Author's note: Still don't have a Beta, just putting it out there for all interested parties.


The Sixth circle, heresy. Here those who worship false idols and devils are brought to their temples to worship, or who deny the existence of god and the soul have their long awaited burial. Here the blasphemous are rewarded for their loyalty, taught magics by their dark and twisted masters in exchange for absolute loyalty, and that includes the requirement of dying on command as a sacrifice for greater power. And what of the souls of the soulless? They have their beliefs granted, their soul sucked dry of power, the remains locked away inside tombs to reabsorb power, acting as batteries for their masters twisted needs. Now the New Satan's alongside their reaper ally were entering this unpleasant circle of hell.

"We'll almost be at the shore soon!" Ajuka stated rescinding his telescope.

"The cemetery of hell. You might feel at home in this one Junior. Reaper's are suppose to like cemeteries aren't they?" A curious SirZech asked.

"Why would Hell need a Cemetery?" Junior asked as he put out his joint on his temple.

"This place is home to those that lived their lives thinking they had no soul, no life after life. So now they get their wish and are buried in the dirt, the dead among the dead." SirZech explained laughing bitterly at the irony.

"Well that clearly isn't me. Any other idea of what it is I'm down here for?" Junior asked as he moored the ship against a rail near the shore.

"There's also worshipers of false gods. They tend to become powerful spell casters down here." SirZech explained as he put the boardng down and walked onto the shore of the next Circle. "Welcome to Hell." SirZech said, appropriate if not late, noticing Junior fidgeting with his newly fleshy arm. "Are you and that thing going to be okay?"

"Fine, just gotta add a little meat." Junior dipped his hand into the river Styx and used it to inflate the dried out husk like limb, becoming much more healthy looking in the process. "That's better. So how are we going to get into this place anyway?"

"Ask Falbium. He use to live here." Ajuka stated as he jumped off the of the edge of the boat onto the shore.

"Really?"

"There's a easy way in, last time I was here I got out using a old pipe leading here directly from underneath the Umbran temple." Falbium explained leading the group a cliff-side. "It looks like they buried it."

"And this'll slow us down because?" SirZech asked holding a orb of destructive power.


This was a strange sight indeed. The entire gym had been covered in Graffiti. Just one hyphenated word over and over again: Anti-Thesis. Naturally the ladies of the News paper club were on seen to report, as was Deshiko leading the PSC's investigation.

"Care to comment upon the investigation, Miss Deshi?" Kurumu asked with a open note book in her hands.

"I have my top tracker Kuroi combing through the scene in search of information to locate any trace of the perpetrator." Deshiko explained waving over the scene with her staff. "Information will be available as the investigation progresses."

Yukari had her own impressions of the scene. The air was thick with the smell of spent matchsticks, and seeing as how there wasn't huge pile of burnt match lying around the logical explanation was that there was simply something that smelled like burnt matchstick's in large quantities: invisible ink. It was a exceptionally pungent odor, if that knucklehead Kuroi didn't pick up on it then he's a even bigger idiot then they had given him credit for. That said they may not know about the invisible ink matchstick connection. Instead Yukari wrote a note down, tugged on Deshiko's sleeve, and handed her the note whom then took it, read it, and nodded. Having snapped their photo's and taken their notes the newspaper club walked back to the school.

"Hey Yukari. What was that you gave Deshiko earlier?" Mizore asked as the group came upon the nurse's office.

"The paint has invisible ink mixed in with it, it leaves behind a very pungent odor so I let them know before they wiped away any evidence." Yukari explained opening a door into the office.

There were already a few people in the office. Nurse Cut-lip had returned earlier than she intended, between the fact that Mako was in a catatonic state capable of little more but welcoming guests and introducing herself, and the fact that she was revealed to be violent lunatic responsible for attacking people they couldn't very well leave her in charge of the nurse's office. Minnie and Moka were sitting together on one of the beds, the anti-depressants Minnie was on hit her hard, leaving her in something of a drugged state.

"How's she doing?" Chi asked, showing a little of her hidden concern.

"As well as can be expected." Moka explained, rubbing circles into Minnie's back in a comforting gesture.

"Assuming that we want anything more than to keep her drugged up, we should consider alternate therapeutic methods." Cut-lip explained, scribbling notes down on a clipboard.

"What about your investigation?" Kurumu asked taking a seat at Minnie's bedside.

"Abysmal. I doubt that even not being interrupted by this traitor here would have born fruit." Cut-lip spat distastefully as she gestured her catatonic assistant up and down. "Near as I can tell, we are dealing with a Reaper that we have absolutely no record of!"

"Is that even possible?" Moka asked shock across her features at the revelation.

"They could, whoever they are. It's a complicated matter requiring reincarnation, proper use of anti-undead materials and most of all, someone who knows what they're doing." Cut-lip explained as she scratched her chin.

"Another reaper?" Mizore guessed as she worked the cap off of the top of a near frozen soda bottle.

"Most likely Django. Don't let looks deceive you, Django may prefer the face of a child but he's far older than any of you realize." Cut-lip stated cryptically.

"So onto business. Who're we sending down below this time." Kurumu asked seeking to rid the awkwardness.

"Yukari of course, the Sixth circle is after all the originator of magic." Cut-lip explained, becoming slightly amused at the paleness that Yukari had turned.

"Oh I'm gonna enjoy this!" Kurumu stated as she rubbed her hands together.

The preparations were complete, Mimi provided her Hell-Circle, Nurse Cut-lip extracted her soul and sent it off to the depths below. After being given a note explaining that Yukari had come down with a bad case of the flu and hence would not be in class that day to give to the teachers the group of students had gone off to class. In the mean time, taking Yukari's advice to heart, Deshiko had arranged for the entire gymnasium graffiti to be photographed in black light to reveal what was hidden underneath, some sort of massive swirling pattern.

"Some sort of Magic, or a code. I'll have to ask Miss Toujo later. Do we got everything?" Deshiko asked the computer technician sitting with a laptop nearby.

"See for yourself."

The Technician had done up a photographic composite of the graffiti under black-light, several interconnected magic circles could be clearly made out, however what purpose they held was lost to Deshiko.

"Get this to Miss Toujo immediately."

"Yes Mam."

While Deshiko attempted to decipher the code she failed to notice that the paint had begun running off of the side of the gym, dripping off like paint and slithering across the ground like a snake.


"Lady Mandy." Lord Pain had brought out a serving tray underneath which was Pandora's box, emptied of it's contents by Chi. "Miss Chi has brought back the item that she had borrowed from the vault Madam. Should I take it back down to the vault?"

"At once."

Pain left Mandy alone. She was out on the balcony again lounging about, looking at the far off city of the dead with intent. What was Junior planning to do, and perhaps more important, where did he get the souls to do it. Perhaps that should have been her first question.

"Grim, have we figured out where Junior got all these souls for his little construction project?" Mandy asked into her Hell phone.

"Hard ta say, he woulda haf ta gone muckin bout de Well-o-souls for em, suming dat he didn't just reap whadever poor basard god em mad dat day."

"Is there any reason he would got after specific souls?

"Widout knowin why he build de damn ding we can'd go ahead and assume anyding aboud id!"

"We don't have too many other leads to follow, hunch or otherwise. send somebody to peruse the archives for some clues." Mandy stated, putting away the phone and getting back to her drinking.


After one round of SirZech's destructive attacks, a bit of prying off a grate blocking off access to the pipe and the group of devils were in the catacombs of this demonic cemetery. Junior noted with true disgust that the residents in the coffins were still conscious, banging on their coffins and desperately pleading for salvation that would not come.

"Damn Demon worshipers, no offence, when I get my hands on them I'm gonna rip them one the size of leviathan!" Junior angrily stated, clenching his demonic fist.

"Calm down man. You sure you and that fist of yours are okay?" SirZech asked looking down at the amphibious fist with suspicion.

"I'll be alright, who are we up against this time?" Junior asked as he began rubbing his arm again.

"Arius. A fool occultist with too much money and nothing to do with it. He thought he could achieve good hood by summoning the Demon Argosax and absorbing it's power. Instead he screwed up his ritual and got possessed by it. Argosax was killed while he got sent down here. Now he's manage to set himself up as a prophet of Argosax and got all these people worshiping him like he's bloody Jesus Christ!" SirZech spat with great disgust. "It'll be good day when we put this one out of our misery!"

While SirZech explained what they were up against Yukari had just arrived in the sixth circle, she soon noticed the appearance of some of the locals, lanky fellows with their private areas only barely covered by straps of cloth, which apparently included their faces the scarves around their heads emblazoned by the symbol of a snake eating it's own tail. This was quite fortunate, as Yukari quickly noticed similar rags in a broken crate nearby. As quickly as her tiny body would carry her she slipped into a one piece dress which conveniently enough were just her size. Sadly she was not fortunate enough to completely escape the pair's notice.

"Hey!" One of the mages used a Carpe Retractum spell to reach out, grab Yukari, and pull her over suspending her in the air by her one piece. "What are you doing here!?"

