Paved with Good Intentions
by surefall and aishuu
Disclaimer: Based on Prince of Tennis, by Konomi.


Part 19: All Good (or bad) Things Must Come to an End

It was Inui's turn to provide the decor at his and Yanagi's monthly meeting, but the decor was proving remarkably resistant. In the past five minutes he had been flipped off by a green frog, drenched with pond water, and had a fish thrown at him for daring to rearrange the existence of the pond that happened to now exist in the place that was their usual spot. Inui was getting somewhat annoyed, but since his efforts were futile, he decided to give up and just make a French table in black iron this time. The table decided it wanted to be a lounge chair.

Inui sighed and sat down on it, hoping his summoned tea wouldn't end up as a cup of Every Flavor Beans.

Yanagi appeared, and his levitation spell was promptly canceled, sending him crashing into the tepid water below. He had heard things had gotten unusual since the change in administration, but he hadn't really believed it. Breaking the surface, he was unamused by the lily pad that had wound up on his head, resembling a jaunty hat.

Inui smirked down at Yanagi. "Powers become a little faulty in your old age?"

Yanagi shook himself off, shut his eyes, and managed to rise so he was standing on the water. "Just... out of tune. What frequency is this plain on?" he asked, trying to hide his frustration. He was having a hard time tapping into the inherent magic of the plain.

"I think it has decided that it will be on no one's plain. I can only get my powers to work if I only use my power," Inui was pleased to note that his summoned tea had only managed to transmute into a lemonade. Maybe he was getting the hang of it!

Yanagi knew he was now at a serious disadvantage. Inui was one of the Lords of Hell, while he was merely a librarian. "Annoying, that." He created a seat which turned into a flotation device instead of the wooden chair he'd been wanting. The flotation device, thankfully, was low enough to see over and he picked up the cup of tea Inui had brought for him this time around. In the mood he was in, Penal Tea couldn't do much damage.

A sip... and Yanagi nearly spat it out. It was... normal? "Nice blend," he complimented.

Inui sighed again. Life just wasn't fair if Yanagi couldn't be horribly scarred by his Penal Tea. "Yes. Very... revitalizing."

"I think the decor has been revitalized a bit," Yanagi replied. He looked down, noticing how a school of fish swam by. "Did they turn the souls in limbo into... aquatic life?"

"I am not sure ... they seem to be very ordinary Earth fish."

"Then where are the souls that are supposed to be here?"

"Perhaps they have already moved them through the process?"

"That would be contrary to the purpose of Purgatory. There's supposed to be lines. Things aren't supposed to be efficient."

"Sengoku-san has hardly proved that he does things in the expected manner."

Yanagi smiled slightly. It was a perfect opening. "Indeed. Speaking of the Lord and Master, I wanted to ask you about the fall-out of the Satan mess."

"Oh? I wanted to ask you some things as well."

"I asked first," Yanagi said. Their monthly meetings had defined rules, rules that were the only thing that maintained their contact.

"Very well," Inui could acknowledge expected defeat gracefully.

"So?"

"So what is your question?"

"What is happening in hell since Satan was taken out?"

"Not too much. There has been some generic reorganization and Kirihara has been promoted into Nanjirou's old position."

"Kirihara?" Yanagi wracked his brain, managing to dredge up an image of black hair and pretty blue-green eyes. "You mean that piece of fluff Sengoku was playing with before the whole mess started?"

"Yes. He and Ryouma had already been angling toward that position before the debacle. Though it was surprising for him to take it this early, it is not so surprising over all."

Yanagi's stomach dropped as he thought of something. "...they didn't make him hell's representative in purgatory, did they?" He had a bad, bad feeling about this.

Inui blinked. "They did, actually ... "

Yanagi gave in and buried his face in his hands. "Do you honestly think he could keep Sengoku from doing everything his way?" He still didn't trust the archangel, despite their both being on the same side.

