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An Oddzilla Productions fanfic, by Andrew Huang.
Guard the Future, chapter 9.
Based on Fujishima Kosuke's "Aa! Megami-sama!"
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Even as I stumbled forward, reeling from the hit, I snapped my wings out and summoned Heaven's Knuckle to my hand. I quickly twisted around and dropped to a partial crouch, hammer behind me in one hand, free hand placed on the ground for balance, struggling against the dizziness. My eyes flickered around, looking for whoever had just struck me.

I didn't have to look too hard. In front of me was a man of average height and short hair, from his silhouette; I couldn't make out details that well with the streetlights shining behind him. He was slowly walking toward me, shaking his hand as if it pained him.

"You have a remarkably hard head," he said, in a smooth baritone voice. "I suppose I won't be trying that again."

Ah, so he was going to be a wiseass. A million retorts, jibes, searing insults and rejoinders bubbled up in my mind.

"You hit me!" I blurted out.

He paused. "Er...yes, that I did."

For some reason I just couldn't stop myself. "I mean, you just walked up behind me and slugged me in the head! What the hell kind of a bastard does that? I can understand a stab in the back, or an attack spell, or shooting someone like that, but a punch? Come on, I mean, really! Argh." I winced, shook my head, felt my brain stabilize and the throbbing pain that had been radiating out from the back of my head go away.

"Are you quite done?" my attacker said, sounding just a shade uncertain.

"Yeah, sorry abou...screw that, I'm not apologizing to you." I glared up at him. "So who exactly are you, demon?"

"Ah, right." He sounded more sure of himself now. "Someone who'd like to thank you for ruining our carefully orchestrated plans this afternoon. Do you have any idea how many things we had to pull to get that organ transplant sidetracked?" He sighed, shook his head. "All that work for nothing."

Numerous bursts of demonic energy, Belldandy had said. I grinned. "So sorry to have gotten in your way." I shifted my weight slowly as the demon drew near; I was finally able to make out his face--classically handsome, in a rather cold way. And his demon markings, two wavy lines in the same place where Mara's were.

I could also now see the sword he wore on his back, and noted the way the light shone off its black hilt and handle, done in a medieval European style. He reached back to draw it, and the alarm bells in my head heightened. That was a nasty piece of work. The blade looked...thirsty.

It was a good idea to keep him far away, I decided--probably also wouldn't have time to put up a shielding spell that could even slow that sword down--and whipped my left hand upward, sending several shards of ice at him. But he simply batted them aside with a leisurely flick of the sword.

"It'll take more than that if you want to protect your precious Future," he said, sounding almost bored, and tossed a small forcebolt at me. I dodged it easily, and started circling to his left. I flung another set of ice projectiles at him and again, he blocked with ease. "My turn now."

He suddenly blurred forward, and the sword clanged into the haft of Heaven's Knuckle. The demon grinned at me, amused. I just snarled and shoved back at him. And then he unleashed a larger forcebolt into my stomach.

This sent me flying into the concrete wall that was in front of the apartment complex, making me grunt in pain. I pushed off the wall, only to get slashed lightly on the arm. I winced and could feel my arm weaken momentarily--that sword sapped my energy when it cut. If it had been deeper...well, worry about that later.

I swung with Heaven's Knuckle, which he deflected. But he looked surprised, just for a moment. "Well, not bad, though not near good enough, either." He shoved my hammer aside and landed another shallow, briefly paralyzing cut on my side. I winced, and then took a quick blow to the side of the head from the flat of his sword. Again, I stumbled backward, trying to gain some distance to reorient myself.

He let me have it, and just looked at me curiously while I panted. "Hmm. I see."

The next flurry of forcebolts were more difficult to dodge. I leapt to the side, out of the way of most of them, and barely blocked the last of them with the head of Heaven's Knuckle, which glowed slightly from the impact. I grunted, crouched, and launched myself forward with another wide one-handed swing; again, he blocked and locked weapons with me. Instead of shoving me off this time, though, he slid the blade of his sword down the handle--I shifted grips to avoid losing my fingers--and slashed again, forcing me to twist to the side. His free hand lifted up, I turned to dodge another forcebolt--

And he cut off part of my left wing.

Aaaaaaaaaooooowwwwww.

I crumpled to my knees, eyes bulging. This was the first time my wings had gotten damaged; I hadn't even considered what hurting them would feel like. I managed to keep enough presence of mind to hold Heaven's Knuckle out in front of me in a defensive position, but damned if I knew what I could do beyond that.

But he just stood there, staring down at me. "Tsk. How sad. Really, how are you going to be of any use if you're going to let yourself be faked out so easily? Not to mention being unable to handle a little bit of pain. Maybe we don't have to adjust our plans so much after all. Not on account of you, anyway."

He was really getting annoying.

I growled and tried to thrust the pain out of my mind, slowly climbing back to my feet. "You like to talk when you fight, don't you?"

He shrugged carelessly. "This doesn't feel like much of a fight. I'd say--"

I cut him off with another swipe of Heaven's Knuckle. "Quiet, you," I hissed as he nimbly stepped out of the way. "I can make it feel more like a fight."

