Omg guys, so so so sorry for being so freaking late! Well, I'll keep these past two-three weeks short, for space sake.

I'm in Australia! Took me two days to get here, and now that I'm here, I have come to the conclusion that I am woefully unprepared. Like seriously, I'm an idiot. It's freaking cold... as I write this, I'm in bed wearing thick socks, my jammies, and my fur-lined hoodie (the thickest I own, minus my skiing gear), and I'm still cold. What the hell Australia.

Nah, just kidding, I love it here. :) Didn't at first - was basically ridiculously homesick, lonely, and the culture-shock didn't help. The amount of partying, at least in the college (dorms) that I'm staying at, is incredibly. It's honestly impressive. I have never partied before either - I don't drink, smoke, no drugs, never have gotten in trouble, straight-A student. Flight landed in the morning and we went to a bar that night... since I'm underage back in the States, I was half expecting the police to show up or something.

Speaking of underage, I'm the youngest international student here. Everyone else is in the twenties or so, so I'm the baby of the group. While it makes me a bit proud (to be the youngest here, not the baby, trust me), it also means that they rest treat me a bit differently. It drives me insane, seeing as I'm the oldest one in my entire family, extended and everything.

Well, that's all the space I'll give my adventures. I'm running a blog about my Aussie adventures - if you're interested, shoot me a PM, especially if you're planning on studying abroad in the future or just want to read my story for the sheer entertainment of it. It's way more active than here, by the way, but I'll update this story when I can.

On that note, here's the next chapter. :) Enjoy!

. . . .

GEHENNA

. . . .

Satan's POV

...

A bent figure stood at the doorway. The demon's face was gaunt, his thin cheekbones highlighted in the flickering torchlight. Bruises encircled his wrists and showed a molted, sickly cover where it ran over an old scar, a forgotten relic of a brutalized past.

Satan's fingernails clacked on the stone armrest, keeping time. The sound bounced off the walls like a fine metal blade.

The King of Gehenna was the first to speak. "What is it?" he asked, exasperated. The demon standing before him and fought to seek out his presence, and while the gesture was completely unnecessary since he could have simply replayed his message to the guards, the demon had refused. The result had been... less than pleasant before Satan had stepped in.

Meaningless fights are only entertaining for so long.

The demon snapped his head up at the sound of Satan's rich, deep voice. "M - My lord - "

"That is not my name," Satan spat. The name, Lord, reminded him of an earlier time, a time where he himself had been an angel standing beside the Creator himself. Oh, the power he had yielded, and the fear he had inflicted before he was banished from that golden place. Yet he had dragged hundreds, thousands, millions down to Gehenna with him. He had made a name for himself, then an army, and eventually, a threat, all to reclaim what had been his in its purest, rawest, primal form... power.

And yet his son would threaten that.

It made Satan bitter just thinking about it and yet, as impossible as it all seemed, but the boy was determined. Yuri, like Rin, had worn the same look on her face the day she was tried as a witch and nearly burned at the stake. She had been defiant, yet at peace with her fate; her soul unclaimed and untainted, she had transcended what he had believed what was capable for only a lowly human. His gaze softened slightly; unclaimed and untainted, she had been powerful.

The demon tried again. "My King," he stammered, "I believe that... that I have news that will be beneficial to you."

Satan narrowed his eyes. "Then spit it out," he ordered, "or are you going to dance around the topic? If I would had known this would take hours," he added, "I would have ordered entertainment."

The demon swallowed hard. "Sorry."

The sudden informality set a vein pulsing in Satan's forehead, but he did his best to ignore it. Experience had told him to choose his battles, and this one was insignificant and basically a headache waiting to happen.

"So, you came to me seeking an audience," Satan prompted as he fantasized ripping out the man's jugular. "Why?" He felt as if he was talking to a child.

He hated children.

"I - I have reason to believe that the news of our battle preparations had been leaked to the enemy."

Satan arched one delicate eyebrow. "Oh?"

"A map has been stolen," the demon continued. He was speaking so fast that the words almost slurred together. "An important map, with the strategic routes and supply lines for the massing army."

"Are you sure it's not just missing?" Satan asked, bored.

The demon glanced at the floor, causing Satan's gaze to intensify. This demon looked... guilty, as if he had something to hide. Or maybe he had nothing to hide, but the information he held was highly controversial and the demon was worried that he would be punished. That said, whether the information was valuable or not would be up to him to decide...

The demon mumbled something.

A tic formed in Satan's jaw. "Speak up," he ordered. The room seemed to chill slightly.

The demon flinched. "I believe th- that Astaroth is behind the theft."

Satan stared at the demon standing before him for a moment longer before slowly easing back in his chair. "That's a rather large claim, coming from one who is worth absolutely nothing to me," he mused. "Do you have any proof."

The demon's face drained of color. "I - I...!"

Satan flicked his eyes to match the demon's own; hard sapphire met trembling orange. "Well?" the King of Gehenna demanded.

"I - I have . . . well, not proof, but . . . !" The demon's hands began to shake, and Satan idly wondered how much longer it would last before the pressure would be too great and it would collapse.

"So what do you have?" Satan sighed. The conversation was quickly getting boring.

"I - I have a witness," the demon murmured. "Someone who witnessed Astaroth breaking into the armory."

"Who?"

The demon bit his lip before whispering, "Beelzebub."

Satan could feel his temper rise. Usually he would ignore such an outrageous claim, but with the way Astaroth had been acting as of late . . .

"Bring Beelzebub into the throne room," he ordered the nearest guard. "Now!"

. . .

Beelzebub was no fan of idle games. Nor was he a fan of idle chatter. He did not enjoy being summoned, spoken to out of turn, and - most of all - hated to lose.

