"Alright 'fess up - why're we still here Issei."

Issei shaded his eyes and slouched a little further into his cafe seat. It was a fairly warm weekday; Hana-sensei had told them last week that a new book had come out, so everyone was on self-study until she was done. It had been a few days since then, and Issei had naturally taken to wandering the crowded streets with Motohama and Matsuda in tow. The city was weirdly open, with no neon and no shopping families, mostly populated by other students and housewives walking confidently past.

Motohama and Matsuda, on the other hand, were oddly cautious and dressed strangely, carrying a bunch of fuda around their necks and even some prayer beads. Despite this, they were looking at him like he was the weird one, and yet he couldn't meet their eyes. "Look." He grumbled. "I told you - you didn't need to come with. I just want to give the guy a message and it's cool. Totally cool! Hey, maybe he'll be into fighting games and maybe I kick his ass a bit and we'll all be friends, see? Nothing wrong!"

"This is fucked up man." Matsuda said emphatically. "This is unhealthy, I'm telling you."

"I haven't done anything!" Issei complained. "I just wanna meet the guy! What's the big deal?!" Despite having said that, he still shifted himself so he couldn't see their judging looks. It wasn't like he wanted anything from Azazel. It was just curiosity. Issei Hyoudou wasn't a petty enough man to hold Azazel's immense luck and success against him!

"Dude, you met this girl, like, once." Matsuda said. "Now, far be it for me to tell you not to follow her everywhere she goes and ask her out-"

"Say, that's a good idea." Motohama said thoughtfully. "Show a girl how much you care. That's how the movies go right? People never believe you the first time, you gotta slowly wear them down until they accept. See, a useful, workable plan you can use in the future. Isn't that nice Issei? But not once they're taken. That's a no-no."

Matsuda raised his voice. "FAR BE IT for me to do that." He coughed a little. "But come on man, she's taken. She has some rich prick who buys her things already, and you said she loved him. You don't know her that well, so just leave it man."

"It's not that big a deal." Issei said, getting slightly irritated himself. "I just wanna meet him and see what kinda guy he is. I gotta know, like-" black hair pale skin wry humor and a casual ease that made his heart beat "-what makes guys like him so different from us." He finished. "How'd he get a girlfriend, while we can't."

"Bullshit." Matsuda said bluntly. "You're invested. Look at that dopey fuckin' face, you're just trying to hurt yourself."

Issei's temper flared. "The fuck man, like, I just wanna-"

"-meet the guy, compare yourself, prop yourself up, then realize you lost and kick the shit out of yourself anyway." Matsuda finished, and Issei collapsed in despair.

"I'm not that bad..." he whined, writhing a little in humiliation. He didn't need this verbal abuse.

"Worse." Motohama said grimly. "You're in unrequited love." Matsuda began making quiet gagging noises behind him.

"Am not!" Issei said shrilly.

"God, why are we still here?" Matsuda muttered. "I could be watching the girls undress right now. I skipped PE for this. It's goddamn swim season, and I'm missing out on the swimsuits. But no, this blind moron can't let shit go, and he's dragging us, his good bros, down with him. Who does that? That's fucked up!"

"I mean, we could leave. At any time, really. No one's keeping us here." Motohama pointed out. He leered at Matsuda, who purpled, and turned away.

"I ain't no fink!" He muttered petulantly.

"We just gotta find the guy." Issei said, curling up a little more in his seat. "He's gotta be here."

Silence for a little bit.

"Why?" Matsuda asked. "Dude coulda pissed off any time right? Hell, you said that the kid your girl met up with had a message from him. He might be in, like, Kansai or something."

Issei thought back to three days ago. The crowd was hot, but the space around him and Yuuma was pleasantly chill. He remembered the urgent cast to her face, and the way her eyes drifted across the hordes of people, almost on reflex. But more importantly, he remembered the small girl who drew Yuuma to her, the one dragging a little bag behind her.

"She didn't come from a taxi." Issei mused.

"What?"

