novelClash of Heaven, Earth, and Hell
| ← Ch.36 | Ch.38 → |
FeTUS headquarters, a facility containing modern man's greatest technology, was located two thousand meters below Megutono Academy's hill.
It was defended by the Witches, heirs of all the knowledge passed down through the centuries.
Currently, Miss A, C, D, and E were gathered there.
After returning to the headquarters, Machina, aka Miss E, succinctly passed on her information while running to the core room located at the deepest part of FeTUS headquarters.
It was a large hall-like space filled with darkness. It was too large to see the walls or ceiling.
She could just barely see the giant rabbit doll sitting in the center.
A young girl sat on the large clock it held. Standing next to it was Miss C, aka Schwarze, aka Katsue Subaru, and Miss D, the school's PE teacher named Daima Makoto.
"Miss E, is what you said true? The fairy tales about Metatron were true?"
Miss C walked impatiently over.
The adorable girl appeared to be about six and her long blonde hair was tied to the left and right.
She wore an elegant deep red dress and a hat sat on her head. She looked like a perfectly normal little girl with somewhat classical tastes. However...
"This information comes from Jiyuuni Ange. Given her personality, the odds of it being a bluff are low. I believe Metatron will target this place within twenty-six minutes."
Machina and the other two looked up to the little girl for instructions.
"So we are not permitted to defy heaven, are we?"
The girl, FeTUS Witches Miss A, sighed with the exhaustion of six hundred years filling her young face.
"We must use our full power. Use all FeTUS equipment. Prepare all Springloaded for activation. We will utilize all of the knowledge available to us to defend this place from the coming judgment."
"Positive."
"Positive."
"Positive."
The three witches received their command and turned around.
Their student uniform or teacher's suit transformed into a black liquid and changed form. Miss C's removed all waste to allow for easier movement. Miss D's became a stylish apron and frilly dress made from the mysterious black substance.
Machina's resembled Schwarze's as it became a skintight suit with even less waste in its design. It fully covered her from the tips of her toes to her shoulders and its provocative design revealed the ample curves of her body, including her slender legs, her plump butt, and her large breasts that jutted out in an egg shape. However, it was also specialized for functionality.
Each of their outfits was made of an ultra-light material with the greatest heat resistance and shock absorption capabilities mankind could create.
They allowed the FeTUS Witches to make the most of their combat abilities.
They left the dimly-lit hall and entered a hallway with red, blue, and green tiles covering the floor. It continued beyond the horizon and the walls were lined with countless doors.
As soon as they left, the door vanished into the darkness behind them.
"I will take the vanguard. You two protect this place."
Machina made her calm suggestion and both Miss C and D nodded.
A single panel on the floor floated up to carry the girl to the school two thousand meters above.
On the first floor of the clock tower in the center of Megutono Academy, nineteen minutes remained until divine punishment would arrive according to Jiyuuni Ange's announcement.
That ultimate angelic weapon had destroyed many arrogant people during the history of mankind.
It was the destroying fire of Metatron.
The only records of its use were mere legends, so modern man had no way of knowing what exactly it was. They only knew it was probably something like a bomb with incredible heat.
"Phew..."
Machina took a deep breath as she waited for that attack to arrive.
FeTUS had long searched for a countermeasure against the angels, so they did have means of opposing even that legendary ultimate weapon.
Seventy-eight layers of insulating devices were set up from here to the headquarters two thousand meters below and they could endure any explosion on the surface, even one from a hydrogen bomb that split the island nation in two.
Angels were meant to protect humans, so they would not make such an indiscriminate attack.
If they were going to do this...
"Oh?"
After a slight sound, the top of the clock tower was vaporized.
Machina stood in the center of the first floor, but she had a clear view of the sky now that over half the tower was gone. Falling raindrops and the unpleasant odor of melting bricks surrounded her.
"So you are here to greet us? Why thank you."
She had heard this male voice earlier.
She looked into the sky and saw the young man angel that Fujita Mutsuki had called Rapha as well as three female angels descending with cruel smiles on their lips.
This was it. The ultimate weapon would be detonated belowground, not on the surface. And a unit of angels would attack to carry it down there.
So if they could be kept out, their divine punishment would end in failure. This was the one method left to the humans of FeTUS who were puny beings when compared to angels and demons.
"...?"
But something was odd. The girl frowned at this attack unit of only four.
