TW: body horror
this trigger warning is in effect for the remainder of the fic, as angels here start getting in a real biblical sense. i've hinted at it earlier, with some of their true forms bleeding through, but expect this for the rest of the story as angels start getting all final-boss in here
there is an additional TW for this chapter though.
major character death.
i hope thats kind of expected at this point but still
figured one more warning wouldn't hurt.
"Heeeeeeello Tokyo! Great day for some zombies, ain't it?" The Master of Masters pitched a laugh as he descended, landing on the roof of a truck outside the Square Enix building, looking down on the mass of oblivious people. He was a man with an agenda, all right, though what it really was… well. It's a mystery to everyone. It always seems to be.
He pointed a hand, outstretched. "Mary Poppins! Long time no see. And I mean a veeeeery long time. How are you not dead?"
Mary grit her teeth. If this man knew who she was, and just how old, well.
She wasn't giving him any more fuel for his fire.
"Sod off," she spat.
"Ohhhh, listen to that accent!" the man in black said sweetly, spinning on a pirouette and faking a swoon. "Like music to my ears. What's that then, Industrial London?"
"You leave. Now," Myde screamed, drawing his Keyblade from the aether.
"Now, now, now. Doesn't that look a bit familiar. You're from one of the old noble houses. Too bad you were lazy, huh? Or did that laziness save you in the end? Or was it… I dunno… cowardice?"
The man snapped his fingers, and his shadow shook angrily. Creatures, not quite Noise, not quite Heartless, and just a smidge Unversed if Vanitas had his say, began to rise from the concrete. The Not-Quites started to writhe and jerk their way towards the mass of possessed human wall in a slow but deliberate crawl on too-long arms and too-short legs.
"My Conductor won't kill a living person, not in a million years. But hey... I'm not her."
"You wouldn't!" Mary shouted, concerned. "You can't!"
"Oh I won't," the man said with a shrug. "But I'm not them." He swept his hands toward the hoard at his feet, and with a flourish and a puff of smoke, vanished.
Myde looked up to Mary. "May I have thissss dancccce?"
Mary smiled gently, bent down, and kissed her little goblin on the forehead, hissing into his ear. "It would be my pleasssssure."
"Oh ye, ye hear the tale of my beloved?
For she sailed the sea above'd
And when she captain'd ship and and worked,
She made the sky her one true love'd!"
Mary and Myde grinned, spinning and sing-shouting while strumming their Keyblades, having never quite forgotten the ancient sky pirate reel. They circled around the mass of Not-Quites, shepherding them away from the zombified humans. Joshua and Gabriel must have gotten the hint, from the din of the two musical Keyblade wielders' unusual fighting, and the mass of people began to disperse away from the spot on their own.
Myde strummed a power chord, much like he'd done on his Nobody weapon, shooting a powerful pressurized jet of water straight at a pile of the blackish purple creatures. About half a dozen bowled over from the pressure, flattening to ooze. Quickly, they regenerated into a larger, singular mass, charging again. Mary nodded to her husband, flicking her wrist. Her keyblade shot not water, but a harsh stream of fire.
An unholy scream erupted from the mass. It sounded almost human, and Mary jumped back a little.
"I can't fight these!" she cried. "I think they're people! Or were."
Gabriel swooped over. She mantled her wings high on her back and glared after Mary. "You're a solider."
"I fought Heartless. Killing them only brought the people killed by them back to life."
Gabriel frowned. "Touché. Then I ask you to get the hell away, because I don't know if it's a trick or these are real souls, and I don't have the time to find out. And these creatures seem weak to flame."
"But!"
"Butts are for sitting," Gabriel said with a grin. "Stay with the crowd. It's time I flexed my own magic."
She fanned out her wings, setting them aflame with a thought. Her dress alighted into a black inferno, and, one by one, whitish-blue eyes blinked open over her entire blazing form, which was peeling away in flame to be nothing more than a tiny red-outlined rat among a mass of six burning graffiti wings.
Her voice came from her entire body, reverberating like a cracked whisper.
Go to Hell.
Coco rattled at the chains surrounding the oversized, beaten up canvas bag, drinking in every drop of power as the teenager inside it tried to recharge subconsciously. She'd have none of that, thank you, at least not until she herself had drunk her fill.
