04/05/2012, Grigori HQ
Azazel arrived back at the Grigori headquarters with uncharacteristic haste. The encounter with the blue-haired boy in the park had shaken him to his core, leaving a disquieting echo of holiness where only the familiar ache of the Fall resided.
He strode through the imposing corridors of the Fallen Angels' Ministry of Defense, the usual swagger replaced by a palpable urgency that drew curious glances from the few subordinates he passed. His destination was the secure meeting chamber reserved for the Cadres only.
His vice-governor, Shemhazai, materialized beside him almost instantly, his sharp features etched with concern. The silver-haired Fallen Angel, clad in his signature black vest beneath a flowing purple trench coat, matched Azazel's hurried pace.
"Azazel?" Shemhazai's voice was low, probing. "What's happening? I haven't seen you this troubled since the end of the Great War, maybe even before." The gravity in his tone was unmistakable; Azazel's agitation was a rare and alarming sight.
"Have you gathered the Cadres, Shemhazai?" Azazel deflected, his focus fixed ahead, not slowing his stride. He needed his inner circle, and he needed them now.
"Yes," Shemhazai confirmed, easily keeping pace. "We're all assembled, save for Kokabiel." He paused, the unspoken question hanging heavy between them.
"Will you tell me what's happening?" he pressed again, his worry deepening as Azazel remained stubbornly silent, merely increasing his pace towards the heavy doors of the meeting room.
Azazel pushed the doors open, revealing the chamber bathed in the cool, ethereal glow of magical devices resembling ornate oil lanterns, each containing a flickering blue flame.
The light cast long, shifting shadows across the faces of the Cadres seated around the central round table.
Penemue, the chief secretary, her violet robes seeming to absorb the blue light, looked up from her notes, her expression instantly alert.
Baraqiel, the formidable General of the Grigori army, sat ramrod straight, his arms crossed over his broad chest, his brow furrowed in suspicion.
Tamiel, head of economic affairs, paused mid-sip of his coffee, his sharp eyes narrowing.
Armaros, the perpetually curious head researcher, leaned forward, intrigue warring with apprehension on his face.
Azazel took his seat at the head of the table, Shemhazai settling beside him. The vice-governor formally opened the proceedings, his voice cutting through the expectant silence.
"Thank you all for responding swiftly. Governor Azazel has convened this emergency assembly. Azazel," he turned, his gaze intense, "would you enlighten us?"
Azazel cleared his throat, a rare gesture betraying his inner turmoil. He felt an absurd urge for a stiff drink, 'I should have stopped for one,' he chided himself internally, trying to find his usual irreverent footing.
The collective gaze of his most trusted lieutenants was heavy, each one registering the profound anxiety etched onto his features, an expression utterly alien on their typically flippant leader.
"I don't even know where to start," Azazel began, his voice lower, more serious than any of them could recall. He met their eyes, one by one. "First things first. What I am about to disclose must not, under any circumstances, leave this room. Am I understood?"
The absolute seriousness in his tone, devoid of his usual sardonic edge, sent a ripple of disquiet around the table.
Baraqiel was the first to voice the collective unease. "I wonder what could have possibly transpired to cause you such distress, Azazel." His deep voice rumbled, his frown deepening. "No offense intended, but you are not usually the most... grave among us. This level of agitation suggests something monumental."
He couldn't fathom what could rattle Azazel so profoundly, not even in a thousand years.
Penemue nodded her agreement, her concern evident. "He speaks truly, Azazel. You are making us deeply apprehensive. This demeanor is unprecedented from you."
Azazel sighed, running a hand through his black-and-gold streaked hair. "I know. Believe me, I know this isn't like me." He paused, gathering his thoughts, the blue lantern light glinting in his golden eyes. "What would you say... if I told you I returned an angel?" He let the statement hang, watching the impact.
Armaros barked a short, incredulous laugh. "There he is! Our Azazel! Always the jester, even in a crisis!" He leaned back, relief momentarily washing over his face, wiping imaginary tears of mirth. "I told you all he was just winding us up!"
Baraqiel, however, remained stone-faced. "I would take you for mad," he stated flatly, his gaze unwavering. The others, including Shemhazai, slowly nodded their silent agreement with the General's assessment.
The idea was preposterous.
"I thought so," Azazel said quietly. The brief levity Armaros had introduced vanished instantly. "But... it was true. I returned an angel. Even if it was for mere feeble seconds."
The stark sincerity in his voice, the complete absence of his characteristic smirk, silenced Armaros's lingering chuckle. Disbelief warred with dawning horror on every face.