She had thought at least one hundred of them would be coming. More importantly, she did not see the strongest angel who she had assumed would be at the center of the attack.
She did not see Jiyuuni Ange.
"Do you think you can break through here with only that many?"
Machina raised her hand.
A golden circle appeared in the palm. She was preparing the anti-angel tool that had instantly neutralized Ange, the most powerful angel, before.
Rapha blinked in surprise as the girl quietly showed unrestrained hostility.
"Of course not. It is true I have been tasked with enacting the main plan, but I have no power to fight. Neither do these three."
He gave a servile smile and the three female angels giggled.
"We angels are pacifists, so we have few combat units. We are nothing like you savage humans that are constantly inventing and using new tools of bloodshed."
He looked up into the sky where thick clouds spiraled.
"I am judgment's guide. And these three are the holy chant unit who blow the war trumpets of god's voice. We merely guide the judgement. And the judgement..."
"...!?"
Machina gasped as she too looked up.
"...is carried by Metatron alone."
The three female angels released joyful vibrations from their throats. The entire area shook with an odd sound that was not quite laughter and not quite a shrill cry.
Their chant surrounded the location requiring judgement so that none might interfere.
The sound of rain had vanished.
A hole opened in the thick clouds covering the sky, like a film of oil being repelled.
The rain stopped and the reddish purple sky of a midsummer evening came into view.
A faint glow was visible in the center, like a twinkling star.
"Meta...tron..."
Machina's voice trembled as it slowly descended toward the annihilated clock tower.
She had not even tried to imagine what this legendary weapon looked like, but she had never thought it would be such a small and faint light.
She briefly wondered if they were going to detonate it on the surface, but that question vanished once she realized the glow was somehow familiar.
Her surprise became a tremor when she saw what had descended right next to Rapha.
"Vv...vv..."
Light surged out and a loathsome voice seemed to shake the depths of the earth.
The three angels sang even louder to drown out that bestial voice. That was likely their sole purpose. They were only meant to make this violent "judgment" appear graceful.
Metatron writhed about as if suffering from the very light it emitted.
It was clearly a living creature. Its long fur...no, red hair scattered about.
Rapha smiled coldly.
"Allow me introduce you. This is our sword and flame that shall pass judgment upon you."
"Vrr...grr...!"
"This is Metatron Ange."
"Vrooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!"
"Kh!"
As soon as the light noticed Machina, it rushed at her like a violent carnivore.
The girl frantically jumped back and opened an anti-angel magic circle in midair. But...
"Agh!"
That heat-resistant tool could cut off flames of several thousand degrees, but the angel of light easily broke through it, grabbed Machina's throat, and slammed her to the ground.
The ground dented inward in a crater. As she was strangled, Machina looked up at the light sitting on top of her.
It was indeed a familiar form. She knew that red hair, that elegant face, and that short stature.
"Jiyuuni...-san."
"Vv...vvvv... Hu...man...human...!"
The main differences were the wings on her back, which were transforming into the bright flash of a detonating bomb, and her clear blue eyes, which had been burned gold.
It was all to transform her into that flame of destruction.
"Everyone... I hate everyone."
Her elegant face now resembled a violent beast and was tense with rage.
"Burn, humaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaans!!"
"Ange does!? Ange...has the bomb?"
The rainclouds covering the city had been blown away, so the rain had suddenly stopped even in the park where Mutsuki had been left.
Mutsuki demanded an answer given the emergency and Lucia reluctantly opened his mouth.
"No, she doesn't have it. She is it. Angels are created when a holy flame gives physical form to a human soul. Metatron is when that inward-burning matter is released outward, creating a flame that burns the candle of their life away."
"But...then if it explodes, Ange will...?"
"She will be annihilated. Both her body and soul will be blown away."
"But! But..."
Wasn't that self-destruction? Wasn't that suicide? The boy could barely think.
He looked up into the oddly clear sky and then looked back to Lucia while on the verge of tears.
"That's awful. What do the angels think Ange is?"
"She agreed to this."
A sudden third voice reached them.
"The Astral Cross can only manifest if she wishes for it herself. It can't be forced onto her. Ange became a bomb because she wants to be one."
"Micha-san..."
"Or to be more accurate, she originally became an angel in order to pass judgment on mankind like this."
