Title: The End of the World and Other Embarrassments
Prompt: Wing!fic
Word Count: 20,000
Rating: PG
Warnings: poking fun at biblical events, some blood, nothing too graphic unless you count Seishirou singing as graphic violence. Also unbeta’d, OH NOES

Author's notes: Many thanks to my girlfriend who cheered me on while writing this! You could say that this fic suffered a little from being written during a busy time - you will not find well-researched biblical Babylon, for example, but a quite standard model of a villain fort called Doom Castle. It would be almost sad if I didn’t have as much fun writing this. I hope you find something to enjoy here, as well! :D


****

Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go, pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on the earth.”

(Revelation 16:1)

****

“It’s been two weeks,” Fai shouted in an outburst of frustration at the toad sitting in the mud before him. “We’re never going to stop the fucking apocalypse!”

The fat toad croaked and blinked. There was a light hissing sound of something plump soaring through the air and another amphibian landed head first in the stinking sludge. Fai felt melancholic as he watched its hind legs flail in empty air. It had been raining a wide variety of water-dwelling creatures earlier this afternoon, but now it had calmed down to a mere slight toad drizzle. It could be worse, he guessed. Fire and brimstone had be pretty bad. Terrible on the skin, and his hair had smelled like rotten eggs for days.

On the other hand, sitting in the mud of the Godforsaken Planes (which was the official name for the grasslands surrounding Doom Castle 30 miles in every direction) and getting rained on by small animals didn’t seem all that great, either. Something wet and slimy hit him in the back of the head and he cursed loudly.

A shadow lowered over him and Fai looked up miserably from where he was kneeling in the dried-up riverbed. (“Dried-up” is a relative term in this context and only applied here as the Unsubtle River had formerly roared through the lands, wide enough to appear an ocean – in contrast, the muck they were sitting in was rather dry.) Six feet of well-toned Adonis towered over him. Somehow, his extremely fluffy, huge wings and the white, mud-splattered skirt he was wearing didn’t distract from the general magnificence of his appearance, at all. Fai wondered how he did that.

The angel thrust a palm leaf out that was huge enough to cover not only Fai but also the little army of toads in various states of mating around (and in one case on) his knees. It settled sadly atop Fai’s head, protecting him from the worst of the toad rains.

“You should stop drinking,” Kurogane commented and made a face. Fai looked down into his cup of wine. It was lousy wine. It also had a tiny frog paddling in it.

“Alcohol seems like the only resolve, Kuro-cherub,” he said woefully and dumped the cup out onto the mud. Drinking straight from the flask seemed like a better idea when it was raining a variety of small, occasionally scaled animals. “It barely matters, right. In the end, everyone will die, anyway – either we find the seventh bowl-”

“-which we only lost because of you-” Kurogane pointed out scathingly.

“-either we find it,” Fai repeated a little louder. “And then the Apocalypse will be paused and everyone will die in a thousand years-“

“-unless some idiot loses it, again-”

“-or,” Fai intoned glaring at his former subordinate. “Some human child finds it before us, and opens it, and pours it out, and all of Christianity will die right now. I doesn’t seem to make a difference, on the long run.”

“You’re a complete moron,” Kurogane growled. Another salve toads bounced off the palm leaf as well as the angel’s skin, but he didn’t seem to notice. “I died in this shit storm. The rest of my life would have mattered.”

“Maybe I just have forgotten what it was like,” Fai said with a lost gaze. He was clearly talking to himself, now, alcohol and exhaustion glazing his eyes. “Living, dying. And I have been searching for so long, I will never find him, anyway. What do a thousand years more or less matter.”

“What?” Kurogane made irritably.

“Nothing, and more importantly,” Fai sobered up, turned sharply and stabbed his finger into Kurogane’s wonderfully firm thighs, “if we stop the Apocalypse at this point, right in the middle of it, who says it won’t rain salamanders every fortnight! Fires burning down crops! Never mind the meteors that still keep falling into the ocean! Starvation! Constant floods of blood! Unhygienic environment for raising children! Locusts in your hair! How the fuck is that a good thing to you!”

“Even if that happens, humans adapt,” Kurogane said. “You should know that, you used to be one.”

“I died of stupid small pox because I didn’t adapt,” Fai pointed out. Then shivered and looked utterly cold and lost.

Kurogane groaned. He pressed the palm leaf into Fai’s hands, who clung to it like a child with a blanket and whimpered as the rain grew heavier again. Kurogane resisted the urge to pat him on the head. Or pluck the amphibian out of his hair that had settle in the curve of his horns.

“You could act a bit more dignified for an angel-”

“Fallen,” Fai cut him off immediately and fluttered his bat wings. They folded up so nicely when not needed that Kurogane sometimes forgot how large they were. “I am entitled to mope!” It was actually quite liberating, in Fai’s opinion. It was a widely-known opinion that black went with anything and the curled horns atop his head were very impressive. He was still trying to find sandals that fit a goat foot.

A horn sounded in the distance and both of them were pulled out of their reverie. A cloud of dust had risen on the horizon unnoticed by angel and demon alike and now that they paid attention, the earth was vibrating with the impact of thousands of hooves.

“Is that-” Fai started, his eyes widening.

“Ah, fuck,” Kurogane commented.

“Yuuko will kill us if the battle of Armageddon happens,” minor demon Fai moaned.

****

The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness.

(Revelation 16:10)

****

2 weeks prior, in exactly the same place.

“She will kill us if the battle of Armageddon doesn’t happen,” Kurogane said darkly.

“I was just suggesting a new strategy to a colleague – and you’re being a tad dramatic, Kuro-cherub,” arch angel Fai trilled, yet clutched the two last Heavenly Bowls to his chest protectively. The term ‘bowl’ was slightly misleading – they did, without doubt, hold liquid and were round. They were also tiny crystal flasks that glowed golden in the sunlight. (Kurogane guessed that carrying the wrath of God around in an open vessel had proven unhandy in the past.) They were attached to a chain that usually dangled from the angels neck, but now he had taken them down and wrapped around his hands like a rosary. “Apocalypse seems harsh on a race this young, doesn’t it?” The curve of his ever-present smile had grown more strained over the past couple of months. His opinions had been going to quicksilver changes, too, to the point where Kurogane doubted he himself still knew whether he did or didn’t agree with company goals.

“You keep saying you don’t want the Apocalypse to happen, yet you are one of the major players – how does this go together,” Kurogane murmured and crossed his arms.

The two angels stood atop the hill by the riverside and watched The Beast sink into a bottomless gulf right by the Unsubtle River. Seeing the earth cracking open had been quite a spectacle, accompanied by thunder and lightning and the rumble of the earth had been of the deep, satisfying kind. This was a bottomless pit of proper quality. Yuuko, CEO of Hell and Heaven Ltd., had spared no expenses.

“What are you going to do about it, anyway,” Kurogane said. “It seems a bit late to question the end of the world, now, we’re down to 16:10 on the agenda. There were 15 fucking chapters to mention something to your boss.”

“It’s just that...” Fai bit off the end of the sentence in a conflicted manner. “Well, I don’t know whether I want to be part of killing everyone on earth?”

“You could have thought of that before I was hit by a freaking meteor,” Kurogane growled. “You’re chickening out because you are supposed to pour the sixth bowl into that river.”

Fai slipped away into a mocking smile, “Maybe they should have made you an arch angel. You seem to be apt at shouldering the responsibility of taking lives.”

“I have seen war,” Kurogane looked at the struggling beast at their feet, thin smile spreading on his face. “And I liked it.”

Fai made a noncommittal sound. “I have seen your records, Kuro-tan. I think you need more hugs in your life.”

“Shut up,” Kurogane replied irritably. “You’re totally chickening out.”

“Would you stop saying that,” Fai huffed and pointed an angry finger at him. “You’re a big oaf in a too short dress, now.”

“It’s a gown! They didn’t have my size!” Kurogane’s face prickled with heat.

They both stared at each other for an angry moment in which Kurogane tried to decide whether he wanted to slap the man or kiss him. He gave up after about ten seconds (before entering any kind of dangerous territory) and turned to concentrate on the Beast, again. That seemed nice and safe. Knowing your enemy was important, anyway, (even if said enemy was merely a subordinate in a different branch of the same industry – things had gotten complicated ever since Hell and Heaven had merged).

The thing was putting up quite a struggle for an overgrown salamander in Kurogane’s opinion. The Dark Lord, who was riding on his head, didn’t seem overly concerned. The Chief of Demons (known to his closest friends and enemies as Sei-chan) was busy shouting more or less witty insults at the CEO of Heaven & Hell Ltd. (aka Yuuko, aka “that witch”). Yuuko was riding along the rim of the pit on the back of a white steed (she claimed the horse was made of holy light), was laughing maniacally down at him. At her back, an army of angels was insecurely mirroring her laughter.

“You should have known better than emptying my liquor cabinet, Sei-chan,” she shouted down at him. “Disobedience is not in style with my company guidelines, darling.”

Seishirou answered with a reference to her stunning behind, at which point Yuuko felt the need to stand on her horse and show him that she wore no underwear.

“Dear Lord,” Kurogane murmured and covered his face in silent prayer to another God.

“She truly knows how to inspire,” Fai commented. Kurogane shot him a dark stare.

“I’m looking forward to be in your most charming presence again very soon, boss,” Seishirou yelled as the dragon beneath him slowly lost its footing.

“I’m looking forward to whipping your pretty ass into shape a hundred years from now, Sei-chan,” she cackled from between her knees. Kurogane couldn’t help but notice she was very bendy.

“Biblical time,” Sei-chan gave back. “Empty the seventh bowl and I shall face your champion – your impatience will be your downfall.”

“We shall see,” Yuuko grinned wolfishly and let herself fall back into her saddle. A minor angel handed her something that looked suspiciously like a fancy alcoholic beverage, complete with straw and sliced fruit and a little paper umbrella. “I might wish for you and your lap dog around to amuse me.”

Fai nudged Kurogane for attention. He didn’t need to say anything. Kurogane, too, had seen the anxious-looking rider approaching the hill top on which Yuuko was circling, sipping her drink and still smirking as Lord of Darkness (and Thief of Her Liquor) slowly got swallowed by the ground.

Both angels were too far away to hear any conversation between Yuuko and the approaching rider. Fai motioned for Kurogane to follow – they took a running start and spread their wings as one creature. The dragon snapped feebly for Kurogane’s robes as they passed him and the minor angel kicked at him viciously. He almost lost balance for a moment and cursed under his breath. After two months of this, he still wasn’t used to the whole wing-business. Fai shot him a side glance. “You should get your halo checked, Kuro-min, it’s stuttering. It’s not safe to fly without light.”

Kurogane rolled his eyes at him. Fai’s gaze wandered and he fell just a little behind.

“Also, your dress really is awfully short – I can see right up your-“

“Shut up, I didn’t ask for a robe this short,” Kurogane yelled and felt his cheeks heating up. It was just his luck that he had gotten killed along with a few thousand other people in the first waves of the Apocalypse – of course the office had been completely underprepared as a new wave of recruits hit the company, and he had been among those that had gotten hand-downs and ancient technology.

“I’m not complaining,” Fai gave him what could only very generously be called an ‘encouraging smile’ – mostly, it made feel Kurogane too much like something edible.

They landed – Fai touching down gently on his toes, Kurogane doing a running stumble and a sort of misshapen somersault. Kurogane was incredibly aware of the way his robe fluttered up to his ears for a second before settling down around his thighs. Someone was snickering and Kurogane made sure to shoot a death glare into the general direction of the sound as he was patting grass off his robes. (Why did they make those white, anyway.)

“-Zeus is sending his highest regards and thanks for the fruit basket you sent for his b-birthday, he really liked the little, uhm, breast-shaped chocolate things-”

“Yeah, yeah, you may skip to the interesting part,” Yuuko cut the messenger off with an impatient hand gesture. The man cringed in his foreign robes and loosened the hem of his shirt. His accent suggested he was from the north. He also looked very nervous. Fai was gravitating closer to overhear them more easily, and Kurogane didn’t need an invitation to follow.

“Uhm, erhm, echem,” the messenger said. “Right. This message has been issued and signed by the Gods Zeus, Odin, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Amaterasu-”

“The bitch,” Yuuko murmured thoughtfully, sipping on her drink and gazing into the distance. The messenger suffered a slight fit of hyperventilation, before Yuuko’s stare inspired him to talk, again.

