Story Warnings: Some violence and strong language. Mentions of deceased OCs.
Disclaimer: If you recognize any names, terms, or concepts it's because they don't belong to me.
Chapter 9 - Homecoming
"So tell me, Oga Tatsumi. Are you going back on your word now? Have you become a coward?"
Oga stared at him, looking lost and pained. It was an expression Furuichi had never before seen on his friend's face, and desperately wished he hadn't been the one to put it there. But it was necessary, Furuichi reminded himself harshly, still outraged as he stared the other teen down.
"Shit," Oga muttered, glancing away. His face twisted into a conflicted grimace. "I'm no coward." And he knelt down and opened his arms, then immediately fell backwards as Baby Beel tackled him with a squeal. Oga, sprawled on the ground, curled around the child attached to his chest and squeezed. Furuichi grinned and snapped a sly picture on his phone, resolving to show it to Misaki later.
Across the room, Iris began to sniffle. "Oh, Beelze… I'm so glad you've found such a wonderful parent," she sighed. Hilda had a strange, complicated expression on her face – something between adoration for her master, and frustration that Oga was the one he loved.
"Alright, alright," Oga grunted, righting himself and tilting his head to the side to let Beel scramble up his shoulder. He walked over to Johan's prone form, just beginning to stir back to consciousness, and kicked at his ribs.
"Oi, you better have some rooms here. You owe us a nice place to stay, after all the shit you put us through."
"Ugh, you're staying…?" the man groaned, coughing out pebbles and small clouds of mortar dust. He slowly pulled himself upright, but couldn't seem to muster the energy to stand.
"Che. We came all this way, like hell we're leaving without Beel-boy spending some time with his mom."
"Ai! Dah dabuh, nfu babu!"
"Right, she's sick, too, of course we can't just take off."
The baby began gesticulating wildly, babbling in an apparently intelligible way to Oga, who began nodding along.
"You wanna stay and help your mom for a while? We can do that. Eh? Nah, we can stay longer than that, how about four days?"
Beel blew a raspberry of agreement, and the two shook hands very solemnly. Iris just looked at them, her lower lip wibbling with affection and amusement as Oga hefted Johan to his feet and began barking out orders to prepare a set of rooms.
"The young master has really grown since you last saw him, Madam Iris. He's quickly becoming a man," Hilda smiled, kneeling down to pull the woman back into her wheelchair. Iris laughed a little helplessly.
"He really has! And I haven't been here to see it. After leaving my baby alone for a whole year, and somehow I'm lucky enough to be here for his first word… Do I really deserve this happiness?"
"People make mistakes," Furuichi murmured, picking up her shawl and attempting to shake the dust out. "But that's why you have friends and people you trust around you, to tell you when you messed up and to help you fix it. Maybe you made a mistake, but your husband and son still love you and want to be with you. How can you say you don't deserve it, when the evidence is right there?"
He smiled at her, pressing the shawl into her hands, and Iris smiled back so gently and sweetly that Furuichi felt his heart clench. Over her shoulder, Hilda was eyeing him suspiciously.
"You've been surprisingly dependable during this trip, Furuichi. What are you planning?"
"Nothing!" he squawked in protest. "What's wrong with saying good things every now and then?"
"No, she's right, Furuichi. You're being really creepy. Stop it," Oga deadpanned. Having finished bullying Johan, he walked over and unceremoniously deposited Baby Beel in Iris' lap. She seemed frozen for a moment, and Beel likewise, before she wrapped her arms around the child and buried her face in his baby-soft hair. The matching choked-off, desperate sobs of mother and son stayed Furuichi's tongue, stole the rebuttal from his lips.
He smiled a bit instead, but quickly became embarrassed by the touching sight and turned away to give them some privacy.
"Anyway, that Solomon bastard's got us all set up. Five-star suites," Oga said with a cheesy, deadpan thumbs-up. Hilda nodded, satisfied. "You staying too, Furuichi?"
"No, I should head back, make sure the school hasn't been burned to the ground. Again, I mean. Actually, it's probably safer with you halfway across the world," Furuichi considered. Oga stomped on his foot. In his distracted pain, it took a few moments to register that another voice was questioning after him.
"Furuichi?" Iris asked, her voice still a little thick with emotion. "Are you leaving, now?"
"Ah, yeah, probably," Furuichi returned, setting his foot back on the ground.
"Oh, that's too bad. You seem to have a good head on your shoulders," she smiled serenely, taking one of his hands and patting the top of it with her other one. Baby Beel stared at Furuichi's hand like he would dearly love to feed it to a Gorgonzola dragon.
