Yeah… so…

This chapter has references to extreme depression and suicidal thoughts, and writing it really sucked at some points.

Of course, it would be dreary if that was all the chapter was, so we'll see how things balance out.

… Oh dear.

It seemed like so terribly long since she'd awoken, at least either several weeks or several centuries?

… Something like that.

Time had little meaning to the dead, but she had a faint suspicion that a sense of haste might be warranted.

Listening to the razored claws that had prodded her awake scrape nervously together, she reached out a delicate hand (the one with all its fingers), and petted the head of the cute Ghoul, seeking to soothe its franticness somewhat.

Poor thing only knew how to overreact, after all.

To the spirits of the Arsenal Memoir, it would have been a tender scene.

The heartwarming sight of a rusted abomination having its head stroked by the sole intact hand of a mutilated, blindfolded beauty. The tatters of her dress matching the rags of the Ghoul, the eight stumps upon her slender upper back were flapping happily.

Even as they endlessly shed feathers of black, bloody iron into the darkness below.

… To anyone else, it would have been a poignant reminder that the entire 'population' of the Arsenal was insane.

"Ufufu~ you really do get cuter every time I wake up, don't you~" she cooed happily, lyrical voice unobstructed by the torn throat beneath the ribbon on her neck. "Now, why don't you tell me what's gotten you all a-fluster~? Does it have something to do with how far away our dear Host seems~?"

With a grinding hiss, the Ghoul nodded its strapped-up metal skull in affirmative.

Oh dear, no wonder the Ghoul had roused her early.

It seemed her latest among countless juniors was in need of a little help.

With an annoyed groan, he swung his legs out of bed and sat up, careful not to knock the blankets off his bedmate.

Making his way over to the minibar, he grabbed the first bottle he found and drained it in one go.

There was a good reason he'd never tried for a serious relationship, no matter how many thousands of years passed.

He would never allow himself to have a family, because a family needed a father.

And there was no way a man who was only 'fairly certain' he had been a father once could be a good one.

Could barely remember the other brat he'd just been watching over from behind the scenes, so how the hell was he supposed to handle having a brat of his own?

Mood only worsened by the salt he'd rubbed in his opened wounds, Azazel reached for a second bottle and emptied it even faster than the first.

In the dimly lit room, a woman bit back a moan as her toes curled and her vision swam.

Her partner leaned over the bed, covering her naked body, and she latched onto him with all four limbs as he picked up the pace.

With a short, quavering scream, Musashi climaxed hard, convulsions prompting Yuuto to pump his load into her.

Breathless and thoroughly satisfied as her orgasm winded down, the lively beauty clung to him with trembling arms, her legs slipping from his hips to dangle off the bed.

Yuuto lifted his head just enough so that their eyes, so similar in color, could meet, and Musashi felt a little thrill in her heart as they shared a smile.

"I wasn't too rough, was I?" Yuuto enquired softly.

Musashi shook her head immediately. "Nope, feels really good when Yuuto shows how much he wants me."

"I'll keep that in mind," Yuuto said with a smile. "Join me in the shower? I'll need to keep it quick though, but don't feel like you have to rush."

Musashi's expression tightened somewhat.

"Gotta wake 'them' up, huh? Think JB is gonna be up?"

"Yuria-san had a day off today, so she took breakfast duty." Yuuto explained with a soft sigh.

"... Okay." Musashi murmured quietly as Yuuto rose off of her, pulling her up to a sitting position before making his way to the dresser.

"Yuuto." She called hesitantly, feeling unsure of herself and not liking it at all. "Are you… really alright?"

Yuuto paused with a drawer half open in his hand.

"... I'm not sure." He admitted honestly. "But I don't have time to be anything but alright. I made a promise to keep things from falling apart, and there's certain responsibilities that a member of the peerage is required for."

The promise remained, in spite of how whoever he'd made it with was gone.

The men of Gremory had sworn to look after the women in their makeshift family, to be strong when no one else could be.

Focusing on that was his own way of dealing with a loss he couldn't understand, of honoring a memory that should have never been gone, but was.

"But you don't have to worry about me overdoing it," Yuuto turned, answering his girlfriend's worries with a refreshing smile. "Every man is stronger when the woman he loves is watching."

Musashi's relief was overtaken almost entirely by embarrassment as her cheeks flushed red.

In the absence of anything else, he focused on the bits and pieces he remembered about the man he'd set off to kill.

A sharp dressed man with a sharp smile, and all the charm of a swaying viper.

He'd taken to calling him the Poison Man.

'They' seemed to like that.

'They' being the dead people clamoring about in his head, the only ones keeping him sane.

