Rattling chains. Droplets of fluid crashing into a puddle that lined limestone. Heaving breathing. These were the only things that filled the cramped enclosure of a room within the palace of Tengoku no Tenshi. Mayu lost track of time; uncertain when she last entered to deliver a fresh new wave of punishment on the Exorcist she captured following their planned assassination of her.

The flicker of her blazing hair and the lamplight flare of her flaming eyes were the only source of lighting. They were enough to give Mayu a perfect shot of what damage she'd already inflicted on the soul weapon.

For Evan, it gave him ample opportunity to associate those flames that swelled around the girl's hair to that of a demon spawn straight from hell. He spat out an excess wad of blood, washing his mouth clean of the previous punch she'd given him.

"There's only so many times I can ask you the same question, Evan Luos," Mayu spoke, glancing over her hand that had begun to redden and swell from the repeated punches she'd delivered to Evan's face. The pain she'd originally felt had turn into a dull ache; nothing more than a throb that matched the rhythm of her slow heartbeat. "Why did the Exorcists bring Tylor back to RhyDin from his prison? And why are you chasing me down after all this time? Is Tylor after me and Katt for taking him out of the picture? Are you after me to suspend me for consuming a soul?"

Evan's face was bruised and bloody from the beating he'd taken. It reflected the anger Mayu had for his kind - the very kind she was once part of. They were no longer co-workers fighting for a similar cause. Now they were enemies who just happened to fight the same kind of monsters in the world. Devil killers under their own flags.

"I'm not telling you crap," he declared wearily, barely holding his consciousness together. It felt less refined than freshly blown glass. He was surprised he hadn't lost consciousness from his lack of nourishment in the past few days. They hadn't completely forgotten to feed him. One meal a day didn't flatter his stomach compared to the four meals he'd usually consume.

This was the routine for as many hours as Mayu can remember. A question that never received a response that gave them any sort of progression. The motion of swinging her hand across Evan's face was so well practiced, it was virtually perfected. Her knuckles grazed his cheek and cut it wide like a knife through butter. Blood spat from the wound and caked the floor around her boots.

"Evan," Mayu called for his attention calmly. "How long have we been doing this? Hours? Days? I don't even know anymore." She pressed the back of her hand into the leather shell of her jacket, smearing the blood across a surface that was all but painted to the last inch with a shred of the soul weapon's vital. It reeked of metallic mold. "I can keep this up for a very long time. Longer than I'd like to. The less you tell me, the more I'm going to have to beat you."

Evan was still reeling from the latest backhand Mayu struck him with. Through it all, he could still hear her voice punch through his head like a gunshot. "Rrgh. Then shut up and do it already?"

Surprised, Mayu looked up to Evan with a shred of disappointment. "Do it? Are you some kind of masochist and take pride in being beaten?" She looked grim. "You know? You Exorcists did an awful lot of experimentation on me prior to my joining your ranks..."

Evan squinted around the warm sensation of blood running over his eyes. His already blurring vision was making it twice as difficult to see the fiery girl in front of him. He didn't care so much about seeing her. He was only interested in being able to anticipate her powerful punches.

"I've read your file. You never experienced those experiments, did you?" Mayu asks, her voice chillingly even.

Evan twisted under the weight of the chains that hoisted him up. "Egh. You read my file?" he questioned wearily. "How the hell did you-"

"I have ways, Evan," she interrupted. "I used to have a Lunar Rabbit by my side that could do many tricks to get me information I needed. You were just one of those caught up in it once you decided to beat me up and lock me away."

Evan remembered the Lunar Rabbit Mayu was speaking of. Tracy was her name, wasn't it? She was the creature with the hypnotic eyes that could instill somebody's worst nightmares and make them live it out in vivid detail. If there was prolonged exposure to her talents, she could unwind the coils of sanity. You'd never be able to recover--and it'd all be over with in less than a second.

He growled. "I didn't need to be experimented on because I wasn't some forsaken abomination that thought she could do more than what God planned for her."

Mayu's eyes ticked open with vivid interest. That was the first reaction she'd managed to get out of him in days. Whatever button she's pressed, she sought to push it again. "You? Not an abomination? Don't you turn into a filthy weapon to do your fighting?"

The chains clank together as he tried to fight off the cuffs around his wrist. With the restrictive device wrapped around his throat, he was little more than a human. He wouldn't be able to break out of the chains. "No different than you," he remarked. "No. I'm not an abomination. I joined the Congregation as a Light Worker because I was capable of wielding the light arts to heal. My training as a soul weapon came years later."

The memory of Evan's file wasn't as vivid as it once was, but she seemed to remember seeing something like that. His explanation jogged her memory. "Hnm, that's right. You came from a village that the Exorcists commonly pulled children from because of your close attachment to religious beliefs. Perfect for Light Workers."

Evan's mouth curved into a sardonic grin. "That's right. Nothing like a disgusting creature like you. I'm surprised they marked you as an Angel to begin with."

The fire in her hair pulsed and dimmed in color, retaining only a fraction of the ruby redness it had. "An Angel? Me?" She scoffed so hard, her throat burned. "?I'm more a demon than anything."

"And maybe that's why you could never be anything other than a Dark Worker like Sister Matilda originally said," Evan gloated, his voice condescending. It was as natural for Light and Dark workers to think less of each other as did Angels and Demons. He hocked a wad of blood from the inside fissure of his cheek. "An angelic creature that feeds off the chaos in others' heart. Like a true demon would. I knew that report had to be fabricated."

She rolled her eyes, dismissing his commentary with another, more sincere slap of her knuckles against his cheek. Blood oozed from the already split sections of skin, marring her skin with thick globs of red. His blood had been poured so often, it was cold to the touch. "You're not making any sense when you say that. Angels are divine creatures; demons their polar opposites. I'm neither."