Suddenly Yukari was smacked out of the mage's hand by what resembled a staff, carved into the shape of spine and mounted with a crystal skull. Just as the Mage had spun around to deal with this un-welcomed intruder he froze up with a mixture of fear and realization. The third individual was dressed like the first two but something seemed off, his clothing was clean and there was a sash of some draped of his shoulders, Yukari didn't know if this was a sign of rank but the other's seemed to know him. Perhaps most disturbing of all was a chain hanging from his bare chest, like it was attached directly to his chest.

"This girl is out here running errands for me. Do not speak to her, do not touch her, and if you value your lives then you'll just scurry off looking scared!" The man growled harshly leading to the two men to run away as fast as their legs could carry them.

Yukari nearly got away before the man used his staff to block her path.

"You still got a job to do, so go do it!"

A short teleportation spell scooped Yukari up and deposited her in a crypt and soon found herself shackled to a stone casket. One that evidently had a living occupant based on the way the lid was flapping up and down, as if the lid was just too heavy for him to lift.

"Great."

Yukari whipped out her wand and used a windgardrium leviosa to float the casket along. Normally she wouldn't be taking orders from a stranger, especially one so rude, but he acted like he knew her, and logically there should only be one person who knows her down there, and that's Junior. Luckily for just such occasion Yukari had fabricated a tracking charm specifically for Junior, and according to the magical radar like screen that had appeared above her wand and noted that there were three dots on it, logically three fragments of Junior's soul acting independently, with at least one of them being the resident soul fragment that she encountered whom presumably by the same means that he sent her there was now at the heart of the facility.

"This looks promising." Yukari said taking a look around a corner to see Junior and his circle of allies.


They had been wandering aimlessly around these catacomb's for hours now, nothing but the wails of the 'dead-dead' to keep them company. Junior could swear he'd gone half mad when he heard the sound of something other than a wailing would be corpse, naming something very heavy hitting the ground. Quieting his compatriots Junior used Harror's shape-shifting to create a eye in the palm of his hand and a screen on his right shoulder for the others to see to look around the corner at what resembled a young girl dressed in raggedy clothing with a symbol that resembled a snake eating it's own tail.

"Looks like a young initiate to cult of Argosax. So she probably knows more about navigating this place than we do." Falbium whispered as he hunched over Serafall.

"Then we follow her. It looks like she's grabbed one of the caskets for a experiment of some kind of experiment." SirZech explained as he stood over Serafall next to Falbium.

"It makes sense she looks old enough to be someone's apprentice." Ajuka stated.

With that the group followed the girl and her now floating casket as she walked into the upper lairs, followed by the rebel Satans. Junior soon noticed that his chain was acting up, leading him to conclude that his soul Fragment was in this laboratory as well, potentially as a experiment.

"You're late!" The main resident of the laboratory stated, standing over a cauldron of blood.

"Sorry sir." The young witch replied as she put the casket down on the floor.

A Nergaling eye slipped out from underneath the door and looked around at the room, clearly able to see the interaction between the two individuals. The Cauldron began glowing, everything within the blood but the Carbon being ripped out and inserted into another cauldron, leaving behind nothing but a diamond dust. The older figure kicked the lid off of the casket and bent down and grabbed the man by his neck, the man reached out and grabbed the older man screaming.

"Silence! You have volunteered for a important experiment and it requires that you remain still!"

The mage waved his fingers at the cauldron of diamonds, suddenly the powder began floating out of the cauldron and over to the 'Experiment' that the mage had started. With wave of his hand the hard part of the bones were turned to mush and ripped out through the mouth, followed up by forcibly inserting the crystal into his body, replacing the lost minerals with the vastly stronger material. Outside the door Serafall was puking on the floor at the grisly sight she had witnessed through Junior.

"Oh, that is not right!" Serafall stated bent over on all fours.

"Is there any particular reason why we're just sitting on our hands here?" Junior asked with his hand under the door.

"By the sounds of things he's performing experiments to enhance the quality of soldiers, if we know how they're built we'll know how to beat them!" Ajuka pointed out, leaned against the far wall.

"Subject has perished from strain of the experiment, unfortunate but not unexpected." The Mage hit the man with a green energy burst, reviving him but in a delirious state. "Now testing subject for durability." With this the mage raised his skull like staff into the air and repeatedly struck at the man in the casket splattering the man's flesh over the room, but sparing his rib-cage, and most of the organs underneath. "Test successful. Durability within exceptionable perimeters."

The blasts also blew the man's scarf off of his body, exposing his face. Those present gasped in shock as the man turned his head, exposing a face identical to Junior's human face, complete with the singular green eye and a green scar on his back, carved into the shape of a Jack-o-lantern with a big scar going through it starting at the top right eye, and ending at the bottom left of it's mouth.

"Well we know where your soul fragment is at least." SirZech stated, a bit surprised at the brutality of this particular soul fragment.

Before any of the others realized what was going on the chain detached itself from the casket and reattached to the large and now empty cauldron, then the mage threw Yukari into it.

"I require blood, you will go fetch it!" On that note the Mage used another teleportation circle to send Yukari and the cauldron away.


With that matter settled the Mage took note of the people hiding behind the door. Manipulating the left over materials of the smaller cauldron's content's the Mage hurled them at the door leading to them to explode on impact.

"I don't like spies." The Mage walked out of the laboratory, revealing his full features, including the fact that the entire left side of his face was just a bony skull. "Even when they are me!"

This was quite clearly getting annoying, a another building tagged in graffiti, the same story as the gym. Strangely enough the Gym had been cleaned off, and not by any of the staff or the PSC members that were left behind to deal with it, which it should be noted were now no where in sight.

"What do you make of this Miss Toujo?" Deshiko asked gesturing to the defaced cafeteria.

"The magic circles look like dimensional manipulation equations. Bigger on the inside type thing." Ruby explained as she examined the graffiti with a black light.

"So somebody's trying to make the cafeteria bigger?" Deshiko walked over to the cafeteria's main entrance as she looked around inside, observing that everything was still the same size as before. "If so they're failing."

"Perhaps, but some of these other equations simply don't make any sense, some of it looks really sophisticated, but the rest of it looks like a two year old drew it." Ruby explained as she scratched her very confused head.

"Assuming that a genius didn't suddenly revert to a two year old while drawing this let us assume that they have a purpose, so theoretically speaking, what are we dealing with here?" A skeptical Deshiko asked.

Deshiko spotted a length of the paint slithering off of the wall, but decided not to act less she gave herself away.

"Well we basically got something the height of twelve feet being compressed into something the thickness of paper. Even with the efficiency of these circles, the power requirements are insane!" Ruby explained, before the graffiti snake wrapped around her ankle.

Fortunately Deshiko was already on it, nailing the tendril with her staff, Ruby jumping around behind her and whipping out her wand and aiming it at the wall.

"What the hell is that thing!?" Ruby declared, clearly shocked at the turn of the events.

"I believe that is the graffiti." Deshiko stated, as if it were a normal thing to be attacked by paint on a wall.

In either case Ruby blast the tendril of paint causing it all to leave and slither off.

"Is it always like this around here?" Ruby stated as she stared off at the snake like living paint.

"It's unusually calm today, regardless we should go get moving before something else goes wrong." Deshiko stated going towards the school.

"You're just running away?" Ruby asked in great surprise.

"Close regrouping. The rest of my men have disappeared, we need to arrange for reinforcements." Deshiko explained.

Meanwhile the News Paper Club members were in the club room typing away at the story concerning the Graffiti, which considering that all they really knew about it at this point would consist of a short paragraph consisting of something along the lines of 'the Gym was discovered plastered in Graffiti the morning fore no new information has surfaced.' Then they heard the arguing.

"We should I knock on the door!?"

"You're the teacher."

"Substitute teacher, and they HATE me!"

"Of course they hate you're their teacher!"

"Thank-you for your confidence in my abilities!"

Deciding that she had enough of hearing them arguing Mizore opened the door and leveled a glare at Ruby.

"What are you doing here!?" Mizore growled impatiently

"Well... uh." Mizore attempted to close the door before Deshiko stopped her with her stick.

"We have new information concerning the graffiti on the gym."

Mizore opened the door again this time leveling her gaze at the younger student.

"So speak!"

"It moved."

"The Gym?"

"The graffiti."

That definitely warranted investigation, thus Mizore let Deshiko in while at the same time slamming the door shut in Ruby's face, hitting her in the nose in the process.

"Okay! I'll just stay out here then!" Ruby shouted while she held her bleeding nose with her hand and her ear to the door.

"Moving graffiti? That is going to need some explanation." Kurumu asked note book in hand and skepticism on her features.

"Agreed. Unfortunately I know very little. According to Ruby the creature has a number of powerful dimensional manipulative magic circles built in, specifically reducing anything under twelve feet into something less than a millimeter high. Additionally it also requires the use of a immense source of magical power that we have not yet identified." Deshiko explained, noting that she sounded like a broken record.

