· · · · · · ·

Jeanne's tale was bitter all the way till she had to cut off her child's wings, curse her with demon blood and abandon her to slavers.

And Chris hunted angels to death.

The demons had done bad things to humankind for centuries, Nina could understand why he wouldn't like them, but how to make sense of the gods? Adva had said something about how Charioce hid from the humans what he did to the gods, but Nina had imagined that was just invading them to steal the power of Dromos. That angel whom Jeanne and Mugaro had saved hadn't been anywhere near a sanctuary. Nina had spared Chris, and so El was still in danger and Jeanne was still trapped, along with countless others.

I'm sorry I was so selfish I let him go on.

After that story it was harder not to be reminded of her failure every minute. When the guards replaced the bars of Nina's cell with solid metal, still she could not shake Jeanne's presence. Sometimes Jeanne spoke to Nina, and she answered because how could she not? Jeanne wanted to know as much as possible about Mugaro. She worried about what Azazel's role was, and Nina couldn't even assure her about that. Too pointless to worry about anyway, when he might even be dead already — also thanks to her — and there was worse to deal with.

She wanted to apologize to everyone for having failed them, but her words meant nothing here. Only Jeanne was around and if she apologized to her she would first have to drag herself through the painful details of her boyfriend. Did he still count as that? Had they broken up? Had it been false all along?

Her fingernails grew longer and thicker, and the tips of her fingers hardened. Once, a mouse crossed the halls the next morning, and Nina snatched it. She kept walking and ignored the horrified mutters of both guards and prisoners around her, and the icky taste of blood and hair and little bones. She needed to survive, get people out ... find answers too. She needed a better truth than that this would be the rest of her life while Chris was out there, being Charioce.

It didn't fit, that he'd do such awful things to someone like Jeanne and Mugaro whom he must've known were good people. There had to be something more to all this. To him. As the dark days passed and her hunger grew, so did the need for an explanation. Maybe Chris didn't have much choice either. She'd heard a story of puppet kings once, maybe that went down with him? Maybe he was as locked up in rules and palace like she was here, controlled by others.

· · · · · · ·

Gabriel never really let El rest. Not in that ne didn't get enough sleep or was physically tired, but everything rushed by almost too fast to absorb. School, formal introductions to important gods, tactics for using magic and training for what would happen if El got separated from the war ship, how to direct power, the beginning of spell circles and gates and they wanted to see whether ne could teleport.

In between that, El had smaller things to process too.

The word dusiu didn't have clear context beyond being more pleasant when it came to being addressed. It was difficult to place with expectations, and men and women acted so different here to begin with. A woman governed the kingdom and there were countless female warriors, when nur mother been an exception among humans. Men wore dresses, which were called togas here, and that was just scratching the surface.

Technology meant something that didn't always use magic. There were things like clocks, and vehicles and aircraft and screens that used nary any magical energy, but lightning instead. It sounded absurd, but everyone assured El that's how it worked.

There were neither humans nor demons here, and both were despised now. But demons had been much longer. El learned very soon that talking about demon friends even lightly got nur odd looks, so ne started to omit them as much as possible when recounting the past. That left things very vague, and ne never brought up Azazel.

Everyone talked about nur father, Michael, but El had no personal attachment beyond memory of the reverent love nur mother had for him. The things people told nur were full of big words that told nur nothing about what kind of person Michael had been.

It was expected that ne should be able to remember everything ne learned with ease, and it took nearly a week before one of nur tutors quietly suggested that maybe El's human heritage might mean mental deficits — gods had clear minds, perfect memory and sensation. Humans didn't.

They also expected nur to be start healing the purer ne became, but nur hair went a lot faster than while the scar on nur throat remained unchanged. Nur wings didn't come back even a little bit. For now, they blamed it on having mingled with demons. Sometimes ne heard people talk about how nur mother had been tainted too, but they wouldn't go into detail on why that was bad. Both Gabriel and Sofiel dodged the topic when asked. At one point El asked Sofiel why nur mother hadn't been given new powers, after Michael died. She dodged that too and looked very sad.

It came to the point El was a little tired of getting all kinds of trivial information except the things El wanted to know the most about. Talking with Azazel hadn't been the easiest due to lacking a voice, but he could usually tell what El wanted or needed in indirect ways. Nobody in heaven here could do that, or even tried. Doubts on what his past had been or not, El missed him almost as much as nur mother.

Ne would find them both, but Azazel would probably have to be found last because of the gods not liking him. Nur friends from the ghetto and Nina were likewise on the waiting list. But Bacchus and Hamsa were here in heaven, ne could at least look them up. No doubt they'd be more talkative — El wasn't sure why they hadn't visited yet, but could just write the question once ne found them.

Finding out where they were wasn't easy for more reasons than doing it behing Gabriel and Sofiel's backs, because the first fifteen people ne asked told nur that they weren't important and not to worry about them. It was so odd, because many of those gods felt like kind people, yet they were being supremely unhelpful. The sixteen was a nice innuw though who led nur to a wall with two guards before it, and happily told nur it was forbidden to enter and to not care for that.

They had happened to arrive right at the change of guard and the helpful stranger caused a distraction enough for El to slip through the magical gate.

On the other side was a floating platform and ... what a dull place, not at all what El had expected. It consisted of a fast, bright space full of slowing rotating brown circles. Bacchus and Hamsa had a floating platform and a lot of booze at their disposal, nothing else. They didn't notice nur until ne stepped onto their platform.

"Mugaro, uh ... El, right?" Bacchus slurred. "What're you doing here, kid?"

El took out nur notepad and wrote down that ne had some questions, and arriving here got them more. Like, why were they here? It was such a drab place compared to their old home.

"Cause it isn't a home, kid. We're imprisoned here on charges of hiding you and conspiring with demons," Bacchus said.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I'll try to get you out."

"Meh, we'll just be exiled again even if we're pardoned," he said. "It's not that great on the surface anyway."

Oh, if that was the case ...

"I'll make it great on the surface soon! But I think I have to learn more first. Gabriel talks a lot about restoring the order of the world and I don't understand most of it. There's so much terms and I can barely read the books. I thought that maybe you could talk more with me?"

"Sure, but not too long, we'll all be in trouble if you get caught here," Hamsa said. "What you wanna know about?"

Ne scribbled a page full of questions, most of which Bacchus and Hamsa didn't know on behalf of not having been in heaven for a long time. They didn't personally know Michael, didn't know why Jeanne's powers hadn't been restored, didn't know what exactly the plans were, why Gabriel disappeared so often and why ne couldn't regrow nur wings. However, there was one thing they knew about : the laws.

Namely, El dropping that ne would be going to war sent them into baffled rage. Apparently there were laws against child soldiers. El didn't really see the point, ne was a child and could do good magic to help people.

"You're what, six?" Bacchus said.

"I'll be seven in autumn! And I am the chosen one! I was born for this!"

"Don't tell her I said this, but she should be figuring out why your power can counter Dromos first," Bacchus said. "Also, if you were made for this you weren't chosen, kid."

That was new.

"What's she saying about what you gotta do anyway?" Hamsa asked.

Gabriel said two things about what had to happen : humankind must be guided onto the right path, which made sense, and they must regain their faith, because why? It appeared to be separate from guiding them onto the right after, or that would've been enough to say. But it hadn't at all occurred to El there were other things to think about.

Ne decided to first ask whether the faith meant anything, then what could be figured out about nur own magic.

"Cause faith powers the gods. It's kinda indirect, but pretty vital for a lot of special magic."

That was also new, so ne asked for more.

Hamsa took the word. "Heaven is powered by faith, which is much rarer than fear nowadays. Those who do the best job at maintaining balance and guiding so get the most strength. There are elections that raise the rank of those, so the strong are also the most qualified. Sorta. It doesn't actually increase power directly, just potential. We got really strong gods who can't do squad magic, and fairly frail ones who summon spirits and open gates all over the place," Bacchus raised his flask. "We can cheat a bit too, on the faith thing. I'm the god of wine, grape harvest, drunkenness and hangovers. It's got nothing to do with religious practice, this system that allots me the excess of unused magic of the users for the duration they feast and are drunk. All humans got magic potential, y'see, but most lack the knowledge and experience to use it. Humans never live long enough to manifest latent potential anyway. If we can tap into different stuff, it's easier to develop secondary powers and we get more range to sustain spells at distance. So me being the god of something pretty widespread, I could go to to toe with Belzebuth-powered J—anyway, it what kinda magic do you already have?"

"Before, I could kill dying people with a kiss, but I couldn't heal them," El wrote. "Was that just cause they were demons?"

Bacchus and Hamsa sat straight up. "You could do what?"

"A kiss of death," El wrote. "I did it back when Azazel and I worked in the arena. All those poor demons who we carted out, they'd either die slowly or be killed brutally for losing. If gave them a kiss, they turned into light."

El wanted to be able to do more with nur powers than shut down enemies and conduct mercy kills, but from the looks of it this already had Bacchus and Hamsa floored for some reason. Maybe it was rare too? Oh well. Bacchus muttered something about what Michael had been thinking, but El was more curious about the distance thing. Azazel had complained a few times his teleportation distance had shrunk, but apparently it was gone for others altogether.

"Why don't more gods come down to earth to specialize their source?" El asked.

They both shrugged.

"What about demons?" El wrote. "Is Azazel specialized in something?"

Hamsa said, "You probably shouldn't mention Azazel in heaven, okay? Or any of the demons. The gods are already very touchy on association with humans that is too close—"

Bacchus shoved Hamsa, who nearly fell off the platform. "We're not going there."

"Yes, we are!" Hamsa puffed his feathers up. "Mugaro, I mean, El, listen. The reason Bacchus is exiled is because he fell in love with a human woman and left to be with her. Imagine what trouble we might be in for associations with not just a demon, but a fallen angel."

"I did notice those rules," El wrote. "I haven't told anyone about Azazel."

"Keep it that way, kid," Bacchus said.

"So how can I specialize?" El wrote on the last paper.

"I dunno," Bacchus said. "You just gotta lean somehow. We don't know you well enough, but maybe your powers got something to do with you. More than just bland faith, I mean."

That wasn't good enough, actually. If one thing had been made clear in heaven, it was the idea that things could be better, should be better, and one had to work. Though, nur mother had always called work to be more like going across a way with an end goal to look forward to. Pass step by step ... hmm.

· · · · · · ·

Rita had an empty room deep inside the palace. While within it, her arms were kept in wooden brackets enchanted with a spell other than those based on Dromos.

Every day she was brought to a make shift laboratory on lower levels, but never as deep as when they had experimented on Azazel. She regretted that a little, she wanted to know more. But after ascertaining they weren't useful for his revival ideas, Charioce's interest in the beasts was only insofar they could be controlled, which she had no hand in. Azazel's magic overpowered her influence when it came to his own blood.

In the meantime, there was the king. Charioce didn't actually say he wanted to revive his own mother. It was just blatant from the kind of things he had her work on in said laboratory.

To an outsider, he did a fair job of making it look like his real goal was to create an artificial army to fill the weaknesses in his current one. He was surprisingly disinterested in immortality, but von List and others had a penchant for that and filled her time with experiments.

It was rather offensive. Oh, as a doctor and a zombie, she knew failing to accept death was only a problem if you started clinging to hopeless cases. Gun for immortality as much as one liked, care not a wit for the world. It was just that they were hypocrites. Chabrol von List especially went on at length about giant spirits among men being worth more, yet he wouldn't hear Rita's talk about how only the strongest minds would return as a sapient zombie with just a little bite of hers. The given reason of that rejection was that she either didn't know what she was talking about, or they thought her variant of eternal life was somehow inferior to theirs.

That absurdity took an extra layer on the day she was retrieved by the captain of the Onyx Knights. George Diels was a stern man in his sixties, hair graying and never out of his black armor. He nary had a personality beyond absolute loyalty to the king, for as far as Rita seen him around. When Athos was assigned to guard her he complained about how the Onyx Knights lacked the flair and grandeur to inspire people.

