Paved with Good Intentions

by surefall and aishuu
Disclaimer: Based on Prince of Tennis, by Konomi.
Part 15 Summary: In which the new Lord of Evil displays his wicked power.

Part 15: Rebirth is a Bitch

Study time, the bane of all students and the prime source of goofing off. Mizuki happened to fall into the goofing off syndrome more times than he liked to admit. No, he was not above shamelessly wasting time. Especially when that time wasting happened to entail lots and lots of sex with Yuuta.

Mizuki smirked as he pushed the door open to Yuuta's room without so much as a by-your-leave, looking around for his boyfriend.

Yuuta had been acting strangely for the past couple of days. He'd completely lost any trace of embarrassment about sex, and even done a few things which had managed to shock Mizuki. It was like he was a different person. Not that Mizuki was complaining, even if he did miss the way Yuuta had blushed and suspected that perhaps his boyfriend had picked up another lover from whence all this secret knowledge had come.

Yuuta was sitting rather comfortably on the bed, sans socks. The jeans he wore were old and well-broken in, sculpting his legs beautifully, and Mizuki was pleased to note a shirt was missing. All that hung from his throat was a rather nice necklace which dangled tantalizingly over his chest. There was an air of sensuality about him, a casual feeling of sexiness radiating as he flipped a page in his literature text.

It was too much to resist, really, so Mizuki moved to Yuuta's side and slid onto the bed with him, reaching out to slide a hand up his leg. "Hello, Yuuta-kun."

Yuuta's lips curled slightly as he leaned into the warm body against him. Resting his head on Mizuki's shoulder, he continued to read.

So Yuuta wanted to play innocent, ne? Mizuki could handle that. He slid his hand slowly up and down the other boy's leg, murmuring an inquisitive, "What are you reading?"

"The Gay Kama Sutra," Yuuta announced, sliding a book which he'd been hiding among the pages free. "How flexible are you?"

Shocking. Yuuta had become simply shocking ... and intriguing. "Mmmm, I would hope I'm flexible enough."

Yuuta held up one of the most colorful images. "I think we could adapt this..."

Mizuki flushed. "We could."

"Or... this?" Yuuta flipped to another page. "I wonder how he makes his tongue do that..."

Mizuki's fingers tightened sporadically on Yuuta's thigh and he smirked again. "I'm sure there's a way, Yuuta-kun."

The lights in the room flickered, and Yuuta dropped his book. There was the sound of hissing, much like the way a kettle sounded before it boiled, though Mizuki couldn't pinpoint where it came from. Yuuta's eyes narrowed as he stared at the radiator. "Are you going to come out of there?"

"Maybe," called a half-familiar voice.

Mizuki could only blink in pure confusion at the voice coming from the radiator. What was Kirihara-kun doing in there? If he was in there? How could he fit in there? It had to be a practical joke ...

Laughter rang through the room, and then smoke started to leak from the radiator. Yuuta threw his arm across Mizuki, pinning him in place. "Whatever happens, stay still," he ordered through the side of his mouth.

"Yuuta? What "

The smoke begin to thicken, and it was a wonder the alarms didn't go off. In less than thirty seconds, Kirihara Akaya stood in the middle of the room, hands folded into the pockets of his tight black leather pants. He licked his lips slowly, focusing red eyes on Yuuta. "Hello, Yuuta," he purred.

That was impossible. Simply impossible. There was no way that anyone could do what Kirihara had just done. Mizuki opened his mouth to protest only to snap it shut again.

Yuuta wasn't paying him any attention, anyway. He was completely focused on Kirihara. "What do you want?" he demanded.

"Can't I see an old friend?" Kirihara asked, though the level of venom in his words made it clear how "friendly" he and Yuuta were.

"Why wait all this time?" Yuuta asked.

"Let's just say I've discovered myself."

Yuuta's face drained of all its color. "Mizuki, do you know any prayers?"

"No," was the whisper of a reply from the frozen Mizuki. The situation hadn't fail to impress upon him its dire nature.

"Start inventing some."