"Me and Yuuma were standing at the Taxi stand, and she was waiting for the incoming people from the airport. Looking right at the taxi crowd. But Yuuma didn't spot the girl - I did, when I was looking away."

"She came from inside the city." Was Motohama's speculation. Issei nodded, and Matsuda grunted sourly.

"Sendin' someone to deliver a message while he's right there? Man, what a-"

"Badass." Motohama interjected, smirking.

"Badas- man, fuck you."

Badass...

"Ora, ora, who the fuck is this kid?!" Came the violent question. A voice like the motorcycle between his legs, scratchy and hoarse. A brow like a cliff and a shaved head to match. Two tattoos visible, and a knife at his hip. A wifebeater, slacks, geta and a chain. Hands like whorled wood. Nails, unpleasant nails, long and gnarled, and shaved down talonish over his fingers. A scraggly neckbeard and eyes yellowed with time and cruelty. Watching him, and finding him wanting. A man named Azazel, cruel, capricious, willing to force children to pass on his messages. "Talking to my girl eh? Eh? Was the message I sent not clear enough? PISS OFF, BOYA, BEFORE I FUCK YOU UP!"

"Maybe we should rethink this." Issei said calmly. Matsuda flung his arms into the air, groaning.

"Finally!"

"All of a sudden?" Motohama frowned. "What changed your mind?"

Issei scratched his chin sheepishly. "I thought about what kinda guy would be named Azazel-"

"And pictured asian Geese Howard, got it."

"I did not."

"You super did, Issei-kun." Matsuda said, snickering.

"Fuck you!" Issei snapped. "This'll pan out, I know it will!"

But it didn't pan out. Another day passed, and the three found themselves walking the streets once more in vain, Issei searching for anyone weird or interesting enough to accuse of being the mysterious Azazel, while the other two trudged behind. Issei had given up questioning if they were just there to shoot insults at him, because they obviously were, the assholes. But things had taken an odd turn. The two had started walking around with more and more stuff. The fourth day found them with odd bits of metal jingling in their pockets. Issei had found a homeless man with blue streaks of hair. He seemed to be unresponsive to any name, let alone Azazel, but the two had begun shaking their pockets at the man and chanting. An accusation of harassing the homeless sent the three running. Another day passed, and the two were wearing headbands doused in garlic oil and clutching flashlights. In broad daylight for some reason. The two laughed it off, but also refused to allow Issei to publically disassociate from them, so now he smelled like garlic too. The sixth day, however, was too much.

"Put it down."

"No." Motohama said stubbornly.

"Put it-" Issei deliberately lowered his voice in front of the foreigner he was talking to. "Put the dreamcatcher down."

"I-sorry, then bad...time?" The blonde man offered. Issei replied by lieu of a smile wide enough to dismiss further conversation, and repeated shallow blows to Motohama's gut.

"Look Issei." Matsuda said sharpy, iron bell and incense in hand. "Sometimes you gotta check."

"...cosplay?" The blonde man tried again. Issei shot him a thumbs up, and he looked satisfied. Motohama wheezed a little. "What if he was a tapir?"

"What the fuck are you on about now, Motohama-chaaaaan?" Issei hissed. "Surely you aren't trying to scare off our potential identity winner, are you?"

The wind gusted a bit, and the iron bell jingled. Matsuda's eyes focused on it. "Bad juju." He intoned, and turned to the deeply confused foreigner. "Youuu haffa verrrrry baddo dreamsu?"

The foreign man, astonished, nodded a little and clapped.

"Shut the fuck up Matsuda!" Issei hissed.

Matsuda shook his head in apparent superiority. "Now now Issei, this is a cultural exchange. He offers me the wisdom of his weird foreign lands, and I purge the demons in his soul."

"He has American money idiot, what's he gonna do, teach you more English swearwords?"

"Let's be honest here." Motohama gasped a little. "Swearwords are probably the least offensive things that Gaijin bring with them."

"Gaijin?!" The man's eyes lit up, as he realized they were probably talking about him. Matsuda's answering grin was greasy.

Issei gave up talking him down from making a fool of himself and the foreign man. Instead, he turned to a recalcitrant Motohama, still hunched over beside him. "What's up with the shaman gear anyway."