… Well… he supposed only a crazy person would think that, so maybe 'focused' fit better than 'sane'.

'His' whole world revolved around one thing.

Kill the Poison Man.

Quickly, before he made up his mind to feed his poison to 'those important people', the ones neither 'he' nor the Poison Man deserved to breathe the same air as.

'He' didn't know who those people were, but they must have meant something to him, if he was heading out to kill a man on their behalf.

… They must, right?

They had to.

Or else the only thing he knew he should do meant nothing, and without that, he would mean nothing too.

Metal groaning in an echo of his voice, the Soldier shouldered his ghosts once more, and kept marching.

"Rise and shine, breakfast is ready." The words were accompanied by sunlight as the blinds were pulled open, and Akeno sat up with a groan, Rias stirring more slowly by her side.

"Yuria-san?" Akeno murmured, half-open eyes taking in the wavy blonde that captured the sunlight.

"The one and only, met Kiba-kun and Mu-chan in the hall but sent them down early." JB said.

Turning, she looked at Akeno with a critical eye, it hardly registering that the black-haired beauty had her tits on full display.

"Hey now, it looks like you actually slept a bit last night."

Before a half-heartedly smiling Akeno could answer, Rias sat bolted upright, azure eyes as wide as they could go.

Without missing a beat, Akeno grabbed her chin, turned it to face her, and kissed Rias full on the lips.

If Akeno was going to distract someone, she was going to have fun with it, after all.

Rias had visibly relaxed by the time Akeno broke the kiss and withdrew, pressing their foreheads together instead as Akeno rubbed the back of her head.

"... Sorry… I'm sorry." Rias sighed. "The first thing I could feel was how they're not there."

"It's okay, Rias." Akeno murmured. "Was tonight a little better at least?"

Neither of them had woken up, so that must have been a good sign?

Rias withdrew, giving her a reproachful little smile and a meaningful glance downwards.

To where Rias had several hickeys on her bare breast.

"I'm not sorry," Akeno said primly. "Well… maybe a little sorry for not inviting Yuria-san~" she punctuated the mark with a saucy wink the blonde's way.

JB crossed her arms, her ample breasts shaking slightly, both from the motion, and the loud sigh that followed.

"You girls make the walls shake when you go hard." JB said with a drawl. "This frail human would feel more than a little embarrassed having to explain to Asia-chan why she's healing my broken hips."

"Fair point."

"Now, how are you girls really feeling?"

Rias and Akeno wilted in unison.

With a glance, Akeno deferred to her King.

"Maybe not better, but at least no worse than yesterday." Rias admitted, shoulders sagging. "It still feels like I have eight little open wounds, but at least they don't feel like they're bleeding."

The Loss had hit Rias the hardest of all, in a way. As the King of the Peerage, a part of her soul was tethered to each and every one of her Evil Pieces.

That the bearer of her Pawns remained missing and unknown was a wrongness she could physically feel.

It had taken the better part of three weeks, and Akeno driving her to sexual exhaustion, for Rias to be make it through a single night without waking up screaming. Rias being able to rest had allowed Akeno to finally do the same.

Expression softening somewhat, JB slowly shifted her eyes.

The one her gaze came to rest on didn't look her way, but answered nonetheless.

"... I think the only reason I'm not a total mess is that I don't fully understand what I should be sad about," Akeno admitted. A piece of her heart was missing too. There was no way she could be 'fine'.

"About the best we can expect, I guess," JB said softly, but briskly, bringing the conversation to a clear end-

Each breathtaking in their own way, two pairs of eyes firmly captured her own.

JB froze.

The girls stared.

JB fidgeted.

The girls stared.

JB sighed, and the girls chuckled briefly.

"I don't know, really," JB huffed, the gesture curiously obstinate. "I'm used to losing people, and not knowing who I've lost just makes it feel less real."

"Ara, is that the dignity of a grown woman I hear?"

"I don't want to hear anything about 'growing' from you, Miss J-cup." JB scowled.

Akeno gave her usual laugh, and things felt normal for a moment.

In a way, the Loss was easier to bear with how mysterious it was. They didn't know at all who they should be missing, they didn't know at all who'd they'd lost.

That there was a sort of kindness there was an idea everyone shared but no one liked.

But life had no interest in waiting for them to feel whole once more, and so they kept on living.

Each in their own way.

Each in their own way, until they found their breaking point, at the bottom of a gun case that sat beneath an empty bed.

9029.

The call sign of the one they'd lost.

A legendary call sign among the counter-terrorism agency known as Ichigaya.

The mystery and obscurity was what allowed them to get away with quietly replacing 9029 with someone new. There were some 'growing pains' that came with the new 9029 not being a marksman, it was true, but the agent got results so it was fine.

