Stronger than fire
greater than all the wars we wage
and I don't know what you want me to be
but I don't want to be perfect anymore
—"Forget Me," BT

Stronger Than Fire

By: Aviantei

Chapter One

There was only so much that Renzo could listen when it came to meetings like this. Sure, he could learn all the important stuff, but becoming properly engaged was a whole other matter altogether. At least he wasn't the only one looking bored. She was there, leaning against the wall, legs twitching in a tapped foot every now and then. Renzo got the impression that, had she been sitting, her legs would be swinging instead.

There was an explosion of coughs. Renzo glanced over, finding Lucifer—Ah, I guess it's supposed to be -sama, right?—hunched over, Renzo's two-toned acting superior hunched over the demon in concern. Almost panicked, Gedouin was blubbering in equal distress.

"That's enough for today," the woman in glasses said. Her tone and demeanor really were something. "Commander, you really shouldn't push yourself. You need to rest."

"Right, that's great and all, but what about me?"

The woman from the wall had finally spoken up, a raised hand in the air. She was the only one unaffected by her sickly leader's state, fresh with a smile on her face. There was a click of a tongue in annoyance, and Renzo's boss stood up, exerting her small stature as much as she could.

The other woman chuckled, toying with a small lock of her hair. "Easy, easy, Miss Glasses," she said. "I was just promised that I could make a formal request during this meeting. And, well, given the circumstances, I'd like to make it before things get any worse than they are now."

Renzo's superior gritted her teeth. Different from her handling of Gedouin, any and all annoyance was obvious. "You do know my name, Nussbaum. I request that you use it." At this, Nussbaum shrugged. "And, as you said, given the circumstances, I'm sure your request can wait. If the Knights of the True Cross are here, as well as Satan-sama's son—"

"Emília," Lucifer's weak voice resounded. Gedouin and Renzo's boss both let loose glares of varying degrees in the woman's direction. "I did promise after all. What is it that you need?"

At that, Emília Nussbaum's eyes flashed in victory, her mouth widening to a smirk as she spoke. "Right. So, I know it was a group decision and all, and I'm not saying he's not skilled…but I think it's a waste for Renzo over there to be acting as a guard. I'd personally like him back, if that's okay."

Upon hearing his name, Renzo couldn't act as an observer anymore. The four available pairs of eyes in the room shifted to him, and Renzo went to raise his hands in defense. Everyone's gazes soon loosened, though, and nothing was necessary to leave his lips.

The words I'd personally like him back left a strange burning sensation in his stomach.

"Sure, as a Tamer, he has some serious combat merit, yeah. Anyone would want him as the muscle. But the real fact is, this kid is built for intelligence. If you wanted more reasons, I could list them, but really, that ends my request," Emília Nussbaum concluded, lifting her shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. There was a soft clattering that Renzo couldn't identify the source for.

Not that he had time to focus. The woman was already striding over to him, and she placed a hand on his shoulder, her head leaning close to his side. "I like him a lot, so his presence would be greatly appreciated, Commander."

A tilt of her head and Renzo was swimming in her blond hair. "Bet that idiot wouldn't notice if you went missing for ten minutes," she murmured. "I'd like to actually talk to you face to face if you don't mind."

"That's enough!" Renzo's boss shouted from across the room. Immediately, Emília Nussbaum pulled back, putting a few steps worth of distance between her and Renzo. The clatter resounded again, faint, but still present. "This is no time for games, Nussbaum. You should be ashamed showing such disgraceful behavior in front of the Commander."

Emília Nussbaum's lips formed words too fast for Renzo to read them, but no sound escaped.

"Everyone," Lucifer said, bringing the room into a deeper silence. There was no command needed; everyone understood. "Emília, I will think about your request. Considering our staffing conditions at the moment, I think it would be best if we were to keep things as they are." Emília Nussbaum gave a salute, the same hand forming a thumbs-up. Renzo's boss grimaced. "This is no time for in-fighting. Resume as you were before. And Gedouin…"

Immediately, the scientist perked up. Emília Nussbaum connected her eyes with Renzo's, and mimed a quick gag, her tongue flashing in pink.