Coco rolled her eyes. "Have to do, I suppose. The first thing I'm supposed to do is…" she babbled to herself, looking down at the tableau below her from her perch, "take out Riku. He shouldn't exist. A Keyblade wielder who's never once been a Nobody but can use the darkness?"
She hocked up a ball of spittle and pitched it down to the crowd below. "I don't understand half of what comes out of that stupid codger's mouth but I'll be damned to Hell before I pass up the opportunity to have some no-questions-asked fun. Isn't that right, 'Mister Battery'?"
Breathing in one last bit of energy, Coco leapt down with a grin.
"Hihi!"
"Coco!" Sora shouted. "This ends now!"
"Yeah, was kinda thinking the same thing," Coco said brightly. "Gimmie back what's mine."
Without thought, Sora flicked his fingers, calling forth his keyblade, holding it crosswise to guard Riku. Kairi nodded, doing the same, her ornate flower guard over Sora's.
"Go," Kairi demanded. "Take Riku. I'll take her on."
"Ohh, how sweet, your little Reaper girlfriend is trying to take the hit for you. Too bad I don't care about you yet. Riku goes down first, then I can take my time ripping every last strand of magic from you. Tell me, Riku, do you know what I took from you, you know, when you entered my Game?"
"I was someone else's fee," Riku said through grit teeth as the trio circled on the pavement to protect Riku and keep Coco in their sights. Kairi was slightly in front, ready to take the hit if necessary. She knew Uriel would keep her word about the Game to come if she did die. But Sora and Riku would have no such third chance.
"But why did you end up here?" Coco said sweetly. "You did have a fee, Riku. It was your friends. That you couldn't be with them. And yet, here you are with all your little dead friends, oh no, that won't do. Your supposed to be my plaything. MINE."
Riku felt it before he saw it. It was harsh, all points and record scratches and the air felt like swallowing broken glass.
Coco.
It wasn't so much a voice as it was a feeling, but the trio knew immediately who it was.
Uriel was cold and white, and jittered as she stepped forward on four skeletal graffiti hooves. Her horse head pointed downwards with a painted, but still likely horribly sharp to Reapers, spiraled unicorn horn.
I don't want to kill you, Coco. But you give me no choice.
"Oh, now you're invested. After everyone I've shredded? How does it feel to have all that blood on your manicured little hands? Hypocrite."
It's not on my hands.
"Oh what, because you don't have hands? Hah. You're a riot. At least I'm consistent."
They're not on my hands because you haven't killed anyone, Coco.
"Well yeah duh. They're already dead. Just puttin' these stupid little things to rest. If they can't survive my hell, it's not my problem, is it? That's certainly what you stupid angels use to justify yoursleves."
Look, I can't even with you.
...Die.
Sora wasn't sure, but a wave of sadness washed over him. Uriel's sadness. Despite being a bit of a self-righteous jerk, she did care.
With an unholy shriek, she charged.
Time seemed to stand still. Anyone who knew Uriel's specialty would be quick to assume it was her doing. Unfortunately, this was not the case.
Uriel screamed so primordially it shattered the pavement below her, and time itself seemed to jitter.
A man in a black coat- THE man in a black cloak- stood between Uriel and her target, her undulating living graffiti horn held firm between his pointer and middle fingers like it wasn't the bare firmament of an angel, but a piece of children's sidewalk chalk.
"Not the first Unicorn I've had to put in their place, but… what can you do?" he said, a smile to his voice as he twisted his fingers. Starting from the horn and spreading outwards, the loose, looping, flowing white lines of graffiti that comprised Uriel began to stiffen, then crack, sliding away in wisps from her form.
"NOOOOOOO!" Sora screamed, falling to his knees.
"Oh, come off it," the man said shrugging. "This is her domain, she'll pop right back like the world's most annoying zit. It's like those guys in the game world- die in your own game and 'blip!' five seconds later, back to hunky dory Bob's your uncle."
Coco just put her hands on her hips. "Can you quit it with the old-people talk already? You're ruining the moment."
"I mean, I can! Absolutely could. But I won't."
Coco made a high pitched whine and threw her hands up. "Look, there has to be someone I can murder, right?"
"Not the ones with the swords, Coco," the black-clad man said, suddenly snapped to perfect near-monotone seriousness. "They're not real Reapers. It's just a cloak of glamor… or the World's heart doing it. Leave them be."