Evan rocked from the weight of her sledgehammer punch, squinting up at her.

"Sister Matilda did all she could to teach me to be a Light Worker so I could learn to heal my friends. I failed because I wasn't designed with the adaptation to be a healer, she said," Mayu explained, a clear sense of denial in her voice. "She never once suggested I was suited to be a Dark Worker. She immediately considered the Exorcists for their Holy strength."

Evan chuckled. Weak as it was, it was considerably sinister. "And don't you find it odd, little girl? That you had to endure week after week of research and experimentation just to be able to have a weapon of God stashed in your pathetic body? Something no holy creature would ever have to endure. Only that of a demon would require. And that's if you survived getting through the front door. Didn't Chief Conrad have to stop an entire assault force from eradicating you when you first arrived? Face it. They discovered you possessed pure, unadulterated demon blood pumping through your veins. Chief Conrad spared you in hopes you'd be the perfect weapon against what we fought against. ?The worst mistake of his career."

Mayu didn't like the implication Evan was trying to pass through her head. Reaching forward, she wrapped the small length of her fingers around the definition of his skull, stretching from hairline to jaw. Her palm leveled with his nose, pushing inward. She could feel it dislocate around the bone; disfiguring what was narrow and pointed until it cracked. She spoke over the shrill sound of his screaming voice. "Let me make one thing perfectly straight here, Evan Luos. Your blabbering in hopes that you'll break down my resolve isn't going to go anywhere. You can suggest I'm an angel, a demon, a god damn monster all you want. But I'll remind you that your kind are the ones that came chasing after me, like crusaders straight out of hell to exterminate something you don't agree with."

Her hand twisted into his face, refusing to stop even after his nose shattered completely. "I saved a life by eating that soul. I may have been affected by the Madness due to it, but that life was saved. And she went on to have a life with another that I'm profoundly proud of. You should have left it well enough alone, Evan. You shouldn't have come after me."

The sound of cracking bones and mangled cries were stifled by the way the heel of the fiery woman's hand pushed into the front row of teeth of his mouth. She waited until his cries were diluted by numbness. "Clear?"

He rocked from his chains, his eyes still narrow and full of rage. "If you don't believe me, you little witch, then why don't you go underneath the Tengoku no Tochi and see for yourself? This place is a treasure trove of knowledge, if my history classes taught me anything."

The Tengoku no Tochi? A property of history class? She glared at Evan. "You Exorcists were taught about this place?"

"Heh," Evan chuckled, spitting rosy red fluid at Mayu's feet. "A Treasure Tool designed by the Apostle Order of Shamanista to act as a flagship of warfare against what you now consider Dwellers? Created to act as a physical gateway between worlds to give an entire army passage in the matter of seconds. The Tengoku no Tochi traveled first, and your stupid Divine Maiden armies would flood in afterward to eradicate anybody that didn't stand up to your own ideals. ? ? ? 'Like crusaders straight out of hell to exterminate something you don't agree with,' ha?"

"And what does that have to do with what rests beneath the surface of this place?" she asks, bypassing his snarky attempt to dig under her skin. "Emma Exire is the historian of Shamanista. She has every shred of information regarding the spiritual world."

"Hgnn. Is that so?" Evan groaned, beginning to succumb to his wounds. He could feel his consciousness slip like a pig on a greased floor. "She created knowledge, I'm told, but history predates the historian. It always does?"

Evan spoke the first sense of truth that made her think. Emma mentioned just after they first met that she was disappointed in how little history was being recorded before her arrival. She created the Grand Library to combat that issue and start documenting everything she possibly could to make up for thousands of years of losses.

What happened before her?

"Rin," Mayu called to the necklace around her throat, pushing Evan's face out of her grip and turning to face the door. "Is what he's saying true? Is there an underground to the Tengoku no Tochi."

It took a moment for Rin to respond. "Hmm, that would be correct? There is an entire library that predates the Witch of Intense Knowledge's history books."

"Do you know how to access it?" Mayu asks, pushing out of the makeshift torture chamber and into the hall where Marjorie had been waiting for her all this time.

"Indeed," Rin expressed simply.

"I want to see it," Mayu told her just as curtly.

"Hmm. I had intended to wait to let you see that part of Shamanista. You would be the first in this current generation."

"This generation? Nobody knows about it?" Mayu looked at Marjorie as she spoke with Rin, holding out her hand to request company. Slick with blood, she didn't intend to take Marjorie's hand in her own when one was offered back to her.

"Remember, the Apostle Order was wiped out by the Ruler after he sent the Divine Maiden's out of Shamanista and then shut down passage between the worlds. Even your predecessor. They were the last to experience history before The Witch of Intense Knowledge began to document the spiritual plane's happenings. Other than the Ruler himself, that is."

Mayu hadn't forgotten. It made her feel justified in slaying the Ruler when she had, even if it was because Flora had manipulated her body and consciousness to do it. "Yeah, I remember," she told Rin.

"History is sometimes best left forgotten. But it is also means to prevent catastrophe from happening again. Hmm. I'll lead you there. Perhaps it is time to learn the truth. About everything."

Rel was making the finishing touches on a business proposal as the door to his office was drawn open by his secretary. He didn't pay it heed, focused on clipping the papers together and setting them away inside one of the drawers behind his desk. The dim illumination of the room was perfect for an evening nap, the quiet stillness of the air stirred only by the trickling of fountain water that rolled like rain down the wall opposite the several windows that had a perfect glimpse of the proper city's span. He didn't rise to greet his company. Merely motioned with the large scope of one hand. "Miss Maeda," he greeted, his voice smooth but deep; unbefitting his youthful appearance. "I've been expecting you. Please, come in." He waved off the secretary without mention.