Inui sighed, "No, but I doubt that anyone can really stop Sengoku-san from doing things his own way ... considering that heaven has not been able to manage it," he added a trifle maliciously, "But it keeps Kirihara out of Fuji's way most admirably, ne?" It galled Inui to think that a hellish representative couldn't just walk all over the heavenly one, but unfortunately there it was.

"Why promote him, then? I think Fuji should be popular right now. His plot to take out Satan was sheer brilliance," Yanagi was forced to admit.

Inui's teeth gritted for a moment. "I do not know. I suppose because the post has been vacant this long and the rival for it is now dead."

Yanagi never understood hellish politics. He was about to ask another question, when he noticed something. "Are those koi fish?" He was surprised; koi should not have been able to survive with the other specimens (including a few hungry looking piranhas) in the pond.

Inui looked down. "They appear to be." Personally, he chalked up their survival to the universal weirdness that had been sinking its self-satisfied little teeth into Purgatory lately. Considering the disgruntlement of both sides, it certainly boded well for the disgruntlement of souls.

"I did have a favor to ask, though."

"Oh?" Inui immediately perked up. Any favor Yanagi owed him was a good favor.

" A small favor," Yanagi corrected.

"I should be the judge of that," Inui replied with relish.

Yanagi weighed what he was going to ask against owing a debt, and decided it would be worth it. Inui wouldn't threaten his sanity the way the current situation was already doing. "Fine, we'll discuss it later. I want you to convince Niou and Yagyuu to go back to where they belong." It was decidedly unangelic to wish someone back to hell, but he was on the verge of snapping.

Now it was Inui who had to weigh the two pleasures of being owed a debt by Yanagi and the one in which he got to watch Yanagi squirm over the presence of his loosely termed coworkers. He decided he could angle a bit of the second even if he did the first, "Do you not want to give them the benefit of your divine influence?" he asked innocently.

"Right now I fear Shishido will kill them and fall again... and Ohtori will find some way to follow him without falling since he loves Shishido." The threat was quite clear.

Inui nearly twitched. Ugh. Ohtori around hell. "Very well," he bowed his head as gracefully as he could manage, "I will ... talk to them."

"Soon, please. Ohtori's brilliant radiance seems to be getting stronger." Yanagi took another sip of tea. "It's distracting both him and Shishido from their research."

"So nothing has come up then?"

"They might be at it for a few decades. With Satan gone, the time isn't any issue. They'll find them, eventually."

Inui nodded to this, though he was still determined to find them through some other means first.

Yanagi watched without amusement as a duck swam by. "I do have one other suggestion."

"Oh?"

"How about we shift our next meeting to earth?" This time, a dog swum by practicing an impressive backstroke. "I hate to think what this place is going to be a month from now."

"Hopefully he will be bored by then ... " The suggestion was not without merit, "Very well. I know a very delightful nightclub."

"I was thinking more of a nice restaurant."

"Nightclubs have restaurants occasionally."

"One that the serving staff is fully dressed."

"That is hardly a bad thing."

"I'll pick up the bill if we go to Gino's."

Ahh, mooching. It was fundamentally evil. "Very well."

Oishi was going to Hell.

He sat in a bar, wondering when a devil would show up to drag him down. He'd just slept with a mortal who he didn't really love, and then left before Shinji had woken up. He'd been sober for the first time in weeks, and he could see his future.

He had sinned. He had to be punished.

Murphy's Law is always at work in the universe, which meant that since Oishi was already feeling in the pits, the universe conspired to make him feel even worse. Tezuka pushed the door to the bar open and slid smoothly through the smoke to take up residence at the barstool that he had decided was his. "Hello, Oishi."

Oishi jumped, and whimpered. Tezuka was the last creature he wanted to see... well, aside from Fuji, but that was a given. "T-Tezuka!" he stammered, arranging himself so the bottle he'd been drinking from was hidden by his back.

Tezuka blinked, which was all the acknowledgement of the bottle that he felt he needed to give. "How are you?" Small talk seemed to be a reasonable way to attempt to inch himself along to the subject of Oishi's ... indiscretions. All things considered, he would rather be blunt and tactless, but Tezuka was afraid that Oishi might bolt.

