bell, book, and candle

by Digital Skitty

Suga's life consists of doing jobs for Kiyoko (usually herding lost ghosts), but the peace can't last. It starts with a fake luck spirit haunting an unsuspecting kid - no, it starts with a witch trying to summon an uncontracted demon - or maybe it starts with the tengu eggs and the selkie thief - no, it probably started 3 years ago and it's just now falling down around their ears.

26. Demons

Chapter 26: Demons Are Not Inherently Evil

-.-.-

Daichi finds himself in the entirely intimidating position of having someone's claws at his throat. "This better be not be some kind of trap," Iwaizumi hisses, then releases him. Daichi stumbles into Tooru's living room.

It's normally immaculate, but now, there's a wary woman with animal ears and a tail, and Tooru is resting in her lap, unconscious and pale. His mouth twists in a frown in his sleep, and his limbs give little jerks, like he's having a bad dream.

"We need your help with something," Daichi says, eyes on Tooru. Suga would be worried sick if he saw this. But Suga isn't here.

"Help him first," the woman demands.

"How exactly did you wanna handle that?" comes Shirabu's voice, somewhere behind Ushijima's shoulder, and Iwaizumi pulls scales down his other arm, until both are reptilian.

"Can you do anything for him?" Ushijima asks Shirabu as if he's curious.

"Get out," Iwaizumi snaps. "If you don't know—"

"I can," Ushijima coldly cuts in.

"…Uh, well," Shirabu says, awkward, "I could see if I could drag his spirit somewhere, but this is probably a physical reaction."

"It wouldn't help," Kawanishi surmises.

"Then I will handle it." Ushijima begins writing magic runes in the air, murmuring under his breath, and Iwaizumi's shoulders twitch up with every word.

"Listen," Daichi says, as soothing as he can manage, "they have a plan. Suga and Kiyoko are out of the picture, doing I don't know what, and Tooru is… indisposed. At least he knows what we're dealing with and has a plan, okay?"

Iwaizumi's shoulders inch down from around his ears. "Why are you really with him?"

With a snap of vertigo, the house seems clearer and colder. Tooru's face relaxes at once. Iwaizumi studies him for a long moment, frame gradually losing more and more tension, until he nearly looks neutral again.

The woman brushes Tooru's hair back from his eyes. "Where did you take us?" she asks quietly, and Iwaizumi is a hot wire again, ready to spark.

"I have not taken us anywhere. That would require too much time and magic, neither of which I can spare on you. I've insulated the building against the current realm's atmosphere. This will likely get very cold, but you will not run out of air. Unless it is closer, Northot will not be able to poison Oikawa's mind further." Ushijima pauses and adds, "I have gotten very good at dimensional magic. That is what my plan hinges upon."

"Then shove it back where it came from. Why are you here?" Iwaizumi demands.

"We need some place to shove it to," Daichi replies.

Realization, anger, hope, then suspicion cross Iwaizumi's face in a flash. He pulls his pelt tighter over himself, and with a surly-sounding thump, a thick tail drops onto the carpet below. His teeth are too sharp to appear human. "Why should I help you. You did this, and Sawamura—you're fucking crazy. Ushijima is trouble!"

"Yes, and where else do you expect Suga to pop up again?"

Iwaizumi has nothing to say to that.

On the couch, Tooru stirs with coherency rather than troubled sleep.

"Sawamura has a valuable tool and has offered his help in rationalizing my plan to you," Ushijima says and places a hand on Daichi's shoulder. He could live without that. "I need you to allow me to use the Dreamlands in order to lock Northot away."

"You're a witch, not a spellwriter. How do I even know you can do this?"

"I've already broken through one realm's borders. I've broken one, so I know how to do it in reverse. Then it is just a matter of large-scale warding and reinforcement of existing barriers. I know it can be done." He reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a ball of sleepy, downy feathers. The eaglet blinks in the light and peeps softly. "With my familiar back, I am even more powerful than before." Ushijima seems almost fond. It looks comically out of place on the man. "Rest assured, I can do this. But even with all of my power, I cannot open a portal to another realm on my own. You can—I've seen it. And, if you have to offer any information about how this other realm of yours works—"

Tooru interrupts with a slurred, "H'lo again, Athena. Long time, no see."

Ushijima's fond expression vanishes. The baby bird in his hand peeps again, as if in greeting.

"You're the biggest dumbass on the face of the planet, you know that, Ushiwaka?" Tooru continues. The woman keeps a hand on his back to brace him, but he seems to be gaining awareness. He blinks a few times at Iwaizumi, a few more at Daichi—who knows what kind of swirling mess his thoughts must be—and then returns to Ushijima with not only a smile, but a predatory one.

Iwaizumi crosses his scaly arms and grins like he's expecting a show.

"I'm going to fix my mistake," Ushijima tells him, serious, but almost annoyed. "I've always said I would not allow Northot free rein, and I mean that. …Though this would not have happened if there hadn't been interlopers."

"You did not just try to pin this on us," Daichi snaps.

One of the deer guys lets out a poorly muffled snort of laughter.

"Iwa-chan." Tooru makes grabby motions until Iwaizumi shuffles over. Tooru takes his hand and holds out his claws toward them. "Ushijima, I personally think you should shove these dragon claws up your ass."

Iwaizumi yanks his hand away with a disgusted noise. Ushijima's scowl deepens, and so does Daichi's. Maybe he should just throw himself to the mercies of the angry shapeshifter and half-dead psychic instead. It'd be kinder on his conscience.

"Unfortunately, I can tell you're sincere and it seems like you know what you're doing. So I suppose you can fuck yourself after we save the world."

It doesn't actually help Daichi's conscience, either way, it turns out.

-.-.-

"Come on," Hana begs the broken body of the human laid out before her. She will not lose another.

The human stirs. Hana is convinced the woman has more magic in her than blood, but she's alive, and Hana allows herself a moment of a smile.

"Uh, Misaki?" Terushima sounds uncharacteristically nervous.

When she looks up, she finds two witches with guns pointed at her. Terushima has his hands up like how humans surrender in movies. It's not funny.

"I'm a healer," Hana says as levelly as she can. The woman before her groans and her arm twitches. "I'm trying to save lives. I have a shop, in the goblin market, I'm reputable—"

"You're coming with us if you can use healing magic." One of the witches drags her upright, away from the injured human.

"Hey, wait—!"

"Don't be rough with her!"

Hana sprouts thorns all along her arms and skitters back as soon as the angry witch releases her. She tugs Terushima back with her. "I don't know what you humans think you're doing here, but I'm not here to help you clean this up. I'm so tired of cleaning up after humans." Her voice quakes just a little. She's trying to remember types of poisonous flowers that won't harm a faun, and she's regrettably coming up blank.

"Aren't humans supposed to be scared of spirits right now?" Terushima complains. If he has enough courage to sass, then Hana doesn't need to stand between them anymore.

With all the primness she can muster, she kneels beside the injured woman once more. "Once she's stable, you two can carry her back to wherever you think is safe. There are others here that need help, too, but this area isn't…" She glances up: concrete dust, ash, magical pollution, and the normal grime of a human city. "Good."

"That's Yachi Madoka," the other witch says, and she lowers her gun. Hana looks down at the woman before her with a new eye. "If… If you can save her—"

"We have orders to bring back any capable medics!"

"That is my coven leader!"

"With the state of emergency, covens have been temporarily—"

The second witch points her gun at the first witch, and Hana worries that any little twitch from Madoka will set them off. Exit wounds can be messy and she hates digging bullets out of people most of all.

"Let's just take a deep breath, and focus on what's important right now," Terushima says. Both witches glare at him. Madoka coughs and Hana pulls the rest of the blood from her lungs with a gentle motion. "We're trying to help you humans. So let's get you off your high horses, and you can ask us, very nicely, if we'd like to continue helping out of the goodness of our hearts. Then, maybe, we will."

Hana shoots his back a dirty look. She is going to help no matter what.

"We know there are still injured people we haven't found, that haven't been accounted for," the witch with the hopefully steady trigger finger says. "That includes coven leaders. We need people to be out here, helping, instead of confined in tents and fretting over how much we don't know. …Um, miss nymph, if you're going to stay out here, then I'll help."

"I'm her bodyguard," Terushima flatly informs her.

"I have a gun," the witch replies.

Hana ends up with three bodyguards, then, and while she doesn't approve of humans or their tactics, at least they're more careful carrying the injured than Terushima is.

-.-.-

Tadashi finally realizes how he can do it. He doesn't mean to shout "I've got it!" and scare a room full of stressed spirits, but shit happens. Kuroo's weak little laugh might be worth the way two puffed-up bakeneko cling to Lev hard enough to draw blood.

It isn't worth the way Hinata nearly drops his end of the spell.

"You've got what," Kei says, just loud enough to be heard over Tobio's furious reprimands.

"Work." Tadashi pulls on his coat, despite the collective dirty look. "No, I mean—look, I'm upright, it's fine, I can do this—listen, it's an actual goddamn plan this time, and I'm so mad I didn't think of it sooner."

"Think of what sooner?" Lev asks, uncharacteristically irate due to cat-related injuries.

"This had better be damn good if you think we're letting you wander around the city again," Morisuke adds.

"We know Daichi isn't with Suga, but we know Suga is with Kiyoko, and they know what's going on—or have some kind of grand plan, right?" Tadashi says between grabbing more winter gear from their collective pile.

"You said your magic was haywire," Tobio snaps.

"You said you were out of magic," Hinata adds with a haughty tilt of his head.

"How about you two focus on what you're supposed to be doing?" Kei calmly asks. Kuroo snickers again, in a tired sort of way. Under the guise of petting him, Kei tries to shove his face into the carpet. Midna mews her protest from her spot atop his chest. "How can you find them?"

"Suga loaned Daichi that scarf of his. He left it at work!" Tadashi vividly remembers the obscenely orange scarf looped over Daichi's peg in the backroom. Tadashi believes in Kenma's idea, but Kenma himself said it was temporary. It wasn't going to actually banish or kill anything.

But Suga specializes in killing monsters and Kiyoko specializes in keeping the peace.

"Are you just going to be doing fetch quests all day? You're going to drop dead," Tobio says. Tadashi is going to believe he doesn't mean it as angrily as it comes out.

"Last one, I promise." Tadashi digs around for an extra pair of gloves. He's not going to die of frostbite in the apocalypse.

"I'm coming with you," Morisuke announces.

Tadashi doesn't know how to ask about Morisuke's concerns for Lev—or how to articulate the fact that he's not certain he wants an overly harsh angel on his shoulder for whenever he does find Suga.

"I'm coming too!" Yuuki says, and oh joy, he gets to carry around two cats. Maybe if he stuffs them in his coat they can keep each other warm.

"No, you're staying here."

"I'm old enough to help!"

"That isn't why you're staying." Morisuke pushes down on Yuuki's folded ear with his paw until the kitten is squirming. "We need to split the luck. Who knows how the demon is really doing, but Kenma wouldn't be happy if he were to return and find him dead. This place needs to stay safe and stay secret. I don't think Kei needs any further heartbreak, either."

Tobio and Hinata make matching noises of confusion, and Kei's nose wrinkles in disgust. Yuuki seems bolstered by this kind of task.

"Also, you need to keep Lev from summoning anything else. Lev, you will be the first to be killed and eaten if you do anything else stupid today."

"I thought we were having a moment," Lev replies with a wildly hurt tone. "You were so worried for me! Go back to that."

"You're not the only one I need to look out for in this mess."

"But I'm your favorite, right?"

Morisuke answers by jumping off Lev and landing on Tadashi's shoulder. Tadashi doesn't dare tease either of them, but he cannot restrain a grin. "Let's go."

"Bye, Tsukki." Tadashi tries to make his wave the fondest damned wave in the history of farewells. He probably fails. "Bye, Kuroo—feel better soon. Yuuki, keep them safe, alright?"

"I will, because I'm in charge here!" Hinata declares with a sulky stomp of his foot. Yuuki salutes with a paw and the smuggest expression Tadashi has ever seen on a kitten.

-.-.-

"This would go far more quickly if you did not interrupt me every other sentence," Ushijima says with admirable calm.

Tooru can sense desperation rolling off the man in waves, but the space between his ears is more Swiss cheese than grey matter. Tooru can read more from the eaglet in his pocket than Ushijima himself.

Tooru uncrosses and recrosses his legs, nearly kicking Daichi in the knee. He feels no pity. This is business.

"So far, you offer vague promises we don't know you can back up." Tooru tilts his head and stares down his nose.

"I have outlined my plan twice for you."

"You will lure the god into a trap. The trap consists of questionable magic you can't fully explain to me. You require both Iwaizumi and I to be present at the site, despite the risk it will almost certainly pose to my health." Tooru's eyes linger on Daichi, but he can't find it in himself to start an argument. Daichi does the forlorn lover thing far too well. "Also, the risks to my friends, too."

"I am banishing Northot to another realm and sealing its borders so it cannot claw its way back out immediately," Ushijima says. "I can keep the atmospheric magic from eating into your mind any more than it has. I've proven this."

Tooru wishes he'd sound at least a little harassed. "Can anyone learn this trick?"

"Yes, given enough talent."

"Teach it to Iwa-chan, then we'll have a deal."

Miyanoshita has long since left. Iwaizumi had gone outside to have a shouting match with Ushijima's escorts that has gone suspiciously silent. "I am not sure he is capable."

"Iwaizumi can do it!" Tooru exclaims with too much vehemence to downplay. "You're not allowed to dismiss the people you're begging help from."

"I'm not begging—"

"Oikawa, please," Daichi sighs.

Tooru falls into a surly silence. "Fine then, teach Daichi."

"What?" Daichi asks, affronted by the very notion. Ushijima surveys him with a fresh eye. "No, no, don't drag me into this. I can't do magic. Teach Iwaizumi."

"If Daichi can't help me," Tooru says, "then I want him to join my team after we help you."

"We are on the same team," Ushijima replies, and Tooru laughs at him for that. "Sawamura is here as a matter of convenience and stubbornness. I did not feel like getting shot any more today, and he has a valuable weapon I'd rather be pointed at Northot than me."

"I'm just trying to find Suga," Daichi defensively adds.

"We can find him, together," Tooru says.

Daichi looks away, but doesn't immediately dismiss the idea. Tooru can hear Daichi's doubt as if he were talking to himself with a megaphone.

Tooru knows this side of Suga, the side that smiles and tells you not to worry while doing the very thing he'd sworn not to do.

If need be, Iwaizumi can just turn into a dragon and carry them off, away from Ushijima and his mess.

Tooru smiles at Daichi, hoping it comes off as reassuring. Ushijima's wariness increases, and Tooru gets a flash of something sharp, like teeth or bone or antlers. Antlers?

"We will need any and all help we can get, but I have confidence in my backup plan," Ushijima vows. "Can I count on you and your bodyguard's help?"

"I suppose you can." Tooru wonders if this is what summoners feel like when making deals with devils.

-.-.-

Akaashi is supposedly injured, and has probably taken cover in one of the tiny parks with a playground in this part of the city. Kenma thinks there had been a school nearby, nestled in amongst skyscrapers and stuffy businesses. There's a clear swath left by the rampaging god, visible from above like a tear in a map.

Northot is, again, between them and their goal.

"What's the plan of attack this time?" Bokuto asks, scowling down at the bright speck less than a block from the park they're supposed to be scouring.

Kenma doesn't doubt that Akaashi is injured. Spirits of fortune, however greedy, do not lie, for they see the value in loyalty and favors. "We can't draw it towards the park," Kenma mumbles, angrily. They can't split up. There is no way either of them can stall that monstrosity for very long.

If they knew where Akaashi was, then Kenma might have considered one of them playing distraction. Bokuto is in better shape and the better fighter in general, but if they need a fast escape, then he's the only one who can jump with Akaashi.

"How long until those two figure out your spell, d'you think?" Bokuto asks.

"I wouldn't hold my breath." He'd be happy if they stopped it from unraveling completely in his absence.

All of the destruction to the city Kenma had tentatively called home is unexpectedly painful. Who knows how many other people could be hurt or dying or dead?

Kenma hates acting without a plan, especially against something so strong. He's not interested in throwing his life away, even for Akaashi. "We're going to have to fight it, and draw it away from the park. Once we've gotten it some distance away, we break off and go looking. Hopefully someone will be moved by our heroic actions, come to help, and we can dump the god on them."

"We could just kill it here and now," Bokuto says darkly.

"You're welcome to try."

"You have to put your heart into it, too! How're you supposed to kill anything if you half-ass it?"

"There are two of us, and I am injured. We're not stopping anything, Koutarou."

"You're the strongest witch I know!" Bokuto exclaims. Kenma spares him an unimpressed look for his troubles. "No, I'm serious, I've seen you fight and you're great. Also, I'm spectacular, and I would absolutely kill a god to go save Keiji."

"It almost ate you."

"But plenty worked against it, too! Kenma, I have to be doing something—I'm barely holding myself together, and I know we're all fucked if you lose both me an' Keiji an' Kuroo. I don't wanna start crying, because I don't think I'd stop. I'm gonna need you to cut out the pessimism, okay? Give me a plan, and we'll do it."

It's not pessimism, Kenma wants to reply, but he does not want to confront that serious look or the vulnerability in Bokuto's words. "That's all I have. I'm sorry. We draw it away as best we can, try to stay alive, and double back."

"Then let's do that!"

Without further warning, Bokuto takes a steep dive toward the bright spot below. Kenma allows himself one deep, steeling breath before darting down after him.

With a voice that shakes the buildings around it, it calls, "I had̷ ͢no̕t҉ a̢n̕tic̕ipated yo̶u͏r̴ ͘hung̢e͟r ̷f͞o͞r d̢ea̕t͞h."

Kenma nearly falls off his broom as he swerves, but this speech is not as bad as its native language. Bokuto does not lose speed at all. He raises his legs, talons extended, and effortlessly slices through the first two tendrils that try to catch him. He rakes his talons against the top of its body and keeps going, a blur of streaked feathers, splattering oily blood behind him.

Northot twists to try to follow him. It is still smaller than they had seen, but it has already grown again since they left it less than an hour ago.

Carefully, Kenma draws out the perimeters for his gravity spell. It pins the god to the rubble below, cracking concrete and flattening most of its body. He doesn't waste magic trying to hold it, especially as it begins to ooze out from his spell's hold like a slug. Kenma releases it, makes sure it sees him above, and zips off after Bokuto.

They head back towards its own destruction, a clear path—for them and Northot. When Kenma glances back to ensure it's following them, he finds it heaving forward on a multitude of spindly limbs. Kenma doesn't see Bokuto anywhere, but he can't stay ahead of it, and he's forced to veer off.

There are few still-standing buildings here; fewer places to hide and still be able to move freely. Kenma floats behind the half-crumbled wall of an apartment, holding his breath and re-wrapping his scarf around his cold face. Go after Bokuto. How can we engage without cover?

Something explodes behind his hiding spot, close, and he shoots straight up to try to gain distance. He finds Bokuto again, with the wreckage of a burning car below. Kenma looks a little too long at the bubbling flesh of the melting pieces of god.

His eyes sting, and when he wipes his wrist across them, it comes away smeared with too-dark blood.

"Koutarou, we need to keep moving." He doesn't say too much, unsure how good its hearing is.