"So you want use to help you do your job?" An annoyed Gin stated with distaste.

"More accurately I would like you to help me locate this 'Graffiti Monster.' It's no coincidence that it's popped up at the same time that my men have gone missing. With your people's luck you'll be smack dab in the middle of it soon enough, so the question is do you want to get the drop on it. Or do you like to be ambushed? With all the people trying to kill you these days I'd imagine that it'll sky rocket your fliers." Deshiko stated in a tone one might use to comment on the weather.

"I think you've finally grasped the concept of sarcasm Deshiko." Kurumu stated mocking Deshiko.

"Friendly banter at best, I'm feeling unusually jovial today. It could also have something to do with the fact that almost every man under my command has disappeared without a trace." Deshiko spat clearly annoyed. "Where's Yukari? We could use her magical expertise on this."

"In the infirmary, her turn to go down to hell this week and all that." Mizore explained, before sharply turning her head to the door when she heard someone fall on their face.

"That's right, where's Junior this week?" Deshiko asked, a bit curious and more than a little concerned.

"If Mimi's information is right Number six Heresy if memory serves me. I trust that Nurse Cut-lip is overseeing the procedure as usual?" Deshiko asked raising a brow and faking interest.

"Of course you know all this already why are you ask..." Mizore was interrupted by the sound of someone running off down the hallway. "Well played Deshiko."

"I try."


"So, you mind telling me what it is you're doing?" Junior asked standing in the doorway to the laboratory.

"That should be obvious." The Heretic soul fragment stated as he re-wrapped his head in the scarf. "I'm conducting important experiments. Under normal circumstances bone is mostly made out of collagen and calcium, a very weak building material. Substituting more durable materials, namely diamond, therefore exponentially increases durability. Additionally by specifically utilizing the blood of Styx I'm able to infuse the subjects with additional demonic power."

"He's working for Arius!" Ajuka growled, whipping out Asmodeus and Cleopatra into striking position.

"No, I'm conducting a scientific inquiry, I stated that already. Whom utilizes that information is of little concern to me." The Heretic stated returning to his tomes.

"Just so that we understand this, you're doing this just to see if you can?" Serafall asked scratching her head with her finger.

"Correct. Each of us represent a different Sin and as a result have each inherited something different from the original. In my case I'm the perfect Heretic, I know all gods exist but worship none, my sin is intelligence, and therefore I have inherited our intelligence." The Heretic explained as he magically repaired his cauldron.

"Do you have a name?" Falbium asked walking over to a shelf.

"My subordinates call me sir, my superiors call me Thanatos." The Heretic explained as he reached for his staff.

"Thanatos? Demon Reaper." SirZech asked, suddenly reaching for Minos.

"Yes that's one translation." Suddenly Thanatos swung his staff at the group of Devils, a bombarda blast missing them and hitting the wall behind them. "Now begone!" With a second wave of the staff the devils were sent through a portal leading outside of the facility, leaving only the reaper behind. "You owe me some explanations pal!"

"What did I do!?" Junior snapped back at Thanatos.

"What you didn't do! I see characteristics of only three separate species which means that you only have three pieces of our soul when you should have five!" Thanatos explained, his staff being waved between Junior's two arms and his head.

"It's complicated, evidently not all of me wants to be reunited!" Junior spat back.

"Irrelevant!"

"What about you!?" Junior produced a scythe bade from his Nergaling arm and aimed it at Thanatos's neck. "I don't see any out of place demon bits coming out of you! Why didn't you take the initiative!"

"Going down to the lower circles is a waste of time! And going to the higher circles too dangerous! The only logical explanation is to wait for the lower circles to come up here and then unite their power and mine and storm the remaining three circles!"

"How did you know that would have worked!?"

"Can't you feel it? Did you never wonder why these chains tug and pull as they do, why they all hang off of our bodies as half finished messes. We instinctively seek to become whole again, these chains are the bonds that we have cut! and on the subject I can sense the ones that you missed are entering the circle now. I'll pick them up in a moment, right after I deal with you!"

Suddenly the two were teleported away again, soon finding themselves standing on top of the crypts roofs.

"You wanna fight!? Fine! Lets fight!"


Yukari had seriously found herself questioning her life choices up until this point in time. When one is carrying a floating cauldron of blood across the graveyard of hell, few other thoughts preoccupy your time. Then they came, the four Devils of the New Satans, falling out of a hell circle and nearly landing on top of Yukari's head.

"So Junior tossed you guys out of his lab too?" Yukari asked brushing the dirt off of her makeshift clothing.

"What's it matter to you?" SirZech asked as he brushed dirt off of himself.

"Leave her alone SirZech she's just a little kid." Serafall stated in a surprisingly motherly tone.

"I'M NOT A LITTLE..." Yukari started to say before she realize that she didn't have her wand on her.

"Interesting..." Yukari spun around and saw Ajuka standing behind her with her heart shaped wand examining it. "I cannot fathom a reason why one of Arius's follower's would have a wand like this."

"OH COME ON WHY DOES EVERYONE KEEP TAKING THAT!?" Yukari screeched pulling on her hair.

"Oh my apologies, here you." Ajuka apologized handing Yukari back the wand, whom immediately and defensively snatched it back. "So that cute little toy is probably means you're from earth, which also means that you're Junior's friend."

"Oh yah!?" Yukari removed the head wrapping's and whipped out her other wand. "How cute does this look!? Cause I'll have you know that this wand was carved for me by the Grim Reaper himself! What do yah think about that!?"

"Defensive. To be expected I suppose." Falbium stated, getting a bit of amusement out of teasing Yukari.

"I am not being defensive!" The irritated little girl shouted.

"Defensive about being defensive. This is worst than I thought it was." Falbium stated, not able to hold back his grin any longer.

"That's enough Falbium!" SirZech growled to his companion.

"My, my, my what do we have here!?" The group of devils and the witch spun around to see a surprisingly handsome looking man lounging about on the rocks. He was a white man with chiseled features and dark black short trimmed hair with a pencil thin mustache and a finely trimmed goatee. Contrary to his heretic followers he was dressed in a fine white fur coat and pants, his bare chest exposed a large Uroboros shaped scar and he carried a large staff, tipped with a amber crystal the size of a baseball. "All four of the so called 'New Satans' and the Devil Arms that they stole. And you say that is a Death Wand?" Yukari tightened her grip around her second wand, recognizing that her foot was now officially in her mouth. "That will be pretty handy, once it's in the hands of someone who knows how to use it!"

"I know how to use it plenty! Come over here and see for yourself!" Yukari growled while she did a finger taunt.

"Arius I presume!?" SirZech asked, moving between the new individual and the group of people.

"The one and only!" Arius stated as he jumped off of the stone and landed in front of the group.

"Before we do to you what we did to your cohorts I would like to know something." Ajuka asked, tapping his finger idly on Cleopatra.

"I can't refuse the final request of a dead man!" Arius stated both jokingly and threateningly at the same time.

"What the hell did you do or say to Junior's other soul fragment to make him work for the likes of you?!" Ajuka asked as he accusingly pointed his weapon at Arius.

"What did I do!?" Arius took the next few minuets to laugh his head off, finding Ajuka's question to be quite funny. "Oh no, no, no my confused little foe." The Hell-lord mockingly stated waving his finger in the faces of his foes. "It twas not I who convinced Thanatos to come work for me. On the contrary, he came to me. Specifically with a large number of proposals outlining instructions on augmenting our foot soldiers strength, speed, healing rate, reflexes all sorts of useful things!" Arius stated, enjoying the look of confusion the others were having.

"Oh come on! Is every version of Junior a jerk!?" Serafall seriously asked, pulling on her pig tails in frustration.

"If you are done..." Arius moved into a combat pose, two snake like appendages growing from his back each with a simple pointed wand for tongues. "I believe we have some business to attend to."

Apparently agreeing with the Hell-lord the Devil's all drew their weapons, however they were soon interrupted when large blast separated the warring sides.


They had been looking for the Graffiti demon all day now. With no more buildings showing up covered in Graffiti the most logical explanation is that it was in the forest. Hence the News Paper club minus Moka, Minnie and Yukari plus Deshiko were now wandering around aimlessly looking for the beast, splitting up did not seem to improve their chances nor laughing off Deshiko's claims seem to improve their odds of finding the thing. Kurumu's only companion in the otherwise pitch black forest was a flashlight, one that was losing power fast.

"I've found nothing." Mizore reported from over the phone.

"Nothing to report." Deshiko stated.

"Nothing here. Can we go back to the school now?" Chi whined.

"Deshiko, we've been out here for hours and we've found...!" Kurumu was ranting into her phone when she rounded on a corner, freezing up in front of group of trees that had the words Anti-Thesis written over and over again in dark black blocky letters. "Nadda? Scratch that last statement. We've got graffiti." Kurumu stated as she went up to examine the strange text.

"Stay away from it Kurumu we still don't know what this is about." Deshiko stated.