Furuichi carefully extricated his hand from her grip and rubbed the back of his head awkwardly.
"Haha, well I don't know about that," he said.
"Hmm, no, I like to think I'm a decent judge of character," she said. Furuichi exercised every ounce of tact he had ever possessed in order not to mention how blatantly fooled she had been by Johan and the rest of the Solomon Company.
"And anyway," she continued, "we've been following your actions from here. They call you Ishiyama's General, yes?"
Furuichi grimaced. He was really starting to hate that title. He had taken considerable pride in being known as the smartest in the school back…before. But now, knowing what he did about the realities of war, he took no pleasure in being forced into a position that was known for making harsh decisions and sacrifices of the men under its command. He shrugged a bit, feeling very much like a petulant, recalcitrant teenager, but was unwilling to either confirm or deny her question.
Iris smiled thinly, her eyes sharp with comprehension. "I suppose that wasn't really a question for you to answer, was it? It is your classmates whose feelings on the matter are most important. If they feel that is your place among them, then don't you think you have the responsibility to respond in kind?"
Furuichi sucked in a sharp breath. He knew, he did, that he would not be able to turn them away if they sought his guidance, but he certainly wasn't going to offer it first. Again, he remained silent, but Iris did not seem to need his answer; she simply nodded, apparently satisfied by whatever she was able to see in his face.
"I'll trust you to keep my son's affairs in order, then."
"Hey," Oga cut in, uncommonly solemn. "You sure you'll be okay?" He didn't need to complete the thought for Furuichi to catch the implication.
"Psh," Furuichi scoffed. "Seriously, what are the chances of Fuji attacking while you're gone? It'll be fine."
Stepping through Alaindelon always seemed… dirty, Furuichi grimaced as he was transferred back across the Pacific Ocean. But maybe that had something to do with the way the shitty demon had dropped him behind the slimy dumpster at the front of the school building.
With a tremendous yawn, Furuichi interlocked his fingers and stretched his arms far above his head, then cast a disgruntled look at the sun, still high in the sky. He inwardly cursed time differences, knowing he would have to wait even longer to get some sleep. Well, he amended, it's not like anyone will notice or care if I sleep during class. Ishiyama was dependable that way.
But… something was off, Furuichi realized as he glanced around. Empty. There were no gatherings of thugs in darkened corners of the campus, no boisterous figures visible through the windows, no voices splitting the air with curses and vulgarity. Furuichi had never seen Ishiyama so barren. He shivered, uncomfortably reminded of the derelict, blood-splattered villages that raiding parties – on both sides of the war – had left in their wake, back in Fainor's time.
Furuichi quickly strode out of the eerie, bare courtyard and into the nearest building. The hallways were just as abandoned. There weren't even any fresh bloodstains, and there was no lingering scent of permanent markers or spray paint. It was a damn crypt, he realized, sickening dread clawing its way up to his throat from the pit of his stomach.
And then his breath left him, stark relief stopping his heart and freezing his lungs as a familiar voice called out to him.
"Furuichi! Shit, you're finally back. Where's Oga?" Natsume said, rushing up to him and glancing shiftily out the windows as he approached.
"He's not here," Furuichi said, startled. "Beel's mom is sick, so they all stayed behind to take care of her. Why, what happened? Where is everyone?"
"Fuck," the senior cursed with uncharacteristic vitriol, running a faintly shaking hand through lank hair. "Look, Fuji's made his move. We've already lost some guys and… a lot of other people, too."
Cold dread seeped into the marrow of his bones. "Lost…? No, don't tell me they're–!"
"C'mon, I'll show you," he said gravely, leading Furuichi inwards towards the central courtyard. They saw only a bare handful of students on the way there, all of them quiet and restrained, and Furuichi desperately wanted to demand answers, but the way Natsume's face was tight and stiff with frustration kept him quiet. The senior kicked open the inner door leading to the courtyard unceremoniously, resignedly.
At first glance, Furuichi he thought someone had taken up sculpting, but then, no, he recognized those faces. Ninestatues, life sized and eerily detailed, frozen in dynamic, aggressive poses. He recognized three fodder thugs, Good Night Shimokawa, two of the MK5, and three of the Fallen Angels. One of the latter had a series of raised bumps across his face that read 'BITCH' – it was the one who had tortured him before.
"What…?"