"Wh̵e̴re is ҉the͏ ̧fo̕x?̨" It rises from the fiery car like it's stepping over a minor inconvenience. It is upright again, supporting itself with a solid mass instead of legs; its many limbs all reach upward, idly batting at Bokuto like a particularly uncommitted cat. "Tel͠l ̕m̢e, ̧an͘d̵ ͞you͘r̨ de͢a̛t̶h҉ will b̵e ̸m̢erci̢f̢ul in̵ i͢t̢s͟ swi̵ft̨n̷ess."

"How generous," Bokuto shoots back with a leer.

"I̶ am͢ n̶ot g̢re̢e̢dy lik̷e͏ s̨h̴u͘g̷g̴͞ơ̡t͟h̶h." It gets nearer and nearer Bokuto, and Kenma realizes that its unmotivated swipes are a ploy. Thankfully, so does Bokuto, and he keeps rising, keeping out of its way. "T̷e͞ll me̕, ͘an͜d̕ I ̢will̶ no̡t ̨k͞ill ͡the҉ shuggo҉t̶h witch ̵in͟ fr̡on̴t ͟of̴ yo͠u."

"You're so talkative now! Did it bother you that much that you lost him?"

"I didn't think gods made deals with mortals," Kenma adds.

Kenma manages to rear back enough that the deity's lunge deflects off his broom handle with a spray of splinters. With a squawk of alarm, Bokuto manages to dodge. Northot's hooked tendril scrapes through his flight feathers, and though it breaks a handful, it does not grab either of them.

Bokuto outpaces Kenma, and with the speed of their pursuer, Kenma doesn't concentrate on anything except flying faster. Bokuto darts right, and Kenma veers left without a backwards glance. A thick arm with so many branching fingers shoots forward, faster than either of them.

We're too close, Kenma realizes with horror.

Northot lashes out horizontally, and it clips Bokuto's leg. He tumbles through the air, but recovers just feet from the rubble below. He zigzags, low to the ground, and Kenma tries to gain altitude while dodging other massive, forked limbs.

They almost make it to the edge of the still-standing section of downtown when Northot breaks Kenma's leg and broom with a whiplike grab. It catches him with a tendril around his midsection, and squeezes all the air from Kenma's lungs.

He can't breathe, and his vision begins to grey out at the edges, no matter how he tries to avoid looking at it. He scrabbles weakly at the burning flesh wrapped around him. Some instinctive animal fear prevents him for reaching for his magic. If it tried to feed off of him, Kenma would be dead in seconds. Bokuto desperately hacks and slashes through a mass of alien limbs to try to reach him. Kenma hates being used as bait like this, and he hates more that Bokuto fell for it.

The dragon breaking out of the low-hanging clouds stalls even the god.

Northot turns, dragging both Kenma and Bokuto, but the dragon does not decelerate. It's not huge, but it slams into Northot with a massive, disgustingly wet sound.

Bokuto fights his way free, and he claws Kenma free a moment later. They're both bleeding, but they're alive, and the god is many twitching limbs splattered onto the concrete below. Bokuto scoops Kenma up in his arms and uses magic to buoy them while they survey the damage.

The dragon stands, shaky but triumphant in the mess it has made of Northot. It spreads all four of its wings, shakes out its white mane, then examines the way its frontmost claws have broken off from the impact. "Well, shit," the dragon remarks.

Oh, god, that's a shapeshifter. "Koutarou, we should go."

"That dragon just spoke!"

"That's not a dragon. He can take care of it, I'm sure. It's not as if many things can get through dragonhide."

"We… we should help him," Bokuto says, but it sounds weak even to Kenma. They have the perfect distraction, even if it means they both must go, with Kenma's broken broom.

"You can come back to help him after we get Akaashi."

Northot begins to pull itself together. Its body is a pulped, half-solid mess, but not even that fazes it. It winds its spidery limbs up around the dragon's legs, but he steps away with a flap of his wings and an irritated snort of smoke.

"If you bring up that damned dead cat again," Iwaizumi tells the god beneath his claws with no trace of fear in his voice, "I'm going to make you wish you'd never realized this realm existed."

"S̢uch̸ ̷ga̴ll f̴r̸om ̛sh͟a҉ggo̷th."

Iwaizumi steps down on what could have been its head with a crunch. He flicks blood off his broken claws, and cocks his head to give Kenma and Bokuto a long, hard look.Does he want us to go? Does he need help? Is this some plan of Oikawa's? There are too many variables; Kenma does not know what Iwaizumi wants, and he can't plan for it. He needs to get Akaashi and reconvene with Shouyou and Tobio.

"Koutarou," Kenma says with another tug on the finer feathers near Bokuto's shoulder. "We need to go. He can handle this."

Northot surges upward and reduces one of Iwaizumi's wings to tatters. It wraps all of its remaining limbs around the next nearest wing, breaking lighter and thinner bones like toothpicks.

"No—!" Kenma starts, but it is too late.

Northot reaches up to intercept them, and with Kenma in hand, Bokuto is not so maneuverable. Kenma draws back his arm for an arrow, but he knows he will not gather the magic in time.

Bokuto goes straight through Northot's long, sharp fingers.

Iwaizumi flaps his wings, as best he can, and the delicate webbing remaining passes harmlessly through the god draped all around him.

Bokuto flops them both over the dragon's neck. No matter how close they are to the deity, Iwaizumi is the only solid thing.

Iwaizumi flexes his broken claws against the concrete below, despite the fact that he is mired in what should be the god halfway up his legs. Bokuto passes his wing through one of Northot's tendrils a few times.

When it realizes what has happened, Northot releases a scream of pure fury that quickly becomes too high to hear.

His ears are bleeding from the noise, but Kenma collapses into a fit of laughter on Iwaizumi's back.

-.-.-

Kageyama Tobio isn't exactly a smart person. His teachers hadn't thought so, his parents hadn't thought so, and for a long time, he hadn't thought so, either.

He was fifteen the first time he met Oikawa Tooru, and sixteen when the psychic had affectionately ruffled his hair and cracked a joke about a boy being the most talented member of all of Foxglove. Tobio had known he'd only said it to get a rise out of Madoka, but it had stuck with him. At eighteen, he was approached by Ushijima Wakatoshi, specifically for his prowess with magic, and that had fanned the ember of Tooru's offhand but memorable comment into a flame. Wakatoshi had absolute confidence in himself; why shouldn't Tobio?

He wouldn't call himself a genius, and certainly not a spellwriter, but when he's presented with a spell and the knowledge of how it works, he doesn't see why he shouldn't cast it. Even if he must wrestle a bratty tengu into submission to do so.

"Were you… supposed to do that?" Tsukishima asks faintly. All of the lightbulbs in the room had popped with the surge of magic; it's daylight out, but it casts different shadows than before. Tsukishima and the demon are now in the farthest, and darkest, part of the room.

"Why shouldn't I have done that?" Tobio snaps. True, the magical cost had been more than he'd been expecting, but Tobio had felt the pool of Kenma's magic sitting in the spell like ice water. He'd just added more, dragged Shouyou into it, and pulled the sticky, disgusting tendrils of angelic magic from the cursed mirror. It was frustrating to knot everything together, but he has confidence that it will not be undone anytime soon.

Doubt grips him, until he sees the sparkly-eyed expression Shouyou has. His cheeks are still ruddy from the embarrassment of mixing their magic, but he's all awe and compliments. "You just—like whoosh! Just like that! Like it was so easy!"

"Isn't that what I was supposed to do?" Tobio asks, faltering, but feeling rather warm with Shouyou's attention on him. "Kozume gave me a spell, and he made sure I understood it."

"I think he wanted you to babysit, not finish it," Lev replies. "But you… did it?"

"Why would he give it to me if he didn't want me to cast it for him? He's busy doing other things, isn't he?"

"We've been doing everything we can to stay afloat," Tsukishima tells him.

"And you just… did that," Lev finishes.

"But did it work?" Kuroo croaks.

They fall silent, the only noise the faint whistling of wind against the windows.

"I guess Kenma would've known," Shouyou mutters, probably not intending it as an insult or comparison, but it rankles Tobio all the same.

"Something's working! I think I know whether or not a spell worked," he snaps and makes a grab for Shouyou. Shouyou ducks out of the way, landing on a foot outside of the spell's runework. Nothing explodes and no one keels over. "It's fine. It's working. See, it's stable, and when he comes back, Kozume can nitpick. No one else gets to, since no one else is the one who cast it."

"Defensive, defensive!" Shouyou says with a laugh. "I can feel the magic, too, so I know you did something."

"Of course I did something!"

"Well, just so long as it keeps up, I think we're good," Lev says.

"The toll isn't that high," he says, trying for casual, because no, of course he hadn't been worried.

"It's called a spell cost, isn't it?"

Shouyou begins laughing, and Tobio tries to smack him again, and it's almost as if nothing is out of the ordinary.

-.-.-

"Is that Tadashi?" As Hitoka cranes her neck over, the broom wobbles dangerously, and Yuu's arms tighten around her middle.

"Warn a guy before doing a barrel roll!"

"S-Sorry!" More controlled, Hitoka gently leans over the edge, and Yuu obligingly leans the other way, despite how squeamish he can get about heights. Their flight potion has worn off by now, and Hitoka doesn't know where to get them another. "That is Tadashi, right…?"

"Hey, Sae, is that your boy down there?" Yuu shouts suddenly. Hitoka jumps, and the broom swerves again. Yuu nearly crushes her with a screech.

"Can't you two fly straight for five minutes?" Goshiki's frown vanishes when Saeko shoves her elbow in his face to get a better look below. "Hey! Stop that, I'm nice enough to give you a ride!"

"After ditching your responsibilities and dragging the healer back into danger," Saeko replies without missing a beat. "Hitoka, where're you seeing this? How are you? Everyone looks like ants from up here."

The fox spirit slides in between them like he's swimming through the air. He's even reclining on his back, in human form, arms crossed behind his head in a picture of relaxation. "Ta-da-shiiii," he sings and writes his name in the air. "Freckled kid, prone to nerves, really annoying? Has half of you tripping over yourselves to play babysitter?"

Saeko points her empty gun at his head.

"I'm not wrong," he points out, but backs away with his ears pressed low against his bright hair. "He's a couple blocks back, doing who knows what. Probably on his way to fuck up Toshi's day again. Which, for the record, would be very bad for everyone here, even including Little Miss Murderer."

"Why are you still here, if you hate us so much?!" Yuu demands.

"You keep others from shooting at me, for starters."

"I hope you get shot in the head again."

The fox spirit drops away from their company entirely with a wounded noise that trails off with a, "Hope you get shot in the head, see how you like it."

"Stop bothering us," Hitoka tells him, but absently, focused as she is on the chance of a familiar face.

"Yeah—ah!" Yuu finishes with a shriek when Hitoka pulls into a dive. It soon turns into a laugh, and that soothes her conscience just enough. Down one street, across another, and she sees the huddled figure with the shining blob that can only be a luck spirit. "Tadashi, yo! The fuck are you doing here?!"

Tadashi jumps so badly that poor Yaku nearly falls off his shoulder. "Hi-Hitoka? Noya? What are you two doing—how are you on a broom?"

"Trade secret!" Yuu declares as if it's his. "Or, well, I guess Kenma did us a favor. Now, your turn!"

"We're on the way to fetch something for his finding magic," Yaku defensively replies, glaring at them from around Tadashi's unruly hair. "Not that it particularly concerns either of you."

When the fox spirit joins them near the ground, Yaku snarls and sets him on fire.

"Have you seen any coven witches?" Hitoka asks, loudly enough to be heard over the fox spirit's angry spitting.

"Uh, Yamamoto," Tadashi replies when Yaku flatly says, "Mohawk."

Hitoka vaguely knows the man. Her mother had thought about offering his little sister, Akane, a position within Foxglove, but no one wanted inter-coven relations to worsen. "Do you need a healer?"

"Not anymore." Tadashi shuffles from side to side, and Hitoka can't tell if he is trying to stay warm or if he's excessively nervous. "Look, we're just trying to find people, too. Well, Suga, and Kiyoko. You see either of them?"

"No, not since…" Hitoka can't really remember. She can't remember a lot of things; this does not cause her to panic, but it does make her head pound. Now Tadashi is the one giving her a funny look. "What's going on?"

"We're trying to find that out."

Hitoka isn't certain what she can do to help, or how they could ask her. She doesn't have anything of her mother's right now for Tadashi to use, and if he's busy, she's not sure how she can ask him to drop that and help her. It's not as if finding her mother is on par with any world-ending developments. Not that she thinks Tadashi is getting into that kind of trouble… except she kind of does, in a weird way.

No, not him, but he's with Suga and Suga is with Shimizu—

"Hitoka, you okay?" Yuu asks after grabbing her head from behind and keeping her still.

"Yesh," she lies, cheeks squished. Her head hurts. She doesn't dare use more magic on herself, and she isn't certain what else she could even take that wouldn't send her body into some sort of hyper-magic shock.

Something, some part of some long-buried (stolen) memory that she does not understand calls on Hitoka to go with Tadashi.

She doesn't know why—she rather feels like she doesn't know anything right now, with the way her brain is oozing out of her ears—and it doesn't overpower her desire to find her mother and flee to the safety and help of the covens. They'll know what's going on. They'll know how she can best help.

"Get somewhere safe, soon," Tadashi tells her. "And, uh—we have a radio, but it's some sort of channel-jumping thing that Kenma came up with, and so… I mean, if you can get on that, keep us updated and we can talk, but…"

"We'll figure something out," Yuu replies. "But you gotta keep safe, too! No one needs more ghost tragedy."

Hitoka doesn't understand the guilt that wells up inside her at that, either.

-.-.-

"The perimeter is holding, though we're constantly dealing with angry civilians, and more and more spirits. I have no idea if half the humans are magical or not at this point. Everyone's just pissed and confused," Hisashi reports, rather bored. "That thing, whatever it is, hasn't even gotten near anything we've set up yet. It's just been trying to keep people out."

"But it's been moving," Atsumu replies with a gesture of his good arm. "It's only a matter of time, and then we're going to have to get creative. Or, we can take preventive measures."

"No," Motoya calls from the other side of the tent.

It's weird to meet with so many other coven members—and not—in a medical triage tent turned command center. It's weirder still to work with all of these people, several of whom have loudly berated, insulted, or threatened him in the past. Hisashi doesn't know why he got saddled with this, except the fact that Alkanet's coven head is still missing and everyone seems to think Hisashi is a good stand-in.

Yachi Madoka has been found, even if everyone is eyeing the flower nymph who brought her in with shades of suspicion. Osamu and Manabu haven't turned up, and Kazuhito had mentioned something about Betony acting under the orders of some second-in-command. Covens don't really have a clear chain of command, so it's a minor miracle this isn't even more chaotic.

"What about a huge-ass negation field?" Atsumu muses.

"Is it even made of magic from this realm?" Kiyoomi asks from the cot next to him.

"We'd need every witch in the city for something that size," Suguru grumbles from his own spot—furthest from all of them without seeming like he's trying to make an escape. Hisashi is mildly surprised that he's still here, even if he is hypothetically waiting on getting his friend checked out.

"Purges take less magic than negation, and it doesn't have to be our kind of magic or not," Taketora grunts.

Everyone turns to him, most shocked, the rest angry.

"What? We're all thinking it!" Taketora flings a used glove at Atsumu. "Miya is unfortunately kinda in charge right now, and we don't know what else to do. Someone's gotta make the tough call."

"That would kill everything magical in the area!" Suguru snarls. Mika looks particularly displeased, but she holds her tongue.

"Why are you trying to kill more people?"

"We can evac spirits—"

"That's not perfect, and that kind of warning would only tip that goddamn monster off!"

"Spirits are helping you, and now you're trying to kill them?!"

"That'd banish any ghosts in the area."

"And what if we accidentally catch a fairy or tengu in that? They'd have our heads!"

Hisashi cringes away from all of the yelling, and he thinks of Kazuhito. Hell, even a strong witch might get hurt or worse by that level of purge spell. He's bent over backwards to try to play nice and quiet and obedient, all in the name of keeping Kazu safe. He's done plenty to help today, even if it could compromise his cover.

He takes a breath.

Before he can say anything, Kyoutani Kentarou ducks his head into the tent and announces, "Hey, shitheads, instead of arguing about how many people you wanna kill who ain't up to your standards, how about someone actually gets on the goddamn radio and listen to what's going on right now?"

Hisashi had kind of thought he'd cut out already.

"What's going on now?" Kiyoomi asks with blood dripping down out of his nose. Motoya squawks and hastily grabs him another wad of tissues.

"Stop arguing, and go find out what's happened now, or else I'm not doing shit for you, Atsumu." Motoya looks surprisingly angry despite the fact that he's trying to hold Kiyoomi still to mop up the blood.

"It'd be nice to get everyone out of the medical tent for five minutes," the flower nymph mutters.

Hisashi is one of the first out, beat only by Mika and Suguru. He sees them conversing in low tones; he wouldn't be surprised if Atsumu is about to lose a lot of the only support he has.

Kentarou, with a shivering, two-tailed dog swaddled in blankets and his coat at his feet, jerks his chin at the radio. It cuts in and out, interspersed with static and silence, but the message is clear enough. "—really know, but it's like—it's just phasing through things—entire buildings, and cars, and anyone who tr—engage can't—it's pissed now!"

"It's… phasing through things?" Suguru blankly repeats.

Hisashi looks up, scanning the sky for Kazuhito, but he doesn't see any winged silhouettes.

"At least someone is out there goddamn doing something," Kentarou growls.

"I did! You were there, jackass!"

"I did," Mika corrects with a hand on her husband's arm.

"I meant the coven shitheads," Kentarou grudgingly corrects, but looks angrier than ever. "Everything that's happened so far sure as fuck hasn't been all you witches runnin' around like chickens missing their heads."

"Give them some pity," says the dog at his feet, hardly raising his head, "I'm sure it's not like any funded, organized group of some of the most magically talented people in the city were ever prepared to do anything."

"We're stopping people from dying with the perimeter, and we're trying to contain the information getting out online," Hisashi wearily corrects. His heart isn't in it.

"We tried stopping it with all that ice, risking life and limb in the process mind you, and now someone else has figured out a phasing spell that affects gods," Suguru points out. "Who knows what else the actual heroes of the day are cooking up?"

"Widespread murder of nonhumans," Mika replies.

"Fine, the purge is the last resort," Atsumu exclaims, exasperated, but Hisashi wonders how much of his aggravation is actually real. "But I'd very much like to figure out what everyone else is doing, and I need to know where my brother and the other leaders are. We need to keep this contained, and we can't rely on strangers for help."

"The strangers sure ain't relying on us for help," Taketora calls from inside the tent.

"You know, I'd almost guess that a spellwriter would be required to do something like phase a god out of the physical plane," Atsumu calls back with faux innocence.

Instead of falling silent, Taketora storms out of the triage tent, flinging curse- and blood-covered gloves at his own coven leader. "You know what, fuck you. Akane will stay here and make sure no one dies, but I'm gonna go do something instead of listen to your useless bitching."

"Yeah, and who the fuck are you running off to?"

"My friends, jackass. Try having them sometime." He grabs a broom and zips off with a middle finger for all of them.

Akane pops out of the tent with a wide, sadistic grin at being left ranking healer. It's difficult to tell if Atsumu is more frustrated with that or Taketora's departure, but several of them take that as a cue to be a little more proactive in this battle.

