However, the silence that had fallen after Baraqiel's death didn't last long. Quickly, a roar shook the sky once more.
From above, a white figure tore through the clouds at brutal speed, descending like a projectile directly toward the battlefield. Several heads lifted at the same time, but Vali didn't even look at the remaining Fallen Angels, nor at Penemue, nor at Shemazai, nor at Baraqiel's corpse lying on the ground.
None of that mattered to him at that moment.
The silver-haired man descended covered in his armor. His breathing was heavier than he normally let show, making clear just how furious the silver-haired man was internally. The only thing on his mind was a certain redhead with a tomato complex who had decided to send him to visit the upper layers of the atmosphere.
"Damon."
The name burst from his mouth, loaded with total fury. Damon barely had time to turn his head before the silver-haired man vanished from his position. The ground where he had been cracked from the force of the impulse and, an instant later, Vali's fist was already inches from his face.
Damon tilted his head just enough to let the punch pass, but Vali didn't stop. He spun on himself and threw a side kick at the redhead's ribs. Damon raised his arm to block it, and the clash released a wave of air that swept the dust and blood around both of them.
Instead of continuing, Vali retreated a few meters, landing with his wings extended. His breathing, heavy and forcibly controlled, was the only thing betraying how much it cost him not to throw himself again. "You still want to keep going with this?" Damon asked, without moving from his spot.
"You." Vali pointed a gloved finger at the redhead. "You threw me into the damn sky like I was a sack of garbage."
"I was giving you a chance to reconsider your decisions; you could have escaped, you know?" Damon mocked with a half-smile.
"Chance?" Vali let out a laugh that had nothing funny about it. "You don't know what that is."
Damon narrowed his eyes at what was said, but honestly, he had no desire to get into a diatribe about his life with this brat who, obviously, was the Lucifer version of Sasuke.
Vali vanished again and reappeared above the redhead, his leg descending toward his head. Damon simply caught the leg with his bare hand, with no desire to play cat and mouse with the silver-haired man.
Vali clenched his teeth, trying to free himself from the awkward position, but Damon didn't give an inch. "Let me go," the silver-haired man growled.
"For what, kid?" He spoke with disdain. "What are you going to do when I let you go, Vali? Try the same thing again and end up back in the atmosphere?"
"Don't underestimate me."
"It's not that I want to underestimate you, but reality is reality: you think you're strong because you can easily crush the weak, but in reality you're weak." Damon had no qualms about telling the silver-haired man the truth. "I'm giving you advice that no one else is going to give you... This isn't your moment. This isn't your fight."
Vali stood still. It wasn't the first time someone had told him to back down, but it was the first time the words actually sounded almost... sincere. And that enraged him more than any mockery. "And what's my fight, then?"
Damon didn't respond. His gaze drifted slightly, such a small gesture that Vali almost missed it, toward the place where Shemazai and Penemue were still standing, their eyes still fixed on their brother's corpse.
Vali followed the direction of that gaze. And in that instant, something in his chest tightened.
Vali followed the direction of that gaze. And in that instant, something in his chest tightened.
"W-What are you looking at?" he asked, and this time his voice did crack — just a fracture in the cold heart of the silver-haired boy.
"Nothing," Damon said, and set his eyes back on him. "Just thinking that sometimes men die for the people they love most, without ever knowing that, in the end, it's completely useless."
Vali blinked, confused, rage wrestling against a sensation he didn't know how to name. Damon vanished from his field of vision and reappeared right behind him. The blow to the back of his neck was dry. The silver-haired boy's eyes opened for an instant before losing focus completely, his Scale Mail dissolving as his body hit the ground with a heavy thud.
Damon looked at the unconscious silver-haired boy among the rubble. "This kid has potential."
"Potential for what?" Shukaku grumbled from the mental space. "For being a pain in the ass?"
"To become someone," Damon answered simply before looking away. Vali was arrogant, impulsive, and clearly had personal issues rattling around in his head, but he was also young. Damon had known worse people who'd ended up becoming something entirely different with time. Putting that aside, he turned his face toward Amaterasu and appeared beside her.