“Well, the, the Apocalypse, about that. There has been a, a, ah, I do not want to say, ah, problem-”

“You do realize you are interrupting a long-awaited moment of triumph, right here, don’t you,” Yuuko deadpanned.

“The Gods of all major religions think that your Highness starting the End of The World as We Know It may be a major breach of contract,” the messenger squeaked. Yuuko stared blankly at him.

“Contract,” she repeated.

The messenger swallowed. “The contract of Right to Expression of Religious Freedom? That all religions sign before they start doing business? That is very specific on how and when to execute the, ah, plot twists of the respective holy texts?”

“Fai-chan,” Yuuko didn’t say the words very loudly, but Kurogane was sure they would have carried a mile across a stormy sea. As it was, the world around them grew awfully quiet as her unsettling smile locked on the Arch Angel. “Do we have a contract like that?”

“It would have been signed quite some time ago,” Fai said with an unwavering air of friendly helpfulness. “The record keeper would surely know, your Highness.”

“Do we have a record keeper?” Yuuko’s voice was perfectly expressionless despite her smile.

“The record keeper has been degraded rather harshly in the progress of the merger of Hell and Heaven, your Highness,” Fai answered. “There was a general agreement that he was, well, I quote, ‘a creepy fellow,’ ‘a bit of a sociopath and likely a pedophile’ who ‘enjoyed kicking fluffy animals babies’ and also stole from your liquor cabinet.”

There was a moment of thoughtful silence that spread in waves from the hilltop. The scrabbling sounds of the Beast, still fighting for ground in the middle of the chasm, were suddenly loud enough to hurt Kurogane’s ears. All eyes came to rest on Sei-chan, sitting with his arms crossed atop the dragon’s head.

“You,” Yuuko hissed. Seishirou laughed silently, which was a bit creepy. “You kept silent on purpose. You pushed for the Apocalypse in order to ruin me.”

“Politics, Yuuko, darling,” The Prince of Devils said. “It’s all fun and games until you try playing with me.”

“Messenger,” Yuuko called. The man jumped so hard he almost fell over. “In what ways is this a breach of contract?”

“The-the-the contract specifies that the End of The World As We Know It is only to be brought about with general consensus of all major religions, so that everyone can prepare. Odin specifically has mentioned that waking the Midgard serpent from its slumber would take a few decades and someone has unfortunately misplaced Loki, who is essential for their version of the end of the world-”

“Men,” Yuuko rolled her eyes and sipped her fruity alcohol. “What if I don’t care?”

“In case Your Highness is adamant on pushing for the Apocalypse, they are suing you for-” he named a number that made Yuuko drop her alcohol and evoked a gasp and murmurs from the audience. “B-but if Your Loveliness were to stop and hold it off for another thousand years, as specified in the contract, they were willing to settle for 5% of the amount.”

There was a general holding of breath as all listeners waited for Yuuko’s answer. Her hair was whipping in the wind behind her. Intimidation was rolling off her in waves that made it easy to understand how she had made it to the top of both Heaven and Hell.

It would have been more dramatic hadn’t a locust swarm appeared out of nowhere, that very moment. (Nasty little beasts with enormous hunger and faces that wore the soulless, empty stares of tax collectors. The Apocalypse came with side-effects like that, and not all of them were well timed.) One of them settled on her shoulder and started gnawing on her robes. Another couple of them got entangled in her hair. Apart from a tightening around her mouth, she ignored them. She still cut a fairly impressive figure.

“We will pause the Apocalypse,” she announced loudly. “All acts leading closer to the Apocalypse will be put on immediate hold for a thousand years, under the penalty of immediate job loss and a fine so high that whoever breaches my rules may have to sell their children to pay it. As for you-” she whipped around and pointed a well-manicured finger at The Devil, “You and your band of troublemakers shall be confined to the bottomless pit for a thousand years, and I will hear no back chat on this!”

“You cannot do that,” Seishirou said darkly. His face had contorted from that of your average friendly neighbor into the mask of your average mass-murdering psycho neighbor.

“Yes, I can,” Yuuko said very quietly, yet very audibly. “You used to be the record keeper, so you should know I can. I know that bit of paper work.” She unfolded the fingers of her outstretched hand into vertical position and pushed.

The Earth shook, the parts of the hill they stood on came loose. Kurogane stepped away just in time to avoid tumbling down the hill and into the widening gap of earth. The dragon wailed one last time, its wings uselessly flapping against the stone walls, and then lost footing. The face of Seishirou, contorted in rage, vanished in the Pit of Endless Darkness.

“You may go,” Yuuko waved at the messenger and led her steed around as the ground behind her closed up. He squeaked something obedient and scrambled for his horse, riding the animal so harshly down the hill the animal was minutes from taking flight. The army of angels at her back followed her in a disorderly and hesitant fashion as she retreated. So did most of the swarm of locusts, that still kept streaming out from between the clouds.

Something touched Kurogane’s elbow. He did not make a noise like a scared girl. Neither did he flail hard enough to stumble over his own feet. Fai grinned at him in a way that was not fair when Kurogane’s heart was pounding like he had run a marathon. He realized the hairs on his arms stood on end and he rubbed it angrily to make them lay flat, again.

“What do you want,” he asked, his voice trying for ‘grumpy’ and ending up somewhere a bit too close to ‘high-pitched.’

“Seems like I won’t need these, after all,” Fai dangled the two tiny flasks from his hand. His smirk turned into something more giddy and honest. “At least not for a little longer.”

“Huh,” Kurogane made intelligently. Honest and happy Fai was quite intriguing, he had to admit. He seemed to develop a certain kind of ... gravitational force. His mouth, especially. It was hard to look away. (He had to, after a moment, though, in order to swat at a grasshopper gnawing at the seam of his robe.)

“And, you have been with us for exactly two months, now. I thought you might want to celebrate with a bit of wine,” Fai suggested and suddenly seemed a bit shy. His ears were a little pink. “With me, I mean.”

“Uh,” Kurogane made. Fai caught his gaze from beneath his lashes in a way that was decidedly giving away more than Kurogane could handle soberly, right now. He thrust out a hand for the bottle. “Yeah. Sure. Sounds great.”

He might have sucked down the content of the flask a bit too eagerly, but he felt he needed it. Fai was leading him by the elbow, away from the scarred earth that had swallowed the devil, across soft, rolling hills, and down the gentle slope of a riverside. Kurogane let him, thinking too much and too little at the same time. As they reached the water, Fai accepted the flask back, taking a mere sip from it.

Then he looked at Kurogane. Lifted a hand, seemingly in slow motion, and let his fingertips rest against Kurogane’s jaw. There was very little breathing happening between the two of them. Butterflies in his tummy and ants under his skin, Kurogane leaned in almost against his will. Fai made a small sound, eyes fluttering shut. Kurogane licked his lips and settled a shy hand on the other man’s hip.

It could have been called romantic – maybe all of the insect metaphors should have set Kurogane off, but they didn’t.

It could have been romantic, had it not been the exact moment that a giant locus battered itself right against Fai’s puckered lips, and bit his nose with perfect, tiny tax collector teeth. Fai didn’t exactly shriek. The sound he made was closer to a gargle, or possibly snort. It definitely involved some kind of spitting. He ripped his arms up in the kind of panic that was reserved for near-death experiences, “Get it off!”

Kurogane would later say his aim was out of whack because Fai was flailing like a three year old throwing a temper tantrum (which made the grasshopper dangle from his nose at weird angles), but fact was that he bitchslapped the Arch Angel, two times, caught an elbow to the nose, and had a knee located in delicate parts of his anatomy, before managing to hit the offending insect and sent it flying.

They stood panting silently and stared at each other for a moment. Fai drew a breath to say something-

The sounds of something tiny and hard hitting water would have been barely audible, had it not carried such plot-relevant weight. As it was, it rang in Kurogane’s ears as though it had been a cannon ball being catapulted into the river instead of two tiny flasks.

Fai stared at his empty hands from which only just the Sixth and Seventh Heavenly Bowl had dangled. They both waited for almost a minute with held breath.

“Maybe it didn’t break,” Kurogane suggested tentatively.

Fai opened his mouth to agree – just as the river changed direction with a deafening roar and streamed towards the middle of the bed where it coalesced into a vortex the size of a small town, as though a giant plug had been pulled. It took it about five minutes until the water disappeared into the tiny flask. In the stinking mud, between flopping, dying fish, it lay like a blinking shard of doom. The last of the bowls was nowhere in sight.

“Oh shit,” Fai whispered.

“She is going to kill you,” Kurogane agreed with finality.

****

Present

Fai and Kurogane hastened up the side of the riverbed, with a lot of slipping and skidding, until they reached a huge rock to hide behind. The army at the horizon had almost reached the Unsubtle River, now.

“We need to hold them up,” Fai whispered. He was still clutching the palm leaf and the amphibian in his hair croaked happily. Fai chose to ignore it for the moment.

“Those are five-thousand riders at the very least,” Kurogane said, who knew a few things about armies from times when he had still been alive. “What do you suggest we do?”

“This is the Army of Good riding in from the East, right?” Fai said slowly. “No one told humanity that Heaven and Hell are the same place, now. Which means they still believe in Heaven and Everything Good and Holy. And in angels. So I suggest you conjure a bit of mist, turn up your halo, and impress them.”

Kurogane took a second to blink. “I can’t conjure mist,” he said.

“Of course you can!” Fai told him with an encouraging smile and pat on the shoulder. “You remember the basic course on mysteries, right? It’s not that hard!”

“Basic course on what,” he deadpanned.

“Ahahahah,” Fai said, smile stiffening. “The one you had at orientation week.”

“Orientation week.”

“Yeah,” the demon seemed a bit worried now. The army was closing in pretty fast. “You know. Seminars on celestial behavior. Campus tour. Getting drunk with your supervisors?”

Kurogane had mastered the blank stare by now. Fai let out a groan.

“I knew they cut costs, but I hadn’t expected- Alright, I’ll conjure the mist. It might be the wrong color, seeing that I am a demon, now, but it won’t matter. You’re clearly an angel floating in the midst of it and effects are important.”

“About that. What do you mean, floating, I’m not a fucking humming bird.”

“How does Yuuko expect me to work with this,” Fai murmured to himself and rubbed his forehead. “Alright, no floating today, just stand on the top of that boulder. Also, turn your robe inside out, it’s dirty.”

“What the fuck do you expect me to tell them, anyway, genius?” Kurogane said but obediently pulled his robes over his head for lack of a better plan. Fai started speaking, then caught a glimpse of Kurogane’s abs, and was suddenly very busy staring at the sky and clearing his throat. It was beautiful weather if you ignored the fact that it had started raining tiny snakes.

“Uh, right, speech,” he repeated. Kurogane yanked the mostly white fabric down over his shoulders. He guessed the army wouldn’t see the seams were inside out from a few meters off. He hoped.

“Speech, yeah,” Kurogane prompted.

“Just tell them, uhm, that God the Almighty needs them to return home to their families,” Fai waved a hand. He was trying very hard not to look at the minor angel. “Because of... plagues. Yeah. Or make something up about loving your next of kin.”

“That makes no sense. I thought they were here because they were fulfilling God’s will for bloody battle,” Kurogane said.

“Well, God changed his mind!” Fai exclaimed. “He merely tested them!”

Kurogane thought that over. “I could just tell them I will cut them all down if they don’t-“

“How do you expect that to work out?” Fai interrupted him. “No, you’re a single angel facing an angry army, preach love and remind them of their humanity! Appeal to their soft side! Don’t actively try to make them shoot you!”

“I don’t appeal to people’s humanity!” Kurogane felt his anger rising and barely avoided hitting the stupid demon. He sometimes wondered why he let the guy push him around like this, anyway, it’s not like he was his superior, anymore. “You know who I was when I was alive? I led the Huns into this country!”

“I got a question for you in turn: do you want to face Yuuko’s wrath?” Fai pressed out. He could see Kurogane’s thoughts freezing. The fallen angel smirked. “See. Come on, it’ll be fun. I’ll feed you the lines. Now get up there before they’ve passed us!”

“Okay. Good. Alright,” Kurogane huffed, considering that cutting down five thousand men with his bare hands might have been a bit too much even for him. He stood, shook out his wings and squared his shoulders. A nervous, cold sweat broke out at the back of his neck. He would have felt a lot better had he had a sword. Instead he had a robe and a freaking halo that wouldn’t stop flickering. “Fucking fuck,” he murmured turning it on and off again with no visible result.