-.-.-

Keiji is aware they've left a trail of blood across several city blocks. The Inbetween and open wounds don't mix well, but they've jumped when they could manage. Now with some room to breathe and the immediate threat of being eaten gone, Keiji realizes that they are alone, and severely wounded.

Stopping the bleeding would involve some level of cauterization, but they can stand some blood loss. Focusing on their broken leg actually makes things easier to bear. The pain has evened out into a steady throb, but walking on a broken leg brings fresh waves, and that makes for simple distraction.

Where the hell are they?

They're in a wooded area, away from alien buildings and terrifying gods for the time being. It's different to travel on the ground versus in the sky, and they worry that their sense of direction is suffering.

I certainly can't limp my way back. They try to catch themselves with the arm they no longer have, and end up collapsing against a tree trunk, bark scraping against skin and wound alike.

Keiji gasps in pain and sinks to the wet, slushy ground. They're covered in muck and leaves and soot and broken feathers and just about every kind of blood imaginable. The injury is getting dirty, and they're going to run the risk of future nastiness if they don't try to clean and bandage it. No matter how stupid it makes them, that would mean acknowledging the very real truth that they've lost a wing. Keiji might rather bleed to death.

Where did Tetsurou go? Tetsurou's mystery does not tug at guilt—guilt at disappointing Koutarou, at being unable to do what they'd said, at failing in comparison to him yet again—nor anger—anger at being sent to nearly kill themselves, anger at being unprepared, anger at throwing themselves to the mercies of Kenma's magic.

Worrying about Tetsurou, however, is easy. It is immediate, but distant, and Keiji is very prepared to handle anything in regard to him except his death.

He disappeared. They don't know how demons die, but when damn near everything else dies, it leaves a body. Surely demons at least follow that rule. It could have been some other magic of Kenma's, perhaps a latent facet of their old contract, or perhaps intervention by someone else entirely.

Keiji decides, looking up at the overcast sky of a foreign realm they could be dying for, that they'd like to learn more about how demons work. Thinking about that means they don't have to think about the agony in their mangled shoulder.

Tetsurou probably doesn't deserve to die, as annoying as he can be. He's sincere, and earnest, and so young compared to any tengu. He'd shared many first experiences with both Keiji and Koutarou. He's the one who connected them both to Kenma. He's stubborn in his friendships, probably even more so in romance, and hopefully he's stubborn in dying, too.

Keiji's insistence on ignoring Koutarou crumples when Koutarou himself suddenly drops out of the sky, and Keiji bursts into tears at the sight of him.

"I'd been doing so well!" are not very good reunion words, and their tone leaves much to be desired.

Koutarou, carrying Kenma, lands heavily on the grass and immediately starts crying, too. "Keiji, you're—your wing—! You're okay, y-you're okay!"

Kenma stumbles over to them, throws himself at them, and that may be the most shocking thing of all.

He pretends it had been in order to check over them, and Keiji is too stunned to do otherwise. "This needs to be cleaned," Kenma says. He's the composed counterpoint to both weeping tengu. Keiji finds that too funny to articulate, and soon little hiccuping laughs have broken through into their crying. "Yes, it's hilarious that you haven't bled to death."

"Y-You're fussing over me like I'm Tetsurou," Keiji breathlessly counters.

"You need fussing!" Koutarou exclaims in a too-high voice.

"Can you use empty space with an injury like this?" Kenma asks.

"I have been," Keiji replies, vaguely, because their track record should speak for itself. They're beginning to form a very complicated relationship with the Inbetween. "But you can't."

"Bokuto," Kenma says, head tilted back toward Koutarou but eyes still on Keiji's injury, "take Akaashi back first, then you can come back to get me. If you see Tora on the way, grab him."

"And leave you here? How close is that monstrosity?"

"Doesn't matter," Koutarou says, and smiles. It's the type of smile he wears when he's feeling particularly confident, or particularly mean. Keiji utterly adores it. "We got the blood, and we did the spell. That thing can't touch us anymore."

"In that case, can we make a detour?"

"Absolutely not. You're probably only so sarcastic because of blood loss," Kenma says at once.

"Not really," Koutarou mutters with a wet noise that could have been a laugh. "But c'mere, Keiji. We need to get you someplace safer, and… do what we can."

"What about Tetsurou?"

"We pulled him back. He's stable now," Kenma replies. Very awkwardly and too carefully, as if Keiji is made of spun glass, he pulls Keiji up to their feet. Their leg protests now more than ever, and to Keiji's dismay, Kenma's legs buckle beneath him after just a moment. Koutarou barely manages to catch them both.

Kenma flops back to the ground, leaning against the tree trunk, and grimaces down at his leg. "You're hurt, too," Koutarou says like he's scolding him.

"I can't fix broken bones by myself. We need a healer," Kenma flatly replies. "Go, take Keiji back. It's not like I can move very far from here."

"I'll be right back!" Koutarou declares like a threat.

This time, the Inbetween isn't quite so cold or so suffocating with Koutarou's presence beside him.

-.-.-

"What do you mean," Ryuunosuke says with admirable calm for a man who's driven several hours in the dark hours of the morning with spotty contact with his family and friends, "I can't get in?"

"We're not letting anyone inside," the man replies. Ryuu doesn't know him, but he does know he has to be a witch; that snooty behavior doesn't come from thin air. "Only evacuations out right now. It's too dangerous."

"My sister is in there!"

"We have lists of people who have already been evacuated—"

"I know she's still in there!" Ryuu seizes the man by the front of his coat.

He immediately has a palm full of fire held an inch from the side of his head. "Violence isn't helping. Nonmagical persons aren't allowed in. Put me down," the man orders. Ryuu drops him with disgust.

He leaves his pickup in a parking garage and continues on foot. Sneaking past a magical perimeter isn't like he's moving a block down and ignoring that asshat. Shouldering his duffel bag, Ryuu wanders up and down the street, wishing now more than ever that he had some sort of magic-sensing radar in case there were holes in the fence. He's snuck into a lot of places in his day, but few were guarded by a bunch of panicked witches.

Hanging out with Tadashi and Tsukishima, however, seems to have its perks; Ryuunosuke is only a few blocks down when he hears a shout of his name, and Yamamoto Taketora swoops down on a broom.

They hug, tight and desperate, without properly greeting each other.

"The hell is up with that perimeter, man?"

"Where's Saeko and Noya and where the hell have you been? Things have been batshit here!"

"I haven't been able to talk to anyone but you and Daichi, what the hell is going on?"

"Dude, you won't believe the day I've already had."

Tora grabs him in a headlock, just to be an ass, but the way he's laughing is too much relief and not enough humor. Ryuu halfheartedly punches him.

They get Starbucks, because Tora looks like death warmed over, and it's a marvel to watch so many magical beings all nervously wait in line for coffee together. Some aren't even glamored properly. Some perimeter. Then again, everyone's eyes are glued to the TV in the corner and its vague news broadcast.

They sit outside on the curb and Ryuu opens his duffel bag between them. "Please tell me you're packin' something good," Tora grunts.

"It's an emergency bag. Good enough for two people."

"Not for what's spooked everyone."

"Have you actually seen this thing?" Ryuunosuke asks. Taketora shakes his head. Neither are stupid enough to draw out guns to check over in the middle of a city street, but Tora puts his hand in the bag, nudging them around to guess. "Be straight with me, Tora. How much of this shit is actually gonna help?"

"It'll sure make me feel a hell of a lot better."

"I sent a friend of mine to go find Sae, but I haven't heard anything from either of them since."

"Phones are down, power is spotty, and radios are the only things that work with any kind of reliability. Covens are sitting on their fucking hands, of course." Tora chews on the straw to his drink. "I know some people have tried doin' stuff, but there's a lot of people missing and hurt, and a hell of a lot of people cursed."

"So this thing is what, a bunch of black magic shit wandering around?"

"I dunno, man. Told ya, I haven't seen it myself yet. Not sure I want to."

Ryuu gulps down more of his scalding coffee. Panic has done a good job at keeping him awake so far, but caffeine has always been a dear friend in trying times.

"I saw that kid of yours, though," Tora says into his own cup.

It takes a moment to click. "What, Tadashi?"

"The gangly one with freckles you an' Saeko are so keen on. Sugawara's little pride and joy."

Something about the way Tora says that sets Ryuu's teeth on edge. "Yeah? And how exactly did you see him, huh?"

"You close with Shimizu Kiyoko?" Tora asks instead.

"Don't change the subject!"

"Subject's connected. Friend of mine seems to think she's into something nasty during all this, takin' advantage or somethin', and Sugawara bolted like his ass was on fire. Freckles was sure spooked afterward. The kinda spooked that makes me think he might be doing somethin' stupid with 'em."

Ryuu scrubs his hand over his face. He trusts Kiyoko—and Suga—with his life, and more. They're good people, and there are certainly worse people for Tadashi to learn from.

But neither are exactly known for their strict adherence to rules when it comes to fighting the good fight.

"Look, I don't like gossip, and I only got half a look at anything decent. But I wanna be frank with you, and you don't know anything yet, so that's all I know. Your kid's scared, Sugawara and Shimizu are probably up to something, and Eyebright is calling for a purge. I'd bet Akane's college fund that Ushijima is up to something, and I know a friend of mine has some stuff in the works. Who knows what everyone's planning and too scared to share." With that, Tora stands, and wipes his hands off on his pants like he's wiping them of the matter. "First things first, let's get you past the perimeter. Even if those peashooters do shit, I always feel better with a Tanaka on my side of things."

"Aw, you know just what to say to cheer me up," Ryuu replies, though his heart isn't in it.

It's not his first rodeo with a broom, or even his first time riding with Taketora, but it's his first time trying to check his phone while doing so. The cold air bites at his exposed face and fingers. It seems like his battery is dying even faster here, and there's no signal whatsoever.

At least no one stops them when Tora flies them in. Ryuu halfway hopes his middle finger is visible from that high up, but he doesn't want much more trouble.

It takes a good bit of flying before Ryuu sees any actual proof of what's been going on: an entire city block seems to have crumbled into rubble. A crater sits in the middle, a perfect melted circle, and a few other witches flock around the area like flies to a carcass.

"That's where it popped out," Tora shouts over the wind. "That's about when we lost contact with coven leaders, too. Magic down there is so thick you could choke. We've been trackin' it since then—moves like a son of a bitch when it wants to, but kinda seems to wander aimlessly unless something's actively antagonizin' it. You can't look directly at it, though—we're not sure if it's a seizure, or some sorta weird possession, but it's a bad idea. I can't catch you if you pitch off the broom."

"Roger!" Ryuu can track a clear path through the carnage below: something had strolled through the city without a mind to anything in its way.

He and Saeko are going to have some fucking words when this is over and done with.

Dumbass, you should've known something was up when she sent you out with the dogs. He had suspected, yes, but not this. He'd kind of thought she was getting up to something with Kiyoko, perhaps some sort of morally questionable prep work to stop this. Either it didn't work, or Saeko had known about this ahead of time, or Kiyoko's plans hadn't kicked in yet.

All are fairly scary prospects.

He isn't certain what his priorities should be. Find Saeko? Find Yuu, or Tadashi? Kiyoko or Tooru? Whenever he's dealt with emergencies in the past, they were a lot more cut and dry: go in and kill the monster. Save who you could. That is hypothetically an option now, but Saeko had all the vorpium ammo with her. There are too many people to worry about right now, but he isn't sure who he should try to chase down first—or how.

"Ugh, I hate dealing with all these unknowns an' shit!" Things were simpler when he could just point a gun and shoot at monsters.

It had never really been that simple, though.

-.-.-

Tadashi feels like life is finally back on track when the finding magic effortlessly catches on the scarf.

Half an hour later, however, the figure he spots down the street is not fair-haired. Instead, he sees Daichi, and he's accompanied by two tall figures.

"Daichi!" Tadashi shouts from down the street, because he literally cannot believe his luck—he feels a passing, manic urge to grab Morisuke and shake him for helping to introduce this very specific kind of bullshit in his life—and Daichi whirls around to his voice with a gun raised.

"Yamaguchi?"

Tadashi marches down to him, seething and frustrated and near tears, but Daichi jogs over to him with a relieved grin. It falters when he sees Tadashi's stormy expression. Tadashi shakes the stupid scarf at him. "This is yours? It's supposed to be Suga's!"

"Suga gave it to me," Daichi replies, bemused. "Wait, so you haven't had any luck finding Suga, either?"

"No one has," Morisuke darkly replies.

Tadashi is about to continue with his tirade, but he falters as soon as Daichi's companions trot over. Tooru he's kind of relieved about, but the infinitely more imposing figure of Ushijima is a huge, unending No.

Ushijima looks down his nose at him like he's considering shooting Tadashi, present company be damned.

Tadashi's not sure he's ever wanted access to firearms so badly before. "Uh, Daichi…? You, uh, wanna fill me in on some things?"

Daichi runs a hand back through his hair, sighing heavily. Tooru makes a falsely disappointed sound. "So Koushi's precious student can't find him either? What about your finding magic?"

"Do you have anything that's actually his?" Morisuke snaps back.

Tooru and Daichi exchange a look. "Between the two of us, I'm sure we could find something. But nothing immediately here, and a field trip would be unfortunately out of our way."

"And what is your way?"

"You're not helping us," Ushijima breaks in, cold as ice. "Step aside."

"We're not even going in this direction," Tooru dryly points out. "Calm your massive man tits for once in your life. Tadashi is going to be more help than your little bodyguards."

That means Shirabu is probably around. Tadashi curses himself for forgetting about the invisible fuck.

"Calm down, everyone," Daichi says in his Manager Voice. Tadashi calms by Pavlovian response. "We've struck up a temporary truce. Oikawa, Iwaizumi, and I are helping Ushijima with his plan to seal away that giant god thing. The enemy of my enemy and all that. Don't worry, we're not letting him off the hook for anything."

"I have plans for Iwa-chan to eat him when this is over," Tooru says with a kind smile at Ushijima's back.

"I'm looking for Suga, too," Daichi adds.

"Suga is with Kiyoko," Tadashi replies. "And they're up to something big. I think they need someone to keep an eye on them, though. Kenma's pretty freaked out."

"Koushi and Kiyoko up to something? Never," Tooru says with a mean roll of his eyes.

"They don't matter," Ushijima cuts in. He crosses his arms, and Tadashi notes the way Ushijima doesn't move his finger from the trigger guard of his 9mm. "We're finishing this, before their plans come to fruition. If you want to be useful, then act as bait."

"Bait?" Tadashi echoes, squeaky and affronted.

"We're making a giant god trap. According to Ushiwaka's Swiss cheese brain, his little fox friend is out soliciting help, and we're going to lure Northot into a circle to seal it away in the Dreamlands."

"You can't just push that thing onto other people!"

"Trust me," Tooru goes from flippant to dark in a heartbeat, "there's no tragedy there, Tadashi."

"So long as it's gone, I'm starting not to care," Morisuke says and hunches down around Tadashi's neck, attention pinpointed on Ushijima's coat pocket. "But Tadashi isn't going to be used as bait for anything. Why not use that matagot of yours? He's annoying enough to piss off a god."

"Trust me, he'll be helping with that," Tooru cheerily replies.

"He will not," Ushijima says.

"Yes, he is. You're not going in risk-free. How do we know you won't let the bait get eaten out of spite?"

"Spite has no bearing here—"

"Anyway," Daichi loudly breaks in, "we would appreciate your help. If you could talk to Kenma, or if you do run into Suga…"

There's no way Kenma would willingly use himself as bait for someone else.

A sudden gust of air hails Iwaizumi's arrival, but a swan gracefully swoops down, pulls up over them, and lands beside Tooru. He has a bag slung around his neck. "I have good news, and I have bad news."

"Bad news," Daichi says at the same time Tooru chirps, "Good news!"

Iwaizumi sighs. He stands to his full height, and his feathers melt off, revealing human skin and clothes beneath, until the white pelt is draped loosely over his shoulders. The swan head is still hanging over his hair. "Good news: that thing has been phased halfway out of the realm and can't physically interact with anything. Based on what Bokuto said, I'm guessing Kenma was the caster. I don't know how long it'll last, but the god's throwing an entirely useless tantrum downtown now, and it can't hurt anyone."

"It's not a permanent fix," Ushijima says as though he's personally offended by Kenma's plan.

Tadashi can't help but grin ear to ear. "He did it! It's definitely his spell—I helped with it. I never got a time frame, but it should hold for awhile. It can be extended by feeding it more magic, and Tobio and Hinata just got there—"

"What's the bad news?" Ushijima rudely interrupts. Tooru smacks him.

"Bad news: it slunk off like it had a purpose when I was leaving, and the reason why I came back a swan is that my dragonskin's wings are fucked. I need that shapeshifter friend of yours to help me get it in working order."

"…There's more of you?" Morisuke growls.

"They're finding us a place to make the circle. I will ask him if he would help you when we reconvene."

Tadashi files this information away for later. He doesn't know who he'll tattle to, but like hell he's not using everything possible against Ushijima.

No matter what good intentions may be involved, he doesn't want to help. He doesn't trust Ushijima as far as he could throw him, but even if he did have some magical Save The World plan, Tadashi finds he'd rather trust in Suga and Kiyoko. "I'm going to find Suga. I need something of his."

Daichi fishes around in his pocket and tosses Tadashi his keys. "You can probably find a sweater of his or something at my place. If you want to backtrack, you can probably break into his place. I already broke the lock."

"Don't you have his key yet?" Tooru asks, unimpressed.

"I do, but I can't do anything against the wards. I had to use the sword."

"You're hopeless, aren't you?"

"Good luck," Tadashi says as kindly as he can manage, despite his torn feelings on their presence with Ushijima. "Stay safe."

"You too, Yamaguchi. Uh, both of you. We don't need any more bloodshed today," Daichi says with a pointed look at Ushijima.

Tadashi leaves them with exhaustion weighing him down. They're hardly out of earshot before Morisuke mutters, "That's going to end in bloodshed and heartbreak. Ushijima must be playing them."

"I thought they were usually pretty smart about this kind of stuff."

"I guess we'll see."

-.-.-

Bokuto breaks the wards Kenma must have set up when he yanks open the window. "How's Kuroo?" he breathlessly demands while helping a scarily bloody Akaashi through the window.

Kei is about to respond when he notices that Akaashi is missing an arm.

Hinata squawks in some garbled mix of emotions. "Are you okay? What happened?"

Even Kuroo flops up into something resembling a sitting position. Kei keeps him up with a hand on his back, and studies the two bloodied tengu through narrowed eyes. Akaashi is clearly the worse between them, but they're both alive and nominally moving on their own. Akaashi heavily favors one leg, and one of Bokuto's wings is shredded, but apparently useable.

"Still alive, Bo. What happened to Keiji?" Kuroo croaks with a weak little wave.

"Same thing that happened to you," Keiji grimly replies. They wince as Bokuto helps them sit down by the wall.

"I gotta go get Kenma," Bokuto says, apologetically, and vanishes out the open window again.

Akaashi sighs like they've been holding it in a long time. "I need someone's help cleaning this."

Tobio looks uneasy, and Hinata remains pressed up against the farthest wall, staring at Akaashi in what might be fear. But it's not the time now to parse out strange tengu behaviors. "Kageyama, can you perform other magic while you're feeding that spell?"

"Not really." Only belatedly does he look guilty. "Uh, s-sorry."