"Heart this, heart that, I've been hearing nothing but Hearts and Light and other weird cryptic BS from you for weeks now! Just tell me whose arm I can twist until it snaps! I'm sick of being told to kill then not kill people! Just! Make! Up! Your! Damn-"
"Lay off them!" boomed a voice over the din.
A fire raced across the pavement, and Isa and Lea stepped through. Lea's eyes were crackling with energy as he raised an open palm again.
The black hooded man walked up to them.
"Keyblade masters?" he asked sweetly.
Both looked confused, and, as if to demonstrate his point like Riku had done a few nights earlier for Tomo, the man lunged for Lea. The redhead blocked the blow with the first thing that came to reflex, which, given his years of combat training without a key, let alone a sword weapon of any type, led him to instinctively cross his arms and put up a defensive wall of black-hot fire.
The man seemed pleased.
"Kill this one, he's a real Reaper." And with whatever machanations he had in his head satisfied, the man simply walked away. Kairi pressed backwards on Sora and Riku, glaring at them not to follow.
Lea was going to be their ticket.
And if one looked closely- very closely, far better than I ever actually could- one might have seen the faintest hint of a smile on the redhead's face as he drew his fists, covered in flame.
Coco practically giggled as she threw up a barrier around them.
"Yay! Super fun times now!" she cried gleefully. "Hey, before I kill you, what's your art?"
Lea looked down and away. It was an odd question to ask before murdering someone, before remembering the practice rooms from the night before. His art. The creativity the reapers and angels all did to hone their skills.
"…I cook," he answered honestly. "Or I'm trying to. Most of the time it just blows up in my face."
"Ohhhhhh?" A black spray-paint line whipped from nowhere lifting Lea up by the neck. "Tell me to my face. I don't think you do anything at all."
"You… you steal other people's creativity, suck it all up like it's some kind of… well, like food," Lea said, realization dawning as he could feel her start to poke around near his mind. Enough years of Xehanort doing that and he'd gotten extremely good at mental deflection. "I doubt you have a creative bone in your body you didn't take from someone else." He grinned, despite the ever-increasing strain on his neck and shoulders.
She threw him with the black not-tentacle, and he crashed into the wall of the barrier, bouncing a few times on the pavement, woozily. When he looked up, he saw double… and Coco's arms aflame, from the elbow down, just like his had been.
"DON'T LIE TO ME!" she screamed, bounding towards him to bash him repeatedly.
Lea was prepared to die, given the proposed outcome. He just wished the ~ying part of it all would hurry up a bit.
It hurt.
Not just his body either, Somewhere, in the back of his mind, all he could think was how bad her fisticuffs form really was. She had no business punching like that; if she were alive she'd have already broken her hands. Maybe they were broken already and she was fighting through it in some idiot-headed superiority.
She'd moved on from fists to claws with her black-ribbon graffiti, and Lea howled in pain as she started drawing actual blood.
And then, as quick as she'd started, she froze.
She'd torn open the inside of Lea's jacket, covered in Joshua's blood and stuffed with his feathers and she howled.
"No.NononononononoNO!" she cried as she punted Lea against the barrier, hard enough that it shattered. "You're a fake too! You're a trap, alive, aren't you?! No way in Hell am I going to finish that job."
"You won't kill the living?" Isa cried, as he bounded over to Lea, pressing hands for what little magic he'd managed to relearn, a soothing spell to at least stop Lea's misery.
"Of course I won't, you absolute moron! I hate your stupid human wall. Once I heard about it, I set up that restriction so I could pick you off like… like something easy, that's what, you idiot! And then you- YOU!- have the audacity to solicit help from LIVING PEOPLE?" she waggled her finger at Joshua. "I'd rip off your wings if you'd stand still a minute! Who gets help from licing people? Who asks for help from ANYONE?"
"So I'm the hypocrite then?" Gabriel asked, landing neatly at the front of the circle of humans that was slowly closing in around Coco. The black clad man who seemed to have done something to instigate it all just sat on a parking divider, watching the show and letting the tiny Reaper girl take every bit of the heat she so judiciously deserved. "It's only okay when you break the rules?"
Coco huffed. "I haven't broken any rules."
