I had some real problems with this chapter because of the different languages- I couldn't decide if I would just leave it the way it was and let all of you figure it out for yourselves, or if I should put little translations on the side. I decided to just leave it, but there's not too much talking in different languages, and it's really simple stuff so everybody should be fine. Just in case though, there's a little glossary at the bottom of the page. Have fun reading!

Chapter 4

Uriel finally found the German Lucifer in Sevotharte's mansion gearing up for the volume 16 reading that was about to happen. He approached him cautiously as they had never been on the best of terms. "Uh...hallo..." he tried, cursing himself for not trying to learn something useful, like another language, in all that time he had spent deep in the earth.

"Hallo," the demon lord replied curtly. "Und was mochtest du hier?"

Not quite grasping what had been asked of him, Uriel decided to just tell Lucifer what he wanted there. "Wo ist- er- Rociel?"

"Rociel?" he seemed to consider this for a moment, then, "ROCIEL!" he hollered up the stairs.

"Ja?" came a reply from the second floor of the mansion.

"Wo bist du?"

"Hier."

"Dann komm mal HIER!"

"Warum!"

"Dummkopf, das weiss ich nicht!"

There was the sound of feet running down some stairs and the next second Rosiel was standing in front of the both of them in what looked like a long white muslin nightgown. "Uriel!" he exlaimed in delight and ran over to give Uriel a purely flirtatious hug. "Aber wie gehts? Ich hab dir fur soooo lang nich gesehen! Und wie ist-"

Uriel listened to the incoherent not managing to get a word in edgewise until Rociel finally was forced to take a breathe. "Have you, DU, seen," he made a looking motion, hating how ridiculous he must sound, "the ENGLISH Ro-Rociel?"

"Der Englischen?" Rociel repeated. "Nien."

"Oh...okay. And uh, where's-er-WO is, uh Katan?" he ventured, and quickly added, "I mean YOUR Katan? The Ger- Deutsch?"

"Er ist oben . Er beweg sich die Moebel," he said vaguely waving a hand upward, which Uriel took to mean that Katan was either upstairs or dead.

"Und, uh, the English Katan?"

"Der englischen? Nien, ich hab ihn nicht gesehen fur ein paar monaten- Ich mag ihn nicht." At this he wrinkled his nose and Uriel actually caught the gist of what had been said to him. It was a well known fact that the Rosiels did not get along very well with the other Katans. Probably due to international loyalty problems. Either way, there was no one missing here.

"Tu n'est pas le Lucifer que je sais! Je vais tu truer!"

Lucifer stepped in on the middle of the scene catching all attention.

"Hein!" yelled the other Lucifer swooping down next to him, the anger apparent on his face. "Que d'enfer fais-tu ici!"

"What the hell are you so bent out of shape about- no one's even reading you right now!"

"Nous practiqons!" he spat at him.

"What iz it you are wanting here?" asked the Messiah, proving that apparently he could be of SOME help and that he was not quite as dumb as everyone assumed.

"I'm looking for Rochel and Katan," he stated darkly, watching the French Lucifer circle the pair of them and glower out of the corner of his eye.

"Zey are in ze next scene. You may follow him zere," he informed him, pointing at Lucifer.

"Oh, really that's alright," he assured Setsuna in mock politeness. "So they're both here?"

"But of course," Setsuna replied, getting a suspicious look on his face. "Why would zey not be?"

"No reason," Lucifer replied, evading the question. "Have you seen our Rosiel and Katan?"

"No, zey do not often come here to visit."

"I can't imagine why..." he muttered and swept of to re group with the rest of the search party.

Back at the apocalyptic boulders Lucifer found Uriel there waiting for him. "Any luck?" the elemental asked him.

Lucifer shook his head and glowered.

They had been waiting for the other two no less than five minutes when the both of them came skidding around a corner out of breath.

"Come on," yelled Setsuna waving them over,"There's something you have to see!"

The four of them rushed off with Raphael leading the way into Rosiel's mansion. Lucifer was hoping very much that the something they had to see was both of their dead bodies, while Uriel prayed silently that neither of them had done some unspeakable sin that he would later have to condemn them for.

Upon entering the master bedroom, they all slowed down as Raphael pulled a curtain away to reveal...