"Kuroo, you're going to have to detach yourself from my side for an entire minute. I'm sure you can handle it." Kei is unreasonably thankful for his own muted attachments and emotional responses; he can't handle much more heartbreak today, and working with pleasant acquaintances might have been their best decision.

Kei has gotten used to cleaning wounds on Tadashi, and more and more on himself, but he also has no experience with injuries this large, or this… open. After getting Yuuki to boil water and rinsing the mud and blood off of Akaashi, Kei thinks he sees bone in amongst the pulped meat of their shoulder.

"You're lucky I have a strong stomach," he informs them.

"You're lucky I don't kick you for all this pain," Akaashi returns.

Kenma had had the foresight to have first aid supplies, but Kei feels like he's facing surgery.

"You only have to clean it," Akaashi offers, almost kindly. Their face is ashen and covered in sweat. But they sort of smile for Kei's benefit, and that rankles him more than his own shortcomings.

"I've seen Hitoka play medic, and I've patched others up. How much do you want me to do? Is there… a chance to reattach anything?" He doesn't know how spirits work, alright, despite being a mess of one himself. But he knows tengu are sturdy creatures.

"I don't have anything to reattach, even if I could. Once it's clean, then I'd like to stop the bleeding, because I don't think it would help anyone's mood if I were to pass out now."

"I think you're allowed to," Lev volunteers from the couch.

Kei understands the basics of stitches, and has watched Tadashi try to fumble through them himself. He knows plenty about how hospitals work and any amount of chemicals. When he reaches for the gauze, Akaashi makes a questioning sound. "I'm going to put this on so it can… mop up some of the blood you're still, you know, bleeding all over. Then the bandages. Kenma will probably call for that mohawk friend of his when he gets back, and he can—"

"That will take too long. I'd still like to avoid passing out entirely." With that, Akaashi sets fire to their remaining hand and closes it over their wound.

"You're supposed to do that with metal!" Kei snaps. Akaashi pulls their hand from their injury, and now Kei is left looking at angry red burn marks and the still-bleeding spots where they couldn't reach. "Lev, grab their… wing."

Lev holds Akaashi's feathered wrist as though it were a venomous snake. Kei rinses off the wound again, grabs a wad of gauze, and angrily bandages an equally angry tengu. At least Akaashi doesn't try to gut Lev—probably only because it'd piss off Kenma.

To finish, and to prevent any more self-sabotage, Kei scoops up Kuroo and deposits the unsettled mass of demon on Akaashi's lap. "Lick each other's wounds, but careful, too much jostling and one of you might end up killing the other."

"Your bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired, you know that?" Tobio dares to say.

"I dealt with plenty of shitty doctors in my life. Being direct is more useful. See? They're behaving now."

Kei collapses onto the couch, somehow exhausted. As a kitten, Yuuki begins licking luck back into the demonic claws Kei doesn't even pay attention to anymore. Hopefully that doesn't infect anything.

When Bokuto returns, he sets Kenma down on the couch, and turns back to the window. "We have a problem. It followed us back."

"What do you mean it followed you back?" Hinata squeaks.

"The spell is active—" Tobio begins but cuts himself off with an abrupt moan of pain. He crouches down, clutches his head, and Kenma nearly throws himself off the couch in an effort to limp over to him.

"Kageyama, I need you to give the spell back to me. Now."

Blood begins dripping out of Tobio's nose. Hinata jumps away from him as if stung. Kei can taste the magic wavering between them.

"Give it to me now!" Kenma barks and pulls Tobio's hands away from his head.

Nothing explodes, but Kenma yanks his spell back, just in time for something to peer through the window at them. Tobio crumples.

Its figure is radiant, illuminating Bokuto like a searchlight, not colorless but with too many oily colors to actually see. "Is͞ ̡t̕h͟is ̵yǫur n̵est?̕" the god asks.

"It can't t-touch us," Kenma says through his trembling. He and Hinata hold hands, tightly, and both stare at Tobio at their feet. "As long as this spell holds out, it can't touch us."

"Th̨is͟ ͠will͜ ͞be ҉y̧our͘ ̛g̡rave ̨a͢s ̧soo҉n as y͡o҉ur̡ ̶magi͞c fa͘il̢s. ̡S͡h̡u̧g̵g͜oth ̕m͢ag͠ic ͜a̢lways͠ fails͏."

"We need to leave," Bokuto says, but Kei can see the wild, desperate panic in his eyes when he looks at Akaashi and Kuroo.

"We need to go before it figures out—"

Tobio sits back up, a jerky motion straight out of a horror movie. Kenma and Hinata stumble back, hands still clasped.

Tobio's eyes are the solid black of those possessed. "Naflyhafh'drn," he rasps in delight. The god outside phases through the wall, snapping wards and making the room reek. Hinata drags Kenma out of the way as their candles gutter out. "I had not expected to find my betrayer so easily. You have gone from me, grah'n, and I find you here?"

"Kageyama, what are you doing?" Hinata scoops Kenma up and they float out of reach of the witch suddenly swiping at them.

"He's possessed, idiot. And now we're stuck in here with him until we figure out how to get rid of that and our new stalker," Kei snaps.

"I will follow you. I will stalk your steps until your magic runs dry and then I will—"

"Yeah, that's nice an' all, but we can actually use this," Bokuto announces. "Sorry, asshole, but there's more of us than you, and we got plenty of magic to spare!"

"Even the shuggoth witch?" Tobio asks with an evil smile up at Kenma.

"Koutarou, take Kageyama and see if you can't break the possession by distance."

Bokuto picks him up with a foot like he's a particularly disgusting piece of garbage. It takes some shuffling to get the writhing witch out the window without breaking anything. As Bokuto leaves, the god slinks away from the window, turning to following him.

"We found our bait," Kenma sighs in relief.

"You're using him as bait?" Hinata growls.

"We sort of made a deal with someone, and it could help. Maybe. If nothing else, it gets rid of that thing and the possession for the time being."

"You can't just leave him! He needs our help!"

"We're in a room full of injured and noncombatants. You're wrapped up with maintaining the spell that is the only thing that prevented us from all getting slaughtered just now," Kei points out. Hinata glares daggers at him, and carefully sets Kenma back down on the carpet. He collapses with a groan, trembling all over, familiar soon in his lap again.

"You're not ditching him," Hinata tells Kenma. "You ditch everyone else, but you need to stop, Kenma."

"Someone else has a plan that could stop that thing. Bokuto knows about it, too. We just need to help lure it to where the circle will be set up—"

"You didn't even ask Kageyama!"

Kenma scrunches his nose and avoids Hinata's attentions as much as he can. "This is how you win, Shouyou. I thought a tengu would recognize that."

"Yeah, but…"

"Give me the tengu half of the spell," Akaashi interrupts. Both of them turn to them. "I still have a fair bit of my own magic, and I'm too tired to butt heads with Kenma. I can handle it, and Hinata can go help Koutarou."

Hinata fumbles with the magic more than what is probably safe, but nothing explodes. Kei wonders how much is just luck keeping them going, and how quickly it could run out without Morisuke around.

As soon as Hinata's gone—off like a shot toward his repressed attachment—and Kenma has both Kuroo and Midna in his lap with Akaashi seated across from him, Lev pipes up again. "Kenma, who's going to replace you? You have that tired look on your face."

"We need another witch," Kei says. "Someone who is dumb enough to cast a spell that isn't his, or friendly enough to work with this sorry lot. I would suggest that healer friend of yours, but I think we'd rather have the healing at this point. Is your leg broken, by the way?"

"Yes," Kenma and Akaashi reply at the same time.

"So what are we going to do? Kenma doesn't have any more potions left," Yuuki asks.

"We need more magic, or more friends. Given the track record of this group… I don't think all the luck in the world could keep this running for much longer," Kei surmises.

Kenma's head drops down to his chest, and he gently pets over Kuroo.

Though he cannot explain it, Kei suddenly has a bad feeling.

-.-.-

"What's the catch?" Kentarou immediately asks when the kitsune happily throws a bundle of crossbow bolts at his head.

"You can owe me one! I'll collect later, so don't worry about it now!"

"We're not trusting that," Shigeru replies.

Tadashi pauses in grabbing up everything in sight. Kentarou has no problem with him using them as a place to catch his breath and try to figure out what's going on, but he doesn't exactly approve of the kid taking the proverbial candy from a stranger. Youkai are worse than strangers, anyway.

"We didn't trust the last fox to pass by an' offer that, and we sure as shit ain't trusting you, either," Kentarou says. Tadashi guiltily sets a crossbow and a glass jar back down. Kentarou notes that he keeps the gun Kentarou loaned him just to get the bakeneko from getting into a fight with Shigeru.

"What other fox? Are you implying that all foxes are untrustworthy?" Futakuchi asks, feigning offense.

"The annoying one with the red hair and mismatched ammo."

Tadashi lets out an interesting noise, a mixture of a snarl and a gasp. "When? Where was he?"

"Maybe two, three hours ago? I dunno, time is fucked when all the cell phones are down."

"Where was he? Was he with Ushijima?"

"No, he was alone. We were on a skyscraper's roof," Shigeru replies, nonplussed. "Why would he have been with Ushijima?"

"Well, he was his date last night at the ball," Futakuchi replies. "One of them. I wasn't aware you were friends with that kind of crowd. I thought even inugami have standards."

"You want to fucking go, fox?"

"I'm just a humble merchant, trying to help."

"Why is everyone working with Ushijima now?" Tadashi hisses at the bakeneko with him.

"That plan of theirs must be pretty persuasive," the cat replies. "Or people are really desperate. People who haven't gotten almost sacrificed or killed by him."

"We gotta get going," Tadashi stands abruptly, a new fire in his eyes now. "Um, thank you for the offer, but I won't be taking anything from you today."

"Aw, why not? I accept luck as payment."

"Because he's not dumb," Kentarou says. Even if he does kind of want more crossbow bolts. Tadashi chuckles, and heads off before getting drawn into further arguments. Kentarou will see Oikawa about a payment for the gun later, since he doubts he'll be getting it back. "We'll figure out a payment here, and now, or else we ain't dealing with you."

"Wow, everyone is so rude during an apocalypse," Futakuchi sighs.

"We will take the orichalcum dagger, though! But with the note, for the record, that I'm very disappointed you were hoarding all this to begin with," Shigeru tells him.

"Oh no, an inugami doesn't approve of me!" the kitsune coos. Shigeru snaps at him, hackles raised, and Kentarou drags him back with a sigh. "If that's all, then I'll leave you two happy customers, and I'm off to see what else I can scare up. Good luck not getting killed by an invading demigod!"

As soon as he's gone, Shigeru shifts back into his human form, angrily playing with the dagger. "I hate him."

"You hate everyone."

-.-.-

"Wait up!" Shouyou cries once Bokuto is close enough. Even carrying someone, even injured, he's fast. "Bokuto, please, wait just a moment!"

With a curious glance back over his shoulder, Bokuto flares his wings, nearly stopping in mid air. "Wait, why are you here? What about Kenma's spell?"

"I gave it to Akaashi! Don't worry, nothing broke before I left! But what are you doing with Kageyama? He's still possessed, and that thing is following you!"

"Well, I'm faster," Bokuto sneers. They can't see it right now, but based on the weight of magic, it's close.

"Even orr'eog syha'h tire eventually," Tobio rasps in that not-voice of his. It makes Shouyou's ears ring more than anything else here.

"I guess distance isn't going to work," Shouyou mutters.

"Probably not. But it works to draw that thing away from the others."

So Bokuto is in on it, too. Shouyou struggles to keep his face neutral. He doesn't want to believe that Kenma would just throw Tobio to the wolves, but he wants to believe it of Bokuto even less. Kenma is human; they're supposed to be selfish. "I'll carry him," Shouyou volunteers with what he hopes is an earnest grin.

"Nothing can sever me from this betrayer. I will burn through him and leave him an empty husk for what he's done."

"He's pretty talkative," Bokuto says, unimpressed, "but I got him, don't worry."

"Not even orr'eog syha'h pose risk to me. My power grows with every movement. Y'hafh'drn, and the archangel, and the greedy fox—I will consume them all, and my power over this realm—" Tobio is cut off by Bokuto shaking him.

The deity itself rises up beneath them, a thin, sickly sliver of unearthly light against the grey of the city. Without anything to climb, it simply stretches.

"Catch us if you can!" Bokuto calls and zips off again.

"S-So, uh, you sure I can't help you with him?" Shouyou tries again.

"If you really wanna help, find me these other people that thing's after. I saw the fox earlier, and the god followed it—seems like it holds grudges, huh?" Bokuto twists so he can shout down at the god again. "Me an' Kenma have done more to you than anyone else!"

"Do you want it to be mad at you?"

"It'd be nice to be recognized. I've made it explode a couple times. Did you know those car things are flammable?" Bokuto sulks, bottom lip pushed out, squinting into the wind. "I went claw to claw with that archangel and I came out ahead. I've killed a dragon! I deserve to be recognized as a threat here, too."

"None are truly threats to me," Tobio offers.

Bokuto shakes him again, even more viciously, and Shouyou wonders if he should just grab him and try to run. "B-But it's better this way! We don't need it going after anyone else, right? Let it go after that stupid fox!"

"I wish. Dunno where he went off to, probably laying low and letting us do all the hard work for him."

"Wait, wait—" Shouyou swerves around to pull in front of Bokuto, and Bokuto stops to avoid colliding with him. Tobio laughs hollowly from his talons. "For him? For that red-haired fox guy? Ugly laugh and broken tail?"

"Yep, that's him. And yep, we know who he's with."

"You're working with Ushijima?"

"He helped us find Keiji, Hinata."

"He's trying to end the human world! Give me Kageyama. We're not helping them! They've tried to kill us!"

"I thought you two wanted to help us!" Bokuto snaps back with just as much heat. He brings up Tobio and gestures with him. "We don't know how to break a possession, the god is following him, and we need to bring him somewhere! Kenma's spell was only ever going to help someone else finish this."

"How do you know?"

Bokuto scowls at him, doesn't respond, and resumes his flight. Tobio groans and twitches in his talons. His nose is dripping blood again. With his eyes shut, Shouyou isn't certain if he's still possessed—what if distance did break it for them? They could ask him what he thought, but somehow, that seems meaner.

"What if we found something else for bait?" Shouyou calls ahead.

Bokuto ignores him, and flies a little bit faster.

"Why don't we use that fox?"

"And you know where he is?"

Shouyou falls silent this time, stewing in his own powerlessness. At the very least, he can come along and make sure Bokuto doesn't try to feed him to that thing. They lost Kasa awhile back, and Shouyou knows the poor crow must be panicking, too.

Just as Shouyou is fervently wishing that they'd run into that damned fox, they find a giant circle drawn across a parking lot. Cars have been shoved aside, and Shouyou spots several figures standing off to the side—including the damned fox.

Bokuto beats him in his dive, but Shouyou is close, and he doesn't stop at the last moment. He collides with the fox spirit and they both go skidding across the asphalt.

"Is this supposed to be happening?" one of the humans asks, confused but undoubtedly amused.

"No!" cries the spirit in Shouyou's grasp.

"Let go of him," comes Ushijima's deep voice with the distinct sound of a gun cocking.

"We brought you the god!" Bokuto declares. "We struck a deal with the fox. If you attack us, I will not hesitate to gladly kill all of you."

"Excuse you, we're not with him like that."

"Oikawa, what the hell are you doing here?"

After a few introductions and explanations, none of which Shouyou cares about because this is supposed to be Good Guys and Bad Guys, Bokuto pulls Shouyou off the fox and drops him in front of the prone figure of Tobio. He appears to be unconscious, which Shouyou tentatively hopes is progress.

"Y'know, when you ran off, I hadn't expected this," Bokuto tells one of the non-Ushijima humans. "Didn't find Suga, then, I take it?"

"No one has," the taller human says with a flick of his hair. "And tell shrimpy over there to stop thinking about mutiny and how much he hates all of us. I've already had to deal with half a god and a constant paranoid lover routine, and I have zero patience for anything else today."

His nose starts gushing blood, and not a moment later, the man crumples to the ground.

Tobio's body jerks and he's yanked up as if by invisible strings. It is not him, however, but the other man's body that begins cackling.

"What weak husks you have sent me. Yhafh'drn, you will not succeed now any more than you have earlier," Tobio announces.

"Did you say you were bringing the god here?" Ushijima asks. In all of their fights, no matter what had been thrown at him, Shouyou has never seen the man look so afraid.

"I will look forward to destroying you most of all," the other man says in the same hoarse, horrible voice.

"This isn't ready yet, is it?" the fox asks, floating over Ushijima's shoulder, and Ushijima nearly smacks him in the face when he whirls around.

"Tendou, draw it away at once! You two—get these possessions away from here. If you see Iwaizumi, tell him—"

"You're not ordering us around," Shouyou snaps. But when Tobio begins convulsing, panic slams into him, and he rethinks this.

Bokuto scoops up the other man, and gives Shouyou such a glare that he grabs Tobio without further argument. "We're not your soldiers, Ushijima, so keep that in mind. But I'm not letting a tengu friend die today."

"You almost ruined everything!" Tendou shouts as he vanishes.

Ushijima dissolves into orders and frantic fixing of his massive circle, and the antlered prisoner appears by his shoulder at his summon. Shouyou knows the other one must be around, too.

Shouyou holds Tobio as carefully as he can as he and Bokuto leave them to whatever their plans may be.

-.-.-

Daichi wonders if it's too late to bail. How much bad karma would that be? Somehow, he has the feeling that if he were to leave, even in the face of a prematurely advancing deity, this would be the very moment Suga would choose to pop back into his life. Daichi couldn't yell at him if they're fighting for their lives.

When had his life become this?

"We still need the blood," Shirabu unhelpfully points out.

"That thing is getting closer," Kawanishi adds.

"We need to engage it away from here, this isn't ready," Ushijima slices open his palm without batting an eye and begins smearing more blood onto the painted asphalt below. "It needs the blood—we need more time."

Iwaizumi had meant to keep an eye on that thing, but Daichi doesn't know where he is now. Probably running off after Tooru, now, which means they may be sans a dragon with a god breathing down their necks.

Daichi usually doesn't make a point of asking too many questions he doesn't want answers to, but now, he finds himself asking anyway. "How do we slow it down?"

"Kenjirou isn't a fighter," Kawanishi says at once, "but I could fight."

"It's gotta be holding grudges against all of us. We shouldn't be going anywhere near it. Can't Tendou lure someone else into fighting it for us again?" Shirabu replies.

"Yeah, and where is he?"

Ushijima wipes his bloody hand on his pants. "Tendou isn't a combatant either. I'll take care of this. You two, I just need this circle completed—runes for seal here and here, and then—"

"We don't know a thing about human magic," Shirabu interrupts with so much shaking of his head he looks like a flip book. "You're not leaving us alone with any more magic that'll blow up in our faces!"

"Don't look at me," Daichi says as soon as Ushijima begins eyeing him. "I know even less than them. And I'm just here for Suga and keeping you from doing anything worse."

"This isn't worse." Ushijima turns from his circle, mouth twisted into a dark scowl. "Shirabu is right—Northot will be holding a grudge. I'll draw it off, and I'll finish this later. Give me your vorpal sword."

"No," Daichi says at once. For added measure, also, "Fuck you."

"I don't care if it burns me."