"This is Fuji's demon's power. Satan, apparently. He petrifies people. Heh, just like you said, we sent out that Fallen Angels guy first, right when Fuji showed up two days ago, along with a few other guys. This is what happened." Natsume gestured helplessly at the statues. "He left right after, though, saying he wanted to have some fun playing 'War' with Ishiyama's General before killing the demon prince. He's waiting for you and Oga, Furuichi. Now that you're back… Well, anyway, since then he's come back a few times and petrified some guys, whoever happens to be unlucky enough to be out when he comes around. Doesn't stick around for a fight, though, and we can't chase him or we'll get frozen too." His voice was thick was enraged frustration. Furuichi knew the feeling well.
"Come on, there's more," Natsume said darkly, cutting across the hallway to the windows that looked out over the back campus and parking lot. Furuichi wanted to ask, How could there be more? How could it be worse?
But all words died in his throat as he took in the yard. Over a dozen more bodies, stone gray and frozen in time, were scattered across the dirt in all positions, strewn about like some perverse yard ornaments. But more than the fact that they had been petrified was the fact that they were still there. Because Furuichi remembered. Or rather, Fainor did. He recalled sending out a contingent of battlemages to freeze the on-coming armies solid, remembered raising his arm to signal the archers to strike the frozen forms. Remembered seeing the bodies shatter like ice, and wished he didn't remember the pungent, pulpy mess of offal left behind after they melted.
"Get them out of there," he heard himself say sharply. "The bodies, they can't stay out there. It's not safe."
Natsume looked at him strangely. "I'm pretty sure no one's going to be aiming at them, and they're fucking heavy."
Furuichi drew in a sharp breath. "Stone is brittle, senpai. What do you think would happen if they get hit too hard and break? What do you think they'd be like when we fix them?" When, not if. It has to be when.
Natsume got it, evident in the way his face paled and his mouth pursed with nausea. He nodded shakily and grimaced. "Right, I'll get some guys on that in a bit. But first, we need to check in with Himekawa."
"What have you guys been doing?" Furuichi asked briskly, staring at the macabre statues for a minute longer before following Natsume back inside.
"Himekawa's been keeping an eye on the town through all the CCTV cameras, and we've got a few guys patrolling the areas that don't have an electronic surveillance. Kanzaki's got his father's men in on it, too, but they're mostly keeping a perimeter around the town to keep people from coming in and making sure people stay in their houses, so no one gets hurt."
"Seems like you guys have got this well in hand."
Natsume laughed bitterly. "Yeah, I wish. It's not like we can do anything when Fuji decides to fuck with us, though." The senior paused here, his mouth twisted with something pained and furious. "He's gone after a lot of our families. He petrified my parents and brother. Himekawa's family was never here to start, and Kanzaki's men were able to get his family to safety. We sent a few guys out to check on other people's families, but most of them didn't come back."
"…What about my family?" Furuichi said, barely able to force the words past desiccated lips. Natsume looked at him tiredly.
"We don't know for sure. We sent a couple guys to check on yours, Oga's, and Kunieda's families, but they didn't come back. We didn't send anyone else out."
Furuichi stopped, canted to the side and leaned against the wall as his knees turned to rubber. Natsume offered him a sympathetic half-grin. "Hime's in the room down the hall," he said, gesturing with a thumb. "Go talk to him when you feel up to it. I've gotta get some guys to carry the statues out of the yard."
They're just frozen, not dead, Furuichi told himself fiercely. And not for very long, just until Oga comes back. This is far from a worst-case scenario, I've been through worse. Sort of.
Furuichi took a deep, fortifying breath, cordoning off thoughts of his family until he was in a position to actually help them. He pushed off the wall and made his way down the hallway, to the room Natsume had indicated was Himekawa's base of operations – one of the few computer labs in the school that still had working, unvandalised computers.
He stepped through the door, expecting to see a flurry of activity like the time they had banded together to battle En online in Himekawa's hi-tech apartment, but was instead met with an almost entirely empty skeleton room. All of the useless computers had been removed, the working ones along with several television sets rearranged to surround a single work desk, where a single figure sat.
Furuichi winced when he saw Himekawa's face relax with relief at the sight of him. "Shit, finally–"
"Sorry," Furuichi cut in sharply. "It's just me. Oga won't be back for a few days." Himekawa's face twisted into a complicated expression, stricken and disbelieving and desperate.
"Fucking hell, Furuichi, we can't wait that long! None of us are strong enough to take this bastard, and he's chipping away at the whole goddamn town! Use that creepy transport demon to bring him back, for fuck's sake!"