"And you're paranoid Deshiko!" Kurumu spat. Kurumu, failing to heed Deshiko's warnings, Kurumu experimentally poked the paint, trying to see if it was still wet. Imagine her surprise when her finger began sinking into the tree instead, shocked she immediately pulled it out. "Okay something is definitely weird about this stuff."

"Define weird?" Deshiko asked over the phone.

"I poked a tree and it nearly kept my finger!" Kurumu shrieked, hardly able to believe what she was screaming.

"Odd, since Graffiti doesn't move and all that." Deshiko stated, her dry voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Not helping!" Kurumu noticed that her foot was sinking into graffiti covered ground. Panicking Kurumu gave her foot a hard tug, pulling off her stocking and shoe in the process leading to them to sink into the ground. Not wishing to tempt fate Kurumu flew into the air and shown her flashlight down on the forest, spotting the tree's shift and disappear into the ground. "This is a new one." Suddenly the tree's that were swallowed were immediately shot out again at incredibly high speeds nearly hitting Kurumu as she bobbed and weaved through the projectiles. "You have got to be kidding me! Guys I could really use some back up here!"

"You're not the only one!" Mizore was the nearest, she spotted Kurumu dodging trees in the air, she also had bigger things to worry about as the graffiti snaked along the ground and tried to swarm her. Mizore quickly realized that freezing the ground did not work, as the graffiti would just slither over the frost instead, nor did shooting chunks of ice at it, as it would just give it something to shoot back. Ice Skating away was proving to be rather difficult as well, as it just swallowed up the ice she left being and shot it back at her. "I'm running out of ideas here!"

"Join the club!" Deshiko was prepared for when the creature came for her. Using the newly acquired lessons of her grandfather Son Wukong Deshiko was doing her best to run away using, surprisingly enough, a ball of air that had appeared underneath her foot. Since she already knew that attacking it wouldn't work Deshiko instead had to figure out what it's weakness was, which she admitted was a bit difficult considering the face that she was more than a bit preoccupied by dodging the chunks of stone and wood being hurled at her. "This thing seems to specialize in chewing things up and spitting them out. Kurumu come in." Deshiko stated with hand on her ear phone.

"I'm a little busy here Deshiko!" Kurumu barked into her phone as she ducked out of the way of another thrown tree.

"This creature's only method of attack seems to be to suck something inside of it or spitting it back out."

"Ladies and gentlemen, the genius!" Chi sarcastically piped. Chi had teamed with Mimi in searching the forest, supposedly on account that Mimi couldn't use the phones to report in. That said her plot to seduce Mimi with a midnight stroll was a abysmal failure on account of moving Graffiti. Naturally Chi being the short tempered demon that she is was taking her sexual frustrations out on the creature, firing a volley of Ikari's energy projectiles at the creature, and having them explode when it sucked them up. Chi didn't know if it was hurting them or not, but at least she had the satisfaction of giving it a hard time. "Eat it and like it ugly!"

If the creature was affected by Chi's attack's it didn't let her know, Mimi had decided that direct attacks were doing them no good, so naturally she decided to attack indirectly. Whipping out Kampe Mimi swung around the weapon ball and chain style until she managed to kick up a twister. Unfortunately Chi got caught up as well, a glad relief while she waited for Ikari to recharge. The Graffiti on the other hand didn't seem to be affected, until that is it crawled onto a tree that it then allowed to be ripped out of the ground. Chi was completely of guard as she was hit by the tree and pulled inside, Mimi naturally rushed to her aid but only managed to grab on to her arm as they were both pulled inside.


Chi landed on the ground with a splat, reforming her body a few moments later, her face being the last thing that she pulled of the ground with a sick plop sound. Mimi had a more graceful landing, her natural ability of flight allowed her to slowly descend to the ground and thus got a far better look at their surroundings. At first blush they looked like they were in some sort of dungeon caves, lit by torches. A closer examination revealed that the texture was something like a painting, a well done painting, but a painting none the less. The sound of Chi smacking her lips a few times echoed throughout the hallway, as if she were tasting something, before she licked the ground again just to make sure.

"Why the hell does the ground taste like grapes and lemon's?" Chi asked looking very confused.

Mimi certainly not expecting that statement. Mimi ran her finger along the wall and noticed the same taste. Mimi experimentally inserted her finger into the torch and firstly observed that it wasn't hot, a lick of her finger revealed the taste of strawberries and oranges.

"This place looks like a painting, a painting made out of fruit juice. What exactly is going on here?" Chi asked as she got up from the ground to look around.

Mimi ran her finger nail through the stone drawing out the words 'Anti-Thesis.'

"The graffiti thing? Eh, makes since both that thing and this place are made out of paint, so where ever it transports us would be painted too. But why this cocktail of fruit juice?"

Mimi heard something from down the hallway, waving Chi over Mimi stuck to the wall as she approached a corner and saw a group of ghosts fly past them. Grotesque half finished things with bits of their insides sticking outwards, like they weren't able to manifest properly. Once they were out of ear shot Chi resumed speaking.

"So there's ghosts wandering around here too? This is just getting weird. And they aren't even proper ghosts, they're just mangled twisted things that are half finished." Chi asked as she stroked her chin in thought. "What do you think about this Mimi?" Mimi took a moment to stare at Chi, as if the answer to that question should be obvious. "Right. Sometime's I forget that you can't talk back."

The pair observed a group of the ghosts fleeing down the hallway. Deciding to look into the matter the two went down the hallway from when the ghosts were fleeing, and were surprised to discover a golem and Hell-Hound attacking all of the ghosts.

"Ichi and Kuroi. Aren't those two Kuyo's former attack dogs that tried to kill us back when Junior was going nuts that time?" Mimi nodded her head, agreeing with Chi's assessment. "Well this is going to be awkward."

Chi and Mimi walked up to the two thugs. Kuroi began scratching his leftmost head with his back foot, before the other two took notice and with a snarl they attacked the first head, rolling around on the ground as they tried to bite and attack each other. Ichi on the other hand didn't seem to notice, any thing for that matter, not even Chi snapping her fingers in his face.

"They're idiots! No wonder we kicked their asses!" Chi stated, a little surprised about the revelation about Deshiko's top lieutenants.

"You're just figuring this out now?" Chi looked behind the two A-Ranks to see Ivan lounging about on the ground in human form, a camp of PSC thugs surrounding him, as he read through some scrolls.

"I should have known you were behind this." Chi stated her voice devoid of any surprise.

"What is with you people!? I am not the bad guy here!" Ivan shouted in exasperation.

"Because you know, you know everything, all the time, you know and you never tell us! You never tell us your plan, your agenda, you just scheme and manipulate us!" Chi growled angrily.

"I'm in here too aren't I?" Ivan stated as he jumped to his feet.

"By design! Everything is by design with you! You see the future, you manipulate it to suit your needs, you lie and cheat to get what you want and you keep us in the dark constantly!" Chi stated poking her finger into Ivan's chest several times.

"If you only knew what I know, oh boy would you have your secrets!" Mimi stepped between the two, separating the two physically before they came to blows before gesturing Ivan to speak. "Thank-you Mimi, at least someone around here is civilized!"

"Speak or we'll show you just how uncivilized we can be!" Chi spat as she crossed her arms and glared.

"This is a bit complicated. Someone, and no I don't know who before you ask, has basically 'painted' a tomb and infused it with ecto. they then added dimensional compressing Magic circles that compresses massive amounts of space into a space that is a mere few millimeters high. Finally the whole thing was fused into a spirit, and filled to the brim with these artificial ghosts, made by infusing corpses with ecto before being ejected." Ivan explained, gesturing with his hands as if he was trying to take something the size of a water melon and squeeze it down to the size of a palm.

"That would explain why everything tastes like fruit cocktail." Chi stated, getting a nod from Mimi. "It also reminds me of a certain half demon mutant that I know and hate. Does this have anything to do with Junior?"

"The idea may have been inspired by his Nergaling abilities, who knows with a bit of time and refinement we'd might be looking at a brand new Nergal." Ivan pondered, gesturing with his hand as if outlining an imaginary beard.

"Fantastic, but how does knowing that we're trapped in the nightmarish realm of a creature with unlimited shape shifting abilities help us to deal with this thing?" Chi asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

"That I can do." Ivan removed a scroll from his pocket and rolled it out on the ground, both Chi and Mimi sitting down with him. The image on the scroll resembled a Maze, but those who were versed in the finer points of Magic Formula would make out several incomplete Magic circles.

"Is this a map, or a magic formula?" Chi asked, admittedly fascinated by the concept of whatever it was.

"Both. We've been mapping out the creature's inner workings for some time now. There is some minor change depending on what direction that it moves, but in order to maintain it's inner workings it must keep these critical magic circles intact." Ivan explained, tracing his finger over a path through the maze. "And this is the heart, the soul, and where we strike. But first we need to get help from the outside."


"So, how'd yah want to do this?" Junior asked his counter part Thanatos, whipping out Harror's blade form.

