"You think they're gonna keep up these overtime shifts?"
"Well, yeah, they got all those jobs that need to be finished and shipped before the years over."
"Man, it's already fucking December. Ain't no way they're gonna get all of those jobs finished, especially with them sending all those guys home early all week."
"Not like they had anything in the back to weld, what else were they supposed to do?"
"I dunno, send 'em up front or some shit. It's just stupid they expect all this stuff to get done, and here they are sending folks home."
"Yeah, well, they still had us come in for a six hour shift today, right? If they're still doing Saturdays, they'll still be doing overtime next week."
"Man…this is bullshit. Hey, Mikey, what you thinkin' man? Your uncle hear anything?"
"...mm..."
"Mikey?"
"...mmmm…"
"Is he fuckin'-"
"Yeah, he's asleep."
"Goddamnit."
It was an early Saturday morning, around 8 in the morning. Sitting in a parking lot next to a production warehouse, three men sat inside a dark green pickup truck, one in the driver's seat and the other two sat in the backseats.
"Do we wake him up…?" One asked, leaning forward from the back to look at Michael in the driver's seat.
The young man in question was lightly snoring, leaned back in the seat, dressed in a navy blue buttoned shirt and pants, a name tag on the left side of the chest labeled 'Michael', with a dark gray hoodie worn over with multiple paint stains and tears in the cuffs at the end of the sleeves.
"Yeah, we gotta. Break is over in 6 minutes anyway," The other man asked, leaning forward himself and grabbing Michael's shoulder, starting to shake him. "Mike. Mike! Mike, come on, wake up, breaks gonna be over!"
At first there was no response, as the young man just kept snoring and snoring, but as the shaking got rougher and the calls of his name louder, eventually the snoring was replaced by groaning.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm awake, shit…" Michael slowly sat up from the seat, the hood of his hoodie slipping off his head, showing his long, dark brown hair tied back in a ponytail, his beard and mustache, and black framed glass, the left leg covered in duct tape..
He reached a hand up and lifted his glasses, resting them on the top of his head so he could rub at his eyes, trying to rub away the exhaustion and heavy bags.
"How long was I out?"
"9 minutes. Actually surprised you were able to fall asleep that quick." The first man said, dressed in a similar uniform to Michael, the name tag of his shirt reading 'Evan', a man a couple years older with short, brown hair.
"Man, he stumbles into the shop half-asleep every mornin', he's just adding the other half," the second man said, navy blue work shirt saying 'Dre', older and taller than the other two. "You still ain't gettin' any sleep?"
"Naw, not really." Michael said, letting his glasses slip back down over his eyes. "At first it was just, like, rolling over awake five different times and having trouble going back to sleep. Now it's these…weird ass dreams."
"Weird dreams?" Evan asked.
"Yeah, weird dreams. If I have one, most times I wake up and can't get back to sleep." Michael answered.
"How weird are they? Like, nightmare weird, lucid weird, wet dreams-"
"Evan they ain't-"
"I mean based on some of that stuff we've seen on your phone-"
"Oh fuck off, the both of you."
His two coworkers shared a chuckle, before looking back at Michael with expectant looks on their faces, making him sigh.
"Alright, well…like I said they're weird, so don't expect it all to make much sense." Michael turned around in his seat to face the other two, "Most of them start with this…giant tree? Yeah, giant tree. But not like, the normal big pine trees we see, it's like the size of one of those skyscrapers downtown. The branches are as big as sidewalks, and I'm on one of them, just looking around and seeing…well, nothing. There's dots in the sky like stars or something, and I think I hear water, but otherwise, nothing. Just the big ass tree. And I start walking forward along that branch, and I eventually reach the end, and see more nothing. Then it's right at the end, where something happens, it's like these two eyes open in front of me, looking at me, and then I start falling. I feel like I hit concrete, I hear water again, everything fades, and I end up shooting up from my bed, drenched in sweat."
After he finished talking, the young man scratched the back of his neck, letting a breath out. "It…doesn't make much sense, like I said."
"I mean…yeah, sorry dude, I got nothing." Evan said with a shrug. "You're afraid of heights though, right? Maybe something like that?"
"Well if he knows he's afraid of heights, why would it be the main thing in a nightmare? He knows it already," Dre offered his own thoughts.