"Oh, uh ... father who art in heaven ... "

"Now look what you've done, Kirihara ... you've made Mizuki convert to religion. I'm so proud!" That voice happened to come from someone equally familiar to Mizuki, who was leaning against the door to Yuuta's room like he'd been there since forever (which he hadn't, but he liked to pretend he did). Sengoku waved at them before making what could only be called 'heart eyes' in Kirihara's general direction.

It was getting too weird for Mizuki. Briefly he contemplated fainting.

Kirihara's smile didn't waver. "Are you here to watch me, lover?" he asked. He bowed mockingly. "I promise this will be a show worth seeing."

"Hopefully he's here to kill you for good this time," Yuuta snapped angrily.

"That's certainly a high possibility considering he was about to do something stupid again," Sengoku nodded sagely.

Mizuki was beginning to wonder what the fark was going on, not to mention why Sengoku always had to make things weirder than they already were.

Kirihara stared at Sengoku and as their eyes met, flames literally sparked. Yuuta grabbed the pillow off the bed to smother them before the carpet could ignite.

"Stop it!" he said in a commanding voice which was hard to believe came from the normally wishy-washy young man. "In case you haven't noticed, there's two mortals in the room!"

Sengoku rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry, Yuuta-kun. It's been a sparkly power sort of day. Whelp, you heard the boy, Kirihara, we should take this outside." For Kirihara, the world began to twist just a little, a sure sign Sengoku was about to wrench them both through the ephemeral.

"Let's not," Kirihara said. "I didn't come here for you." His eyes narrowed as he looked at Yuuta. "Yuuta, I would say I'm sorry, but I'm not."

Yuuta opened his mouth to make some kind of demand, but Kirihara's eyes flashed again... and suddenly he was coughing up blood. His eyes widened in panic as he fell to his knees, too weak to move.

"Sorry about the blood," Kirihara said to Mizuki before waggling his fingers cheerfully. "But it's kinda hard to avoid when your heart is exploding, cell by cell... agonizing, isn't it?"

Yuuta's eyes fluttered, and he fell forward onto the floor... and then stopped breathing.

"That was almost too quick," Kirihara said in disappointment, before kissing Sengoku on the cheek. "Later, lover," he purred, flashing out of the room with a puff of smoke.

Mizuki stared and stared and stared ... and reached down to shake Yuuta's shoulder, "Yuuta-kun ... hey, Yuuta-kun. Get up. It was a great joke, really. Get up ... " Why was his chest so tight?

Sengoku watched his classmate slowly sink to his knees, shaking Yuuta harder, demanding that he get up a demand that became a wail which was where he vanished from the room like an image wavering in the sun, whispering, "Oh, Mizuki ... "

Fuji Syuusuke rarely got angry. He'd spend time annoyed, and occasionally irritated, but it took a lot to truly piss him off.

He was angry now... and it was a sight to see.

The fact that Fuji was angry was making Tezuka wary, which happened to manifest itself only in the occasional twitch of a eyelid behind the glint of his glasses.

Fuji was pacing Tezuka's office, occasionally creating small bolts of lightning which he threw at the wall. He hadn't given a reason for his rage, but the words he was muttering made it clear that he blamed Sengoku.

Tezuka just huffed quietly under his breath and shuffled papers to release the little simmer of unease that was growing in his stomach. Something was very, very wrong in the universe ...

Fuji was speaking softly to himself. Sadly, it wasn't enough to make sense to anyone. "Should I... kill... revenge..."

These ramblings made Tezuka wonder if Fuji was going off the deep end. He also wondered if that meant he would Fall again and finally leave his office in peace. Tezuka allowed the corner of his lips to twitch. That was a very nice thought: Peace.

Fuji apparently came to some kind of decision, stalking over to plant himself firmly in Tezuka's lap. He was very fond of sitting there. "Do you have any idea what Kirihara just did?" he asked, grabbing Tezuka's shirt.

Tezuka deigned to raise an eyebrow, "Something unpleasant?"

"Something against the rules," Fuji said. "He just killed a mortal."