"I was planning to take the opportunity to test out the fruits of my research." Thanatos tapped his staff on the ground, suddenly three sarcophagi emerged from the ground their tops facing forward. The lids fell off revealing a number of creatures inside. Hideous looking things, deformed spikey bones gutting down the arms, legs and torso acting like crude armor for bulging muscles without any skin covered every visible inch of the body, the beastly creatures looked like they were reanimated corpses that had been dissected, experimented on and turned into these abominable things like a chapter out of Frankenstein.

"Pretty, your talents are even more repulsive than I had thought!" Junior quipped, his face scrunched slightly in disgust.

"The ability is called exhume, not a ability we had practiced much in the land of the living but I've learned much of the necromancer talents in my time in Hell, as you shall learn for yourself!" With that the creature's attacked.

Junior soon found himself overwhelmed by the creatures, landing few hits thanks to the creatures speeding and dodging and what hits he does land not doing much good against their vastly superior durability. What was immediately clear was that the creature's were quite immensely stronger than he was as they quickly surrounded him and began beating on him.

"What are you doing!? I know you know how to Reaper step. Concentrate your power at the tip of your blade, focus on a place you want to be, and swing!" Thanatos scolded angrily.

Junior did as Thanatos said, creating a portal around himself that had teleported him a few feet away. The creatures had been hurt slightly, a visible green crack in their armor in the chest area. Taking his chance Junior pulled out the Cross of Gabriel and whipped the chain at them, purifying the three souls and ridding Junior of them. "Why did you do that!? Tell me how to do that?" "Don't think too much into it, I simply despise stupidity." At this Thanatos aimed his staff at Junior and fired several magical blasts at him, which were dodged through the use of Reaper step leading Junior to appear behind him, winding up with for a swing with a harvester scythe that Thanatos blocked by sprouting a barrier made out of bone in the path of the weapon. Not only that but when the weapon broke the shield a second Harvester scythe appeared in the likeness of the first and swung at Junior.

"What the hell!" Junior jumped out of the way of his own attack as Thanatos explained.

"Aegis guard is a rather basic technique that simply dictates that you create a barrier from high quality bone to absorb a blow. When properly done it can recreate the attack and send it back to the point of origin, in this case you."

"Lovely."

On that note Junior Reaper stepped directly to Thanatos's position, inches from his person, and swung his scythe arm at him knowing that his foe had no room to throw up another barrier. However Thanatos was ready all the same, creating a swarm of crows and throwing them at Junior, carrying him off before they retreated back to Thanatos.

"What do you call this one 'Revenge of the cock-a-doodle-do?'"

"Murder, actually. Here's another application."

With that Thanatos unleashed his swarm a second time, this time they went after Junior with vengeance, shooting at him with bullet like speeds and in several cases lodging inside of his body and throwing him across the graveyard and into the bloody lake.

"For a brute he's not all that powerful." Thanatos commented, watching Junior sink into the blood with disinterest.


SirZech and his fellow Satans along with Yukari started things off, whipping out their Devil Arms and shooting at Arius with a mixture of grenades, acid, magic spells of all shapes and sizes and the demonic fire from Asmodeus. In response Arius lazily produced a magical barrier that stopped the bombardment of attacks, and followed up with several bolts of lightning shooting out of his hand at the Satans. "Scatter!" The group of five quickly dodged out of the way, Yukari hitting the ground and dropping her death wand in the process. Before she could get it again someone else snatched it up with a Carpe Retractum spell. Yukari looked into the air and noted with true shock that the one who had stolen her wand was none other than Ruby Toujo, flying in the air on half a dozen black raven wings and looking very, very angry.

"Leave! Her! Alone!"

Utilizing the significantly more powerful death wand Ruby utilized a Bombarda Maxima spell in a hit that shattered Arius's shield.

"Impressive, for a Human."

"Not human!" Ruby opened a massive magic circle, at least the length of a football field which then lowered itself down, and in the process a towering titanic figure the height of the empire state building appeared. "An Umbran!"

The creature that Ruby had summoned was roughly humanoid, with two exceptions, the first a set of six massive slightly disproportionately over-sized arms and second three faces on it's one head, each locked into looks shear joy, overwhelming depression and pure adulterated rage. The creature wore loose fitting sleeveless clothing, studded harnesses holding together armor stretching between his pelvic and shoulder areas.

"Ajuka, what are we dealing with here!?" SirZech asked, looking very, very concerned right now.

"That's an Asura! A Demonic warrior servant of the Hindu Gods! Extremely powerful, and extremely dangerous! The Bad news is..."

"THE BAD NEWS!?" Serafall screeched leaping in front of the group waving her arms in a panic.

"Is the fact that he isn't even the most dangerous one here." The others looked a bit confused as Ajuka pointed out Ruby with his finger. "If that woman could summon one she can summon more." Ajuka stated as if it were obvious.

"That's Ruby!" The Satans looked down at Yukari, who was staring open mouth gaping at Ruby, shocked to see her.

"You know her?" Falbium asked looking suspicious.

"She was there, when Junior got hurt, when he got sent down here. She wasn't responsible, but she studied magic under who was. She got a job as a teacher at our school afterwards, but we all kind of treated her like she was..." Yukari stated.

While the Satans talked Arius looked quite impressed with Ruby's stunt, and didn't even mind admitting it.

"An Asura eh? That is something mighty impressive!" Arius stated, smiling quite a sinister smile.

"I hear you think yourself a prophet, a servant of a god destined to become a god himself. When in reality all you are is a sad and pathetic old man howling about how he lost everything." Ruby stated, getting grim satisfaction from from having wiped the smirk off of Arius's face. "Now it's time to show you what a real servant of the gods looks like!" Ruby turned to her giant companion, flying up to his angry face to speak with him. "I assume my side of the deal is satisfactory?"

"The Ex-Demon Lord's Demon Sword blueprints?" The giant asked questioningly.

Ruby held out a scroll, detailing magical formula and sword schematics.

"Not very useful to you personally in it's current state, not without scaling up the ingredients a couple hundred times or it they can use the blue prints as is for one of your normal sized subordinates. Either way your masters will be pleased."

The Asura's head turned around, facing Ruby with it's happy face as it delicately pinched the scroll and placed it into a tiny gap in his chest armor.

"Leave this fool to me, Lady Toujo."

Ruby flew down to the group of Devils. Leaving the line of sight between the beastly Giant and Arius, the giant started things off by throwing a punch down at the false prophet. Arius jumped out of the way of the blow with a Carpe Retractum spell, once having a moment to breath he pulled up a communication type magic circle and made contact with Thanatos.

"Thanatos, there is a pest I would like your help to deal with." Arius stated, assessing his situation with grim realism.

"I'd hardly call an Asura a pest Arius." Thanatos stated on the other end of the portal.

"Guess he's kind of hard to miss isn't he? I require your army, my general." Arius stated, smiling grimly at his clever manipulations.

"My soul fragments are proving to be harder to subdue than I had anticipated. Though I won't be able to come in person I can spare the army. Once I have reclaimed the rest of me I'll join you." Thanatos stated before he closed the circle.

Suddenly massive number of the sarcophagi appeared around Arius, opening up to reveal the creatures from before in the dozens. As if they all knew what to do by instinct the leaped into the air and targeted the Asuras weak points, mostly it's kneecaps, and disabled them with a series of powerful punches.

"This is gonna be fun!" Arius stated, before he was suddenly interrupted by a explosive blow from Minos in Hammer form sending him flying into the Asura.

"I could not agree more." A somewhat cocky sounding SirZech stated resting the hammer on his shoulder.


Moka had taken the liberty of getting some ice cream from the campus's kitchen and was now taking it to Minnie's Dorm room on Campus. Something sweet always helped her cheer up when she was feeling down, so it might work for Minnie too.

"Minnie? Are you in here?" Moka opened the door and saw the young woman in question laying down on her bed with the covers pulled over her head. "Oh you're asleep!" Moka whispered as she tiptoed into the room and left the ice cream on the bedside table.

"Minnie?" Moka tapped the younger girl on her shoulder, trying to see if she was awake though she got no answer. "Must have cried herself to sleep."

Moka sat down on the bed, trying to do her best to reassure the sleeping girl.

"Look Minnie, I know you don't want to talk about it right now but I just wanted you to know I've lost someone too..." The covers shifted slightly, Moka assumed that was sign that she was facing her now. "My mom, died when I was young, wasn't long after I got this actually." Moka stated, giggling the Rosario Seal.

"I can't quite remember all the details actually, but that doesn't matter now. You can't go through life like this Minnie, you'll destroy yourself trying. Junior is going to get better, he always does, but if he sees you like this, it will break his heart. So you should try to get better for him. If not then for you, and everyone else that is worried about you."

On that note Moka heard her phone ringing, observing that Kurumu was calling her she answered.

"Hello?"

"WHERE THE HECK HAVE YOU BEEN!?" Kurumu screeched over the phone.

