Anko finally stabilized about three days after her collapse, by Malzkael’s reckoning. It was hard to tell with the sun so obscured.
One mont, she seed to be in a fugue state, sweat beading on her skin as she whispered between breathes, and the next she was lucid. Her stomach rumbled heavily as she asked, "Have we got any dates left?"
Malz and Ferro stuffed her with as much food and water as they could, smiling truly for the first ti since Anko’s collapse. And then Malz told her the plan.
"I’ve filled in a few gaps with Ferro about how sound and vibrations work. He’s going to put his hands on the door and amplify his voice through it. If the demon in there doesn’t co out, we’ll move on to Plan Two," Malz explained.
Anko quirked an eyebrow, speaking with a slightly full mouth. "Isn’t it usually plan-"
"I refuse to be limited to thirty plans," Malz interrupted. "Anyway, plans two through fifty are increasingly aggressive without being actual attacks. After that, we thought we might incorporate your enhancent skills..."
"The Kir I rember doesn’t ss around," Anko raised her voice when she was able to get a word in edgewise. "He could kill any one of us like that," she snapped three sets of fingers at once. The last hand had a half-eaten date in it.
Malz paused. Not because she hadn’t considered an aggressive response from the demon, but because she finally rembered a concern that had been in the back of her mind ever since Anko beca her interrogator.
Rainier had ntioned having a relationship with a man nad Kir. Never often, but enough that Malz knew he’d cared for him. She had no idea if the na was common to Ayther, but if Anko’s Kir and Rain’s Kir were the sa person, then the odds of this already insane situation being a coincidence would have to be zero.
"You were delirious, are you sure that’s him?" Ferro asked.
"Absolutely. A couple of years back, Maledict opened up a thingy so I could get a look at him. He was just sleeping though, and Maldict didn’t want to waste a lot of mana..."
"A couple of years," Malz returned to the present with a scowl. "Let guess, right after you captured ?"
"We weren’t friends back then. Now we are," Anko shrugged with all four arms.
What even are we? Malz wondered but kept her mouth shut. Maybe in the face of the apocalypse, things could be kept simple between them. Her contemplations led her back to three facts though.
We’re all connected to soone nad Kir. through Rainier, Anko through Maledict, and Ferro through his book...
"In any case... I’d like to know how you feel about backing Ferro and up. You’d be the most capable of getting us out of the way if the demonkin gets aggressive."
"I actually feel pretty good after eating. A little hungry still but I can jump around," Anko flexed all four arms at once. "Just let warm up first."
"And then we’ll get started," Malz nodded.
A shadow fell upon the tent, and a snap sounded from the hand of the demonkin they’d just been talking about, right before the tent disappeared in a cloud of dust.
He was wearing the sa suit as last ti, but now there were more features. Devices, Malz realized, that looked more advanced than what had existed in Heaven.
"I heard you the entire ti," he said, gesturing at the door, which hung open to a space that seed bigger on the inside. "Points for creativity," he nodded at Malz, "but I’ve got zero ti to be distracted," he pointed up at the sky, and Malz noticed that the Perditional fissure seed smaller. "Get in."
Anko shot up. "Kir, it’s . I used to be Nona, rember?"
The demonkin man held her gaze for a second before answering, "I know exactly who you are," he said. "But I’m not Kir."
"What would you like us to call you, uh, sir?" Ferro tried.
A smile quirked the demonkin’s lips. "Call Kiryu. Though it seems on this world I earned another na. Shin’ Gir." He clapped his hands together, before the shock of the claim could set in. "Lunch? It’s not every day you get to dine with a god of death," he laughed and turned away, leaving the door open for them.
Ferro followed first. "I-If I may ask... the death of what? Aidaeb wasn’t exactly entirely coherent about such things..."
"I rember telling Luda once that if he made that ’mission from god’ joke at my door again I would slam it in his face," Kiryu replied "So of course he had you lead with that." He shook his head. "But to answer your question, I’m the death of everything... for my last universe at least. I’m trying to do a bit better here. Give people another chance."
He led them to an onyx table that looked as if it had been carved from a single stone, its features filled in with gold. On it was a small feast of mostly travel food. More than enough to refill their packs.
"Sit," the demon said. "Enjoy yourselves while you still can." He did not sit at any of the fixed stone seats, which were ergonomic but not comfortable, being entirely stone. Instead he went to what Malz could only describe as a workstation, his hands rising as components rose into existence, forming themselves within his magi from basic bars of tal on the floor, alloying together and taking shape. "And do not disturb ."