Definitely unpleasant. Not that it was particularly surprising given the nature of the parties involved. Tezuka tipped his head forward slightly. "That will certainly simplify the matter of dealing with him, then."

"Normally I'd agree, but... he killed Yuuta. Again," Fuji said, his face twisting up in annoyance.

"He will be reborn."

"He's probably already being born somewhere. That's not the point!" Fuji said in frustration. "I rarely find him when he's young and handsome! You know what it's like trying to screw an eighty year old?"

"You are not allowed to bother him anyway, remember?"

"When's that ever stopped me?"

"Ah. I see. Then your promise is worthless, then. Get off my lap."

"I never promised to leave him alone. You told me to, which is entirely different and since I don't seem to be getting anything out of you..." Fuji remained firmly planted, a slight pout on his lips.

"That was the point. You wanted something to do in exchange for leaving him alone."

"You completely miss the point," Fuji said. "You're still a virgin, I'm frustrated, and my brother is dead!"

"And I intend to stay a virgin since you can not be trusted to uphold your end of our agreement." As for the other two problems, well, Tezuka didn't see what was so horrifying about them considering Yuuta was being reborn and Fuji had brought the frustration on himself by Rising.

Fuji sniffed. "I was the devil - what did you expect?" He lowered his long lashes, staring up through them coquetishly. "But I'm good now, so what's past is past. Having you ever heard that forgiveness was God's greatest gift?"

"I can forgive you without having to give you what you want," Tezuka replied, with the slightest edge of sharpness. You couldn't even papercut yourself on this kind of sharpness.

"Don't you love me, just a little?" Fuji asked wistfully.

"Whether I love you or not has little relevance to this discussion."

Fuji's fists clenched and suddenly he was on his feet again, sparking power. "We can talk about that later, I suppose. Right now someone has to go scream at Sengoku for being an idiot." His look indicated he expected Tezuka to help. "How on earth did he manage to let Kirihara go this crazy?"

Tezuka didn't actually use the scream function in his vocal cords, so he wasn't quite sure why he was necessary to this operation, but he got up anyway. Besides, he was feeling strangely chilly now that Fuji wasn't warming his lap, and figured the trip would be good exercise. "You can hardly expect an angel to make someone do something, such as not go crazy."

"Tezuka - we're talking about Sengoku," Fuji pointed out.

The slight huff of breath was Tezuka's response since unfortunately Fuji had a point.

"Where would he be right now?" Fuji asked. "His office is in hell, but... he's probably gone somewhere to sulk where no one expects..."

"I know where he is," Tezuka replied without thought, moving to exit his office through the door rather than teleport. One should always leave the office through the door and Tezuka was a stickler for stupid little details like this.

Fuji followed after him, not bothering to respect personal space as he walked less than a foot away. "Where?"

"In a tree."

Shishido had learned one thing in the past week: he absolutely hated books and wanted to throttle whoever had invented the written word.

He'd always known the library was vast, but no one had ever actually made him Read any of it. Every now and them Ohtori would get caught up in something and ask for research help, but that was different. Ohtori never sent him on wild goose chases.

Ohtori, on the other hand, was enthralled. Sure, there were extensive boring sections of history devoted solely to the chit-chat about things no rational being really needed to know ... but the rest of it? Fascinating. Angelic history was fraught with all kinds of minor intrigues and glorious victories and moments of righteous fervor okay, so Ohtori had gotten caught up in details and had kinda been reading up on stuff before the flood.

Ohtori closed the book gently, so Yanagi wouldn't notice, and glanced at Shishido, smiling brightly. "Have you found anything yet?"

"If I had, do you think I'd still be sitting here?" Shishido asked a bit waspishly, instantly regretting it when he remembered who he was talking to. "Sorry, Choutarou. I'm just a bit frustrated."

Ohtori merely nodded amicably, used to Shishido's moods. "Oh no, I meant anything else that was interesting." Since he was just dying to share his latest revelation, but it wasn't polite unless someone else shared first.

"I'm reading about the composition of soil. It's fascinating," Shishido said dryly, "in a masochistic, I need a life kind of way."

