22. Decuple Wings
"I'll never tell you anything!" Freed says, near sudden and quick as a reflex.
It took several sputters and coughs to arrive after those words, but one could appreciate the effort. Anos does not. And it is only because he suspects the priest really won't answer them.
A surprising action in Anos' eyes, he figured the fool wouldn't have an ounce of loyalty. Though, if that were the case then Freed probably did serve a real leader and a man of greater might than himself in his eyes.
"Perhaps a dog like you thinks there's some value in not bending before you break. I will tell you no such thing," Anos lets the cruelty openly bleed into his words, "The simple truth is, your cooperation isn't necessary. It was only ever convenient."
So, with that made clear, Anos wrenches Freed around by the wrist so he's facing him and he plunges his magic into his mind. It rips through his thoughts like a knife through flesh.
Eviy, Liknos, Anos doesn't even so much as grunt. Freed's eyes glaze over, and he relinquishes everything of the mind to the former demon, shoving one last thought, Anos' palm heats up. Gresde.
Light roars from Freed's skin like he's front and centre to a solar flare. The next second Anos is brushing off the ash between his glove.
The moment stews.
"...Senpai." It slipped out before Issei caught himself.
"Hmm?"
"Don't get me wrong, that was badass," Issei starts, and he's even telling the truth, "But I thought we... needed... him?"
"I have all that we need in here." Anos taps his head, "and here."
Anos opens his palm and silver flashes. In between what used to be the clerical threads of Freed's coat was a ceramic coin no more the size of a wedding ring; a communicator.
Realization seemed to dawn on their faces like daybreak. Some are faster in notice but most do understand. And then there's Issei - who squinted, not really getting it.
"Is it supposed to be a charm?" he asks, clueless.
"It's a communicator, perv," Koneko corrects, there was no bite or bark to it.
"Specifically one every close emissary of the fallen knows to use to contact a Cadre, or at least somebody high in the Grigori hierarchy." Anos clarifies specifically so Issei could keep up, "This one is for Kokabiel."
"You plan to use it here, Anos?" It was just like Sona to catch on faster than the others.
Anos doesn't even need to nod to confirm her correct. The two just click; simply understanding each other.
"We should head inside, no?" Tsubaki expertly suggests. They have better wards for inside anyway.
"Let us," Rias demurs her response to Sitri's Queen, "we'll use my clubroom."
"It'll do," Anos returns, eyeing Xenovia and Irina, "before you two run off, consider the conversation at hand and join us. This is to your benefit as well."
Irina answered first, for the both of them, "We appreciate the hospitality but..."
"It's fine, Irina," Xenovia interjected, in the mood for a talk again, "we'll stay. Something tells me he knows the whereabouts of those swords, among other things."
Kiba's eyes stray over more obviously in reaction to those words.
Xenovia thinks, in light of the man before her that they don't need a reason to leave any more than they need a reason to stay. Even if Xenovia doesn't know it yet, Anos promises truth. It is a rare feeling that has her heart and mind agree.
—————
Anos places the device square in the middle on Rias' office desk, sending a spark of magic before stepping back. It reacts with a fleck of pillar-like light before a non-physical image appears. It flickers once before forming fully.
Kokabiel, known by many as the Fallen Star of God.
The image that stands is tall, and prouder than proud. Kokabiel is about an entire dimension away and he still radiates sheer might in this realtime holo magic-gram. Not even allowing the look of surprise at who has hailed him this morning.
"How heedless," he grunts, his voice rings like the rising dawn, his eyes appear as if soaked in the blood of thousands.
Kokabiel is entirely unconcerned with the evident failure of his subordinate. He does not permit failure but what is presented before him is a sight he can work with.
"Kokabiel..." Rias was quick to temper her voice. She almost gave away the uncertainty of her words to the fallen rogue. "Have you no respect for the ceasefire and white peace between the three races?"
The curve of his lips is completely incongruous with the implications.
"I have as much interest in this fabrication you call peace as a harlot has in turning her life to the church." He faces her utterly and fully.
Behind the silent reprimand, his expression makes it clear he won't tolerate useless questions.
"You'll have to forgive us for desiring to know why you've decided to act in such a manner." Sona speaks and Kokabiel audibly laughs in her face for how serious she is.
"My interests lie in winning a battle long delayed," he says to the little sister of the Leviathan, "the Great Three-Sided War must continue. The timing now has been mine to decide."