"With Minnie all day, didn't you get the memo like everyone else?" A very confused Moka asked?

"DO YOU NOT SEE WHAT'S GOING ON OUTSIDE!?" Curious Moka opened the window blinds and saw that someone with wings was flying over the forest dodging trees getting flung at her, Kurumu she presumed.

"What are you doing?"

"Does fighting for my life against a interdimensional magic graffiti monster count!?"

Moka took a moment to try cleaning out her ear with her pinky before she held the phone up to it again.

"I'm sorry but I'm pretty sure you just said that you're being attacked by graffiti!?"

"Magic Graffiti Moka! Magic!" A ring in her ears told Moka she had another call, checking the caller ID Moka saw that it was Mimi, which is odd since she doesn't do calls.

"Hang on I'll three way you guys in." Thus with a push of the button Moka bore witness to a unexpected voice.

"Hello there!" Ivan cheerfully greeted over the phone.

"Ivan!?" Moka walked out of the room, not aware of the gold colored bird hand peeked out from underneath Minnie's blanket and crushing the tub of ice cream. "What on earth are you doing!?"

"At the moment? Riding a Hellhound through the bowls of dimensionally manipulated painting."

"Wha?" Moka stated simply, looking very befuddled.

"We're inside the graffiti thing you twit!" Chi screeched over the phone.

"Lovely, does it have any weakness?" Kurumu asked, annoyance in her voice.

"A couple, not that I'm sharing them with you at the moment." Ivan stated as if he were commenting upon the weather.

"Why not!?" Chi asked, sounding a bit angry.

"Because then she'd use it, and we'd be washed away too!" Ivan barked, pointing out details that he thought were obvious.

"Oh." Was Chi's only response.

"Are my men in there with you?" Deshiko asked in her usual monotone voice.

"Say hi boys." Ivan's jovial command sparked the sounds of several growls and a unintelligent grunt.

"That's them. Do you have any advice for keeping this thing away from the campus?"

"Water, lots of it, this thing needs a solid surface to work with, take that way and it'll have a much harder time staying in one piece. I recommend the lake." Ivan explained sounding a we bit unsure.

"What of you and my men?"

"The dimensional space will be destabilized so there's a good chance that it'll kill us too. But we aren't getting out of here without a chink in this thing's armor."

"Just what is your plan anyway?" Deshiko asked, letting a hint of her suspicion slip through.

"We're planning to hit this thing's weak spot, it's core, heart and brain in one foot stop. To do that we need the barriers it's got up protecting itself taken down, that's where you guys come in."

"Not good, we're going to have a awfully hard time herding that thing." Deshiko noted with concern.

"Why didn't yah say so! Milady if you'd please?"

The sound of a ultra high pitch whistle echoed out of the phones, suddenly the sound of of some sort of ungodly beast echoed throughout the campus. Moka ran back into Minnie's room only to discover her gone, the room in a mess and the window open. Sticking her head out of the window Moka could make out several waves of ecto energy in the form of a ghostly howl. Feelings that simultaneously bone chilling, haunting and terrifying all at once filled Moka up to her pink haired roots as she looked on at the raging battle.

"Courage? I was wondering what you did with them." Chi noted getting a shaky feeling. "Guys I think Minnie's going to join in as well." Moka stated concerned clear in her voice.


The group was making good time through the maze of the Graffiti beast's guts, to be expected, when a fair portion of those present can fly, as well as being equipped with giants who were very fast by virtue of being very large that can also carry their smaller flightless subordinates. That and Ivan had a semi-accurate map of the maze.

"Are we even going the right way!?" Chi asked with extreme distaste at flying at such high speeds with her bat like wings.

"You should keep in mind the fact that the maze moves!" Ivan stated, riding on the back of Kuroi in human form.

"Why aren't you in ghost form any way?" A suspicious Chi asked.

"All the undead in here are under the sway of this walking tomb, so long as I'm still alive that doesn't include me. But the moment I go ghost, I'll probably end up turning against yahs."

"Covering for your own betrayal ahead of time are we?" Ivan merely rolled his eyes at Chi's question, before picking up on her startled look.

"Wait so you can't see the future right now!?"

"I'm metaphorically blind as a bat. The only thing I have to go on are the instructions I'll leave myself after this mess is over with." Once he was finished with his confusing explanation Ivan returned to his navigator duties, directing the group through several twists and turns, coming upon a block in the road in the form of a large thick looking wall. "We're here!"

"Great, what do we do now?" Chi stated, being the first of the group to land at the wall. "We wait. Shouldn't be too long now." Ivan stated checking his watch. "For what?" Chi barked, before she suddenly grabbed onto Mimi for support as the entire area began shaking.


A large chunk of earth, with the Graffiti beast attached to it, was being hurled through the air perpetuated by a trio of Ghostly howls and landed in the lake with a loud splash. Deshiko looked over at Mimi's mutant pet attack dog with something akin to surprise on her face as Mizore skated up next to them.

"How old is this one?"

"Couple month's if memory serves." Mizore replied blandly, as she observed through a ice scope the creature struggle to maintain composure in the lake.

"Figures." Deshiko stated simply, not at all surprised that the pup was more useful than one of her top lieutenants as she gave the beast a belly rub.


The rumbling had subsided, but now water was poring out of the walls, the dimensional space collapsing in on itself where ever the water went, most of it was being redirected by sloping the floor and pooling the water, trying desperately to get it out.

"Well we can escape any time now. So why aren't we?" Chi asked making a very poignant point.

"If you want to run away then do so. But I have a job to do."

"This is that important?" Chi asked a bit surprised.

"More than a tomb this is a prison, for a powerful and dangerous spirit. It has been trapped thus far but when this thing fails it's gonna get out, unless we can put it into another cage." Ivan stated, bringing out what appeared to be a thermos, but covered with a circuit board pattern.

"Is that a thermos?" A confused Chi asked pointing out the device in Ivan's hand.

"It's a sophisticated cylindrical ecto containment unit with a built in belt loop for convenient carrying." Ivan stated in a tone of voice that greatly implied that he was tired of hearing the phrase.

"But it's a thermos!" Chi pointed out once more, starting to giggle.

"Look I didn't come up with the name." Ivan stated, his voice quickly becoming drained of enthusiasm.

"I bet it's called the 'Phantom Thermos!'" Chi stated, outlining a imaginary banner above the group's heads with her hand.

"Oh look at that the wall's melting we should probably go kill the monster now." Ivan awkwardly stated trying to change the subject.

"Oh my gosh it actually is!" Chi could not contain herself any longer and burst out laughing. "I'm not having this conversation right now!"


While Ivan was being humiliated by Chi the others were working to try to contain the graffiti beast. Deshiko's limited knowledge of ecto told her that this thing was made entirely out of ecto infused fruit juice's. Since this thing is basically a over-sized stain she figured that some stain removing detergent would be pretty effective against it. Since they didn't want to risk the lives of their friends, associates and employee's inside of it by using the stuff directly on the creature itself, they instead decided to spread it around the lakeside beach, if the creature did try to crawl onto land, it'd be in for a nasty surprise.

"We got the thing contained, now what do we do?" Kurumu asked, dropping a bag bigger than she was that was also half full of laundry detergent.

"Freeze it?" Mizore suggested, playing with a ice kunai between her finger tips.

"Bad move, give that thing something solid to work with and we're back to square one." Deshiko explained as she checked her phone.

"Nothing yet?" Moka asked walking up to the group.

"This isn't a Hell-Phone, and this isn't the Underworld. It doesn't transmit through dimensional barriers, and that's a great big thick one. What about Minnie?" Deshiko asked as she put the phone away.

"Oh she's coming." Suddenly a streak of light bolted through the air and disappeared into the lake. "And going."

"Oh that's not good." Kurumu stated openly gaping.


Fortunately Ivan had the foresight to get everyone out of the water, Ichi's and Kuroi's large bodies easily spanned the gap between the walls, and they made for excellent platforms to keep the group out of the water. Which was a good thing considering that the water was electrified, the culprit, a white skinned figure covered in feathers with a set of large wings coming out of her back, walked underneath them. Either Minnie didn't notice them, or she doesn't care.

"You could have told us that Minnie was going to be here!" Chi growled in a whisper aimed at Ivan while she sat on Ichi's leg with him

"Contrary to what you think, I do not know everything!" Ivan barked back.

"Oh would you two just make out already!" The giant man of stone grumbled in a gravelly sounding voice.

"SHUT UP YOU!" Both individuals barked angrily.

"Why are you whispering anyway she isn't here for us!? Look!" Ivan climbed down to Kuroi and hung from the hair underneath his shaggy body, coming face to face with Minnie.

"Ivan you idiot come back here!" Chi growled whispering under her breath.

"Hi Minnie." Was Ivan's simple statement in a bland tone of voice. Minnie did not seem to notice Ivan and walked by him further into the tomb, leading to Ivan to climb back up to Chi.

"Alright Mr. 'I don't know everything!' How did you know that!?" Chi asked in normal voice level but clearly annoyed.