He led her to a sickbay, or what technically qualified for no other reason than that the gems that the Onyx Knights used drained their lifeforce. Rita had assumed they'd been embedded in their armor, but it was actually their chest. The stones were called gavenar zomorrods, which was all the information she got before being set to work to improve their condition.

It was futile work, there was nothing complex about their condition : they were slowly turning into living rot.

Your typical fresh corpse still had the muscles and energy to move about, but more advanced animated corpses needed more magic to supplant the missing tissue. As long as matter contained the nanoscopic acid of life, she could invoke that energy. The zomorrod process was similar : the magic recognized a living being and was able to enhance their abilities and provide energy through typical means — palms served as the easiest outlet, muscle was made stronger, speed was increased. It also degenerated vital functions through the very means it used to enforce the power. Their blood became thicker and black, rupturing vessels constantly. Lots of internal bleeding.

At Rita's best guess it wasn't supposed to be embedded in humans at all, but rather within a machine or some other organism only to be adapted for humans later. The way it worked on them leeched on lifeforce through the flesh, always hungry.

"Quick question, if they go full out, do their eyes glow?"

"Yes," George said. "How did you know?"

"They already run on the same mechanism that drives the undead." Rita flicked one of the rocks into the air. "Souls are shields against this control magic, but bodies are the roots of the soul. These rocks here are like a physical pact. I wonder where the source lies?"

"Is that relevant to whether you can stall the effects?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," she lied, and for good measure she gave some misapplied truth. "The mechanism starts from the tiny fractions of life, but since these guys are not yet dead it doesn't make a replacement soul to supplant the nervous system. If I knew whether there was a power source it would draw on, I could adjust that."

If they thought she could fix something, it would buy her time. None of these people had the slightest idea what they were dealing with, unlike Rita. George didn't respond, but she expected it'd get to the right person.

"I'm going to subtract some of the blood and will need to experiment on it in a secure location," she said. "Are you aware what ichor is?"

"No."

"Find someone who does and get me a greenlight for experiments."

They got her a new room for this, next to the infirmary. George was more than a little skeptical about invoking an outsider, but Chabrol, whom she rarely saw but heard a lot from, approved of having multiple sources. Apparently his original source was not very reliable and he liked having something to compare to.

So, Rita was allowed to figure out how the gems worked, with the intent of improving their embedding and the usual threat of killing hostages.

Experiments involves throwing a bit of demon matter in a cauldron with a zomorrod and watching what happened, using a few conjured circle monitors. She specifically looked at the ichor, the magical matter that most gods and demons were constructed from in varying quantities. Unlike with humans it also kept their souls anchored.

Conclusion : it didn't like ichor, as expected, but it was geared at subverting earthly matter too.

Gods turned to golden light upon death. Demons exposed to zomorrods eventually melted, but the degree to which this happened varied. Humans had an advantage to resisting the magic, but rotted away when in direct contact with the gems. Everything was hurt by it, the corrosion just took varying time.

All this gave her two work rooms, which she found acceptable to entertain her for now. She would bust out once she knew enough of the area, and if nobody else got their lazy ass up here, but the time until then was well spent. A little waiting spell castle hidden in a wall here and there also was useful.

Not useful at all was the one time George led her down to the dungeons.

"The king not joining us today?" she asked.

"The king is busy."

Their destination was a room with corpses. She recognized a few faces from the rebellion, most recently dead and all terribly scarred. They walked past these towards a table near the end. Another demon was on it, not scarred at all. Gray, discolored nose, no horns but a jaws too wide for a human. Frostbite littered his skin, so he must've been that dragon frozen by a god. Evidently he hadn't quite survived the freezing, but he must've lived long enough to try transforming back.

"We found this after breaking down the frozen dragon shape, center to a mesh of flesh drawing in," George said. "Can anything be done with it?"

"I can't remotely take control of demons, so I'd have to bite him" she said. "He might come back sentient."

George snapped his fingers, and one of the escorts opened a nearby door. Two others grabbed the corpse and hauled it through it. Beyond the door Rita could see a few spell circles and contraptions, probably security in case of another incident with Azazel.

"While they set things up, try getting that on its feet," George said, pointing at a quivering, half melted mess in a corner.

Rita took a closer look. "Oh. And what exactly are you going to do with that?"

George sighed. "His majesty is into blood games."

Well, Rita had made it clear she didn't care too much, but this was slightly prickling.

· · · · · · ·

Kaisar was used to stand on the sides of the training ground, but today he took position on the allure above it to oversee.

The small monsters had been tied to the ground on chains, a challenge for the recruits was to touch their sword to the pin without getting injured. Little more than a test of response speed. Rita's part in creating them was difficult to ascertain. He didn't like to think about it, let alone that they were dismembered body parts of Azazel.

Athos's past job as a musketeer was earned, he was flat out better than Kaisar at instructing and motivating newcomers. He could fill the strange void Jeanne had left when she lost her powers, though it remained to be seen how he'd fare with the population.

The one dragon in left functional in Charioce s servant was a quiet fellow curious about human combat, and new to swordfighting enough he had to be with the rookies. He made a decent student, but it was clear he wasn't here to integrate. But he was powerful, far more powerful than an ordinary human, which made for good practice when the demon faction serving under the knights wasn't permitted to walk around in the open.

Despite the losses, things looked more or less right for the Orleans Knights. Kaisar's saving of the king, Athos's expertise and fame, they'd both brought in new recruits. The Onyx Knights would be much harder to expand due to the rigorous entrance requirements and George had given no indication that would be relaxed.

Kaisar should be rejoicing if only ... what had started this anyway? Azazel confronting him? Or earlier, with the appearance of the red dragon?

Belphegor would be at home experimenting. Kaisar hoped she would make a gas bomb first, but the times he'd checked she'd been into that green rock. Buying a slave had been easy enough, getting the rock into the canister not so much. It had tried to latch onto his skin, now leaving him with a scorch mark on his arm. He half wished he hadn't done it, so she'd get to work on an efficient way to break out Rita and Azazel.

Well, it'd have to wait, because Kaisar was rather busy anyway. A jailbreak would complicate things right now.

Dias passed by and said that the count Karl von Essenbeck had arrived, early, and wished to speak with Kaisar.

This man would supply a number of soldiers, whom would arrive today. Kaisar expected to be organizing with the military faction to integrate and adjust them, so it wasn't that strange that the count approached him. Something still felt off, though, because aside of Allesand Visponti demanding to be let in nobles didn't like to mesh with the Lidfard name still.

The count wandered towards him at a slow pace across the allure. Kaisar decided to meet him ahead, putting a fist over his heart palm down — standard greeting and vow of the Orleans Knights.

"Count von Essenbeck, I wish to express my thanks for your contribution. I am certain they are fine men," he said.

The man gave a mild smile and said, "I'm sure you will find them decent. I had better men, once. Someone sent them to hell."

Kaisar had well enough honed practice to know a jab at the king, and that this was the closest Karl would be able toget away with under normal circumstances. Kaisar lately felt a little less keen on reporting people for questioning the king.

"It is regrettable that many lives were lost. It certainly put a stop to the trouble we had with demons." He left away that he felt some things were too extreme.

"The gods, though ... " Karl sighed. "Honestly, considering how you returned to Anatae, surely you have a stronger opinion on where this kingdom is headed?"

That puzzled Kaisar until he figured the man meant accompanying Amira, the daugther of an angel. And a demon's fire, but Kaisar didn't find her very demonic — though, Belphegor wasn't that demonic either.

Before he could ask where Karl was headed, the man dropped a bomb, "Are you aware that the king had you tracked by his Onyx Knights a while ago?"

"I ... I was unaware."

"You are very careless, altogether. It is in your luck that some of the people here report to me."

Kaisar frowned. "Pardon me, but you speak as if you are not allied to our king. What are you here for?"

"I am more loyal to Charioce than I am to others who might currently oppose him, but let's say I find loyalty not an inherent value in and of itself. I belong to a group of people who are very concerned about the future of the kingdom," he said. "I believe you might be as well."

"Perhaps, but there are more than one reason to be concerned about the king," Kaisar said.

"Ours are practical. We wrung already depleted finances dry to go to his war, he won't give us the stronger demons as slaves, we are not allowed to generate ghouls, and fast amounts of money disappear from the treasure chest to unknown sources. He keeps us under his thumb while also depending on our resources, as if we are weeds. And that whole mess with spreading demons all over the continent depending on resources we must generate constantly. The king may have risen the country to welfare, but we fear his hubris will only collapse it in the long run."

Kaisar didn't have the faintest clue about economy, but he dared say hubris was a befit word. "I am inclined to agree in certain ways, but how would I know you are not pursuing hubris either?"

"We would keep things ... small. Coups over civil wars, hypothetically of course," Karl said. "Nobody needs to die, just a quiet dethroning. Perhaps get rid of the current monarchy, no good comes from that bloodline."

Kaisar remained silent at that.

"Consider it," Karl said. "They call us the Black Troupe, but we deems ourselves merely the elite concerned for its country."

"What would your plans for the demons be in this new order?"

"We would prefer to purge the demons from our country once we have restored our economy in such a way it doesn't rely on a ticking time bomb. There is much that Charioce did right, but it cannot last."

"Indeed it cannot," Kaisar said.

"I'm glad we see eye to eye on that. Well, we shall surely speak again." Karl turned away and waved at one of his servants staning at the far away door. "Ah, Paracelsus? A word with you about the automatons of this location, please."

While the count wandered off with his men, Kaisar was left staring at the training ground without processing anything.

He had more options, perhaps. Going into whatever haphazard direction Belphegor wanted to go wouldn't be all.

Charioce had taken good care of the kingdom, and while he was too extreme about things, he couldn't imagine that he wouldn't come around. He was only young and possessed of an anger that Kaisar knew all too well. Killing him wasn't acceptable, so perhaps the Black Troupe was a safer way to undermine the worst and maintain his honor.

· · · · · · ·

When not in pointless interrogations, they kept Azazel in a cold room of which the walls were lined with the power of Dromos. A circle on the floor was ready to activate if he tried anything. It meant less need to chain every part of him down even as his arms had mostly grown back, and more creativity. Arms tied back, a stick between the joints of the knees prevented him from sitting down and he couldn't slump forward without driving himself into blades that had been raised before him. He'd survive them, but it would hurt until they saw it fit to remove them and he didn't regenerate as fast as he should. That might be poison like he'd used on Amira once, it might be his failing drive, he didn't care to figure it out.

What he cared for what Charioce to be gone from the world, and right now he did the opposite by entering the dungeon.

Charioce took a seat on the torturer's chair that had been left at the room and looked him over. Azazel wasn't usually the kind be bothered by someone looking at him, but this was Charioce, beholding him in all the blood and pain he'd delivered.

Azazel had little energy to talk, but he knew Charioce wouldn't leave until he did. Staying any second longer in his presence than needed wasn't acceptable. "Did you come here for any reason other than looking at your work?"

"As a matter of fact, yes, and you'll be pleased to know it is not a test today either. I am curious about a few things. We have some tales of you, curtsy of obsolete knights and taverns taking a toll of Favaro Leone. You got so close to killing that man, more than once. Why did he survive you?"

A child on his knees in the pouring rain, looking up over his father's corpse. Smug then, Azazel had spared him because wasn't it fun if children grew up with that kind of shadow?

"Cruelty," he muttered.

"What about the child? What made you take him in?"

Left Lucifer out of pride, up until he stood in that place full of slaughtered slavers, and Mugaro's tiny hand clutching his cloak. Most demon children that survived weren't in such poor shape they couldn't walk. Then and there, Azazel found he didn't walk away.

Mercy, but it didn't sound like anything he should ever say. He wasn't even sure it was the right word.

"Well then, let's try another : how did you get Nina on your side?"

Azazel's head jerked up. If he knew her name, did that mean he had caught her, or had someone spilled it?

"Answer the question," Charioce said calmly.

"Thank your knights for that," he said. "She didn't get involved until they drove her to us."

Charioce kept quiet for a while. Azazel couldn't guess what he was thinking or how he got to what he said next.