"It helps if you just skim those parts, Shishido-san."

"It's completely unorganized! One second it's talking about what Caesar said to his legions, while the next it's ruminating on the mating habits of iguanas! It's hard to skip anything, because as soon as I start skipping..."

"You supervisor will be leaning over your shoulder?" a voice inserted smoothly.

Ohtori nearly started and hid the book behind his back, but sheer force of will kept him right where he was, looking distinctly not guilty. "Yanagi-san!"

Yanagi, who currently was balancing two open books in his hands, nodded. Somehow or other it appeared he was reading both at the same time. "Have you found anything relevant?" he asked.

"Well ... no," Ohtori was the picture of contriteness.

Shishido was busy wondering how Yanagi always managed to creep up behind him. The superior angel was quieter than a cat, and ten times as nosey. "I've seen nothing in those stupid books."

Yanagi smiled a bit, and Shishido braced himself for a zinger. "It's not the books that are stupid, it's the person reading whom is incapable of comprehending."

Shishido bristled, but knew better than to get into a war of words with a professed grammarian. "Yanagi-senpai, do you know how long it will take to find something?" He gestured around him. "I've gotten through maybe 1,000 of these..."

"You're not going anywhere," Yanagi replied with a slight shrug. "A couple decades isn't that long..."

"Um, Yanagi-san? I have a question," Ohtori raised his hand.

"Yes?" Yanagi jiggled his right hand a bit, deftly flipping a page.

"If someone deliberately stole those books during the confusion ... would it have been possible that they stole the current volume of history that was being written at that moment? The one that would have recorded what they were doing?"

"The theft would have been recorded in the replacing volume..." Yanagi said. "It's an endless cycle, one of the thefts would be written about somewhere..." His face paled a bit as he considered the possibility. "Though there is a question of when the theft was recorded." He blinked as he glanced at the millions of volumes that surrounded them. "A couple of centuries, and we should be able to find it..."

"But Inui-san was reading history as it was being written ... why couldn't someone have taken that book while it was being written? Wouldn't that mean his theft of that book would have been written in that book?" Ohtori wasn't tattling on Inui per se so much as trying to clarify his point. Shishido was looking mighty grumpy over having to read volumes and volumes and the sooner Ohtori could get them both free of the task the better both of them would feel.

"I wonder why he would have been doing that..." Yanagi murmured. "Any ideas?" he asked Shishido.

"How would I know?"

"Well, you worked with him for several centuries..."

"I did not!" Shishido was very offended. "I worked under Nanjiroh-sama..."

"Extrapolate, then. Why would you watch the current version of history being written?"

"Because it's more interesting than learning about dung beetles?"

Ohtori huffed quietly. Shishido was cute when he was being a bit of a smart ass.

"It was more interesting that the growth of mold spores," Inui acknowledged, popping up right behind Ohtori, glancing sharply over his shoulder as he did so. Just to make sure that there was no one behind him, really, that was all, he wasn't trying to look out for Satan at all ...

"Inui-san!" Ohtori caroled in reply, whipping his head around to blast poor Inui with shining rays of hope, peace, and the glory of righteousness. Naturally, Inui cringed. And then double-cringed.

Shishido couldn't help but smirk. Ohtori's blinding purity did have its uses... sometimes he'd wager that the devil himself would shy away from Ohtori's innocent power.

"Hello, Sadaharu," Yanagi said, finally looking up from the books. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to supply an answer?"

Inui adjusted his glasses and scuttled behind a pile of books to get out of Ohtori's direct line of sight. The brilliance scoured the ground clean on both sides of the stack. "I had hoped the answer would be obvious, Renji."

"Plotting." Yanagi sighed, looking a bit disinterested.

"There are great things currently at work ... if you were not so stuck in the past you might notice them." Inui could admit to himself that he was laying a lot of hopes on Yanagi's ability to pick up on subtle desperation. As for the books, if they hadn't been made of the heaven stuff, Inui would suspect them of being slowly burned away by the Ohtori Beam.