"Madness..." Sona mutters audibly. The room agrees; vocally or otherwise.
"Madness?" Kokabiel says, musing. "Yes, I suppose it would be to children like you. But conflict will continue. At my hand or the next."
Rias' face twists in displeasure of those words, "This will doom not only your enemies but the rest of the fallen species too, surely Azazel isn't encouraging this?"
The Cadre stains her speech with another laugh. It is curt and sharp. What was for one second, wasn't for two.
"I love my people." There is a sincerity in Kokabiel's voice this time, one in which those words might actually be believable, "Misguided by Azazel's interests of mere survival or not it rings true."
Kokabiel's wings— all ten of them, they shoot from his back in all their glory, like black flashes of inky accolades. He continues.
"The fallen are creation's greatest souls. Sprung from the first beings handcrafted by the Creator without his restrictions to shackle us. Heaven is dated and Hell is a plague. The fallen are the ones who will inherit the Earth."
It is an unmistakable declaration.
"Enough of your frenzied nonsense," Rias says, returning to the topic at hand, a bold one she was, "why Kuoh?"
Kokabiel sits down again, lounging in what appeared to be a throne in some closed off room. A subtle way to say his interests have been lowered. Still, he'd be a courteous man.
"I believed if I stole the Excaliburs, Michael would seek me, but all I had been given were two pitiful holy sword users."
He seems almost angry.
"I thought to use devils this time; Lucifer's little sister; Rias Gremory, and Leviathan's little sister; Sona Sitri. Power has hung over the town you lot reside. I'll be enjoying your school, too. Yes, it'll be a grand war zone!"
He bellows out the way lions might and it isn't without effect. His speech muffles them all. Or, it would have.
"What a repulsive joke you are," Anos voices, his words felt louder than anyone else's prior.
When Kokabiel glances over, it is with glee, "As if someone like myself is concerned by the thoughts and opinions of a rabble of children I could crush with a hand behind my wing."
Anos laughs him off the same way Kokabiel did the devils, "So you wish to die?"
It is less of a question, really.
At that, Kokabiel's gaze turns eagle-sharp, and cuts across the room. Even among the devils, exorcists and Sacred Gear wielders is this individual especially unusual. For the mortal to be the only one left to move, and laugh leisurely.
The rogue fallen considers those words and the man who punctuates them, he seems mused by one and the other in equal measure. "Yes, I see it now."
The simple statement tells everyone that Anos, and Anos alone, is worth the attention.
And that is something of remarkable note, the reports say the Gremory girl had the Red Dragon Emperor within her ranks - with power to grasp holy powers and slay an immortal Phenex.
That isn't all they say - separately from that, the weary acceptance of a power greater than the strongest of the Satan's have been found. The crowned Lucifer's usurpation in the power hierarchy means that of Azazel and Michael—rough equals— have too been cowed.
The Grigori, Heaven, and the Underworld. All had been arrogated, just like that. By a single transcendent man.
Kokabiel's grin is high and wild. Descriptions and species were noted of such a man. And it started with those pair of cerise pools that beguile destruction.
Those eyes he possesses, those are part of what draws him to Anos. He can regard something in them; it is familiar.
Fitting, too. The only men and women Kokabiel regards are those of legends of war, glory and violence, the ones who order around the weight of tens of thousands of men – and then stood above the corpses of tens of thousands of more.
Unfortunately, estranging Anos with his words won't garner any favors from him. Nor his companions.
"You carry more drama than sense, I gather," Anos observes, "the hallmark of a disillusioned man."
Kokabiel almost snorts, a sharp bark of amusement behind a hard set of lips. "You equally flatter and honor me. The very sight of you steels my resolve evermore. Pity you give up your time to devils. Creatures born of envy and betrayal; who make the world recoil in shame. Even to I, who has more sins than I do feathers to my wings believe they are greatest force of blasphemy."
He leans forward, settling his elbows on the sides of his throne and rests his pointed chin to invisible air.
"Like me, they are beneath you. War is justified by their existence alone—"
Kokabiel bristles like a shudder.
—everything happens in the briefest of moments.
There is a brief cry, like a startled bird. A force, invisible and impermanently strong, dents Kokabiel's upper frame, as if his whole body is a gong freshly struck by an invisible hammer.