"Oh, if you insist. Except that I'm afraid my time is up." He shrugged, stepped back, and sheathed the sword.

"What?"

"The name's Hagal, by the way. Remember it." He smiled blandly at me, and started to sink down into a shadow he stepped into.

"Bastard!" I shouted, lunging forward. But he was already gone.

"Andrew-kun?" I turned, wincing, to find Urd running toward me. I stared for a moment, seeing what appeared to be a woman poised over her with....

Oh. World of Elegance. Her servant angel which she'd described before but I'd not yet seen. Wait a minute-- "What about Skuld?" I said. "I just got attacked by a demon, you can't leave Skuld by herself!"

She stopped in front of me, shaking her head. "Belldandy's already back now, so it's all right. Actually, it was...Skuld told me to come look for you. Poor kid just busted out crying--I guess she knew something was wrong through the link you share." Urd frowned, looking me over, and then her eyes widened as she saw the mass of feathers on the ground behind me. "Your wing!"

I grunted and scowled. "Yeah. That asshole cut it off. I think he was just toying with me, too. Condescending little...."

"All right. Let's get you to the temple. We've got some things to discuss. I'll, um, grab your wing."

"Aheh...thanks."

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I gingerly touched my now intact wing, tracing along the faint mark where it had gotten sliced clean through, and sighed in relief at the lack of pain. Apparently, the regeneration will only work to regrow lost body parts if the part is damaged beyond repair--shredded up or burnt to ashes, that sort of thing. Otherwise, it's easier to reclaim what got cut off and reattach it.

I'm not generally squeamish, but feeling the bone knit back together like that gave me the chills.

"You okay, Andrew-nii?" Skuld asked, voice still a little watery. While she recoiled initially at the sight of my bloody wing, she'd insisted on staying at my side after I'd stalked into the temple (wobbling only slightly), assisted by Urd.

I smiled down at her and put an arm around her shoulder. "I'm fine now, Skuld. Thanks." With a slight moment of hesitation, I withdrew my wings. Still no pain. I shook my head.

"So what happened?" Keiichi asked, looking slightly anxious.

"Megumi just dropped me off," I said, "and I was--hold up, what about Megumi?" I sat up slightly, feeling afraid. "They might have wanted to get at her, too!"

Keiichi blanched, and looked over toward Belldandy, as did Urd and Skuld. Belldandy herself blinked, frowned slightly and appeared to concentrate for a moment. Then she smiled. "She's all right. Nothing's happened to her."

The others sighed in relief, as did I, but.... "How do you know, though?"

"We have an Earth spirit watching over her," Urd said. "After an incident a while ago, we thought it best to give her a guardian. She doesn't know about it."

"Incident? What...." I grunted. "Later, I'll ask later. Where was I? Right, I was heading up to my apartment when that guy...demon, I mean, just came up behind me and thumped me good. Right here." I touched the back of my head. "My sense triggered just beforehand, but I didn't recognize it until he'd already hit me."

Urd frowned. "You didn't recognize it?"

"Well, it felt a lot different this time around. I should have asked you to trigger it as a test so I would know how it felt after it got changed down."

"That would have been a good idea, yes," Belldandy said. "But at least you do know its feel now."

"Yeah. Anyway--so yeah, he shows up, hits me, he says that he wants to thank me for screwing up their efforts today, and then...." I sighed, let my head droop. "Then he spanks me like a red-headed stepchild."

Keiichi and Skuld looked puzzled. "What's that mean?" Skuld asked.

"Sorry, figure of speech. He beat me pretty easily. Didn't even come close to hurting him, while...well, you saw what he did to me." I sat back on the couch, clenching my teeth. "He was right, too; I won't be much good to protect Skuld if he took me so easily."

"What was his name?" Urd asked.

"Called himself Hagal. Really smug..." I bit down on my words, just remembering Skuld was sitting there next to me. "Cover your ears, Skuld."

"Huh, what?"

Urd reached over and put her palms over Skuld's ears.

"Hey!"

"Really smug illegitimate spawn of a diseased goat who needs Heaven's Knuckle shoved so far up his clenched ass he never gets the taste of cold iron out of his food _frick_ that uppity piece of smarm pissed me OFF! AURGH!" I gasped for breath, then concluded, "Had to vent. Sorry."

Skuld finally pried Urd's hands off the sides of her head and glared. "What was that all about?"

"Stuff that you're not necessarily too young to hear, but I wasn't going to have it on my conscience that you did hear it from me just in case." I paused, glanced across to Belldandy, who was frowning at me. I withered slightly, and added, "I should have told Belldandy to do the same thing."

She shook her head, vaguely despairingly. "That aside. I suppose you want to know what happened regarding the ambulance."

"Did the liver make it there on time?" I asked anxiously.

"The young man is still in surgery, of course, but there is a good chance that it will be successful."

"Ah. Good."

Belldandy nodded, then continued. "As for what led up to the crash you found--the liver was originally going to be transported by helicopter, but both available to the hospitals mysteriously developed mechanical trouble just this afternoon. And the direct highway route was blocked by a traffic accident, forcing them to take the back roads. And finally, the GPS beacon in the ambulance malfunctioned shortly after they left their point of origin, so it couldn't be tracked after they turned up late."