"No," Furuichi declared. "I won't make him come back early. Beel needs time to reconnect with his mom, and I'm not gonna make Oga decide between his son and us. We're just going to have to make do until he comes back. It won't be long."
The senior's mouth pursed with displeasure, but he was obviously able to read Furuichi's obstinance on the matter, and dropped it.
"Shit, whatever. If you're so sure, then you get to take responsibility," he growled. Furuichi grimaced uncomfortably – he was starting to hate that word, responsibility – but nodded.
"Tell me what everyone's been doing."
"Kunieda's got most of her Red Tails out on patrol along with Kanzaki's guys. They're the only ones that have really left the school much, besides Toujou and his two followers. They've been running all over town, trying to draw out Fuji's guys."
"How many are on Fuji's side?"
"We're not sure," Himekawa admitted grudgingly. "We think he's told anyone following him to pretend not to be and to attend school regularly. Well, they're all just punks, though, so it's not like it's hard for Toujou to draw them out and put them out of commission."
"So basically it's all of us against only Fuji and Satan? That doesn't seem too bad," Furuichi pointed out, feeling hopeful. Himekawa grimaced.
"Yeah, I fucking wish it were that simple. Here, come look at this." Himekawa turned back to the monitor he was stationed before, clicking the mouse a few times and bringing up a grainy image on the screen. Furuichi leaned over the senior's shoulder for a better look.
"This is an image from a camera on the south side. Look closely at the alleyway there. See the shadow?" Furuichi nodded, able to distinguish the dark, man-shaped distortion that spilled out of the darkness between the brick buildings. "Well, watch this." The senior clicked play, and Furuichi gaped as the shadow inched out of the alley onto the sidewalk and then doubled and stretched away from the streetlight's illumination.
"Holy shit, that shadow has a shadow." Himekawa's scowl deepened.
"Not quite. You haven't seen it yet, Furuichi, but Satan petrifies people using this black smoke that he controls. Three guesses what that figure looks like it's made of."
"Natsume mentioned that people are ending up petrified all over town, even when Satan and Fuji are seen somewhere else," Furuichi recalled, throat closing with anxiety as epiphany dawned on him. Himekawa nodded.
"Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Look at it just walking around like a person, it's definitely got some sentience. He's probably got a bunch of these fuckers patrolling the town, freezing anyone they come across."
Furuichi cursed quietly. How strong did Satan have to be that he was able to create numerous, at least partially sentient creatures with his demonic power and give them free reign over an entire town?
"Hasn't anyone realized that people aren't coming in to work?" Furuichi blurted.
"Phones are completely down. No cell signals are reaching anywhere, and most of the telephone poles have been knocked down, so no landline. The internet only works if there's a mobile hotspot nearby, and even then not unless the site servers are in the town. I've got a basic messaging system running from here, effective range of about a kilometer, but that's all. We're in the middle of a dead zone, twenty kilometers in every direction."
So between having cut all communications and petrifying anyone who tries to enter or exit the city, Fuji's entirely cut us off from the rest of the world. "But not forever," Furuichi said aloud. Himekawa sent him a questioning look, and he hastened to add, "It's not like he can keep this up forever, not in today's world. Sooner or later, someone's going to notice that we're cut off."
"Duh. But this bastard thinks he's going to take us down before that happens," Himekawa snarled.
"Like hell we're gonna make it easy for him," Furuichi snapped.
"Hear fucking hear," a low voice drawled from behind them. Furuichi turned around to see Kanzaki stepping into the room, looking more exhausted than he'd ever seen the senior before.
"Yo, Kanzaki. News?"
"Yeah, just got back. Lost three guys, but we got the info," Kanzaki said, dragging a tired hand across his face. He glanced at Furuichi. "Back, huh? Finally, we could use your help. Where's–"
"Not here," Himekawa cut in. "Don't ask, he'll be along in a few days, apparently. Tell me what you found."
"Oi, I don't fucking take orders from you. Remember that," Kanzaki scowled. "Anyway, it doesn't look like the warehouse has been breached. Your device should still be there."
"Good," Himekawa sighed, then glanced at Furuichi. "Remember that device I used to sever the connection between Oga and his kid? Fucking Fuji smashed it to bits before we could use it on him; one of his goddamned spies told him all about it and where it was. I've got another one stored away in a warehouse across town, and Kanzaki here was kind enough to scope the place out for me. What do you think, Furuichi? Any ideas how to get it here without Fuji catching on?"
The teen settled back against the wall, brought up a hand to bite his knuckle contemplatively.
"…I think," he began slowly, "that we could use some reinforcements."