"Did they now? I recall quite clearly you walked into my trap alone," he said. "You walked into a trap with no hope for survival of yourself, or those I had rounded up. It's worthless, really. I imagine she thought you were a hero."

Charioce walked up to Azazel. So close, but between all the binds Azazel couldn't kill him.

"The more that falls into place, the more I realize where your fault truly lies. You divine beings really do everything in the extreme, and so you went from one pathetic life to another. You were worthless before with your games on a family here, a village there, picking on the weak for no good goal. You are worthless now, saving the weak that barely have purpose. And the one time you bother with someone worthwhile, it leads to your undoing. I see now. You are a complication of fate, rather than a wheel of it."

If he'd let Nina fall, he wanted to be rid of that thought. Never have been challenged with it. If not, he would still be out there, the others still alive and hiding.

Charioce continued, "I've yet to see where all the pieces lie, but I've appropriated demonkind as a wheel for my ends for a good use even you would agree with. You did, once."

Once.

"Good use? Agree?" Azazel snapped between ragged breath. "My people are weaker than ever in bleeding for you. You force the strongest remaining to kill each other in the arena, how does that help your damn kingdom?"

"Oh, that. Well, ordinary humans need faith. They once built theirs on the gods who demanded it. I do the same in a far more concrete way : I show them the blood of their enemies every day where the gods only gave them a saint every now and then."

Azazel flinched away as Charioce laid a hand on his cheek, but couldn't get far. The prison was too cold, but he would take ice just to have the warmth of that hand off of him. It was the pretense of gentleness with which Charioce said, look what I can do without a need to fight you off.

Magic or not, Azazel had strength enough to drive his fangs through Charioce's hand. His lips curled up, but in the same instance the circle around him flared green, ready to strike.

"Don't be difficult." A build up of power from Charioce's arm stopped him rather than the words; not physical pressure but the familiar sting of Dromos. "Though perhaps that is asking too much of you without a trade off. So, I'll tell you I have four others members of your little rebellion, and unlike you they do not generate."

Azazel clenched his jaw together, but kept his eyes on Charioce. He couldn't look away now, no matter how humiliating this was.

"Good," Charioce said, untouched by the hateful glare. He might well revel in it, but Azazel still wouldn't look away.

"You shouldn't have started caring," Charioce said. "I have rid myself of guilt and mercy so I can focus on my goal to great success, and now fate his given you to me. That this happened because you came here for your people is quite ironic, after everything you did to mine. Now I just have to decide whether to clean you away, or use you for a game I see fit. "

"What you're using me for isn't a game already?"

"No, I have a purpose behind all my actions. Even my games do. Not that you would understand, or are even worth the explanation."

How Charioce drank in the sight of his victory and dominance belied it. Charioce was the kind of human whom Azazel instantly would have offered a pact if he had met him over a decade ago, to then sit back and watch the chaos unfold.

"There is no explanation, but you," Azazel said. "You might have all of this, but it doesn't make you greater. I've thrown away many like you."

Charioce dragged his fingers down, hovering the tips over Azazel's skin in feather light mockery.

"Don't presume to lecture me on my nature, when your stupidity brought you to your knees before me. Tell me, what did you achieve other than a second fall?"

Nothing. Charioce did differ in one way from everyone else Azazel had played with. He might have been the one who would succeed at turning a pact back on Azazel, like many had failed to do.

Charioce's fingers fell off his chin. "So, since you give me no answers I can use, how about I give you my goal?"

· · · · · · ·

The child Kaisar had bought was a quiet little girl named Tasro, who had arrived in the city by abduction about three years ago. The housekeeper, Felicia, saw her as a human child so Belphegor pretended she was a cousin; the kid looked different enough from her either in real sight or fog illusion to avoid the implication she was the mother. She spent most of her time on Belphegor's room, sometimes helping out in small, safe tasks. She was happier to be here than where she'd been, but still a child so in no position to decide how much work she ought to do.

"I'm bored," the girl said, peering over the table with large eyes. "Can I do something?"

That was an issue, indeed. "You could ask the housekeeper for a chore to do, but make sure to get something in return. Maybe an apple?"

"A whole apple?"

"Yes, and you get to eat it too. Tell her that Kaisar wouldn't have it otherwise," she said. "And make sure to not get saddled with too much, so check in on me soon. We'll see about getting you some toys soon."

Belphegor lost herself in her work after that, only briefly noting that Tasro and Felicia had gone into the inner garden to pick herbs. She paid it no heed until the shriek.

Reflex was to stand up and dart to the window, but her legs gave way and she barely caught herself on the table, wincing in pain. Sitting back down, she waited for it to subside. There were no further screams, and after a while small feet came running to her room.

Tasro stormed in and closed the door with her shoulders.

"Look!" She held up a disembodied but twitching hand to Belphegor. "It was out on the door. It really scared the housekeeper lady, but I think it's nice."

"Oh my, that's Rita's pet hand," Belphegor said.

The hand twitched, did it not like being referred to as pet? How did it even see and hear, when it had no ears?

"I'm sorry. Did you come here for Kaisar?"

The handed twitched its fingers forward, imitating nodding.

"He's not here, but he will be eventually. In the meantime, I'm working on something. You were Rita's assistant, right? Would you mind being mine too?"

Another nod, this time more enthusiastic.

Belphegor wondered what the fog would translate a disembodied hand as. She'd find out, no doubt, but more importantly, she had an assistant now who could hold that damn rock.

· · · · · · ·

The repetition was a punishment by side effect. Stand still and have only hunger to feel, or load up and resist the pull of the rocks. The closer one got to it, the more it tried to leech.

They weren't supposed to help anyone who fell down. One could get away with helping someone stand up while moving through the tunnels, but not at work. If they didn't stand up, they were taken away and someone else would take the empty spot. There was no shortage of new prisoners. No shortage of bodies added to the death toll of Charioce, be it by labor, rampant disease, starvation or execution. By now Nina begun to wonder what would do herself in, because all mere tests of the security had done was find no holes, and got the door of her cell full of enforced steel because she kept pushing the bars out of the rock.

She grew thinner by the day, up until everyone else noticed. They couldn't do anything, were too tired.

But Jeanne did something, somehow. During one break hour, she called Nina into a storage room where she was supposed to be cleaning up. Under the pretense of Nina helping she was let in, though not without raising odd looks.

Jeanne led her to a corner, where she picked up something from under a crate.

"Here. Eat it, quickly." Jeanne pushed no less than eight small breads into Nina's arms.

Baffled, Nina looked up. "How?"

"Just eat them," Jeanne said, giving her arm a little push. "Before they catch you."

Nina felt they ought to return it, it was stolen, they might get punished, but hunger won out. She stuffed the meager food in her mouth, uncaring for fungus or bugs. She could feel it melt away in her stomach already.

She left two for Jeanne and lied that she was full. Jeanne didn't believe it, but Nina couldn't be swayed and neither of them could be found holding bread. Jeanne scarfed them down with more bites.

But not fast enough.

"And what exactly are you doing?"

At the voice of the guard, Jeanne dropped her head and let herself he dragged out of the storage room, not even responding to the beating on her back and head.

Complacency wasn't Nina's forte. She hurled the first guard back and the second too. The third had a metal rod and landed a blow on her leg, buckling her forward. The blows kept landing, just swift enough to keep her from turning around and hitting back. Using chains, they got her in a hold and dragged her into the hall.

Someone came up with a vial of the sticky oil used to dislodge stuck machinery. After Nina was in enough pain to not fight instantly, they pulled her head up by the hair and forced the oil down her throat, half choking her. She struggled and was able to kick the one administering it before the whole pot down down, but it was enough to make her sick.

Her captors pushed her head down. Pretty quickly, the oil and everything else she'd eaten came back up.

They laughed and one said, "Try spending your time working, and we wouldn't have to do this!"

Nina's muscles tensed up. Magic of transformation pushed out the scales and grew her muscles even as there wasn't enough to sustain a dragon. A deep growl escaped her throat as she janked her arms loose. Within a twist of her foot and a second's passing, she'd grabbed the guard's wrist.

"We could work better if you gave us more food!" she growled.

The guard's wrist broke as she squeezed. The crack echoed through the hall, almost as loud as the guard's scream. Nina janked the whip from the other guard's hands and ripped it apart.

More guards ran at her, and she was just so fed up, she forewent all trained suppression of her natural power. Nearby stood a trolley, she picked up the entire thing and hurled it at them.

A moment's silence was followed by fearful gasps and the shouting of guards.

"No way a human would be this strong," one of them said. "It must be a demon."

"Honestly, why was she even put here? We're not supposed to have demons so close to the project," another guard said.

Five of them tackled Nina. More by instinct and reason did she resist, even as she saw Jeanne shake her head and mout no. It didn't help. They had to get off. She threw two of them across the hall, but was dragged to her stomach when one grabbed her legs.

Nina struggled against them, reasonless, almost eager to bite—

Another two guards came running, one of them holding something.

"Von List said enough of it." Out came a slave collar, complete with shining green gem. "We can't get rid of her, it's orders, but we can keep her restrained."

The slave collar clicked into place.

Nothing happened other than the now familiar pressure of the green power being closer. It pulsed like it tried to latch onto her very soul, but slipped off.

She seconds to sensed that before the guard whispered the activation spell in a bracelet. Dim pull turned into a dagger driven into her throat, ripping out a scream.

But she could still move. It didn't go as deep as her bones. After the initial flare of pain wore off surprise, she pushed her arms below her and struggled onto her knees. She kept her jaws together, even as her voice betrayed her.

"Nina, stay down," Jeanne said somewhere in the distance. It barely mattered.

Fangs broke through and would have gone further, if Jeanne hadn't thrown off her captor to rush at her side. She put an arm over Nina's shoulders. It distracted her enough, soothed a little, and Nina stayed down. Her sense returned to her as Jeanne's voice grounded her.

If she let the dragon out here, people would get crushed to death simply by her size. That was not acceptable. Jeanne had a calmness that helped, maybe if she took that a step further — she thought of home, of her happiest times with her mother and father, when he was still around — but he was gone now — and her thoughts betrayed her and set her on the dance floor with Chris — a pirouette before the gazebo and the surprise orchestra — and it sent her reeling. But sadness was not shock or horror or rush or pain, and the pulse of transformation shut down. She let herself drop down, almost feigned weakness, and the spell stopped. They thought they'd won, she let them think it.

If this was what the stones felt like, how much worse would it be for demons? She wouldn't complain about it, so once she was allowed to stand, she grit her teeth and pushed herself up on trembling limbs. She'd gotten just a little step closer to warding off the dragon, if only by need, and no step closer to igniting by will, but it was something positive to hold onto.

She returned to the routine of work, now accompanied by the endless push and pull of the gem at her neck — part begging her to take it, embed it, let it leech, the other part rejecting its very essence. It crept into her mind through open corners, needling her into different directions.

Chris hadn't chosen this. It could not be. If he wanted her in a collar he would have said so right away. Maybe he kept track of how she did and would order it removed. Until then, she could endure. If they thought this would stop her from helping her fellow prisoners or escaping, they were wrong.

· · · · · · ·

Favaro found his new buddies might have uses. For this evening, Trismegistus had constructed some kind of strange matter that stuck to the face, not magical in itself. She'd made lifelike masks of it for herself and anyone who needed it. This way they could walk around without being recognized, regardless of anti illusion antidote.

Favaro had painted his hair black, changed clothing into something uncharacteristic and off they were to find out about the Red Troupe. Their leader was supposedly somewhere in the higher district of the city, but Cerberus only had guesses on the actual identity and no scents to follow. Favaro expected to have more chances to learn things, though he wasn't that good at seeming honest. Hence Walfrid, who did, and Trismegistus came by as their guard since she didn't need demonic power to defend.

So, pretending to he moderately fancy people, they strolled through the streets.

"Tell me again why we're absolutely not not supposed to kill the leader of the Orleans Knights if they catch us here?" Walfrid asked.