No one would have believed that 9029 had only fired a gun on one occasion, so no one was told.

Just like no one would believe that 9029's 'working dog' was filling the role of 9029 on his own, so no one was told.

It suited him just fine, since Ruth wasn't often in a talking mood, anyways.

So the case stayed where it was, except in the evenings when Akeno would pull it out from underneath the bed, and let its contents rest across her lap after she finished cleaning it.

A sleek black sniper rifle, that she didn't know why she knew how to maintain, but knew down to her bones that it was important to someone, that was important to her.

She'd never imagined she'd find comfort in a gun.

But something caught her eye that evening.

Akeno had never really given the case much attention, beyond taking out the necessary tools to clean it.

The padding inside the top half of the case was worn away ever so slightly at one corner.

Curious, she put the gun on the bed and knelt down, hooking her finger into the worn edge.

The pad fell out, revealing black plastic lining, and-

'Seems I can't even get dying right.'

Her vision shook alongside the rest of her body as Akeno read the first words to catch her eye.

Absolutely covering the inside of the case were countless little written notes- at first, crude scratching that must have been done with a sharp point.

Then neat almost to the point where it seemed factory printed, the kind of markings that couldn't be done without tools or magic.

Even when the writing was neat, it was clear that the mental state of the one writing was anything but.

The only good choice left was to pretend she saw nothing, and yet Akeno was reading before she could stop.

'School is a brighter place than I imagined. Couldn't be any more out of place if I tried'

'Why did she bring me back?'

'I'm so tired'

…

'Thank you, but stop it, stop taking care of me'

…

'Hey, Asako'

'Is it 'normal' to feel ill from lying all the time?'

…

'How could they possibly need me?'

'Enough already'

'Sorry'

…

'I'm sorry'

'I can't do it'

…

'I did what you asked. Ten people, maybe more. I can't take all the credit… but it's the closest to saving people I'll ever manage'

'Sorry, but please, I'm begging you'

…

'I did the best I could, so'

'Let me die properly this time'

By the time Akeno realized she was crying, it was far too late for her to stop.

Echoing through the dormitory, her nameless, wordless grief lured them in one by one, so that they could all decide together that 'someone they'd lost' was actually 'someone they couldn't save'.

The tenuous threads that had held the dormitory together snapped one by one.

It was the sound of snapping bones that lured her to their Host.

She found him on a huge barren field beside an old school building, and she found several of her brethren there, watching from the sidelines.

Upon the field was a tall, handsome man in a burgundy suit with wavy blonde hair and a goatee, one that wore the hint of a smirk on his narrow features.

Even as their Host snapped his neck with his bare hands, and let the man's corpse fall into the blood-stained dirt, the man wore that same repugnant smirk that rekindled the embers of fury that smoldered within her breast.

With a detached sort of surprise, she noted that she felt a bitter hatred for each of the dozens of identical corpses scattered all about that dreadful field.

No sooner had the twitching of the corpse stopped then another identical man appeared some distance away, hands in his pockets and greeting their Host in a voice smooth as poison.

Their Host whirled upon the man with a low, tired snarl, and matching knives appeared in their hands as they faced off.

It was the desperate malice on their Host's exhausted features that cooled her own animosity.

"This is… dreadful." She murmured softly. "How long has he been doing this?"

"Hard to say how long he's been killing the one he calls the Poison Man," the Echo of a blonde man with a far kinder and sadder appearance suggested with a shrug. "Kinda all blends together, and we haven't had any luck stopping him."

"Is he keeping you out?"

"Well… yes and no." Without any further preamble, the blue-eyed Echoed shoved his hands into the pockets of his uniform. "Watch this."

The young man stepped onto the field, and suddenly he was a man older and crueler in appearance.

The same man in the burgundy suit.

There was a sharp crack of gunfire a moment later, as the Host took distance from his opponent to shoot the new 'Poison Man' in the head with the gun that had found its way to his free hand.

The newcomer fell off the field, and abruptly regained his form as the kind Arsenal Spirit, laying on his back with an annoyed look as the hole in his head rusted shut.

"Happens to everyone that steps onto the field", the young man casually explained. "Doesn't matter who it is, and our guest can't enter at all."

Their 'guest'- the blue-haired woman watching their Host with a frustrated grimace and an unlit cigarette between her lips, didn't even respond to being addressed.

"Ah, well, as much as I've looked forward to having a nice chat with our guest, perhaps I should try my hand at intervention?" She suggested gently.

"I mean, I'm not gonna stop you lady, buuuuuut-" The blonde Echo finally took a good look at her, and did what every other Arsenal Spirit had done at the sight of her.