Disgusting, isn't it? her eyes seemed to say.

"Let's go!" Gedouin shrieked. Renzo remembered his place, and fell into step after the man. His boss went back to caring for Lucifer, and Emília gave him a single movement wave, hand at level with her chest.

And Renzo knew that he had heard her voice before.

She had been right, and it was relatively easy to slip away from Gedouin's side with a lame excuse about going to the bathroom. For a scientist, he wasn't all that observant, or maybe that was the panic over Izumo's failed experimental state. Either way, Renzo was grateful, since it gave him the chance to fulfil his own curiosity.

It couldn't do anything to make him feel better about Izumo, though. He wished that Lucifer had approved that transfer back and that the Intelligence Division would take him somewhere far away from Japan, anywhere at all. Far away from Izumo and the True Cross and his classmates storming the facility.

Izumo had to hate him by now. Bon and Konekomaru were definitely devastated. He knew. He had done everything in his power to make sure that was the case. He wouldn't be able to go back. His family had feared that possibility, of making him deal with it. In reality, Renzo was more than ready to have that thrust onto him.

'Cause that's the role I have to play now, right?

"Great, you came."

Emília Nussbaum pushed away from the wall she was leaning on with her foot and shoved her hands into her pockets. Now that Renzo was alone with her and hyper-attentive, he could pick up on her details. Blond hair pulled back into some ponytail, her Illuminati jacket open, just one layer of many clothes, topped off with a bright blue sweater-jacket. Even though he could see her t-shirt, it was impossible to tell what her bust size was.

And her face. He had assumed she was a woman from her speech pattern, but it was still too round, her eyes too wide. The sort of arrogance that came from her smirk could only be possessed by a teenager who had made it too far in the world too fast.

"It's really nice to meet you, Shima Renzo," she continued. "I've been looking forward to this ever since I first heard about you. You're definitely something, you know, Kid. You should be proud."

Anyone else would have bristled at the nickname. Renzo didn't mind in the slightest. "And what should I do? Such a pretty lady I've never met before has an interest in me," he said, keeping his voice light. She really was cute. This was why girls weren't so bad after all. "If you keep saying things like that I might start to blush."

Emília laughed, taking the comment in stride. It was completely different from Izumo. Her whole face would have been red, and Renzo's face would have taken an impact of some sort. "Man, I heard you were that kind of guy. It's impressive really." Emília closed the gap between them easily, and Renzo could have kissed her with a tilt of his head if he had been so inclined. Her eyes were a brilliant shade of green, almost as luminous as Rin's. "So how much did you have to practice to perfect that fake smile of yours, huh, Kid?"

Renzo recoiled; Emília didn't move. "Well, I get why they wanted you so badly," she said. "With a fake smile like that, you could pull the wool over anyone's eyes, am I right?" Her smile dropped, stalling at neutral. "But you've got a lot to learn still. I mean, if someone calls you out and you just panic, any spy knows that they're dead, right? You're not all that suited to this job, now are you?"

Renzo swallowed. "You're trying to mess with me, right?" he said. "You said that I was much more suited to intelligence than grunt work."

"That's true. It's mostly a personal interest, but I do want you in my camp." There was something about the way she formed her words, not quite like she was singing, but humming instead. "Hm, hm, so what's your deal with Kamiki, huh?"

"I-I'm sorry?"

Where could he even start when it came to Izumo? There wasn't anywhere good, no time to settle his feelings down. He had either been working or unconscious. He had thought he had everything figured out, but it was everything Renzo had to keep himself making things up on the spot, then retaining them for later use. The knowledge that there was a possible way out made him uneasy, less convincing.

So far, Emília was the first person to see through that.