"What ever she is here for she was dragged out of her funk, prompted her to fly over the campus, and come straight here! Whatever it is that she's here for, it's more important than us."

"Says you! What's so important that she'd fly out here to get it?" Chi asked as she watched Minnie walk away.

"I. Don't. Know!" Ivan growled clearly annoyed.

"Well how are gonna get there Mr. Smarty Pants!?" Chi stated sticking her nose into Ivan's face with her hands on her hips.

Suddenly Ichi started to float into the air, looking down Ivan and Chi saw Mimi carrying both him, Kuroi, both of them and the entire Public Safety commission.

"That how Ms. Smarty pants!" Ivan stated in a victorious tone of voice.

The group floated into another hallway, Ivan got the look on his face like he found something he was looking for, a massive stream of the malformed ghosts. Thusly Ivan whipped out the 'Thermos' and sucked in all of the ghosts with a beam of blue energy, forming over them as a sort of net and pulled them inside it, before Ivan clamped the lid down as if to keep those inside from escaping.

"I wouldn't drink anything out of that thermos if I was you guys." Chi whispered to the PSC thugs below, clearly enjoying rubbing salt into Ivan's wounds.

"It's. Not. A. Thermos!" Ivan growled at Chi, glaring proverbial daggers at her.

"But it has 'thermos' in it's name!" Chi declared, her face that of someone positive that what her logic was infallible.

"At what what point in time did I say what it's name was!?" Ivan yelled, his features almost contorted into something demonic.

"Oh and what is it called." Ivan's face looked like he was stabbed through the heart at that question.

"enton moss." Ivan mumbled unintelligibly, prompting Chi to eagerly lean in with her hand cupped around her ear.

"What was that?"

"IT'S CALLED THE FENTON THERMOS OKAY!?" Ivan yelled in Chi's face, prompting Chi break down in laughter.

"Your last name!? That's even worst than Phantom!" Chi barely managed to say from laughing too hard.

In fact Chi was laughing so hard that she fell off of Ichi's side and landed in the water, which it should be noted was still electrified, eliciting a small smirk from Ivan as he listened to Chi's screams before she stretched back up to Ichi's back, her hair smoking and frizzled.

"Enjoy your swim?"

"I hate you!" Chi barked before she shook her head back to it's pre-electrocution look. "I deeply hate you! Now where the hell are we going now!?"

A loud whistle echoed through the halls, looking down the group saw the source, Mimi, pointing out Minnie with her hand.

"Mimi has the right idea, let's just follow Minnie she seems to know where she's going." Ivan stated pointing out Minnie too. The group quickly followed Minnie through the catacombs into a chamber where they discovered a shrine dedicated to what they could only conclude was the man in a large painting, a pope of some sort by the looks of things.

"What the heck is going on here!?" Chi asked clearly confused at the situation.

"See that painting up there that's our target." Chi looked at Ivan with a curious and confused look that just screamed 'Seriously!?' "Oh yeah it's a called a Haunted Portrait it happens all the time."

"How exactly?"

"Well, as I'm sure you could imagine, when a ghost leaves their body for the first and usually last time they can get a little lost and confused so they try to get back inside it. Now being a little confused and disoriented, cause they just died need I remind you, they can instead wind up in something else that resembles them, such as a portrait of them back when they were still alive, and instead end up being trapped inside before they realize their error." Ivan explained gesturing to the portrait several times.

"A ghost trapped inside a painting became the core of a painting that traps people: Ironic but not very helpful." Chi noted looking around the room to see if she could find something that was useful.

"Not to worry, if my calculations are correct we are about to get out of here very quickly." Ivan stated, checking notes of some sort.

"How quickly?" Chi asked sounding very suspicious.

"You may want to hold onto something."

Suddenly what can only be described as a light spear appeared in Minnie's hand, with which she violently thrust the weapon into the portrait, a massive volume of both holy and ecto energies being released from it and exploding upwards, tearing the largest hole through the creature yet. Mimi saw her window of opportunity and flew through it into the area directly above the lake and spotted the shore, flying the immediately and dumped the heavy load on the beach before she gave her back a good stretch, carrying the load apparently being quite the task for the devil girl.

"I'm so glad you're feeling better!" Mimi looked down to see Chi crawling out from under the stone giant. "Now get this thing off of me!"

Mimi lifted Ichi onto his side allowing Chi to move out from underneath the stone giant, much to her apparent relief. She also noted with annoyance that someone else wasn't there.

"I know you're not under there Ivan!"

"Oi. That isn't how this is suppose to work." True to Chi's predictions Ivan was not under Ichi, having turned into his ghost form as soon as he was out from the Graffiti's sphere of influence and easily avoided being crush and was only now turning visible again while he sat on Kuroi's back. "This is the part where you think that I've been crushed under rocky here and you realize that you where being a jerk for making fun of me."

"I hate your guts you screwy ghost! If you had by some miracle been killed then I'd be well and truly blessed!" Chi barked coldly and angrily at the ghost, sounding bitter about being right for once.

"Oh madam you wound me!" Ivan quickly stood straight up and gave those present a salute before he continued. "After receiving such a vicious and cruel put down I don't think I can go on! Goodbye cruel world!" With that sarcastic comment Ivan fell face first over the giant and intangibly fell through the earth.

"Who does he think he is putting on such a ridiculous display like that!? He knows that we know he's perfectly okay!" Chi distastefully barked, prompting Mimi to simply shake her head fully aware of her friends not too dissimilar antics.

With Ivan out of the way for the time being Chi turned her attention to Minnie who was simply floating just above the water out in the middle of the lake, with a unidentified ghostly figure out in the lake with her, as Chi started to enter lake in order to go get her she was suddenly cut off by a wall of bamboo sticks.

"Yah know, usually suicidal people don't wanna burden others with their presence Ivan." At Chi's latest insult Ivan floated out of the ground, not showing the slightest bit of annoyance with being insulted.

"Perhaps but this is not the time for interference. This is good for Minnie, interfering with her business is not, so you are gonna sit down and wait for it to be over!" Ivan stated scolding Chi, clearly very serious as oppose to his humor moments earlier.

"Are you...?" Chi started before being silenced by tugging on her sleeve. Looking down Chi saw Mimi sitting down on the ground crossed legged. Officially defeated Chi sat down with Mimi. "Can we at least watch the whatever is going on?" Fulfilling Chi's request Ivan rescinded the bamboo into the ground. A few minuets later Chi saw the rest of the Newspaper club members plus Courage and Deshiko running along the beach to them, quickly spotting the unconscious PSC thugs in a heap on the ground. "Don't ask just sit." The girls saw what was going on the lake and decided to sit down with the two already on the ground.

"Be quiet child!" The ghost of the pope was holding Minnie in a embrace, trying to comfort and calm her. "How did you become the way you are?" At first Minnie's thoughts wondered to that horrible night at Halloween town so long ago, where mercy where no mercy was due destroyed her. "I sense it, your heart was once so full of hope, of peace, of mercy and of faith. But the cruel world you live in took that away from you. And yet I sense that something else is missing." The pope put his hand on Minnie's head, causing her to relax, and was startled when he saw something. "Yes that is it. You gave it away without realizing, now you need to get it back." The Pope carried Minnie bridal style over to the shore, slowly shedding the transformed skin like feathers, laying her down on the shore in her human form. "I'm ready now." The pope stated before Ivan sucked him inside the thermos.

"Ivan, do you know who that person was?" Deshiko asked, looking suspiciously down at Ivan's Thermos.

"He's known as Saint Peter, disciple to Jesus Christ and the first pope." Ivan explained as he inserted lid onto the thermos.

"How'd he get into a Graffiti monster?" Kurumu asked pointing out the relevant question.

"Well if someone needed a haunted portrait for their little creepy science project then the pope would have done just fine, there aren't too many haunted paintings in the world. Even fewer that aren't under maximum security lockup. Considering that this guy founded the group of people that deal with these things I'm actually shocked to see him here." Ivan explained as he gestured to the place that Peter was standing a moment earlier.

"Ivan I have a question." Ivan turned to the nervous pink haired vampire as she continued. "If you do know the future, then do you know if she's going to be okay?"

"That's her decision to make. Basically if she wants to get okay, then she will, but if she don't then she won't, all she has to do is try. After all I'm living proof that the future isn't set in stone." Ivan explained, shrugging his shoulder's he didn't really know, and honestly doesn't.

"Thanks for your advice Mr. Ghost." Moka politely stated bowing her head lightly.

"It was a pleasure, Ms. Vampire." Ivan politely stating bowing fully before he fell backwards through a ghost portal.

"Ah bliss!" Chi stated, her mood instantly lightened.

Suddenly Courage leaped through the air and tackled Mimi to the ground. Mimi incapacitated the three headed beast by rubbing his belly causing them to roll off of her. Mimi gestured invitingly over to Chi, which soured the girl's good mood.

"I hate ghosts."