"I don't, either, to be clear. But this is mine, and it isn't something I give to near-strangers who have records."

"I've never been convicted of anything," Ushijima replies, confused. His pocket peeps in agreement.

"Here's an idea," Daichi says, "you act as bait and I get the blood. Distract it for me. These two can run off and get your foxy friend again. And Iwaizumi, if you can find him." He'd certainly be more help—and more reasonable—than anything else Daichi has seen out of this crew.

Kawanishi shoves a dark-colored jar at Daichi, and Ushijima drags him into a dead sprint away from their circle. Daichi has no clue how he believes the god thing will follow them instead of heading in a straight line, but Ushijima is nothing if not confident in all his actions, and the world apparently bends to his will.

They have circled around to some part of the city that the god has already demolished, and it's far slower moving over broken sidewalk. But neither man is out of shape, and panic makes for a good boost of adrenaline.

Daichi swears his heart stops when he sees the god come through an apartment building behind them.

It's huge now, many-legged with just as many jagged antlers trailing lines down its faceless head. It could probably be three or four stories high, but it moves like a centipede through the world without touching anything. It's gaining, and fast, and when Daichi turns to check one too many times, he trips and it laughs.

Ushijima doesn't slow at all, but he does stumble to a stop himself when, with a screech of metal, Northot abruptly becomes solid again and sends a car into a lamppost.

Daichi had been wondering how they meant to get blood from something they couldn't touch, but he hadn't expected this just a mere few blocks from what they're trying to hide. The god flickers in and out of tangibility, tearing into concrete and metal alike as it shambles along like it's drunk.

"Go!" Daichi snarls as he passes Ushijima, who is still just standing there.

Ushijima turns to him with pure black eyes. "Yhafh'drn has been a fool."

With very little regret, Daichi shoves his vorpal sword into Ushijima's shoulder. He knows little about possession, but he's been with Suga long enough to know it's something to freak out about, and it's tied to magic, so he figures a magic-eating sword won't make things any worse.

And in this, at least, it pays off: Ushijima staggers away from him, blood pouring from his nose and eyes but now undeniably himself again, because he tells Daichi, "Thank you."

"Get running," Daichi snaps at him.

"It will just catch me again. It cannot permanently kill me, so we should make a stand here. Northot will be fixated on me, as predicted—"

"Yhaf͘h͟'d͠r͜n͘, ̸you͏ cannot ͠r͜u̕n̡ fr͡om̢ me͟ ̡now," the god says from far too close. A hand shoots between them and nearly catches Ushijima, but it phases out at the last moment. "T͏he w̨it͢c͟h ̢is̵ f͠a͡i̢li͢ng. ̨Y̵o͞u ͘shall f̨ai͢l͟ t͞oo."

Daichi tries to slice through the many-jointed limb between them, mostly on reflex, but he cuts through the god with the same ease he had in the parking garage. It splatters them with burning blood as it withdraws, but Ushijima darts after it, pulling blood from its wound like he's manipulating water. Daichi swears and pulls off his coat and gloves as the blood begins eating through. Fuck Ushijima, and Daichi is getting dangerously close to Fuck Suga territory too—he's out of the fighting after this.

Ushijima stumbles to a stop on top of a broken edge of the street, standing tall and defiant with a blade of glowing, oily blood in each hand. "I will stop you," Ushijima calls without a trace of fear in his voice.

"I͝ wi͢ll de̶v͏o̵ur͏ h͡er ̷in͜ fro̷n̵t ̸of ͟yơu."

As Ushijima rushes forward to engage, Daichi circles around as carefully and as quietly as he can manage. There isn't much cover, and he isn't exactly gifted in stealth operations, and he thinks he's sweating so badly he'll drop the damned sword at this rate.

It's not hard to go in its general direction, even if he can't look at it. It's pretty easy to follow giant glowing peripheral blobs. Daichi wonders how he's supposed to get closewithout having some sort of fit like Suga had. He could try for another limb.

Northot ignores him, focusing entirely on playing with Ushijima like a cat with an especially determined mouse. Daichi wishes he had Suga's mute spell again; his ears ring like screaming the closer he gets.

The god phases in and out a few more times, but it's more and more infrequent. Whatever Kenma had done, it's failing, for good. Daichi prays he's not going to get close and stab at nothing before he gets noticed.

Ushijima is hurled into Daichi before he can get close.

Both men tumble across the broken pavement, and the god laughs over them. When it tries to stab them, its claws pass harmlessly through. "Now," Ushijima pants, wet and hoarse, as he hauls Daichi up behind him.

"Some of us aren't immortal."

"I'll cover you."

Daichi doesn't know how, but as they rush forward Ushijima uses a blast of magical wind to knock several of the god's spindly legs away, not making it stumble so much as tilt toward them. Daichi raises his sword against its flesh.

Northot lets out a scream that breaks the glass in the buildings around them. Daichi pushes forward, though his head rings with the noise. He grits his teeth through it while his vision begins to swim. The god's body bubbles and melts around the vorpal sword. Ushijima has cut through just as easily with his blood magic, but it is the vorpium that eats through it like nothing.

Against the radiance before him, Daichi doesn't notice at first that the metal is steadily glowing brighter and brighter too, until the hilt begins to heat.

It's melting inside it, Daichi realizes with horror, and begins to pull it free in a panic. The hot metal twists and pulls and still the god screams.

Daichi does not see the blow coming for them until it has already cut through Ushijima.

Ushijima's headless body sags against Northot, blood dripping over the rapidly spreading curse. Daichi turns, but it cuts into his neck easily.

It phases out the rest of the way. Daichi stumbles back just a single step, molten vorpium splattering against the asphalt by his boots, hand clamped against the spray of blood from his throat.

A blindingly bright Door bursts into being right over his head before it all goes black.

-.-.-

Trying to maintain the spell is like trying to keep a grip on a knife's blade.

Out of useable magic, Kenma grasps at anything he can—both Akaashi's magic and the dredges of the angelic shit left in the mirror. If that goes, then the spell unravels. It needs at least two types of magic to sustain it in the face of a magic-driven deity; Kenma had thought he was being clever, relying on type rather than quantity. He hadn't assumed he would be the first out of energy.

Grappling directly with others' magic is dangerous at best, and fatal at worst, so Akaashi cuts him off.

Kenma fights, and it feels like he's delving into Akaashi—he nearly lunges forward to try to follow any thread in his dying spell—but Akaashi is more combative than Bokuto or Shouyou. "You're killing yourself," Akaashi hisses at him. Their grip on Kenma's wrist is like iron, and only when Kenma stops struggling does he realize how badly he's trembling.

Witches are not spirits. They won't die if they run out of magic, but they can come close.

Kenma knows his limits intimately. He knows when to push, when to pull back, and very precisely what he's capable of. The spell dies, and Kenma's breath shudders in his lungs as he catches it. "That wasn't long enough." He sags forward, allowing Akaashi to hold up his weight. "We can… we can revive it."

"With what? You'll kill yourself if you try to do anything else. Don't make me go through any more scares like that today." There isn't much tenderness in Akaashi's voice, but Kenma appreciates that more than any doting they could offer. He doesn't think he deserves much coddling. He didn't think trying to Do Something would hurt this much.

"You did so much," Kuro tells him from where he's curled up around Midna, just outside the dead circle.

That spell had been why Kuro had almost died and Akaashi lost their wing. It hadn't been enough. Bokuto and Shouyou aren't back, and the radio has been silent, so who knows what's even going on anymore. Another thing Kenma hadn't anticipated: caring about the aftermath.

"Yamaguchi is still out there," Tsukishima says, as if to drive the knife in further. "So is Koushi, and Bokuto, and the other loud bird. A lot of people. How are we supposed to know when this is over?"

"I need more magic," Kenma mumbles into Akaashi's bloody shoulder. It has been too long since Kenma hasn't been able to offer magic to help others, even if his list of people he cares to help is only recently expanded.

"You've done enough," Lev tells him. Kenma raises his head from Akaashi's shoulder. "You don't know moderation, huh, Kenma? You need to rest for a little bit. I think you all do—Tadashi too, whenever he gets back. The entire city is full of magic people, so let someone else do some of the work."

"It's one of those other magic people in this city who was responsible for this entire disaster," Akaashi mutters.

"I just wanted to be safe." Kenma's eyes begin prickling, and only half of it from exhaustion. "I just wanted… to stay safe, and alive, and away from all this."

Then it was Lev, then it was Kuro, and Kenma's circle just kept expanding until this point: risking his life for strangers, the blood of his loved ones on his hands, and being told to step back by Lev, of all people.

"Are you crying?" Akaashi asks in such alarm that Kenma can't help but snort.

"Yes," Kenma thickly replies. His eyes sting with tears and weariness, and his breath catches in sad little hiccups.

"You did well," Akaashi says with gentleness and awkwardness in equal parts. Kenma shakes his head against them, and they hiss in pain.

With effort, Kenma manages to stand under his own power. He takes enough deep breaths until that's regulated again, too, and he wipes his eyes with his sleeve. "I'm not crying because of the stress." It's only halfway a lie. "I'm crying because I figured out what's going to happen next."

"We're safe here!" Lev says, too quickly. "I saw all the wards you put down!"

"Weren't those broken when the god monster popped in through the window?" Tsukishima asks.

"Don't be mean," Kuro weakly grumbles.

"Only some of them. I can reinstate a few," Akaashi says.

Kenma shakes his head again, but it seems like they're going to continue arguing, anyway. "It's not that. The god thing has made it pretty clear that it has bigger fish to fry, and we can easily use that against it. But… I know how to get my magic back." Kenma turns from the weight of their collective attention. Just because he's blunt doesn't mean he likes big announcements, especially when he knows actually saying this is probably going to hurt more than anything else. "And it could fix Kuro, too."

"Sign me up," Kuro croaks.

"And we didn't do this before because?" Tsukishima demands.

In avoiding Akaashi's pointed and rightfully angry gaze, Kenma realizes Lev has already figured it out. He's always been more shrewd about these sorts of things than people give him credit for.

Lev spares Kenma and loudly announces it himself. "He's gonna steal Kuro's magicky thing and use it himself. Then Kuro will grow wings just like angels do. And he'll be stronger? I've never met an archdemon, but that archangel was pretty messy and strong. What's the catch, Kenma?"

"You're shitting me. The sad, dying blob could have been upgraded at any time? I've seen what Kiyoko can do with that angelic magic of hers, so why haven't you tried grabbing onto your half of your stupid cold war with her?" Tsukishima demands, now twice as angry.

Akaashi has gone totally silent.

"Do humans get off on trying to find the most dangerous kind of magical creature and trying to befriend it?" Yuuki asks archly. "Cat spirits are one thing, but Morisuke is gonna be mad if you're making Kuroo a worse demon."

"I will personally eat Yaku if he has any more strong opinions toward Tetsurou," Akaashi says with surprising calm. They release Kenma's wrist and instead grab his chin, forcing eye contact between them. Kenma wrinkles his nose but doesn't immediately pull away. "Kenma, what's the downside of this? Why has it spooked you so badly you didn't immediately seek this out?"

"Put him in a confinement circle. You have to know how to confine demons and angels pretty damn well at this point. He wouldn't be a risk to us, you especially," Tsukishima adds.

"It's not that," Kenma finally admits, "it's the fact that he'll regain his memories of his life."

"What's wrong with that?" Lev asks.

Akaashi pulls away from Kenma, finally stepping out of the dead magic circle. It gives one final twinge, as if adding insult to injury.

"He won't be Kuro anymore."

Yui had gone from murderous, starving creature to something conflicted and sentient when she'd regained her memories. Even if she had spiraled again after the fact—something else Kenma isn't certain how to handle—there had been an abrupt and permanent shift in personality.

Kuro would remember everything. Death is traumatic, of course, and who knows what kind of memories he could awaken to. Kenma has dealt with his nightmares in recent weeks, distant echoes of even more distant memories of a life long lost, but if Kuro suddenly has to deal with all of that? On top of enough magic to potentially drive him mad, no less.

Kenma would gain a boost in his own magic, and he has no doubt he'll be able to integrate it into his own magic. Archdemons can use magic, too. Kuro would be stronger, magical, and could fly. Kenma can stabilize himself, help Akaashi, and possibly even restart the spell. Kuro would be alive and whole again, out of danger of dying. He could fight far better than ever before.

But he wouldn't be Kuro.

"Ignoring the fact that Kuro's first life and personality might not even want to help us, we're dealing with an entirely different set of memories and experiences. His personality could change. He might not be able to handle the sudden surge in power, like Yui. And who knows what all that demonic magic could do to certain annoying parties in the room."

Tsukishima's expression darkens further.

"C'mon, Kuro likes you! All of you—us! He's a good guy. He wouldn't try to eat anyone," Lev reasons, but Kenma isn't swayed. This isn't the first time the thought has crossed his mind, only the first time with any weight attached to it.

"It's entirely unpredictable. Moreover, even if he doesn't want to eat anyone here, even if he decides he does want to go risk his life again, even if he wants to help with the spell or doesn't resent me for stealing his magic…" Kenma only pauses to take a breath, and wipe his eyes again. "No matter what happens, this takes away who he is now. He won't be o-ours anymore."

Kenma crouches down, hiding his face in his sleeves since his short hair can't, but almost at once, he feels a nudge against his knee. Then another. Midna had gotten to him second; Kuro sets his tiny claws on Kenma's pants and peers up at him with empty, white eyes. "Don't cry, Kenma. You're gonna make me cry," he tells him and gently wipes his tears for him.

"You've been rather quiet on this subject, considering what you'll be facing," Akaashi sighs, ragged and angry and wet, and sits down far enough away from Kenma that no one will think either of them care. "Tetsurou, this is you. Now's not the time to hold your tongue."

"You don't on anything else," Tsukishima says.

"Yeah, yeah, too tired for sass. Near-death experiences take a lot out of you, Tsukki."

"Kuro," Kenma says, and his unsettled demonic puddle draws back to maximize the sulking puddle-ness. "I can go on all day about the advantages and disadvantages of this. You can't let me."

"You're an expert on this, not me. You'd know better than anyone what this would do to us."

"Kenma would just get more magic, wouldn't he?"

"Kenma would develop an even worse allergy to angelic magic. He probably couldn't use tengu magic that well anymore, and who knows what color he'd bleed then," Kuro replies.

Kenma gives him a smile. "You've been paying attention."

"Hard not to, when any hint of a demon is liable to get us both killed. So I guess we're both experts." Kuro sulks harder. "If this helps, then it helps. It'd be nice to be strong enough to beat a wet tissue in a fight again. I don't like seeing anyone else hurt themselves on my behalf."

"But we'd lose you," Akaashi stresses from behind their remaining claws. "Give this half a thought. I know you care for Kenma, but push him from your mind for one whole second and think about what you're doing."

"I'm not leaving you," Kuro replies with enough calm that it only ruffles Akaashi further. "It's not like my memories of who I am now would disappear, would they?"

"They shouldn't."

"Then there you go. I'll still be myself."

Kenma has barely had Kuro for half a year, and who knows what sort of life he'd be reclaiming. Even if the memories remain? His personality would likely shift, and his priorities would reorder, and he wouldn't be the same. He doesn't know if Kuro is trying to downplay it for their sake, or if he's as naive about this as he has been about so many other things. Ultimately not his choice.

Kuro cracks a very tiny grin. "Maybe if I grow wings, I'll stop being so scared of heights."

-.-.-

Taichi, damn his long legs, easily outpaces Kenjirou.

Kenjirou started running the moment he saw Northot strike. Wakatoshi's body still hasn't stirred, and Kenjirou refuses to acknowledge the pieces he's sprinting toward.

Gone is the ominous rumbling, replaced instead by cackling that careens in and out of hearing range.

Taichi's foot catches on some of the ruined road, and Kenjirou vaults over him without pausing. Northot reaches down for Wakatoshi, curling its entire body in and in and in until it seems like it's going to envelop him, and Kenjirou grabs its claws at the last moment.

The god doesn't notice until Kenjirou slashes its mouth open even wider.

"You̶."

Kenjirou realizes he's surrounded on all sides by the deity's horrific mass, with only two dead humans in front of him for help. Only one of them will come back. Kenjirou swallows when he sees Wakatoshi's head, laying so far from his body, and fuck, he hopes he can come back from that. He doesn't know the rules here.

"Y͟o͏u͞ ̕have no ot̛her ̴s͏p̢ac̴e̵s to ͞r͏ưn ͘to. ͏But͘ y͜ou w͏o͠r̷ry͞ m͟e ̨no̸t, n͜a͠s̨h͜ưg̶g̶o͜t͠h͘." Northot coils a long, spindly finger idly around Wakatoshi's ankle, and lifts his headless body upside-down.

Had that been his fingers twitching, or was it just the movement?

Kenjirou hadn't escaped prison in another realm just to see his home realm fucked.

"Y̸o͢u̧ wan͢t͜ t̵o͞ sav͏e yh̶a̴fh'͏dr͏n? ̴Try͡ ̧ḑef̛y͠i͞ng ͞m͟e agaįn," Northot says and dangles Wakatoshi over him, splattering him with hot blood.

Kenjirou knows this thing is already pissed at him, but he also knows that its focus has always been Wakatoshi. He also knows that if Wakatoshi can come back from this, he's not going to last very long separated from his head, or in Northot's burning clutches.

They need someone to cast the spell, and it's not as if Kenjirou knows anyone else this far south in the world.

Even a god will recoil from a manticore to the face, even if its definition of face is uncertain.

Kenjirou catches Wakatoshi, but it's no easy feat to carry such a big body in two pieces. He steps over Daichi's corpse with a flicker of guilt. He'd been helpful when he wasn't shooting at them.

He barely hears the angry chirping from Wakatoshi's coat pocket, over the god and Taichi roaring at each other. Taichi shifts between forms whenever claws or teeth or fur begin melting, and that buys him precious time—but not much.

"Shh, we're going to get away," Kenjirou hisses at the eagle chick that arguably started this entire shitshow. He'll deal with those feelings later. Wakatoshi could do what he wanted—and proved it.

Kenjirou gets about six paces before Northot spears him through. He doesn't miss a beat, and shouts, "Tai!"

The barghest leaps off of Northot and Taichi catches Wakatoshi in midair. Northot shakes him like a dog tearing meat from a bone, and Taichi vanishes with Wakatoshi in tow. They know how to trade off, been doing it all their lives, but it's rare that one of them is stuck in such dire straits.

Kenjirou won't die immediately, and his own body flickers with each movement, but he knows he'll be trailing blood now. Northot flings him off and he lands heavily on Daichi's body. It could just be his ears ringing from proximity to that thing, but Kenjirou could swear that Daichi groaned.

Northot can't see Taichi anymore but a half-unseen tariaksuq is a decent enough target. Northot's first strike narrowly misses his head, and the second wraps around his thigh, dragging him back and leaving a trail of red. Northot laughs in terrible glee.

Kenjirou can't use Daichi, even if he is alive—he's dying and he isn't magical. He needs Wakatoshi, or a friendly human who understands magic. Taichi can drag Wakatoshi out of immediate range, but Kenjirou can't sneak away, not flickering like a candle and dripping blood.

While dangling over Northot's unfurled rows of needle teeth like the ugliest flower, Kenjirou manages to catch sight of the annoying freckled kid who keeps popping up to fuck up Wakatoshi's day.