"Well, it's just that I saw you earlier." She flexed her fingers. "You see, I actually know a lot about you, Kid. So I know that what you did to her familiars isn't the best that you can do. And I know that people like you only go easy when they're uncertain." Renzo could feel himself starting to sweat, tottering on the verge of a shiver. She was from Intelligence, so she was observant. Had she figured him out? "So what is it? Lingering feelings? Did you get started and realize your façade was more real than you were?"

Renzo hadn't considered the possibility. The words felt true, she had spoken them with such conviction. Self-doubt was an annoyingly easy attribute to pick up. Emília's face was split with a smirk that showed her awareness of victory.

"I could fix that in you, you know," she said. "You're talented for a kid, I'll give you that. But, well, kids are unstable by nature, right? Trying to rewrite yourself at a time where you're uncertain of who you are… That's pretty dangerous." Her tongue peaked out, wetting her lips and smoothing out the cracks. "We're pretty serious in the Intelligence Division. We don't play games, and we don't just memorize what we watch. We live it. Doesn't that sound interesting to you?"

It did. It sounded like a fix. She was offering to teach him how to deceive the Illuminati better, and she didn't even know it.

"Hey, I get what this is," Renzo said. Even though she had called his smile fake, he plastered it back on again. "You can't wait, huh? Is it so bad to wait 'til this whole thing blows over and the Commander says whether or not I can transfer back? I mean, this mess should be over soon. Trying to get me to work for your goal, too, is just a bit desperate, right, Emília-chan?"

It was a test of the words. Sure, she had made it to the meeting, so that made her at least an Adeptus Minor. But that didn't mean that he couldn't act on familiar terms. She was only a bit older than him if Renzo guessed right. Her speech wasn't formal, and she had brushed off his pass at her earlier. What could it hurt?

If she was concerned with victory as Renzo thought she was, it was impressive that she didn't show it. His words were hardly acknowledged with a lock of hair swirled around her left index finger. "You're confusing desperation with preparation," she said. "There's no way I could have you jump ship now and not have the Commander down my throat. And that's to say nothing for Miss Glasses." At the mere mention of Renzo's boss, Emília snorted. "I'm laying a foundation. You know how important that is. I mean, you tricked your friends, your family, right?"

It should have bothered him. Renzo went to force a grimace, and then stopped. It didn't bother him. And the person he was pretending to be—the Illuminati's spy—shouldn't have been bothered by it either. In seconds, he was back to normal, his face relaxed. His muscles didn't even twitch.

She wanted him deeper in the Intelligence Division. That was the core network, the hub for everything the Illuminati would collect. It was perfect for his job. It was perfect for him. Renzo had to want to be there, too. He did want to be there.

And some part of him ended up with the strength to laugh about it. "So you're saying that to you getting what you want is the same as infiltration?" he asked. It was insane. Emília hadn't been joking when she had said that they lived it.

"I see you understand." Renzo was suddenly hyper-aware of his own body language. He didn't think he had been making any obvious moves. She could still read him. His bewilderment must have been obvious, too, as Emília let out a laugh—her loudest one yet. "For a kid, you're actually pretty cute."

Her teeth flashed, and Renzo wasn't sure if the action was happy or predatory.

"I know you," Renzo murmured. "Where do I know you from?"

"That's exactly it," Emília said, pointing an enthusiastic finger in his direction. She pivoted without warning, her hair flying to the side. The clicks echoed again, and Renzo found their origin to be the beads hanging off a hairstick stuck straight through the bun at the base of her ponytail. Even in the Illuminati's uniform pants, her hips swung tauntingly as she walked away. "If you want to know so bad, then come and figure it out!"

Renzo went to whistle, but his mouth was already dry.

He could have racked his brain, could have tried to figure it out, but he knew it wouldn't be any use.