"Look, bomberhead is stubborn as fuck but he's still my friend and I swear eventually sense will knock into him. The king's got Rita now, maybe that'll do it," Favaro said. "Though maybe he's gonna stick because she's there. They don't have her in the dungeons, they've got her in the most guarded area up the tower."

Walfrid froze, eyes wide. "How would you know that?"

"Walls don't stop my friend," he said. "The pay off for that is that she can't stop anything physical either. That's my job."

Trismegistus crossed her arms. "You're awfully mysterious, won't make a pact with Cerberus and you're friends with an enemy, why should we even trust you?"

"Oh man, can we not do this out here? It's not like I'm a threat to you anyway, all I got is a little demon tail and a specter friend who is frankly a better person than I am."

That got disgruntled half answers and no trust. Dammit. He'd stopped being a chronic liar years ago, why was this still happening? They didn't even have a good reason to expect a trap.

Trismegistus froze up.

"What's it?" Walfrid asked.

She held up a hand. "I think someone's cast a drought spell on an area to the left of us."

When prompted, she explained that as an alchemist she had a sensor that detected material in the environment. Someone had offloaded a whole lot of air moisture around here. Probably not a kid with science homework, too precise. Walfrid wanted to dodge, Trismegistus was curious, and as tiebreaker Favaro added in some curiosity.

They followed Tris's directions and found a whole line of mansions rather busy burning to the ground. None of the houses before or after this house line burned, which in itself was an indication of arson. The third indication was the people strung out of the windows on ropes, screaming as they burned alive.

The trio joined the crowd staring at the line of fire, at a safe enough distance to talk without being heard. Favaro didn't spot any of the fire brigade that should've been around, only muttering crowds.

"So, your friend in any of those mansions?" Walfrid asked.

"Nah, he's closer to the forest," Favaro said. "Man, what a disaster. If this goes on he'll show up here soon."

"In case any of you is heroically inclined, I wanna point out the fire is going to melt our masks," Trismegistus said.

"Good, I was gonna pass anyway," Walfrid said. "I would like to find out who did this, though. Maybe our soon to be friends, or competition?"

Favaro considered taking out his crossbow and at least shooting the ropes loose, but he found his bounty bracelet glowing and didn't move. A powerful demon was nearby and he would bet it was responsible for this.

A roof of one mansion exploded. Pieces of tile rained onto the street, forcing the crowd to back off.

Someone stood amid the flames.

Onto the crumbling edge of the attic stepped a woman with long orange hair and black horns pointed up, dressed in black satin with white lace and gold ornaments. Favaro smelled fallen angel before she even unfolded her dark feathered wings; if old Azazel was any indication with his leather, belts and chains, fallen angels had a bit of tackiness. This one looked like she dressed for a tea party with only aesthetic warrior touches, while standing atop an inferno bathed in dying screams.

Favaro had expected a speech, some kind of boisterous declaration or maniacal laughter. But she just stood there,peering down at the gaping crowd, too far away to read her expression.

"It's a demon!" someone called in the crowd closer to that fire.

"Call the knights! Where are the knights?"

A quick look around, and far off in the dark sky were wyverns ... dropping down as soon as they got in touch with the smoke. Dammit.

When a nearby man ran to get the knights, a spell circle opened below him. Before he could so much as step away, he burst into flames.

Screaming, the crowd dispersed. Favaro grabbed Trismegistus and Walfrid by the arms, keeping them in place. Circles opened below everyone who ran, incinerating them alive.

The remaining people stood stock still, until a woman collapsed to her knees and cried.

A circle opened below the person next to her, burning them too. This continued one by one from the first one out, but skipped over anyone who went down.

"Kneel!" Favaro called, dropping himself to his knees. His companions followed suit, as did most humans not yet targeted.

A minute dragged by after the last person had dropped to their knees, during which the fallen angel only looked on.

Still without a word, she bowed and vanished into thin air. Amira flitted through the sky, but found her nowhere. She went inside and looked out of the window soon after, shaking her head. Unless the fallen angel had tricks Amira could not read, then they had just seen a demon whose teleportation hadn't been limited by the fall of hell.

Amira ran a check to confirm she was really gone before giving him the clear signal.

Favaro stood up, which drew fearful murmurs, but nothing further happened.

There was no sign of knights or fire brigade. That angel would've had a support network, because both both the ground knights and the fire brigade had been intercepted somehow. This was a message.

Bit by bit, the people started to calm down and climb to her feet, Walfrid and Trismegistus among the first.

"Any of you know who that was?" Favaro asked.

They both shook their heads. People around started running or tending to the dead or comforting each other.

Someone approached them. An old man with a croaky voice, wearing a cloak Favaro had seen before, said, "Allies of Cerberus, am I right?"

"Who asks?" Trismegistus said.

"Vassal of the lady Olivia," he said with a chuckle. "Lovely show we had, no?"

"How did she do this?" Walfrid said. "Azazel was damn clear about how he doesn't have that range anymore for his serpents, while that angel opens portals all over the place."

The man chuckled. "Hell has more rivers than fear. Now then, what are you doing here?"

If Cerberus hadn't told Olivia about Favaro's intent to gather human allies, assuming they'd talked to her at all, there was reason for that. Cerberus was smart enough. "I'm getting these two familiar with the area in case something big has got to be done. You know, getting a certain feathery guy back," Favaro said. "I once was a knight, I know the place quite a bit."

"I see. Well, you might want to reconsider the need for that particular fallen angel now that the lady Olivia has arrived."

His two companions looked apprehensive, and Favaro himself would've been weary even if not for the whole business with fallen angels being trouble. After all, if they fell, it's because they wanted something incompatible with heaven and this one liked to set people on fire for a show.

· · · · · · ·

They drugged him with the same poison he'd once loaded her Gregor with, capable of knocking out the greatest demons. Not easy to make, certainly not for humans in a short time period. He expected they were bringing him elsewhere, and it wouldn't be good. He expected right.

When he woke up he was chained up in an all too familiar dungeon. It wasn't the bland brick walls that hinted it, but the bitter scent of blood, sand, sweat and metal that lay under everything here.

He'd been out long enough for his flesh injuries to heal. He lifted his new arms as much as he could, finding them mostly the same. There was only one reason they would bring him to the arena, and he dread what he would soon have to do with those hands.

Charioce's goal : the use and annihilation of all the demons encompassed. The strongest, the weakest, all mowed down, culture gone and with it their pride. Now Azazel would be speeding that up, another wheel to Charioce's machine of destruction. Charioce's goal was born of the kind of hatred even Azazel could not imagine. He hadn't wanted humankind wiped out or even torn down to nothing. He didn't want to imagine to be part of that for his own people, but he'd learn. Maybe he deserved this more than death dished by one of his victims, if he had no choice but to perish. He'd fallen twice already, why not a third and final time? Why not?

He knew all the motions of preparing a demon for combat. The collar always stayed on, but the shackles around the hands and the foot would get off once in the middle of the pit. The collar master stayed behind the gates, the collar itself would activate in case of magic use, and an extra Dromos circle lay under the entire arena in case something happened to the gem. The things were vulnerable as any crystal.

When they came him they hooked a metal rod on his collar, like he was a rabid dog. They put the rags of his vigilante nights over him.

The sun shone brightly as they led him into the arena. He kept his face neutral, unwilling to give them any misery or hatred to rejoice in.

At least, up until they brought him across his opponent.

They set him across ... across Dante, or what was left of him : a rotten, half melted corpses with only one half formed eye. The other glowed.

Rita had taken a bite of his corpse and it probably was a sentient being who looked back at him. He didn't know how it worked on demons who had grown from human hearts.

One of the handlers pulled the cloak off of him, another yelled, "We present you the greatest killing machine haunting Anatae : the rag demon!"

The crowd fell into a stunned, short lived silence before they roared, "Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!"

Azazel had grown accustomed to the human wailing, knew to mourn in silence, they faded to the background. What he could not fade out was the look Dante gave him. There was a specific kind of hatred that comes from those in mad despair, distinct from those that bear it out of misery, regret or pain.

"You ... you got us here," he rasped.

Dante charged as soon as they unhooked him.

Azazel could fight using only a sword, but Dante had a lifetime of having to rely on physical strength and simply ran him over. It met head first with Azazel's unwillingness to fight against him. The blow of Dante's massive sword threw him back, sending him to the ground a few meters away. Disappointed hollers rose from the crowd.

Dante staggered closer in a broken gait. Azazel dodged the sword descending, rolled over and was back on his feet.

It wasn't a real challenge, with him like that. It wasn't supposed to be. Charioce risked a displeased crowd for his own preference.

"Dante, can you hear me?" Azazel said.

"I hear you," he said. Half his cheek sagged off, ready to rip. "I should've heard you before, I'd have known better than to follow your ideas. Let's use the magenta dragon, ha!"

Without precision, Dante started hacking at Azazel.

"I didn't ... " Didn't what? What could he possibly say to Dante after all this? There was nowhere to run, nobody to save. One or both of them would die today.

Azazel's eyes crossed Charioce, who sat on his throne with the same impassive look as always. When he noticed Azazel's attention, he smiled.

If Azazel let Dante kill him here, Charioce would at least not have the pleasure of using him for his genocide.

Dante knocked him back with his elbow and Azazel let himself go down. Planting a knee on his chest, Dante tried to slice his head off, but despite himself Azazel set the sword against his hand and caught the other and of the blade in his black claw.

"You left us all to rot, and now we have to pay for it. Now I ..." Every word was soft, dying breath. "I didn't change into a demon to die as human entertainment. I just wanted to go home."

Dante still wanted to live, but he was already dead far beyond Rita.

The blade came closer to his throat. Azazel could let it through, but just as the first drops of blood flowed, his arms tensed and he threw Dante back. Jumping to his feet, he took a defensive stance. Unbidden, he recalled old magic to dispel pacts.

Between the two of them, Dante didn't deserve this half life. Azazel clenched his hand around the sword and jumped. Spinning around to kick the blade out of Dante's hands, he threw him back and cut his legs off. Dante was left flailing on the ground, but grew silent soon. Only his rasping groans remained, like he tried to breathe and could not.

Azazel knelt at his side. With his claws in the way, he could not touch set the tip of his finger on the forehead, as was customary to accessing pact magic, so he used the flat of his thumb. Dante clawed at his arm, but was too weak to move it.

As general of hell, general below Lucifer, Azazel exercised an authority he had never touched on. He banished Dante from hell and claimed back the ichor he had once taken in. To Dante's death.

Dante ceased to exist as black matter rotten out of him. So much about him had been demonic, it took along all sense of identity. Left was only a shriveled, frail corpse that didn't even work properly as a human zombie. Azazel closed his hand around the skull and crushed it. He stayed on his knees. Tears prickled in his eyes.

He'd thought it difficult to be forced to watch his people die. Mugaro had administered mercy death countless times, had somehow conjured the strength for it over and over.

Only then did he notice the suffocating silence in the arena.

The announcer broke it by rattling on about demonic possession, warning of its dangers, and finishing with the line, "This is what has happened to the saint Jeanne d'Arc as well."

What Azazel had heard and seen of Jeanne during her rampage in Eibos was nothing like Dante. The discrepency of her suddenly being brought up, when they had not done so for years, registered but did not stay in his mind for long.

Dante's human corpse indicated a small man who wouldn't have come close to the power of his demon form. So much of him had changed he died with exile. The line between human and demon was both clear and worthless.

The snakes writhing below his skin manifested when a spot on his arm broke. The collar prickled but didn't register it as independent from his basic body. It slithered across his arm before boring back into his flesh.

· · · · · · ·

Jeanne felt it before she heard the cry. Nina was in the storage, supposed to be retrieving things with her enormous strength. The rest of her team had dropped their work and had pressed against the wall, while a guard shouted at Nina to get up.

Nine had curled up, head pressed against the ground before her knees. Her arms covered her head, close to the still glowing collar. Pink flares leaked off her arms and legs, illuminating the room stronger than the green light from the collar.

Jeanne moved.

"Hold it!" Another guard stepped in the way.

At any other day she would have obeyed, but now she dodged below the blocking arm and dropped next to Nina.