"All I know is it's making the insomnia and narcolepsy worse. I feel like I'm back in high school, minus the parts where I could sleep in my science classes," Michael turned back around and looked at the radio of his truck, noticing the time.
"Shit. Break's over fellas."
In he response he got grumbling from the other two as they all opened the doors of the truck, exiting and closing them, Dre and Evan going ahead and walking to the staircase ahead that lead to inside of the warehouse while Michael locked his truck.
"Another four hours of this shit…fuck my life," the young man grumbled to himself, pocketing his keys and making his way to the staircase to continue his shift.
It was later in the day after his shift at work that Michael was back in his room at home. It was December the 23rd, and his job had suddenly changed the schedule for their holidays, which was why he had to work in the morning. He was supposed to be off Saturday and the day prior, but like everyone else on the shop floor, he was at the mercy of the higher ups.
But that was over for the moment. He was home now, and wouldn't need to go into work until the new year because of the holidays fell for the end of the month, as well as some of his own paid time off he had.
While normally Michael would have plans with his friends right before Christmas Eve and Day, with him having worked in the morning, he lacked the social energy to actually do anything that day. So here he was, sat at his computer desk, headphones on and blasting J-Rock that only barely let the sounds of Saturday football assault his ears every once in a while from the living room down the hall, the voices of his parents, brother, and sister-in-law carrying as strong as they normally did.
The young man had long changed out of his work clothes, now wearing a pair of baggy, black sweatpants and a gray t-shirt with the PlayStation face buttons depicted. His hair was let down, long locks of shaggy dark brown hair, along with a different pair of glasses, rounded lenses and missing the duct tape.
Michael's hands were typing away at his keyboard, clicks and clacks heard to him through the music he was listening to, occasional pauses occurring as he moved his finger over to rapidly punch away at the backspace key.
Letting out a groan of dissatisfaction, Michael switched his tab to his music player and paused it, switching back over to the tab he was writing in. He slipped his headphones off and hung them on a lower shelf on his desk, leaning back in his chair and looking over what he had written so far.
Which wasn't…a lot. At least it wasn't a lot to him, for how long he had been sitting at his desk working. Or trying to work, as he often found himself when he tried to sit and do something creative. His eyes bore into the word count tab at the bottom left of his monitor, feeling like the '1,390 words' it displayed to him was just…taunting him.
"Goddamnit…how much am I even gonna get done today?" He muttered to himself, lifting his glasses up so he could rub at his eyes, the three hours he spent staring at his monitor having their effects felt clearly.
Michael spent most of his time after work with his friends, or his two hobbies, games and writing. Writing had been a hobby of his since middle school, but with varying success. He primarily wrote fanfiction, as most people started with, but at the moment he was trying to branch into something original. He'd read enough light novels and manga over the years to know what he wanted to write, but he learned the reality of actually getting what he wanted into text was a similar experience to his other writing endeavors, be it the Dungeons and Dragons campaigns he tried writing in high school, or the Pokémon or High School DxD fanfics he tried writing even now.
Or RWBY. Michael would get back to those ideas one day, surely.
"YEAHHHHHHHHHHH! GO GO GO GO!"
"GET THAT TOUCHDOWN, BABY! WOOOO!"
Michael jumped a bit in his seat, his glasses falling back onto his face, unprepared for how louder the cheering was this time around as he swiveled around in his chair and looked at his bedroom door behind him, closed. "Jesus Christ. Lions better be winning in there, I swear."
He swiveled his chair to the side of his desk, slipping on the sandals left near his chair and stood up, making his way to his door. Opening it and stepping into the hallway, Michael peeked into the bedroom next to his, finding his grandfather laid out on the bed but watching the TV.
Walking further down the hall, the sounds of the rest of Michael's family in the living room were getting louder and louder, but the young stopped short and instead turned to the right to go into the kitchen. He grabbed a glass from a cabinet and the pitcher from the fridge, pouring himself a drink.
Looking through the counter of the kitchen that let him see into the living room, Michael briefly looked at the TV, seeing the football game that was on before he looked over the rest of the living room. The Christmas tree had been up all month and was lit up, with both of their dogs laying near it in their beds, unaffected by the sounds from the game and his family. Sat up against the counter was a black couch where his mom, brother, and sister-in-law were sitting, and on the right side there was a separate chair where his dad was.
"From what I can hear on the other side of the house, I take it the game is going well?" Michael asked, sipping his water.
