Lyrel Fruor quietly humd to herself as she tended her garden. It was a task made more difficult by the grey skies above but one that she was determined to accomplish. Such was her dedication that she’d made quiet arrangents for solar lights to be sent to her from parts of Araqlun that were less invested in the maintenance of their green spaces, and the results were quite fabulous.
Not as fabulous as they had been, but beggars could not be choosers now that Araqlun had finished relocating to Ayther. She let out a small sigh, nostalgic for the subtle glow that had perated her garden when the mana had flowed freely through the city. Now, most of it was being consud for "defenses," whatever that ant.
The Choirs were still reeling from the Heavenfall, but Lyrel had recognized the danger her House’s leadership was failing to acknowledge as they tried to wed themselves to the "Grand Arch Seraphim" Vinam Victoriam’s cause. Was it a coincidence that the Choirs were decapitated in the most successful demonic attack in rembered history? Lyrel didn’t believe so, not with how the demons had concentrated themselves.
She had little head for tactics, but she knew a losing fight when she saw one, and with the Executioners practically running the governnt now, she’d decided to leave the stage as gracefully as possible in order to preserve her lifestyle for herself and her imdiate family. But grace was a hard state to maintain when all she knew was boredom and waiting for the next bad thing to drop.
"Maybe I should acquire one of those Aytherian druids..." she murmured as she found a wilted stem amidst the buds of a stellar rosebush. She was loathe to let anyone else touch her garden - especially how her hobby was regarded by those who considered angels as above "playing in the dirt," but perhaps she could make an exception for a like-minded soul...
"Excuse ..." a male voice said from behind her.
Lyrel turned, gasping as she saw the horns on the man’s head, a tail two-asures long, and violet eyes that seed to bore through to her very soul.
"D-demon!"
"First off, you’re half-wrong, but I’m in a bit of a hurry. You’re a politician-type, yeah?" He gestured flippantly around the garden and in the vague direction of her mansion.
"I-I was... Until Victoriam ca to power." She gulped, her heart pounding. Lyrel hadn’t read a book in ages, but she rembered being a moderately rebellious youth, and novels about lone demons invading Heaven for so nefarious purpose had featured prominently in her reading list until they’d been wiped from the servers. "A-are you here to ravish ?"
*
Kiryu blinked twice, his head tilting as the angel. She wasn’t bad-looking per-se, with her green-almost-aqua wings and hair, the latter touched lightly at the temples with grey, but the way she tried to level her chest in his direction while tried to affect both a scared and enticed expression... It was enough to make him resist bursting out in laughter and tears.
God, these fucks are delusional. First try at finding a political, and I run right into a telenovela.
"No," Kiryu said sternly, imagining himself with a water bottle to cool the angel off. "I need to know where to find soone who knows about what’s going on with the tower underneath us. The big blue one."
The lady swallowed, looking a bit disappointed but smart enough to return to reality as her eyes hardened. "Why would I help a demon?"
"Would it help if your life depended on it?" Kiryu raised a single finger, summoning a ball of blue-white plasma at its tip. "I’ve already carved through a bunch of angels today. I’d hate to have to do more than necessary."
"Y-you wouldn’t dare. And if I die, you can’t-"
"If you die, I fly over to the next mansion, and the next, and the next. Maybe more of those Executioner types co for and I wipe them out. The sooner you tell what I want to know, the sooner you can go back to your garden. Lovely work, by the way."
The woman didn’t rise to his bait, which was a sha.
"Do what you want to ; I will not betray my people."
"I was afraid you’d be like that." Kiryu snapped the fingers of his free hand, visualizing a lattice of fine mana surrounding the half of the mansion he’d been able to see. "So I guess I’ll start with the basics by making you watch your family die before I off you. Nothing personal-
"Wait!" the angel shouted, panicking. "Please don’t. I’ll tell you what you want."
"Go on," Kiryu urged, keeping his face sinister.
"I don’t know anyone specifically, but if there’s any word to be had, it’ll be in the Black Tower... the heart of the Executioner Corps."
Another snap of his fingers caused the lattice to disappear, making the angel flinch. "I take it the na is literal?" The angel nodded. "See? Not so hard," Kiryu smiled and tossed the plasma ball over the garden wall, where it exploded in the empty yard next door. "I’ll be going now."
*
Lyrel watched the demon ascend, so strange pattern glowing for less than a second on his black armor before he flew without any obvious ans of assistance.
