. It meant that Lilith had easy access to this girl, and could get immediate trust out of her. However, those assassins had their wills and emotions repressed so that they followed orders without question. Even suicidal ones, which would end up being the purpose of most of them. Doing so made the assassins ruthlessly efficient and effective, willing to throw their lives away without batting an eye.
That did not make for a good representative of Chaos, one who sought to throw off order, held a powerful will, and used their strong beliefs to change the world.
Granted, if Toki could handle having the chains on her will undone, then she could be made into a powerful representative of Chaos almost immediately. That would give Lilith an early lead in this game against Gabriel, one that the side of Law might not be able to catch up to. Of course, it all really depended on the fulcrum, the Messiah of this generation.
But Lilith desired that lead, so that she could quickly win the game over Gabriel, then take her down just like the other three so that those pesky seraphs were out of this game forever. That way, Law could never win this world again. That was the whole reason Lilith agreed to work with Gabriel. Well, that and humiliating her by forcing her to depend on one of the demons she loathed most. Lilith loathed Gabriel too, for never letting her have that one soul…
Unfortunately, that soul wasn't a player in this generation of the game. A pity, but Lilith could deal with it.
Those in Tsujiki Hongwanji were surprised to see her back. She hadn't been gone that long to their point of view, but she had stated that she expected to be gone for a few hours at least. Avoiding any questions of what that was about, Lilith made her way as Yuriko to find the wing where the assassins were trained. Some of the older assassins, like Kaga, were not masked and thus did not have their wills constrained. But those who came after her were masked.
Lilith still knew who she was looking for. "Toki?"
The oni mask she wore shifted; it covered not just her face, but a good portion of her torso as well. The black cowl she wore also disguised how her arms were moving. "Yes, Yuriko?"
Although it wasn't needed, she smiled sweetly at her hero. "I have a special mission for you."
She nodded. "Whom am I to kill?"
"Not kill, but I need someone followed, and protected against others who may kill him," Lilith said. "You must find a boy named Nanashi in Kinshicho and accompany him. Your purpose in doing so should become clear as you do. Still, I will contact you again if the situation changes."
"Yes, Lady Yuriko," Toki said, giving a modified curtsy as the mask didn't make for an easy bow.
Now, to figure out a way to release her mask and not drive her insane, then get her to fully embrace the nature of Chaos… and yes, someone else down here needed to be informed and consulted on how things were changing.
Having Abe's help sped up the process by a lot. He always kept demons that could help him with any task that needed doing. Although, Hallelujah didn't feel too comfortable with the demons Abe chose to keep around. One of them, a lilim, kept giving him looks like she wanted to invite him to play. And he knew those demon had an idea of play that was torture to anyone they conned into playing with them.
Unfortunately, Abe was currently distracted in flirting with the woman running the Ashura-kai shop in Shinjuku. Hallelujah tried to dissuade the lilim by putting the goods away on the shelves. That was usually the worker's job, but maybe by being busy…
It didn't work. The lilim came over and tickled the back of his neck. "Hey, he's not paying attention to us right now. Wanna go have a good time, cutie pie?"
"N-no thanks," Hallelujah said. Supposedly confronting them like that worked.
"You don't sound too sure of that," the lilim said with a smile. "Come on, I really want to have some fun with you."
"No..."
'Hallelujah.'
He tensed. That was not a normal voice.
'Come.'
"It'll be nice and relaxing," the lilim said, pulling herself closer.
Hallelujah pushed her away. "Not now," he said quietly. Then he glanced over. Abe was still talking with the store worker, making her laugh with his charm. He really shouldn't do this; Abe took care of him. Hallelujah admired him for that and many other things. But that voice felt as though it was speaking to something deep inside him. He would regret it if he didn't go find the one speaking to him. "I have to go," he told the lilim, then left through the store's back door.
The lilim pursued him, but he didn't pay her any heed. There wasn't supposed to be anyone back here; only Ashura-kai workers were given keys to this hall. But, there was an unearthly hum coming from one of the rooms nearby. It felt just like the voice that had called him. He went to open up the door.
For some reason, the lilim immediately grabbed his shoulder. She was quaking. "No, don't go in there! You can't!"
'Leave us,' the voice said.
The lilim wailed and took off down the hall, the opposite way from the store. "That's weird," Hallelujah said, but soon looked at the door again. Maybe he shouldn't… no, he didn't want to give the lilim any excuse to badger him later. He opened it up and went inside.
There, he met with a serenely beautiful woman. Her strange white robes covered nearly her entire body, but her face was the loveliest he'd ever seen and her hands were pristine and graceful. Hallelujah was caught breathless at the sight of her. While she didn't feel human to his mind, he found himself not caring about that. Nor about the door that closed behind him without him doing so or her getting up for that.