"Yeah, it's going good son. Detroit's kicking that ass," his dad answered, sipping from his own drink.
"I can definitely hear it. Philly playing today?"
"No, they're playing Monday," his mom answered. "Mikey, mind handing me a beer?"
"Yeah, give me a second."
He walked back to the fridge, putting the water pitcher he forgot back into it and pulling out a blue can, walking back to the counter and passing it over the top.
"Here you go."
"Thanks Mikey."
"No problem. You guys are down to the last two, by the way." Michael added.
"What? Last two already? We just bought a 24 case today," his dad turned to look at him, "it couldn't have gone that fast."
"Dad, Derek and Kelsey are here now, plus the Lions are winning. I'm pretty sure that'll drain a case faster."
His dad groaned and took another swig of his beer. "Mikey, I hate to ask since it's late-"
"You need me to pick up another case? No problem."
"You sure son?"
"Yeah, there's some stuff I wanted to pick up anyway, so it's fine." Michael said with a shrug.
Walking over to the closet near the front door, Michael opened it and pulled out red hoodie. He was about to slip it on before be took a peak out the front window to see the snow falling outside.
"Uh, any clue how cold it is out there?" he called out to the living room.
"Looking around 20° Mikey," his brother responded.
"Okay, yeah, definitely doubling up…" muttering to himself and slipping his hoodie on, Michael reached into the closet and pulled out a leather jacket, red in color, though probably closer to burgundy. He put it on over his hoodie, pulling on the hood and making sure it popped out of the collar.
Opening the door, Michael turned around one last time, "Alright, I won't be long!"
"Be safe, son."
"Watch out for other drivers, honey. Holidays make people nuts."
"I gotcha. Love you!"
He closed the door and stepped outside, the cold evening air of Michigan in winter whipping around and blowing his bangs back.
Brushing his hair back into place, Michael gave himself a shake, the cold already starting to settle in.
"Alright, quick fifteen minute trip. In and out."
The drive to the store was one Michael had done many a time. He and his family lived on the corner of a street with a butcher store in front of it, and beyond that was a main road where the liquor store was. It was a drive he had used as practice earlier in the year when he got his license, so it was one of the only ones he was confident in aside from his drive to work.
In the five minutes it took him to drive there from home, the snow had started to fall heavier, bigger flakes coming down and starting to build up several piles already. The early evening had only grown darker, streetlights lighting up both the parking lot of the store as well as the main street, every few seconds multiple cars speeding down the road.
The shrill ding of the front door rang out as Michael opened it, a blue case of beer in one hand, and a large plastic bag in the other. "Yeah, I'll make sure to tell ya how it tastes! Thanks again guys, happy holidays!"
Moving his arm and letting the door close, he walked briefly along the sidewalk until he got back to the parking lot. He got back to his truck and unlocked it, loading the case onto the backseat and closing the door, opening the passenger door and setting his bag down. He quickly riffled through it to make sure he didn't forget anything, seeing two bottles of Mountain Dew, a six pack of an IPA, and the more questionable purchase of a $200 bottle of whiskey.
"I am definitely getting an earful from mom about that, I can hear her now," he muttered to himself as he closed the bag back up and closed the passenger door.
He was about to walk around to the driver's side when-
Kuru kuru kururin~ Kuru kuru kururin~
The ring tong of his phone went off, making Michael stop and reach into his pocket to pull it out. Checking the caller name he swiped up answered, holding it up to his ear.
"What's up Izzy?"
"Mikeeeee! You're off work right?"
"Yeah, been off a few hours now, why?"
"I grabbed the boys and we're headin' over."
"Wha-" Mike almost dropped his one and had to scramble, thankfully catching it before it hit pavement, "I thought we weren't doing anything tonight?"
"Yeah, well, day before Christmas Eve so everyone is gonna be busy, and we still need to do our own friends Christmas, so make sure you have some pants on nerd."
"You caught me at the store, so I'm already prepared on that part," he chuckled, "well, shit, guess we'll have to talk to the folks to plan out dinner. Also, hope you fuckers like whiskey, because if you're all coming over I'm cracking open this $200 bottle of the Japanese shit I just bought."
"...you did not."
"I, in fact, did. Holidays mean I get to get the cool shit."
"We'll be there in 10."
"I'll be waiting'."
With the call over Michael slipped his phone back into his pocket, chuckling. "Well, guess I have something better to do tonight than write. I can get to that chapter tomorrow."