Seated at one of several large lounge chairs wrought entirely of leather, Alice sat with a magazine limp between her hands. The article she'd been reading, some drivel about a new-age car that ran on bio-fuels and the tears of unborn children, had bored her nearly to tears herself. She looked up at the recent entrant, blinking several times in rapid succession to clear her vision of a blur onset by having to read in poor lighting. A girl's gotta keep her composure and not draw attention to herself at times like this.

Eri gave a gracious nod of thanks to the secretary and passed through the door briskly, her stride confident. She wasn't much to look at tonight, in her blue fleece track suit and ever present decorated coat - sans cosmetics but at least laundered and bathed, her hair clean and tied in twin tails with bits of suede bootlace. Despite her confident stride and cleanly groomed appearance, she looked clearly unwell, her complexion a little off, and a telltale nervous tic pulling at the corner of her mouth. Normally the girl would have helped herself to a chair without being asked, just to test the patience of the formal looking and sounding gentleman who'd summoned her, but tonight she only swept an appraising gaze over the two inhabitants of the room and waited, hands folded in front of her in a posture that feigned relaxed.

He paid Alice a look of expectation to join them at his desk. "Forgive me," he offered to Eri, planting his hands and rising. "I haven't introduced myself since calling you. My name is Rel Fuic, CEO of NTSAA Pharmaceuticals. You've already met Laura, my secretary." Again, he waved in the general direction of the entrance. "And this woman here," indicating Alice with a point of his chin, "Is Alice Muller, whom I've asked to join us in the same capacity as you, Miss Maeda."

Alice grumbled incoherently at being requested to move, disinclined to move, but followed out of whim. Having to constantly twist and turn to speak with the pair would grate on her fast. Hauling her white and red-embroidered poncho up with her, she relocated to beside Eri and sprawled out in the seat unlady-like, tossing her head up in a weak nod to the Asian. "Yeah, hey," she greets noncommittally.

The delinquent took that as enough of an invitation and perched herself in the nearby seat, settling in and slouching tiredly. The eyes were still clear enough though, and held a sparkle of interest and curiosity as she nodded first to the CEO and then to Alice. "It's pleasure to meet you then Mr. Fuic, Ms. Muller." That said, she leaned forward now eagerly, hands on her knees and fingertips brushing in telltale restless energy against the soft fleece of her track suit bottoms. "So, this delicate matter?" she invited.

A woman that knew how to get down to business without excessive pleasantries. He already liked her over the first woman he had invited to the business suite to discuss this matter. His expression became pointed, more vexing than a snake preying on its meal. Pressing his thumb against his index finger, he requested expected delicacy. "Yes, it is delicate, indeed, so I would ask that you keep this matter to yourselves unless directed otherwise," he informed them, looking to them each in turn. "As I've told you, the woman I'm seeking is rather... important to me. I'd like to see her returned to me as soon as it is possible. Ms. Muller has already explained to me that it's been some time since her last meeting with the girl. What of you, Ms. Maeda?"

Eri thought it over for a moment, eyes going foggy as she tried to track the days which for her had been a sort of haze of misery. "Not long. Less than two weeks ago." Shifting around as if suddenly uncomfortable, she continued with a tone of mild regret. "You know I have to ask what you want with her. We split up on bad terms, but I still have no grudge and don't want to bring any harm to her."

It was an expected question, and one Rel had full intentions on answering after a brief moment of fingering through a stack of papers on his desk. He exposed one and set it out before Eri. "I would expect nothing less of you, Ms. Maeda," he intoned, twisting the sheet around with a finger to present it to Eri. On it listed several points of interest concerning Mayu, one of which involved what appeared to be adverse effects to a drug. "Here at NTSAA, we pride ourselves on providing the best care to any and all individuals that use our products. It goes through extensive testing, is cleared by any Administration that polices pharmaceutical drugs, and is constantly monitored by the<I> bes</I>t agencies that put only the best for the people ahead of themselves. The problem is, Ms. Maeda, that not all of our drugs are able to benefit each and every member of society, as much as we'd like to promote otherwise."

Eri's eyes roamed over the page, now intently interested and trying to make mental notes of all the details, paying particular attention to the point mentioning the adverse effects of some drug, but also taking stock of any peripheral information as well. Cutting a brief glance to Alice after looking up from the page, she then turned her attention back to Rel. "So you'd like to get her back, so you can give her medical treatment? Is that right?"

Rel folded his hands together, fingers linking together. "You could say that, yes," he concurred with subtle glee. "The woman is suffering a great deal from the drug that's on your page there." His chin lifted, raising his point of perception to observe the page he'd given Eri. It was mostly written in chemical compounds that were strung together in a terribly tedious format. Analgesics, antileprotics, quinolones and so forth. He didn't take the time to elaborate on any of them specifically in the report, citing patient confidentiality. "Adverse effects that can bring harm to not only herself, but others around her. Alteration to mood, violent tendencies; she's already undergone a mutation because of it. It is imperative she be retrieved before she can do any permanent damage."

Eri frowned, once more giving a curious flicker of a glance to the woman adjacent her, who's unladylike posture she mirrored in a way with her slouching, slump shouldered lean. "Mayu never mention taking medicine to me. Let alone so many. How long ago was this? And what was wrong with her to start with? If all these drugs were risky like that, whatever doctor gave them must had big worries about her health for that kinda risk to be worth it."

Rel's broad shoulders lifted in apparent shrug. "I do not have any information concerning when these medications were given to her and it is not usual for me to not be informed of the reasons why they were prescribed to her. That rests on the doctor him or herself." He glanced to Alice momentarily. "As you are both aware, Ms. Tsuzuki is already a deceased creature. Medications should not be provided to her. This is the reason I require her to be delivered here as soon as possible."