To the Cadre's credit, there is a small window of time where he draws his arm in hopes of stopping this same force, the one that sears against the strength of his sorcery, barely holding it off from devouring all that he is. Whatever room he's occupied had been reduced to a fragment of a wall, one that crumbles to dust.
A surrounding emptiness.
Kokabiel himself, rag-dolled to the floor, a stump where his right arm should have been. He is barely breathing, barely alive. Blood trickles from his body at points not even targeted.
A short blink of a warning shot from Anos' Magic Eyes leaves him like this? And this warmongering birdie thinks he's ready for war?
"I'll leave some advice for you, you poor thing," Anos remarks over Kokabiel's haze of being attacked through the confines of an illusion.
What Anos speaks next, booms his voice irresistibly. It echoes throughout the warmongers body the way nerves do.
"You proudly tell me your love of war, but what would you offer to appease me in hearing such nonsense? Your arm, your wings, your head? Such insolence implies that you are prepared to sacrifice a prize with value equal to your very life."
There is that incredible stillness rising in the room brought about only by Anos.
It is no wonder Kokabiel is without answer. But his eyes, even now, are sharpened. They do not flicker away from Anos' face even as he nurses the space in where his arm is supposed to be.
He thought when God had died that there was nothing left to fear.
So be it.
"Kuoh has several hours. Prepare your defenses however you deem appropriate. When you next see me, it will be when I sink Japan under sea."
The image flickers and dies. The coin-sized communicator implodes unprompted, and their little exchange comes to an end.
"So," a certain Pawn shatters any lingering thoughts, "what do we do now?" Issei speaks, as if it isn't obvious.
"Don't be a fool, Issei," Anos says in reply.
The Pawn's expression is quite clearly asking for a demand less challenging.
"I'll cut to the chase: you all are going to stay here for the next few hours. You'll use that time to set up and fortify however many barriers, wards, and protections you need."
Anos then points to himself, "Do this while I hunt for Azazel. I'll be back for you all before you know it, but until then, the rest of you don't leave this academy."
Sona and Akeno look the most surprised out of them all, likely regarding the casual mention of the leader of the Grigori. However, they rightfully don't ask any silly questions, or complain.
In contrast...
"You are not leaving us out of this!" Xenovia exclaims, Irina shares that sentiment in full.
"Yes," Anos says, "I am. I know the whereabouts of those swords, and I know the best way to go about bringing them to you."
There is a subtle glance shot Kiba's way, "To all of you."
Anos continues, "Right now, my decision doesn't require either of you. More than that, there isn't any time to argue otherwise."
Xenovia stingingly glares. To her side, Irina snaps.
"You don't own us," the chestnut-haired girl speaks, it comes off as less than serious with the pout she has.
Anos corrects her fast, "The only choice you get to make about staying is whether it's on your terms or mine."
They remain silent.
"I knew you'd agree." Anos remarks.
When Anos irons out more of the details, no one can find it in themselves to protest because the ones who trust Anos do so with good reason while the ones that are strangers to him still recognize it is a sound plan, one that fulfills their duties and separates them from the needless baggage.
It is simple, but simple doesn't always mean easy. Luckily Anos blurs that line very well.
—————
Later, when the light of Gatom ceases, the walk to the four story building that the fallen have apparently based themselves on— is fairly short. The identity of the bar's hidden underground structure is finely veiled if nothing else.
Anos is out of his academy uniform, and in much more casual threads. The few thinly-dressed women hanging around these seedy streets catcall him over, and others even flash him. Anos ignores them all. If he was here for a good time, he wouldn't be here at all.
He walks himself into the nearby building aptly called Black Dog. It is an unsuspecting thing, rouged and oddly welcoming all in one. This area is two stops off of Kuoh Town so not even the devils are aware of this. It makes perfect sense for this place to muffle fallen activity even if the idea is unoriginal.
The task is to secure an audience in the bar that exists beneath the paper thin illusion of a simple office building. There are a couple ways to do this; although Anos chooses infiltration by more direct means.
He enters on the ground level and there he is greeted by a receptionist. Anos looks around feigning ignorance of knowing the entire layout and passes his glance to a cafeteria, a couple of locked doors with names written over them, and the standard storerooms for cleaning supplies. None of them are affiliated with any one business. The real base would be underground.