Kenjirou sees the way the kid is fixated on Daichi. They know each other. "Hey!" he shouts across the street. That gangly fuck better hear him. "I'm trading you! His life for your magic!"

"Y̴o͟u ̴canno̧t pl͝e͡ad fo͜r ͟your҉ ̛lif̡e̶ n͠o̷w," Northot tells him, though it sounds like it would very much cherish Kenjirou doing just that.

He snaps off his remaining antler. Stings like a fucker, and full visibility in the world will give him a headache if he lives to see it, but antlers regrow. Maybe Wakatoshi can regrow a head, but Kenjirou won't take the chance. The antler clatters down just close enough to touch Daichi's arm, and he vanishes from sight. Maybe there's something to this luck thing.

But the fucking kid remains frozen, either out of fear or grief, and Kenjirou doesn't believe in deer in the headlights.

Kenjirou, fully visible and hanging from its tendrils, fixes it with the best stare he can manage. It burns, but spite is a hell of a motivator.

He spits in Northot's face.

Kenjirou probably would've slashed at the tendril holding him, if a dragon hadn't dropped out of the sky onto Northot's flailing, bulbous mass. It's not the teal, double-winged thing he's seen before. It's smaller, so dark brown it's nearly black, with a mane of pale, ashy blond running down its spine.

"Taichi, what the fuck?!" Kenjirou shouts over his shoulder. He sees the kid across the street dart out from behind the building corner.

"Like I'm letting you get eaten," Taichi growls back.

"Where's Ushijima?"

"Where else?"

-.-.-

"Toshi, goddamn it," Tendou huffs as he drags Wakatoshi's body in through the window. "Why are you so big? Shirabu isn't here to lug you around, you know! You're going to have to carry your own weight again."

Wakatoshi's body doesn't answer him. His head is already inside.

"How are you supposed to come back from this?"

Someone must have closed his eyes, maybe Taichi. It seems like the type of thing he'd do. But his neck is a jagged, half-burned cut, still bleeding in some places. Blood has been splattered up across his jaw, up to his ear, and has seeped into his shirt and coat.

Tendou grabs Athena from his coat pocket. She fixes him with a surprisingly sharp stare. "Bring him back," Tendou tells her. "He brought you back, so now it's your turn to pull your weight, mon oisillon." [1]

Athena peeps at him. She sounds sad.

Tendou sits beside Wakatoshi's body, and sets her down on his chest. Shirabu and Taichi are out there fighting, despite the fact that they don't owe them this. Tendou can't help them any more than he can help Wakatoshi right now. Gold can't heal wounds. Attachments can't bring back the lost.

"You're supposed to come back again by now. Cast your magic, make this right again. We can't do this without you."

Wakatoshi's body sits up, dislodging his familiar and making Tendou shriek. Blood pours from his open neck, and the body collapses again with a disgusting, wet, wheezing sound.

After he's done swearing up a storm and has moved the baby bird far away from the headless not-corpse, Tendou realizes that Wakatoshi is going to keep reanimating and dying again if that whole decapitation thing isn't taken care of. Tendou has no idea where the one human healer he knows is, but he knows enough about stitches thanks to a lifetime of refusing to pay for medical attention.

God, he hopes that all he has to do is sew him up. He doesn't know anything about surgery. Tendou ransacks the office, then the neighboring firm, and finally loses patience and breaks into the nearest hospital. It's already in chaos tending to the injured, but at least he can pop in and out without causing further panic when everyone is already busy with the world ending.

When Tendou returns, arms full of supplies he has no idea about, he thinks Wakatoshi has been through a few more resurrections, based on the amount of blood now pooled around his corpse. Athena fixes him with a rather evil eye. "I don't see you doing anything," he tells her, and gets to work with the absolute stupidest thing he's ever done.

A blood witch will be able to deal with things like infection or blood loss, so he focuses on just trying to ensure things line up properly. It looks like vertebrae got chipped, and Tendou hadn't ever wanted to see the inside of Wakatoshi's throat, and he's never had his head in his lap like this before. He's halfway to hysterical before he can stop himself.

Wakatoshi's blood pours slick and hot over Tendou's hands. He doesn't even know how the guy has any blood left at this rate. Tendou is crying, stitching with shaking hands and entire frame wracked with muffled, desperate laughter, when Wakatoshi reaches up and grasps Tendou's wrists.

"Toshi?"

Wakatoshi fumbles around his own neck, drawing in his own blood, and dies shortly after.

Two more times, and Wakatoshi finally opens his eyes. There are still two inches of unsewn neck, but Tendou bends over and throws himself at him with a wretched noise.

Wakatoshi does die again, but not before he can fumble his way through trying to wipe Tendou's tears.

Tendou points to the bags of blood he swiped from the hospital. Wakatoshi's skin is sickly and ashen, and they're both covered in blood and sweat, but he casually draws blood from the bag up to the gash in his neck like he's done this a million times. Maybe he has. There's so much Tendou doesn't know about him, but he does know that he is truly deathless, and he knows that he doesn't know what he'd do if Wakatoshi suddenly wasn't.

"Can you talk?" Tendou asks when Wakatoshi doesn't seem to be in immediate danger of dying again.

Wakatoshi shakes his head. Athena peeps in his stead, which Tendou finds cute and useless.

"It's a good thing I'm used to doing the talking between us," Tendou says and Wakatoshi nods solemnly like it hadn't been a joke. "If you ever bring me your headless corpse again, though, we're through. I'm wearing more of your blood than what's left in you, Toshi, and that's not how I prefer to do relationships."

Wakatoshi blinks at him, and carefully grabs more blood.

"My bedside manner is far superior. I don't have to kiss you to keep you still."

"I was dead." Wakatoshi's voice is utterly wrecked, weak and raspy and wet.

"You squirmed enough, considering." Tendou leans forward, lips pursed, and Wakatoshi meets him halfway. He tastes sharp like blood. "This makes up for killing you before, yeah? Let's keep this evened out. No more death."

Wakatoshi nods, cautiously, free hand against his neck. It looks like it has completely stopped bleeding now.

"When you can stand, we're going to that circle of yours. It's time to finish this."

When Wakatoshi nods again, it's stronger.

-.-.-

Morisuke only hisses a frantic, "Be careful!" when Tadashi takes off at a dead sprint toward the angry god.

It's not as big, but it's somehow more powerful. Its radiance is impossible to look at, and every step closer makes his head pound harder. When he accidentally catches a glimpse of part of it as it writhes around in an effort to catch the other two, Tadashi nearly trips.

Morisuke blocks it from view as Tadashi stumbles to a stop about where Daichi should be. Tadashi drops to his knees and feels around until he finds something solid and invisible.

The bellowing god chases the other two, but any distance from that thing is not fucking enough. Getting that close to it unnoticed might've been the luckiest he's ever been.

Morisuke drops down, swipes the antler off of Daichi, and shifts into his human form.

There's blood everywhere. Daichi's neck has been slashed open, and he's not moving. Tadashi can't bring himself to touch him, but Morisuke rolls Daichi over with little concern.

"He's breathing," Morisuke says with a hand on his chest, "I think."

He's dying. Daichi is his boss at his normal job. Daichi was the normal one.

"If he's not dead yet, he's not dying with a luck spirit around." Morisuke drags Daichi up over his shoulders. "We need to move, and I'm not going to get very far dragging him myself. Now's not the time to freeze up. You wanted to help, remember?"

Tadashi nods, gulping down his tears. When he wipes his eyes, his coat comes away red. "Where's the sword?"

Morisuke curses under his breath. The god tears its way further from them, shaking the ground, but steadily quieter. Tadashi holds Daichi up, feeling through layers of clothing for a heartbeat he can't find.

Morisuke scans the area for the vorpal sword, and comes back with a half-melted piece.

They wrap it in the stupid scarf, Tadashi shoves it in his pocket, and Morisuke throws Daichi's other arm over his shoulder. "What's the plan now? If Daichi is like this, then Sugawara isn't coming back for anything."

"He couldn't have known," Tadashi replies. Suga wouldn't leave anyone to die, much less Daichi. "Suga wouldn't just…"

"Ditch him?"

"We need to find a healer," Tadashi says. They've made it as far as the sidewalk now. Daichi's head lolls dangerously.

"We've been trying," Morisuke says, a touch gentler now.

"We should stop." They're not making enough progress to call this a proper retreat, and Shirabu and his friend were luring the god away better than anything Tadashi could do. "Can you bring me bandages? We need to stop the bleeding, or…"

Moving Daichi had probably been a bad decision. Coming here had probably been a bad decision. Tadashi is too exhausted, and he really doubts having a breakdown or attack outside in the middle of the apocalypse is a good idea.

"Tadashi!" comes a shout and someone drops off a broom.

Ryuunosuke hugs him so tightly he lifts him, and Tadashi wheezes. He's going to blame the squeezing for the tears. "R-Ryuu—?"

Taketora drops down beside him, broom in hand. "I'm beginnin' to think you attract bleeding people, kid," he says flatly, nudging Daichi's leg with his foot. "This isn't a gunshot. He's dead, or close to."

"You're a healer, save him!"

"I'm under pretty strict orders to not go wastin' my magic on lost causes. That can save people later, right," Taketora replies, frankly, but not without sympathy.

Without missing a beat, Ryuu tells him, "Callin' in my favor for the cockatrice."

"God-fucking-damn you, man," Taketora growls and helps them lay Daichi out on the ground.

Ryuu keeps Tadashi from hovering too badly, and Morisuke keeps polite distance, more interested in keeping watch. "In this business, it's all about who you know," he tells him. Tadashi nods and wipes at his eyes again. "Shit, kid, you look like a wreck. Tora said you were back with Kenma and his gang—why are you out on the streets two blocks from that monstrosity?"

"We've been trying to find someone," Morisuke replies, curt.

"Suga," Tadashi corrects. "He and Kiyoko have been missing, and they probably know what's going on better than anyone else." With eyes locked onto where Taketora works on Daichi's neck, Tadashi feels like he saw everyone except Suga. He has bits and pieces of others—Hitoka searching for her mother and coven, Kenma and his spell, even Daichi's explanation of his motives. And no Suga.

"Then, now what?" Ryuunosuke asks.

Before Tadashi can get too peeved, Taketora sits back on his heels and wipes his brow. "Dude's stable, for now. I can't do much for whatever nerve damage and he needs blood fucking yesterday, but he's not dead. He needs to go to a hospital, not the cold ground in an alleyway."

"Here." Tadashi shoves the antler at Ryuu. "Take him and—"

"What the fuck do you think you're doing," Ryuu snaps before he can finish. "You are doing that, and you're checkin' yourself into that hospital, too. You look like a zombie. Yaku can escort you both and keep you from too much trouble."

"I need to find Suga and finish a spell." Goddamnit, he sounds like he's about to cry. Shirabu is a raging asshole, but he played bait and let them get to Daichi before he died. Daichi had believed in Ushijima's plan. Kenma's spell is apparently over, or something went wrong, because the god is solid again.

It's Suga and Kiyoko, or Ushijima.

Ryuu doesn't have magic, and Taketora looks dead on his feet. He also doesn't think either would let him go near Ushijima with a ten-foot pole right now, but maybe Ushijima will be dead in a ditch somewhere and his spell won't be too difficult to cast. Iwaizumi could probably help talk him through it if necessary, and a dragon will probably be easier to find than Suga at this rate.

"Please. I'll owe you anything, no questions asked, just like now. I-I have a gun, I have a little bit of magic left, and I just need to help stop this before anyone else gets hurt. Please, take Daichi."

"Lucky for you," Ryuu says with a sharp grin, "ya can't have three people on a broom. Tora, take care of this and I'll owe you one. Yama, you're stuck with me now. You think what you're doing is important, fine. I'm in."

Tadashi cracks a smile. Ryuu's gonna hate what comes next, but it's nice to have another person on his side.

-.-.-

Tetsurou hasn't been in a circle like this since he was summoned. It's almost nostalgic.

Kenma doesn't need all the preparation of a marked circle, but if this is Kenma's small way of dealing with it, then that's fine. Tetsurou appreciates the chance to collect his thoughts, too.

He doesn't really know what it'll be like to suddenly know he's a different person—or was a different person. He understands Kenma and Keiji's concerns, but he knows himself. He won't stop caring about them, won't stop wanting to help. He has a personality. Knowing more things about himself won't change that.

Saying it aloud won't comfort anyone.

Lev is rarely an intimidating guy despite his size, but his presence at Kenma's side unnerves Tetsurou more than any of the runes or wary looks Keiji sends him.

"Are you ready?" Kenma asks. "I will have to take whatever the demonic equivalent of an angel's grace is. You'll turn back into a ghost—your ghost—and only afterward will you become an archdemon. I'll try to control my magic as quickly as possible, but it will take a few moments for either of us to figure out what we're doing."

"Don't worry," Lev says, still with that too-serious expression, "I won't let anything go wrong."

Kenma doesn't brush him off.

Tetsurou swallows. "Well, no time like the present, huh? Regaining a settled form would be pretty nice. So would feeling my legs again."

Tsukishima has left for this part, taking the little bakeneko with him, and Tetsurou highly doubts it's to ensure he's not exposed to any more magic. He doesn't blame the kid, of course. He's probably been through enough today, and it's not as if they're the best of friends on a good day. Tetsurou can't deny that he likes having a little support group, though, even if it looks like Lev will somehow figure out a way to kill an archdemon if he so much as looks at Kenma funny.

It's a funny thought in its own right.

Tetsurou makes sure to wink at Lev, just for the way he startles. "It's not like I'm dying, this time." It doesn't reassure anyone.

"Let's just do this," Kenma sighs.

"Wait—" Tetsurou leans out of the circle and kisses Kenma's nose as best he can. "It was a little easier to reach than your forehead, all things considered."

Kenma's nose is wrinkled, but Tetsurou thinks it's more a reflex.

Kenma reaches out and places his palm against the vague area of Tetsurou's chest. Tetsurou cranes his head back, and Kenma gently cups his neck. His magic is warm and familiar.

He feels a sharp pull from his entire unsettled self. It steals breath from lungs he doesn't need and pulls him up out of the circle like a puppet's strings.

It vanishes, just as quickly, and he feels indescribably lighter.

He barely registers that he's as tall as he usually is—he catches a flash of the white robes hanging loose around his ankles—and then he wonders why the fuck he's here.

This isn't where he should be. This isn't where he remembers being.

This is wrong.

He presses his hands against his chest, searching for the gunshot. There's red in his robes, stained like blood, but it's dry and no matter how he tears at his clothes, he can't find any wound. How had he—no, no, he hadn't survived, had he—but being a ghost feels terribly like being alive, without the pain he last remembers.

Absolutely nothing changes about the hotel room before him, though the witch before him is on his knees, crumpled like he's the one with a gut shot wound. He doesn't try to help. He's still fighting with the heartrending realization that he can't help, he can't go out and fight, because he's not supposed to be here.

This isn't right. None of it is right.

He's so fucking hungry, but terror overcomes it, and he reels away from the witch. He needs help—no, they both do—no, he has a fucking war to win, he has to—

"Tetsurou," comes a voice and he jumps a foot in the air. He stays floating above them, but twists to find the tengu.

No, Keiji. He knows them. He knows everything, everyone, here.

"Neredeyim," he croaks. [2]

"You're here, with us. Nothing has changed. You're still here," the tengu—Keiji, he knows them—replies. "Tetsurou, are you alright?"

That's not his name.

He glances toward the window. It's not raining—no, it shouldn't be, that wasn't…

He curls up, fingers digging into the red staining his white robes, but before he can do more than recall his family—he died and left them, how could he, he'd promised his sister he'd come back—pain erupts in his back.

It feels like falling, vertigo and darkness rushing at him, faster and faster until he feels sick. Pain slices at his back, pushing against flesh and bone until it's his body that gives. There's no relief in the wings curling out from his shoulder blades, and the only sliver of sanity he can grasp is the familiarity of losing a settled form.

By the time the pain recedes and he's left a gasping, trembling mess on the dirty hotel carpet, he has somewhat ordered his thoughts.

"Kuro?" Kenma asks like he's scared.

That's his name now. That's the name given to him when he was just hanging out in some guy's shadow because he didn't want to get killed. Old habits, but at least he remembers now.

"Kenma," he replies, and everyone jumps at his voice. It's deeper than it's ever been, reverberating with power, and magic. There's something simmering low in his belly and he wonders if that's related.

Kenma looks very small and particularly edible, staring up at the archdemon with uncharacteristic relief. His face is shiny with sweat, dried blood still smeared across one cheek. His sleeves nearly to the elbows have been singed off, and his hands are still blackened, ending in oh so familiar claws.

Keiji is injured, but Kenma is the easier target for magic.

"Can you settle your form again?" Kenma asks with a tilt of his head.

Tetsurou flaps his wings. They feel strange, an alien presence in a storm of conflicting memories and familiarities. The new wings itch and ache, and it's just enough of a distraction that he does not immediately lunge for the nearest source of magic to sate his new hunger.

Kenma cups what he can of his face, pulling Tetsurou down toward him. He tilts his head this way and that, studying the semi-solid, dark flesh and bright, empty eyes, and Kenma doesn't fear the way Tetsurou's jaws part inches from his face.

Tetsurou is yanked backward by sharp claws in his throbbing wings.

"I suggest you settle," Keiji says with icy calmness, "and Lev can give you some wisps to chew on. An archdemon doesn't get to be the biggest spirit in the room."

"Actually, I'm the strongest in the room now," Kenma casually announces, now studying his blackened claws. "If you count spellwriting."

"Kuro needs to settle, and I'd like to get more than two words from him before we do anything else. It'd also be kinda nice if we had assurance that the god-thing wasn't going to come back and eat us in the near future, too. I'm not sure how this magic works."

Kenma flexes his clawed hand, and with a murmur, a flame appears over his palm.

Tetsurou copies him, and to his own amazement, he manages to do the same.

"Guess you both need a fast magic lesson," Keiji says.

-.-.-

The clang of each step reminds Yuu that his flight potion has long since run out. Whatever's in the air seems to be sapping magic, even magic potions, which is a layer of bullshit frankly no one needed.

No magic bullets now, either.

He can ward things, but that's about the extent of it, and wards had no effect on that thing.

Yuu wipes his stinging eyes and continues climbing the ancient fire escape. He has strapped his little camp radio to his backpack, but it's still broadcasting static.

"I could've carried you," Goshiki says, floating idly alongside him.

"It's different, if you're offering, versus me asking. Don't pretend it's not. Also, you almost dropped me on the way here. I can handle a little climbing." He always gets shaky after flight potions wear off, and feeling something solid beneath his boots is comforting.

"I think if I actually dropped you, the blonde one would cry." At Yuu's look, he clarifies, "The scary blonde one. Hitoka is nice. I see why the little crow kid is so keen on her."

"Well, let's not make anyone else cry today." Yuu hauls himself up over the edge of the roof. His radio crackles into something that could be a not-static sound.

"I could fly that higher."

"Do you know how to scan through different channels?"

Mr. High And Mighty Swan Deigning To Help The Humans has no answer for that one, but he gets a pinched, angry look on his face.

Yuu wanders in a circle, radio held aloft, and hopes for some kind of miracle. He manages two laps before he realizes he has two tengu watchers.