"And, of course, their radio was damaged in the crash." I scowled. "What a piece of work."

Urd sighed. "They did a pretty thorough job. Pretty small things, so that they wouldn't trip any of the big alarms up in Heaven. These registered stronger than the malfunction in Skuld's invention a couple weeks ago, but not by much."

"So what was so important about the organ recipient?"

"He is, simply put, a mathematic and scientific genius. He has a bright future ahead of him and stands to benefit mankind with his work. Unfortunately, he is also a little eccentric and very fond of mushrooms, and while normally able to distinguish good ones from poisonous ones, he made a mistake this morning."

I blinked, considered this, and nodded. "Well, we got lucky today. Or...not luck, right? Something more like that the Lord was gently steering Megumi's path?" I sighed and smiled slightly at Belldandy's quiet nod; the former, blind luck and happenstance, would not have been particularly heartening. "And then I got kicked around by Hagal just afterward. This isn't encouraging."

"Did you see his demon marks?" Urd said.

"Yeah. Two wavy lines, like this," I said, tracing them out over my own forehead. "You know this guy, maybe?"

"Not off the top of my head, but I can try to find out who he is. I'll pass the name and marks to Mara."

"Didn't she say she wasn't going to help anymore?" Keiichi asked.

"She might have said that, but I don't think she's going to let us hang high and dry. Especially if we give her some useful information."

Belldandy must have seen the puzzled frown on my face, because she then supplied, "If there are agents of Hell involved in this, while Hild-san does not condone it, then this is, to them, a rebellion of sorts. They would have an interest in which demons are involved."

"I see." Then I blinked. "Er, 'Hild-san'?"

"My mother," Urd said. "And head demoness of Hell."

"...ooookay. No, no," I said, putting my hands up in a placating gesture, "I know, I know. Goddess first and foremost."

Urd nodded, looking appeased. "Guess I should have told you that detail earlier too."

"It's all right. Anyway." I rubbed my eyes. "So what are we going to do about me losing so easily to Hagal?"

"Don't feel so bad about that, Andrew-san. You are still new at this, and he sounds like he was a first-class demon."

"That doesn't matter!" I almost shouted. "I can't protect Skuld like this, new or not!"

Skuld, who'd been pretty quiet up until now--I don't imagine this kind of talk will ever be easy for her to listen to--sat up and hugged me tightly again. "I trust you, Andrew-nii. You just have to try your best."

I sighed, patted her head. "Thanks, Skuld. I will try my best, I promise. But it isn't enough, not at this point."

"We will step up your training regimen. I think tonight demonstrates reasonable cause to request help from the Valkyries." Belldandy looked grim, while Urd paled slightly.

I suppressed a groan. "What is it about the Valkyries, then?" I asked, that familiar feeling of faint dread pooling in my gut.

To make a long story short, they were the warrior goddesses of Heaven. They underwent extraordinarily harsh training regimen, designed to raise their fighting potential beyond that of most deities. I wasn't going to go through the exact same thing--as only an angel, I didn't have nearly enough power to stand up to something like that--but they would be coaching me through a specialized program to try to get me up to speed faster. So it'd still be rough.

Couldn't be helped. I had a duty to fulfill, after all.

"When the request is filled, we will take you to meet your trainer," Belldandy concluded. "This should be by your next regular session--and we may need to increase the number of sessions, or increase the amount of time per session."

"All right," I said, with a sigh, and finally stood up. Skuld rose as well, continuing to cling to my arm. I patted her on the shoulder absently. "I better get back home and rest up. Feeling drained now."

"Need someone to walk you back?" Urd grinned at me and hoisted a bottle of some of her better sake, all traces of anxiety now gone. "You still have to tell me how the day went, you know."

I laughed a bit, then shook my head. "Thanks for the offer. But I already went drinking three nights this week, and I don't know how much more my liver can take."

She pouted for a moment, then shook her head and chuckled. "Well, okay. And I guess tonight hasn't got the right mood for talking about dear Meg-chan."

I snorted.

"Good night, Andrew," Keiichi said quietly. "And good luck."

I walked to the door, Skuld trailing me. "Are you going to be all right?" she asked me as I put on my shoes.

"I will. Just a little shaken up."

"Be careful, okay?"

I laughed quietly. "I will." I stood, opened the door, then paused as something finally twigged my consciousness. "By the way...."

"Huh?"

"What's with the 'Andrew-nii' suddenly?"

Skuld blushed a little bit. "Do you mind?"

I laughed again. "No, not at all. My sister calls me 'Gege', after all. That's 'big brother' in Chinese."

"'Gege'?"

"Hey, it's not as silly as it sounds."

She giggled and relaxed a bit. "Okay, whatever you say, Andrew-nii."

"Good night, Skuld. Get some rest; you look a little worn out too."

She nodded. "Good night."

The walk back to my apartment wasn't any longer than it usually was, but it sure felt long, for some reason. Much to think about. Much to prepare for.

First, though, a nice long bath and a good night's sleep.

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Finally get to see who's on the other side. Fun, ain't it?