Alice nodded, sitting more upright in the comfortable chair. "Yeah, I heard somethin' about that. I'd thought she was alive when I met her - but I received a letter from Toby, Maybe Katt - about her having already been dead after helping them get away from some guy named Tylor or something. You can imagine a girl's surprise when you hear your friend's really dead after been around her so long."

Eri weighed it for a moment, but as ever she was an impulsive creature and long consideration and strategy were not her particular forte. The statement from Alice rang true, though she didn't know all the details of that time it sounded about right when factoring in those individuals mentioned together. All in all her time of deliberation took less than ten seconds til she looked back to her host and nodded. "O-kay. I understand. What can I do to help?" she asked.

Rel restrained a devious grin from taking form, pleased to hear Eri's wish to aid this process. "Your task is quite simple. Tell me anything you know about Ms. Tsuzuki's location. You'll be compensated for your efforts."

Eri nodded and raised one shoulder in a tiny shrug, a characteristic gesture she had. "Alright. It's a .. " the delinquent paused for a minute, her somewhat limited intellectual prowess giving her a bit of difficulty in lining it up. "a aerial island sorta. Last I saw her, it was about two miles past Resolution Point and at .. maybe a couple thousand feet up. Tsuzuki is in a huge castle on that island. At least two other persons are with her. A girl she call Marjorie and her servant. I got the impression the servant's some kinda construct though."

Rel struck his fingers together, snapping them loud enough that it resembled a single gunshot from a double-action Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44-cal. Magnum revolver. Laura sprang into the room in due haste. "Notes," Rel instructed of her and pointed at Eri as she delivered her statement. He waited for her to conclude before dipping into questions. "A girl called Marjorie and a construct servant? So she isn't alone," he expressed, put off. "Would this island happen to be shrouded in some kind of field? Something that would keep it from being seen naturally?"

The oni-ling nodded, scratching with one crooked finger at the line of her jaw. "Yeah. It's got a magic field around it that does just that. I had... well my father was with me" Her eyes cut left for a fraction of a second, seeming to shiver as she registered a half truth. "He could probably obviate the field. He's talented like that." The delinquent leaned back and stretched her arms upward, causing her spine to crack pleasantly. "Past that we just use a dirigible to get up there where I had my meeting with her."

Again, Rel signaled Laura to take notes in typical stenotype operator fashion. "The Tengoku no Tochi," he uttered under his breath, pushing away the remaining stack of papers he had in front of him. He spoke up to clear the air of his grousing. "Very well. Since you've already been there once, I presume it would not be trouble for you to return a second time and acquire her by any means necessary? You'll be doing a tremendous service to the state of this city." He spoke to both Eri and Alice in this regard.

Eri sighed deeply and rubbed her forehead with fingertips. "It is pretty sure you know, that she'll kill the likes of me in the bargain." She shook her head and pinched at the bridge of her nose. "That's alright anyway. I'll go and do my best." She stood up, but made no move to leave yet, waiting to hear if there was further information forthcoming.

Alice nearly jumped out of her chair when Eri did, seemingly occupied with other thoughts as they discussed their plans. Her Colt M1911 pistol jostled in its holster, her hand fitting around it comfortably to still its motion. "There'll be two of us. She knows the both of us. I don't think she'll go all nuts freak out on us. She's not as violent as everybody thinks she is." Even if the reports were saying otherwise, Alice had her faith. A girl's nothing without a bit of faith.

Eri seemed to possess no weapons, nor any kit other than the clothes on her back. Nevertheless she seemed ready to go at a moment's notice by the look of resolve on her features. The nervous tic had even disappeared and some color was coming back to her cheeks now that there was some mandate to her actions. "Probably you're right" she nodded. "Got a plan for getting up there?"

Rel rose from his suite chair. "Ladies, if you will excuse me, I have other pressing matters I need to attend to before this night retires. Ms. Muller has all the necessary information to contact me should you require it. I eagerly await your response in this matter." He motioned to them in regards to a farewell, then to Laura to see them out. The cropped blonde secretary made her attempt to see them out the door.

Alice glanced at Laura, then to Rel, nodding to the latter with a quick rap of fingers to a pocket of her shorts. Jutting from the hem was a black, rectangular smartphone. "Yeah, yeah. We'll get in touch with ya once I see somethin'," she tells Rel, tossing a hand over her shoulder as she heads out the door per Laura's guidance. She brushed herself off once she was out of the stuffy room, hoisting up her poncho over her shoulders. "Got a plan for what? You really think I'm going to go up there after her?"

Eri gave a stuffy ducking bow to the gentleman before following along, retrieving her thick outer coat as she went. Glancing over to Alice she shrugged. "I don't really know. I'm kinda in the dark here." The delinquent's heavy boots scuffled at the flooring as she strolled at her ostensible partner's side.

"If there's one thing I know, it's that Mayu wouldn't go taking any sort of drug to try and make herself feel better," she tells Eri, sidestepping out of the lobby of the Chairman's office and into the elevator. The light fixture above was set behind a mesh grate that didn't appear to be easily unhinged. She examined around the corners for any potential wiring and through the grate itself for any obvious signs of a listening device. They seemed to be in the clear. "I don't know what this Rel Fuic guy is really after, but I doubt it's to keep her from hurting herself or others." She rotates around in the car, glancing at Eri momentarily before venturing a thought out there that'd been bugging her for some time. "What's your relationship to her, anyway? I don't think I've ever heard her talk about you."

Eri shrugged again. "Don't seem right to me either. Even if she'd had something like that it wouldn't carry over to her new body. She got a new one back in spring cause the old one was uh.. drooping." Leaning against the wall of the car she shrugged and seemed weary as she explained. "Use to be married. She told me to get lost though, when she went off with that Marjorie. Told me I was a liability and all that, and that I was better off away from her." Taking a deep breath as she gave this now familiar monologue, she shrugged once more. "So no relationship now."