Frozen completely in place, staring at her with whatever eyes they still possessed open wide as possible.

"F-F-F-First!?" The poor thing stammered out her title, prompting a cheery giggle from her.

"Ufufu~ it's been quite some time, hasn't it?" She gently offered her hand to help him to his feet, brushing away the last of his wound with her other hand as she did. "I'm truly glad to see that you remain yourself."

"Ahaha," the Echo laughed, woodenly at first but quickly losing tension, rubbing the back of his head with his free hand. "You know me, only losing my legs can keep me down."

She tittered back at the gruesome joke that fit the nameless dead just fine.

"... Do you think you can? Help him, I mean?"

"Yes, I believe I can." She nodded gravely. "That is, if you'll assist me, dear guest?"

The blue-haired woman blinked in surprise, cigarette falling into her lap.

"... Hah?"

The ruined beauty offered a dainty hand, smiling gently.

"How many times have you tried to reach him?" She asked softly.

The powerless, worried scowl she received in return was answer enough.

She knew what the Arsenal knew, and so she knew that they had lost count of their guests' failed attempts, just as she had.

"You will reach him, if you take my hand." She said with simple certainty. "I will bring you to him, but I cannot save him."

A single rusted tear dripped from an empty eye, mirroring the one that trailed down the cheek of every last one of the nameless dead.

"None of us can, but you… you are not truly one of us, are you?"

"That's about the only thing I know for sure." The woman sighed back, before firmly clasping her hand, their guest's hand calloused, but still feminine. "You want me to snap our idiot out of his funk? Get me there and I'll deal with it, even if I have to kick his ass.

"Oh my, how reliable~" she who the Arsenal referred to as the First Unknown giggled brightly.

She had been around a long, long time, and yet she couldn't remember anyone ever being called an idiot with such affection.

Hell was an empty field.

Hard earth and itchy grass churned up by countless boots, and slowly turning muddy as the blood soaked the soil.

Hell was knowing that if he let that man take one step off that field, that man would ruin everything that had ever mattered, and smile as he did it.

The solution was obvious, of course- he just had to kill that man before he took one step off that ugly field.

Hell was killing that man a dozen, a hundred times over, and knowing that that man would get right back up again, still wearing that putrid fucking smirk.

How many more wins did he have in him?

How many more times could he kill him?

Hell was knowing that all it took was one mistake, and he'd lose everything.

Hell was not knowing what he was fighting for, or why he was fighting for it, but still being out of his mind with the fear of losing it.

He tried dragging it out, keeping that bastard contained rather than dead.

Hell was knowing there was no loophole that would stick, and hearing that same oily laugh informing him that there was nothing to do but keep killing.

Hell was-

"Fuck you!"

Hell… was?

"Whoo! Shit that was awesome!"

… What the hell?

That man was flat on his back in the dirt, face drenched in blood from his broken nose.

He… wasn't getting up, and… another him wasn't showing up.

Blood still dripping from her outstretched fist, a tall woman with all the beauty of a wild carnivore was grinning fiercely, gleefully watching every drop of blood fall to the dirt.

She seemed to realize she was being stared at, after one minute, maybe two.

She turned to him with a bright, affectionate smile, and cracked her knuckles.

"Hi~!" the woman sing-songed, in a syrupy tone that didn't suit a gorilla like her in the slightest.

"Ohhh~? Is that so, hmmmm~?"

Hell trembled a bit when he realized with mild interest that he'd said that out loud, straight to her face.

It was hard to remember, but maybe he had a nasty personality?

… Hell was smashed to pieces at the same time he found out the hard way that she'd been saving her other set of knuckles just for him.

'He' didn't know if it was real or imagined, but his face hurt, and he was flat on his back, listening to the sound of raindrops plinking gently against metal.

It was an awfully peaceful sort of pain, and that might have had something to do with the rainwater seeping into metal joints, reminding him that there was skin underneath.

Maybe he'd just enjoy it for a while.

"You know I'm not really her, right?"

The woman had asked him, as they sat side-by-side on her deathbed.

"Yeah, you're a lie I convinced myself of."

The woman had laughed at that, boisterous and easy-going.

"Well at least you've got good taste."

"I am pretty good at lying, I suppose."

"It's the womanizer in you talking, probably. But, I'm going to say it anyway, because we both know it'll get through your thick head much easier if I'm the one to say it."

'Kusakabe Asako' had lifted one knee up onto the bed, leaning her head against it as she gazed at him with the sort of gentle smile that most would never believe she could wear.