The situation in front of them was far from over. Baraqiel lay dead several meters back, but Shemazai and Penemue were still alive and, unlike Vali, neither seemed willing to simply retreat. The two Cadres exchanged a glance before starting to gather their light power again, even knowing perfectly well the odds were stacked completely against them.
Damon let out a small sigh. "Nobody really knows when to stop."
Before either of the two could finish forming their attacks, several golden chains materialized from the ground and the air around them. Penemue barely got her arms up before a chain wrapped around her wrist and yanked her violently backward, her body quickly surrounded and left completely immobilized. Shemazai tried to cut the chains with a sword of light, but this proved ineffective almost immediately. His arms were pinned against his sides.
Both attempted to unleash power, only for the chains to tighten further around their bodies and restrict their power even more.
Penemue clenched her teeth and pulled at her arms to no effect. Shemazai, for his part, stopped resisting. Baraqiel's death had made the gap between them and the two deities in front of them abundantly clear. Continuing to fight was one thing; pretending they still had real odds was another entirely.
Amaterasu did not share that patience.
While the goddess had always considered herself a fairly reasonable person, she was still the daughter of Izanami — a primordial goddess who could perfectly well be given the domain of madness and probably no one within the Shinto pantheon would raise an eyebrow. Amaterasu had inherited more from her mother than she was usually willing to admit, and after everything that had happened in Kyoto, her patience with the Fallen Angels was practically nonexistent.
The black katana appeared again in her hand.
Penemue watched Amaterasu start walking toward them. She threw herself against the chains, muscles taut, nails digging into her own palms. They didn't move a single centimeter. "No, don't do it…"
The goddess didn't spare the purple-haired woman a glance and stopped in front of Shemazai. The vice-governor slowly raised his face toward her. He held the goddess's gaze and then, slowly, closed his eyes.
He seemed to have understood perfectly what was coming. Penemue, on the other hand, began thrashing harder. "Shemazai!"
Amaterasu raised her katana and slowly rested the tip against the center of the white-haired man's chest. She barely needed to push a little further to run him through.
That's when an enormous magic circle appeared several meters from the site.
The energy was immediately recognizable to the Fallen Angels still conscious. Several heads lifted almost at the same time as a figure began materializing inside the circle.
Azazel stepped out of the magic circle and swept his gaze across the field. Everything was completely destroyed — craters splitting the earth, feathers and ash drifting in the wind, the stench of burnt flesh hanging thick in the air. His fingers curled at his sides. A couple of soldiers tried to stand at attention when they saw him; they barely managed to stay on their feet. Then his eyes found Baraqiel.
Azazel froze. His best friend lay dead on the ground with his chest completely destroyed.
Azazel's hands closed so hard his nails bit into his palms. An enormous flood of thoughts shot through his head all at once, but all of it dropped to the background the moment he saw Shemazai, immobilized in front of Amaterasu, with the tip of a katana directly over his heart.
"Wait!" The black-haired man with blond streaks didn't waste a second trying to stop the goddess.
Amaterasu halted in her tracks. Slowly, she turned her face toward him, her golden eyes showing clearly that she wasn't exactly happy to see him.
"So you finally show up." The goddess's voice came out far colder than usual as she kept the katana pressed against Shemazai's chest. "What, you've come to save your boy?"
Azazel swallowed dryly. His first instinct was to throw himself toward Shemazai, but he knew Amaterasu far too well to do something that stupid. If he took one wrong step, the only thing he'd accomplish would be that blade driving through his friend's heart before he could take two steps.
"Lady Amaterasu, I know you're furious, and you have every right to be, but this isn't what it looks like." Azazel slowly raised both hands, making it clear he had no intention of attacking. "Kokabiel acted on his own. He and the ones who followed him had no authorization from Grigori to attack Kyoto, or to do any of the things they did today. I didn't even know what was happening until Shemazai sent for me."
Amaterasu didn't respond, though Damon could see the fury in her eyes diminish slightly. Not much, but enough to show she was listening.
"Convenient," the goddess answered dryly, making it clear she'd heard that excuse before.