He turned toward that familiar alto voice and found his brown-skinned roommate standing there.
"The Fruit of Knowledge at her core is scarred from the hatred toward the human race that did not love her. She became an angel to take revenge on mankind like this, to hold the ultimate destruction inside and become Metatron."
Mutsuki was dumbfounded by the horribly cold and calm tone of the woman's voice.
"I thought her desire to become Metatron might have gone away since she'd started to get along with you lately, but it looks like that didn't change anything after all."
"...Ange."
His memories of Ange flashed through his dizzy mind.
She had known nothing of the human world, but she had hated humans from the moment he met her.
She had fallen in love with a stuffed animal the instant she saw it and had gotten worked up over an arcade game. When he had gotten to know her, she had been a perfectly normal girl, but she had looked for purpose in her work to a baffling extent.
She was Ange of the Double Flame. She was Ange of the Two Flames.
"I have to go save her."
As his surprise waned and he realized sitting here in shock would only allow precious time to pass, a certain desire welled up inside him. He bit his lower lip.
"I have to go save Ange! This is wrong! I have to stop that explosion!"
He pleaded with Lucia and Micha and then took off running. He did not know where FeTUS was being targeted, but the clouds had cleared up in a giant circle. His instincts told him it was at the center of that, so he started running from the park.
Lucia frantically tried to stop him.
"W-wait, Mutsuki-kun. What do you even think you can do?"
"Convince her to stop. She became a bomb because she wanted to, right? Then I might be able to get her to stop this suicidal nonsense if I speak with her."
"It's no use. Once an angel becomes Metatron, they are the same as a ball of fire. Their Fruit of Knowledge is not functioning properly, so even if they're conscious, they're no different from an animal. She won't understand you."
"But...but I might be able to do something. If Ange dies, I'll..."
Mutsuki's voice quavered from the anxiety and fear that his precious friend might blow herself up at any time. Especially when the blast would include Machina and Katsue-sensei, who were precious to him even if they were enemies.
"Please let me go, Lucia-kun. I can't leave Ange alone."
The fear shook not just his voice but the very core of his body. He was unable to throw off the hand holding him.
"I'll say this as many times as it takes: you're up against a bomb here. If you're caught in the blast, you'll die."
"I understand that."He was of course afraid. On a few occasions over the past two months, he had been placed in danger and had felt only a step away from death, but he knew perfectly well that this was the greatest danger he had faced.
But abandoning that precious girl who was walking toward death at this very moment simply was not an option.
"..."
Lucia sighed.
A number of changes came over his adorable face. The expressions passed by too quickly to identify, but he finally gave Mutsuki a sulking look for caring this much for Ange.
"Fine then."
Then his usual cheerful smile returned.
"I'll help you. I'm sure to come in handy and I can even be your shield if it comes to that."
"Eh? B-but then you might die too..."
"If you died, my life would have no meaning."
He sounded nonchalant and wrapped his hand around Mutsuki's elbow.
"Ah..."
Mutsuki bent his shoulders because he felt like he had gone too far.
However, he did not have time to hesitate. He thanked Lucia, wrapped his arm around Lucia's, and started toward the center of the cleared clouds.
But then a red blazing flame tore apart their clasped arms.
There was no heat, but Mutsuki was tossed to the ground by an intense gust of wind. He looked up and saw a pillar of flame rising next to the spot he had been standing in.
"Gwaaaah!"
Lucia had pushed him away.
"Lucia-kun!? ...! Micha-san! What are you doing, Micha-san!? Stop!"
The flames attempting to crush the boy were the wings growing from Micha's back as she stood in the park.
That angelic flame would not harm Mutsuki, but it could be fatal to a demon like Lucia. Mutsuki paled and ran over to her.
The woman lacked her usual kind smile.
"Now that Metatron is in use, I will return to my original duties. As there is a risk of this city being wiped out, I will take the Serpent's Eye holder, Fujita Mutsuki, to heaven for protection."
"Micha-san! Stop this, Micha-san! Lucia-kun will die!"
"With FeTUS's destruction, we no longer need the demons who held them in check. That demon boy has no more value."
With words colder than he ever would have imagined from her, the flames raged.
Over the past two months, he had seen her fight only twice. However, she had acted calmly then and had placed escaping danger as her top priority.
This was different. She was clearly attacking an enemy. She was directing killer intent toward Lucia.