"Um..." Oishi wondered if he was allowed to lie yet.

Tezuka waited expectantly.

"Um..."

He didn't even blink.

"Um..." They were at a standstill.

Okay, so subtlety wasn't working. "Why did you sleep with Shinji?"

Oishi cringed and started to babble. Nothing he said made any sense in any language that had ever existed on Earth.

Tezuka huffed a small breath. It wasn't making much sense to him either. "It is okay ... slow down."

Oishi grabbed the bottle he'd been hiding and took a long, steadying sip. There was no point in keeping it a secret - Tezuka already knew. "I've been having a few bad weeks," he stated. Another long swallow.

Tezuka reached out and calmly wrapped his fingers around the bottle's neck, tugging on it and hoping that Oishi would let the liquor go.

Like always, Oishi capitulated to his senior. He watched as Tezuka took the bottle, and then did something so the bottle vanished. "I wasn't thinking that clearly, and, um..." His face was a brilliant red.

"You were drunk and got laid." Tezuka was a man of simplicity.

"Yes?" The word was spoken so softly that only Tezuka's divine hearing enabled him to catch it.

Tezuka regarded Oishi in an almost dissecting kind of way, if he did dissecting looks, before he reached out again and clasped Oishi's shoulder. "It's okay?"

Oishi's eyes started to water. "But I'm going to HELL!" he yelled, and since this bar wasn't as seedy as the last, half the crowd was suddenly staring at them.

Well, except Tezuka didn't want Oishi to go to hell. He wanted to keep him right there in heaven ... "Not if you sincerely repent of your sins?"

"But I deserve to be punished!" Oishi wailed.

"Is not guilt a punishment?" Not that Tezuka couldn't do the punishing if guilt was insuffic -- a touch of color threatened to rise in his cheeks. Obviously Fuji had been a bad influence even as an angel.

"But there's no guilt in heaven!" Oishi obviously hadn't spoken to Shishido much.

Tezuka looked perhaps a fraction amused, "Of course there is. Shishido would be an example."

Oishi sniffed. "Really?"

The corners of Tezuka's lips twitched upward. "I can hardly lie."

Oishi threw himself at Tezuka, wrapping his arms tightly around him. A woman sniffed, touched.

Tezuka nearly startled, arms raising automatically, then he found a good use for them by looping them around Oishi and patting his back in a somewhat awkward manner. He hadn't done it before ... he supposed he would get better with practice.

Oishi realized their audience. "Um..." he glanced pointedly around, his flush changing slightly to one of embarrassment.

"We should move this somewhere more private," Tezuka stated, feeling perhaps just a tiny bit embarrassed.

Oishi glanced around the bar, before taking Tezuka by the hand and dragging him out the door. "Back to my place," he suggested, a bit wobbly by rapidly sobering. The air was cold against their skin, with the shared warmth of their hands a welcome relief.

"I can take us," Tezuka offered, deciding that he wouldn't pull his hand away and that he might give Oishi's a little squeeze while he was at it.

"Sure." They stepped into a convenient ally, and teleported.

Unlike Tezuka's usually perfect teleports, they somehow wound up in Oishi's bedroom, and Oishi, uncomfortably close to a wall, lost his balance and fell forward... landing on Tezuka. He blinked slowly, experiencing a weird form of deja vu. Not expecting to teleport into Oishi's bedroom, and even less having suspected that Oishi was fall on him ... Tezuka ended up leaning back too far to stop himself from falling backwards onto the bed.

The two ended up in a pile, with Tezuka's arms wrapped around Oishi. The bed bounced a bit, and Oishi felt himself relaxing a bit. Tezuka was so warm...

Tezuka squirmed a little. Not because it was unpleasant having Oishi sprawled across him on a bed ... but because it was a bit too pleasant. He cleared his throat awkwardly, "Are you alright?" He realized it was a stupid thing to say only after he said it.

"Um... fine? You?

"That's good ... I am also fine." Tezuka found himself not in any real hurry to actually move though.