Motohama pushed up his glasses. "You haven't come over in a while, right?"

Issei thought about it and nodded. Since that day he'd woken up in the park, he'd felt kinda ill at night, and didn't really feel up to dropping by their homes.

"My house is haunted."

"What?"

"Yeah." Motohama confirmed. "I live close to the south side of the Academy, right? I dunno, what's going on, but since a couple days ago, weird shit's been going on. My parents moved us to a hotel until we can get a buddhist priest to drop by."

"And Matsuda's in on this?" Issei asked, impressed. Motohama snorted. "Nah, he thinks the old church up the hill is possessed by demons or something."

"So why..." Issei gestured at Motohama's cloth pantaloons and sacred vest. Motohama pushed up his glasses. "Well first of all, because Matsuda insists that demons walk among us."

Issei snorted. "Right."

"Second, because I did find an exorcist. And I wanted to leave a good impression."

Issei's eyes widened. "Here? You wanted to leave a good impression, wearing that?"

"SPIRITS BE GONE!" Matsuda yelled, jingling the iron bell. The foreign man clapped enthusiastically as Matsuda finally stopped, panting, and tossed him a 500 yen coin. Some other people walking by seemed to think it was a street performance and a few more coins sailed by to nail Matsuda in the head, but Issei also saw some old lady dialling the cops with a peeved expression on her face. Seizing Matsuda by the upper arm, he hauled him up and dragged both idiots into the nearby alleyway.

They both had mulish expressions on their faces, so Issei gave up on asking them what the fuck they were up to. Instead, he turned to Motohama. "Priest right? Let's go. Where the hell is he."

"He should be around here, actually." Motohama said. "They say he's really weird, so we should be able to identify him on sight?"

Easier said than done, the trio discovered, as they made the alley their new haunting grounds. The slim, somewhat damp walls were defaced with colorful scribbles and half-traced graffiti. But for the most part, it was just mold and the occasional salaryman keeping them company through the cool paths. The area was mazelike, a convergence of several jigsawed buildings large enough to hold host to their entire class. They found themselves walking for hours, time slipping away in the echoing corridors. Typically the area was quiet, the occasional drip and splash all there was to interrupt their increasingly stupid tangents, but it still kept them somewhat wary of what might jump out.

But then they heard a curious echo. A roar, almost, just past the area. They moved a little faster, breaking out of the alleys into broad daylight once more, with a large crowd congregating in front of them. Issei found himself gasping, as though he'd finally released a deep breath after once more stepping under the sunlight.

They took in the sights, the bustling crowd looking shocked and pointing up at the roof of the building across from them. They slowly moved in, curiosity lifting their feet, until they found themselves at the back of the throng.

"Fire department's already here." Matsuda observed. "Camping out in front of the crowd." The tense men and women were indeed camped out, holding back the masses. "This is a weird crowd."

"And a big one." Matsuda grunted. It was a swelling crowd indeed, more people continuing to stop and gather. Already, they discovered people to their backs, having been pushed inwards by the rising tide. Eventually, they continued drifting until they were close enough to make out the target of awe and shock.

"That a person up there Issei?"

Issei craned his neck up, squinting. "Yeah, that's a dude alright. The hell is he doing?"

Motohama's glasses gleamed as he stared upward with no fear of the sun. "He's grinding on the security rails."

And so he was. A tall blonde man was railgrinding like it was his God-given right, safety bar reduced to his playground. The white coat whipping about his shoulders made him seem dashing indeed, and the crowd roared its approval as he pop flipped his board.

"Shit that's cool." Matsuda muttered. "How the hell did he get a board up there?"

"Maybe he knows someone?" Issei suggested.

"Someone he knows gave him a blank check to commit suicide?"

"Could be a suicide pact?" Motohama said pedantically, still watching the man board with rapt attention. Issei shot him a disgusted look.

Matsuda snorted. "With what? The board?"

"Hey man, people name their boards." Issei defended. "Give 'em pronouns and emotions and shit. Maybe the board's depressed."