"Stop, Micha-san! Stop!"
Mutsuki grabbed at her to stop her, but the flames passed through his body without feeling even slightly warm. Micha did not even flinch.
"Kh...kh...!"
After the surface of his body turned to charcoal, Lucia stopped fighting the pillar of fire pressing down on him.
His body melted into a thick black liquid. Dread filled Mutsuki for a moment, but that liquid mixed with the rainwater on the ground, escaped in all four directions, and reformed into Lucia a short distance away.
He spat out the ashes in his mouth with the same cold smile he had used when facing Ange.
"So you've finally shown your true self, 'Micha-san'....No, I think it's about time we heard your real name and not just the nickname."
"Eh?"
Nickname. Mutsuki had a very bad feeling about what that meant and he took a few steps back from the woman he was grabbing at.
"I've heard the stories of the old strongest angel who slaughtered more demons that any other in history and went by the alternate name of Michael up in heaven."
"Those are old stories."
"I thought it was odd that only two angels were sent to protect Adam, who could become a great turning point in history. But if one was the current strongest and the other was the old strongest, it makes more sense."
After seeing that Mutsuki had moved out of the way, Lucia pulled out his beloved scythe.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhdah!!"
He covered a distance of several dozen meters in an instant and swung the thick and sharp blade.
Not even Ange might have been able to dodge the speed of the attack that Micha received head-on.
No, the angel of unknown name who went by the nickname of Micha.
"I'm not as young as I used to be."
She caught the tip of the blade between her index and middle fingers.
"I don't have even 2% of the power I used to. At my prime, I would have vaporized you in a single second."
Their power was perfectly matched. She had used just two fingers to stop the demonic attack that had just as much force behind it as a swing of Ange's sword.
"Gh~~!"
She pulled him in and swept her wings at him. Lucia somehow managed to lean back out of the way, but just a graze from the flames was enough to turn his body to charcoal.
"Allow me to correct you on one thing."
Even if her red flame wings were lower temperature than Ange's blue ones, the concentration of their blaze was far greater. A single touch was enough for the heat to penetrate deep into Lucia's body.
"Ange was never chosen to be Fujita Mutsuki's bodyguard. After all, it would be a problem if the angel meant to become Metatron grew attached to the human world."
Lucia grimaced as he regenerated his burned skin and Mutsuki trembled at the strength of this angel who seemed cruelly different from the woman he had known for the past two months.
"I'm not as young as I used to be, so I personally decided to have her tag along to help me. In other words..."
The angel going by the name Micha brushed back her blonde hair like always.
"Originally, I was meant to protect Mutsuki-kun on my own."
But the cold smile on her lips was very different from normal.
"I can deal with FeTUS, the demons, and any other irregularity on my own."
"Kah...!"
In the remains of Megutono Academy's clock tower, Ange suddenly released Machina and left the gaping bowl-shaped hole in the grass.
"Oh? You aren't going to finish her off?"
Machina was not moving, but she was clearly still alive. Ange supposedly had nothing but hatred for humans, so Rapha tilted his head at this sudden act of mercy.
Ange ignored him and made her way to the center of the clock tower.
"Jiyuuni-san...wait."
The angel had become a ball of fire hot enough to melt the earth, so simply leaning down on Machina had done quite a lot of damage. Machina could not get up, but she called out in a scratchy voice.
Ange did not respond.
"Oh, dear. Leaving a witch like this is certainly a problem, but if Ange doesn't want us to, I suppose we can't do it eith-...oh?"
Rapha frowned as he watched on and he suddenly looked up into the sky.
The clouds had regained their strength after having a hole torn into them and the rain was starting to fall once more.
All the moisture on the ground had been vaporized when Ange had appeared as a ball of fire, but the rain wet it once more.
"Perfect."
A smile appeared on his beautiful face and he pulled a green ball from his pocket.
He flicked it over into the crater Machina lay in.
"What...?"
Machina had finally managed to sit up and she looked down at what had fallen onto her stomach.
Just as she noticed it was something wrapped in a basil leaf, a dark red substance like a stickier blood oozed from the gaps in the leaf. The look on her face changed when she saw it.
It absorbed the rainwater and grew.
"A Succubus! Ahhh..."
"We sealed this one and returned it to a fetal state. But given moisture, it will regenerate and grow without end."