They lay there for about thirty seconds, staring into each other's eyes... and then they were kissing. Oishi might have leaned down just as Tezuka moved up. Really, there was no way to tell. Once they were actually doing it, though, it was a whole other matter. Tezuka tentatively gave Oishi's lips something like a lick.

Oishi's mind went completely numb. He was kissing Tezuka... without a dictate from hell... oh, crap. He pulled away, gasping a bit. "We... shouldn't." He thought of his love for Eiji, and Fuji's pursuit of Tezuka guiltily.

Tezuka blinked at him slowly for a long moment, considering the matter from a very careful and highly personal standpoint before deciding that why, yes, he could get away with it ... if Oishi was of similar desires, "Why not?"

"Well... Fuji, and Eiji, and..." He couldn't think of any other really good reason. Tezuka was the most important person in his life, always fishing him out of trouble when he needed help.

"I am hardly in love with Fuji and the bounds of our arrangement are ... not as strict as I had imagined," Tezuka offered after a moment. As for the Eiji matter, he would be perfectly happy if Eiji was GONE and would keep his hands away from Oishi. Especially since success of Eiji meant no more Oishi. Tezuka couldn't imagine his life without him.

"Not... as strict?" he echoed. He'd had suspicions about Tezuka's deal with Fuji, but had never discussed it with him before

"Yes. Reasonably flexible, in fact," Tezuka was feeling downright evil, well, not really evil since he was still a bit too angelic for his own good, but he was definitely too damn pleased (in a Tezuka way which meant his lips were in a general upward motion which was not quite a smile, but gave the impression that he might smile) with himself. He had found himself a loophole.

"How?" Oishi asked. He'd never heard of anyone managing to squirm out of a contract with Fuji.

Tezuka paused, because well, it was somewhat embarrassing, "I would not have to ... " a small flush managed to worm it's way onto his cheeks, "bottom with you, right?"

Oishi blinked. He had never thought of being seme to Tezuka. A matching flush covered his face as he shook his head no.

"Then ... um ... I get off on a seme/uke technicality," Tezuka's flush deepened, because it really was horribly embarrassing talking about his deal with Fuji.

Oishi stared for a long moment, before enthusiastically rolling over so Tezuka was lying on top of him.

Sometimes, the most amusing thing about humans was their rampant ability to fill in the little details that had gotten lost somewhere. Car crash? Can't remember? In comes a dribble of speculation and chit-chat that one finally decides is exactly what one remembers. When faced with things more mentally mind bending than simple personal suffering and this ability morphed out of control.

Sengoku mused over this thoughtfully as he considered if he could throw the paper at Kamio's head or make it a spit ball first. Luckily, Kamio was saved by Tachibana's dismissal of the class, and Sengoku tossed the paper back into his bag instead.

Some humans, like Tachibana, happened to be immune to that ability we were talking about before. Sengoku figured he would actually have to talk to the poor man ... probably right about now, while everyone was busy escaping. To that end, he drifted toward the front of the class.

Tachibana had been giving both Sengoku and Kirihara strange looks throughout class. They didn't belong there, not after missing the two-class cut off. However, when he checked the attendance book, there were no absences listed, and their presence was marked by the neat little "checks" that had Sakaki stamped all over it.

He rather missed his mentor, who had apparently died while teaching in a gas main explosion. The thing was, Tachibana didn't remember it that way. He knew he'd been killed as an aside to a hellish war. He knew that Sengoku and Kirihara were the incarnations of evil... but here they were, back in class, with no one the wiser.

They say reality is defined by mass consensus. If that was true, Tachibana had gone insane.

Sengoku waved at Kirihara, "Hey, I'll catch up with you ... "

Kirihara looked at Sengoku the way a person who was being shed on by a cat regarded the critter in their lap. "Maybe," he returned, before taking the exit located at the back of the room. He did grin at Tachibana in a rather unsettling fashion before shutting the door behind him.

If Sengoku had insight into the analogy, he would be shedding as much as possible before being shoved off that lap. The moment Kirihara had vanished, Sengoku slid on down to Tachibana's side in a move that was unobvious to the rest of the class, fast, and vaguely serpentine.