Yanagi's hackles rose, though he didn't give a sign of it. Inui was hinting that something in the current books would be of interest to him... which immediately made him suspicious. What was Inui trying to do? he wondered. Whatever it was, he wasn't going to fall for it. "Sometimes the lessons of the past are things that should not be forgotten. Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

Talk about grinding in the painful fact that Inui had terribly miscalculated with Satan. How painful was yet to be figured, but Inui was betting that he had barely a taste of the torment that was probably going to be coming to him as Satan's minion. Inui nearly flinched, "You do realize that Hell is without a Lord." One binding in place of another had not blinded Inui to the loss of the first.

"What?" Yanagi and Shishido asked in unison. Shishido felt his breathing quicken, his hands shaking a bit. "What happened to Fuji?" Shishido continued alone. He'd been fond of Fuji - great in bed, and more mischievous evil than malicious evil. He couldn't imagine anything that could take Fuji out without taking half the world with it - and they would have noticed an Apocalypse.

Ohtori just blinked at this sudden whiplash of information, letting his beam falter and die. Inui took the golden opportunity to slide out from behind the books and nod, just a little smugly. "He's simply ... gone."

Yanagi stared at Inui, feeling his fingers twitch a bit. He desperately wanted to grab the current volume to figure out what was going on... but it was obvious that was exactly what Inui wanted him to do. He glanced over at the nervous Shishido and the befuddled Ohtori and made a command decision. "Go back to work," he said to them. "I'll go check with Yukimura."

Inui was tempted to pick up the current volume and throw it at Yanagi's head. Or steal it. Then maybe Yanagi would want it back enough to read it. That particular option had a very nice feel to it and he resolved to do it the moment Yanagi's back was turned, "Yes. Please do, Renji."

Ohtori eyed Inui's twitchings with some interest. The demon was up to something. He prepared himself to beam.

Shishido, though, merely groaned. Things were getting interesting, and he was stuck reading about the creation of the first tax code. Hell had nothing on this.

The way to Sengoku's secondary hiding place (his office being his first, considering that a person could get lost easily in those shelves and had in times past) was amazing simple. Just pop down to earth, hang a left at the first star, and straight on till mo wrong story, similar directions. Tezuka materialized in the mango orchard, looked around to get his bearings, and took a left past the first tree and went straight until experience, and a tingling behind his eyes, informed him he should stop.

Tezuka looked up, squinting a little to catch sight of the other archangel through the leaves, feeling an acute sense of dejavu. Sengoku shifted slightly to reveal himself and looked down, garden green eyes meeting ice blue, "Tezuka," a pause, "and Fuji."

Fuji, whose upset had worked past the initial rage, smiled up at the insouciant archangel. "The new and improved version," he said, beaming with heavenly light.

"Very sparkly," Sengoku observed, looking vastly entertained by the notion of Fuji as an angel.

Fuji wrapped a hand in Tezuka's rather limp one. "I finally decided to declare my love for Kunimitsu!" he announced proudly.

Tezuka's was very tempted to pry his hand free with a stick and did the moment that Sengoku decided to slide off a tree limb and drop to the one lower down, smirking wildly. "Does this mean I get to be the best man at the wedding?"

"Unless Atobe insists," Fuji replied. "Kunimitsu is ever so close to him." The saucy smile glittered a bit as he glanced at Tezuka. Sometimes it would be nice to deal with Sengoku directly, but showing up and demanding something flat-out never worked. The game had to be played by the rules, no matter how upset Fuji was personally.

Tezuka made his equivalent of a grumble. "Can you just scream at him and get it over with?" The last place he wanted to be was in between the two of them.

Sengoku's eyes wobbled, suddenly full of faux tears. "Fuji-kun wants to scream at me? What did I do!"

"It's what you didn't do," Fuji replied pleasantly, reclaiming Tezuka's hand and squeezing a bit to let out a little of his anger. "Why is Kirihara still alive?"

"Because no one's tried to kill him yet?" was the ever so innocent reply.

Tezuka flexed his fingers in the hopes of getting some blood back into them.