Fai ripped the unstable disk from where it hung over Kurogane’s head and hit it against the boulder three times. It started humming and emitting a healthy glow. Fai beamed at him and adjusted it for him at the back of his head where it floated by divine power (occasionally also called ‘magnetism’). “There you go!”

“I’ll kill you if I die again because of this,” Kurogane breathed into his face. Fai gave him a cheerful thumbs up. Kurogane made a sour face and started climbing the boulder.

The army was close enough now that he could make out individual riders. Fai’s voice was whispering spells in Latin at the foot of the boulder. Looking down, he could see nothing but the top of the palm leaf. From afar, he would be as invisible against the stone as Kurogane was pointed out, illuminated by the strong, heavenly glow of his headdress. A wall of dark mist rose from the river bed and piled up into a solid wall of doom. Lightning and thunder was rumbling through it. Kurogane stared. There was a demonic glow to it. He just hoped the Army of Goodness, from the land of Clow, was as dumb as he had known goody-two-shoes to be while he had still been alive.

The army slowed down, visibly hesitant to ride into the low-flying thunder storm. Kurogane took a deep breath and held up his hands.

“Hold it!” he shouted in a voice that carried a lot better than he had expected it to. A helpful growl of thunder underlined his words. The army came to a complete stop. A single figure broke from the ranks and came to a stop in front of him. Going by the blinking crown atop his armor, it would be their King.

“I am Touya, King of Clow. Who are you, that you advise a King how to wage his wars?” the young man shouted up at him, unimpressed and angry.

“Uh,” Kurogane made, glancing down at the palm leaf, beneath which Fai’s pale face was peeking up at him.

“Messenger of God,” Fai’s hissed. “Keep looking ahead!”

“I, uh, am a messenger and God told me to tell you,” Kurogane said firmly. “To hold it.” He crossed his arms in satisfaction. That should have been clear.

“It is passed on that your God told us,” King Touya answered, his glare hard, “to ride and destroy Evil King Fei Wong Reed at Doom Castle. The river has dried out as foretold. My priest tells me that the plagues are to remind of our duty. What should we listen to, in your opinion, if not the prophecies?”

“It was merely a test,” Fai whispered.

“Your God was testing you!” Kurogane announced. “And you fell for it! Hah! Which is why I’m here to remind you, you’d better ride back home before he gets upset with you for, uhm, for-”

“Remember the Commandment, Thou shalt not kill!” Fai sounded a bit desperate.

“Because killing is bad!” Kurogane said. “You should know that, being a King and shit.”

There was a barely audible groan at the foot of the boulder.

“Are you saying my advisor doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” the King asked dangerously. It was an open secret that his priest and advisor was also his lover. Kurogane, of course, had no idea. “I think you don’t look much like and angel, messenger. Indeed, the mists behind you look rather Hell-sent-”

“How would you know, anyway,” Kurogane interrupted him impatiently. “Have you ever seen an angel conjure mist, before? Huh?”

King Touya frowned. Thunder rolled. Kurogane was sweating.

“Repeat exactly after me,” Fai whispered urgently. “Word. For. Word.” Kurogane breathed as a constant whisper rose up from his feet.

“God ... the Almighty walks mysterious ways,” Kurogane started in a wooden voice. “And neither King nor Priest always know how to determine them. Your shuffling, erh, suffering throughout ... the past years has not been in vain ... Return to your home. The Dark One and his army are stronger than ever, and they plan to attack your loved ones.” Murmurs were rising among the soldiers and Kurogane raised his voice to still be understood. “Be sure to protect what is close to your heart, at these times. The battle of Armageddon is yet to come, and you shall be be victorious. That day is not today.”

The king had listened with a stony face. The noise from the men had receded, and expectant eyes were directed at the king. King Touya took a moment of contemplation, then lifted his face, expression a little softer and drew a breath. He was cut off by what sounded like the cry of a goat.

“Oh, thanked be the Dark Lord!” a voice rang out across the plane. “I thought I was riding straight into Hell!” Kurogane’s head whipped around. Out of the thunder clouds broke a boy, riding atop a bleating, black goat. (His legs were a lot longer than that of his steed, which resulted in a distinctly-uncomfortable-looking riding position.) He clung to the animals fur as it was trotting towards the army, an expression of relief spreading over his face as he saw the King. He shot a suspicious glance up at Kurogane, then seemed to decide he would deal with the angel on the big stone later, and cleared this throat and sat a little straighter in his saddle. He plucked the horned helmet of off his head before looking the King of Clow straight in the eye.

“Are you the one they call King Touya?” he asked with a determined voice.

“I am,” the King answered, annoyance in his features. “And I should cut him down for your impertinence of addressing me directly.”

“Oh, you are really traditional, aren’t you, my Lord,” he said, but seeming more delighted than worried. “I am Syaoran Li, aiming to write a book on the cultures of Clow and I would really love to ask you a few questions?”

Touya regarded him with cold rage.

“Maybe later,” the boy cleared his throat. He added, as though it was an afterthought, “I see it might be an inconvenient time for you. Oh, also I was sent by Fei Wong Reed, I am to give you something. Uhm,” He patted down the front of his shirt before pulling a wrinkled scroll out of the back of his pants. He self-consciously tried to straighten it out, then rode closer and proffered it to the king.

Touya looked at it as though it was a poisonous snake. One of the guards came forth to accept the message from the boy on the black goat, who was dwarfed between the two white horses.

“Uh,” the boy said, glancing between the King and the guard, who retreated immediately. “You probably want to know what’s in there, my Lord,” he offered tentatively. “It is the ransom note for your sister.”

Touya’s mouth fell open. Kurogane held his breath. Fai uttered something distinctly un-angelic.

“Uhm, unless you were interested in an interview, my Lord, I’d better get back to my duties,” Syaoran said, goat moving backwards.

“I will take apart Doom Castle stone by stone until we have found the little monster!” the king thundered. “This war will not end before Fei Wong is dead at my feet or my sister safely home! And you, brat, will stay with my army and talk of your rat king’s secrets,” he narrowed his eyes at him and added. “I might even let you live.”

“Uh,” the messenger said. “I remember I have an urgent appointment,” and he turned the goat around and ran.

****

Syaoran was almost flying across the Godforsaken Planes, knees drawn up to his chin and horned helmet clutched firmly to his head. Larg was bleating like the demonic creature he was, hooves barely touching the ground. He had never gone so fast in his life! It would have been elating, had it not been for the flaming arrows searing over his head.

Flaming arrows aimed at you gave a lot of things a quite different quality, Syaoran found. As did the thundering sound of an army on horseback at his back. No one had properly warned him that Kings were of such an irritable nature – ransom notes were, in his experience, perfectly normal acts of politics. At least, that was what he was taught in the interethnic communication course for Minions of Doom.

This was all very inconvenient.

“I can’t hold them up for very long,” someone shouted behind him. Syaoran turned around in a slight panic – the army should still be a lot further behind, as his goat had gained him a headstart climbing the riverbed. A burning arrow came right at his head. Syaoran let out a startled shriek, too slow to even rip up his arm and protect his face in time – and watched it exploded into sparks before his eyes. Splinters rained to the ground behind him harmlessly.

“What in-” Syaoran gasped.

“Concentrate on riding, kid,” someone shouted from above. Syaoran lifted his head and saw a winged man flying right about him – the angel was beating off arrows with a thick stick, it appeared.

“Why,” Syaoran gasped.

“Why are we helping you?” a gentler voice asked. Syaoran craned his neck and saw, far above, another creature flying, glowing in an eerie, red light. A ball of flame loosened from his fingertips and spread as a wall of flame between Syaoran and the army. Startled shouts rose from behind. A servant of the Devil, Syaoran realized. “You might not like it, but we need you to lead us to the King’s sister. The princess has to be saved in order to stop this war,” the man with the bat wings said. “If the war doesn’t happen, the Apocalypse cannot happen. It’s an essential step,” he added absent-mindedly. “I am sorry, I hope we will not have to force you in order to get what we need.”

“Oh,” Syaoran said mulling this over. Not all of it had made sense, but he thought he could probably get more insights for his books by talking to these people later and in peace. They seemed to know the place. He nodded to himself, his mood brightening again. “Alright, great,” he beamed. “I wanted to rescue her, anyway! You seem like you could really help me!”

Both of the creatures stared at him for a moment.

“Uh,” the angel said, then beat off another arrow with his club before it could sink into Larg’s behind. “So you delivered her ransom note before... rescuing her?”

“I do take my job seriously,” Fei Wong’s minion said, sounding offended. “I didn’t know her brother would throw such a fit over it, he should know that no one could harm someone as awe-inspiring as his sister.”

“If you take your job as seriously,” the angel asked again, face scrunched up in confusion. “You do realize you would betray your master if you saved his prisoner?”

“My loyalty could never be with anyone but the Princess,” he blushed a little when he went on. “Actually, she is the reason I want to write a book on her culture. You will understand when you see her, it cannot ever be wrong to aid a person such as her!”

“Well,” the demon answered exchanging a glance with the angel at his side. “Sounds good to me.”

****

A week prior

The night over Doom Castle was star spangled and perfect. Exactly the kind of night on which Syaoran loved being out on the walls. Patrolling at night was one of his favorite tasks. He would dream with open eyes of the books he would write and the fame he would gather. No one ever tried to storm Doom Castle, anyway. No one had for a thousand years, no one would for another millennium.

These were his thoughts as he heard a loud clinking and then a scrabbling noise from the outer castle walls. A squirrel, probably. Huffing and puffing and what sounded like a small curse. Syaoran’s eyebrows did a dance of deep thinking. A very large squirrel, maybe. But he was taking his job rather seriously and proud of it. And so he leaned over the battlements and looked straight into a pair of bright green eyes.

No one in a thousand years had ever dared to storm Doom Castle. No one, but one stupidly brave girl hanging from the stony edge of the fortress by her fingertips, right now, holding her breath as one slack-jawed guard appeared above her.

“Good evening,” she said, because what else was there really to say.

“Good evening, m’lady,” he whispered back, looking furtively over his shoulder, then back at her. “Are you quite alright? You might fall.”

Sakura snorted. “You think I came here unprepared? I have a grappling hook, guard,” she pointed at the metal construct that sat right in front of the boy, even though he barely seemed to see it.

“Oh, I’m relieved to hear,” the guard answered, and he seemed honest. “Do you need any help?”

“I thought you were supposed to guard the castle,” Sakura said. “You’re doing a terrible job of it. You should have killed me a minute ago.”

“I am no barbarian,” he scowled. “I am going to capture and lock you away you once you are safely up here. Here, take my hand.”

Sakura stared at the proffered palm for a moment. She did a quick calculation (which involved no actual numbers or she would have been lost) weighing the boy’s stupidity against his loyalty to her arch nemesis. The encouraging smile and the huge, innocent eyes won in the end – this boy had not killed a man in his life, she bet. She grabbed on tightly and let herself be hurled up the last two feet. Her black skirts were flying in the wind.

“Now, if you don’t mind, I would like to capture you,” the guard said with an adoring smile. Sakura hit him in the head with the blunt end of the grappling hook. She winced as he fell straight on his face.

“I’m terribly sorry,” she whispered, kneeling by his side and checking his head to make sure he was not bleeding. “I cannot let myself be captured without finding out how big Fei Wong Reed’s army is and how to defeat them. If one day I am to rule Clow Country, I need to be more than a pretty girl.” He was without doubt unconscious, but she had had no one to talk to about this and it felt good to entrust it to someone. Even if said someone was drooling on the stone floor while she was revealing her worries. “What use will I be to my brother, the King, if I know nothing of politics and warfare.” And even as she despised warfare and quite honestly didn’t understand much of mathematics and statistics, she knew how to inspire. She knew that one day, she would stand by her brother’s side and would have to make the right decisions.

If only Touya would stop treating her like a rebellious teenager and would see her for who she once would be, she might not have had to ride on her own all the way over the Unsubtle River, through the Godforsaken Planes and to Doom Castle.

She stood, gathered her skirts and ducked along the guard’s ways into the castle’s darkened halls. She had a lot to prove, tonight.

(She was captured about an hour later by a big guy in a black bathrobe whom she woke when toppling over a shelf in the library. He looked grumpy and exhausted, had funny hair, and was in a rage over his books getting dented – he also apparently was evil King Fei Wong Reed.)

