Finals are coming up, so I'll be very busy for the rest of May.

:)

Watch out for awkward sentences. I feel very unsure of this chapter as a whole.

-FrozenDeluxe *.*

+++#10#+++

Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair. -Edmund Burke

++[Snowy Cave/ vintage Hideout]++

Keima woke up inside a glass tube. Rubbing his eyes, he thoroughly analyzed his surroundings.

The room was a cylindrical room, and near its edges were other tubes similar to the one he was trapped in.

To his horror, Keima saw all of the goddesses, each submerged in pink fluid within a respective chamber. Hoses from the ceiling connected to a mouthpiece that each of the goddesses breathed through.

Unlike the others, both Keima and Elsie's cylinders were not yet filled with the pink serum that flowed through the others.

Aside from Diana, the other goddesses appeared unscathed from inside their entrapments. Diana had slight bruises on her face, likely due to her harsh landing in the snow.

Tubes ran from the glass cells to clear jars, which were filled with a yellow gas that shone brilliantly. Wires from these jars ran towards the center of the room, where a stone humanoid figure sat hunched over. Connectors on the statue's back glowed with energy. A tarp lay neatly folded on the floor nearby.

Turning his head, Keima saw Elsie in another glass cylinder. Elsie was badly injured from her crash landing, and blood stained the areas where branches scraped her.

"Elsie!" Keima desperately called to her.

She didn't move.

Further down the line of glassy containers, Keima spotted Lune, who was also floating unconsciously in her own serum. Unlike the pink tint that the goddesses' fluid had, Lune's was a dark crimson. The mist inside the jar connected to her chamber was also a similar shade of crimson.

Keima thought desperately of a way to escape, taking note of every demon's movement and every feature of the cavern.

"I see you have woken up," someone approached Keima's glassy cylinder.

Keima glared at this newcomer. "What do you want with us?" he demanded of her.

The demon laughed behind her hood. "Your souls," she answered simply as she knocked on the glass of Keima's chamber.

Keima continued to hold his steely gaze with his captor. "And who are you to demand me of my soul?" he asked coldy.

The Vintage demon talking to him paused for a moment. She took off her hood to reveal short, flowing white hair. On the left side of her head was a modified loose soul sensor, and a horn protruded from the right side of her forehead. Even in the darkness of the room, Keima could still see the glare from behind her glasses.

"My name's Fiore," the demon in front of him said, "and I'm the one who's going to revive Old Hell." The demon's red eyes glowed in the light of the monitors mounted on the walls.

Fiore pointed to one of the jars full of the bright gas. "Those are auras that sustain the goddesses' spirits," she explained.

"We're tapping into the aura from the hosts' body so we can take advantage of the energy it carries, which is a lot, thanks to you," Fiore continued.

Pointing to the clear jars, Fiore continued her explanation. "We'll convert this heavenly energy into something else, one that has no counterattack. With our hate infused with the goddesses' power, New Hell will be powerless against us!" she declared with pride.

"That's why we're charging that statue with this new form of 'Unholy Cadence' magic, so that the charms and magical nonsense of Hell will have no effect whatsoever," Fiore finished "Even the goddesses' magic is powerless against it."

"As for you," she turned to Keima, "We will do much more than tap into your spirit. We're going to consume it all, and you will no longer be a problem to our cause."

Keima quickly understood the meaning of this grim statement.

"You're going to kill me," he said bluntly.

"Yup!" she answered lightly, "both you and your demon buddy."

"And we're almost through with our test subject. She's been holding up rather well for the amount of time she's survived," Fiore gestured to the glass container in the corner, where Lune's cylinder continued to glow a threatening shade of crimson. "I expect that she will only be able to hold out another three hours before we burn up her soul completely," Fiore smiled devilishly, "One less problem to worry about."

The machine hooked up to the stone statue suddenly lit up, then it sparked for a bit and went out.

"Chief," one of the demons who ran to it called out, "these wires can't handle all the power we're drawing from the goddesses. We'll need even thicker cords."

Fiore stormed off to the malfunctioning device and shut it off while muttering curses. "Get the spare ones in the supply room," she barked at a nearby demon.

The goon saluted and ran off to fetch the wires.

Fiore and a few other demons went to check all of the mechanisms on the spirit extractors.

Keima checked on Elsie. Her bleeding had stopped, but she was still badly hurt. He needed to help her as soon as possible.

"Katsuragi," a voice called from inside his mind.

"Haqua?" Keima almost said out loud.

Her reflection appeared on the glass in front of him. She stared at him with a gaze of steely determination.

"I think I understand what Vintage has in mind, and I have an idea," she said.

"I'm listening," he thought.

"I'll try to take full control of your body when they begin drawing out your soul." she suggested. Keima could see her blush slightly, but the demon shook off her feelings quickly.

"What are you going to do?" Keima asked, "Won't you die?

"Unlike the others' spirits, which Fiore injected with neutralizing potions before being extracted, Fiore didn't think to do the same to you," Haqua answered, "They'll be in for quite a surprise when the soul they're trying to exterminate puts up resistance beyond that of a human."

"Besides," Haqua flashed a confident smile, "I'm already dead."

...

The Vintage team finished repairing the spirit extractors and soon continued to charge the giant stone humanoid.

Fiore walked over to Keima.

"It doesn't really matter, since you're going to die anyway, but put that mask on if you want to live longer," she advised him.

She had one of her henchmen open Elsie's tube and put a mouthpiece on her as well.

Keima focused intently on letting Haqua take control. He felt his senses go dull as his spirit detached from his consciousness.

"Don't worry," Haqua's voice rang through his mind, "You'll only go into a sort of hibernation when they start extracting."

"Let's finish them," Fiore commanded to the hooded demon manning the switches.

The spirit extractors began to flood with the same pink liquid that filled the goddesses' chambers.

The substance flowed like water, yet Keima didn't feel wet. He felt like he was hovering underwater.

Keima felt his body disconnect from his consciousness. As his vision faded, he could see Haqua's reflection on the glass shimmer and disappear.

A/N: Comments are very much appreciated. They encourage me to update my chapters sooner, and not receiving any makes me wonder if people even read this story, tbh.