Nozomi headed back quickly enough after giving her gift to Eli, a box of chocolates produced natively within the town. It was expensive, as it was mainly seen as a luxury, but Eli seemed to brighten up very much so upon receiving it. Nozomi knew that Eli had expressed on numerous occasions it was her favourite.

She had once again seen a flash of that mystery redhead, however. And she had no idea what she was to do. The exorcist she had met wasn't really an option to call, although it was a useful contact to have, even if they were a kingdom over.

But now she herself was starting to lose sleep. A lack of intimacy and a looming worry was constantly hanging over her, for her wife and things didn't seem like they were going to change without action. But what could she do?

She knew that Eli didn't want to see her suffer as well, especially over something that she likely felt was her fault, even though her being followed around by these beings weren't her fault at all. So, she had to hide it, simply long enough until she could figure out a plan and she only hoped that would be before the Devils struck.

It was another night in the castle and whilst Nico was busy plaguing Eli's dreams, Umi had called upon a brief illusion to communicate with Maki.

"Umi," Maki had hummed as the room shifted to appear as though it was in Umi's office of sorts, "How are you?"

Umi eyed her but decided to entertain her formalities, "I'm feeling well. I trust things are going fine?"

"Mmhm. So, what's the next step?"

Umi didn't let it show on her face, but she didn't exactly appreciate the lack of personal intelligence and drive on Maki's part. So, she rolled her head on her shoulders, "You know we need to tear down some of the barriers within this world. Namely churches and temples, as we cannot step foot on hallowed ground. But that doesn't stop us from being able to do harm," Clearing her throat momentarily, "There are two ways you can go about this. One is an individual effort, the other would require more of a group effort."

"Give me the individual one first."

"Because of your… Inherent destructive abilities, shall we say, you can spark the flames. If your hellfire is powerful enough, the temples and churches will burn. If not, well… You may just cause a stir."

Maki huffed out some smoke through her nose and decided to deliver a kicker of a question, "Do you think I can do it?"

Umi thought quickly and on her feet. Although she harboured her doubts, of course she did, she took her own advice. Hide her doubts and then purge them.

"Of course I do. Why else would I pick you for this job?"

"Because, you need Nico to plan with you, Honoka, if given the choice would sleep for the rest of her life, Kotori does her own thing and is honestly a wild card, you're needed here, Rin is just plain odd and Hanayo is the mediator, not the aggressor. Does that cover everything?"

"Are you implying that everyone else is mostly unreliable?" Umi said, quirking an eyebrow and surprised at her flash of intuition.

"Well. If you want to take it that way, I don't care," Maki said casually, examining her fingernails.

"Whilst you are mostly correct with your analysis, I suppose you could call it, none of us really have the potential to burn down holy buildings."

Maki nodded skeptically, but didn't comment on that. Instead, she settled back again, "What about the group effort?"

"We're all doing our part," She chastised, "But you're suited to this task, I trust you will rise to it. The second part of what we're doing revolves around things going all according to plan, until eventually all barriers above will weaken and we can begin to gain control on the surface."

"Is that it?"

"That is it," Umi confirmed with a sigh, "You're free to go back."

Maki gave one final nod before the illusion began to fade and she was back within the room after a brief bout of disorientation at the light ticking of the clock and the dull embers of the fireplace, she smirked and rose from her seat.

She would set the spark to catch the fuel alight.

Eli was given a rather rude awakening the next day, not just by rampaging nightmares or a soul crushing sense of dread, but also by a panicky priest, who had to be physically restrained, according to the servant who had ordered for the man to be dragged out before he could rouse Eli from her sleep.

But, Eli made herself decent and headed out into the main room, where the priest was still clawing at one of the doorframes and shouting something about supremely important news. Eli approached and the guard's slackened their hold as the priest looked to her, having lost the words briefly, before shaking his head.

"I trust you have a good reason for barging in here so early?" Eli asked, not necessarily coldly.

"Yes, I do," He said firmly, "There's been an incident… I've been travelling - please hear me out, your majesty!"

Eli frowned for a moment, especially when she saw Maki out of the corner of her eye appear and sit down nonchalantly beside the unlit fire pit.

"Proceed."

"Thank you. One of the churches on the outskirts of the city burned to the ground last night and as you should know, those buildings are supposed to be completely protected against instances such as this!"

"That… Is indeed true. Do you have any idea what happened?" Eli asked, a sense of dread rising in her chest.