****

Syaoran was a good man, as far as evil minions go – he worked hard, paid his taxes on time, greeted his neighbors. He enjoyed quiet evenings with his books and was raised to be polite and friendly. Now, he was beginning to understand that most of this he would have to leave behind if he went through with the plan that the demon (he called himself Fai) laid out before him, as they were crouching around a tiny, well-hidden fire in the woods close to Doom Castle.

He also found out that he was surprisingly okay with that. (He was only slightly worried about the part with the dress, and confused as hell about the purpose of the angel dust.)

****

In the kingdom of the Beast, there was absolute darkness. Only the occasional shriek of a suffering soul was piercing the silence, but Seishirou did not pay much of a mind to those. He was tapping his foot and humming a lullaby.

Entwined in the song was magic to weaken the bonds of his prison, which was made of anger and fear and all things contained in sleepless nights. Humans were such interesting creatures, he thought, to write music like this without knowing what they did. Complex, yet simple. Timid, and brave.

Humans needed to believe in good and evil. Even as hell and heaven had merged, they would never take life for the jumble of choices and coincidences it was. They did not even notice the gray, honest mediocrity that Yuuko was introducing. Her power over both good and evil alike was not even registered by the believers of her religion.

She was revolutionary – but she was too stubborn, in her own ways, too. This is part of what being a god meant – you needed someone to believe in you, or you would die. As long as you represented what people believed in, you could do whatever you want. And Yuuko was growing weaker with each prayer unheard, as he, the devil, was growing stronger. The power of the Witch was far from as perfect as she believed it was, he knew. She had dug her own grave, this time.

Humans were complex, yet simple. Their habits and ways of thinking were hard to change. Beautiful, in their own, ugly ways. And As all beautiful things, it was a delight to tear them apart. Seishirou’s song stopped.

“I think it is time to leave,” he murmured. And thus he turned to call the Great Beast to him, his greatest asset to inspire fear in humans and angels alike. “Trevor, walkie walkie!”

Happy yipping answered him. The walls shook as the dragon came bouncing through the cave.

“Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?”

Trevor rolled onto his back and received belly pets. (The Father of Murder might have made a trust-inspiring veterinarian in another universe.)

****

Touya and Fei Wong Reed had been arguing for the better part of an hour. Sakura’s brother had arrived here late yesterday night and had set up camp right in front of Doom Castle. The argument wouldn’t have been as boring and slow, Sakura decided, had Fei Wong Reed actually opened his portcullis in order to allow the King of Clow entrance. Instead, they were negotiating via hand-written messages that were thrown over the castle walls. At one point, Touya had been enraged enough by what he was reading to stop writing letters and started having his servants paint giant wooden boards with insults.

“Stop that, Touya!” Sakura shouted at the top of her lungs out of her window. “You are embarrassing me!”

The guards of Doom Castle were watching the whole process with something more akin to amused interest than worry. (One of them was definitely passing out popcorn.) King Reed’s face was stony for most of it, especially since Touya had started ignoring his crumpled up letters completely. (He did Reed silence the guy selling popcorn, though, punishing him with “tickles to the tears.” He was no barbarian, but he did appreciate a good working morale in his soldiers.)

The board the servants hastened to bring forth, now, read: “Shut up, brat,” and then switched for another one that said, “If you hurt my sister, I will **** you with a **** and **** your ****”

Fei Wong Reed blushed deeply.

“Try not to get yourself killed, Monster,” he brother had written on a board.

“Go away, idiot, I have this under control!” shrieked the Princess’s voice from the prison tower of the Dark Lord’s castle. It was a beautiful morning and someone started clapping at her performance. She had a good voice for shouting, if not for singing. She squinted in order to make out the small letters on the next board.

“This reminds me of that time when you stumbled over your own petticoats and fell down the 66 steps to the ballroom,” Touya’s answer read. She couldn’t make out his face from the distance, but she was sure he was wearing his most infuriating expression. “If anyone tries to hurt you, just fall on them,” Touya’s handwriting said.

Sakura threw up her hands in a wordless scream.

Her brother recycled his, “Shut up, brat,” sign.

She slammed the shutters of her window close and sat down on her bed with a huff in order to pout. He could insult King Reed all he wanted, but she was no longer playing.

As she sulked, she realized it was a very pretty bed she was sitting on, including soft mattresses and so many pink pillows they barely left space to lie down. It soothed her a little, she had to admit. The whole prison seemed more stuffed with luxury than most guest rooms she had seen.

She realized they were treating her like a girl. A Prince would surely have been to the torture chambers by now. (She didn’t realize that Fei Wong Reed’s idea of torture consisted mostly of badly written poetry, tickling and having to watch other people eating cookies.) It wasn’t just her brother – why would people never take her for full? She kicked an ornamented vase over, which had the insolence to bounce back from the inch-thick carpet unharmed. She made a face. At least she looked appropriately dangerous, she thought. Her black skirts were ripped and dirty and stiff with the blood of several guards she had knocked out on her way through the castle. It was a shame they had taken her grappling hook – she would have been out of here within five minutes had they been just a bit more rough (and the day less clear – she would have been rather visible, she admitted).

On the other hand, the drying blood was kind of itchy, and there was a light smell of vomit clinging to some part of her wardrobe she couldn’t identify. And she didn’t really like blood all that much, if she was being honest. She squirmed. It was getting late enough to change out of her robes and into her sleeping wear, anyway. She hastily stood and started undoing her bodice. The little talisman she was wearing dangled between her breasts as the garment slipped down her shoulders. She had gained quite some muscles over the course of her infiltration training, she noticed proudly.

“Princess,” a voice whispered from behind her.

She didn’t scream but made good use of her gained muscle mass by hefting up the pretty vase and smashing it into the offender’s head. She panted and watched the guy stumble backwards with a strangled gasp, pressing both hands to his face. She recognized the foolish guard that had helped her climbing the battlements.

“Oh no, I’m so sorry,” she said, watching blood gush out from between his fingers. Maybe she wasn’t made for the infiltration business, she still hated blood.

“No, I’m sorry,” a muffled squeak came from behind his hands. His eyes were wide as plates and glued to her chest. “I really am, don’t make fun of me!”

Sakura lowered her gaze, to realize she was half naked. She shrieked, and lifted the vase over her head once more, “Pervert!”

“Oh, oh, I didn’t realize you were-”

“Turn around or I’ll throw this!” she shouted. He did so hastily enough to stumble and almost crash into the wall. Sakura realized that he had left the heavy (yet very pretty and very pink) door to the staircase open. It usually would be guarded, but assuming that he was the guard... she calculated how far she would make it if she stormed past him now. Not very far. She grimaced realized she wouldn’t go anywhere without clothes, anyway, and hurriedly finished changing into the soft night gown they had laid out for her – it would be quicker than doing the laces and buckles on her dress back up. The thoughts were still racing. There should be a way out of this. “What were you doing here, anyway,” she asked. “Are there more guards at the foot of the tower?”

“I’m not peeking!” the boy shouted. Sakura frowned.

“What-”

“Shut up, I can’t hear you, lalalala!”

Sakura stared at him. He glanced over his shoulder and flushed a deep scarlet.

“Uh, I, I did not mean you, your Highness,” he squeaked. “I, I brought you dinner, your Highness.” Sakura looked at the small dresser and realized there was a silver tray sitting atop it, decorated with three courses of a warm meal. She wondered whether Fei Wong Reed got any prisoners at all, under normal circumstances. He wouldn’t be splurging like that on them if he did, she assumed. “Also, I am here to inform you of the plans for your escape,” he said conspiratorially. “Not to look at your- oh Satan in Hell!”

Sakura was seconds from throwing something else, preferably the guard out of the window.

****

“Syaoran, look at the boobs, again!” Fai cheered, greatly amused by the boy’s reaction.

Kurogane smacked him in the back of the head and Fai gave a betrayed shriek.

“You are so boooring, Kuro-pii!” Fai stuck out his tongue.

“How old are you,” Kurogane crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. They were sitting along the mosquito-swarmed castle moat, watching a small conjuration in a puddle that Fai had cursed in a hurry in order to make it a proper dimensional mirror. (Kurogane started to understand that “curses” and “blessings” really weren’t that different, you just needed to understand what you were going for. Apart from the fact that blessings usually involved less insects. He killed another nasty little fly as it started to suck blood from his ass.)

“Boooobs,” Fai whispered into the puddle and Syaoran’s vision twitched in agony.

“Stop distracting the kid,” Kurogane told him sharply, without taking his eyes off the scene that played out in the prison tower. All it had taken was a small spell to Syaoran’s eyes, and his vision was theirs. (Which meant they were getting a good eyeful of breasts whenever he thought the girl wasn’t looking at him. His heart sped up so much when she had lifted her skirts over her head that they had been afraid he’d pass out from the bloodless alone.)

“What do you mean, my escape?” she asked, now, audibly irritated. When Syaoran turned around, this time, she was dressed – much to Fai’s apparent disappointment.

“I’m so sorry for right now, um, but I beg you, listen to me for only a minute,” Syaoran said. “Even if you might not believe me, Princess, I have the most extraordinary help and a plan to help free you from this castle. If you allow me, I will lay it out for you.”

She stood stiffly in her night gown, suspicion written all over her posture.

“I never asked for your help,” she said, her chin held high. “I have my own means of escape.” She flicked her hair back in a nervous gesture. A small talisman on a necklace slipped from her robes. Kurogane had realized before that there was something hanging around her neck, but Syaoran averting his eyes as quickly as humanly possible had resulted in it being more of a blinking, golden blur. Now, the little flask was on view quite prominently. Fai gasped audibly. Kurogane leaned in and squinted.

“Is that-“ he started.

“The seventh bowl!” Fai whispered. He dropped his wine and scrambled to lean directly into the puddle. His nose was almost touching it when he shouted, “Syaoran, ask her where she got that charm from!” Syaoran winced at the volume.

“Uh, my Princess,” he stuttered. “I must ask – where do you... where did you get your charm from?”

“My...? Oh,” the Princess’s irritation turned into a nervous blush. She twirled a lock of her hair. “My, my mother was said to be quite charming,” she murmured. She seemed a little depressed after that. ”She died a long time ago – it were the earthquakes. I never met her.”

“No, we don’t have time dramatic background stories, now!” Fai exclaimed. “The necklace! Necklace!”

“Your mother sounds like a wonderful lady,” Syaoran said a little louder, ignoring the demon completely. “If she was anything like you.”

“Well, so it is said. I never quite got to know her,” Sakura answered quietly. She shot him a tentative smile. “My brother always says all men are horrible beasts, and will not let me see many of them. He has grown so overprotective of me. It’s not all of you who are that bad, right?”

“N-no, of course not,” Syaoran hurried to say. “I would never do anything b-b-beastlike you, Princess, you are, you are the most extraordinary girl I have ever met-“

“That’s very kind of you to say,” the princess said with large, shining eyes.

“You are turning into a skirt chaser, Syaoran,” Fai commented. The boy’s gaze twitched away from specifically interesting parts of her anatomy, again, and Kurogane was sure he was turning bright red. “Now, about the necklace.”

“Uh, uh, your pendant barely does your beauty justice,” Syaoran stuttered. “Whoever might have given it to you?”

“You think so?” the Princess fingered it self-consciously. “Well, I found it in the dry river when riding here. I thought it was a sign to keep it.”

“How can she find it by riding past it when we have been searching for it for two weeks,” Kurogane wondered.

“I have no idea, but this might be a blessing,” Fai grinned. “She doesn’t even know what it is!”

“My Princess,” Syaoran said and the sudden change of angle meant that he was either collapsing or had sunk to one knee. “May I save you?”

The Princess of Clow hesitated. “Well, if it makes you feel better,” she agreed.

“Yuuko won’t kill us!” Fai whooped and hugged Kurogane’s upper arm. It felt a little good, Kurogane had to admit.

****

“Why do I always have to be the distraction,” Kurogane hissed.

“You are simply a very distracting man,” Fai murmured, giving his very nice thighs a furtive glance. They had given Kurogane an indeed very short robe. He then concentrated on his own outfit, arranging the uniform Syaoran had managed to steal for them in a fashion that mostly hid his wings. He looked a little hunchbacked and thick around the middle, but he seemed happy enough with the result. “Besides, bat wings fold beautifully around the body. Imagine you mashing your huge, flashy swan pinions inside these.”