The beating in her heart refused to go down until he was well out of sight. A small corner of her thoughts wondered if she should have called for help or fought. But while Lyrel could take the form of a lesser seraphim for a ti, she had never been a fighter except in a political sense.
"This has to have been a dream," she said, barely a minute after he was gone.
Dream or not, he’d threatened her family, and so she pulled off her gloves and dropped her tools, jogging for the mansion, whose rooftop had been etched with the lattice pattern of the demon’s net. She stopped atop the steps leading up to the back door, turning to look at the yard where the demon had so casually flung his destructive spell.
Nothing was left. Not even flas.
*
At the Black Tower, Vinam Victoriam assud his position at the head of the table while Araqlun officials and Executioner staff - spread throughout the room - talked to each other in hurried tones. With a gesture, he signaled his attending guard to silence them, which he did by magnifying the sound of a stomp.
"Angels," Vinam said as soon as there was silence, forcing his voice to be steady and firm. "Take a seat, and soone tell what is going on."
"Grand Arch Seraphim," Commander Neloel Cleros intoned, "Earlier today we lost contact with the, ah, task force you sent after the demon in the city. We have since confird that the angels sent to put down the nace were all killed in action."
"And how did we confirm this?" Vinam said, unable to keep a venomous edge out of his voice.
"Cassiel Eros insisted on bringing an Elevated with her team. The Elevated survived along with all the mortals hired to see the job through... and by all appearances Cassiel Eros and the rest of the angels of the task force were the only fatalities. The mortal witnesses... they all describe that no spell seed to affect the area at all. As if their magic simply stopped existing when-"
"Enough," Victoriam spat. "Is the demon dead or not?"
"No, Grand Arch Seraph. After the battle, he was spotted making for Araqlun."
A man who Vinam could not be bothered to rember the na of chid in. "There are reports throughout the city of a demon flying without wings. He’s here Grand High Seraph, making a mockery of us. What are you going to do?"
"Remind who you are?" Vinam intoned.
"Avel Honoris, Chief Justicar."
"Well, Justice Honoris, this is not a criminal matter, so please leave the security of our nation to those whose honor is to keep it." Vinam turned away from the scowling justicar. He was still wondering how of all demons, it was the tatron he’d set out to destroy not once but twice who managed survive. There had to be so sort of trick... if he could just overco it... "I want a full report on this demon’s movents. Start deploying Executioners to every sighting location and-
A dull crashing sound rumbled from far below, and the lights in the room flickered for a mont. For just a tiny mont, the glasses filled with various imbibents rattled before settling.
Seconds later, the rest of Vinam’s remaining personal guard burst into the room.
"Grand Arch Seraph, there’s been an attack. We need to get you to safety," their leader said, quickly coming to Vinam’s side as the rest took positions.
Vinam stood, disbelief rising in him even as he asked the question. "Where? By whom?"
"A highly powered demon, Grand Arch Seraph. He’s taken the lobby floor."
*
Kiryu whistled as he sauntered through the lobby, checking for stairs and noticing every door was labeled using spells that were only visible in manasight.
He ignored the spells being cast his way, mostly because he was phasing all of them into the sa improvised dinsional storage he’d made for Kir’s burgeoning mana. A variation of the sa trick he’d used to protect the building he’d been lounging on just an hour ago.
"I should have put pockets in the design," Kiryu said as he took note of the stairwell door, before flickering past the angels attacking him and kicking in the door to the tiny office behind the counterspace.
There, he found a couple of Elevated won - an elf and a dwarf - cowering, wearing what looked to be a dress uniform. Both of them had fingers replaced with godflesh but no other visible augntations.
"Say, what floor is your R&D division on?" he asked, putting up a quick shield to keep them from trying to run out the opposite door. The elf scread instead of answering, and a pair of angels ca over, trying to shoot Kiryu in the back. He ignored them. "They can’t hurt , and they can’t save you either. So how about you answer my question?"
The dwarven woman swallowed heavily, fear shaking her very bones. "I-it’s in the basent. After the prison floors. Thirty-one floors down."
"Lodrah!" the elf cried out. Kiryu knew the look of soone who’d realized they’d lost the only thing keeping them alive.
"Thank you, Lodrah," Kiryu gave a tiny bow and turned. He vaporized the two angels on the way out, resuming his whistling tune from the beginning before kicking in the stairwell door.
"Score," he said, happy that the stairwell was one of those with a large hollow in the middle. He didn’t even have to crouch as he used Kir’s prehensile feet to grab onto the top of the guard rail, before stepping into the void and plumting as he swiftly descended the tower.
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