"Calling me Asako doesn't really fit, but calling me 9029 isn't quite right either. I'm something in between- a young man's dream conjured up from the knowledge that the 'real Asako Kusakabe' wasn't mourned by anyone."

It had kind of hurt for her to put it that way, but she was right.

"Well, other than the two of you, of course, but I can't really say anything about treating rules like guidelines now can I? The Asako the world knew, and the 9029 the world knew, neither were exactly me. 'Course, that doesn't make me special or anything."

Asako's gaze had lowered, and the meekness there really didn't suit her at all.

"Everyone has pieces of them that no one else will see, and sometimes we just fill in the blanks. But your bullshit magic is based on imagination, isn't it? Not all that strange for a Devil with a talent for going along with lies he doesn't believe, and a head full of ghosts, to cobble together the ghost he wanted to see most of all. That's me, Yuuji- a fiction of a fiction."

Answering a question with a question was poor form, but he didn't care then and he didn't care now.

"Ahahahah~! 'So what'!? Exactly, so what! I always drilled it into your head to not feel ashamed of using the things you could use, didn't I?"

She also liked to give lessons while she had him in a headlock, but it was hard to mind that that had never really changed.

"Normally, this would be the part where you see me off with a smile."

"Sounds lame."

"Exactly, goodbyes suck. You want me gone, throw me out the door yourself, dumbass."

Yuuji slipped out of the casual hold, and kicked her in the ass all in one motion, nearly driving her head first into the opposite wall.

One hand splayed against the wall cracking beneath her fingers, Kusakabe Asako twisted back to look at him with a feral grin.

"That's more like it, Yuuji."

…

… Mental spaces or whatever were weird, Asako concluded not long after.

Their 'goodbye' had been meant to be a 'goodbye', and not a 'see you later'.

Instead, he'd left her there on the only thing left intact from their little prison home in the mountains.

… Which was the bed.

Bruised, naked, and thoroughly satisfied, Asako laid there all alone, legs crossed, one hand behind her head, and the other holding the cigarette she'd gotten from…

Ah who cared where she got it from.

He'd shown her a good time, both off the bed and on it.

Damn brat had gotten better, in every meaning of the term.

Of course, he was still just as fucked up as she was, but he'd remembered the most important thing.

Being fucked up didn't bar him from happiness.

He still had plenty of time to get it right, and a home to return to, full of people more than happy to help him try.

She'd shake those girls' hands if her own were real.

Kazami Yuuji was messed up, and probably always would be.

But the fiction of a woman and the shell of a man both repeated the exact same two words, with smiles that matched more than either cared to mention.

"So what?"

Hidden within the darkness, a mutilated, blindfolded beauty danced hand in hand with a merry, rusted abomination, laughing in delight.

Eagerly awaiting the moment when the first wielder of the Arsenal Memoir could stand face to face with the one she dearly wished would be the last.

With a careless laugh, Kazami Yuuji tore off his mask to let himself feel the rain.

Akeno smashed through four ceilings on her way to the sky.

What did those ceilings expect though, getting in her way like that?

They should have known better.

Feathers swirled about her as she cast about in every direction, trying to make sense of which direction her heart had run off to.

Yuuji wasn't there.

But she knew with all her heart that he needed her, and she needed to go to him right that instant-

Her arm vanished up to the elbow in a sedately glowing portal, and it was a wonder her phone wasn't powdered between her fingers.

"Y-Yuuji!? Yuuji, where are you!? W-where have you b-been!?"

["Easy now, Akeno it's alright."] What a useless woman she was, to take such comfort just from hearing her name spoken in his voice. ["I understand I have a lot of explaining to do, but there's something I should probably be saying first."]

"W-what? W-w-what is?" Some might have been ashamed for hanging on their man's every word so desperately, but Akeno didn't have the composure to care about anything that wasn't Yuuji at the moment.

["I love you more than I can put into words, and I'm really, truly sorry I was ever crazy enough to leave you."]

Her cheeks were burning so hotly she could have sworn she heard the raindrops sizzle.

Even as her battered heart hammered itself back to life with a joyful vengeance, the chill of the rain helped cool her head just enough.

"You make it sound like…"

"Like you're not coming back." Rias finished for her, hovering at her side with red-rimmed blue eyes. "Yuuji, why can't I find you through the Evil Pieces?

Ara, when had everyone else gotten up here?

["I am. I absolutely am coming back."] Yuuji said with absolute certainty. ["I just can't meet up with you before then, which means you can't chase after me either."]

A sweet sigh escaped as she heard his next words before he spoke them.

"Not until you take care of something important, right?"

"No wait, hold on, Yuuji, Akeno!"

["You put us on speaker, right?"]

"Mhm."