"Very little. We noticed the flame when it was far too late, but anyone more attuned to the supernatural could sense something beyond the likes of anything else we'd ever come across before. Malevolence was the main feeling..."

Maki cleared her throat, "Do you think he's talking about me?"

Eli resisted the urge to glance in Maki's direction; to everyone else it would look strange to gaze at an empty space, or even glare.

"I will bring this to the attention of the various supernatural societies, thank you for coming."

"Y-your majesty! Please, mark my words, this is something far more than just a fiend or a demon trying to simply make trouble," He said, bowing, "If this happens again, something big is coming."

'Something bigger than you and I can imagine.' Eli thought with a sigh, but she nodded respectfully and gestured for the guards to escort him out.

"Wow," Maki hummed, "I would have had that priest executed for interrupting my sleep."

"Well thank God we're not all you," Eli remarked dryly when she was sure no one would hear her.

"Yes… Things would be boring."

Eli rolled her eyes and sat herself down near Maki, "You burned the church down then?"

"Mmhm, of course I did," Maki did a slight mock bow in her seat.

"Why though?"

Maki paused for a moment, as if mulling over her response, "Does it matter?"

"It does," Eli insisted, "I get that you don't want me putting together the pieces of what you're doing, but this has to mean something."

"If I told you I just wanted to have some fun, would you believe me?"

"I would and wouldn't. It would probably be fun for you and for some greater reason."

"Mmhm, you're not wrong. You know… You're fun to poke at. See what makes you tick. I guess we wouldn't be doing this if you weren't the ruler of this kingdom, but if I was a smaller time demon."

"You're a demon?" Eli raised an eyebrow.

"Technically, no. In a sense, yes. I might as well be a complete enigma to you."

"Enlighten me?"

Maki narrowed her eyes, judging whether or not she should actually disclose information. Then again, who would she tell? Any writings could be disposed of and if she came forward about any of this, her mental well being would surely be questioned. Then again, knowing your enemy was a viable tactic. But lulling Eli into a false sense of security didn't seem too hard, if she thought she could coax information out of them.

"Depends on what you want to know."

"Were you human? You look human."

"We were once humans," Maki answered nonchalantly, not pushing any more information.

"Anything you can add onto that…?"

"No."

"Right… Why did you pick me? You could have picked any kingdom."

"Well, you're the best connected to you kingdom and its people, not to mention you're married. Easy to exploit."

Whilst Eli wasn't exactly enjoying the answers she was receiving, she knew she would rather be getting answers than not at all.

With a sigh, Eli posed her next question, "What is your goal? You don't have to reveal your plan or anything."

"Even the end goal gives it away," Maki raised her hands defensively, "Sorry, can't say. Umi would get mad at me."

"And she spearheads this entire thing?"

"Pretty much. She's… A bit of a hardass, but she gets the job done."

Eli racked her brains for another question, but soon enough, Maki appeared to grow tired of answering.

"No more questions, that's as good as you're going to get. I've probably already said too much to be honest."

Maki rose up from her seat and shrugged, especially at Eli's slightly annoyed expression. Even if Eli felt slightly better about not being so left in the dark, there was still only the sense of a dim candle with a thin flame in the distance that threatened to be extinguished at any given moment.

"Anyway, you have things to attend to, right? Don't stop me from allowing you to do that."

Eli grunted non-commitally, rising up from her seat. Maki was more of an annoying presence to deal with than a terrifying force of evil trying to do something that was wasn't even sure of. Burning buildings down didn't seem like something that could bring about that many problems. Then again, these were holy buildings, supposedly protected by God Himself. She could only bring herself to worry about how much power they held.

"Is something wrong, Mari?"

"Mm…" Mari turned over, a slight grogginess in her eyes and tone, "I couldn't tell you what it is."

Having been granted passage to the next kingdom over, they had spent their day travelling to the mansion and home of a close friend and her sister, they had been allocated a place within the guest bedroom.

"Can I have a clue?" Kanan asked, just a tad concerned for Mari's wellbeing, even though she knew she could handle herself.

"Well… I noticed that after we left the kingdom, although the feeling of maliciousness ebbed, it just suddenly spiked again…"

Kanan paused, "If Nozomi-san needs us, then she should send a message down the chain."

"I know… But that message could be a bit late."

"Yes, but we have a job to do right now. Ruby-chan needs us."

"Yes, yes," Mari managed a laugh, "I didn't think I'd ever see Dia in a position such as this."

"If anything, I'm sure if you had to guess which one of the Kurosawa siblings were to ever become possessed, you would end up guessing Ruby-chan."