"Marjorie. D - Angelo, I think?" an inflection to certify her uncertainty. "She's been with Mayu for a long while. Off and on. Tends to come around when there's a lick of trouble botherin' Mayu. I think they're in pretty close contact all the time." Alice never bothered to tend to those details since they were none of her business. She mashed the "G" button on the elevator. The red numerical prompt above the keypad started dropping from "72". The ride was going to be a long one. "I wouldn't take it personally. If she said it's to keep you safe, then that's probably the case. Not everybody takes what she says for an honest truth, but the girl's about as honest as she can get. I sure as hell wouldn't doubt something if she asked it of me."

"I guess." Eri replied. "I'm not too smart. I just have to go with the flow most of the time and do what feels right. Not much for counting the cost so it runs against my nature to cut and run. But if that's how she wants it nothing I can do about it." Pursing her lips in thought, she continued. "Nothing except to try to stay busy. And that is the challenge here."

"Ain't got nothin' to do with smarts," Alice guaranteed. "If ya love her, you don't bother to worry about all that. You put your faith in her, let that do all the talkin'. You know?" Alice shifted from one boot to the other, glancing at them every now and again to keep from staring at herself in the reflection of the elevator doors. She smoothed her hands over the tufts of auburn hair that jut out from just above her ears. They sprang back out the very instant she let go, doomed to live with them for the rest of her days. "But you're right. Nothin' you can do about it if she's wantin' it one way over another." She shrugged.

Eri stared dully at the declining numerals on the elevator control, planting one diminutive boot back against the wall as she leaned back to rest her spine against the paneling. "In due time maybe so. For now I trust me and that's good enough to keep getting up in the morning." The delinquent made a flapping gesture that signaled a lie. "Besides I gotta lot of irons in the fire. Ya know, I really get around. All the movers and shakers know about me and come calling on me for advice." She grinned, laughing feebly.

Alice's eyes went slender as she listened to Eri, glancing aside at her pointedly. Her expression reeked of mystification. "Are you - Um yeah - what?" Maybe it was in her better judgment not to ask Eri to repeat herself or deliver on elaboration. Ignorance was sometimes considered bliss, after all. "Yeah - anyway - If you're going to move on from her, then that's what ya gotta do. But I don't think going after her under Mr. Big's orders are going to do anybody any favors."

"No" Eri agreed. "That just don't make any sense. Her being a constructed person and all. I gave him the old bait and switch though. That thing wasn't anywhere near Resolution Point. Gotta play a few cards close to my chest. Even a dummy like me knows that." She reached and scratched the back of her neck, looking sheepish. "I don't know what to do about him though. I got no way to get a warning to her. The dirigible got destroyed when we went up there. There was an uh.. an accident."

"An accident," the bounty hunter repeated, feigning an intention to proceed with a follow up. "You sound like you want to go up there anyway, even if it's just to give her a warning." Alice sprung a smile, reaching over to clap the girl directly between her shoulders. "That's what I was waiting to hear ya say. I may not want to help the guy, but I certainly don't want to leave her in the dark about all this business, ya know? Gotta let her know what the deal is. A girl's gotta help her friends no matter what."

Eri nodded, her actual true and genuine smile coming to the surface at the small kindness of the clap between her shoulders. "Yeah, I really would like to do that. Just have to let me work on another way of getting there. I got an idea though. Probably a little risky.. but.. well - look we got ourselves a safe place. Prob'ly it's a lot better to plan it out there. Not to mention there's queso dip. What do you think?"

"Queso dip?" A thumb jerked down to her feet. "What, bribin' me because I'm wearin' these? I'm your typical white girl. Invite me to dinner over a plate of fries and a Coke. I'm simple enough like that," Alice laughed. The dulcet hum of them arriving on the ground floor was accompanied by the rise of momentum, gravity setting in and making Alice's knees absorb a level of weight as she regained her own sense of gravity. The doors slid open nosily, wasting no time to file out. "Let me just call this in and you can lead me to whatever idea you've got goin' for ya. Probably beats orderin' a catapult or somethin' like that."

Eri made her way out, staring at the boots as she did so. "Well, no.. that's just our favorite thing right now. But it does seem right now that you point those out. We got plenty of Coke too though. And other victuals." Giving it reflection for a moment she declared. "The feet are cool though. And catapult was my first thought too."

Tanned leather el paso boots, micro denim shorts, a white poncho as large as a parachute. Alice certainly bled the part of a chica from Mexico City. Her hair, her choice of weapon, and her dialect were the only things that gave away she came from a place much further north than there. Crossing through the lobby that was rich in window cleaner on the air, Alice didn't grant pause until she was out the front doors that hissed with hydraulic mechanics and into the frozen air of winter. She tugged out her phone and quickly dialed a number, glancing at Eri before turning away and distancing herself to keep the call private. It was brief. She was back in less than a minute. "Show me where you're thinkin' of fielding this operation. And maybe I'll eat a little queso dip just to make up for this mess."

Eri shivered, pulling her outer coat tighter around her and replying in plumes of icy breath. "Sure, short trip from here really" Beginning to trudge along away from the lofty building and back into the more serene realms of the city, she asked quietly. "Ms. Muller. Where have you come from? Before you knew Mayu, I mean."

Alice's garb was fortified to handle the chilly weather, keeping her exposed legs warm and her midriff toasty. She buttoned it around her throat, shrouding her naturally. Only the protrusion of her Cinnamon Whisper vinyl holster was obvious around the breadth of her right thigh. "Me? Come from?" Alice hadn't prepared to answer any questions about herself. She hesitated. "Mexico City. Bit south of there. Worked there most my life," which was true - a fact she expressed easily.