There was something. She had to have seen something, noticed something. Being at the Academy with Mephisto had conditioned him to weirdoes, but she was something different. It wasn't just the fact that she knew him, either. It didn't take much to know who someone was.

But, no, she knew him.

She knows me better than me.

He had come this far in order to test his skills. It wasn't a game, but at the same time it was. He had gotten cocky off of a bit of praise. If he was that important, that skilled, then didn't that mean that he was valuable? Contingency plans existed for a reason. If things go too bad, he would be pulled out and saved. That was something he believed, even though the other part of him was terrified that he would never be able to go back.

To his friends.

To his family.

To his ordinary life.

He shouldn't have wanted to go back. He could play it off as a ruse later, but what he had told Izumo was still the truth. He really did hate everything, the expectations shoved on him just because he had been born in a certain year with a certain last name, and with a certain older brother that hardly existed to him, not even in the kanji that made up his name.

If all I'm good for is protecting Bon, what use is it?

It was an escape. A way into another place, where he mattered because he was him, Renzo, and no one else. He wasn't Takezo, this was all him. He was the one who had been picked out. He had worth other than just taking care of Bon for the rest of their lives—and if one of them went down first, Renzo had better hope it was him.

But with the Illuminati, he could be anything but Bon's body guard. It was a freedom. No, it didn't have to be with the Illuminati, either. A spy. He was fine with being a spy so long as he could be anyone else than who he was supposed to be. Anything but that would be fun.

So he would play the traitor, he would play the double agent. He would play whoever he had to be, trick whoever he had to, so long as he was himself. That was fine. Being torn away from everyone was fine. So long as…

He convinced himself that it was different from running away.

A responsibility you didn't chose on your own… It was shit, and he hated it. He hated himself for having no choice but to do as he was told. He hated himself for being born as someone with their life determined already.

If only… I had been born as someone else… Then maybe I wouldn't have to lie just to get what I want.

Self-hatred.

It was a claw. So were his attachments to everyone else. To his family, the Myodha. They would drag him in different directions, tear him apart. It would have just been easier to cut them off, cut them apart, separate himself. But the fact was, in the end, he couldn't do it.

I can't do it at all…

Emília Nussbaum could see everything.

In that short amount of time, she could tell. It was dangerous. If he went over to the Intelligence Division, if Lucifer approved the request, how much time would he have to spend around her? How much would she manage to dissect about him?

My cover could be…

Her taunting smile.

The smell of her shampoo.

She had to have walked away like that on purpose…

The clatter of beads.

Her voice echoed to some form of memory, deep inside his brain.

Alright, playing catch up here...

A lot's happened the past couple of days, mainly work and being sick. but I have days off and I'm feeling a lot better, so it's time to catch up. This, of course, means posting what was meant to be posted yesterday.

In any event, I've tried to slow down on posting new stories lately, and my primary focus is still finishing what I've started. This story is the exception because I started it a while ago with the pilot episode Karma (which you can check out, but know it'll contain spoilers for where this story is heading), plus I sat down in Camp NaNoWriMo last April and hammered out fifty-thousand words on it, which resulted in fifteen complete chapters. There will be semi-regular updates of this story until I break down the queue.

In any event, I wanted to thank Abyss (Guest), broweiss27, vietspringroll, SowReaper, bobilcaluiza, and nehamerchant123 for their favorites, follows, and reviews to Karma. Hopefully the full protect is enjoyable should you come across it. Bonus thanks to the wonderful Amulet Misty, who has enjoyed my other Renzo-centric works (i.e., We Play Pretend). Your support is much appreciated, Dina. Thanks!

In any event, this is another selfish pet project of mine, but hopefully it's enjoyable. I've done my best to merge some of the concepts in canon with my original plan for the story, but there are no guarantees as to what will make it and what won't. Either way, this is fanfiction, so hey. Besides, the ending's gonna completely go off the bounds of canon anyway.

The next update should be in two weeks. Thanks for reading and please look forward to the next installment!

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