["Sorry everyone, but I realized I haven't been very fair about things. But there's something I need to take care of, so that…"]

The sky had gotten rather crowded as everyone leaned in anyways, as if that would help them hear.

["... So that the Yuuji who comes home to all of you, is all of him."] It was the sort of gentle voice that he'd probably never believed suited him.

"... There's really no way I can go after you, if you say something like that, is there?" It wasn't like she had been meekly planning to wait for Yuuji to go home, Akeno had every intention of searching all of Japan by herself if she had to, the moment he'd hung up.

She just hadn't said it out loud, and she was more than a little frustrated that Yuuji had 'heard' her anyways.

"... Okay. F-fine. Fine," Rias sighed, deflated. "But can you at least tell us why you left? You owe us that much."

["Honestly, the details are a little fuzzy,"] Yuuji admitted. ["I think I just… panicked. Never actually used that 'memory block' from the Unknown Soldier on purpose, but when I did, it got me too."]

There was a stuttering giggle, and everyone turned to find red-eyed Raynare with a hand over her mouth.

"That's just like you, huh?" Raynare gave a brittle laugh. "When you commit to something you really go overboard, don't you?"

It wasn't that funny but they all laughed, and hard.

Even Yuuji.

["Heh, you're not wrong."] He said eventually, when the desperate humor trickled off. ["To be totally honest, I'm actually still pretty terrified, right now."]

The easy admission didn't make resisting the temptation to seek him out any easier.

"... Why?"

["I've never told anyone, but Julia will know who I'm talking about, since she was there. Speaking of which, is she…?"]

"Here now? No, she's on the job, along with Ruth."

["I think this is the first time 9029 has been a dog."] Yuuji drily remarked, reading between the lines. ["I'll call them later.]

"Good. Now, quit avoiding the topic."

["The person in all the world who scares me the most resurfaced, so I'm going to go kill him?"]

"... Ah, that makes perfect sense." Xenovia nodded.

It took a moment or two to realize that she was serious, barring Musashi who was nodding along.

"And why can't we help you?" Rias questioned briskly.

["I'm aware that I'm not being rational about this, but I'd honestly freak out too much to even think straight if any of you were in the same room as him."]

"... Shit," Kiba uncharacteristically swore. "Now I can't track you down either."

Yuuji hadn't interfered when it came to the one man that he had absolutely needed dead, after all.

["Heh, sorry for leaving things to you."] He didn't even need to ask to know that Kiba was tired in a different way from the rest.

"It's fine," Kiba shrugged. He'd been taking point in running the Gremory half of the territory for weeks, but it didn't feel like such a big deal. "Yuria-san's been helping out with the administrative duties."

The guilty look the King and Queen sent him was promptly waved off.

The men of Gremory had made a promise, and even if Gasper was more of a boy than the rest of them, even he'd done his best.

Akeno closed her eyes quietly, letting herself breathe and think.

It was too much at once, and she didn't really know how to feel.

Elated that Yuuji had returned, furious that he hadn't completely returned, scared, worried, or-

"... We saw the inside of the case."

Or that.

Akeno had never imagined that the one to crush those little budding blooms of relief would be her.

The words felt like they were scraping her throat raw on the way out. "... Please… tell me, how much of it was true." Opening her eyes had become a chore, even though leaving her gaze in darkness called to mind black plastic.

A long sigh came through the receiver.

["If you're asking me that, then you all must have only read the top half of the case, huh?"] Yuuji muttered, a hint of frustration leaking through. ["Then I'll only answer about the top half of the case, for now. The rest will make the wait easier."]

"Easier!?" Rias snapped out. "How is that supposed to make things easier!? Did we…!? Did I… really ever help you?"

Akeno felt her gut sink as Rias took the lead in asking the question they'd all asked themselves more than once.

["You really should read the bottom half of my gun case,"] Yuuji said mildly. ["There was a good reason that I was careful opening the case around all of you. But you don't have to worry. I'm… not that person anymore, and I can't take any credit at all for that. Maybe one day, I'll be able to put it into words, but…"]

It was shocking to hear Yuuji speak in a way that they knew without a doubt was accompanied by a smile.

And it must have been a bright one, for the words that followed.

["The words written at the bottom of that case serve as a record, and proof."] Yuuji told them with conviction. ["Proof that becoming a Devil, proof that all of you, were the greatest things that have ever happened to me."]

How cruel.

How unfair.

… How wonderful.

Even though he'd left her behind with a confused and broken heart.

Akeno didn't doubt at all that he would keep his promise and return.

And, just like he'd promised, the words she found in the case were enough.

Perhaps it was selfish of her, to fixate on words about her and take so long to read the rest.