Kurogane growled.

“More importantly,” Fai twirled and poked a finger in his chest. “Do you remember the words?”

“I am not going to say them!” Kurogane snapped.

“Come on, it’s your first spell, you will get them sooo confused,” Fai trilled. “This might be our one chance to break the Princess out of the castle, you want it to go well, don’t you? You do remember them, right?”

“I have a good memory,” Kurogane said darkly. “And do not forgive easily.”

“Perfect!” Fai said cheerfully and pressed a little book into his hands, which read Party Spells for Beginners. “Take this, anyway. Page 52.” He turned towards the puddle, “Syaoran? Are you ready?”

“Uh, I think this dress won’t close up all the way,” a mortified voice whispered from the enchanted pool.

“Never mind that, you need only be convincing on first sight,” Fai assured him. “Do you think you’ll manage running like a damsel in distress?”

“Maybe?” came the answer. “Do damsels walk differently?”

Sakura watched him silently. She looked sharper in the guard uniform and with her hair hidden underneath the black cap than Syaoran had ever managed to – the brass buttons and black sigils shone in a regal way on her, whereas they had always managed to look blind and a little shabby on Syaoran. (She also had been rather polite ever since he revealed to her that he was talking to the voice of an angel in his head. Fai didn’t care as long as she was smart enough to take this opportunity to escape and deliver the flask right to their hands.)

“What do I do if they catch me?”

“We’ll rescue you from the torture chamber later,” Fai said with a dismissive gesture. “But that’s probably not going to happen.”

Syaoran swallowed audibly. He hated bad feathers. And bad poetry.

“You have the worst plans, how did you even survive the last 2000 years,” Kurogane spat.

“Shut up and do what I say, because I did survive,” Fai clapped his hands cheerfully. “Alright, then let’s do this!”

****

The sun was low when a shadow swept over Doom Castle’s yard. Two of the patrolling guards lifted their heads in astonishment.

“Is it a bird?” asked the first.

“Is it a plane?” asked the second.

Guard number one frowned, “What’s a plane supposed to be?”

“Didn’t you pay attention at comparative prophecies,” Guard number two asked cheerfully. “It’s a machine that’s going to fly in the sky like birds a few thousand years from now. It’s going to help us ruin the ecosystem, because of the see-o’-two.”

“See-o’-two?” Guard number one felt he had skipped certain lessons.

“I think it’s just a huge ass bird,” a third, who had joined them and couldn’t care less about comparative something, commented. “I heard the sometimes come south for winter. The huge ass birds.”

“It’s July,” guard number two said. “It’s winter in Australia, maybe it’s from there!” He was a real smartass, guard number one decided. He would definitely check those facts, later tonight.

“Erm,” the bird cleared its throat. “I am a messenger of God, who has come to warn you of... God!”

The three guards made ooh-ing and aah-ing sounds. One of them remembered, “We’d better inform Mr. Reed, hadn’t we.”

“I’ll get the flaming arrows,” Guard number three volunteered. “And marshmallows.”

****

Fai silently pulled himself over the battlements, adjusting his uniform as he once more stood upright. He doubted anyone had seen him, considering the ruckus the guards made while trying to shoot Kurogane out of the sky. They had managed to set a minor barn aflame, so far, which had been the point when they switched to poisoned arrows. Kurogane did a great job of evading them and shouting insults at them, so far.

Fai made his way to the prison tower without any real trouble. He was held up once by a worried guard that wanted to know whether he could help him find his way around the castle. (Part of politics in Reed’s castle was to help your follow Satanists – family sticks together, and Doom Castle was quite confusing when you were new.) Fai had the prison tower pointed out to him, thanked the guard cordially and pulled the cap lower over his horns.

The door of the prison tower stood slightly ajar – Fei Wong Reed should really work on his security measures, he thought. He carefully approached and nudged the door open all the way – only to evade a shattering vase at the last possible moment.

“Oh, Fai, I’m sorry!” Syaoran said. He wore the torn dress the princess had changed out of earlier tonight. Next to him stood the girl, another vase lifted up to her waist. At her feet lay the unconscious forms of two guards. She looked at him suspiciously.

“Fai? The angel?” she asked. She lifted her blunt object of mass concussion. “I am not afraid to use this.”

“So I see,” Fai commented. One of the guards was still groaning and Sakura shot him a worried glance. “I’m not that much of an angel, but here to save you and pleased to meet you,” he smiled. “Listen, I can do a little magic – all of it illusionary. I can cloak your appearance, if you let me. No one who hasn’t seen you before will recognize you as a girl or Princess. But from people who know you, I cannot hide you. This is why we need you to wear the uniform and try your best to stay out of sight even if I apply the spell, alright?”

“Understood,” Sakura said, squaring her shoulders. “Do it.”

“Can’t you do the same for me?” Syaoran murmured, looking around worriedly. “I am afraid none of my colleagues will understand my betrayal if they recognize me.”

“I’m sorry, everyone knows you, right?” Fai answered. Syaoran gave him a tiny, worried nod. He liked these people. The former angel muttered the words and a faint glimmer ran across Sakura’s skin. “Done,” he said, then ushered the both of them into the darkened castle yard. “Be quick, now.”

They crossed the castle yard in a haste, jumping across a few wildly fluttering chickens, evading a cannon ball that rolled their way, followed by a screaming minion and the rest of the cannon, in this order, and had to duck under a long line of water carriers that were trying to put out a variety of fires.

Fai thought it was going exceptionally well. When they reached the stairs that led up the battlements, he couldn’t help commenting, “We might make it out of here without Syaoran needing to-”

“Oi, Syaoran, what are you cross-dressing for, today?” a cheerful voice stopped the little group as they were just as Sakura put her foot on the first step.

“’Today’?” Sakura mouthed. Syaoran blushed crimson.

“It was for a play,” he stammered an explanation. He turned towards his approaching colleague, his voice being suspiciously high-pitched. “Uh, hi Ryuu-ou, I thought it was a party?”

“Oh, it is!” his fellow guard said and patted him on the back hard enough to evoke an ‘oof.’ “We haven’t been attacked in centuries, and now look at all of this! It’s exciting!” He grinned at Fai and Sakura who huddled behind his back. “I haven’t seen you before – new recruits?” He squinted at the princess. “You seem a little familiar, though.”

“Uhhh,” Syaoran explained and added an eloquent hang gesture for emphasis. Of course they had to be approached by one of those guards that had brought Sakura in when captive. Of course it couldn’t have been anyone else.

“It seems we came to Doom Castle at a bustling time,” Fai jumped in, positioning himself so he was covering up more of Sakura. “Ryuu-ou, wasn’t it? A pleasure to meet you.” The young man was shifting so he could still see her. She had kept her gaze lowered, so far, but now stared back defiantly.

“Aren’t you-” he started.

“Oh Satan Below, is the canteen burning?” Syaoran shouted over him.

“What, the canteen, too?” the guard looked panicked for a mere second. Fai made it up another five steps before he turned back around. “Don’t scare me like that, it’s just the barn – but Syaoran, why do you have the Princess of Clow with you?”

Fai reached for the sword at his side at the same time that Sakura lifted her vase. Syaoran threw his hands up stepping between the two parties.

“Listen, we’re just taking her for a stroll,” Syaoran said in a shaky voice. “I think you really should turn around and go back to help put out the barn. They need you.”

“You know I cannot let this go,” Ryuu-ou said, looking nothing but serious and honest. “Also, I had really hoped for a promotion when we were done with the besiegement, you know.”

Syaoran opened his mouth, then closed it, opened it again, rolled his eyes in inner pain. This shouldn’t be so hard, he had made up his mind about leaving. “You ... you can have my demon trading cards, alright?”

“The rare ones? Shiny Lucifer?” Ryuu-ou looked excited.

“All of them,” Syaoran assured him. The guard seemed to consider this, then looked crestfallen.

“I’m sorry, Syaoran, I will have to decline. I can’t let a prisoner escape from my castle, even if you like her.”

“What,” Syaoran and Sakura squeaked.

“ Guards,” Ryuu-Ou roared, “the Princess is escap- oof“

Syaoran dropped the vase he had ripped out of Sakura’s hands next to the unconscious body. He made a whimpering noise of apology. A few of the guards had stopped shooting at the angel above and started running towards the trio.

“Alright, back to plan A – run, Princess Syaoran!” Fai chirped. Syaoran did so with passion, skirts flying in the wind and a group of guards thundering after him. Fai pressed the Princess to his back until they passed them, then started escaping up the stairs of the battlements. They made it up to the top of the windy walls, to the part that lay in shadow of moonlight and fires. Fai ripped off his coat and cap, wings unfolding from beneath. Sakura gasped.

“You really aren’t human – or hunchbacked,” she said.

Fai briefly smiled at her while he made sure the rope he had prepared along the battlements was still fast secured. He could have flown the both of them out of here had he liked being shot at and pursued.

“Come on, my lady, let us escape,” he said and grabbed her around the waist. She squeaked and elbowed him in the gut, then kicked his shins for good measure.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she stammered as he bend over for a moment, using the wall for support and catching his breath. “All those self-defense lessons my brother insisted on – I’m sorry, it’s reflex. I’m glad I didn’t dislocate your knee cap.”

“It’s fine,” Fai groaned. “Maybe you’d just ... like to rappel down the wall yourself.”

“Yes, no problem, I’m good at sports,” she said flexing her biceps. “Uhm, are you okay?”

“Yes, yes, just, give me a minute,” he gasped.

With one last, worried look she wrapped the rope behind her waist, found footholds, and then was over the castle wall and gone within a few seconds. Fai used the time to breathe deeply and snap his fingers – green sparks erupted from the highest point of the castle.

****

Kurogane saw the green fires flashing atop the prison tower, guards scattering and shouting. It smelled of roasted marshmallows. He beat off another of their puny arrows with his bare hands and had to control himself in order to not laugh maniacally and shout something stupid akin to, ‘Was that all you’ve got?’ Or, ‘My grandmother shoots better than you!’

Another arrow missed him by three feet and he roared, “Are you shooting those with your ass?” A salve of angry missiles was following his words. Alright, enough, the sparks meant he was supposed to get out of here. He pulled out the little book with “Party Spells” that Fai had handed him and concentrated on flying on his back, a little smug about how much better he had gotten at flight control. He did remember the words, he just wanted to make sure.

“Okay, page 52,” he said, tipping to the side to avoid a cannon ball. He thumbed past ‘Abraham’s Big Bosom,’ ‘Anthropological Scrolls Against Humanity,’ and finally found, ‘Angel Dust.’ It even sounded like something that Fai would have chosen. He cleared his throat.

“Christian forest goddess hark,
I summon me some angel spark.
For this I ask the herring’s sweat,
The noise produced by paws of cats,
The shadow of a gust of wind,
Of copper beeches’ blood a pint,
All these forgotten things adjust,
And make me now some angel dust”

A cloud of glitter exploded from beneath his hands and lowered slowly onto the yard beneath him. The minions stopped and stared for a moment. A general atmosphere of silent worry and expectation of what was going to happen had sunk over then.

A single sneeze echoed within the walls. A second. And soon, the sound of sneezing was the only thing to be heard in all of Doom Castle, the whole staff being responsible for one big explosion of phlegm. It seemed like Kurogane had given everyone the hay fever of their lives. Kurogane checked the list of effects in his book.

A state of otherworldliness and enlightenment, inability to hurt another being, happiness, encouraging (free) love, great when you run out of alcohol.

Well. That hadn’t worked as expected. It still was fairly distracting if you tried to shoot an arrow. He made a face, pocketed the book and went to swoop in and rescue the boy, hoping he wouldn’t be affected by the stupid powder, as well.

****

Kurogane and Syaoran arrived late at their designated meeting point in the woods, the boy riding on the angel’s back. Both of them were suffering from watering eyes and running noses as they stumbled down to earth. Syaoran sneezed loudly and wiped his nose on his dress that now also looked a little singed in addition to bloodied and torn.

“How did the spell work?” Fai asked with a broad grin.

“Urgh,” Kurogane commented and coughed up sparkles. He tried to wipe dust out of his eyes but managed to smear more into them and was blinded for a tearful moment. In a surge of frustration, he kicked a tree and hurt his toes.

Fai made a sympathetic noise and produced a wad of tissue from somewhere within his pants (he had managed to lose his shirt, Kurogane didn’t even ask how) and handed it over. “You might not want to hurt the trees, Kuro-tan, the forest is said to be conscious.”