The fight against the hell-lord was pretty even thus far. Arius had taken to the air and was blasting at the devils below him, who were busy fending off the army Thanatos had raised. The Giant Asura was quickly finding scrambling after Arius a hastle, being small and nimble he was like trying to catch a fly. Even if the giant had six arms he was at a disadvantage here. Instead he had opted to stomp on the army below, but their immense durability had kept them from being too damaged. SirZech and the others weren't doing much better, they were either too fast for their heavy attacks, or too durable for their light attacks. The Giant apparently decided to trade opponents, as he picked up each of the four devils and two witches in one of his massive hands and threw them all at Arius.

"Eh. I can work with this!"

SirZech swung his hammer and slammed it into Arius's barrier spell before exploding it, sending him to Ajuka who hit him with a spew of fire from Asmodeus, shooting him towards Serafall blasted him with a jet like stream of acid.

"You will have to try harder than that to break through my barriers!"

While Arius taunted the group trying to defeat him Junior had fallen unconscious in the river, but certain elements were still conscious. His Nergaling arm for example crawled a tendril through his rib cage and connected with his other arm, tapping the Gil-man arm and having it suck up large quantities of blood, storing it inside the Nergal arm and converting it into Nergal blood, and then flesh, slowly coating the skeletal bone in a layer of flesh. Suddenly a large skeletal arm rose out of the blood and slammed down on the shore, narrowly missing Thanatos who was sitting down on the shore waiting patiently for Junior. The Nergalized Reaper wasn't looking too good, between the bulging malformed muscles and gutting out of place bones everywhere it gave off the general impression of being half finished. On the contrary it began to break down, tiny bits and pieces the size of playing cards appearing to peel off and blow away in the wind until nothing was left. Then it happened, the bits in the air turned to small blades and circled around Thanatos like a swarm of sharks prompting Thanatos to smile bitterly.

"About time." Thanatos stated before his form was swept away by the bladed storm.

The spectacle of a second giant appearing out of the lake caught everyone's attention. But it wasn't the size, or even the fact that it seemed to disappear and reappear briefly, it was the look, a hideous mangled thing that in no way should be alive, and the smell, like they were down wind a thousand corpses left in the rain to rot. Suddenly the corpse of a giant slammed one of it's hands in front of the group. The flesh of the creature crawled down the arm and compressed there, shrinking into Thanato's form, but with the addition of Junior's Gil-Man arms and Harror's scythe form having been integrated directly into the mage's staff.

"Ah Thanatos, so glad to see you're feeling better. This giant bastard is really starting to piss me off!" Arius stated, smiling excitedly at seeing that his man had won in conflict between him and his other half.

The group that Arius was fighting was shocked to see Junior apparently absorbed into the new soul fragment they had encountered, staring open jawed at the display of Thanatos casually walking through the battlefield.

"We should combine our attacks. A Priori Icantatem Avada Kedavra should be powerful enough to kill the Asura." Thanatos suggested gesturing to the group and then to the giant, Arius nodding in agreement to the plan.

Arius landed on the ground and along side Thanatos, both of them aiming their respective spell casting weapons, Thanatos's scythe and Arius's staff. Suddenly Thanatos whipped around and hacked Arius's head off with the scythe, continuing to shock the Satans and Witches as Arius assumed the form of a wand Devil Arm. Further surprising the group Thanatos pulled out the Cross of Gabriel and released it's chain and used it to purify his own army the he had experimented on. With that matter settled the cross was returned to the pocket of the Reaper's robes and the staff wrapped around Thanatos's chest having finally finished his business in the sixth circle.

"Ah what was that about?" Serafall asked, sound very very confused at the moment.

"I killed Arius what does it look like I did?" Thanatos stated, shrugging his shoulders as if what he said should be obvious.

"But you were on his side!" Serafall exclaimed in disbelief and confusion at the situation.

"I was of your side too if you recall." The individual who now appeared to be neither Junior nor Thanatos stated casually.

"So can we infer that you are both Thanatos and Junior together?" Ajuka asked, smirking as he deduced what was going on.

"That is correct, Junior attempted to absorb Thanatos into himself and Thanatos went along willingly." The patchwork man explained gesturing what the two had done by clasping his fist in his hand.

"So then how much of you is Junior and how much is Thanatos?" SirZech asked getting a grasp on the situation but still cautious.

"I have all of their memories, however most of the mind has came from Thanatos and most of the body from Junior. It was necessary for one to develop a bit of the other in order to function properly. For simplicity's sake I'd prefer it if you'd just call me Junior instead of Thanatos or worst yet some manner of abominable patchwork name." The man now known as Junior stated eyeing Serafall suspiciously.

"But-but-but! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity! When are we going to run into someone else who is two different people stuck together into one?" Serafall pleaded desperately, looking like someone just kicked her most prized puppy as the people around her coldly stared at her with look that was just 'no!' "You people are still heartless!" Serafall whined loudly and in a voice that seemed to grate on their ears.

"Is that really you Junior!?" Yukari asked as she slowly stumbled towards the one that could be Junior.

"Not yet Yukari, I am only one part of the one you knew as Junior, and I won't be him again until all of us are whole. No that is a lie." Junior walked towards the river, as if he only now truly comprehended what was going on here, studying his mutated hands closely. "Hell has changed me, and all of us. What of our body? I presume It's no longer in any functional usable state?" Yukari nodded her head, that was what she got from Ivan's explanations anyway, some manner of side effect from the Abysmal Maw. "As I thought, not only is the man you knew is dead but he's been destroyed. Cannibalized body, mind and soul. Maybe for someone new maybe for several people I don't know."

"You called me Yukari!?" Junior turned away from his musings and watched as the young girl stared slack jaw at him. "You remember me?"

"As I said before I have Junior's intelligence, and by extension how he got that information. A fair amount from you it seems." Junior stated pointing at the young girl with his scythe.

"Beyond that?" The hopeful little girl asked only to be dashed by the older boy's shake of his head.

"I doubt you remember me either." Ruby stated stepping forward with a bitter smile. "I'm Ruby Toujo. The apprentice of Lady Oyataka, the woman you killed you, cast you down here, and ripped your soul to pieces."

"Is that all?" Ruby nodded sadly, expecting to be viciously struck down by this brutally powerful creature that she has so severely wronged.

"Then I will be off, I still have work to do, and I very much imagine you would rather be somewhere that isn't here." Junior stated shocking those present as he walked around them.

"That's it?" Ruby asked utterly astonished.

"What did you expect me to say? That I'm angry at you just because you know who killed someone I don't even know? I have better things to do than hold petty grudges. Don't think that means you're off the hook though, the next circles are unforgiving, I might be too after reuniting with them." Junior warned, leveling the scythe blade threateningly at Ruby's head.

Ruby nodded, this really wasn't such a different person from the one he was before, perhaps he has developed a tolerance for killers over the years, or maybe he believes that no one's track record compares to his. No he can't remember any of that, the only logical explanation is that this man doesn't care about anything but what he cares about. And considering just how powerful he is now, and how powerful he is going to become if he gets even one more piece of his soul. Yukari has managed to befriend someone, something truly terrifying, and Ruby hoped she never incurred his wrath.


It had been a few days since Yukari and Ruby got back from Hell. They had quite a story waiting for them about the Graffiti monster, about this twisted creature which seemed to defy reality and had such a famous and important person as it's core. Ruby and Yukari also had a tale to tell, about the giant Asura, Arius the hell lord who was tricked and then betrayed by Junior, or perhaps it was just the end result of the fusion of the two Junior's, or maybe it was something else that she didn't understand yet. Right now Ruby had a class to teach and was a bit surprised to hear the door opening and see Minnie standing in the doorway with her uniform on.

"Mine apologies for mine absence Miss Toujo, I hope I hath nay missed too much of mine studies." Minnie stated, bowing apologetically to the class room before she took her seat.

"Are you sure you're okay Minnie?" Ruby asked, clearly concerned for the younger girl.

"Far from it, but that is irrelevant. I have to try to move forward, or cease living." Minnie stated getting out her school supplies as if this were just another normal day.


"Shame about what happened to the boss's project."

Two students were walking through the school's underground passages, between them carrying a large crystallize sarcophagus.

"I know that thing was cool. But it got what the boss man wanted. Think that they'd know we took it?"

"They didn't even know where it was that we took it from!" The pair dropped the large diamond on the ground in a storage room. "Come on let's get out of here, I don't wanna be here any longer than I have to." Before they left one of the students wiped the ash off of the surface of the Sarcophagi, clearly showing a skull, a part of a larger skeleton, with a large groove cut through it starting above the right eye and ending below the left side out the mouth.


Review Section:

T-Biggz: A good question. Firstly for the record Junior is 16 approaching 17. Secondly you may recall that soul-fragment has been soaking in a pit of hate for the past couple of months, absorbing it if you will, so it's really more like a couple of lifetimes, thirdly all the soul fragments perception of time is a little off, and don't actually know what a lifetime is so in this case it means as long as he can remember.