A glint on Nina's arm came from scales. Not the layered kind of fish, but more reptilian hardened skin pushing up. Nina had said she wasn't quite human, but this didn't fit any demons she knew.

Jeanne put an arm over her back and her other hand on one of Nina's hands. The knuckles were covered with hardened skin and the lower parts of her fingers were dark and padded.

"Nina, withdraw," Jeanne whispered close to her ear. "Please try, if they call in von List you'll be in worse trouble."

"I can't," she sobbed through a voice that sounded nothing like a human. Heavier, with a growl to it. "It's too small here. I can't, but it's going to happen."

"What is?"

"I change when I'm ... stressed, or overloaded, or dying." She might be sobbing, but it was difficult to hear over her lowered voice. "I'm so hungry. I have to get out. I have to hunt."

Up close, small bits of bones were visible as they formed on her skull and at her jaw. No doubt, this was a transformation.

Jeanne had the memory of how to channel power from the gods. It had been stronger in the presence of the god key because the presence of Zeus's vast power, loading her with easily released force. She was a channel, which came with the ability to sense the flow of magic. Nina had had own source, but that didn't mean it might not be channeled away.

The guards were hesitant to approach. Good. Jeanne sat before Nina and coaxed her to sit up too. She had been crying, her eyes were tear streaked and desperate.

"Listen to me," Jeanne said. "I'm going to take something away from you. Your mindset will influence how well I can. Concord will make it easier, so think about allowing me to take it."

Nina clutched her hands into her own shoulders, or rather her claws. "There's nothing I can let go."

"Yes, you can let go of your energy."

"If I release it I transform," she whispered hoarsely.

Jeanne took her by the shoulders and looked sternly at her. "Nina, I will handle it. I swear, but you must let go. I don't know what will happen if you transform, but I can see you don't want to."

She left away what von List might do, Nina didn't need more anxiety.

"Trust me. Okay?"

Nina nodded stiffly and closed her eyes.

Jeanne didn't close her own eyes, but what she saw was secondary to what she felt. She hovered her hands close to Nina's hands, but found her power was more focused around her heart — of course, it was inherent rather than expressed.

Where Michael had conducted holy light to her, Belzebuth had given her seething fire. Nina was wild fire, but nothing like that of hell. Belzebuth's power had been focused, needle sharp and lethal, while Nina was chaotic, erratic and yet warm. The glow faded just a little as Jeanne guided it aside.

"You really are a saint," Rachel muttered somewhere to the side.

Jeanne shook her head. "Not anymore. My patron deity is long gone. I simply retained memory of how to wield raw power."

Nina began to relax into the flow. One of her clawed hands closed around Jeanne's, cautiously beginning to give along. The glow crept weaker and weaker. Jeanne still needed all her focus to keep the tremendous amount of energy to disperse.

"What's going on here?"

Everyone froze at the unwelcome voice and Jeanne almost lost touch. After regaining it, she turned her head.

In the doorway stood what once would have looked like a most stereotypical old scholar. Long white hair, bearded, tiny round spectacles and a berret. That had become the stereotype of danger here. The guards were cruel, but Chabrol was uncaring. He wanted perfection, and demanded it with the immediate replacement of unfit workers.

Jeanne looked him straight in the eye, hateful, but she kept her voice even and respectful. "Please give Nina some time off. Her powers are going out of control."

Von List ignored her and glanced at the guard with the control bracelet. "Why are you standing around letting this happen? Didn't I give you a collar and bracelet to avoid exactly this? To think that—"

"That collar is making it worse!" Jeanne said. The guard smacked her across the back of her head. She lost touch with Nina, but she crawled onto her feet and glared at von List again. "Let me bring her back to her cell. She's a shapeshifter, you don't want to know what she's going to turn into."

Nina's glow increased again.

"Unfortunately I'm already aware," von List said. "And I agree not one bit with the king putting that thing here, but alas. Orders are orders. You say you can keep that in check?"

"As well as I could keep any demon in check, in my past days." Except her own.

"Fine. Get it out of here."

Really?

Von List turned away without further fuss. He was law on this island, so those orders could only be from the king. What was going on?

A guard urged her on. Jeanne helped Nina stand and they were led through the corridors. Part of her feared they would be cleaned up, but they weren't brought to the incinerator.

Once in their empty block, the guard directed them to Nina's cell and said, "When it's over, you come out and get back to work."

The door was locked behind them.

It took a very long time for Nina's transformation power to ebb away. She began growing a small tail at some point, by which point Jeanne couldn't restrain her curiosity anymore.

"Nina, what are you?"

The answer came so readily, Jeanne felt she could've asked before.

"I am part dragon, a kind that can take humanoid shape," she said. "My mother was an ordinary human and I was conceived outside the usual magic rituals, so I'm not really right. If I transform, be careful, okay? I'm just a monster then."

"How so?" she asked. "Wouldn't it help us if you turn into a dragon and break us out?"

"In here, it won't. At my dragon's strongest and most free, my mind goes. What use is it to be when I can burn down everything and go everywhere I want, if I'm not really awake, let alone can control it?"

Jeanne got the impression she wasn't really talking about a prison break. Careful, she rubbed Nina's back. Below the coarse prison shift, she could feel scales and a heightened spine. It unnerved her, but she didn't let go.

Nina shook like she restrained sobs. "I let them all down. Dante, Belphegor and everyone else are dead ... the guard who rowed me to the island said they're torturing Azazel and they have Rita too and Bacchus and Hamsa are missing ... The one time everyone wants me to kill a human, the one time there's no doubt I should, I didn't do it," she growled.

After a few deep breathes, she continued in a still hoarse, inhuman voice, but softer. "Why does he do this?"

"Who, Charioce?" Jeanne asked.

"How can he be like this?"

How indeed? Jeane couldn't give a clear answer.

"Humans are the sum of our choices," Jeanne said, because something had to be said. "Where gods may flow and demons burn, we are the ever changing tide. Charioce chose to invade heaven and refused to say any more than that was for the betterment of humankind. Nothing forced him, so he can be like this because he wants to."

She wished she knew more to say, but she herself couldn't make sense of humans. After all, she'd once worn a face she now hated.

Nina stood up. Her tail had retreated, but the scales were still there and her face looked strangely distorted, like she'd burst bones through the skin soon.

"I don't think you're okay yet. Please rest a little more," Jeanne said.

Nina shook her head. "Don't worry about it. I'll be okay. I always was."

That her smile seemed almost real was more disturbing since her eyes were red and dripping with yellow goo. Nina pushed herself to her feet and cheerfully said, "Let's get back to work."

· · · · · · ·

Cerberus's obligatory new ally was making a mess of the city. Sure, the fire had been constrained to the high ring and with the wall between that and the lower district the fire was unlike to spread, but by chaos. It sure had taken a bite out of the wealthier customers. As if she needed a reason to rush getting Azazel out.

Time to expand her allies some more. While looking for Rocky (tiny agents were handy, okay) Mimi had reported Belphegor was somewhere in the upper ring with broken legs in the Lidfard mansion. Well, look at that. A rebellion member who was actually useful. Time for a visit.

By now a lot of the city guard wore drenched handkerchiefs that warded off the illusionary fog. There wasn't enough of the antidote plant to get the entire city the material, so guards patrolled the streets. Avoiding them wasn't easy, but not impossible either if she sent one of her puppies ahead to scout, and teleported into a few houses with empty rooms to hide if needed.

She reached the designated mansion without trouble, sniffed the air and confirmed the scent of Kaisar Lidfard all over the place. Without further ado, she teleported into a kitchen, avoided a housekeeper and tiptoed towards a room reeking of medicine, disgruntled demon and telltale chemicals.

Quietly, she teleported in and got fumes in her face that obscured the poof of her arrival.

Belphegor had a table full of pipes, glass, tiny spell circles and goo in bottles and flasks. A sack of potatoes with electrodes in it stood next to the table and was wired to a canister central to the contraption. She herself sat hunched over this table and did not look up.

Cerberus leaned in from behind and said, "Watcha doing?"

Belphegor startled so much she dropped a glass with steaming liquid on the table, which corroded a little.

"What I am doing is trying to concentrate." Belphegor took a breath, grabbed a towel from the ground and started cleaning.

"I meant what you're doing here, in the captain's home, in the upper ring, where you can be very easily caught," she said. And traced back to Cerberus's brothel, now she thought about it. "How did you even get here?"

Belphegor stuck a bandaged leg out from under the table. "I got half squashed and had the fortune of looking pretty, female and the right kind of distressed to kick in Lidfard's knightly instincts. I wish I could take all this and do it somewhere safer, but I can't yet run with these legs if it comes to that."

"Nice," Cerberus said. "You really scored, didn't you?"

"Why are you like this?"

"Just saying good job. Anyway, this here is ...?" She waved at the table. "And how'd you get him to allow this?"

"The captain of the Orleans Knights has been having doubts on how strict he's following the laws of his kingdom. I'm putting those doubts to good use." With some difficulty, Belphegor stood up and opened the canister, revealing one of those green stones. "I'm going to find out what this is, how it works and what we can do about it."

"I can tell you the latter," Cerberus said. "Human heritage helps."

That actually got Belphegor to put down her silly tools. "Really? How do you know?"

Cerberus wanted to tell her in short terms what they'd figured out, but Belphegor incessantly nagged on about details that Cerberus didn't have. She had zero interest in testing out what Walfrid and Trismegistus could do, she didn't even know where Paracelsus had sodded off to and she had no idea what astral embedding even meant.

"Oh, you're hopeless," Belphegor said. "Would it be possible for me to move back in? Here I'm just one explosion away from discovery, but if I can work with Azazel's pacted humans I'm sure I can learn more."

"No, it's already crowded back in my place. They start wanting entertainment. I can't believe the freaking spider's the only one who can sit still."

"Arachna is alive? Who else survived?"

"Lot who didn't join the fight, including your crew. The guy started growing salad in your old room," Cerberus said. "Also, Azazel and Rita are alive, but the king has them."

"I'm aware. Kaisar knows where they keep Azazel," Belphegor said.

"Great, that makes it much easier to bust him out. My darlings are smart but cute little dogs snooping around the empty dungeon halls does tend to stand out. Got a map?"

"I think I can convince Kaisar to give me one," she said. "But, why do you even care?"

"I still have an open deal for helping that stupid rebellion. If humankind does fall, I will be getting my castle and permission to start a hellhound breeding program. That, and there's a new fallen angel in town. She's bad for resources."

Belphegor's eyes widened. "The fire the other night ... was that ... ?"

"Yep. Olivia with a crew of her own. She wants to fill the gap your Pyrrhic victory left." Cerberus flopped back onto the bed and cuddled her puppies close. "Anyway, I'm taking a nap here till bomberhead comes, okay?"

Belphegor groaned, but went back to her work without further complaint. Cerberus dozed off, trusting her sharp ears to warn her of trouble.

When she woke up it was to the noise of approaching footsteps and the scent of gloomy tormented knight.

He stopped in the doorway when he saw Cerberus, who waved at him. "Hey there. I think we need to talk, captain."

His hand was on the hilt of his sword. "What about?"

"About you finally betraying the king all the way," she said. "I'll throw in your zombie friend if you help us. I mean, sure she's dead, but I'm pretty sure Charioce can make her deader."

Kaisar cast a look at Belphegor, which was odd. Did he expect her input or anything?

"It is not simple arrange for a covert outbreak prisoners," he said.

"Forget covert, we're going full out. Sharp, precise, quick," Cerberus said. "Probably fiery too. Bet you heard we got a new fallen angel? You know, you could avoid her coming to the palace by arranging for us to sneak around. You'll just have to make sure certain posts are deserted. Okay?"

And he spread his arms for a dramatic declaration, oh boy. "It's not that simple! Me betraying the king has all kinds of repercussions! It would further taint the honor of the knights, and if I get caught nobody will be helped at all! The palace is not some playground. You two know what it's like to not be allowed to reject an order, right?"

Oh, he didn't just go there. Cerberus flattened her ears. "You really do fancy yourself as having it all figured out, don't you? The great knight who always knows best."