It was chaos, and Furuichi only had himself to blame. He sighed and slunk down in his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off a blooming headache. Beside him, Hecadoth snorted amusedly.
"Yeah, it's completely your fault."
"Oh for fuck's sake, get your giant nose out of my head," Furuichi snapped, lurching to the left to avoid a projectile – a pencil, now lodged in the cinderblock wall. That had Agiel written all over it.
At least Jabberwock's not around, Furuichi thought, casting his eyes around the meeting room in which was gathered the core members of Oga's crew and a dozen of the strongest demons in the 34th Pillar Squad.
The contractor had been surprised, a few short hours before, when Hecadoth had responded immediately and eagerly to his mental request for assistance from the squad. Furuichi had scarcely conveyed the situation when he felt a great tug behind his sternum. He had stumbled to his knees, gasping at the sensation – not pain, exactly, but a deep discomfort of being overwhelmed, leaving his mind fuzzy and his fingers trembling.
And then the dimensions had promptly split open and from the gaping rift poured the legions of Hell.
"Yo, Furuichi!" Agiel had grinned. "You look good on your knees."
And now, having finally corralled the squad into some form of order and adequately explained the situation, he had to deal with the inevitable personality clashes and arguments that stemmed from introducing two groups of former enemies to one another and coercing them to work together.
Yeah, it's not going well, he thought as Hecadoth shoved a hand between his shoulder blades to knock him to the floor, out of the way of a flying desk.
"Fucking Akumano bastards, you think you can just come in here and steal our fights?!" Kanzaki roared as he trapped Xobla – what was he doing here? – in a stranglehold.
"The soldiers of Lord Beelzebub have been fighting Satan for longer than your grandparents have been around, cocky whelp!" Basilisk snarled back. He was apparently wielding a nameless subordinate as a weapon in favor of his massive ax at the moment, at least until a harried Kunieda darted in between the battle, evading Agiel as though her life depended on it.
It's not her life that depends on it, Hecadoth commented, eyeing the way Agiel had relinquished her sword Agiel in favor of grabbing at the buttons on Kunieda's shirt.
Oh, Furuichi thought. This was a pretty great idea after all–GRRK! Whipping his head around, he cast a sulky glare at Laymia, who was frowning at him in disapproval.
"Just because I don't have unfiltered access to your mind doesn't mean I don't know what you're thinking. I was under the impression there were more immediate concerns?"
Furuichi pouted, but conceded. He turned back to scan the pandemonium, watching for an opportunity to interject. And… there, a pause in the yelling as Kanzaki toppled over backwards, crushed beneath Xobla, as someone flung Salamander across the room to collide with Basilisk's face, Natsume stumbled backwards and separated Kunieda from Agiel, and Shiroyama tripped over Quetzalcoatl's hat and crushed little Elim.
"Oi, shut up!" Furuichi bellowed in the momentary quiet, as everyone's stumble had them temporarily silenced. When the assorted monsters all glanced in his direction, Furuichi made a sharp cutting motion with his hand and was beyond gratified when all noise and motion ceased. He cast his gaze slowly around the room, deliberately meeting the eyes of each demon and delinquent present.
"We," he began blandly, "are not the stars of this show. We are supporting actors, and the ones we support are Oga and Beelzebub. That means handling every issue that comes their way, and only when we are overwhelmed, does our leader take the stage. So. We will work together to fight Satan and Fuji. And we'll do our damnedest to put the fuckers down, but you can be damn well sure that even if we don't win, we'll make them regret taking us on. And Oga can have the leftovers or whatever, whenever the jackass decides to show his ugly mug. Sound good?"
He let a wicked grin creep onto his face as the room burst into hoots of agreement.
"Excellent. Now, here's the plan…"
AN: Wow, okay, so it's been like three months? That's a pretty long time, but still not quite so bad as one of my other stories, which hasn't been updated since May… Anyway, here's the intro to the fight with Fuji. The next chapter will be heavy on suspense and action. It's all planned out with several scenes written, although I've learned by now that having it partly done is no guarantee of actually finishing it in a timely manner. All I can say is that I hope it won't take me another three months, but I'll apologize ahead of time if that's the case.
Also, the epilogue to this story will consist of a variety of short, disjointed scenes meant to answer questions and tie up any loose ends. I've got several of them written already, but if there are any scenes you would like to see written or any questions that you don't think will be answered by the end of the fight with Fuji, let me know and I'll see about including them in the epilogue if I haven't already.
Thanks for sticking with me during this long hiatus!