This appeared to satisfy the delinquent, at least for the moment and she made no further inquiry as she plodded along on her heavy and worn at the soles Corcorans. "Hmm" Eri nodded affirmative, seeming oddly serene and trusting intuitively for such a brief acquaintance. "The big city. The bright lights."

"That's the place," Alice confirmed, glancing off from their intended route. She kept her arms stashed away where warmth was swarming. "I may not sound like I've lived there most of my life, but that's just heritage mumbo. I lived in the United States for a bit. A younger year, another story, ya know."

They continued on their way to Eri's undisclosed location, Alice feeling particularly cheerful about this chance meeting with her old time friend.

***

Rel unfurled a stack of letters from another drawer of his desk, slapping them on the surface with a frustrated sigh. The women he'd enlisted had only been gone for several moments, their journey ahead long and likely forfeit. He could feel the pangs of impatience claw at his insides over what he'd, as he saw it, politely demanded of them. "Micaela? Why have you secluded her so?"

A series of raps at the door disturbed Rel's monologue, motioning invitation with two fingers. Laura hurried in.

"Did you plant the device on the bounty hunter?" Rel questions his secretary as he plucks the top letter from the stack of what was hundreds.

"Yes, sir," Laura confirms briefly.

"Very good," Rel answers, pleased. "Keep me posted when they make their arrival at the location. Not a moment later."

"Of course, sir," Laura tersely confirms before leaving Rel's presence.

The top-most letter he was examining was written in an ancient style of writing, common in the Fourteenth Century. As he went to open the letter, he paused, his face locked between a grimness and smugness that befell warlords when they had the make the decision to slaughter thousands of their own men to secure victory in a battle that would decide the outcome of a war. He set the letter down, delicately, and sighed deeply.

"You've kept her away from me long enough, Micaela. I won't allow this transgression to continue any longer?" The letter he'd contemplated opening was shredded and flicked away, the others following one by one in meticulous, agonizing tears.

In the bowels of the Tengoku no Tochi sat an elaborate labyrinth of collapsed tunnels and aqueducts severed by its upheaval from the mainland. A hovering landmass as large as a Hawaiian island, she shouldn't have been surprised that there was more than what was above ground. Part of her knew, however, that the Tengoku no Tochi was more than she'd been using it for in the past five hundred years.

What she had been expecting differed from what was there. There was no underground city. No hovel to ancient scholars that were continuing to spin the tales of a millennia-old story that never seemed to have a beginning. A singular hallway that spiraled downward for what felt like miles. Stone step followed stone step, engorged by torchlight, enhanced by Mayu's fiery mane, and embossed by pillared walls that left the narrow passage as cramped as the womb she'd spent nine months in 20 years ago.

She kept one hand on the wall as she walked, uncertain her feet would guide her down the road without risking a spill. Dangling around her throat, the wry spitfire of flame encased in ice silently regarded their travels. "Rin," Mayu called to it. "Why did the Ruler abolish the Apostle Order? I? don't know that you've ever told me."

Rin's silence lingered. Mayu feared she wouldn't get a response on the matter. "The Apostle Order was erected to stop rogue youkai that wished to leave the spiritual realm. This much you know."

Mayu nodded.

"Tens of thousands of years ago, we were the only ones that were subjected to the idea that spirits didn't always wish to remain part of the deceased. Men and women that left behind loved ones, whom were allotted memories from their previous life, would break the laws that guided them to return. This, in turn, created imbalance."

Again, Mayu nodded. "A world that harbors enough wandering spirits can cause the two worlds to collapse. Chaos would ensue," she recalled of the physical boundries of the two worlds.

"Hmm. That is the truth. We were designed to protect that from happening."

The Goddess' words echoed loudly off the narrow stone walls and slammed into Mayu's ears. It felt like it was done purposefully, to remind Mayu of what she needed to do as the sole member of the revived order. "Did the Ruler wish to remove the order so that he could travel between the worlds without you chasing him?"

There was another elaborate pause. "He never left Shamanista, so I do not believe that to ever be a goal of his. He wished to keep the worlds contained. The same as the Order."

Mayu's steps gained restraint as she considered what Rin was explaining to her. She couldn't linger with her thoughts for long as the Goddess continued to explain. "He favored nobody leaving the world of Shamanista. He wished to keep our world contained, our ways our own. A noble goal. If done properly."

A chunk of one step was brittle and shattered as she continued down the road she was on. Pressing her back into the wall, she sidled past the fragmentation carefully. "He was the leader. Couldn't he put a law in place to stop that from happening?"

"He did," Rin expressed sternly. "In more ways than one." Her response elicited a silence out of Mayu that made her body feel tense and cold. "The Ruler wasn't always our leader. No astronomical God that maintained the top of the hierarchy since its birth. And, as you'll soon discover in the room ahead, it wasn't until he came across something of immense power that put him into the role of being a man without equal."

"Something of immense power?" Mayu questioned with concern.

"A treasure tool. You may already be aware of which one. The very same that Flora had you kill the Ruler in order to take for herself. Only? That tool never arrived in her possession like she wished."

Unknown what Mayu was wishing to ask, she remained quiet to give Rin purpose to continue. Ahead of her, the floor began to even out and plateau to a even stretch of stone that directed her eyes to a golden set of doors on the far end. Shaped like twin teardrops, the stone was elaborately carved in unmoving runes that flickered shadows from the circumference of torchlight all around it. It was like Heaven amidst the stains of Hell; darkness encroaching all around it but leaving its core unblemished.