By the time she thought about throwing it off of her, it was too late. The demon burst out of the herb and clung to the surface of Machina's skintight suit.
It seemed the angels had been working on countermeasures for the humans of FeTUS they generally had so much trouble with. The unclean creature being used by one of heaven's messengers mercilessly assaulted the girl.
"That is not a violent Succubus. It is a parasitic demon known as an Incubus and it is harmless. It merely incapacitates its host."
"A parasitic...demon?"
"Although it does use a somewhat vulgar method."
The young man chuckled as he accompanied Ange to the center of the tower.
"Vvv..."
The golden wings bursting from the girl's back formed a sphere that enveloped the two of them.
That sphere would not allow anyone but Rapha, her guide, to approach. The raindrops were vaporized and even the ground they stood on melted like chocolate.
"You three keep an eye on that witch."
After that instruction to the other three angels, Rapha and Metatron sank down into the earth.
"Wait... Jiyuuni...abh!"
No one really needed to keep an eye on Machina because she could not move.
The demon known as an Incubus continued to grow and wrapped around her body. It seemed to be made of the same substance as the Succubi that Lucia used, so she had no way of fighting it. It wrapped around her wrists and ankles, preventing her from moving.
"Kh...uuhhhh!"
A skinny tentacle extended toward her ear.
She felt a slug-like sensation slip inside the ear. Before the fear of having it stab into her brain, the biological sense of disgust gave her goose bumps.
It fortunately did not seem to want to kill its prey, so it stopped partway in. And...
"There is no need to struggle."
"...!?"
It touched her eardrum and produced a characteristic vibration.
It was a voice. The creature looked like slime, but it spoke to her using language.
FeTUS was researching demons as well, but they had never come across a type like this before. It was still amorphous, without a physical body to contain the ego as with Satowa Lucia, yet it was intelligent.
"What I will provide you is not fear....I only need one thing from you."
The voice gradually changed. The deep voice gradually rose in pitch until it reached a boyish level. It was an obedient voice with modest modulations of pitch. She recognized this voice.
"You only need to obey me and become my slave, Ibekusa Machina."
(Fujita-kun... Oh, no. )
It was Mutsuki's voice.
What did that mean? Machina's sharp mind quickly caught on and she struggled to break free, but her damaged body was too weak.
"Don't struggle."
"Hyah~~!"
Both ears had a tentacle inside now and they stickily tickled the inside of the ear and the earlobe simultaneously.
She trembled as the tentacles licked her sensitive ears.
This demon knew her ears were sensitive and it knew just how to touch the most sensitive parts.
"I will satisfy you. I will give you more pleasure than the human body can bear. There is nothing to worry about. I simply wish to live with you."
"Uuh...uuh..."
She knew what kind of demon this was.
A demon's greatest strength was its ability to evolve. The rewriting of biological information that would take a normal creature millions of years could be accomplished in a single second. That power came from the Fruit of Life.
They could appear anywhere as long as they had the moisture that was the source of life. The high-level demons like Lucia could use their infinitely reproducing cells to negate most any damage.
Among those, the Incubus seemed to have evolved as a parasite.
It specialized in making its chosen host "want to live with it".
"Ahhh..."
It gained even more strength and the tentacles that had wrapped around her ankles now reached for her thighs.
She cried out as she felt the ticklish sensation even through her skintight suit. Her visible bodylines wiggled seductively.
The ticklish touch was just perfect for cleverly drawing out a girl's sexual pleasure. As those tentacles continually rubbed at her, her entire body grew hot against her will.
This creature violated its host until they consented to living with it.
It had copied Fujita Mutsuki's voice because she found it more pleasant than any other. It searched out the most sensitive parts of her body and it searched out just how to touch her to provide the greatest pleasure.
Mankind still had no means of opposing demons, so the girl paled at the hopeless situation she was left in.
And all the while, the black slime was accurately searching out her erogenous zones.
"How long do you think she'll last? The average for humans - women in particular - is twelve minutes.""They had the gall to defy heaven, so I hope she lasts at least fifteen...no, twenty minutes."
"Either way, she doesn't have more than thirty minutes of life left. No woman has ever been raped by an Incubus for more than half an hour without being made its slave."
"So in half an hour..."
"Yes."
"Loving this demon will be the only thing on her mind."
| ← Ch. 36 | Ch. 38 → |