"You don't wear a collar," Belphegor snapped. "You don't know what it's like to be a woman, a slave, or a sex worker. What little choice we get is always within confines."

"I just though it was an apt—"

Cerberus flipped off the bed and kicked the nearest vase at him. "Now, you better think was a great time it is to shut up."

He bounced off on his raised metal arm, leaving him caught between offended and befuddled.

"You can say no. If you resign tomorrow, it will bring you merely dishonor," Belphegor said. "The closest options someone like me had was Cerberus's place, where we can at least arrange to avoid certain customers."

Kaisar fiddled with the chair and decided to sit down on it. With some effort he said, "My apologies. I was out of bounds."

"Alright, accepted. Can you now tell us whom else Charioce has captured alive?"

"I'm not sure how many of the demons in the dungeon belong to the rebellion. They also have a certain Dante, who says he was the actual leader of the rebellion," Kaisar said. "And a girl named Nina was sent to the prison on the island after being accused of funding the rebellion. And of course, Rita, but she isn't anywhere near the prisons. For some reason, his majesty keeps her in the upper levels. I have no idea where."

Aww dammit, if Favaro's student wasn't anywhere near anyone more important she wasn't gonna get him to pact with her.

"Could be that he's keeping her as far from any corpses as possible," Mimi said.

"Yeah, when we were in there, both the morgues and the dungeons are all below," Coco said.

"I don't think that's it," Kaisar said, sounding and smelling more than a little frustrated. "She's within the zone where only the Onyx Knights guard. He recently used her to create some kind of monster from Azazel, but otherwise I don't know what they want from her."

Well, that was interesting. Cerberus didn't have a strong stake in saving Rita or Nina, but the former was smart. If she was in the castle and could in any waybe of use, that better be for Cerberus's side than Charioce's.

Cerberus refrained from talking about how she knew pacts could make for better allies, in case bomberhead was going to report her. Kaisar could do that without endangering his new pet demon.

"We could set off a bomb in the palace," Belphegor said to Cerberus. "It shouldn't be difficult to create another gas bomb, and I think I have the hang of the type that just knocks out people so none of the servants will die. If Korlaun might help me grow a few things, that would be helpful."

Kaisar's fists balled. "I won't help with that. It is too risky. I can however get you blueprints of our mecha, so perhaps you can figure out a way to disable them."

"Aww, if I'd known that I wouldn't have ditched Paracelsus," Cerberus said.

"What?" Kaisar said.

"She's saying that there is a difference with being able to invent fuel sources, and disrupting routers," Belphegor said.

The amount of effort Kaisar had to put into not blurting out a second what was just a tad cute. Or maybe it was other effort, because he followed up with, "I have to be honest ... Azazel isn't in the palace anymore. He was transported to the arena after they concluded he won't talk and isn't useful for the regeneration experimentation any further."

In other words Kaisar's likely priority, Rita, wasn't gonna be included in a heroic rescue by Cerberus. Also known as, the captain was less likely to help. Drat.

Upon Belphegor's prodding, Kaisar informed them in clipped tones what had happened to Azazel before he was moved to the arena. Cerberus was glad to note, and somewhat surprised, that he hadn't said a single word betraying her or anyone else.

Belphegor was more interested in the monsters, questioning Kaisar extensively about their nature. Cerberus tuned that out to brush Mimi and Coco's fur, waiting for them to get to more relevant topics.

That got cut short by Belphegor tossing something at her. "Are you listening?"

"What?"

"We have no idea what Charioce's going to do with those monsters, so you need to go check it out," Belphegor said.

"Pffft, don't worry, it's birth through death, works like regeneration. That's how I was born. Past me was sick of being a head on a body that couldn't do a damn thing till we all agreed on what to do. I'm not really sure how it works though. Must be something odd about that Rita's magic." Cerberus shrugged.

"Really?" Belphegor said. "I thought it was exaggerated. You didn't have a zombie?"

Cerberus shook her head.

Belphegor sat back, forgetting her work for a moment. "Goats ... Azazel has never had anything with goats before, but some religions would symbolically send their sins to him on a goat. It used to be a joke among humans that everyone used Azazel as scapegoat for dodging crimes they committed. In hindsight of what I know now, I suppose he might have actually committed some of those sin, but that aside ... I wonder where forms of magic come from."

"Just focus on that rock and the bomb for now," Cerberus said. "Not the time to get spiritual and all that."

· · · · · · ·

Azazel was a spectacle that always drew a full crowd by now, all waiting for him to die or even get injured. It never happened when he outclassed all demons in the arena even without magic ranged magic or wings. He expected to be pitched against multiple adversaries soon and for the price of dangerous, difficult to control demons to rise so they'd have something new.

He tried to make it quick for his opponents. None of those he was forced to kill were left writhing in the sand, though he could never be as gentle about it as Mugaro. He wasn't made for it. Part of him wanted back to the dungeon — the trade off of physical agony for the intolerable fact that Charioce was now using him to kill his own people didn't seem so bad. Like this, he had to make choices about how to kill his people, however little they were.

They had pitched him against nobody he knew after Dante. He'd thought that was better, initially, but the deaths tore at him anyway. One or the other would die. Him, or whomever he was pitted against. Some of the strongest were absorbed into the demon division of the knights, but not him. They only pitched him against those who never had a chance to get out — not that the demon division was more than cannon fodder, but there were chances to escape, however slight.

Every time he feared it would be someone else he knew — some member of the rebellion they'd caught in the meantime. Maybe he'd face off against a magenta dragon one day. If she was alive at all. She probably wasn't, like everyone else. Thanks to him.

Mugaro still lived, but heaven was not safe either. One day she'd fall to Charioce too. Lucifer, hidden far away in Helheim would be right. He'd be the last one left standing, perhaps until Charioce's empire burned out. It might be decades. Centuries.

Time was a burden he knew well, and feared. The same day in day out, for decades, centuries. This time not drowning or starving in the dark, but killing those he needed to save in broad daylight. Unlike then, he now knew how long such a time might be.

The blade he had fought was still in his hand, though not for long, his handlers were already approaching. It wasn't empowered with Dromos's force — the gems could break by accident and demons had a lot of innate strength to do it with. These blades were of demonic and divine making, raided from their realms.

How quickly could he move against himself?

He slowly turned the blade up at his throat. Perhaps he could drown in his own blood.

He didn't move. Not against himself, not away, waiting.

A hand far stronger than a human closer around his wrist.

"No," a familiar voice whispered. Following the demonic hand on his arm, he looked up at the new funerary cleaner of the arena. A familiar face, Nishaol, half hidden under a hood.

She pried the sword from his hand and tossed it on her cart, taking what little resolve he had to do it himself. He was left with shame that he had even tried, none the least before thousands of human eyes. Before Charioce. Killing oneself was disgraceful. Someone else who deserved it should do it, if at all, but still ...

One of his handlers smacked him across the face and he stumbled back. Finding his footing he glared at the human, but didn't resist when they put the shackles back on. He found his balance.

Nishaol returned to loading to her cart, giving him one last glance before vanishing.

Azazel refused to look at Charioce and didn't resist as he was dragged back and chained up in his cell. The snakes writhed, but he kept them in.

If he could not free his people, what for did he even bother to live?

· · · · · · ·

At last. El carefully lifted the black ocarina out of the nest at the bottom of the closet. The surface was as smooth as ever, save for the windholes and the pale gold plate that formed a star.

El had lost nur old clothes when Gabriel had ordered them thrown away, but Sofiel had kept them long enough for El to retrieve and hide the small black marble out of the pockets. When tapped it would transform into the ocarina Azazel had given nur. It had a lot of trouble taking full shape in heaven for some reason, but it had completed.

This morning, Gabriel was gone for another errand on the surface and Sofiel liked to sleep in when she wasn't around. El could expect a little solitude.

Nur quarters covered the entire upper part of a skyscaper and had several balconies. El favored the one that faced the fast forest, over which the sun rose. It was the kind of sight El knew from nur life in the cottage, which had laid in the mountains at the edge of an old forest. Autumn mist existed here as much as on earth, though the trees did not became brown. Ne sat on the railing and played with a sting of loneliness; the people ne usually played for weren't near.

Gods often meditated and Gabriel had told El do the same, which involved sitting in lotus position, eyes closed and thinking about nothing. It was worthless for El, but others somehow found an increased their magic focus. So El tried what made nur focused : music.

It was too high for any of the gods to hear and the airspace around the holy court of Vanaheimr was empty for security reasons. Still, El drew one visitor.

The being stood far down in the grass at the edge of the forest, barely visible between two other buildings. Shaped as one of the rare horned horses the Orleans Knights sometimes ride, yet far more slender and with a lion's tail. Most unusual was its radiance, so bright the creature stood out in the cool shadows.

El kept playing, eyes on the unicorn. Ve joined with a soft sound that shouldn't have carried up so high without drawing anyone's attention, but it was only for El. A high wail, ethereal and smooth as it became an undertone to El's song.

Heaven had a lot of friendly people, but this was something else. Harmony was the right word, and a little more. The unicorn knew ...

"El?" Sofiel's voice rang out. The unicorn vanished the second the music stopped.

El jumped off the balcony edge and ran towards her. She looked a little sleepy still, but was dressed for a day in the sanctuaries. Those would not open for another hour. Good, cause El had somewhere to be. After greeting her by touching her hand, ne grabbed a paper and scribbled.

It's time for my wings to come back. Help me go somewhere, please?

"Oh ... well, if you truly do not regenerate on your own, Gabriel is capable of transformative spells," she said. "Perhaps we can persuade her to try one on you by now. Your hair is nearly blond again."

El shook nur head and pointed at nurself.

"You want to heal yourself? Oh El, you don't have to be ashamed that you can't. Perhaps it is your human heritage and—no?"

El took the paper back, and blurted out what ne really wanted : to meet somewhere out there. Holy calling.

Sofiel thought, and could be persuaded with a display of sad puppy eyes, to take El out while Gabriel was gone. It took her a lot of dithering to actually open a portal, though.

On the other side of the portal were the Elysian Fields, which ne had only seen from afar yet. Now ne couldn't see far because of the mist.

Barefoot ne stepped into the long grasses full of white flowers and whirled around, glad to have back nur old environment. Cities, whether broken like Charioce's or clean like Gabriel's, were never really free.

El ran on towards the sun until ne reached a mere. Dirt lay below the surface and plants grew within and it was cold, but ne ran in with no regard.

Sofiel stood behind nur, hesitant on what El would do. El gestured at Sofiel to wait, wondering whether to play the instrument again.

It wasn't necesary. Out of the mist right stepped the unicorn, entering the mere on the other side.

Up close, the unicorn was even less like those on earth. Too slender, and not entirely white : the coat grayed out at the knees and was tufted white on the lower legs. Golden swirls ran over vun entire length and someone had made small braids in the manes. A blade like green horn stood above equally green eyes.

"This is a true unicorn, unlike the mortal creations on the surface," Sofiel whispered. "They are master healers who can handle injuries, poison and tumor alike. I suppose if you can summon such a creature, you could ask vun to heal you, but ..."

Her voice faded away, overpowered by the soft but permeating voice of the unicorn. It was the first time El ever found some meaning in the concept of purity, if only to describe what ne sensed of this being. This being ... like vun entire existence was the manifestion of care. If only the unicorn could, ve would encompass the world with its power.

It could not. Many of vun kin had died, been hunted down, and even gods sometimes sacrificed them. That's the way the world had always been — but Gabriel said El could fix it to how it before — but the world was too large for one soul. It took El a moment to realize the unicorn spoke without a voice, simply sharing vun knowledge.

The unicorn's horn touched nur neck. El laid nur hand over the horn, but the expectation to be healed was not immediately met. El was given instructions to heal, in general, and the self was where to start.

Something passed by like a soft veil on a sense ne hadn't even realize ne possessed. With it came flashes of another layer to the world within which others lived, or at least existed. Only one looked at El, surprised. He stood nearest — no, not standing. Being. An angelic man (probably) with long orange hair and a sad expression. El smiled, which got similar in return, but before ne could ask anything ne was pulled onward.