Bokuto and Goshiki sit perched on the edge of the roof, wings folded, huge talons digging little furrows into the brick beneath them. They look like the scariest pigeons ever. "Any luck?" Bokuto asks, head cocked too steeply.

"Not really," Yuu drops his aching arms. His entire body aches from being thrown through and from a couple buildings, but with Hitoka around, at least everything's in working order. Except maybe her emotional regulation, but that's always kinda been normal for her.

Kiyoko always knew how to ground her.

Yuu adores Hitoka—adores Kiyoko, too—but he's feeling a little lost in the face of what Kiyoko did to her. He isn't certain how to approach that, especially after Saeko confided that she tried to drop her off at the hospital at the start of all this. Hitoka may appear weak-willed, but she's fiercely stubborn when she's invested in something.

"Argh!" Yuu throws his radio to the ground. It bounces safely to the side, and begins broadcasting.

Both tengu flap over, and Yuu crouches next to it, scared to touch it again.

"…Foxglove and Alkanet covens. All witches are—kkshh—report to Miya Atsumu, Yachi Madoka, or Naoi Manabu. Perimeter and confinement laws are in effect. Perimeter has been maintained and enforced, and we need help—kkshh—civilians and injured to hospitals…" The signal comes and goes, but it's mostly understandable.

Bokuto sneers down at the radio. "Does that help us, or Oikawa?"

"Not directly," Yuu replies. He knew there was a perimeter, but he isn't quite up to date on a lot of the other witch jargon. The radio informs him of some sort of spell network to maintain the perimeter, and then which hospitals need help, and then where that monstrous deity is heading, but finally, it gives them a location.

"—kkshh—at the southern corner of White Lake Park, by 21st street, the leaders of Eyebright, Foxglove, and Alkanet covens. All witches are asked to report to Miya Atsumu, Yachi Madoka, or Naoi Manabu…"

Yuu lets out a whoop of joy and scoops up his radio. To his even greater delight, it keeps broadcasting. "Sae! Hitoka! We know where Madoka is!"

Hitoka's head snaps up, hair flying, and Yuu can see her radiant grin even from up here. She wouldn't be grinning so easily if either Tooru or Tobio had died.

Bokuto hauls Yuu up under a wing and jumps off the roof. Yuu clings with an undignified squawk, but at least someone doesn't drop him. The two unconscious men are still laid out on the sidewalk, and Hitoka remains kneeling between them. Saeko stands watch, and Hinata is crouched on Tobio's other side, chewing on his claws.

Unconscious beats possessed, so Yuu isn't complaining.

"They're by that little park where we almost got eaten by the manticore that one time," Yuu explains as soon as Bokuto shakes him off. "Apparently all the coven witches are setting up shop there. Sounds like they got some organization and shit."

"And my mom is there?"

"They mentioned her by name."

Hitoka sniffles, wipes her eyes, then drops her head again. She runs her hand down Tobio's chest. "I'm so glad."

"So, you're withdrawing?" Bokuto asks, but it makes Goshiki scowl in a way Yuu does not like.

"Yeah, we are," Saeko says, still watching down the street. She doesn't even sound like she's addressing them; she sounds distracted, and she taps her gun against her bicep.

"We're helping," Goshiki says.

"We're withdrawing," Saeko says. She's still turned away, and she still sounds casual about it, but Yuu knows she's either very angry, or very upset.

"It might be a good idea. We gave it a good go, and Hitoka needs to find her mom. We need more ammo, too."

"I can't just run around the city and happen into people. They'll know how I can help best," Hitoka adds.

"You're going to rest. You probably need a healer yourself at this rate," Saeko snaps. She sighs, runs a hand back through her short hair, then drops her arms from her chest. "We're retreating. We're getting you kids out of this mess, and this time, I'm making sure."

What about Kiyoko, Yuu thinks, staring hard at her profile.

Tooru blinks awake with a weak noise.

"Tooru!" Hitoka cries, immediately helping him into a seated position. Almost at once, blood begins dripping down his mouth and chin, but his eyes remain clear. "Move slowly. Do you know where you are?"

"No, actually. Since I guess I've been moved," Tooru holds his head and closes his eyes as if he's trying to fall asleep again. "Where's Iwa-chan?"

"You got possessed," Bokuto supplies, and Tooru squints his eyes open just enough to roll them, "and we had to grab you and Kageyama and run. But if you're alive, and not possessed by evil things, then I gotta go."

"You're done using people as bait now?" Hinata quails at once at the look Bokuto shoots him.

"No more bait. No more playing hero. I've already had to save your collective ass more than once in the past twenty-four hours. We're parking you in a safe spot. The two tengu can play guard, Hitoka can figure out what to do once she talks to her mom, and I need a breather and some more things to shoot at that monster," Saeko says, massaging the furrow in her brow. "Yuu, you're comin' with."

Bokuto looks relieved at not having to get into an argument over taking orders, but the other two angry birds puff up with matching glares. "I need to head back to check on Kenma, anyway. If that spell still needs to go off, then I'm sure that damned fox will come calling soon enough."

"What a lovely cue for me to take," comes a voice from above. Tooru lets out another weak groan, and Yuu and Saeko snap up to aim with empty guns.

Tendou looks redder than before, and Yuu realizes rather uneasily that he's covered in blood. "You're pretty fuckin' ballsy, comin' back like this," Saeko growls.

"Je suis un renard sans peur en ce moment," he drawls, and points imperiously down at them. "We all know you're out of ammo, otherwise I'd already have a bullet in my head." [3]

"Again," Yuu gladly reminds him.

"Look, we all have to put aside our differences to beat the big, bad god, right? I'm not even trying to pick a fight with little miss murderer right now!" Tendou gestures with both scarlet hands down at Hitoka. She just looks confused about it, and Yuu and Saeko guiltily ignore her questioning sound. "Monsieur chouette, I need bait to outweigh some silly deer, and that means you." [4]

"It's not gonna follow just me," Bokuto says. He doesn't look at either Tooru or Tobio, but Tooru gives him such a look, that Yuu has a pretty good idea what his thoughts were.

"Then get better bait! That little witch friend of yours, or another tengu. Raise the archangel for all I care! I need strong spirits, and I need them now."

"No," Saeko snaps as soon as Goshiki opens his mouth. "Fuck you. We're retreating."

"Some of us don't get to retreat in the face of the apocalypse," Tendou sniffs.

"It's your fucking fault!"

"And that's why I'm trying so hard to help. Someone has to."

"They're fucking kids!" Saeko snarls.

Tendou looks away, first to the right, then up above, then settles on his own red-covered hands. "Well. I'm trying to save a couple of kids, and the whole city."

"Where's Iwa-chan?" Tooru hoarsely calls up. He looks as if he hates himself for even suggesting it, and Yuu doesn't envy him. "No one can ignore a dragon, but I don't know where he is."

"We need him to open the portal for us. I'm also not against using you as bait, either. You could say I'm getting desperate."

"Fuck off!" Saeko shouts and Tendou, at least, jumps as her gun clicks on nothing. "You already got our help! Be satisfied with using me and leave!"

"Sae," Yuu begins, but she just glares at him.

"I'll go with you." Bokuto looks down at Tooru, pointedly, until he sighs and lifts his arms. Bokuto picks him up as if he were made of glass. "We can find Iwaizumi on the way. No one can ignore a dragon."

"Where is the angel?" Tooru mutters, to himself, and Bokuto scowls into his hair.

"Seems like it'll be a nasty surprise for later. Ta-ta, jackasses!"

Bokuto spares them a regretful look, but Saeko stands between them like an angry, armed bear. Her shoulders do not relax until they're long out of sight.

"Why does he keep calling me that?" Hitoka asks in a small, quaking voice. Blood begins to bead beneath her nose like she wants to give Tooru a run for his money. "Why does he… Who was that?"

"An asshole." Yuu offers her his cleaning rag for his guns; it's all he has, and it already has old blood stained on it. She gives him a weak smile before she wipes her face as delicately as she can manage. "C'mon. We're getting you all somewhere safe."

"But Kenma," Hinata says in a meek voice totally unbefitting a tengu. "He needed help."

"Kenma has enough help, seems like. At least carry Tobio for us. Time for an escort mission!"

It doesn't cheer anyone up.

-.-.-

"Am I allowed to come inside yet?" Kei asks, looking up when Akaashi opens the door. He feels foolish, sitting out in the hallway like a grounded child. "Did he try to eat anyone's face?"

Akaashi does not answer directly. "Tetsurou can't settle, but he's in one piece, and Kenma hasn't vomited up black magic yet, so I'm considering this a victory."

"So now what?" Kei feels superfluous now. He's genuinely glad that Kuroo isn't about to keel over, sure, and Tadashi is off doing… whatever he's going, but Kei feels in a daze, and now he's not even useful about it.

Akaashi scratches at their bandages as if they're annoyed by their presence. For losing an arm, Kei finds them pretty damn composed. Maybe it's a tengu thing.

"I need to know what Koutarou is doing," they murmur, to themselves. "I think Kenma wants to restart the spell, but I'm not sure it will work. He can't handle even the mirror now, and it's still tied to the first attempt. We don't know when that thing could come back, and I'm not sure I like the idea of possession, either. I'm sure Kenma has a plan, but…"

"But Kenma's plan got us all into this mess."

Akaashi gives him a particularly nettled look.

"Just doing my job—just saying what you don't want to say."

"I don't blame Kenma," Akaashi waspishly tells him.

"But you lost your wing," Yuuki volunteers from Kei's lap. "And Tsukki's brother was here, and Kuroo almost died. I know Morisuke doesn't want to blame Kenma, but that's a lot of blood on his hands."

Kei isn't sure if he blames Kenma, either, but he's surprised by Yuuki's shrewdness. He isn't sure he wants to blame anyone for getting to see Akiteru again, as emotionally exhausting as it had been. But it had been his spell that required the angel's grace, that required the god's blood.

"Let's not voice any of this blame," Kei says in an abrupt case of caring. He doesn't feel like watching another witch implode. "It's no one's fault. Shit happens. What are we going to do now?"

A sudden clamor from inside the hotel room answers him. Akaashi peers inside, Kei looking over their head, and Yuuki on top of his.

Cold wind whistles through the now-broken window. While Kenma appears ruffled, no one is hurt. Bokuto has thrown himself at Kuroo, and they're sprawled across the couch in a tangled mess of wings and unsettled limbs. Not all of the wings are Bokuto's.

Tooru, cross-legged by the broken window and looking more like a zombie than Suga ever has, clears his throat.

"Koutarou," Akaashi says like it's a relief.

"Keiji!" He pops up at once. Kuroo growls from beneath him. "Kuroo is—I mean, wow, you're—what did you all do after I left?!"

"Put Kuro back in one piece, demonize Kenma a bit more, and fail the spell," Lev says as he counts off on his fingers. Kenma smacks him with his blackened hand. "It's been productive, but sad. What have you been up to?"

"What is that smell?" And the additions don't stop with those two: a certain redheaded pain in Kei's ass leans through the window, peering in around them. Tendou's eyes go wide when he sees Kuroo on the couch—and he then breaks into a grin at seeing Kei. "Well, hello, blondie. I was wondering when you'd pop up to ruin my day."

"What are you doing here?"

"Can everyone stop thinking for two whole seconds?" Tooru croaks while massaging his temples. His eyes are screwed shut, and his voice is uncharacteristically wobbly. "Temporary alliance. I have the mental strength of a kitten's whisker. We need bait, so we're dropping me off and Bokuto is supposed to be picking up Kenma."

"We-ell, I rather think an archdemon would be a hell of a distraction," Tendou points out with a savage grin. "Leave the little witch behind."

Kenma points an arrow tipped in black magic at Tendou's face. Kei has never liked him more.

"Hey now, we had a deal! And ruining our plans once did not count." Tendou leans against the jagged edges of the broken window and idly traces the glass with one hand. Kei realizes that his hands are covered in dried blood. "I mean, it's not an archangel, but unless you have information to trade, I'm going to have to ask for a tengu and an archdemon. Maybe the angry witch, too, but if I wanted one of those, I would've just dropped Toshi off in front of Northot again."

Yui must be with Kiyoko, which means they're with Suga.

Tooru watches him with a carefully neutral expression.

Kei tries a little harder not to think. He should still be mourning his brother, or filling his thoughts worrying about Tadashi or Suga. Wouldn't normal people be more distracted by all the tragedy and panic? But Kei has always tended to over-think in whatever way leads to the least amount of emotional effort. Tadashi is tracking down Suga who is with Kiyoko who is with Yui who is the archangel that Tendou wants.

Tooru looks thoughtful.

If Kei has to throw his trust into Tadashi's weird magical friends, he doesn't want it to be with the mind reader who is suddenly best friends with the bastard who started all this.

"Does it have to be an archangel?" Kei blurts out.

"I'll take the tengu and the archdemon," Tendou sweetly replies. "I don't need a luck spirit anymore, as you can probably tell by this entire mess."

"You don't feel an ounce of shame, do you?" Bokuto asks.

"I'll feel shame after I get out of this in one piece. Now come, come, we're on a bit of a time limit!"

"Would an archangel work better?" Tooru asks, eyes still on Kei.

Do you know where they are? Kei urgently thinks. Why aren't you with them, then?

"We need a sure-fire way to lure Northot into Toshi's spell. I don't care what form it takes."

"Turn me into an angel," Kei says.

The room falls deathly silent.

Kei locks eyes with Tooru, and thinks as loudly as he can, If you can't help, don't drag Suga and Yamaguchi into this. Don't tell Tendou anything about them. He trusts Suga a hell of a lot more than most other people. Kei would gladly play distraction or bait or whatever just to keep Tooru's stupid mouth shut.

Tooru frowns at him. This isn't a two-way street, but Kei feels he's made his point clear.

If Tooru tries to bring Suga up, potentially ruining whatever is going on with him and putting Tadashi back in Tendou and Ushijima's sights, then Kei will learn how to use his claws.

"You can't become an angel," Kenma finally says. His magic arrow blinks out of existence, and he shakes out his own claws. "You're a… you're too demonic. It's a spectrum. You're not neutral."

"Don't mistake this as brotherly issues or some dark sense of humor. I don't want to actually become anything else. But you have a mirror that still smells like angel, I can glow and float, and I'm sure someone as used to glamors as you can get some wings on me. Instant archangel. I don't have to do anything to be bait."

"And then it eats you in one bite," Akaashi concludes. "You couldn't defend yourself."

"It's not like we're not going." Bokuto's cheeks are puffed in a pout that's a weird mix of surly and childish. "I've dragged everyone else out of fights today. Why not add Tsukishima, too? I'll keep him safe, at least."

Kei may be easily irritated by both Bokuto and Kuroo's flippant attitudes, but he would trust either of them to not let him get eaten by an angry god. Bokuto has his stubborn tengu pride thing, and Kuroo—Kuroo has been silent this whole time.

The wings are new. It isn't the first time Kei has seen him in an unsettled form, but something about that seems a little off. From this angle, he can't quite see Kuroo's face, but his body language is… worrying.

"Bokuto and I can handle it," Kei says, inadvertently breaking up a hushed argument between Bokuto and Akaashi about blame. "Kuroo can stay here and feed into the spell. Or whatever ends up getting done. I'm not choosy, at this point."

"Yeah, your spell already fucked us over once. Not a fan," Tendou remarks.

"Were you asked?" Akaashi demands.

"Hey now, it's not my fault that you—"

"Do not."

Akaashi seems hellbent on arguing with someone, and Kei is glad it's not coming in his direction. Kuroo's silence worries him, and now he's realizing that Bokuto is in some sort of surly funk. The pouting is a lot less childish when maintained on an adult tengu.

The group is imploding.

Kenma yanks him down to his level, then, down to the floor. Lev, on Kei's other side, shoves the mirror at him. Kei grabs it on reflex—and drops it when it burns his hands. He hisses and tries to scramble away, but Kenma holds him with an iron grip on his bicep.

"Don't you want to go break that up instead of play surgeon with me again?" Kei demands.

"We don't have much time, and I'm trying to rework a tengu glamor to become an archangel glamor. You are going to have to tamp down all your demon self, right now," Kenma curtly replies. "And start getting lucky. You're going to want to look like a beacon out there."

Lev runs the mirror over him like a brush on a cat, and it gradually stings less. Kei's black skin recedes, instead turning pink and angry like he is burned, but at least human looking. Making luck still isn't his strong suit, but it's a little easier now.

He thinks Kenma is desperate to get something going in the group, too.

By the time Akaashi and Tendou come to blows, Kei doesn't look at all demonic anymore, and he's starting to suspect the cloying stench sticking to his clothes is angel. Half a step behind his brother, as usual.

Bokuto pulls Akaashi away from Tendou, and Tooru comes over to kneel beside them with the air of a scientist inspecting a potentially brand new species.

"Why are you working with Ushijima?" Lev asks with exactly enough brightness that Kei knows it's an act.

Tooru sniffs and wipes his nose. "They're going to seal away that thing in another realm. The magic should be sound. Until the Koushi and Kiyoko shaped cavalry arrive, it seems like a sound plan, and I wasn't invited to your little shindig. You're going to want to figure out some way to create fire. Can you make cat fire, too?"

"No, I can't," Kei flatly replies. He's a luck spirit, not a cat spirit. Probably. Who even knows anymore.

"Tadashi is trying to find them," Kenma says, "very urgently."

"I've already gleaned enough about what you think Kiyoko is up to," Tooru replies, cheek resting on his fist. "Anyone who's come in contact with that thing gets their mental stability shredded. I know more about you all than you do each other. By the way, your pet demon isn't doing too hot."

"I know magic. I know Kiyoko," Kenma replies.

"Didn't you forget about her?" Kei pointedly adds.

"I know a fair bit about angels, too," Tooru hums. When he sniffs again, it sounds wetter, and Kei can see blood beading beneath his nose. "Think what you want of me, but we're not working with Ushijima. We're using him. And now we're using you."

"How are you using Ushijima?" Lev asks, still falsely bright.

"It's not like I can seal away a god in another realm. I don't know too many witches capable of that, much less any who know enough about dimensional magic to even try to make that kind of spell. But I've seen it, and it'll work, so we need a hell of a good reason for Northot to prance happily into that trap. It knows what Ushijima is up to, too." Tooru punctuates this by poking Kei's cheek. His sleeve is already smeared with dried and drying blood; he's in no hurry to wipe more across his face. "If you're not going to give me Yui, then you're going to throw yourself into it?"

"Why would you turn on them? They're your friends," Kei spits.

"Kiyoko and Koushi will be alright. Yui is dead. I have no issue trying to turn an angel that tried to eat me into bait for an even bigger monster."

"The angel is Yui," Kenma tells him, quiet and serious, even with his nose buried in a glamor charm. "We know it is."

"You just turned your boyfriend into a mess of PTSD and cognitive dissonance," Tooru replies, "so I don't want to hear anything from you. We're using Ushijima's magic, and then we're taking care of him ourselves. And I'm asking, nicely, for your cooperation. I have a lot of manners for someone who's already almost died twice in two different realms today."

"We're helping, aren't we?" Kei snaps.

Tooru hums again, and finally wipes his bleeding nose, adding another smear to his sleeve.

"Done," Kenma says. For a moment, Kei thinks that he means the argument is done. Instead, he pulls Kei's head down, and slips a large necklace around his neck. "The good news is that my new magic should mesh with yours easily. It'll be a stable charm."