His olive eyes narrowed at the chess board; it was crudely made and half of the pieces had been crushed by an 'accidental' fist, so he had created his own game. Best of all: it was single player only. Sometimes he needed to enjoy his own company, and on occasion, ask himself for advice. Sometimes he needed the expert opinion only he could offer.

He was about to finish the game with a winning move when there was a harsh knock on the door. Before Beelzebub could rise or say a polite greeting - or as polite as a demon could get, anyway - the door was thrust open. The following gust of wind toppled the flimsy chess board onto the floor, scattering the pieces and chipping an edge.

Beelzebub pretended not to notice. It was, after all, unbefitting to notice such inconsequential things.

"What is it?" he asked, though there was an edge to his voice that demanded respect.

And respect he would get. The guard made a hasty, awkward bow before panting, "King Satan would like to see you."

"Is that so," Beelzebub said dryly.

"Yes sir," the guard replied. The demon obviously didn't understand the meaning of a rhetorical statement.

Beelzebub sighed. "Well, I'll be on my way then," he muttered, and turned to leave. But as he passed the guard, a tiny insect burrowed out of his finger and fell onto the demon's arm and began to multiply. The King of Insects hadn't even walked out the door before the demon was on the ground, screaming, as tiny beetles crawled in and out of his mouth, nose, ears, even eyes and skin. The guard was dead seconds later, its brain fully eaten.

All that was left of the insects was fine white ash.

. . .

"You called, sire?" Beelzebub said in greeting. His stride was casual and confident as he strode into the throne room.

Satan raised his head - he had appeared to be deep in thought. "Yes," he replied. "I summoned you to ask you one thing, and one thing only."

Beelzebub was about to comment when the temperature in the room suddenly spiked. Suddenly hit with an immense pressure intense enough to nearly send him to his knees, Beelzebub realized that Satan was furious and, the way he was now, unpredictable.

A tiny bead of sweat beaded on his brow.

There was a chance that he would not get to walk out of here alive.

"Beelzebub," Satan said slowly, "is it true that you have witnessed Queen of Decay Astaroth stealing a strategic map and bringing it outside of the city?"

Now that Beelzebub knew why he had been summoned, he was able to relax slightly. "Yes," he replied.

"Would you say that she, our sister and member of our royal family, is a traitor to our cause?"

Beelzebub thought about this for a moment; in his mind, there was no question at all. Among the others, it was common knowledge that Astaroth hated Satan for killing her lover Xavier and sought blood. It was for his sake that he hesitated in answering; if he said no, he would walk out of here alive, but once the truth came out he would die. If he replied yes, Satan would be furious and could potentially kill him on the spot.

Beelzebub's frown deepened before he finally sighed. "Yes," he stated. "Yes, I believe that Astaroth has betrayed our cause."

Satan's irises suddenly went red, the pupils little more than a fine slit of a sharpened blade, and the flames all turned blue. A guard yelped as the torch ignited near his head while others collapsed from the demonstration of Satan's power. Sweat beaded on Beelzebub's brow; even he felt a little queasy, but knew that this was only a tiny fraction of what Satan could do.

Eventually the flames subsided, though the immense pressure was still there weighing down on the room like a torrent of water, drowning the weaker, weakening the stronger, and sparing absolutely no one.

Satan rose from his chair. He stood on top of the steps and cast a long blue-tinted shadow on the floor. His gaze was smoldering, his eyes dark and expression one of murder. The fallen angel he was, he was no stranger of using force to get his way. "Overkill" was not in his vocabulary.

"Fine Astaroth," he ordered, his voice cutting through the terror-stricken silence like the serrated edge of a sword. "I want her dead."

...

ASSAIH

...

Shura's POV

. . .

"This way," Shura hissed under her breath.

The walls were damp and slick, and water sloshed against her shins as she waded through the underground. Mephisto followed obediently, and didn't even raise a fuss when she had half-jokingly mentioned that they could escape through the sewer. In fact, now that she thought about it, Mephisto was strangely quiet.

But now that she turned around, she could see that he had suddenly gone pale. It was enough to make her freeze.

"Are you all right?" she asked, genuinely concerned despite herself. Her sense of loyalty, no matter how skewed, ran deep.

Mephisto raised his gaze, surprised, as if he was seeing her for the first time. The arrogance quickly followed. "I am one of the Kings of Gehenna," he stated. "I am always fine."

But even as he said that, he suddenly shuddered, and this time Shura went back to get him.

"Are you sure?" she asked, reaching to place a hand on his shoulder. But even as she did that, the walls suddenly trembled; lightly at first, but with growing intensity. Pieces of the ceiling crumbled down and splashed into the water, and for one panicked second Shura wondered if the ceiling would collapse and bury them all alive.

"Mephisto!" Shura shouted, meaning to grab him and start running.

But then it all went silent.

They remained frozen in place for ten seconds, then twenty, then a minute. Finally, Shura breathed, "What the hell was that?"

Mephisto stood to his full height. "That," he murmured, his voice deathly serious, "is the beginning of war."

Moving the plot along now. Everything is going to finally snap together; my goal is to finish this beast before I head back home, which will be sometime in October. I actually have no idea, I don't have a return flight!

Anyway, it's late, like 1am late, and I have a Chemistry and Ecology lecture .

Good night beautiful people! Continue being awesome!

Cheers,

Rand0mSmil3z

(sorry, no reviews this time around... too tired to do anything else. If the typos are horrendous, sorry. I woke up at 6:00am to watch the Germany vs. Algeria soccer game, and today was so hectic... tomorrow is even worse. Apparently, I accidentally signed myself for a university soccer team, and I DON'T PLAY SOCCER. Smooth, I know. I try.)