He opened up the driver's side door of his truck, stepping briefly on the low railing and climbing in, about to close the door when something caught his eye outside. Peeking his head out, he turned to look at the edge of the curb near the entrance to the store, a decent amount of snow covered grass separating the sidewalk from the main road.
And standing directly at the edge was a young woman, not at all dressed for the weather, a black dress with long black hair falling down her back.
"What the…?" Michael mumbled to himself at the sight.
He lived in Michigan, so it wasn't exactly new to see people dress detrimentally to the current weather. Plenty of people in 90° weather wore dark colors with long pants and sleeves, and he'd seen his fair share of people in 40° wear shorts.
But this one just…felt strange to him, in some way.
Michael looked around and saw no one else with the women or around her, so it looked like she was on her own. With no bags in hand it seemed like she hadn't come out of the store either.
The young man got out of his truck, closing the door and starting to walk over to the curb. Obviously he didn't know the woman, but seeing someone so close to an active road wasn't sitting well with him at all, and he didn't see the harm in checking it out. As he got closer, Michael was able to see that despite the cold weather and the fact the woman wasn't dressed appropriately, she wasn't shaking or shivering. In weather where most people had double layers, there she was, thinly covered up and no noticeable discomfort. Heck, it even looked like the snow wasn't landing on her.
Reaching the opposite edge of the curb and continuing forward, Michael was close enough to call out, "Excuse me, miss? Are you alright-"
Almost as soon as the words left his mouth, a car was about to pass by, and the woman jumped forward.
Instinctively Michael lunged forward, arms out and wrapping around the woman's midsection to pull her back and lift her, and thankfully he moved fast enough, getting her away from the edge of the road and moving back.
"H-Hey! Don't do that! I-I don't know why you would, but please just don't!" he was panicking, just getting words out of his mouth after seeing her trying to jump in front of a moving car.
"Let me go! Let me go, let me go! I need to go!" the woman was squirming in his arms, trying to get out.
"Not if your gonna try to jump in front of a car! I'm not just gonna let you go so you can, s-so you can die or whatever!"
"I need to! I need to die, I need to die soon so please let me go! I-If you don't, i-it'll happen!"
"NO! No dying on me! Nothing bad's gonna happen!"
"You don't get it! Let me go! Let me go!"
A few minutes passed without any words, Michael stalwart in not letting the girl go, and the girl trying to squirm, pinch, smack, and do whatever she could to try and get out of her hold. No one had passed by since save for a few cars on the opposite end of the road.
Michael felt the girl slow her squirming, eventually stopping altogether. All that was coming out of her were ragged breathes, visible in the cold air around them. He let out a deep breath himself slowly lowered the woman down till she was on her own feet, but still had his arms wrapped around her midsection.
"You…you alright now? Are you calm?" he asked, looking down at the back of her head, since she was a few inches shorter than he was.
"It doesn't matter." In contrast to her earlier tone, she sounded empty.
"What doesn't matter?"
"Me struggling. It's started. There's no point now. It's all gone."
"What's…gone?"
"...do you feel the cold anymore?"
The young man blinked a few times in response to the question, before realizing that he couldn't feel the cold anymore. He let a breath out and couldn't see it, because the air wasn't cold. Loosening his arms, he pulled them away from the girl and took a step back, still not feeling the cold.
"What the…it was in the 20s when I left the house, and it was still snow…ing…" his words trailed off as he looked around and saw there was no more snow falling, and eventually Michael looked up, still not seeing any snow, but seeing something else.
The town Michael lived in was mostly suburbs, fifteen minutes out from Detroit, a major city, so on most nights he could make out a few stars in the sky. Not a lot, but in winter, he could see a few more than normal.
Which is why it greatly disturbed him when he looked up, saw the stars glowing in the night sky, and then saw them fade away. Like they were never there to begin with.
"Wha…"
He pinched himself. He slapped himself. He looked back up, and saw that the lights in the sky, the stars, were fading away.
The sight of the night sky completely empty left him speechless. Thoughts and questions were running through Michael's head, outcries of confusion wanting to scream their way out of his mouth, but he just couldn't find the words.
"...I said it was gone, didn't I?"
Her voice cut through the silence like a serrated blade.