Tachibana, who had been about to clean the whiteboard off, instead remained facing Sengoku. Only a stupid man would turn his back on the devil... if he really was the devil. Or... had Kirihara ended up with it? He really wished he knew exactly what had happened, but one moment he'd been throwing his support to Sengoku's side, while the next he'd been in an ambulance, being treated for smoke inhalation.

Sengoku glanced at the class, and when he turned back to Tachibana, it was as if there was a ripple in the air between the two of them and the rest of the class. Well, to Tachibana, it seemed like a ripple, to everyone else, it was the standard "we aren't here, oh, hey, look at that sparkly over there!" Sengoku plunked down beside the podium and leaned back against it, "So, wanna talk about it?"

Tachibana looked at the students who were walking right by them, raising a significant eyebrow.

Sengoku grinned, "They see us, but they don't see us. It's kinda like an 'ignore me' field."

"Ah." Tachibana was quiet for a long moment before asking a simple question. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Just... why?"

"Why were you chosen? Why was this class chosen? Why is there a war in the first place? C'mon, man, be more specific."

"All of the above?" The final student left the classroom, shutting the lights of rather inconveniently.

A moment passed and the lights flickered themselves back on. "There's a war because divine beings are not too different from humans. They can disagree, they can get into fights, they can be hurt, they can hold grudges ... and once upon a time I took advantage of that fact to make sure we would always fight each other. This class was chosen because Kirihara was sent here to work his demonic wiles upon them, get them all to sin, damn them, so on and so forth ... where something starts, it should also end, neh? As for you, well, you would have to make this kind of choice at some point. You're what we call a focus, a point around which events occur. You also have a fancy destiny ... if you choose to accept it."

Most people would have probably run screaming for the door, but not Tachibana. "What happened to Yuuta?" he asked instead, his natural concern wanting to know the truth. "And why did Sakaki die?"

"Kirihara killed Yuuta. It was ... a vengeance for something that happened in the last war. As for Sakaki," Sengoku shrugged and then sighed, "he died because someone choose to murder him, and I choose not to stop him."

Tachibana didn't launch into recriminations for Sengoku's lack of action. "You can't save everyone, can you?"

Sengoku nodded, "No, I can't."

"Did I make the right choice?" Are you the lord of hell right now? Tachibana wondered, knowing Sengoku could be lying through his teeth if that was the case.

Sengoku appeared to consider it at the moment, "I think you did. You made the choice that returned us to the status quo. Fuji in Hell serving as Lord, Kirihara in random demonic format, and myself ... as my archangelic self." He grinned, "I can't tell you how I thank the Maker for that."

The only Fuji Tachibana knew was dead, but he decided not to press. "You're... an angel." For some reason, that took him more aback than anything else.

Sengoku gave him a woeful look, "Why does everyone look that way when I tell them that?"

Tachibana was graceful and didn't reply. "Is there some reason no one remembers the battle for control of all our destinies?" Tachibana asked instead. Outside, he could hear the clock chime three.

Sengoku looked this way and that for a moment, "Let's just say that it could prove ... difficult, if people actually remembered that I still exist. So, I made them forget. Or rather, I blurred it in their minds, suggested a vague-ish incident, and the human mind filled in the rest. Besides, that kind of divine warring has a tendency to scar innocent minds."

"Do I remember because I'm a... focus?"

"Yes," he tipped his head to the side, "I could make it so that you don't remember either, if you want."

It was tempting, for just a second, to go back to happy oblivion. "I'm afraid I can't let you," Tachibana said a bit regretfully. "We're the sum of our memories, though, and someone needs to remember the truth."

Sengoku nodded, as if he had somewhat expected that Tachibana would pick that. It was his opinion that the man was made of The Firm Stuff and no pansy ass end of the world baloney was going to make him back down.

"Is... Saeki involved?" The question came from right field.

Sengoku paused for a moment, plucking at this new statement's thread, "Yes and no. He had made a deal with the current devil, but that's not really within the purview of the incident ... and he too has forgotten that part of it."