"There," Rin indicated. "Past those doors lies all the history of the world of Shamanista. From its initial creation to its rise to power as a militaristic superpower that governed the spiritual realm. The rise of one Lord following the departure of its first citizens and his eventual death at the hands of a single girl whom didn't know she was being controlled. And, of course, whom didn't know she was giving the world a freedom it had not seen in thousands of years."

Tilting her head to stare at the necklace as it spoke, Mayu remained without either a smile or a frown. Her mind raced faster than her heart pounded in her chest. It made her feel weak and dizzy and sick all at once. She wanted to sit, but there were no benches around her. The intense pressure to know that the truth was lying behind two doors kept her from dropping down on the final step right there. She stepped off and started toward it, purpose guiding her legs.

"You will need to remember one thing and one thing alone? Elisa," Rin explained to the girl, realizing that she'd never spoken the girl's name aloud in as long as they'd come to be reacquainted. Her tone took a softer tone, as if pleasantly surprised how natural it could feel after being apart for as long as they'd been. "Once you learn of this history? You won't be able to turn back the clock. You will not be able to find those Time Workers to undo this history."

Joslin, Mayu whispered to herself. The Time Worker she went to see in order to bring Toby back to life. The sacrifice she'd needed to make to see him again was the removal of her memories that they'd ever known one another. Rin's powers helped her remember, but only so much. There were still holes she was afraid she'd never be able to fill?

"I'm not worried about that," Mayu told the necklace, reaching the set of doors. They seemed so small from a distance. Standing before them, they were well over seven times her height. Titanic, and yet, so elegant in design. She'd never seen something so large retain a beauty to it that shamed any previous awe she possessed over architecture.

Rin's softness vanished in an instant. "You will be."

She didn't diverge more than that.

(Cont'd from previous post.)

She realized that Rin hadn't answered her previous question. Clipping her anger, she sucked in a breath to calm the angst in her heart. "?Who was he?"

"The man I fell in love with was not much different than myself. We cherished each other and the moments we spent alone coming up with plans for the future of our collected people. Angels and demons were not a common sight in each other's company, but because of us and the union we slaved away at, that was changing. Slowly, but definitely.

It was some years later, when we were alone, that he came to me and expressed to me his intention to see me as his. Naturally, I was confused by this confession, for our kind didn't join together in a union like that. I told him my intention to remain distant and detached from him. But I-" Rin paused, hesitating. "Somewhere inside me, I felt something similar. An act that some might consider taboo. I was falling in love with this demon beside me, who showed courage and power and devotion to his people. A man that never wavered or refused for anything less than what he considered the best for him and his. I was naturally drawn to that commitment. If he could feel that way for his own kind, how would he treat somebody that he saw as his one and only?"

Mayu glanced up at the painting at the end of the hall. A shrouded existence, a woman bathed in holy light. A union between man and woman - of angel and demon. She wouldn't have been able to understand it on her own.

"What we wanted and what the future of Shamanista wanted, however, was not one in the same. While we worked toward uniting our kinds, it was still unaccepted in parts. Falling in love, it was as wrong as murdering another purely out of revenge. Repulsive, you might say. So, we did what we thought would be in the best interest of us and our people. We kept it quiet - a secret that neither of us would allow the other to share with anybody."

Lowering her head, she returned her stare to the necklace she was holding in her hands. "What happened to you two? You're not together now?"

If Rin could have shown remorse, she would have. "We were eventually discovered and immediately arrested by the very military we created from our people. We were to stand trial for our acts, with the sentence being execution. You have to understand that, no matter how hard you try to do something for the betterment of the world, you can't always get what it is you're after. As much as we tried to prove that union between our kind was definitely possible, it wasn't *us* that the afterlife was afraid of."

"What were they afraid of? If you two were in love and able to show the world that you could exist as one on every level, it shouldn't have mattered," Mayu explained, already coming to understand Rin's perspective.

"It's what we would be able to create together. A family, with mixed heritage of an angel and a demon. The strength of both worlds, combined as one." Rin's voice hitched in what resembled a scoff. "It had tyranny written all over it. Or, so the people of Shamanista considered it. We were liable to create a weapon that nobody would be able to stand up to. And for that reason, they sought to end it prematurely."

There were no demons in Shamanista. In fact, she hadn't encountered a single demon that even showed the slightest sense of coherence to the world. They always appeared to be babbling constructs with no perception of the world around them. Barbaric, almost. She had to believe that their trial ended terribly. "Did they?" she asked cautiously.

"In a way," Rin allowed. "We were able to leave Shamanista before the trials got underway, exiling ourselves to the living world in hopes we'd be able to have a chance. By this time, the Ruler had already put the edict together that disallowed anybody from coming or going - The Apostle Order wouldn't be able to track us no matter where we went. I had hoped it would remain that way forever."

The strength in Mayu's legs had returned, giving her an opportunity to rise and continue her slow approach to the large painting. The closer she grew, the taller it got. It was larger than a building in the heart of Tokyo. She had to strain her neck just to see all of it. "The Ruler? Where was he when all of this was going on??"

"You see, Elisa, the men and women of Shamanista were segregated from the very beginning. Angels were the females of the world, while the demons were the men. There was never a case where one was of the other race, so our differences were apparent from the beginning. The Ruler - he was a demon as the rest of them."

Her feet froze beneath her mid-step, an immediate surge of tension pulsing through her entire body. A demon had been in charge of Shamanista for as long as she could remember? She was supposed to be marrying a demon? Her teeth grit until her jaw hurt. "That bastard," she uttered. "He was part of the reason why I was pushed to loathe demons in the first place; telling me my life was to be committed to seeing them killed. He wanted me to murder his own people?"

"Hmm. That's likely the case. As I told you, the Ruler came across a treasure somewhere down the line - Rerumu Soubi-sha. It was what gave him his power as the Ruler in the first place, and how he rose to become the leader of the demon race."