The unicorn took El deeper into the layers of the world until El began to see rivers in forms ne had no words for. The fabric of magic and matter and nature blurred at the edges until the parts blended with a greater whole. El couldn't ever hope to encompass all, anymore than the unicorn could.

The greatness should have been intimidating, but this sight made it all the easier to return to a small focus and see what was to be done. El's scar was knitted flesh, human, not wound or illness or tumor. At the core of nur soul was a human heart, brittle and perhaps not made for eons that would come, and they would come, for El's blood ran strong with the power of gods. A power already invoked whenever ne gave the kiss of death of gods to creatures of earth or hell.

That had been the simplest form, to push something apart. To put it back together required greater attention. As the scar was undone, nur flesh stung — injury to take away a flawed form and replace it with something better. New nerves grew under the guidance of the unicorn,flesh and cords shifted back into place.

A rush went through nur back. The itch of wings was there — Azazel had been able to push and withdraw his wings — remembered, ready to regenerate if only ne gave them something to fuel. Unlike the rest of nur body, nur wings were holy.

That was not broken, merely a mixture of parts. It hurt a little to know ne would never become a true god, like all of heaven expected, but if ne could make nurself heal anyway maybe it didn't matter so much ... would this work on others? It should, shouldn't it?

The unicorn stood back and the world shrunk, but the sensation of nur own magic remained. The scar was gone, and nur flesh only felt a little tender. Ne took a deep breath, only to find ne didn't know what to say in the after rush of feeling the world fold open.

Ne sat up and the unicorn took a step back. Closing vun eyes, the unicorn bowed as El found words.

"Thank you." El laid nur forehead against the unicorn's snout, who gave a gentle wail. The shift ne wore fortunately had an open back that allowed El to unfold nur wings. Ne detached from gravity, letting the unicorn raise nur up.

Laughter escaped nur, happy to be complete again. Ne fell around the unicorn's neck and said once more, "Thank you. I couldn't see it before."

When El let go the unicorn bristled, gave a final wail, a glance at Sofiel, then vanished the mist.

El turned to Sofiel, who stood still with bafflement plastered on her face.

"How did you tame a unicorn?"

"I didn't ... I didn't tame vun. I just asked for help." Ne voice was still soft, new vocal cords untested, but it would grow stronger. As ne nurself would.

"You truly are a miracle child," Sofiel said.

Nobody had explained El what that meant yet, though it probably had to do with being able to counter Dromos. The unicorn hadn't said anything about El being special though, ne had just answered to a curiosity. A kind angel, able to sense hearts as unicorns could, who played on an instrument forged by a demon. It had been worth the risk to learn for this unicorn, almost like ne had done vun as much of a favor.

Sofiel brought El back to the palace, tension clear in her posture. Gabriel had already returned and people were flying around trying to find El. When Sofiel and nur were spotted, Gabriel actually bothered to get off her floating platform to approach them. She looked angry, but when she noticed El's wings that softened.

"What happened, Sofiel?"

"El summoned a unicorn who healed nur," she said. "I saw it fit to bring El to the unicorn's preferred location, a mere in the Elysian Fields."

It wasn't entirely right. El could correct it now, voice and all, but under Gabriel's stern gaze it was difficult to speak up. Besides, Sofiel knew it wasn't her idea to go there, so maybe she didn't want to go into detail.

"I see." Gabriel gestured for El to follow.

Gabriel's prefered avenue of addressing her gods was a balcony of white marble, over a cross emblem. Two stairs were at the side, never used since she only had angels around here. El wondered why it had been built that way. Maybe someone who walked had ruled once.

Many of the court had gathered around. Gabriel told El to wait until a spell to unfold nur wings before addressing the audience. The time had come, she said, El was ready and then some big words.

Gabriel cast a circle of magic below nur feet that raised up. A secondary magic enveloped El, drawing on some unknown memory to craft new clothing. The last demon blood vanished from nur hair. The order to spread nur wings was needless, the surge cause the effect on its own.

El looked around at nur new outfit. It had a hood like nur old coat except purple on the inside, the one ne had gotten from Azazel, and an overshirt and skirt a little like Nina's, but the dark undershirt wasn't familiar ... wait, it was, hadn't that man just before worn something like that? The rest was new, white gloves and boots and a split cloak from below the hood, all in white with gold edges.

"You look wonderful," Sofiel whispered somewhere behind them.

After the unicorn's touch Gabriel's display didn't feel like much, but everyone before them cheered so it had to signify something. The kind of graduation Gabriel had wanted.

"Well, El, are you ready to begin your task?" Gabriel said.

El nodded. "I will save all whom I love. My mother, my friends, and all who suffer under Charioce."

Though Gabriel smiled, her eyebrows twitched a little and El felt ne had somehow displeased her, but couldn't figure out what.

· · · · · · ·

Nina woke up to a curtain of blond hair was lit back by orange light, and voice she had trouble pacing whispered gently to her. Words slowly took back meaning until she recognized Jeanne. Mostly. Up close it struck her how little she was like the statue : not in feature, but health. Emaciated and tired, skin over bones.

She couldn't remember what had happened, but she could imagine. The whip marks on her back and legs built up, and behind her skin the dragon's hunger grew. Get out of here, get out from below the ground, get to the sky, we were never meant to be here. All her mind stripped away, left was a dragon in pain, for herself, and for others whom she wanted to protect. She couldn't let it out.

Her rations had been increased to what a human needed, but it wasn't enough. They took her off the regular teams and had her work solely in the area that stacked material into carts. Jeanne was moved there too for assisting her. It wasn't easy on Jeanne, who was already overworked and underfed, and Nina wished all the more she could just control the damn dragon and break them out. But she couldn't trust the dragon even if she did.

"Nina, do you think it's possible you've spent longer periods of time as a dragon?" Jeanne asked as she helped her sit up.

"Huh?" Nina said as she looked around. Someone had brought them to her cell again.

"You talk sometimes, when you are half awake. Do you remember we talked between your collapse and waking now? No, right?"

No, indeed."

Nina pulled her knees up. "Yes, I probably did lose time, but we don't talk about it at home."

"If you tell me, perhaps we can figure out something," Jeanne said.

Nina didn't think so, but she liked the idea of finally telling someone. Comfort was scarce here and Jeanne had spent so much time helping her, she hardly felt like a stranger. She deserved to know, especially if something did go wrong and Nina lost herself again.

"I notice the time. You know, our entire town is made for people who can fly, so once I fell down when I was very little. I woke up at home the next morning and everything looked normal. But bitter food didn't taste that bad anymore. I went to the room to play with my building blocks, and it was just really boring. Instead I wanted to run, and play challenging games, and the stories my mother told me had to be more exciting. I had an easier time following what adults talked about too. I wasn't afraid of the dark anymore.

That happened a few more times. Once my friends had become teenagers over the blink of an eye while I still looked like I was eight. I could keep up with their talking just fine, but ... I guess it's hard to see me as older when I look so young. I could still play with kids who looked my age and I was the big sis cause I knew things better, but I couldn't talk with them about much.

By the time I was ten ... or looked like it, it was really difficult to learn things in school. Everyone else had an easier time absorbing things. It's like how adults have a harder time learning a language, but I wasn't supposed to be an adult, right? But I could read the sky like nobody of my generations, I could track deers and knew what wood was sturdy and what was weak. I don't remember learning those things. Once I woke up so lonely, I had to run to another room and hug my mother, cause it felt like I hadn't seen her in years. I remember seeing her the day before, but it just didn't feel that way. She'd gotten thicker and older, that day. I didn't mention it, I was just happy to see her.

You know, when I was with Dante's group, they told me my dragon self knows how to fight mecha real well. Maybe mother never said anything cause I killed people before."

It was out. Jeanne knew now.

When Jeanne spoke, it was only soft. "If you lost years, you must still carry that with you. I know a life that requires one to pretend all is well and there is no sadness, having been a saint and a knight. All my life was servitude after lord Michael chose me. One can bear loneliness and misery, but it has to be acknowledged. It is nothing one has to take pride in. Lord Michael perhaps understood at last, because he gave me El when I was most abandoned."

"And now you lost El too. You really have nobody and here I am complaining," Nina said with an embarrassed grin. She rubbed a hand over her eyes, trying to stop the misplaced tears.

Jeanne gently took her hand away. "We aren't all equally strong, nor do we handle pain the same way. You're cut off too, you're closer to death than I am, and everyone who bears suffering must sometimes set it down to recover. That is the times when we cry."

With that she embraced Nina, letting her rest against her shoulders. The sobs broke out of her, haphazard and still restrained. She was not going to become a blubbering mess, even if she couldn't pretend to be alright. Jeanne holding her wasn't unlike being home, so maybe it was okay.

· · · · · · ·

Sofiel was able to open long range gates, one of the few angels still able to do so. She brought El to a place on earth where Gabriel awaited, along with instructions on how to act.

When they stepped out the other side, a vast expanse of gray collumns and colorful windows surrounded El.

El had seen human churches before but only in disrepair. Heaven was grander, shinier and more magnificent, but humans had none of the magic the gods did, or even what Charioce had available. They had built this despite their limitations and they gave it far more colors than in heaven. The tinted windows depicted scenes from stories that El would like to learn, but there was work to do.

A man in rich robes and a miter — another new word El had recently learned — stood before the gate circle, arms wide open. He took a knee. "Welcome to our humble cathedral, oh holy child."

A hand from behind fell on El's shoulder and Gabriel said, "El, this is one of our most loyal servants who is taking a great risk by hosting us."

The cue for El to say, "I thank you for your hospitality, pater."

"We are most honored," the man said. Shouldn't Gabriel be giving his name by now?

"The honor is mine. Soon, I will liberate ..." What was the name of this place again? Oh, it'd been in an overview given by Reinier, but there was so much to remember from the lessons before. " ... uhm ... "

Gabriel's hand tightened just a little bit and her voice turned a tad harsher. "Valeria."

"Valeria from the vile clutches of Charioce's blasphemous ways."

In all but name, the other countries had been annexed. El couldn't keep track of all the new words Gabriel used to explain how that worked, but basically the country sort of did what Charioce's country wanted because he provided them with the power of Dromos.

The man with the miter stood up and walked down a long path to wide doors. El had another quick look around, the portal was before an altar in from of the assembly hall. It felt a little like the small church ne had found refuge in, far grander and with richer statues. Were all churches outside Anatae like this?

Beyond the doors stood was a crowd of humans bathed in sunlight. El closer nur hands over one another. Ne had to step out there, under their eyes, when they could see nur wings.

Gabriel said, "Don't hesitate. It is your destiny to guide humankind back on the right path. No doubt your mother was under divine inspiration. Go ahead, you will soon find your role comes quite natural to you."

Nothing felt natural about drawing lots of attention. El had a lifetime of fine honed impulse to consider crowds staring at nur to be a bad thing. If it wasn't people on the streets that might be dangerous, it was bloodthirsty crowds in the arena.

"Go on," Sofiel said somewhere behind nur. "Spread your wings and be proud."

El did so, and took step by step towards the light. Gabriel walked close behind nur.

The man called out, "Bow before your holy leaders! Regina Caeli Gabriel and Santo Niño El, born to our salvation!"

The crowd covered the entire plaza before the cathedral. People had climbed onto lamp posts and roofs and into trees to get a look. The stairs to the street below were deep, so El could see most faces from here and they all stared back without hatred. A chill ran over nur back and into nur wings, El couldn't tell whether it was fright or joy to know all these people had come for nur.

At the bottom of the stair was a small platform on which a captured Onyx Knight, still within the recognizable armor but restrained by many chains. Several human men stood around for security. Gabriel had prepared El for this, ne was to disable his power in front of the crowd.

Her powerful voice rang out, "Evil exists in the world, waiting for an opportune moment to strike. Worry not, however. Our coming portends to the swift justice that will be dealt to those who threaten the righteous path."

The crowd broke into joyous cheer. It overwhelmed El, but in a good way. Anatae's human population had been full of indifference and praise to Charioce, but the people here really wanted to see Charioce defeated.

