The gang was in the basement, sitting on a wooden box. This was the same box where Yuno had her talk with King George. Tsubaki was near the tunnel, with a knife in her hand.

"This is gonna hurt." She sighed. "Not two days goes by when I stop cutting, and now I actually have to do it," she muttered under her breath.

She cut her left wrist horizontally, and dripped the blood onto the stone floor in the shape of an "X". More of her blood fell onto the floor, this time in a long horizontal line through the "X", with an outward facing crescent moon on each side. Starting in the middle of the "X", she began to create a long, downward line, which she turned into inverted cross. When she was finished, she drew another inverted cross on the other side of the "X", except this one was unconnected to the rest of the gruesome drawing. She drew a "U" through the top of the inverted cross, turning it into a trident, completing her bloody work of art.

Tsubaki reached into her pocket and pulled out a white cloth. She wrapped it around her wrist to stop the bleeding. She took out a salt shaker from a pocket inside her robe, and sprinkled a circle of it around the bloody symbol. She put it back in her robe and took out a Tarot card, the Ten Of Wands. She placed it in the middle of the symbol.

"Okay, now I'm gonna need some parsley."

"Right here," said Yuki as he took out some parsley from his pants pocket and gave it to her.

"Do you just carry parsley around with you all the time?" asked Takao.

"Yeah."

"...Okay, then."

Tsubaki placed the parsley on top of the card.

"Alright, I probably should've told you guys this earlier, but we're gonna need some gold."

"Where the hell are we going to get gold?" asked Karyuudo, who had a gold tooth. Everyone looked at him. "Well, surely, you don't expect me to give you my damn tooth!"

"Karyuudo, it's for Yuno."

"Fuck Yuno, I'm not giving you my tooth-" He was interrupted by Yuki punching him in the mouth, knocking his tooth out.

"Here you go."

"Thanks, Yuki," said Tsubaki as she took the tooth out of his hand and put it on top of the parsley. "Now I'm gonna need eight dark blue candles."

"I have some," said Kamado as she produced them from a bag she was carrying. "They're blueberry-scented."

"Just what we need to lighten up this Satanic ritual." Tsubaki placed the candles around the circle, one in each of the eight directions. She pulled a lighter out from her robe and lit both the candles and the parsley.

"I CALL UPON THE FIFTY-FOURTH SPIRIT, WHO IS CALLED MURMUR, OR MURMUS, OR MURMUX!" she shouted. "HE WHO IS A GREAT DUKE, AND AN EARL, AND APPEARETH IN THE FORM OF A WARRIOR RIDING UPON A GRYPHON, WITH A DUCAL CROWN UPON HIS HEAD! THERE DO GO BEFORE HIM THOSE HIS MINISTERS, WITH GREAT TRUMPETS SOUNDING! HE WHOSE OFFICE IS TO TEACH PHILOSOPHY PERFECTLY, AND TO CONSTRAIN SOULS DECEASED TO COME BEFORE THE EXORCIST TO ANSWER THOSE QUESTIONS WHICH HE MAY WISH TO PUT TO THEM, IF DESIRED!"

The flames started to grow.

"HE WHO WAS PARTLY OF THE ORDER OF THRONES, AND PARTLY THAT OF ANGELS! HE WHO NOW RULETH THIRTY LEGIONS OF SPIRITS!"

The flames grew larger.

"Tsubaki, something's happening!" said Yuno.

"AND HIS SEAL IS THIS!"

The flames shot upwards to the ceiling, creating an intense heat throughout the room.

"TSUBAKI!"

"GREAT DUKE MURMUR, REVEAL THYSELF! IN THE NAME OF THE LORD THY GOD, I COMMAND YOU!"

Fire filled the room, incinerating the box. It shot up the stairs and into the tunnel, filling the house. Oddly enough, perhaps due to being Diary Holders and an artificial human, the gang was untouched, although very hot and uncomfortable. The HOLON IV, which was at the other side of the room, was also unharmed due to Murmur having built it. The house and their possessions were also unharmed, as it and everything inside of it (except for the old box that nobody owned, which Yuki had found in a dumpster one day, and was going to be used for Christmas decorations, but ultimately wasn't) was protected by Deus.

A cloud of vultures erupted from the symbol, which had now dried up. The parsley had been vaporized, while the candles and tooth had melted. To an outsider, it would have seemed as if the hundreds, if not thousands of vultures had simply disappeared. But the gang saw every detail of their deaths. The vultures were in slow motion, screeching as loud as they could in agony. Their black feathers slowly burned away. Their scorched flesh emitted smoke until it was completely incinerated. Their blood, saliva, and all other fluids boiled and evaporated. Their bones turned black and disintegrated. The fire had changed color, from red and orange to violet and white.