"How far gone would you have to be to question if your board is depressed?"

"You don't need to. It's all in the performance." Motohama said wisely. "If it ain't feeling the roads, maybe it's just not feeling life."

"That's a jump." Issei noted.

"It's a skateboard, what else is it going to do?" He put his fist up, and Issei bumped it.

"I maintain that a suicide pact with a nonliving object is illegal." Matsuda said firmly. "The board shouldn't need to handle that kind of responsibility."

"Then who's gonna sue. The person or the object?" Issei shot back. "Who has the rights in this case?"

"The manufacturer." Motohama said instantly. The other two snapped their fingers in recognition.

"Gottem." Issei said. "That's the one. Manufacturer takes the civil rights and grievance money."

"That's a K9 special order board too. Real wood. There's a cedar out there that's really sad. What a waste." Matsuda said morosely. The other two sighed.

"It's about to get sadder." Issei said, squinting harder at the shadow atop the building. "I think he fell off."

The crowd gasped, a sharp sound cutting through the sudden silence. For a moment, all anyone could hear was the whistling wind, until it exploded into chatter and screams.

"No, he's in control." Motohama said. "He's holding a pose. No flailing."

"Fire department is holding steady, and I've got the suicide hotline on speed dial." Matsuda said firmly. "Should we move in?"

Motohama stilled. "No...no hold on." He took off his glasses in a flash, giving them a quick rub before snapping them back on. "Holy shit is he...is he T-posing at us?"

Issei and Motohama watched the man fall in a firm T-pose, not a hair on his head wavering. People around them that had continued gathering exploded into noise, screams and laughter echoing, loud voices speaking into their hands as it began to sink in that this was really happening.

Matsuda slammed his right fist into his palm. "He's the priest."

"What." Issei snapped. "How the hell. No fucking way, no priest on this goddamn earth is gonna railgrind on top of a bank."

"Fuck you." Matsuda stomped his feet as hard as he could, a little cloud of dust puffing up around them. "That man is doing a goddamn Christ Air off that building, that is a priest damn you."

"Can I go to his church." Motohama said, watching the man catch his board between his legs and start revolving. "Look, he's doing a 720."

A couple people began applauding as the Priest started spinning a few seconds before he was caught by the fire department's tarp in a massive whump.

Motohama threw his hands in the air. "He nailed it."

The audience burst into applause, cheers and whistles beginning to fly overhead as the Priest began to slowly extract himself from the tarp, exchanging high-fives and handshakes with the fire department. The crowd rushed in to touch this hero, dragging the three boys along, until they eventually got face-to-face with the pale man, still flushed from his fall.

"You're a priest, right?" Issei demanded as the crowd finally stopped bustling enough for words to transmit again.

The albino nodded. "Sure am." The friendly looking leer that slowly tore it's way across his face nearly gave lie to his words, but the dangling cross on his chest cemented it. "Freed's the name."

"Rad." Matsuda said. "We need an exorcism."

An eerie looking grin hovered on the man's lips. "I can see that." He eyed Motohama and Matsuda's outfits. "Lemme quote you."

"We have to pay?" Motohama cried.

Freed shrugged. "Sorry man, I gotta eat too. I don't feel like starving like that dumb-, well, nevermind." He shrugged, and tossed a wave at the crowd. "Sorry." He started walking off, basking in the noise and props. Motohama and Matsuda, dispirited, started moving back, but something held Issei in place. He signalled to them to head on, but cleared his throat.

"Hey, you're a priest right? You know people in town?"

The albino man turned back to him, crowd still reaching out to feel him. "I know a lotta people, yeah." He called back.

"You know a guy named Azazel?"

The priest froze, before walking back to him with great, land-eating strides. He brushed a few hands aside impatiently, before he stopped in front of Issei, looking right at him. Freed's eyes were slightly yellowed, and Issei shivered. He hadn't stopped smiling.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know Azazel. What's up, boya?"

Issei swallowed. The crowd was loud and the sun was heavy in the sky, but he felt very, very cold all of a sudden.