From the back of the crowd, Neku huffed a small snort.
"Not yet, you haven't."
"Vanitas," Neku hissed. "I'm pushing us to the front of this mess."
"You don't have to ask my permission," Vanitas replied dryly.
"I kinda do, you can't see."
Vanitas turned red. "Er… the haze faded like fifteen minutes ago. When the last of the Noise disappeared."
"Then why are you still holding me like your life depended on it?"
Vanitas didn't really have an answer to that.
"Forget it," Neku huffed. "And I don't mean that as a negative. You'd be in danger if Coco cornered you. I wouldn't be."
Neku carefully peeled his hand off Vanitas's arm and stormed forward, pushing the mindless people away until he broke through to the front.
"That's all this is about isn't it?" he growled low in the circle surrounding Coco. "You're a bored teenager, and this is what you do for fun. You're a Reaper, for fuck's sake. Don't you do some kind of art? And I don't mean tracing other people's work and slapping your own signature on it."
"Kid, don't!" Lea croaked, Isa putting hands on him to heal, knowing that Coco didn't have a mind to actually kill him, just toy with him.
"She can't hurt me, and she knows that," Neku hissed. "You just want a punching bag. I can't be harmed by the Reapers. So, go on. Blow off some steam then."
"Fuck you and fuck off!" Coco cried, furious, slapping Neku in the face. Or, at least, she attempted to. Her hand merely bounced away.
"I know you," Neku said, staring her straight in the eyes as she drew into a fury. "I was you. Joshua was you. Angry, feeling powerless…"
"I AM NOT POWERLESS."
"Despite having clear artistic talent, not using it for some reason… I mean, you had to have something, or you wouldn't have become a Player in the first place. What changed, Coco?"
"I'M A GOOD FASHION DESIGNER," she whined, continuing to swat at the air around Neku's head as he stood in place, eyes fixed on her.
"I'm sure of it," Neku said, voice even and calm as her thrashing grew more pronounced. "But you'll be a great one if you stop letting your district go to shit."
Coco's arms fell to her sides. For almost a second, Neku thought he might have put a dent in her mental armor. He'd faced worse before, and walked away unscathed.
"SHUT UP AND DIE," Coco wailed.
Neku sighed. He knew. He knew since he took stock of the situation. Coco was like Joshua had been, how he himself had been- the feeling of ennui seeing into his pores despite having a hobby he loved and was good at. Gabriel had handicrafts, Uriel had makeup. Joshua sang, Neku tagged and sketched, and still. And still there were days, weeks, possibly for the angels even months and years when their creative juices simply wouldn't flow. When they drifted.
Lost, purposeless. Especially if they had no support from family or peers- like Neku had before receiving that not-really mysterious scholarship for art school.
Useless.
Sometimes all it made you want to do was rage. Pour your cosmetics down the toilet, rip out seams, take a can of red paint and spray giant X's over everyone's work, not just your own…
Destroy. Destroy everything around you until it was as bereft as you were. It was so easy, to just let yourself slip. It felt good to be hated when you couldn't be loved.
"Is that what you want, Coco?" Neku asked quietly.
"DIE IN A FIRE, YOU… DISGUSTING… BOY!" Coco cried out, raising both fists, covered in a sphere of stolen pyrokinetic energy each.
Neku mumbled something quietly under his breath just before she struck down on him.
"Well…
you have my
…permission."
Time seemed to freeze as Neku's charred corpse thudded to the pavement.
Maybe… just maybe… it's because I willed it so.
Coco stared at her own hands as the sea of a human wall parted. Ienzo had felt a shudder, like the world had been tipped slightly off its axis, and led the crew in the van towards where the mass of bodies converged. Uriel began to pool back, first as a spray-painted drawing on the pavement under Komaeda's feet, before pulling her back and out into humanish-looking three dimensions.
Joshua was leaking gold at his seams, sharp angular graffiti threatening to split his human form apart like a hot butter knife through cream.
"You didn't just kill a living human, Coco, he said, going from using words to mere thoughts mid-sentence.
You killed a human who has won the Game three times, and can never play again.
And worst of all, this single, insignificant human, more so than any supernatural bastard in the entire universe, was my best friend.
If you won't suffer the wrath of God, Coco…
you'll
suffer
mine.