While nothing in the house except for the box was destroyed, that's not to say the inferno didn't affect it. The doors were forced off of their hinges; the front and back doors were pushed into the ground. The windows had flown out of the windowpanes and were flying through the air like Frisbees, followed by the doorknobs, hinges, and the gang's possessions. For years to come, scientists would debate the authenticity of a picture of a horse vibrator speeding through the air at Mach 10. The upstairs walls had been pushed into the ground. The roof was currently orbiting the Earth and approaching a NASA satellite. Nigger Man and Karyuudo's dogs were unharmed, but both very confused and very annoyed. In the Dreamlands, the cats, Ghouls, Nightgaunts, and other creatures barely noticed the slight rise in heat.

However, nothing was technically damaged, just misplaced.

In the basement, the melted candles had fused to the stone floor, merging with the circle of salt, which had also melted. The gang was floating through the raging inferno, unable to hear their own screams of terror. While this had been, a dark shadow had been slowly materializing within the salt circle. It was horrific, and nearly indescribable. The gang caught only brief flashes of the monster's features; a massive, outstretched wing here, a gigantic arm there. Eventually, the shadow shrank into the familiar shape of Murmur. The fire disappeared and the gang fell on the floor. Tsubaki passed out and was thrown against the wall.

"Fuck. I haven't had a summoning that intense since Lil Wayne!"

Tsubaki woke up and groaned. "Ugh. Is the asshole here?"

"Yeah," said Aru. "You did it, babe. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. It's just that channeling both holy and unholy magic kinda took a lot out of me."

"You guys are lucky that Deus protects this place. This circle was fifteen million degrees Kelvin! That's as hot as the Sun's core!" Murmur laughed. "So what have you dumbfucks called me here for?"

"We wanna ask you about Yuno's dreams. They're being haunted by a creature that looks like Yuki, has memory-erasing powers, and is somehow connected to you."

"Well...I might have resurrected the dead Diary Holders of an alternate universe."

"You can resurrect the dead?"

"Not here. Here, I can only talk to them. The universe I went to, Earth-1A, was flooded with divine energy. That caused my powers to go out of control. I went their to test my abilities, and maybe get an undead slave out of it. When a Diary Holder dies, their body disintegrates into a portal to the afterlife. I caught one when it was about to disappear, and...well, things got out of hand. It calls itself Diabolus Ex Machina, the 'Devil From The Machine'."

"'It'?"

"Well, by the time I got there, this thing had been decaying for some time. The divine energy might have caused it to stay in that Earth's version of Deus' pocket dimension instead of disappearing. I guess it just took some time for it to disintegrate. Anyway, Diabolus was barely recognizable as a human. That universe's Deus, Satan, angels, and demons had all reached the end of their lifespan and died. Diabolus and I were the strongest things in the universe.

I was feeling all proud of myself, until Diabolus started talking. It just kept going on and on about how it hated Deus and that it needed Yuki. Creeped the shit out of me. It revived the Diary Holders and Aru and took over the world. My magic gave them superhuman abilities. Then it threw me out! After everything I did for it! And to top it all of, Deus enslaved me!

The only ones it didn't revive were Yuno and Yuki. Yuno had died on Earth-1C, and her soul never reached the afterlife. I don't know where it is. I thought that Diabolus might have been Yuki, but the existence of the creature you're describing seems to disprove that. But since Diabolus never revived Yuki, I have no idea where it might have come from.

According to Moloch, another demon I hang out with sometimes, your creature is somewhere on Earth-YY-1, far away from here. It could be projecting its mind into Yuno's dreams, while its body is on Earth-YY-1. That's all I know."

"Well, that doesn't tell us anything useful."

"Now send me back to Deus' pocket dimension."

"After you fix the house."

Murmur sighed. "Fine." He snapped his fingers and the house was fixed. All of the gang's possessions were back in their rightful places. "Can I go now?"

"GREAT DUKE MURMUR, I CAST YOU OUT OF THIS MORTAL PLANE!"

Murmur disappeared. The only evidence he was ever there was his red symbol on the floor, a dark blue and white circle that smelled of blueberries and tasted like hot, salty wax, a golden card that Tsubaki placed in a pocket in her robe, and the ashes of thousands of vultures, spread out in piles around the room.

Yuno sighed. "So all of this was for nothing. I'm going to bed." She got up and walked upstairs. The rest of the gang followed her until only Yuki and Aru were left.

"Are you alright, Yuki?"

"Aru, my girlfriend, the love of my life who I'd do anything to protect, is being tortured by something that looks just like me, I just learned I can't do anything about it, and I've just pissed myself for the first time since Christmas Eve. No. I'm not alright. I feel like I'm gonna cry and hit someone at the same time." He sighed. "I've never felt more scared, weak, and hopeless in my entire life."

Yuki walked upstairs. Aru turned off the basement light and followed him.