Finally looking away from the sky and back down, he found the woman turning around to face him, and Michael was able to see her face for the first time. Skin clear and pale like a doll, a slight frown, and piercing heterochromic eyes, the left an amber yellow while the right was a deep red.
"You don't feel the cold because it's not there anymore," As she spoke she started to walk closer, "and you don't see the stars because they are not there anymore."
Standing right in front of him, the woman lifted a hand up and touched Michael's neck, slowly dragging her digits up and placing two fingers underneath his chin and tilting it up until they were looking into each others eyes.
Cold. They were cold. Her fingers were cold, and her eyes were empty.
"This world is done. It is being culled, clipped and dropped into the sea to return to nothingness. You…were already supposed to die, like everyone else." The woman slowly pulled her hand away, letting her arm drop down to her side. "But instead, you touched me. You touched a Beast."
"And because of that, you were spared from the end, but only briefly."
She reached her arm out again, pushing his chest and causing Michael to take a step back-
And slipped.
Looking down as he fell back there was nothing underneath him, the ground was gone. A black void was all that remained of where he had been standing, and whipping his head back up, everything he could see see was cracked, fractured like broken glass, and even then, the things Michael could see were vanishing slowly, being erased and replaced with a black nothingness.
Except her. She just stood there, a lone figure against a cracked, fading reality.
"You are alone. You shall drift. You shall drown in the Gap…"
Feeling nothing but fear run through him, Michael threw his arm out, reaching his hand out in an desperate attempt for help. He didn't know what was happening, he couldn't understand, but he was afraid. Afraid of falling. Afraid of what would happen if he did.
Michael wanted to see his parents again. He wanted to see his friends. So his hand reached up, reached woman looked at him and frowned. She turned around, ignoring him, dismissing his last attempt.
And so, he began to fall. With not a yell nor a scream, but a face full of fear for what awaited him below.
As the last vestiges of the world started fading away around her, leaving her standing alone amidst a void of nothingness, the Beast spoke.
"I'm sorry…"
He didn't know how long he was falling for. From when he started to now, Michael wasn't able to tell how much time had passed. It felt simultaneously like an eternity and only a few seconds, nothing but the inky darkness and the sensation of falling accompanying him.
Trying to look around, trying to ascertain anything around him didn't do Michael any favors either; there wasn't anything to see, nothing to make out in the distance, if there was any distance to begin with.
A thought that started worming into his brain was that maybe he was dead. Maybe he wasn't falling at all, and this was just death. Purgatory or something? It wasn't Heaven or Hell, that was for sure, and he didn't have any other answer. That woman had said that…that he was supposed to die. So maybe he had? Maybe he was dead, and this was all there was.
An eternity of darkness with nothing but his own thoughts.
"^* #*&!#!#&!()(&*"
Michael's head whipped side-to-side, trying to figure out where that noise he heard had come from. He didn't understand it, it sounded like complete gibberish, but it was noise, a noise he himself hadn't made.
Which meant that he wasn't alone. But as the seconds ticked by, that little sliver of hope he gained faded. There was nothing-
"&^%$ !*^^# &* * %^$% *#&%^ *#^$%&( # *^&("
Again. Another noise, but as Michael tried to look, pay attention, there was nothing more. Maybe he was going crazy? How long had he been falling, now he was hearing things?
As the quiet dragged on a second time, Michael wasn't prepared for what came next. Rather than a simple, brief string of gibberish, there was much, much more. A pure cacophony of sound. Of sound he could understand.
"If I was weak, then I simply have to become strong. If I was stupid, then I simply have to grow smarter. It is the way devils do things, raising to the challenge. And I want you to know that I understand that now, and I will live up to the expectations.
"I'm a monument to all your sins."
"All is Mine."
"Left hand? Hey, isn't that your-"
"...even if you're not there, just knowing that you have my back gives me the strength of a hundred people."
"To protect her, to protect everyone, I'll strive to become stronger. I'll become one of the Seven Stars."
"I know that people around here don't usually celebrate birthdays, but you've done so much for me over these few months, and I felt that it was only right to do something to show you how much I really appreciated you."
"I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"
"You're super strong. But hey, I'm sorry for believing in my girlfriend!"
"Sorry about that. I'll keep an eye out for that big monkey. You guys can go for the next Stray Hunt. This one's mine. I'm gonna go get some sleep first."
"I'll face the people behind this by myself, I won't risk anyone else. It won't be like that time."