"The Rerumu Soubi-sha," Mayu repeated, the word unfamiliar on her tongue. It hadn't been one she'd heard of before. "What is it?"

"A divine tool whose purpose was to aid in the process of giving the world what it requires most. It was a tool that my lover and I fashioned together - one that was meant only for us to wield together. Somehow, the Ruler discovered it and took it for himself. Once he did so, we were no longer able to retrieve it."

Mayu's head tilted upward, her eyes thin with anger. "Just another person that's hungry for power and got exactly what he wanted."

"I do not know his purpose for wanting the treasure tool. He was a kind soul when I first met him, wishing to aid his Lord in everything that he desired. He was just as committed a man, lacking certain direction. But the energies contained within the treasure warped him. Corroded his soul. You see, taking on a treasure tool that an angel and demon created together twisted the wills of both races inside of him. It caused him to want the possession of everything and anything he could possibly fathom. And because the tool's ability was to provide the world with what it needed, he, too, needed everything. It did exactly as he wished of it."

A tool that gave anybody whatever they wanted. Used incorrectly, it'd be somebody's worse nightmare. "And I take it he wanted?"

"Everything," Rin answered abruptly. "It didn't matter what it was. And his first order of business was to be the single, undisputed leader of the afterlife. As a demon, he condemned them for attempting to live in harmony with angels, brandishing them traitors for going against their purposed existence, and pushed them out of the world into a world he referred to as 'Hell'. These demons would later be referred to as Dwellers."

Mayu's breath hitched in her throat and she gasped out in audible surprise. "Dwellers?? T-The people that? Dwellers? They're demons exiled from? Shamanista?"

"The creatures that were released by Flora prior to her death are the very same demons I was working with when I first became aligned with their leader. My lover. Satan."

She couldn't say a single word. She couldn't ask a single question. Stiff and frozen from her shock, she stared with wide eyes and a gaping mouth at the necklace that was explaining the history of their world to her.

"He had sent the Apostle Order away on a mission, which I now know was a ploy, so that once the demons were outcast, he could silence us to keep us from being able to free them. When he cut off Shamanista's connections to the world of the living, most every single member of the Order was destroyed. The Divine Maidens died instantly once their connections to Shamanista were removed, while the Divine Goddesses that were attached to them died out more slowly. Their death were full of agony. I'll never forget the thousands of cries I heard all around me that day?" Rin's voice had cracked when she spoke, and grew increasingly quiet. The cataclysm of fire and ice in the necklace Mayu held dimmed briefly.

Mayu could feel Rin's sorrow and shared it. Divine Maidens were the protectors of the world. They fought to maintain balance. Selfless, beautiful warriors that laid down their lives for the betterment of others. They didn't deserve a fate like that? She shifted in her posture and continued forward, coming to the base of the stairs that lead up the massive painting. "What happened when you fled the world? Since the Ruler was still in power when I first came to Shamanista, I take it you weren't able to fight him and stop him from what he'd done."

"I had no power to do so, and Satan was no better off against a demon that owned the power to do anything he wished. Having escaped, we settled down quietly in a town that you're already familiar with by name. Bristol."

Her eyes ticked low, but not completely, to the necklace. There were tears filling the outside corners of her eyes. When she blinked, they spilled over her cheeks. "Bistol, England. ?I was born there in 1390-something? I was Elisa Clarke?"

A silence prevailed in the hall as the two came to quietly regard what the other was saying. Soaked in realization, Mayu looked back up at the picture in front of her. "You're my mother?"

A vague sound of happiness popped in the necklace; a restrained sob. "Yes. I am."

What Evan had told her was the truth. The Exorcists had come into the knowledge of what she was. Her mother was an angel, so it was expected that she was one, as well. But if she was her mother? She dabbed up the tears falling down her face, but they kept coming. "My father, then?" she asks weakly. "Is my father the demon you ran away with?"

Rin had expected Mayu's question. She was already prepared to answer it. "Yes. Your father is the Lord of the Underworld - the Master of Hell. Satan."

Mayu slowly turned away from the painting, her eyes high so that the water in them could drain freely. She sniffed noisily, continuing to run the sleeve of her jacket over her face. It smeared the wetness rather than soaked it up. "I'm? an angel? and a demon?" she told herself and only herself. She needed to hear herself say it in order to believe it. She was everything she loved and hated about the world. A divine creature that was revered as the apex of existence and a mournful, disgusting beast that she had been devoted to slaying from the very beginning of life itself. The mixture was running free in her blood. She could feel the fire of Hell pulse around the calming chill of Heaven. Divine energies racing along chaotic roads.

One step was all she needed to take before she collapsed on her hands and knees. Her hair pulsating with fire spilled out around her, blanketing her in a shroud of redness that matched the fresh release of blood. Face to stone, she stared into it until she could make out the faint signs of her shadow within it. She'd seen to several times since her true powers activated in her battle with Tylor. She could make out the terrible visage of skeletal, angelic wings; the mangled tendrils of demonic essence that wrapped around it. It was a hideous abomination, but elegant and prepossessing in its own twisted way. She cried, sobbing loudly, but she wasn't sure why. She didn't know why her emotions had suddenly gotten away from her and made her weep uncontrollably.

For once in her entire life, though, she felt as though she finally had an answer for why she felt so blessed every time she opened her eyes first thing in the morning and felt a shroud of warmth comfort her when she felt alone. Why terrible, chaotic events seemed to happen around her as natural as the wind blows.

For once, she felt like she knew herself. She was a creature from two different worlds that never seemed to meet eye-to-eye naturally, matched together out of one feeling that an entire world couldn't seem to grasp their fingers around and accept.

She was an angel and a demon for one reason and one reason alone.

Love.