The last ca not with any hint of compulsion, but with his mana blazing like it was, his authority over spellcasting this close would be absolute.
Malz felt sowhat angry to discover the inside of the stone house was both comfortably warm and sohow free of the man’s oppressive mana, even if it was filled with a constant sll of tobacco smoke as he took up his pipe once more.
The three of them looked at each other, then decided that obeying was vastly preferential to challenging soone who could directly manipulate iron with magic. Conventional wisdom held unalloyed iron to be the most materially unsuitable for interactions with magic, and yet she could see filants arcing out and up before cascading toward his workings.
Maybe he’s doing it indirectly, using magnetism instead. Malz wondered as she chewed through a stale-ish cherry tart. His mana never seed to enter any of the tals he was working with directly, rather shaping and guiding them through fine manipulation of forces that were invisible to her.
However he did it, Kiryu gave no answers as he continued to work, generating fine components of such complex appearance that Malz couldn’t begin to parse their purpose. The curious part of her wanted to know everything, but that part had been shriveled by the desire to just survive, since the mont Heaven disappeared, saving them from invasion beca a moot point. But if she could learn what he was doing and survive...
One thing she noticed was that there was so sort of black substance pooling at the demon’s feet as if leaking from under his suit. Instinct and manasight told her she wanted nothing to do with it, and the presence of drains suggested the demon knew and didn’t want to deal with it either. While it ran along the ground, it seed to want to clump together, which the slope of the floor facilitated towards the drain.
The other thing she noticed was Anko staring at him with the eyes of a hurt puppy that badly wanted to whimper.
Suddenly, reality itself seed to thrumm, as if an invisible set of waves had passed through everything. Malz had detected no change in the ambient mana, and while Ferro didn’t react, Anko fidgeted a little. If not for her attuned senses, Malz would not have noticed the mont Kiryu stopped moving, muttering in Old Angelic, "Hello world..."
"What does that an?" Anko blurted.
Kiryu held his hands behind his back as a machine took form behind him, assembling itself until all that was left was a seamless, reflective orb, roughly one asure across. He rose on his toes a bit as he did an about-face. "It ans it’s working for ," he inhaled rom his pipe. "Just like assu the ’god’ who sent you wants you to work for ." He walked around the table and sat at the head opposite Anko. "I’m curious as to why."
Now that talking was back on the table, Malz said, "We haven’t had contact with any gods," she gestured at herself and Anko. "And I’m not entirely sure Ferro is in his right mind, if he thinks he t Aidaeb."
Ferro shot her a betrayed look. "I did et them!" He turned to their host. "They said you would understand."
"Oh I understand all right. It’s just I don’t think you three are particularly useful to ."
Malz could feel the hurt radiating off of Anko. "How can I prove myself?" the demonkin asked.
From out of a dinsional storage, the demonkin drew a tiny ball of pure black. Her eyes couldn’t help but look at it, because there was just sothing wrong about it to her perception. It was blacker than night. Blacker than anti-magic.
"Swallow this," Kiryu sent the orb floating over to Anko, who caught it in her hands. The way her eyes tried to find focus on it but just kept rolling across the edges of the sphere told Malz that she wasn’t the only one who was disturbed.
"What is it?" Anko asked.
"Good, you asked a question. That was another test for you, since I don’t expect blind obedience," Kiryu didn’t smile as he exhaled so smoke. "Think of it as a... spiritual object. You can touch it, but it’s not really made of matter, and I don’t care to go too much into detail since the point is for you to figure it out. But let’s just say it’s the logical apex of what your Kir and I were working on."
"Can I see him?" Anko asked.
"Not yet," he answered instantly. "Now eat up. It’s cherry flavored. Or at least I made it to give the impression of cherries."
Anko hesitated then popped it into her mouth, an act that made Ferro wince.
For a mont the look on her face seed... like a kid who’d just put a marble in their mouth. She swallowed a mont later. "I think it tasted more like-" SLAM. Her forehead hit the table without dignity or warning. But she was still breathing.
Malz looked to Kiryu, finding him holding so device in his hand. It was making a ticking sound. "Just a stopwatch," he declared, then had to explain it to Ferro.
"What did you do to her?" Malz asked.
"She’s just in her head a bit right now, don’t worry. First ti was like that for too," he puffed. "Speaking of ti; while we wait, let tell you about how to fight a ti-war."
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