The receptionist is an actual worker, none of the wiser to what happens behind these walls. When she asks how she can help, Anos notes she's very much the most ordinary girl one could come across. It is almost unnerving how plain she is. Had Anos not slipped into her thoughts, he'd have assumed she was an agent.
In the end, though, she becomes suddenly receptive to having him take the elevator to the above floors. Something only afforded to the higher ups. No alarm blears, and no man or woman looks troubled or uncertain about him as the elevator doors part and close.
"So," Anos says, after the doors have long opened and he's seated at the counter of some newly refurbished bar, "lend me some advice, would you?" he asks the bartender who passes him some on the house special.
Anos takes a concise sip and passes a few folded notes right back in the same motion. A curt nod follows from the man, "I need an audience with Mr. Shiner, what might you suggest I do?"
The bartender looks Anos up and down, and sighs. Before he can even ask why a simple human knows of such an alias, Anos flexes his pitch-ebony wings in silent answer - all six of them. Two to four would be too little, and eight to ten would be too much. The bartender - he's startled, but his twitch is brief. Barely there.
"I've recently taken a tumble from Heaven's borders, a freshly discarded soul," Anos takes a deliberate and slow sip, "I'd like to join the Grigori, if possible."
Seems Anos' illusionary wings are perfect tools for coercion. Enough for the bartender to pull a phone from beneath the counter, "One moment, please." he says.
The delay before Anos hears Azazel's voice is short. The bartender minces a few words even behind a subtle privacy ward that Anos has no trouble intercepting. The phone call is quickly over, most of it had been coded words uttered like the language of a forgotten tongue.
The bartender, who, goes without saying— is a fallen in disguise, motions for Anos to follow him as another co-worker takes his place behind the counter.
Anos is led to a separate room covered in shadows, he walks and has crossed three doors in the span of ten minutes, then he feels the space flicker for a moment. As if a note struck out of time, and a man-shaped hole splits open on the wall to his left.
This was the small spacial distortion Anos sensed from above ground; a pocket dimension the size of a standard office. The bartender stops his guide, standing guard by the final door. Anos nods at him and crosses, the door hissing behind him.
For a second, just a second, Anos' whole body is flushed in light, the next, he's in front of an illusion of Azazel, conjured by some crystal through which the two of them may communicate. Anos wasn't expecting the man himself in person or in fallen, at any rate.
Azazel studies Anos the same way he does him. The only difference is that while Anos is impassive, Azazel looks like he's been stuck with genuine wonderment.
"You're not a fallen, are you?" he replies, neither angry nor disapproving.
Anos dissipates his illusionary wings, he's not surprised the leader of the Grigori could tell. He'd have been disappointed if he didn't. Anos did make them intentionally imperfect in some ways for a reason.
"I'm delighted to know you could tell that much," Anos says by way of reply, "The name is Anos Voldigoad."
That wonderment from before? It has multiplied tenfold. Azazel's eyes shine in the way jewels do in daylight.
"The transcendent impossibility," Azazel sounds optimistic, a sort of professional fondness mixed with a smile.
"In the flesh," Anos remarks and Azazel chuckles. The one given to old friends catching up.
"I curse my inability to be there in actuality, please excuse my lack of formality." Azazel is only halfway joking; half serious too.
"No, this is passable." Anos doesn't really mind. Impartial to it being in person or otherwise. He's heard stories of Azazel, how he'd always been harder to find than most.
If the man didn't want to be found, he was practically invisible to most. It wasn't until fairly recently had Azazel been more active. Three guesses as to why that is.
Well, onto business.
"If you're aware of that much you'd know I take residence in a town called Kuoh, overseen by Rias Gremory and Sona Sitri. The little sisters to two of the four Satans." Anos starts, Azazel raises a brow, as if asking why he wouldn't have known at least that.
"Kokabiel," Anos then names, and Azazel's smile is lop-sided now, "I'd imagine in about an hours time, he will be at the head of a small army of whatever rouge fallen he could scramble together, rushing to sink not just Kuoh but all of Japan under sea in what he'll no doubt consider his aegis of war."
Anos pauses, as if expecting Azazel to explain himself. The false angel will do so if he values his continued existence.
"The Grigori are a people of freedom before we are anything else." He begins, low and wreathed by disapproval and disappointment each.
Nevertheless, he continues, "I had not expected Kokabiel to be so stuck in his old ways. This is hardly a time for spilling of innocent blood, and his actions will see us all slaughtered at the hands of Heaven and Hell. We will weaken and our enemies will justifiably rise and crush us all in revenge for all that we have done to them."