"I know how it sounds." Azazel tightened his jaw as his eyes fixed for a second on Baraqiel. "But it's the truth. Kokabiel had been acting on his own for a long time, and clearly I arrived too late to stop him."
Damon narrowed his eyes slightly. Up until that moment, he'd assumed the whole thing was simply a Grigori operation. If Azazel was telling the truth, then the situation was a little different from what he'd initially understood.
"Hold on a moment, Ama. Don't kill him."
Amaterasu set her gaze on Damon with a raised eyebrow. Damon simply gave her a small nod, assuring her with his eyes that he had the situation under control.
The goddess let out a snort, clearly still annoyed, but decided to hear what Damon had to say.
Damon walked toward Azazel calmly. "I don't believe we've met formally before, Lord Azazel. My name is Damon; it's a bit unfortunate to meet a man as intelligent as you in a situation like this."
Azazel, whose heart was still pounding at a hundred while he mentally calculated how many chances he had of saving Shemazai if Amaterasu decided to finish the movement, finally let out a small sigh. "Thank you, Lord Damon. The pleasure is mine. I've studied quite a bit about you and know a good part of your history."
Damon raised an eyebrow slightly at that, somewhat surprised, but didn't give it too much importance. "Good. Then I suppose we can speak like reasonable people." The redhead crossed his arms. "I understand perfectly what you were trying to say a few minutes ago. Kokabiel and his cronies acted on their own. Fine. The problem is that doesn't completely erase Grigori's responsibility."
Azazel stayed silent.
"Think about it this way." Damon gestured lightly around the field. "If Kokabiel had been stronger than us and his operation had succeeded, what guarantees me that you would have come here to stop him? Better yet, what guarantees me that, after seeing he'd gained an advantage for your faction, you wouldn't have simply let him keep doing whatever he wanted?"
Azazel opened his mouth, but Damon raised a hand.
"I don't say it as an insult. You're an intelligent man, so you surely understand exactly what I mean."
The Governor of Grigori didn't know what to say. Damon was right. If Kokabiel had managed to carry out his entire plan without directly endangering Grigori, not even he could guarantee he would have actually stopped him. Even if he'd wanted to, Azazel wasn't sure the other Fallen Angels would have even listened to him; in the worst case, he probably would have ended up being forced to step down from his position as Governor for wanting to put the desires of a foreign faction above their own when they were literally winning.
"Yes, Lord Damon. I understand what you mean."
Damon smiled slightly. "I'm glad you understand, because your companion, Kokabiel, caused my woman an enormous headache." He gestured toward Amaterasu with a tilt of his head. "He kidnapped the daughter of the leader of the Yokai faction, who is under Amaterasu's direct protection. We managed to recover her and, fortunately, she's fine, but several Yokai died today in Kyoto having absolutely nothing to do with any of this."
Azazel couldn't help cursing Kokabiel again.
"So, knowing all that, tell me something." Damon spread his hands slightly. "Why should I stop my partner from killing these two? Even if Shemazai and Penemue weren't involved, neither were the Yokai who died today."
Azazel tried to answer, but for the first time in a long time, he had no clear response. "I… well…"
Receiving no answer from the Fallen, Damon let out a sigh. "Look, Lord Azazel, I consider myself a fairly reasonable person. Or at least I like to think I am. So I'm going to propose something."
The Governor's eyes fixed on him immediately.
"We'll let all of this slide."
Azazel blinked.
"Your two companions will live, Grigori can return to collect your dead, and no one here will have to keep fighting." Damon paused briefly. "I'll even go a little further. I'll bring back to life a good portion of the Fallen Angels who died in this battle."
Azazel's heart leaped while Penemue stopped struggling completely. Even Shemazai opened his eyes — what Damon was offering was insanity: the power over life and death was something few could truly handle; even Evil Pieces paled in that realm simply because they only worked if the body was intact, but Damon spoke as if even that wasn't a problem for him.
"Of course…" Damon continued before Azazel could respond. "It won't be free."
Azazel nearly let out a bitter laugh. Of course it wouldn't be free.