"Hello, Hallelujah," she said, gesturing for him to sit by her on the couch. "I'm glad to meet you at last."
What was going on? Things like this didn't happen to him. His heart beat faster as he sat by her, not sure if he could believe that this was happening. And yet, really happy that it was. "H-hello," he said, feeling clumsily ill-matched here. "Are you a demon?"
"No, I'm an angel," she said, forgiving him of that mistake. "My name is Gabriel, and I have been looking for you."
An angel… weren't angels supposed to be horrific monstrosities that would kill humans on sight? But, she was so gentle here, and beautiful, and she didn't seem like she wanted to harm anybody. "Really? Um, I can't imagine why, I mean, I'm..." his throat tensed up. He wasn't supposed to talk about that outside of a few in the Ashura-kai who knew. But when he looked up to her, it felt like he could tell her anything, especially if it kept her near him.
"I know, you're not fully human," she said. "It's fine; God will accept you with love, and so will I. In truth, I came to you because something big is about to happen within the world. Something that could make the world into a peaceful paradise, or something that could turn it into a terrible hell. And you are one who can make a difference in what happens to the world."
"I am? Um, I'm not sure you have the right guy for that, I can't actually do much." But… well, she couldn't actually mean love like he was thinking of. Unless she did mean love like love, and somehow she'd chosen him? Or if he did well, maybe… "I mean, I'll try, if it's to make a better world."
"There are hidden depths to you that I can see easily," Gabriel said. "And what you have to start with may not sound like much, but it will turn out to be of great importance. To start your path, you need to get to Kinshicho and meet with a boy named Nanashi. Assist him in what he has been called to accomplish. I will keep in contact with you and inform you more as you go along."
"Sure, I, uh, I'll see what I can do." But, how was he to get out of his duties to the Ashura-Kai? Kinshicho was part of Tokyo that had been cut off from the rest, so asking to go there would be questioned.
"Good, and I will see about easing your way," Gabriel said.
All of a sudden, the door slammed open. Abe was there and he looked furious. "You," he just about spat in hate as he looked at Gabriel. "Get the hell out of here, you bitch!"
"And just how to you expect to make me?" Gabriel said, stunningly calm in the face of him. Hallelujah had seen no one outside of Tayama one time who dared stand up to Abe when he was angry. But then, he'd also never seen Abe show dislike of a woman, much less such hatred.
"I don't care, but I will make you!" he said, clenching a fist. "And stay away from Hallelujah!"
Instead, she touched Hallelujah on the shoulder. "This man is one of the seriously fallen; don't listen to him anymore." Then she vanished in a golden-white glow.
"Goddamn!" Abe grabbed the nearest thing, a milk crate, and hurled it at where she'd been sitting so hard that it broke against the wall. Hallelujah scrambled to keep out of its way. "Don't meet up with her again, you hear me? She's insane and dangerous, and she will only use you until you're all shriveled up, and then she'll throw you away out in the cold wilds."
"But," his heart was still racing, pounding now. But when he looked at his mentor, he didn't want to provoke that anger against himself. "O-okay bro."
But, he felt like he'd go back on his word if he had the chance to get away from Abe…
That calmed him down. "Did she do anything to you?" Abe asked, concerned now. "Or tell you anything? It was probably insane babbling; I knew something was wrong when the lilim came back in such a panic."
"She didn't do anything but call me over here," Hallelujah said. What should he say? He hadn't wanted to go against Abe until now, and somehow that had completely changed. Yet, some respect still remained. "She wanted me to go to Kinshicho and help somebody named Nanashi. She didn't say much more than that, just that it was important I help out whoever this Nanashi is."
"Is that so?" Abe took a few steps, putting his hand to his chin. "And right after we both feel something big is going to happen. I didn't think it'd be anything that directly involved her, but… hmm, Nanashi?"
"Yeah, but I don't recognize the name," he said. "Sounds like the name of some kind of orphan in a story."
"Right, it does. But if that bitch Gabriel sees him as important…" he paced back to the door, "we'd better at least check this guy out. She might be insane, but she knows things."
"She said she was an angel," Hallelujah said. But so much more wonderful than he thought an angel could be.
"Never trust an angel," Abe said like it was unquestionable advice. "Well come on, let's hit up Kinshicho. I'll figure out something to tell the big boys, but honestly, this is bigger than their little empire here."
"Okay," he said, going along with Abe for now. But at some point, he'd need to ditch Abe and work on his own. It was something that should have intimidated him. But thinking of Gabriel, he felt willing to do that.