Fuji's grip tightened again, and had Tezuka been human, there would have been the sound of breaking bones. "And why would that be?"

"Maybe because no one's volunteering to do it?" Sengoku continued to smile down at them brightly, though his smile vanished briefly at the face Tezuka was making at having his hand crushed into pulp. A distinct line seemed to be forming between Tezuka's eyebrows.

"I seem to recall someone promising to do it himself," Fuji answered, his smile predatory now. "Since I rather had my hands tied, I thought someone was going to take care of it... and now my brother's dead - again."

"And being reborn. Let's not forget that." Sengoku distinctly recalled that he had been "planning" to do it himself. Not the same as promising at all. He loved semantics.

Tezuka however, felt the need to interrupt, "Let go of my hand, Fuji."

Fuji looked down and saw Tezuka's fingertips turning blue. "Sorry," he said, leaning over to brush a kiss on Tezuka's cheek before turning back to Sengoku. "He killed a mortal right in front of you, and you let him get away with it," Fuji said slowly, enunciating each word clearly. "It doesn't matter if Yuuta will be back, the point is you let someone harm him."

"I can hardly stop him from doing something. Just like I can't stop you from doing something or stop Yukimura. Short of taking away your free will, that is, which is also against the rules." Sengoku merrily skipped over the fact that he had been putting into motion a teleportation at the moment of Kirihara's little trick and standing between planes was hardly conducive to being able to affect either of them.

Tezuka nearly twitched an eyebrow. Apologies but Fuji still hadn't let go. Just more empty words. He wanted his fingers back and he wanted them back now. To that end he shot a very sharp spark of power through them in the hopes of getting Fuji off of him.

Fuji blinked a bit at the sudden surge, his grip twitching but still firm. He glanced at Tezuka again, noting the irritation that was about to erupt and wisely let go. It wasn't worth fighting over. "And when have rules ever concerned you?" he shot at Sengoku instead.

The crease between Tezuka's eyes smoothed as he flexed his fingers to get the blood flowing back through them. Finally. Freedom.

"I have played very precisely by the rules, Fuji. If you hadn't noticed, which surprises me just a little."

"I don't recall angels fucking devils to be in the rules. If you had left Kirihara alone, this would not be an issue right now," Fuji returned.

"It wouldn't be an issue if Inui had left Kirihara alone."

"Inui?"

"You do remember Inui, right? Your former subordinate? One of the ones you let wander about unsupervised while you gallivanted to earth to poke your nose in both I and Tezuka's business? The subordinate who decided to tell Kirihara who he was the rebirth of? Does that particular Inui ring a bell to you?"

Fuji's power being crackling. "I'm going to kill him."

"I think you would have to go through Satan to do that ... since he's probably going to use him as bait." If Sengoku wasn't an angel, he would be sorely tempted to just have kept that little bit of insight to himself and let Fuji go off and get himself into trouble.

He sighed and Tezuka sighed along with him, having thought somewhat the same thing. Tezuka elbowed Fuji not so subtly in the side to distract him.

Fuji took a deep breathe, and then another as he tried to calm himself down. "I want you to know I hold you responsible, no matter what happens. He's your boyfriend, so fix this damned mess."

"Just so long as you realize that I hold you responsible for deliberately unbalancing things with your little rising trick, and don't think that I'm going to forget that either," Sengoku shot back, sharper than he meant to, which caused the tree to promptly burst into flames as his power fluctuated madly for a moment before settling. If Fuji hadn't been standing there, Sengoku would have then beaten his head against the tree trunk in sheer annoyance, but he was there, so Sengoku just sighed again and slid himself out of the tree.

Tezuka started, not used to Sengoku showing anything more than the barest of teleportation skills, and immediately put the fire out, leaving the tree a smoking husk.

"Tsk, tsk," Fuji chided. "At least I'm not a walking timebomb."

"I think me being a timebomb is the least of your worries."

"Maybe - but unless you sort this out..." The threat trailed off.

"You'll what? Bite my kneecaps off?"

The grin toward malicious. "I think I can reach a little bit higher."

Sengoku sniffed, "It'll grow back."