But it couldn't be helped, not when the first words her eyes fell upon, at the bottom of the gun case behind the other, less damaged pad, were words about her that she'd never heard him speak.

If the top of the gun case represented Yuuji's silent desperation and despair, then the newer words, at the bottom of that same case, represented how neither emotion truly had a place in his life any more.

So it couldn't be helped that she read the same words over and over again for hours, before moving on to others. If she'd spared a thought, she'd have noticed that she was far from alone in doing that.

Feelings he could never convey to them were written there in the dark material that to their eyes shone so bright.

"I still remember the day that I was reminded that beauty still exists in the world.

And that even I'm not so far gone as to not get a little nervous at a sudden encounter with a pretty girl.

Maybe that's proof that some part of me is a normal teenager?

Well, whatever it means, try your best, me.

And don't forget to count your blessings that trying to hide out on the school roof brought you face to face with a woman like Akeno."

This time, when Akeno wept, the tears washed away the last of the confusion and despair, leaving behind nothing but love, and the certainty that the one that love was meant for would soon return.

It was something of an irritant, he could admit.

Despite how he had the utmost confidence that every current plan was progressing as projected, he could not shake the feeling that he had been…

Denied. Thwarted, in some inscrutable way.

Truly a vexing little mystery.

Swirling the wine in his glass, he leaned back in his chair, gazing out the window and to the sea as he pondered.

His muses were destined not to last long, however, as the phone upon the desk began to ring.

A grin blossomed across handsome features as he took in the call display.

Only one other 'person' in all the world knew that phone number, a number that had never once been dialed. After all, it was a number designed with but one purpose in mind, carefully 'programmed' to only be remembered when needed.

It was the number his prized possession was meant to use, when he was at last ready to return to his proper place.

Heath Oslo smiled as he picked up the phone.

Silence on the other end of the line.

Nothing strange- the Poison Man… Heath Oslo had never minded giving up the first word, as long as he could have the last.

"If only… I'd known it was this easy."

"If you'd recall, I swore to you that my door would always be open for you," His mind was playing tricks on him- somehow, it felt like the conversation was happening face to face and not through a phone. "You of all people should know that I never tell a lie that serves no purpose."

"Yeah, I remember," Yuuji said. He remembered… perhaps a little too much, but it didn't have quite the hold over him that it should have had.

When he looked back upon that moment, it was strange to Yuuji how little he remembered of it.

A conversation that would last nearly an hour, and even if asked who had done most of the talking, or what was said, for the most part all he could offer by way of explanation was a shrug.

It was supposed to be the single most important phone call of his entire life. The man on either side of the phone would have agreed without hesitation that it was so.

But there was something that Yuuji hadn't quite realized when he had dialed the number, and when that realization hit, it struck so suddenly that it stole his breath away.

And thus the long conversation was forced to come to a halt as one half of the conversation began to laugh.

Laughter bright and loud, the sort of laughter that suited the kind of child he had never been permitted to be.

"... I'll confess, I find myself interested in the extreme as to what had you laughing so strongly."

Yuuji needed a moment to respond, and when he did, he was still breathless, smiling like a fool.

His voice was calm, but a giddiness he couldn't shake free of, even if he wanted to, had gripped Yuuji.

"I don't need you anymore, Heath Oslo." He said with a confident, boyish grin. "So I'm ready to kill you."

["... Oh? How interesting, Yuuji."] Heath Oslo's amused voice trickled through the speaker, after a long exhale and a longer pause. ["You really think you mean that, don't you? And yet that you still seek me out proves your words hollow."]

"Sorry, Oslo, but it's me and not you." Yuuji returned in a toneless drawl. "I'm not coming to kill you for the scars you gave me, and I'm not even settling the score on Asako's behalf. I'm not killing you for Marin, or all the other kids that you broke trying to grow your collection of toy soldiers. Sure you've got too many crimes to count, but I honestly don't care at all."

Oslo remained silent.

"It's probably important somehow that you've gotten involved with the supernatural in some way, given that you took advantage of Seekvaira Agares' death to get my attention, but I don't really care about that, either. You probably remember beating the empathy out of me, so I doubt you're surprised."

["Then what reason do you have left, hmm? Following orders from one of your current masters, perhaps?"]

"Seekvaira Agares was someone they cared about." Yuuji said simply. "You touched something you shouldn't have."

Yuuji gave a small sigh before continuing.

"In the end, I'm still being selfish." He admitted without shame. "Troubling my important people this much with something so roundabout just reminded me what kind of damage you could do if you met them face-to-face, even for a second."