“Forest can kiss my ass,” Kurogane murmured and accepted the tissue with a disgusted grunt and sat down on the tree root next to him.

“Princess Sakura, I meant to talk to you about your pendant,” Fai started. He sounded as though he was picking each word very carefully. “Kurogane and me have been searching for it for a while. That you found it seems like a miracle to us.”

“Ah,” Sakura said, putting a hand to her chest where the little bottle was hidden beneath the dark fabric of her uniform. She was sitting on a felled tree trunk, looking disheveled and exhausted. But now, her gaze sharpened and she was listening carefully.

She was not to be underestimated, Kurogane thought.

“Why is it that you have been looking for it, if I may ask?” Sakura’s eyes jumped from one to the other. “You make an unusual pair – I have never heard of a demon and an angel working together.”

“I haven’t always been a demon,” Fai laughed the light kind of laugh that Kurogane knew to be fake to boot. “I used to be an arch angel and the loss of the bottle – well, my boss didn’t like it.”

“Your boss? You mean God Almighty?” Syaoran asked. He had sat down cross-legged at the edge of the little circle they formed, mostly watching Sakura with a mix of adoration of slight puzzlement. “Can you tell me more about Him? For my book?”

“Ah, our boss is rather ... God Almighty’s representative? Until he is back from, uhm, an important business trip,” Fai tried. Sakura stared at him.

“God isn’t there with you?” she asked. “But you have met The Lord, right? You were one of his highest angels, after all?”

“Yes, of course,” Fai lied a little too fast and with a smile a little too broad. Kurogane didn’t interrupt to correct him, getting the feeling this wasn’t the kind of conversation he had wanted to have with the heir of God’s army. The truth was that they didn’t exactly know who made them or why they were here, either. That minor gods roamed the various planes without rhyme and reason, that major gods rose and vanished. There had been someone before Yuuko, Kurogane knew it, but that had been so long ago that no one remembered. The truth seemed to have dissolved along with the old ones.

“What is He like, then?” Sakura asked innocently. Fai clasped his hands and hesitated just a moment too long. Sakura hastened to add, “I don’t meant blasphemy, if, if the Lord doesn’t mean for you to talk about Him-”

“Peace, that’s what it’s like,” Kurogane rumbled. Everyone turned to him. Fai’s seemed deeply in thought, kneading his hands and eyes glassy. “Like finding a home you didn’t know you had. Very ... warm,” Kurogane cleared his throat. He didn’t mention the part about deep forgiveness and about what that had done to him. He thought they could probably read up on that, somewhere. “That’s all.”

Kurogane had died in a downpour of burning meteors. It wasn’t the death he had envisioned for himself, proud warrior among the northern warriors, but then again, he had never thought much about how he had wanted to die. He hadn’t been done living. It was a clean hit and after a short moment, the impression of darkness and unbearable pain were fading, and a white light had engulfed him. He felt he faced something so deeply benevolent it left him in awe, something more comforting than the embrace of a mother, yet clearer than the night sky above the desert – and then that had been ripped away from it.

He had woken up on a slab of stone on a mountain height, with his wounds restored and an incredibly old woman poking at his ribs. When he asked her what the hell this was supposed to be, she merely smiled a toothless smile and answered, ‘Well, you weren’t ready to go, were you.”

There had been a choice, back then – being an angel hadn’t been his first one, but considering it had been the apocalypse that had killed him the first time around, it seemed a lot more prestigious than trying to stand by Lucifer’s side. (He was still convinced he would have made a great demon.) He hadn’t known of the merger and that the side you chose didn’t really matter anymore. It was all a mere play for the mortals, executed by different branches of the same corporation.

“If I die, will I turn into an angel, too?” Sakura pressed on. Kurogane looked at Fai. He seemed to be brooding.

“It’s ... not that simple, I think,” he said after a while scratching the skin close to his curled horns. “My, um ,” he needed to clear his throat and shot a quick look at Kurogane. His voice still was a bit raw when he spoke next, “I had ... I used to have a brother when I was alive. I looked for him after I died, for a long time, but I never found him. I don’t think he was ... I don’t think he turned into an angel.”

There was a short silence. Kurogane wondered whether this had been the reason for Fai to play with the thought of Apocalypse the way he did.

“Either way,” Fai cleared his throat and steered the conversation back to the topic. “You must realize that right now, the End of the World is approaching?”

Sakura nodded, sitting up a bit straighter. “I’m ready to protect my people,” she said loudly. (Syaoran’s lovelorn sigh was hard to ignore.) “And will take on whatever dread I have to in order to keep them safe.”

“A Princess shouldn’t have to sacrifice herself,” Syaoran said, not taking his eyes off her. “I would do anything to protect you. I would not mind giving my own life for yours.” Sakura turned to him as though tot protest, but as their gazes locked, the world around them melted away. There was a moment between them. Kurogane cleared his throat loudly and the kids jumped.

“The flask in your hand – it is one of the Seven Bowls,” Fai said gently. “If anyone was to spill it, it would bring about the last of catastrophes and the End of The World As We Know It would come.”

“So, what should I do?” Sakura asked, voice firm, yet her eyes large from the weight of the words.

“Well, if you give it to us,” Fai said slowly. “We will make very sure that no one will empty it, and that it won’t accidentally break. We will keep it safe so that the Apocalypse cannot happen.”

“I think,” Sakura said after a while. “I think that wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“What?” Fai and Kurogane asked simultaneously.

“Well,” Sakura said, flask safely pressed to her chest and eyes defiant. “You lost it once before, didn’t you?”

Fai buried his face in his hands. “Of course this was going to haunt you,” Kurogane deadpanned.

“Also, the angels were the ones that started the Apocalypse, weren’t they,” Sakura kept going, standing up now as though getting ready to run. “Why would you want to stop it, now? I think you might just want to trick me into giving you the flask. That’s what I think.”

Kurogane started rising from his root, slowly enough to not intimidate the girl with his height. “I think you are a very brave girl and someday will make a worthy queen,” he said. “But we really need that flask from you.”

“No,” she said with a frown.

“I am an angel, aren’t you supposed to listen to me?” Kurogane spat.

“You are a very rude angel!” Sakura told him. “And you’re also on the side of a demon! And, and,” a fat tear rolled down her face and she wiped it away with an angry sniffle, “my mother died because of the Apocalypse. I know you didn’t mean it, I know she is an angel, now, but it still happened. I will take care of the bowl, I will make sure no one lies a finger on it, so what business of yours is it.”

“Enough,” Fai said with voice like thunder and he seemed taller when he rose from his seat. Kurogane stared at him, but Fai ignored him. Unholy fire was burning in his eyes and a dark aura was wavering over his skin. Sakura shrunk back from his form that didn’t appear to be that of a minor demon anymore. “You do not understand what you are dealing with. You do not understand who will come for you if you keep a hold of this artifact.” The earth beneath his feet were blackening and rotting, his hair was moving in an unfelt storm. “You cannot be the heroine in this play, Sakura.” He took a step forward and-

The earth started shaking heavily enough to have him fall on his face.

“What-“ Kurogane shouted and jumped away with a yelp just as the earth under his feet split open. A ravine as wide as two men opened beneath his feet. The scaled head of a monster, as large as Kurogane himself, was pressing through the crack, gasping and hissing, spitting fire and brimstone as it widened the gap.

“Good boy, Trevor!” a cackling voice echoed from the depth.

“Take the children and run,” Fai yelled spitting grass and pulling himself up, his eyes still red and demonic and black magic wavering around his hands. Kurogane took off with a startled flutter, threw a squeaking Sakura over his shoulder and hoisted the both of them into the air just before the earth beneath her opened and swallowed the patch of grass she had just stood on. He circled the clearing but couldn’t find the boy, cursed and decided to at least get the girl to safety for now. The Beast had crawled all the way out of the pit, now, wings spreading and quivering, and a crazed laughter was rising from the depth of the darkness.

“Fai-chan, so good to meet you again,” Seishirou said as he rose from hell. “I have heard you have fallen – and also found the seventh Bowl.”

****

“Out so early, again,” Fai smiled fiercely. He was positioning himself so he cut off the way between Seishirou and the last he had seen of Kurogane’s well-shaped behind. “Weren’t you supposed to be trapped for a thousand years.”

“You know me,” Seishirou gave a boyishly charming shrug. “I have never been very good at sticking to contracts.”

“So I have heard,” Fai murmured. To say that Seishirou was older and more powerful than him would have been a understatement. He was ancient. He had been the first of the angels to fall, the first of the children of hell. He was said to be as old as Yuuko herself. None of the tricks that Fai had up his sleeve would be new to him, none of his magic able to impress him. Cold sweat was trickling down Fai’s back. “Why do you want the Apocalypse to happen in the first place? I thought you were supposed to be banned from the surface of the earth if that happened?”

Seishirou gave a dismissive hand wave. “I would be out of a job, it’s true,” he said. Then grinned, madness glinting in his eyes. “But so would Yuuko be. She’d lose her credibility, her empire, anything that ever meant anything to her. She will be taught she can’t play with me the way she does.”

“Killing thousands of people in order to get back at your boss? That’s just petty,” Fai said.

“I am the devil, what did you expect,” he asked with open surprise. Fai gave a snort, falling into a fighting position, and Seishirou regarded him with interest, the dragon at his back giving a deep growl and ducking low to the earth, head swiveling as he was taking in his surroundings. “What do you want to do, little demon? Are you going to fight me? Maybe you want to face Trevor, first?”

The dragon yipped as it heard its name. Fai exhaled slowly, heart beating hard enough to jump out of his ribcage. He then straightened and crossed his arms. “I challenge you,” he declared, “to a battle of the wits!”

“For the Princess?” Seishirou asked. Fai gave a single nod.

“To the death?” Seishirou asked with a hint of amusement. Fai gave a single nod.

“Very well,” Seishirou laughed. “You surely do not mind if I send my pet after yours? After all, we cannot play for a price that is escaping.”

“I would prefer if you didn’t,” Fai piped up.

“Your game, but we still play by my rules,” Seishirou said cordially, then turned to his dragon, “Trevor, fetch!” Trevor bounced off and left the earth shaking. Seishirou summoned the playing field, a large magical orb and stood regarding his well-manicured nails. “You begin,” he smiled, not seeming worried at all.

Fai inhaled. “What is black and white and red all over?”

****

Syaoran had lost sight of the angel, but the crashing noises behind him didn’t sound reassuring. He stumbled, then pressed his back to the back of a stone. He had found a large wooden club that he now held pressed to his chest and he was determined to save the princess. He was determined to make this count.

The monster broke through the underbrush next to him. Its head swung around, sniffing the air. A growl shook the ground beneath Syaoran’s feet as the beast pushed itself past the stone under which he was cowering. It was so close he could have touched it, still not seeing him. The boy didn’t dare to even breathe. This might have been the scariest thing he had ever faced.

This might be the most noble cause he had ever had.

Syaoran lifted the club with a battle cry and brought it down on the beast’s glowering eye. The dragon shrieked and reared back. It blinded and in pain, it spat fire in his general direction. Syaoran rolled beneath the stream of flames, came up beneath the monster’s scaled jaws, and rammed the stick into the dragons nostril, driven by his momentum. The dragon yipped, shrunk back and sadly shook his head from side to side, clawing at its bleeding nose as it turned around. Syaoran grabbed for a large stone he found and came running after.

“For the Princess!” he hollered, throwing himself at the beast’s tail. It was an act of stupid braveness worthy of having told stories about. It also earned him a solid blow to the head by a scaled tail. He crumbled to the ground as the world around him faded to black.

****

Kurogane could hear the dragon closing in and cursed under his breath. While he was zigzagging between the around trees, evading fallen logs and dipping beneath low branches, the beast was simply crashing through all of it. And it sounded angry.

“Why aren’t you flying over the treetops,” Sakura shouted at him from where she was clutching at his back. As per Kurogane’s instructions, she was leafing through a small spell book he pressed into her hands. “I’m going to be motion sick.”

“The dragon is faster than us in the air,” Kurogane yelled, rolling out of the way of a boulder. “And it does shoot fire. Better to stay out of sight.”

“You could find a place to hide,” Sakura suggested urgently, still rejecting one spell idea after the other.