"I've heard that Grigori has conducted some of the most advanced research that exists on Sacred Gears." Damon's blue eyes gleamed with a certain interest. "It's a subject that, curiously, has been drawing my attention quite a bit lately. So I want access to that information. Your research, records, and everything you consider important about Sacred Gears."
Azazel said nothing. His fingers, still closed into fists, loosened slightly. Of everything he had imagined, research on Sacred Gears wasn't on the list.
"And lastly, your dead companion over there." Damon's gaze drifted toward Baraqiel.
The small hope that had appeared on Azazel's face shattered.
"Unfortunately, he won't get the same treatment." Damon spoke without sarcasm, but also without remorse. "Even if all of this was a misunderstanding, it's still partly a consequence of the mistakes made by your faction and of what you allowed to happen under your leadership. Mistakes are sometimes paid for dearly."
Azazel clenched his teeth.
Damon raised both hands to his sides as if what he'd just offered were the most reasonable thing in the world. "A small price to pay for a better future for the Fallen Angels, don't you think?"
Azazel didn't answer. Penemue didn't either. Shemazai kept his eyes closed. The only sound was the wind dragging ash across the ground.
Azazel cursed internally. He couldn't even say Damon was offering him a bad deal. It was the complete opposite. Shemazai would live. Penemue would live. A considerable portion of his soldiers could return from death, and the entire conflict would end right there — in exchange for research that, though valuable, wasn't anything extraordinary; he was even certain that if Damon wanted to, he could simply obtain it through other means.
Azazel looked away from Damon. His eyes went to Baraqiel once more before settling on Shemazai. The vice-governor still had Amaterasu's katana pressed against his chest, but his eyes were open now and fixed on him.
Shemazai gave a small nod. Penemue did exactly the same from where she was trapped in the chains. Clearly, demanding with their eyes that Azazel not overthink it and just accept already.
Azazel swallowed dryly before meeting Damon's blue eyes again. For the first time, he understood completely why so many ancient stories about the redhead described him in such contradictory ways. Damon could destroy an entire faction if he wanted to and, a minute later, calmly sit down to negotiate as if both sides were on equal footing.
The problem was that everyone knew they weren't.
"I accept the terms, Lord Damon."
Damon's smile widened immediately, showing his teeth. "Magnificent, Lord Azazel. As it should be. There must always be mutual understanding between leaders such as ourselves."
Azazel only managed to give him a tight, forced smile.
Amaterasu raised an eyebrow, wondering what her dear redhead was up to, before withdrawing the tip of her katana from Shemazai's chest. The vice-governor let out the breath he'd been holding as the chains unwound. The moment she was freed, Penemue moved immediately toward Shemazai, confirming with her own eyes that he was still in one piece.
Damon observed the scene with satisfaction.
No one paid attention to the unconscious silver-haired boy lying several meters behind them. The space beneath Vali's body began to distort silently. A small dark rift appeared under his back. His body began sinking slowly into it without producing the faintest sound.
In a matter of seconds, Vali disappeared completely inside the breach. It closed immediately after, leaving only the empty ground where the silver-haired boy had been unconscious moments before.
Originally, I had Amaterasu kill Shemazai, leaving almost everyone either dead or close to it, but then there was a whole implosion on Patreon—half wanted him to live, the other half wanted him dead. It was funny as hell. So I made a trade, as you can see. Some might have wanted Vali gone too, but honestly, I don't think Rizevim would've allowed that. Georg is more than dead—he's fucking dust in the wind—what future problems that causes for Damon, I have no idea.
Baraqiel's dead too..... fuck him—deserved or not, Akeno doesn't have a dad now, so maybe Damon becomes her new DADA.
I'm also thinking about giving demigods sacred gears. As for the angels, things are still at a stalemate; they'll show up in the next chapter, but obviously, I'm not making them fight because that would basically end the entire story—and I'm sure Elohim would be back by then if Gabriel just uses the trumpets....
The Alliance of Hell in the Khaos Brigade is still around, but Tartarus, not Hades, is running the show.