"Is he still bound?" Tachibana asked, rapidly trying to think things through. He'd noticed Saeki acting strangely before the incident (very, very jumpy), something which had melted away right after.

"As long as he wishes to be. I didn't erase that since it was his own decision."

"Erase..." Tachibana shuddered a bit. "Are you and Kirihara planning on finishing the term here?" He rather dreaded it

"Yep! One should finish what one starts," Sengoku grinned, "And I'm not letting him off that easy. He has a class to try damning and I get to sit here and be a thorn in his side."

Tachibana felt sweat bead against his forehead. "Could you two please remember I have a class to teach?" he asked. The school had put him in charge of the class until a substitute professor could be found - which would probably be sometime next semester. They were reimbursing him with a semester of free tuition, and Sakaki had meticulously ordered lesson plans, but Tachibana was questioning it now.

Sengoku attempted to look innocent, "We won't be worse than we were before?"

Tachibana crossed his arms over his chest, tapping his fingers. "I am quite willing to throw you two out for disturbing the learning environment."

Sengoku drooped, "No more math? Even though Mizuki is punishing him daily with the gospel? And Kamio is smirking?"

Tachibana shuddered. Mizuki's sudden conversion to devout faith and switching majors to divinity was still unsettling. His long diatribes on God's saving love made Tachibana want to fall asleep. He imagined it would be horrible for a devil. "Are you sure you're one of the good guys?"

"I'm officially on the side of light, but mainly I sit around on earth and maintain the balance of the universe," Sengoku waggled a hand, "Maybe I could be called a sort of generic gray, or possibly flecked."

Tachibana just shook his head. "...are all angels like you?"

"No. They're beacons of light, hope, grace, love, and all the plentiful virtues. Except possibly Yukimura because he's sneaky."

Tachibana had no clue who Yukimura was. He ran a hand over his head, then offered a slight smile. "Did he learn from you?"

Sengoku attempted to look mortally offended, but then flopped onto his side and twitched, "Maybe. That would be disturbing ... to know all the little chibi-angels grew up to be just like me."

The idea actually made Tachibana shudder visibly. "Maybe I should reconsider having you erase my mind. That's a horrifying thought I could do without."

Fuji leaned back on his bed, staring up at the mirrors on his ceiling with little interest. Everything had worked out pretty much to his plans, though he was admittedly a bit annoyed at Tezuka - and impressed. He hadn't realized that the archangel could actually find the loophole in their contract.

The loophole was the subject of more than one demonic interest. Eiji happened to be another concerned party. A hissy ball of thwarted incubus who was hurtling into Fuji's room with not a single by-your-leave, pointing dramatically at Fuji, "You ... you ... YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO KEEP TEZUKA OCCUPIED!"

"Do you remember who you are talking to?" Fuji asked curiously as he slid up, propping himself against his pillows. His bed, a magnificent study in black silk decadence, accented Fuji's good looks perfectly. Right now there was no one else in it, which was a rarity.

Eiji still wanted to scream and throw things anyway. He huffed instead and glowered in Fuji's general direction.

Fuji chuckled a bit. "There's times when I don't get my way entirely. Think of it, though. Tezuka... and Oishi..." Fuji's eyes turned a bit dreamy. "Wouldn't you love to be in the middle?"

"No! I want him to fall!" Eiji snapped, a distinctive whine beginning to creep into his voice.

"Give it a few more centuries." Fuji yawned delicately. He was used to taking the long view. "Drag Oishi down for adultery."

Eiji stamped his foot, "With Tezuka in his bed? I could barely get him when Tezuka was just around let alone giving him sex."

"Maybe I need to check your performance review if you keep up such a consistent rate of failure, then."

Eiji would have snarled and his lips were certainly twitching in that direction, "Fine. I just won't talk to you anymore." And with that hardly useful threat, he turned to stomp right back out.