“What the hell do you think I’m trying to do,” Kurogane shouted back. A tree behind him was felled with a crash. As he looked over his shoulder, the beast met his gaze with a single eye. It was bleeding heavily from where the other one had been, and it seemed rather angrier than truly hampered in its chase, by the loss of it.

Before them, the trees were growing thinner in the impending night and beyond, Kurogane realized, the planes were stretching for miles into every direction, offering no protection whatsoever. They couldn’t take that way, they would be dead within a mile of chase. Kurogane searched desperately for alternatives.

Below them, a dried-up creek (likely an arm of the Unsubtle River, he thought), was cutting a wound into the forest floor below. The riverbed was paving a stony road running past the beast – past its blinded side. Kurogane considered his options.

“Princess, I really need you to work some magic,” he shouted over at her butt, which was unfortunately the one part of her he could clearly see from where she was flung over his shoulder.

“Alright, we, we can try,” she squeaked. Kurogane rolled out of the way of a boulder and heaved her up so she was pressed to the front of his chest. They broke through the tree line. For a moment, their flight calmed, the air grew quiet safe for the noise of his wings. The wideness of the peaceful planes at night, of rolling hills in moonlight, was made to calm a heart.

The beast roared behind them and Kurogane prayed and cursed. “Now, Princess!” he yelled and turned sharply, flying directly at the dragon. The monster stopped in its movement and reared up, fangs opening. Fire glowed at the back of its throat. Sakura read the text by the light of her golden pendant.

“Chilly chilies, / Chilly chilies! / Tacos burrrrn!” she screamed and made a complex dance-move that barely worked in midair (it literally almost led to them plummeting into the ground) and that involved gagging and sticking out her tongue.

Kurogane hoped she hadn’t just made that up, right now, because he could swear the dragon was laughing at them with all of those pointy long teeth they were about to meet – and then she hurled a stream of the magical red sauce into the dragons maw, sharp heat radiating from her hands as she filled up his throat. The dragon gargled and was coughing and gagging, twisting to the side in agony. Kurogane dipped beneath its wings and into the ravine, flying so low that Sakura’s legs were almost scraping the forest floor. They passed by the beast’s blind spot, leaving it to ram its head into the nearest tree.

“Brilliant,” Sakura shouted at him enthusiastically. “Magic is awesome!”

“You did well,” Kurogane agreed and swore to himself to never try the taco sauces at work parties. They flew unhampered for so long the angel thought they had lost the beast. He felt they must be getting closer to the clearing where the devil and Fai had stayed behind, thinking of a way to avoid flying into them-

A fireball exploded into Kurogane’s right wing. Pain seared through his system, but worse was the way sent him tumbling and reeling for balance in midair. He grazed a trunk, tumbled, collided brutally with another, curled around the Princess as they plummeted. He rolled across the forest floor and gravel, a ball of feathers and limbs, barely managing to keep the girl out of harm’s way. The momentum came to a slow end as they careened into a low boulder. Kurogane barely spared a moment to catch his breath, quickly checking for the beast – nowhere in sight, yet – then for the princess. She clung to him like the child she was, but she seemed alright. No blood in sight, all limbs attached, no weird angles. She was okay. She was okay. Kurogane pulled her to unsteady feet, wincing at the pain and the smell of burnt hair and skin. His right wing was useless.

“We don’t have time,” he said, trying to peel her hands out of his robe. She was shaking like a leaf, hyperventilating, eyes unfocussed. “Princess,” he tried again, grabbing her neck to make her look at him. She shrunk back, her eyes fixed somewhere to his collarbone. “Princess, you need to focus, Prin- Sakura!” that finally caught her attention. Her eyes were glued to his face, wide, scared discs. “I need you to run, Sakura,” he told her. “Run, find a place to hide, wait there. The beast is after the bowl – keep it safe, the way you said you would. Can you do that for me?”

Her lips were moving but no sound was escaping. A roar and a crash behind Kurogane. At the last moment, he remembered that she was carrying a sword with her uniform. He drew the blade from the sheath at her side and spun around just as the beast’s ugly head broke through the thick underbrush. Kurogane felt a fierce grin stretch across his face. There was nothing that could stop him if he had a sword.

“Stay down,” he indicated, pushing her against the back of the boulder. She whimpered and complied. If he was smart, he could use the thick bramble bushes to his advantage – in comparison to the beast, he was small enough to maneuver between them, while the dragon would have to fight its way through. He remembered his training, remembered tactics, remembered what it felt like to kill and spill blood. He charged the dragon, wings folded close to his body, battle cry on his lips. The dragon cried in turn, wings spreading among the black trees.

The angel laughed maniacally, raising his sword – and stumbled across something large and soft between the low bushes. Arms windmilling, wings fluttering, the ground came rushing at him for about half a second, before he came to an abrupt, painful stop. He barely dared to breath. He had not fallen. Why. Looking behind himself, he realized his wings had gotten stuck in the thorned bramble bushes. “God fucking damn it,” he murmured and flailed, pulling on his wings. He managed to tangle himself up more profoundly. “Fucking fuck!” he yelled.

The dragon bared its fangs, hissing, its blood still dripping down the side of its face and tinting its teeth dark red. Sakura whimpered behind him. The soft thing he had stumbled across groaned at his feet. Kurogane looked down just in time to see a pair of brown eyes open in a mud-smeared face.

“What-time-is-it,” Syaoran slurred, hand rubbing across his dirty cheek. Then blinked and said, “Oh god, I can see up your skirt-“

“Run! I’ll buy you time!” Kurogane shouted at Princess, ignoring the boy for now. She winced and turned, fighting her way through the underbrush. Kurogane raised his sword, prepared for the worst to come. He growled, “Come at me, lizard.”

The dragon glowered at the angel barring the way for a moment, dangerous hissing noises escaping its throat. It started moving. The thundering gallop was shaking the ground, vibrating in Kurogane’s bones. The angel prepared to die again, sword raised and teeth gritted, as the dragons muscles tensed to jump-

-and flew across both the stuck angel and the blinking boy at his feet. It ran after the princess, ignoring the both of them completely.

“No!” Kurogane yelled and tried to tear free once more, uselessly. He started hacking at the vines with the sword, but somehow the bushes seemed to close in around him the more he tried to detach them.

“The dragon,” Syaoran whispered, finally seeming awake. He scrambled to his feet as fast as he could, slipping once or twice in the mud and pulling himself up by Kurogane’s robe. “Where is the princess?”

“Running for her life while you’re napping,” Kurogane snarled. “Help me out of here!”

Syaoran took one look at the shrubbery, then crawled away as fast as he could. “Those are snaring black berries,” he said. “You won’t get out of there without Satan’s help.”

“Or Fai’s,” Kurogane realized. “Goddammit, whenever you need him-”

“Could I have the sword, maybe!” Syaoran shouted. Kurogane stared at him. “Please?” the boy added, remembering his manners.

“That’d be suicide, you’re merely human,” the angel said, but gave him an appraising once-over. “Did you learn fencing?” Kurogane asked.

“I know which part of the sword is pointy,” Syaoran said defiantly. Kurogane rolled his eyes. “I can’t let the princess die, please,” Syaoran said extending his hands in something akin to prayer, had he believed in such a thing. “Please! I will save her!”

Kurogane hesitated. In the distance, there was a crash and the shriek of a girl. He thought of the Apocalypse. He thought of this boy’s determination. He thought that he would die, anyway, if Seishirou managed to finish his work. He thought he must be crazy as he flipped over the sword and held the handle out to the boy. The child reached for it but the angel held onto the blade for a while longer, making him meet his eyes.

“That’s only for the worst case,” Kurogane said then let go and reached into his robes. He pulled out a tiny, leather-bound book. “Use this, instead.”

“What is it?” Syaoran asked in awe, accepting the collection of texts.

“The best thing we have to defeat the Beast of hell,” Kurogane said earnestly. “Party Spells for Beginners.”

****

Syaoran was running into the direction of the screams, sword bouncing at his side and reading by moonlight as he was evading trees. (He was thanking whatever authority was listening silently for being born a nerd. He had learned early in his life to read in pitch darkness.) He needed something to make a giant dragon harmless, something, anything-

“This will do,” he murmured and remembered the words as fast as he could.

****

Sakura had come to a stop in the dead riverbed, back pressed to a stone wall she couldn’t scale and the dragon closing in. The beast was clearly not out to kill her – the Devil must have had instructed it to bring her back unharmed. It was smarter than she had thought at first – there clearly were thoughts moving behind its eyes, sharp and accurate. Her hands were shaking as they clutched her pendant.

“You want to bring about the end of the world?” she asked the dragon in an unsteady voice. She was still looking for a way out. The reptile was circling her, its one good eye stuck to the bottle in her hands and obviously considering its options. It seemed aggravated but held back by orders. It rolled out its long, wet tongue and carefully wrapped it around Sakura’s waist to lift her up a foot. The girl shrieked and punched and scratched at the slimy organ. The dragon hissed and dropped her. It snarled and snapped and Sakura winced and scrambled to shield her body with her arms.

“You have to spill this in the air, don’t you? For the apocalypse to happen?” She asked, the words growing firmer she lifted the bottle and uncorked it. The dragon eyed her with obvious distrust. “Well, good luck trying,” she said with a smirk and downed the bottle. The golden liquid was bitter and sweet, and almost spat it back out before swallowing all of it. She threw the empty bottle at the beast, glaring at it in defiance.

The empty flask bounce off its nose, and the dragon blinked then looked at it closely where it was rolling among the stones. Slowly, it seemed to understand – and screamed in anger. Roared into Sakura’s face, then, in mad frustration it raced about the ravine floor in a circle, bouncing off the walls. Sakura clung to the stone at her back. She would have been lying had she said she wasn’t terrified. The dragon calmed down to an agitatedly pacing back and force and not leaving her out of its sight. Sakura almost hoped it would leave to return to its master – but then, the beast was upon her. It threw her to the ground with a careless flick of its nose, claws pinning her into place on the ground with one large paw. Sakura screamed and struggled, “What do you want?”

The beast looked at her face one last time, then spread its claws to expose her midriff. Sakura’s eyes widened as it lifted a single claw. It would slit her belly, she realized, it would slit her open-

“HEY,” a voice echoed across the dry river bed. Sakura turned her head in order to see a single figure standing atop the cliffs. “Stop that right now, dragon!” Syaoran shouted. “I’m sorry, princess, it took me some time to find a rabbit!”

“What?” Sakura yelled back.

Syaoran held up something fluffy and rodent-shaped by the scruff and smiled proudly. She stared. Instead of explaining, he began yelling at the beast,

“This special spell
You will find rather funny,
It shall compel ‘Beast’
To turn into a bunny!”

Both the dragon and Sakura stared at him as a few sparks flew from his hands, only to sizzle out uselessly in midair.

“Uhm,” Syaoran cleared his throat. “Is ‘Beast’ possibly not your real name?”

Sakura could have sworn the reptile smirked. “Trevor!” she shouted up at him. “The Devil called it- hmph!”

The dragon growled in her face, as she tried to pull its claw of her face.

“This special spell / You will find rather funny,” Syaoran started over. The dragon burped and spat a fireball into his direction and the boy yelped and ducked but didn’t stop reading. “It shall compel ‘Trevor’ / To turn into a bunny!”

A powerful blast of green magic leashed out from his fingertips, rushing at the dragon and weaving a band of light between it and the rabbit in his hands. Shadows danced across the darkened riverbed, something wailing and dark was pulled from the body of the dragon, the air around it vibrating, and flung at the tiny creature. In turn, a soft, bright energy left the small animal and travelled the other way. It was over within a second, with a blinding flash of light.

Sakura blinked the dark spots out of her eyes, to find the dragon above her stare at her in stony shock. It scuttled backwards, nose twitching and eyes searching the perimeter in what appeared to be wide-eyed panic. It then scampered towards the other side of the ravine and started gnawing on a tree branch, before digging a hole. Sakura lifted her arms to cover her face from the flying dirt.

“Ow!” Syaoran shouted from above and flung the tiny, hissing rabbit into the woods that had just bitten a bloody chunk of flesh out of his hand. Then he looked at the princess, commenting, “Angel parties are intense.”

****

The air surrounding the two demons was pulsing with dark energy as they moved within the playing arena. No one was watching, but they didn’t need an audience for this.

“What can you catch but not throw?” Fai asked, circling his enemy. He was standing by adrenaline and pain-numbing magic alone – the wounds on both his thighs and arms were bleeding heavily. Each riddle solved would let him pass a round unharmed, each wrong or late answer would gain him a hit. First and second hit were the legs, third and forth the arms, then belly, chest, face.