"You made us run all this way, for a fucking hole in their wall!" asked Lucifer, trying without much luck to control his temper.

"It's not just a hole in the wall, dumbass," retorted Setsuna just before his own head was slammed into the bedpost by a certain enraged demon.

"He's right," agreed Raphael, "Go on, look through it."

Lucifer and Uriel both bent down and peered through the rip, which they found to be much more like regular paper, then sheet rock. Staring back at them, was another stack of books, only these books where gigantic. They were really more like skyscrapers, which neither of them could understand of explain away so they popped their heads back in and stared questioningly at Raphael.

"I'm not going to say that I know what that is and what's out there," began Raphael, "but I think that it's the world that our readers come from. I mean, it would make sense, wouldn't it?"

"So you mean to tell us that Katan and Rosiel are..." he looked through the hole again and gulped, "out there?"

"Like I said, there aren't any definite answers- I've never heard of anything like this happening before- but it does seem like a good theory, doesn't it?"

"Well, they'll probably be back soon," said Lucifer regaining his indifference.

"What makes you say that?"

"Well if they're running around in the big other world still at our size- they'll come running back soon enough won't they? They're not exactly intrepid pioneers"

Uriel had to agree that he did have a point.

"Well," Raphael started again, "We've been thinking- well actually, I've been thinking," he paused to throw a look at Setsuna, "others of us have just spent the time gaping at the hole. But what I think is that it could hardly make sense to stay tiny. I think that if one of us were to go out there, surely we would get bigger."

"Well, there's really only one way to find out," observed Lucifer looking dubiously at the hole. "Who wants to try it?"

"First," Uriel said, "we have to all agree that this stays between us. If anyone else finds out, well, they'll all want to try and get out and people from out there will want to try and get in, so I think it's best if no one else knows about it. Agreed?"

"Agreed," came the unison answer.

"Okay, well, I think," began the Messiah.

"Gods and angels, he's actually THINKING," Lucifer interrupted sarcastically.

"Shut up. I was going to say that I think Lucifer should go out there. I'm sure everyone agrees with me that he's probably the most capable of handling a situation like this."

"You mean that if he goes he can just kill anyone who gets in his way and unleash terror unto our missing duo until they come back," Raphael interpreted.

"Basically."

"Alright then" agreed Lucifer, not putting up at all a fight as everyone had feared. "I'll do it."

"Be careful," Uriel told him.

"Yeah, try to find and bring them back as quickly as you can-we don't what it's like out there or what could happen."

"Try not to get sidetracked my fantasies of taking over the world!" added Setsuna to the good-byes, which earned him another head-bang into the bead.

They all walked up to the hole with Lucifer as he stepped through it and disappeared into the unknown.

"Well," said Uriel breaking the silence that had ensued after Lucifer's departure, "That's three major characters gone. Everyone's going to be wondering where they are and asking all kinds of questions-" he pulled some fingers through his hair and let out a deep sigh. "Unless..."

"Unless what?" Raphael question. "Are you talking about..."

Uriel nodded and Setsuna looked from one to the other in complete confusion.

"Talking about what? What's he mean Raphie? C'mon, you guys don't tell me anything!"

"I'm talking about hiding the book."

At this, Setsuna fell silent. They all knew that hiding the book from its owner was a very serious and dire course of action- they had only ever had to do it once before, the time that the demons had thrown a huge Christmas party and everyone had been to drunk to read their lines for the next two days.

"Are you sure?" asked Raphael looking concerned. "I mean, it's completely up to you- you're the only one who has the power to do that, right?"

"Yeah," said Uriel, "and I think I'm going to. If I hide the book without letting anyone else know, they'll all think it's just been misplaced by the reader for awhile. In no time, they all be having parties and no one will even notice three unsociable characters are missing. I just hope that Lucifer can find it when he come back..."

"Dammit!" the auburn haired girl hissed after practically tearing her room apart. "I can't believe I lost it already- I just bought it!" And she stomped off to question her little brother and every other member of her household for that matter, never noticing the thin glossy manga book wedged in the space between her two bookshelves.

Glossary:

mochtest want Dann komm mal then come beweg sich moving

Moebel furniturequeje sais that I know je vais I will

truer kill d'enfer in hellfais doing ici here

nous practiqons we are practicing