Fuji rolled his eyes, and watched as Eiji jerked at the door, only to find it locked. He jerked more roughly, and was rewarded with a searing surge of power. "You didn't ask to leave," Fuji said mildly. Really, sometimes his subordinates were so disrespectful. Maybe he needed to take a page out of one of Kirihara's books and vaporize them now and then.

Eiji scowled at the door, "So? You obviously didn't want me to stay."

Fuji patted the bed beside him, indicating Eiji was to come over. "Where did you get that idea?"

The incubus turned to scowl in Fuji's direction, folding his arms over his chest and looking sulky. He didn't want to fuck around with Fuji! Fuji was being mean! He wanted to fuck Oishi.

"You're still young. You need to start thinking of the larger picture, here. Oishi is currently out of your reach, but that doesn't mean he'll always be. He'll always wonder what it could be like with you, and that will wear away at his relationship with Tezuka. And meanwhile, you can have fun working on someone else." He motioned to the bed again. "I personally am thinking it would be fun to go after Atobe... he definitely needs to be taken down a peg."

Eiji, sighed, frustrated. He still didn't want to give up Oishi. He never failed and here was Tezuka coming in and screwing things up. "I don't wanna seduce anyone else," he muttered, finally making his reluctant way over to the bed.

Fuji took him in his arms, offering a comforting hug. "Eiji, you'll understand when you're older."

Eiji squirmed a little. He didn't want comfort, he wanted victory! "I don't wanna be older either!"

"You really want to be erased?" Fuji asked with curiosity. "That can be arranged."

"Hey!" Eiji flailed, "Just because I don't want to get old and decrepit and have to wait for everything doesn't mean I want to die, nyah!"

Fuji laughed. "Eiji... devils don't age. They just get older and more powerful." Which Eiji should know, as he was pushing 1,000. It was remarkable he could function sometimes with his evident lack of comprehension for the way the universe worked.

Eiji huffed. He still didn't want to wait. He hated being patient more than he hated Tezuka. Why couldn't he have it NOW?

Fuji sighed. "Would an orgy make you feel better? I think there's a few devils around here that might be up for it."

Okay, so that would make him feel better. Eiji looked at Fuji suspiciously out of the corner of his eyes ... but that didn't mean that The Devil was supposed to be offering to "make him feel better". Obviously something was up, "What'll it cost me?"

"Nothing you can't afford," Fuji said easily. "Besides, I'm bored."

Eiji sniffed, "Okay," and pounced on Fuji.

The office, formerly under bouncing and then back into bouncing as it jerked up to a medium kind of level and sort of hovered there, was in a state of siege. Not that it was ever NOT in a state of siege, but this was more siege-like than necessary.

Sides had been drawn. The clock was hiding behind a bookshelf and clanking ominously. The books rattled in preparation for being hurtled across the room at the desk. It was NOT in a good mood. Someone new, infernally young, and dangerously disrespectful and whippersnappery was DARING to sit in The Chair.

The scale was also in hiding. Hiding in the shelf behind the desk, slowly inching a book into place to let fall on the horrid creature who had stolen its beloved's place. To think it would never have the opportunity to grope those firm asscheeks again ...

The snake made a happy hissing noise and squirmed around in Kirihara's lap. Life was sweet with another slice of true evil around. It had gotten lonely with The Serpent Himself always absent. The Greater Beast, however, was warm and snuggly and perfect for burrowing.

Kirihara was not amused at all the attention he was getting. He was prepared to fry the clock's circuitry if it dared make a move, and he had a pretty good idea that throwing the scale into the clock would probably work to his benefit. The snake, which was a bit on the clingy side, was really the only thing in the entire mass of chaos he didn't dislike.

The books across from Kirihara shifted around in preparation for flight when Sengoku popped in. Or rather, tried to drop himself off the ceiling and onto Kirihara ... since yanno, he was sitting right there.

Kirihara just looked a bit nonplussed as Sengoku landed in his lap. The Chair, which had been the largest part of Kirihara's packages when he moved from hell into his current position, was a repeated bone of contention between the two of them.

Personally, Sengoku would just be happy to use Kirihara as the chair, but ... he grinned, "So, did we get any messages?"