As usual, Azazel thinks of his people first. Anos doesn't dislike that, it is Azazel's people who will suffer for a few rotten cores. Even Anos has been put in such a position once before.
"He must be stopped." Azazel says in a rulers tongue. There is no sly stain to his lips, no approval in his gaze. His face is like freshly carved stone. He is serious beyond description. He'd even stood up from his chair.
"Agreed," Anos says, easily, "what will you do about it?"
The once angel calms himself, "Are you aware of Vali Lucifer?" he asks.
"Vali, that boy from the line of the Morningstar; he even wields Divine Dividing." Anos recounts, not bothering to explain why or how he knows this.
"The very same, I've spent a great effort and time in his development. Even now, he and I have come to an understanding, enough for a temporary allegiance of sorts even as he operates under his own interests. The boy is strong, likely even greater than Sirzechs was in his youth. I'll have him handle Kokabiel and his associates. You have my word, Kuoh will not be harmed."
"I see," Anos took those words as seriously as they were spoken, "it seems Vali will be there to pick up Kokabiel's corpse when I'm done with the Cadre."
The governor of the Grigori blinks, "You intend to deal with Kokabiel on your own terms?" Azazel was almost skeptical.
"It is as you say, yes. He's dealt a personal slight," Anos replies, "I never needed for you to lift a finger on this matter. It's enough just to know you don't share his vision, otherwise I would have you destroyed first."
"That is... reassuring," Azazel, a twelve-winged fallen, and one of the more powerful beings on Earth, almost pouts, stumped for words.
"Isn't it?" Anos muses, a small grin to unnerve the fallen, "Besides, I'll still want you around for when I bring the fallen, the devils, and the angels to the negotiating table."
Whether or not Anos was exaggerating, Azazel didn't feel comfortable not asking for clarification on a statement like that with those sorts of political implications.
"That is interesting to hear. The fallen and devils run into each other far more than we do with the angels." Azazel comments rather sagely. It's true, Michael— and by extension, Heaven, have been closed off ever since his father's passing.
Azazel can't blame Michael, God was his father too.
Although what plans could Anos have for those who sit in the sky beyond the very sky?
"I've got a fews things in mind to handle it. But there are certain actions that need to happen first." The vagueness of Anos' words don't worry Azazel, in fact, they do the opposite.
But this talk seems to be coming to an end. He quite enjoyed it, it is very obvious that the man before Azazel desires peace more than most. At least if he were to take Sirzechs' letters at face value. But before Anos leaves, he might as well let him know.
"Vali might still appear. If I'm not wrong, his red counterpart also dwells in that town. That would be all he would need to go see for himself." Azazel says.
Anos notes those words, even as he already turned his back. Like a busy man with a finished plate and no time for tips. Azazel is familiar with that.
"I'll have a communication crystal given to you on your way out if you decide to take it, do keep in touch. I'll buy you a drink." Azazel says and the interface shatters like glass.
—————
A voice booms like thunder and strikes harder than lightning. "Brothers and sisters! I say to you tonight, that we have cowered long enough. Hear me my comrades, my people, my warriors! God is dead! And so, there is nothing left to fear!" Kokabiel's voice is louder than loud.
Over two dozen magic circles are two dozen fallen angels; all of them are six wings and higher. At their front and center is Kokabiel himself, clad in silver-plated chainmail armor and all his ten wings flutter behind him like a trail of black thorns.
His voice carries and spreads around like trailing fire, like those he addresses could very well inhale flames in the approaching cold emptiness of the pitiless night they will fly into soon enough.
"Save for one soul, Anos Voldigoad: a transcendent man who adorns the guise of a mortal man! He has taken my arm in an attempt to dissuade our path but we will not break! Hear me my fellow-soldiers! We march onwards onto our enemies and let the glory of our cause pave the way to victory!" He roars, seemingly shaking the very skies.
Cheers of madden glee follow, the whole of Kokabiel's troops gather and array themselves into formation, at their head is the madman himself.
Almost a hundreds wings beat as one, every individual whisper combining into a roar that blasts the earth into disarray— one sonic boom to scatter the clouds and bend the winds.
Just as the first black wing eclipsed the moon, Kuoh Town's border etches itself to the corner of the fallen's eyesight.