"And the bad news?" Lev asks, then jumps as Kei abruptly sprouts a rather ragged set of wings.

His arms feel numb, twice as heavy as usual, but the wings feel too light for the fact that he can feel them on his back. When he moves an arm, the wing follows.

"There's a lot of bad news."

Kei has known that he wouldn't be able to fly. With a little less demon in him, he finds it easier to float, but now it's less like he's in control and more like he's fumbling about in zero gravity. Lev takes turns rubbing the stupid mirror and poor Yuuki on him, until Kei is sneezing luck as badly as Tadashi ever does.

He's surprised—pleasantly—to find Tendou already gone.

"I know where it is," Bokuto growls when asked, and Kei does not press him further.

He tries to come to terms with the fact that he's about to be escorted by a very angry tengu and a suspiciously quiet archdemon. The walk up to the roof is tense.

"This is a stupid idea." He's cold, shivering without a coat, but he can't glow beneath too many layers. The cursed mirror is shoved into the back of his jeans. Kei likes to think himself rational. Ever since dying, he's been slipping, but he's helping acquaintances with something that involves risking his life. Tadashi is out there doing the same.

This would be a perfect time for either Bokuto or Kuroo to crack an incredibly stupid joke. Kei kind of wants someone to joke about this, just so he doesn't have to think about it himself.

Bokuto is upset and angry about being upset and he's worn and exhausted from fighting so much already. Kuroo is… after what Tooru said, Kei is honestly goddamn worried about Kuroo. Kuroo is a good person who doesn't deserve to be having some sort of breakdown in the middle of an already stressful situation.

"Has anyone yet remembered that I'm deathly afraid of heights?" Kuroo asks in a perfect deadpan as he leans over the edge with Kei.

Well, there's the joke.

Bokuto bursts out laughing. It still has an edge of harshness, but it's a far sight better than anything else. He steps out into the cold wind, and beckons them both forward with a broken talon. "C'mon, it's not so bad. There are a lot worse things to worry about than flying, aren't there?"

"I can't fly," Kei reminds him.

Kuroo leans a little further over the edge. His new wings flap behind him, more in agitation than preparation. "I'm fairly certain baby birds fall out of their nests a few times before learning to fly."

"Unfortunately for you two cowards, we don't have time for this!" Bokuto exclaims.

"Don't call me a coward!" Kuroo snarls.

Bokuto blinks over at him, frozen halfway to reaching toward Kei. Kei is actually pretty glad that the outburst stopped him from getting tugged off the roof. "Are you okay? You're okay now, right?"

Kei wonders exactly how much of Kuroo's new body had been explained to Bokuto. They couldn't pay him to be the person who explains it now. "Aren't we on a time limit?"

Bokuto yanks him off the roof.

Kei clings to him, his own fake wings curling over his shoulders like a very weird hug, and something about the sight clearly offends Bokuto. Bokuto tries to detach him, and Kei clings harder with claws he no longer has.

"Tsukki, come on," Kuroo says with a sigh.

He steps off the roof, his huge wings catching him effortlessly. It would be a very cool image, if Kei didn't see how hard Kuroo was concentrating on not looking downward.

Kuroo extends a hand to Kei.

Turns out, a first-time archdemon is a pretty shitty flier. Kei and Kuroo nearly drop from the sky, but Bokuto hauls them both back up. It's hard to tell who's shaking more, but Kei won't rat out Kuroo if he doesn't. It would be pretty shitty to die a second time.

Like some sort of reflexive self-defense mechanism, Kei manages to make more luck, and is glittering as brightly as he ever has before. He feels stupid, alternating between holding hands and trying to figure out a way to move his arms to get his wings to move himself. It doesn't last long, since Bokuto tugs him along like the world's most anxious babysitter.

They find the god too soon.

It is a radiant bulbous mass beneath them, curled halfway around a partially collapsed building. Kei can't initially pick out a head or face, not until he realizes the spike-like antlers trailing down its back are meant to attach to what it counts as a head. Still no face, but its attention is a weight.

Its presence drags at Kei, as if trying to pull him down into its jagged mouth. Its jaws open like it's ripping itself in two, unfurling farther and farther, too wide to be possible. But so, so wide. Beckoning. Demanding.

This is totally different from a glimpse of its ghostly, charmed self. This is a god, and Kei was a fool to try to do anything except offer himself meekly to it. He can't do this, he can't fool a god, he would be better use as something beyond a ghost but he can't—

A dark hand claps itself over his eyes—then pulls his glasses up onto his hair, and does it again, sealing off his vision.

Kei's throat feels wet, and his lips taste coppery.

"Uh, first rule of fighting gods: don't look straight at them," Bokuto tells him.

"Thanks for the prompt warning," Kei hoarsely snaps. "Not like this could have been a-avoided. Or something." He grasps the hand shielding his eyes, both for support and to try to tell himself he's still here. He's not halfway down into that thing's mouth.

"Guess you're more ghost than we thought," Kuroo mutters, somewhere near his ear.

Kei isn't certain if it's meant to make him feel better or not. He wants to be immune to whatever's going on here. He wants to act how an angel would.

"Did we at least get its attention?"

"Oh, yeah. Definitely," Bokuto says so casually that it only worries Kei more. "Avoid lookin' straight at it. We're not here to fight, anyway, but—"

He cuts off with a yelp and Kuroo yanks Kei backward. They almost tumble in the air, but somehow they right themselves. When he pulls his claws from his face, he finds Bokuto hacking away at a long, spidery claw.

Kei follows it down—all the way down—to the deity on the ground.

Bokuto severs it with ease, and pulls the sludgy remains from his broken feathers. "So long as it's aiming at me, I don't care. But this stuff feels disgusting."

Kuroo has yet to prove what an archdemon can do, but Kei won't push him. He is perfectly fine staying away.

"At least we know it's working as an attention grabber," Kei reasons.

When it tries to drag them out of the sky again, the sharp spear purposefully avoids Bokuto to get to Kei. Its precise movements are nearly as frightening as the speed with which it attacks.

"Let's get moving." Kuroo tugs Kei along in the air.

He tries to move his wings to keep up his stupid facade, but in extending his fake wing, the limb that Bokuto is fending off suddenly branches into half a dozen smaller, sharper points. Two go through Kei's wing, and it hurts.

"What the hell!" he shouts, diving through the air. He drops several feet, and the jagged spikes track his movements like snakes preparing to strike.

Bokuto dives for him, but the god keeps splintering into more and more pieces without ever running out. Kei doesn't understand. He's figured out enough of this stupid glamor business to know that it's real enough to hurt and control. He can use his wings to shunt himself in a chosen direction, but he has no real speed.

Bokuto fights his way toward him. The damned thing's tendrils are so thick around him it looks like he's stuck in a thorn bush. Kuroo flaps his big, too-new wings, but he's about as good at this as Kei is.

"At least flail in that direction!" Bokuto furiously shouts at them both, pointing with one foot dripping with the god's oily blood. His talons are melting, and the scaly skin on his feet seem to be going, too.

"Easier said than done!" Kuroo shouts back.

Kei regrets coming with them. He kicks away a couple of the tentacles that get too close. He doesn't have anything but human strength to back up his blow and ends up pushing himself away. He also drops a bit more in the air.

Progress.

Kei waits until it lashes out at him again, and he brings up both feet beneath him. He uses it as a springboard, and sails through the air, wings spread in a gentle glide.

I'm really flying, he marvels, just for a moment.

Kuroo is thrown into his back, and they tumble out of the sky, tangled in a heap of long limbs and useless wings. Bokuto shrieks above them. Kei wonders how he'll be able to catch them, since they're dropping like rocks and they can't untangle.

Kei hardly sees its limb lash out this time, just a huge blur ten times as big as any of the small splinters that grabbed at them above, and it bats them out of the sky like hell's biggest cat.

They hit the edge of a rooftop, collide with the building across the street, and end up sprawled across the parking lot next to it. Completely still, Kuroo lays maybe twenty feet from him, one broken wing propped upright next to him. Kei doesn't feel much like moving, either, but he's shocked he didn't die again. He's what, one third ghost, one third lower spirit, and one third higher spirit? He doesn't know how sturdy they are. He doesn't want to know.

Even with his chest screaming at him, Kei knows he still passes for alive. He's lucky.

Tendou leans over into his vision, ears perked up atop his fiery red hair. "Well, you're almost there, blondie. You two are stationary bait, and that means you're only going to get eaten, if you don't get up pretty quick."

Kei sucks in his first rattling breath purely to have enough air to spit blood up at Tendou. It lands on his cheek. His glasses had been knocked off when the god played baseball with them.

"Tout de suite!" Tendou says with a nervous look over his shoulder. "You're very close. I don't know why you suddenly felt suicidal, but don't give up halfway. If that thing stops to gloat over a dead angel, it'll figure out that you lied, and the last thing we need is another distraction." [5]

"You play distraction," Kei hisses at him. He flops his head to the side again, glaring up at Kuroo. Kuroo should be helping him argue with Tendou. Both of them should be helping him up, if time is so fucking important right now.

Kuroo is a dark, looming shadow behind Tendou, unhinging his jaws.

Kei swipes at Tendou with claws he no longer has, and his wing comes up to smack both of them. Kei rolls onto his hands and knees, coughing, and Tendou leaps away from both of them. "Sneaky, sneaky! I don't think stealth will help very much with Northot now, will it? We have precious little time before it catches up—" Tendou cuts off with a yip when Kuroo lashes out with his claws.

"Fox blood will create just as good a trail." Kuroo doesn't sound like himself.

"We just have to go a little farther," Kei snaps at him. His body protests every move, and he really wishes one of them would just drag him up to his feet at this point. "Leave him, he's not worth it."

"I'm hungry," Kuroo says, "and we can leave little bits of fur in a nice breadcrumb trail all the way to this trap."

"We had a deal! I helped you find your owl!" Tendou snarls back.

Kuroo lunges at him, and he vanishes.

Kuroo stumbles to a halt, wings and tail limp. Kei notices, with Kuroo's hair half tamped down with sweat and blood, that he has horns.

"What the hell is your problem?" Kei says as calmly as he can.

"I don't have a problem."

"You're not acting like yourself! You're never this—you don't just eat people, not doing that was your entire personality at one point! That's how you and Kenma survived this long!"

Kuroo narrows his bright eyes. It's difficult to tell with his unsettled form, but Kei thinks he's grimacing. "I won't eat Kenma. I won't eat you, if you're worried about that. I wouldn't do that to my own comrades."

Kei''s hurt that Kuroo didn't call him a friend, and he's literally never going to tell a soul about that. "I know the wings are new. This is a change. I can't even fathom it." This kind of empathy is foreign to him and he can feel that monstrous pressure seeping around the buildings like a fog. Kei presses on, "but you can't be having some sort of weird angst episode in the middle of a fight."

Kuroo gapes at him. His fury rises with his wings, until he's nearly lifting himself with his agitated flapping. Kei holds his ground before him with his best apathetic stare. If he could just get him to focus, even if it's through anger or spite, he'll consider it a victory.

A roar from behind interrupts their glaring match.

A flash of a hulking, glowing body plows toward them, and Kei throws up an arm to shield his eyes. His wing follows the movement and curls around his face. While Kuroo could probably figure out the flying thing, Kei certainly can't.

Bokuto pelts out of the sky, grabs Kuroo around the middle and zips off down the street.

Leaving Kei alone.

"You assholes!" he screams after them.

Bokuto shouts something over his shoulder, but he's too far away to hear. Kei tears down the road after him. Bokuto takes a sharp right, out of sight, and Kei grits his teeth and changes direction. He can hear the monstrous fuck behind him closing in.

Kei runs through the closed doors of an empty fast food place. Neither walls, nor counters, nor the freezer in the back stops him. He's still glowing brightly enough himself to create a weird sort of illumination for himself like a really shitty flashlight, and he supposes it's all the luck that stops him from getting stuck anywhere.

When he pops out into the alley behind the building, he hears the god angrily tearing at the storefront.

Kei runs through the next, and the one after that, before coming out on the street the next block over. Bokuto, Kuroo hanging in his arms like an oversized, particularly surly cat, has landed on a flickering streetlight halfway down. "This way!" he calls, and takes to the air again.

"Wait up, jackass!" Of course, the tengu doesn't listen to him. What a shock.

Dust and smoke shoot into the air behind him, accompanied by the loud crash of concrete coming down. Kei starts running again.

He knows it's his job to be bait, and he knows this had been stupid from the beginning, but he resents every moment of this. He's going to demand to get back in the air at the soonest possible moment.

Bokuto leads him like the worst white rabbit in history. Kei's lungs are burning, mightily protesting the rough treatment. He's not used to this much exercise. Even the mind-numbing terror fades a bit when he's two blocks from the god.

But then, they're there.

He's not as good with runes as Tadashi is, but it'd be difficult to forget Ushijima's magic circle, even on a bigger scale. It takes up about half of the parking lot, with cars and trucks shoved haphazardly out of the way. Tendou, a fox again, with a bag hanging from his neck, hovers halfway between Bokuto and the distant figure of Ushijima.

"Well," Tendou calls jovially, "at least we're ready this time!"

Ushijima says something in that dead monotone of his, but Kei is too far to hear him. So they made it. Now they can kindly fuck off again, and this can all be dumped on Ushijima's lap.

Kei feels uneasy about all of this unknown magic spread out before him. Bokuto seems similarly disinclined, but Kuroo appears completely disinterested—attention fixed on Tendou again.

"What exactly are you doing here?" Bokuto calls over, glaring at the foreign runes.

"Why does it matter to you? Thanks for fulfilling our deal!"

"Is this even going to work?"

Kei can hear the god getting closer. There are no nearby buildings to use as cover now, just the way he came and the far end of the parking lot. "Bokuto, I think we should go. It's not our problem."

"That thing has become my problem," Bokuto growls, but he flaps over to Kei and hauls him into the air. In a lower voice, he whispers, "I don't trust them. Yeah, he knew where Keiji was, but this is a lot of human magic I don't know."

"I can't read it. Tadashi or Kenma could. Let it be their problem. We have people to get back to."

Bokuto looks as if Kei had struck him. Kei feels guilty and he has no idea why. He hates it.

"Right, right, let's go," Bokuto mumbles, his feathers drooping along with his entire being, and he tugs Kei along behind him toward Kuroo.

Before they even clear the roof of the nearest building, the god bursts into the parking lot.

-.-.-

Forward momentum carries Northot's bulging body several steps toward the circle, but it slows. Wakatoshi feels its presence tugging at his mind. He has cast protection charms on himself, and he only needs a moment.

Wakatoshi jogs around so he's squarely on the opposite side of the circle. Even if their temporary allies haven't vacated the area yet, even if Tendou hovers along one side, there is nothing on this plane Northot wants more than Wakatoshi.

Northot winds around itself, a nightmarish mixture of a snake and a centipede, puzzled over the magic. Wakatoshi doesn't think it knows the meaning of caution, but it has always been fascinated by magics. Perhaps it thinks it can eat this. Perhaps it is concerned about another phasing spell.

Soon enough, it uncurls with a sinister chuckle. "Yh̡a̶fh̢'dr̕n̡," it rumbles, terribly amused, many teeth curling up and up in a smile Wakatoshi struggles to tear his eyes from. Wakatoshi rubs at them, and yet again, they come away wet with blood.

Athena, wrapped up in his coat behind him, peeps very softly. Reassuring as he faces down a god.

Tendou carefully circles around them and Northot slithers forward, finally into the spellwork painted onto the ground. Wakatoshi's magic tingles in his fingers, but he bides his time. The magic circle may be large, but only the center will open. He needs to ensure Northot ends up there before activating anything.

No more rushed spells.

"I͢s ̶t̷h̵is͜ it?̶ Is̡ this ̶y͝our̸ ͠great,͟ ͏la̛st̶ pl͢a̢n?" Northot croons with a voice like broken glass. "Y͘o̶u a̢r͠e ͜ca̛pa͟bļe ͠of͡ ̢s͞uch ͘th͏i̶n̷gs, bu̡t̨ ̛t͢his̢ ͝do͟es no͜t i̧mpres̛s mȩ."

"Good thing he's not trying then, hm?" Tendou points out from a safe distance.

"I͏ kno͟w ̡h͡o̧w ̕to s̡t̛op͘ your ̵mag͠i͘c ͟n̨ow̸,̕ y̴h͠a͝f͜h'̨d̨rn̛."

With Athena at his back and life and magic thrumming through his veins, nothing can stop Ushijima Wakatoshi. Not even a god. "You don't, and you can't."

He crouches down, and with a push of magic, activates his plan.

In a flash, Northot lashes out, and Wakatoshi braces himself.

But it does not aim at him, or his familiar behind him.

"I ̛kn̶o͢w h̨o̧w y̢ou ͟c͢a͘re!"

Tendou zips along through its grabbing, dagger-like fingers, too close to jump into empty space.

"No!" Wakatoshi hoarsely shouts, but he can't even lift himself from the spell. He cannot stop it once started.

He pushes more and more magic into it, hurrying it. The asphalt cracks beneath his glowing runes, and magic crackles around them. Northot grabs Tendou by a leg, but he burns it off, and makes another dash for freedom.

Once Wakatoshi's done opening it, he can carve through Northot himself, but he's frozen. It's agony. He feels like he's waiting for a gunshot, waiting for Tendou to go still and silent. The realm door opens beneath Northot like a gaping maw.

Northot startles, attention snapping downward, entire body bristling into spikes and spires of alarm. The alien world's light makes it shine pearlescent, almost beautiful in its panic. Wakatoshi allows himself a small smile when it finally opens and he can stand again.

"N͘͡o̵̵̧͠͡!͏" Northot roars with a fury like a sun.

It claws its way out of the portal, sinking even so, but it will snap shut again in seconds. Again, it whips tendrils over toward Tendou, then at Wakatoshi, raging and flailing with the panic of a dying mortal.

Wakatoshi would dare say he's satisfied.

He slices off an arm that comes too close to Athena and pulls blood from the splatter for a blade. He uses a wind-slice-sharp spell to cut off two tendrils about to catch Tendou, and Tendou darts toward him with a happy, wild sort of cackle.

Northot grabs Tendou out of midair and shoves a spearpoint finger through Wakatoshi's throat.

"R̕e̕l͠e҉͏a̕͡s̡e̛͞ ̵͞me!" Northot snarls and drags Tendou down with him.

It probably intends for a longer threat. It probably imagines it has more time, dropping into another realm as it is, and that Wakatoshi is consciously controlling this.

Tendou shifts between forms, burning away everything that touches him, but it's not enough. Wakatoshi rips Northot out of himself, sucking in a wet breath, but it leaves him a hacking cough instead of what he so desperately wishes to call.

Northot lunges at him, body stretching and thinning until it's a splinter of the half-melted mass sinking below, and opens itself wider with too many teeth and no face to hold them.

Wakatoshi beheads it the moment the spell slams shut.

Suddenly too dark, his vision swims. The air is thick with foreign magic.

Tendou is gone.

The remaining piece of Northot, writhing at Wakatoshi's feet like a worm, begins laughing.

-.-.-

(( A/N: i miss suga. i'm sure he's fine, though.

Mon oisillon. = "My little bird."
Neredeyim. = "Where am I."
Je suis un renard sans peur en ce moment. = "I am a fox without fear right now."
Monsieur chouette. = "Mister owl."
Tout de suite! = "Right now!" ))