This game usually was over by shot five and a gaping, smoldering hole in your entrails. Fai was at four and his vision was growing hazy. Seishirou’s right leg was burned, yet he wasn’t even limping, so far.

“Easy. A cold,” Seishirou answered with a quicksilver smile. “No sooner spoken than broken – what is it?”

Fai opened his mouth slowly. His brain wasn’t working the way it was supposed to work. A ball of purple fire and venom was unfolding in Seishirou’s palms, smile growing dangerous as five seconds he had for consideration ticked by. “A secret,” Fai said quickly. The fire in Seishirou’s hands died. Fai licked his lips, “Give it food and it will live, give it water and it will die – what is it?”

“Fire,” Seishirou shot back. “Those are old riddles, Fai-chan. You haven’t played in a long time – you are rusty. A certain crime is punishable if attempted, but not punishable if committed. What is it?”

“Suicide,” Fai said darkly.

“A coup d’etat,” Seishirou grinned, flicked his wrist and hurled a ball of fire at his midriff. Fai yelled and threw himself to the side, barely missing the dark magic. “You are not allowed to dodge,” Seishirou reminded him sweetly.

“And suicide counts as an answer,” Fai panted, crouching and a hand pressed to his aching thigh. He was still ready to duck the building magic once more, but he wasn’t sure he’d get back up after that. Seishirou shrugged generously and snuffed the flame. Fai resumed standing position with an effort, continued the circling more careful than ever. Every step was agony. “I went into the wood and got it. I sat down to seek it. I brought it home with me because I couldn’t find it. What is it?”

Seishirou’s eyes narrowed. Fai called acid to his hands, his smile wavering and thin. The five seconds were running out.

“Syphilis,” Seishirou guessed. Fai shot a stream of acid at his leg. Seishirou barely moved a muscle in his face.

“What kind of woods do you go to,” he said. “A splinter, of course. What gets wetter and wetter the more it dries?”

“Your mother,” Seishirou answered immediately. Fai shot an especially large acid ball at his arm. Seishirou was laughing.

“What are you playing at?” Fai asked him suspiciously.

“Go on,” Seishirou merely grinned. “You know I cannot lose. How about we make this interesting – hit my other arm, too, and we will be even up.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Fai hissed. “Weight in my belly, trees on my back, nails in my ribs, feet do I lack – what am I?”

“I don’t know,” Seishirou laughed. Fai shot his other arm, tearing a huge chunk of flesh out. Seishirou’s smile but briefly twitched, then grew dangerous. “Oh, now I remember – a ship. Go on, now we have reached a point which is interesting, again. Do not bore me.”

Fai was thinking faster than he ever had in his life, “I have hands that wave at you / Though I never say goodbye / It’s cool for you to be with me, / Especially when I say, ‘HI.’ / What am I?”

Seishirou’s face showed puzzlement for a moment, then a deep frown spread over his brow. “That riddle has never been used before,” he said. “The rhymes are horrible. I used to be the record keeper of the games, I would know had it been applied.

“No one said it had to be,” Fai smirked, hands slick with blood and eyes glowing with blue magic. “Your answer?”

Behind Seishirou, with a crashing sound and a yelp his dragon broke through the woods. The Devil smirked. “It seems I won’t need any more riddles to kill you, Fai-chan,” he raised his voice, “Trevor, sick’em!”

Fai ducked, ready to jump – and watched Trevor sniff the circle, leathery ears twitching, and then gnaw on Seishirou’s cape. The devil turned around, staring at his pet. Princess Sakura was hastening out of the tree line after it, hand in hand with young Syaoran. There was no flask around her neck and the Apocalypse had obviously not yet started. Seishirou stared at her for a second, then his face contorted with rage.

“I will not lose,” he roared, ground beneath his feet shaking and the sky above darkening with storm clouds. His usually almost invisibly folded wings rose from his back like the promise of death. Gravity lost hold on his form. Rising in a dark red light, he was calling storm to the woods. “You will die before I bow to your sad form.”

“Sorry to hear,” Sakura panted petting the dragon’s head even as she was doing her best not to be blasted away by the storm. “Soel, that’s the bad man!”

The dragon sniffed Seishirou again, meeped feebly, then opened its mouth and blasted a huge ball of fire into the face of the Father of Lies.

Seishirou crumpled to the ground unceremoniously. The dragon seemed rather startled by its own actions and hid in Sakura’s robes. For an improbable moment, Fai thought he was dead – then the demon gasped and his burned skin started healing.

“It was an electrical fan, asshole,” Fai informed him. “Read the prophecies.” He took a stop towards the princess, relief spreading in his body. The world tilted and grew dark. He barely registered that Syaoran caught him before he met the ground.

****

“Idiot!” a single, celestial voice hollered in the darkening woods. “Fai, you stupid damn motherfARGH,” Kurogane kicked the growling bunny that was trying to bite through his sandals and managed to hurl it into a tree. The bunny was standing again within seconds. It relentlessly started humping his leg, growling dangerously. The bramble bushes rustled in a way that almost sounded like laughter. Kurogane kicked at the fluffy little demon, swearing to burn this whole forest down once he had managed to make it out of the stupid underbrush. “Faiii!”

****

It was morning by the time that they had patched up Fai’s wounds, caged Trevor the rabbit, and freed Kurogane from his precarious situation. The sun was still low over the Godforsaken Planes, the dragon laying in the light with its wings spread, and Sakura was hugging Fai a so tight he was groaning a little. Kurogane was patting the boy’s shoulder awkwardly, telling him, “well done,” and receiving a very earnest “thank you.”

“What are you going to do when you return to Doom Castle?” Kurogane asked the boy. Syaoran simply looked at Princess Sakura fussing over Fai’s injuries.

“I think I might not return there, at all,” he said. “I was thinking about travelling to complete my book, you know. About her,” he blushed.

“Well, the day is saved, the Apocalypse avoided – I think this is goodbye,” Fai said with a smile.

“Are you sure it is going to be okay?” Sakura squeaked, looking very nervous. “I mean – I drank something that God made, is it, is it going to be alright?”

Fai smiled broadly at her and Kurogane knew he was lying through his teeth when he said, “Of course, Princess! And whenever you feel it isn’t, just pray to Kurogane, here, and we will come to help you. We have a call center for prayers, they will know how to help.”

“Oh, okay,” she said and gave him a shy smile. Kurogane merely stared at Fai until the bastard was twitching. The demon had no idea whether she was actually going to be alright. “I, I think I should probably go see my brother before he attacks Fei Wong Reed’s castle,” she said into the tense atmosphere. “If the battle of Armageddon doesn’t happen, that’s a good thing, right?”

“Yeah, of course, you are right,” Fai hastened to reply. He looked at the dragon she had named ‘Soel.’ “Are you sure you are going to be fine flying the rabbit ... dragon ... rabbit-dragon?”

“Soel is a gentle soul and absolutely wonderful,” Sakura assured him earnestly, feeding the dragon a few carrots and making sure to pull her hands away before they were accidentally bitten off. “She will always help me!”

“As long as we don’t run out of greenery,” Syaoran said under his breath. The princess mounted without, sitting proudly on its neck in her dirty uniform, and hesitantly he grabbed her hand and let himself be pulled up behind her.

“Go, Soel!” Sakura instructed. The children were clutching to the dragon’s horns as it lazily shook out its wings and started waddling off towards the castle in the distance.

“Goodbye, Fai, Kurogane!” Sakura shouted over her shoulder. Angel and demon alike were waving after them. And then, Soel started trotting, galloping, and finally left the ground in a great swoop of wings. It wasn’t a minute until they were merely a tiny spot in the sky.

Fai sighed and slumped exhaustedly against his colleague. Kurogane shivered a bit as his long body pressed up against his own, skin touching skin in more places than strictly necessary.

“It seems Yuuko really isn’t going to kill us,” he smiled up at Kurogane. White teeth, blond tousle of hair falling around curled horns.

“Hmm,” Kurogane made, looking down into the stupid liar’s incredibly clear eyes. Fai leaned a bit closer, searching his face for something. Kurogane found he didn’t need any alcohol, for this. He leaned down until their lips met in a slow kiss.

It had been time, he thought.

That was when the ground started shaking, and from Heaven a terrible voice was heard, echoing the words, “It is done!”

Fai almost bit through Kurogane’s lower lip.

****

Five minutes earlier

“Syaoran,” the princess shouted over the wind rushing past their faces. The boy clutching to her chest perked up.

“What is it, Princess?” He was pretty excited to be alone with her and the fact that his arms were slung around her slender waist and that she was calling his name now was making the hair on his arms standing on end. Was it too much to hope for a kiss ...?

“Syaoran,” she repeated very earnestly. He was astonished by her regal beauty, even up here.

“Yes?” he whispered.

“I,” she swallowed and caught her breath. “I think I’m not feeling so well-”

The next thing that came out of her mouth was a lot less beautiful than her sweet words and also smelled a lot less nice. It also was partly a godly, golden liquid.

****

The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, “It is done!” Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since mankind has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake. The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed.

(Revelations 16:17)

****

Hell and Heaven Ltd. ran out of money before Fei Wong Reed was done shooting evil laser beams (powered by clean eco magic) at King Touya of Clow. Yuuko yelled a lot. Kurogane and Fai lost their jobs, as did the rest of all mythological creatures on earth. Fai drank a few wine cellars, and cried when Kurogane wasn’t looking. Then received a letter by his brother, who had finally managed to find him, that invited him at his place of work. Fai cried some more, for different reasons.

As often in life, even worst-case scenarios pass you by and eventually, you move on with life.

****

“I never thought Buddhism was a bad choice,” Fai mused, sitting in the shade, tail swishing and looking up into the palm tree he was supposed to meditate over. “I mean, you do your best while living, are reborn, try again – if you do badly, you get to be a cat and lie in the sun all day doing nothing-”

“Would you shut up,” Kurogane growled from above.

“Or a grumpy monkey,” Fai mewled. “What are you going to do, throw a banana?”

Kurogane did just that and almost – almost! – hit the annoying, white stray cat that wouldn’t ever sleep under another palm tree than Kurogane’s.

“I think you make a great monkey,” Fai mused, rolling on his back. “Come down here and give me belly rubs.”

“Fuck you,” Kurogane growled. “I will tell Yuuko where you live,” he threatened.

“She knows,” Fai closed his eyes in bliss. There really was only so much shouting that a butterfly could do, and until she had learned to beat up the metaphorical storm, Fai wasn’t very worried.

The Apocalypse was over, all Christians had died and their souls had respectively travelled to Heaven or Hell, only to find out that both didn’t exist anymore due to insolvency. A lot of collateral damage had taken place, as well, as members of other religious groups had been hit by Christian meteors or been visited by their plagues. Various places made to spend afterlife in had been overflowing. It had been a pretty chaotic time of reorientation, for the ones that simply weren’t admitted to the underworld anymore because it was fully booked, as well as for the thousands of Christians that didn’t have a religion to rely on, anymore.

Many souls, respective angels and demons alike, had spent a few years in shelters. Hinduism had opened soup kitchens for those that weren’t sure what to believe in, now, small sects had found a great number of new followers, an old religion of Atlantis was reliving a second spring. Eventually, everyone had found one or another thing to worship. Atheism was on the rise, too, Fai had heard.

It was a good life. Sometimes, Syaoran and Sakura (who had other names now that Fai never used – humans didn’t understand him, either way) came by to feed them. They had a tiny restaurant downtown. They were happy, as far as Fai knew.

And of course, there was his brother, Yuui, priest in the temple garden they were living in. Apparently, he had never thought much of the Christian Church while alive. This life suited him, Fai decided, and it explained why he had never found him, before. Apparently, he had spent over a hundred lifetimes growing close enough to enlightenment to remember a twin he once had had.

“Have you seen Seishirou, recently?” he asked conversationally.

“I hope he got eaten by a bird,” Kurogane grinned. “I heard that worms have pretty short life spans, anyway.”

“And this is why you will still be a monkey in your next life,” Fai yawned and stretched. “Everything is Zen, Kurogane,” he purred and let himself glide towards sleep. “Think of enlightenment and calm your mind.”

It took only a moment before a tiny monkey hand was rubbing his back. Fai curled up, truly happy for the first time in many long years.

~the end.

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