["In truth, I don't know if your estimation of me is high or low."] Oslo said with a brief chuckle. ["But I suppose it hardly matters."]

"It doesn't. It doesn't matter at all." Yuuji said with finality. "But the reason I'm going to kill you, everyone who works for you, and everyone who works with you is simple."

It was Oslo's turn to be certain Yuuji was wearing a smirk.

"It's not about revenge, or breaking free of the past, not anymore." Yuuji said. "I'm going to kill you, Heath Oslo, because all you know how to do is take, and I won't give you another chance to take from me."

["... You know, Yuuji… returning to kill me was always the far more likely scenario, in my estimation."] Heath Oslo began, his voice mild. ["So naturally, I am more than ready to remind my runaway dog about the law of club and fang. I'll be disappointed if you're not as ready as you think you are, so be a good boy and show me how you've grown."]

"Right, and after everything is over, we'll sit around a campfire and sing Kumbaya." Yuuji snarked back.

["Ha! Well, I might be persuaded."]

"You know, once upon a time, I dreamed about telling you how much I hated you, straight to your face." He'd never admit to anyone how often the thought of doing so had pulled him through his lowest points. "Killing you used to be the only goal I could cling to."

["... And now?"]

"Midterms are in a few weeks and I haven't studied at all." Yuuji said with a shrug. "So I'm going to get this out of the way before it affects my grades, and one of the girls decides study time should come at the expense of my sex life."

What should have been the most significant phone call in the life of two people instead lost in importance to teenage hormones.

Looking back on that conversation, that was perhaps the greatest sign of all that Yuuji was ready to forget how his scars had been made.

That he was going to kill the last of his demons, so that he could return home to his Devils.

Outo-san was angry, but he himself was feeling on top of the world.

As expected of Nii-san, no one else could make Outo-san that angry.

Ah… he couldn't wait to see Nii-san face to face. He wondered if Nii-san liked his calling card, and if Nii-san's fake master had been nice and pathetic when he mailed the severed head of her stupid friend to her door?

He'd make sure to ask Nii-san right before he killed him.

Oh… but hang on, he also wanted to see Nii-san fight at a moment when he was free to do nothing but watch, killing Nii-san would be a lot of work, and would probably distract him from admiring Nii-san.

Sure, he could just watch Nii-san slaughter all the disposables over the cameras… and he was totally going to do that anyways, but anyone who had ever been to a concert for their favorite band knew live performances were always better.

So he needed a suitable opponent for Nii-san to kill while he watched in person, but he was the only suitable opponent and he was going to win, so…

Oh right, they had the bitch.

The one who was only 'a somewhat amusing tool' in Outo-san's words.

So… expendable enough that Outo-san wouldn't scold him for getting her killed… but just useful enough to bring out a little bit of Nii-san's cool side before she died.

"Oi, I've got a job for you."

Something something 'save your breath' something something 'I don't follow your orders'-

"Well, it was worth a shot." He caught those dark violet eyes blink at the easy acquiescence, and tried not to look amused. "Well, I guess I won't take the high-grade holy water out of your master's water bowl."

Ah… that bolt of panic was too good. Not breaking her spirit really did make her reactions more fun, he was glad he'd listened to Outo-san.

"... I await… your orders." The bitch grit her teeth as she ground out the words, glaring at him as if her gaze alone could kill him.

With a too-wide smirk, he cheerfully instructed the Devil on how she was going to die for his entertainment.

And then he turned his back on her, knowing she dearly wished to plant a knife in it, and laughing because she knew she couldn't.

When he was gone, the fierceness drained from the body of Sakaki Yumiko, and she dashed away, knowing that the joke about holy water hadn't been a joke at all.

Return home to his Devils…. and Fallen Angels, regular Angels that might have a crush on him just a little, household pets, token human, the Dragon who adopted his dog, and…

Look, the line wouldn't have read out as smoothly if I made a full list.

I decided to keep this chapter brief, both because it's a clusterfuck of mental illness and delirium, and partially because writing some of it made me feel a little ill.

Yuuji also finally 'met' Asako, and the reunion was… typical of them. Her true nature is revealed as a fiction of a fiction… maybe?

Our ruined (fallen) angel reveals herself- the first wielder of the Arsenal Memoir. There are some hints there, but I'll remind you that a full-blooded Fallen Angel couldn't be born with a Sacred Gear, just like how Vali was a half-Devil.

Oh, and our missing Grisaia cast member is a Devil, and she works for Heath Oslo (grudgingly). That's a little relevant too.

Get ready folks, because this rabbit hole runs deep, and you're barely at the entrance.

PS: Oslo referring to 'the law of club and fang' is a reference to the book 'The Call of the Wild'