"True," Mari said, settling her arm over Kanan again and nuzzling into her neck, "Ah… I'm sure we have time anyway. Or we can simply leave it up to Nozomi-san to sort out."

"Even if an evil is threatening the world, we still need to get paid."

"Ah, but the Kurosawas get a friend discount, right?"

"They can spare a bit of money," Mari laughed, closing her eyes.

The next day, Kanan and Mari had awoken early to survey the damage and just the general issues around the mansion. They had confined Dia, or rather, the demon possessing her to the bedroom with a temporary seal. If the seal was there for too long, the demon would likely break through it and be rather angry about it, so they had to work fast. It would be angry anyway, as demons were so often.

"A water demon is strange," Kanan mused out loud as she looked towards the ceiling that was soaking through and dripping onto the floor below.

"Mm, but I feel like I'd rather deal with this than a fire demon."

"We can't say that for sure," Kanan said, watching Mari diligently take notes. Kanan could write legibly, but it was better to leave it to Mari who had had a more affluent upbringing with a better education, "It might not strike you that water demons are to be more dangerous than fire ones, so you can't let your guard down."

Mari didn't say a word after that, scribbling down some more notes.

"As long as we make it through this without getting drowned or anything like that, we'll be alright. I'm still trying to judge whether or not this should be a forceful exorcism or a negotiated exorcism."

"I think that depends on how the demon is going to act," Mari observed, finishing off her statement, "But Ruby-chan has said that she's oddly subdued."

Kanan didn't like the sound of that, but she had no reason to be overly concerned, but when Ruby entered the room, looking more than a bit pale, she frowned.

"E-erm… Onee-chan, well, I mean… The demon wants to speak to you."

Kanan and Mari exchanged a glance, as Mari wrote something without even looking down. But Kanan nodded and followed Ruby up to the room where Dia sat on the bed and to anyone else, looking as though nothing were out of the ordinary other than various soaked items within.

Dia's head turned towards the door and it was clear she was possessed from the dark blue flooding her eyes completely and it simply stood, walking to the door and stopping just before the seal in place.

"Do you know why I travelled to this realm?" The demon asked, chewing its host's cheek, "Oh, what am I saying? Of course you don't."

"Are you going to tell us?" Mari asked, standing in forefront.

"Why would I make such a statement if I wasn't intending to tell you?" It scoffed, making a movement as though it were rolling its eyes, though with no pupil it was impossible to tell for sure, "I came with a warning. And to offer potential help."

"What's the warning?"

"I'm getting to that!" The demon hissed, turning on its heel for a brief second.

Kanan made a face, obviously not used to any of these kinds of words and tones coming out of Dia's mouth, whilst Mari tried her best not to let on that she was getting more and more amused at this whole situation.

"We have certain entities in Hell, you know, hierarchies and almost a society… You have your ruler and I suppose what you can class as advisors and so on… There is a certain degree of disconnect our ruler has, so let's simply say his advisors go off on a whim and do whatever they wish… There's a plan in place and things will be moving soon."

Kanan raised an eyebrow and mumbled, "Seven Devils?"

The demon wasn't one to miss a bit and her head snapped to Kanan, "How do you know about that?"

"We've… Come across an incident or two before." Mari was careful not to reveal too much to the demon of course.

"Well, if you've come across that then you surely know you can't face it alone."

"That is true… And we need all the help we can get."

"Nozomi-san might be opposed…" Kanan cut in, "Forgive me for being a little distrusting... But, one step out of line…"

"And you'll what? Get me out your friend's body with a sword? You won't even kill me, you'll kill her. But if you need proof of my… Loyalty, then I can say that I had no idea that anyone on the surface knew about this. Plus the Devils could handle everything without an informant on the inside. They aren't expecting much dissent anyway."

"Why are you offering your help anyway?"

"The moment they solidify power over this realm, things will be heavily regulated. Less fun for demons like me. Plus I've never approved of them. They're strangely dysfunctional and unhealthy, but they'll rally around their leader."

"How much information do you have on them?" Mari asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"Not as much as you'd like me to know unfortunately."

"Alright… And what of our friend? If you help us, will you end your possession willingly?"

"I will. I know the word of a demon isn't an awful lot to go off, but I would gladly go through any ritual that may guarantee my cooperation."

Kanan sighed, "It's a lot of effort… But I could perform a glove seal."

When the demon shrugged in agreement, Mari ushered a confused and worried Ruby off to fetch a pair of gloves as Kanan prepared for what would probably be a very long day.