Tamiel choked on his coffee, sputtering. Armaros blinked rapidly, as if trying to clear his vision or his hearing. Shemhazai paled slightly, his voice dropping to a thin, almost fearful whisper.
"What... what does that mean, Azazel? Truly?"
"Azazel," Baraqiel leaned forward, his knuckles white where they gripped the edge of the table, "have you lost your mind? The Fall is irreversible. Our very nature is defined by its permanence!"
Azazel shook his head slowly, his gaze distant for a moment, seeing again the boy slumped on the park bench.
"Yesterday... I met a boy." The Cadres leaned in unconsciously, the room deathly silent save for the faint crackle of the blue flames. "Pure chance. He was... adrift. Conflicted. Sad and kn a mere whim I spoke with him." He described the brief encounter, the instinctive pull to offer comfort.
"Then... he was overcome by pain. Agony. And when I moved to help him, when I got close..." Azazel's voice grew hushed, reverent, and filled with awe. "It was like standing before Father again. I felt... transported. Not literally, but the sensation... the absolute, undeniable feeling of holiness... it flooded back into me. As if the Fall had never happened. As if millennia of corruption and rebellion were washed away in an instant."
He looked at his comrades, his golden eyes wide, vulnerable. "I swear it upon everything we are."
"A boy?" Baraqiel repeated, skepticism battling the sheer conviction in Azazel's tone.
"Where did this occur, Azazel?" Penemue asked, her mind racing with implications.
"We have strived for centuries! Experimented, researched, prayed in our own fallen way!" Armaros surged to his feet, his chair scraping harshly against the stone floor. His face was a mask of shock and near outrage.
"And you stand there telling us a mortal child achieved what we deemed impossible in a second?!"
"Yes," Azazel stated simply, meeting Armaros's furious gaze. "That is precisely what I am saying. And that is why this discussion must remain contained within these walls. The implications... the danger... the cataclysmic consequences of it..." He let the thought trail off, the unspoken threat hanging heavy on the shoulders of the Grigori's Cadres.
"Could he be...?" Tamiel ventured cautiously, his analytical mind already spinning theories. "God's reincarnation? Is such a thing even conceivable?"
"Impossible," Shemhazai cut in immediately, his voice regaining some strength but still laced with unease.
"Beings like Father... they transcend such cycles. They are concepts, forces. They do not simply... reincarnate into human vessels." His denial was firm, rooted in their fundamental understanding of divinity.
A heavy silence descended once more, thick with unspoken questions and burgeoning dread. Tamiel, ever observant, narrowed his eyes at Azazel.
"Azazel," he said slowly, suspicion dawning, "you know the answer, don't you? I see it in your eyes. Knowledge you haven't yet shared. Tell us." His gaze pinned the Governor.
Azazel took another deep, steadying breath. The secret he'd carried for millennia, a fragment of conversation overheard in the celestial halls of a Heaven long lost, now demanded utterance.
"Forgive me," he murmured, "I still struggle to believe it myself." He looked around at the expectant faces, the blue light casting their features in stark relief.
"You all recall that before the Great War sundered everything, Father held Michael and Lucifer in highest esteem? Closer even than Metatron—the literal guardian of Heaven's Throne?"
Nods of grim remembrance answered him. The memory of the favored sons, and the cataclysm that followed their schism, was a permanent scar on their collective soul.
"I overheard them once," Azazel continued, his voice dropping to a near whisper, forcing them to lean in further. "Father spoke of the future. He knew his own end was inevitable—we all sensed it, though we refused to accept it, least of all envisioning how it would come."
A collective flinch went around the table at the unspoken reference to Lucifer's betrayal and God's demise.
"He told them... a prophecy." Azazel paused, letting the weight of the word settle. "He spoke of the Messiah. Not the Christian prophet—Jesus Christ... but the true Messiah. A universal savior promised to all creation, all factions of the supernatural and non."
Penemue shifted. "That... that is merely a comforting myth, is it not? A story told to mortals and some children?"
"No," Azazel stated with absolute conviction. "Father declared it as fact. He said this figure would arise when the world teetered on the brink of its greatest need. A boy... a boy who would defy the impossible and emerge victorious. A boy who would shoulder the very burden of the world."
He let the image hang in the blue-tinged air.
"Father expressed his sorrow that he would not live to meet him. But he told Michael and Lucifer to 'trust the Universe,' assuring them we would recognize the Messiah when he came." Azazel met their stunned gazes. "I believe... I have found him."