"Ask Jin. He's supposed to be your secretary."

"But you're sitting in the secretarial seat." To Sengoku, this was the Height of Logic.

"It's the throne of hell." Kirihara snapped the foot rest out to demonstrate, which forced Sengoku to squiggle a bit to get in a more comfortable position. The snake, which was stuck between the two of them, "thweeed" a little in delight. "It's too nice to leave to Jin."

"So we'll stick it in a corner and use it as the ... hmm ... study chair." Sengoku's grin became more reminiscent of a leer.

Kirihara recognized that look, and knew that in less than ten minutes he would be naked, like it or not. He could pretend he had a chance, he decided. "Maybe."

"Did you have something else in mind?" Sengoku asked, snuggling up a little closer to Kirihara and looping an arm around his neck.

"There is that matter of you letting Tachibana remember. He's purposely thwarting me now," Kirihara said crossly.

"Well, someone has to since I'm not? It's not like I can let them send another angel in to do the job."

Kirihara sniffed. "It'd be fun to try to corrupt someone else. Maybe Sanada..."

"Mmmm, Sanada ... that would be interesting. How about on the next assignment?"

Kirihara perked up. "You really think Yukimura will let him off the leash that long?"

"He has to let him do his job too, yanno," Sengoku said reasonably, "and there's another justice shtick that should be going through within the next couple decades."

"Ah, that one." Kirihara shut his eyes, accessing the possibilities. "I think it's more likely Atobe is going to handle that mess. He hasn't been down to earth in nearly a century, and they're going to want him to keep his hand in." The possibilities narrowed a bit as he considered that. "Fuji's going to be handling it personally."

"Think a little to the left and around the corner. Atobe may handle the big one, but there will be a few smaller wildfires that Sanada might get sent into." If the humans didn't handle it themselves, of course.

"Not as fun," Kirihara pouted. He was fond of making the big messes worse. "Besides, if I try to go after that one, it'll set a chain off again."

Kirihara wasn't all that fond of his new job description. While he was resigned to only being one of the four great lords of hell instead of being top kahuna, he hated having to think of the big picture. Trying to keep the universe from tilting too far from one side or the other was exhausting.

Sengoku ruffled his hair because Kirihara was adorable when he was pouting, "Really? What kind of chain?"

"I'm thinking the end of Baltimore - though that might not be such a bad thing. Never did like that city."

"It's not like eternal peace within the United States is necessarily a good thing ... "

"I don't think you want another Chernobyl, though."

"So try not to make a Chernobyl."

Kirihara still didn't know the meaning of moderation, and couldn't see the way out. "I'll think on it later. There's a few years to go." He waved a dismissive hand.

Sengoku grinned and nipped at Kirihara's ear. If it ended up being too tedious to the demon, he figured he could just find him places were SMASH and BASH was what was needed and just point Kirihara in that general direction. Besides, there was a war that would need to be fermented in a minor country to set up the business of letting the overhaul of justice go through.

Kirihara's fingers found the waistband of Sengoku's pants rather quickly, and he ran a finger along the part of the skin where shirt met flesh. "Have there been any consequences about rewriting so many memories? Is Tezuka obsessed with pineapples?" he asked hopefully. "Or is Kamio considering becoming a drag queen?" That would be amusing.

Sengoku mumbled something around a mouthful of ear that could be roughly translated as "Only Inui." He released the ear to admire his handiwork before attacking Kirihara's neck, "He seems to have become pretty fond of writing bad fanfiction porn."

"What's his screenname?" Kirihara asked curiously. His fingers slid under the waistband slightly, teasingly, before rising to run circles around Sengoku's belly.

"Sailor Oscar, I believe ... and maybe some numbers at the end," Sengoku purred, arching against Kirihara's fingers and pushing the demon farther into the chair, "That's right: Sailor Oscar 666."

The scale and clock were both rattling their protest by now. The snake kept quiet to avoid being discovered since it was happily pressed between their bodies and had its head against Kirihara's ... well, what can we say? It was a pretty good day to be in the office.