"I will finish this."
"Knew what? That I'm not human? This night just got a lot more interesting…"
"If they want a fight… then I'll give them one… I'll give them one hell of a fight."
"But… despite previous complications, I would say the lot of you are my friends. And like it or not, when my friends are in trouble, I'm a bit of an intrusive bastard. So let me do my thing."
"AHHHHHHHHHH!"
Sounds and images pounded into Michael's head all at once, his head swimming in absolute pain and agony. He had seen people he didn't know, five of them, all talking at once in his head, their voices mixing together and somehow distinct.
His hands were cradling his head, pulled down into his chest in an attempt to try and give himself some form of relief. It didn't come, and the feeling of pain lingered like an intense headache. Michael lifted his head back up, blinking his eyes slowly, the bright purple light of a sky surrounding him and the branches he was passing as he fell.
The young man blinked a couple times as his mind registered and he looked around. Where previously there was nothing but darkness, there was now bright purple, and what looked like tree branches extending into the distance.
"Huh…?" His head still throbbed. The pain made it difficult to think, and he was trying to process why everything had suddenly changed.
"HEY! HEY, BUDDY!"
A voice. It was different than the ones that were in his head. This one was coming from around him, from below.
"STICK YOUR ARM OUT!"
Michael did as he heard, holding his right arm out-
And a hand snapped out, grabbing him by the wrist and dragging him to the side. His back felt the hard crash of an impact against wood, and he was laid out. The world stopped moving and stood still, but the sky was purple, and there were tree branches everywhere.
His head hurt, his body hurt…Michael felt his eyes slowly close and exhaustion overtake everything, falling unconscious. The young man's body was dragged a little further back so that was legs weren't dangling over the edge of the street sized tree branch he had been dragged onto.
"Yeesh, knocked right out, huh?" Crouched down at Michael's side was a tall, older man. A long mane of straight, fluffy locks of brown fell down his back, his face from the nose up covered by a black half mask that resembled a dragon's upper jaw, red glass lenses covering his eyes.
His body was covered in a gunmetal gray bodysuit that was covered bits of armor, a shoulder plate on his right arm, two shin plates on his legs, and then a series of belts. Two diagonally on his waist that held a multitude of pouches and four holsters, two on the left and two on the right, along with a chest holster on his front with a large hand cannon sheathed. A black cloak hid the more intricate details of his getup, but there was no missing the large sheath on his back, a handle popping up over his shoulder.
He stood up, reaching a hand up to his head and pushing it to the side, hearing a series of cracks ring out that made him sigh with relief. The sound of thudding footsteps made the man turn to the side, another person approaching.
It was a tall woman with pale skin, and long white hair that reached down to her waist, fading to red at the tips, with a long fringe obscuring her left eye. Her sole red eye looked at the man, and then back to the unconscious Michael next to him.
In comparison to his heavy combat wear, looking like he stepped off of a battlefield, she was dressed considerably lighter in a white sweater with sleeves that puffed out at the end and a corset, a pair of black gauntlets going from her lower forearm to her wrist, and black gloves covering her hands, black, skin tight leggings and high heeled boots.
"That's him, I'm assuming?" She asked, her voice cold and clear.
"Yeah, falling through the Gap, just like she said he'd be. Caught him and dragged him back." The man answered, prodding Michael with the tip of his boot. He leaned down and grabbed the back of the young man's hoodie, pulling him up like he weighed nothing and slinging him across his shoulders.
"Remember the plan?"
"You carry, I guard. I remember. You had use play rock paper scissors for it."
"And I lost. How was I supposed to know you'd see through my rock feint?" The man grumbled
The man started walking, and the woman followed. They went towards a direction where, in the distance, a colossal tree trunk stood and stretched far, far above.
"Alright, to Vivian we go."
A/N: …I have no idea how to do this. I really don't. This is a project that has been years in the making, probably back when I was at the peak of my DxD interest. SI ideas for this series have come and gone for so long, so a while back I decided if I was gonna do one, it had to be good. It had to be something that wouldn't leave me alone, that would persist as a mind worm in my brain and burrow it's way down in the depths.
And that's what this is. This story came to be after Cat Got Your Tongue, and is included in the shared universe or whatever the hell we call it between myself and some other DxD authors.
I've been sitting on this chapter for months at this point so I'm gonna cut it short and publish it.
Thank you.