The tension in the room snapped, replaced by a stunned silence so profound the crackle of the blue flames sounded like thunder. Baraqiel surged to his feet, his powerful frame trembling with shock and something akin to fury.
"You stand before us claiming the Messiah is real?!" His voice boomed, shaking the lantern flames. The sheer blasphemy and impossible hope contained in the statement were overwhelming.
"Calm yourself, Baraqiel!" Penemue commanded, though her own voice held a tremor. "We are all reeling from this revelation! Losing composure serves no purpose!"
"Let us all regain our equilibrium!" Shemhazai's voice cut through the rising tension, authoritative and sharp. He glared at Baraqiel until the General slowly, reluctantly, sank back into his seat, though his fists remained clenched.
Armaros, ever the pragmatist even in the face of cosmic revelation, found his voice first. "Azazel... if what you say holds even a grain of truth... then the implications are staggering. It means the world is facing a peril grave enough to necessitate the Messiah's arrival." His scientific mind grappled with the theological and existential implications.
Tamiel nodded slowly. "Indeed. The question now is... what action do we take?"
"I don't know," Azazel admitted, a rare moment of vulnerability before his Cadres. The weight of the knowledge felt immense. "Truly, I do not."
"Can we speak to this boy?" Baraqiel asked, his voice tight but controlled now, the soldier seeking actionable intelligence. "Assess him ourselves?"
Azazel nodded. "In theory, yes. But he's currently residing in Kuoh Town."
"Kuoh Town?" Penemue exclaimed, her composure slipping. "HE'S A DEVIL?!"
"No," Azazel clarified quickly. "He is human. Kuoh is simply the territory where he currently resides—the city governed by the Gremory and Sitri families." He watched the implications register: the heart of Satan territory.
Another heavy silence fell as the Cadres processed this new layer of complexity. Tamiel stroked his chin thoughtfully. "I suggest... the initial contact must remain yours, Azazel. You alone have felt... whatever it was. We risk alarming him, or worse, provoking an incident, if we descend upon him en masse. Your prior, albeit brief, connection is our best avenue."
"By sending the Governor General of Grigori into the heartland of two Satans' domains?" Baraqiel protested instantly, his strategic mind flashing red alerts. "Unannounced? It is a blatant provocation! It could ignite the conflict we've spent decades carefully avoiding!"
"The risk of war is very real," Shemhazai concurred gravely. "Our forces are not what they once were. Another Great War would devastate us utterly, likely finishing what the last one started."
Penemue countered, "Azazel already ventured there undetected once. If he exercises extreme caution... and this matter is of cosmic importance, potentially surpassing even the delicate balance with the Devils..."
"Listen," Azazel's voice cut through the debate, firm and decisive. He stood, his golden eyes sweeping over his Cadres, the weight of his office settling back onto his shoulders, displacing some of the personal shock.
"I will return to Kuoh. I will find this boy, Makoto Yuki, and I will attempt to speak with him, to understand what he is and what his presence signifies. This is not open for further discussion. The potential stakes are too high for inaction or bureaucratic delay." His tone brooked no argument.
Baraqiel gritted his teeth, the sound loud in the stillness. He wrestled visibly with his instincts as a General screaming caution against the magnitude of Azazel's claim.
"Baraqiel?" Penemue asked softly, seeing the conflict.
"It... is nothing," Baraqiel forced out, unclenching his fists with visible effort. He met Azazel's gaze, a soldier acknowledging his commander's order, however fraught.
"You are correct. This situation possesses the utmost priority. Forgive my... forceful objections." He gave a curt, stiff nod.
One by one, the other Cadres signaled their assent. The plan, such as it was, had been formed. Azazel would return to Kuoh. As the meeting began to dissolve, Azazel held up a hand. "One more thing. Kokabiel. His absence... and his recent demeanor?"
Baraqiel's expression darkened. "He grows increasingly distant. Secretive. His rhetoric during our last tactical review was... concerningly militant."
"I've observed it too," Tamiel confirmed. "A restlessness. A dissatisfaction with the status quo that borders on recklessness."
Azazel's gaze hardened. "Then he learns nothing of this. Not a word. This stays between us, the Cadres present here tonight. Understood?"
A chorus of solemn affirmations answered him. The Cadres filed out, leaving Azazel alone in the blue-lit chamber, the weight of prophecy, the echo of holiness, and the specter of a potential war with the Devils pressing down on him.
He stared into the flickering blue flames, the image of the sad, blue-haired boy seared into his mind—the impossible key to an unfathomable future.