Gabriel said, "Go on, El, show them you will strike down Charioce's armies. They must know you will defeat their enemy."

El couldn't keep the tension at bay as Gabriel's hand guided nur forward. Ne flew the short distance to the paltform.

"You ... you're the holy child," the knight sputtered. He struggled against the chains and the wristblade shot out, but the human men kept him back.

Reflexively the power in nur's left eye shot awake, worming into the hostile energy at the core of the gem. The Onyx Knight instantly fell to the ground, torn down by the weight of the unnatural armor.

There was something new to perceive, El realized. Though nur left eye, the red one, channeled it most strongly, it really was a field ne radiated. Out of all that it touched, the green gem was the only impurity in the world. A sickening thing. A tumor, or infection. It didn't belong here.

Now ne could see what ne did, it was easier to direct it. Ne tried to narrow the radiance onto that one broken point to erase it altogether, but couldn't go all the way. The gems within the collars ne could sometimes erase, but this had gone so deep it had anchored into the host's soul.

Not yet. The unicorn had said it might take time to learn, as any talent needed honing.

The cheers were even louder this time. El tried not to collapse and found nur feet steady. It had only been a small expense of power, but ne was sure it was much easier than before. Strain without the black out.

Good, and better yet, none of these people would harm nur for it. They all were right, if perhaps not equally kind.

Gabriel held her arm out and El returned to her side. At her gesture the crowd fell silent once again. Ne didn't need more urging this time, caught by the exhilarating sensation that ne could make the world better, safer, fit for nur mother and anyone else ne loved, and could come to love.

For the first time in nur life, ne raised nur voice to the heavens. "I shall strike down the armies of Charioce XVII, I swear it on the name of my mother saint Jeanne d'Arc and my father the archangel Michael! The world will know peace!"

The crowd started chanting El's name, and Jeanne's and Michael's, until they joined in a sacred song that sound dimly familiar.

Beyond being able to speak, El found a sense of power in words that ne hadn't known before. To make such declarations and be able to back it up was good in a way El couldn't explain. Ne had always had to hide nur powers from all but nur mother. Here and now, ne could display it without fear and use it for good. The world could be shaped, an idea that felt strangely liberating. No more hiding, no more running, and fear could be done away with as obsolete for all but their enemies.

Gabriel let it go on for a while before guiding El back in. Sofiel already had a gate to heaven open again.

"Isn't there more I'm supposed to do?"

"No, this was all. We are here to rally people for later, but you must not stay on the surface too long or the enemy will come."

"But I can just take them down, right?"

"Unfortunately, the actual soldiers of this kingdom are still under sway of our enemy, but once Charioce falls they will willingly bow to our benevolent guidance, so we must not harm them," Gabriel said. "It is important that they lay the foundation of the undoing of the empire as soon as possible. Once we have restored the world to order, we must go about swiftly to gather all of the accursed Dromos and lock it back up. Our human allies will aid us in this."

"Oh, okay," El said. That did sound like it meant the least people would suffer, which was best. "If that is what must happen to guide humankind to the right path, I will make it happen."

· · · · · · ·

He'd been a fool to think that watching his people be slaughtered was the worst job he could have; foregoing that he did not have a paid job anymore. When he had worked here as a funerary service he always looked at the face of those who died and tried to remember them, what little dignity he could give them, now he had to look to live and tried not to see the blood he shed. Forcing tranquility now was harder, but he still managed. He didn't give Charioce the pleasure of seeing him all out break, not beyond that one moment of weakness.

At least, he kept his mask of tranquility through the sand and battle. It was something else that broke it.

Right as he was in the middle of a battle, the sky began to shine golden as a heavenly gate opened over the arena. It brought the echo of Gabriel's domineering voice. "Sinful human king, heed your gods and repent!"

The hush that fell on the arena suffocated. From the golden light emerged two platforms with three silhouettes on took a step closer to the edge as she faced the king. "We demand you return what you have stolen from our holy temples. Furthermore, you are to release the saint Jeanne d'Arc to us."

Charioce stood up. "If you feel confident enough for such declarations, why not put action to words and simply take what you want?"

Archers aimed at them, but the escorting god opened a circle to catch and throw the arrows back — wait, wasn't she the one who had been here during the rebellion?

"Stop, Sofiel," Gabriel commanded, before turning her attention back to Charioce. She took a step aside and cast her eyes of the human masses, ignoring the demons right below.

Behind her a gate circle opened and a smaller angel stepped out. Azazel had to do a double take.

Blond, with less curly hair, and perhaps a little older, but unmistably Mugaro.

Taking position next to Gabriel, Mugaro planted a golden staff before her and called out in clear voice, "Seven years ago, when you crowned yourself and cast my mother from the kingdom, you made it clear you wanted nothing of the gods."

Of all the ways Azazel could have imagined Mugaro's voice, this almost harsh tone wasn't it.

Mugaro continued, "All humans still loyal to the gods shall be spared. You did not choose your king, and he did not choose you. Heed our call, for I shall cast down the wicked king soon."

Mugaro had always been a gentle presence, the very idea that she'd go to war didn't fit. What was Gabriel doing?

The humans rose their voice in hatred; those who came here were also those most likely to despise the old world order, after all. But there were hesitant voices between it, and the screams were not as numerous as when they had called for Azazel's death.

"You have some pride to talk as if you will be dispensing mercy any time soon," Charioce called.

"If you will not comply to ours orders, then we shall do as you want and take back by force."

"Just because you have the saint's child, you might not want to hasten to your deaths."

"Death is what we shall pay to humankind," Gabriel called.

For a moment Azazel and Mugaro locked eyes. She looked like she'd say something, but the platforms ascended already. Gabriel put a hand on her shoulder and followed her gaze.

Azazel lowered his head, not out of respect for Gabriel, but wanting to keep any suspicion away from El. He wouldn't be able to fake a hateful look.

The light faded, the sky blue and the sand drab again. The stadium hollered and cried against the gods, but it passed him by.

It had been long since Azazel had even thought about heaven's fate. He didn't miss it, but now he knew what the humans would do if they took their blood thirst to an army with Mugaro leading it ...

His opponents resumed attacking him, mistaking his posture for submission. He dodged the first blow and blocked the second, taking an opening to kill this attacker. He survived.

· · · · · · ·

Jeanne recognized his footsteps. Where she normally ignored him by focusing through prayer on Michael, this time she stood up. If Charioce returned so soon, she feared he might have caught El after all.

Charioce faced her, close to the bars as usual. He didn't pay heed to Nina, but Jeanne saw her stand on her tip toes to look out the small window of her cell. A small gasp escaped her.

"The gods have declared war on humankind now they have your child," Charioce said. "Should the siege proceed I will crush them without mercy, but there may be a way we can avoid this. Persuade your child to call off the war."

El was being sent to war? She shouldn't expect less and she was sure Gabriel knew what she was doing, but El would be up against Charioce. So soon, again him.

"After everything you've done, why would you even bother asking me this?" she said, her voice measured to hide her fear.

"Neither the gods nor your son will die, no needless blood will be spilled, if only you make keep them at bay."

"Should I do it, what garantee do I have you will not annihilate them in their retreat?"

"Quite a few lives can be saved by your choice," he said. "Or would you rather add more blood to your lake?"

Jeanne looked down. She didn't want to add more bloodshed to her already overflowing sins, and whether or not this failed, there would be so many lost. Nina had mentioned a rebellion that had targeted only the king, if that really was an option she would want that more than full out war. Perhaps she could break out if Charioce brought her along, or even if he put her back while Nina was here and could help her break out ...

Beyond Charioce, Nina banged on her metal door. "Stop bullying Jeanne!"

Charioce met her glare through the small window and sauntered over. He leaned down at the small window. "Are you enjoying prison?"

"Of course not!"

"Is that why you're trying to break out?" He nodded at the steel enforced door.

"It's because I have friends to save," Nina hissed. Actually hissed, in a way no human could. "And ... "

Jeanne couldn't hear what she said next.

"I see."

Her stomach chose to rumble right then.

A dim smile played on the corner of his lips. "Still the same, are you?"

The concern that might be so convincing if only he didn't direct it at a person he had chained up... Jeanne was used to it coming her way, but to hear it directed at Nina sent her blood boiling. What did he want from her? What had she done to tick him off so much he had a personal interest?

Nina kept her eyes on him and Jeanne could swear she saw the glitter of tears in the weak light.

The confusion took on a new level when Charioce gently said, "Would you dance with me again?"

"How could we even, when you put me here?" Nina choked on her words. Her face vanished, a small bang indicated she'd dropped her forehead against the door.

Jeanne couldn't even begin to guess what their deal was, but it appeared sure enough that Charioce played. He would play with the gods too, and her faith, and El. It tore Jeanne back to her resolve and out of the suffocating guilt.

Charioce turned back to Jeanne. "Have you made up your mind?"

"I will betray neither the gods you massacre, nor the humans who trust me to guide them to their welfare." Jeanne went to her knees, closed her eyes and prayed.

"I see. Then I have no choice. I will be breaking my promise to let you see your son before he dies, because he and your precious gods march to the slaughter."

Jeanne kept her face neutral, unaffected, but her thoughts ran rampant. She knew Charioce's cruelty well and had expected no less than such a threat. She prayed until a while after he left, but this time she asked neither for strength to endure until finding El, or answers on how to end Charioce. She needed some idea on how to help a friend, which was more than a little new.

After amen, she stood up and pressed against the bar again. Nina was sniffing behind her door, still holding it in as well as she could.

Softly, Jeanne asked, "Nina, what's going on with you and Charioce?"

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing." That was either a lie, or the truth about something Nina had believed.

"I know he must have had a reason to put you opposite of me, where he could expect to see you again next time he visits me," Jeanne said. "You ... uhm ... I will be here if you wish to talk."

After a long time with a few more sniffs, a strange sound started. Like skin slapping on rock, or perhaps punching it if skin was harder. The swell of power accompanied it, familiar as Nina's but a little more even. It didn't expand as fast, but obeyed a rough ebb and tide.

"Don't hurt yourself, that won't help anything," Jeanne said."

"It will if we get out. I just have. to. figure. out. how. to. break rocks."

Jeanne tried to see what she did, but window of Nina's cell revealed nothing. The collar did not appear to activate ... it never did when internal power was used, or demon slaves would be useless.

After a moment's hesitation, she went to the corner of her cell and leveled up a stone. Below it lay a stolen piece of paper, onto which she had drawn a map of the tunnels across the years. Her fingers shook as she held it. It might be time to use it, already, when she had expected far longer to have a chance.

In a less than human voice, Nina continued, "We're getting out of here, Jeanne. I'll help you find Mugaro and then I'll fix everything else. I swear."

The rock groaned under her blows, but didn't crack.

Nina's prior attempts at escape had been futile. As soon as they'd realized she was stronger they'd already kept an eye on her, and since the collar was on she had a handler always nearby. And escaping from the cell blocks was the least convenient, since it was furthest from the dock. Still, it had to happen tonight. Jeanne knew all too well the gods could mobilize much faster than humans could.

She folded the paper and kept it in her hand as she sat at the bars again. Perhaps Nina might find use in something that Michael had once told her about wielding Maltet, "Hold a weapon that becomes your body, but still exists out of you. It will never be you, but it will obey you as your body does. Breathe through it."

If only she could see as much as she could sense. Small changes happened in both the sounds and the flow, but she had no idea what it meant. Nina's powers were recognizable only insofar it was power, but the nature was entirely different.

The metal scent of blood became strong. Jeanne couldn't help but worry, but refrained from commenting again. If it came down to it, she herself would not mind bleeding if it meant escape.

Half of Nina's face appeared in the window.

"I don't think I'll be out soon," she said with an apologetic smile. The inhuman quality had subdued a little. "But I will keep practicing."

"They'll find out what you did in the morning."

"Let them," Nina said, her expression turning harsh, before she vanished again. "I'll live ... can you keep talking to me for a while? It helps."

"As long as you need."

· · · · · · ·