Life and Death (Soukoku)

Chapter 25

"Fyodor?" The brunette mumbled to hismelf as if trying hard to recall something.

"He's the last one of his bloodline.  He took a gamble and got the throne, stealing it from Chuuya." Tachihara nodded.

"Never mind that. I did my research and found out about the use of holy water." Chuuya spoke up.

The brunette raised a brow, "Don't tell me you want to shower him with holy water do you?"

The ginger shook his head rather proudly, "We'll make him intake it."

The angel hummed, "Might be fatal. But how are we going to make him take it in the first place?"

The ginger and red head glanced at each other before chuckling, the brunette stared at both of them in confusion.

"Despite being a devil, Fyodor likes afternoon tea. He's very particular about it, always wanting his tea boiled at a specific temperature with specific cookies. It's rather amusing." The ginger laughed.

"He likes....afternoon tea?"

The ginger nodded as the brunette blinked blank before sighing, "Not surprised. What else can he do during his infinite free time?"

"It so happened that I'm in charge of serving him the tray of tea and biscuits. I can slip it in then."

The brunette frowned, "He won't notice?"

"I'm sure he won't notice if we added a few drops of holy water in his tea. We demons can't smell nor see it after all."

Dazai nodded, hands fumbling about his pocket as he fished out a vial of holy water.

"It's my last one. Use it sparingly."

The ginger took it gently, eyes widened in surprised, "I thought I might need to go on my knees and beg you for it." He joked.

The brunette shrugged, "If that's all, I'm leaving."

Tachihara stopped the other, "Where are you in a hurry to go to? We should discuss our plan more thoroughly."

"If you forgot, I said I'll only forgive Chuuya if he got the throne. I'm being very generous by helping already. What you do afterwards is none of business." Black wings expanded before the brunette took flight, soon disappearing from both the devil's sight.

"Selfish much. What do you see in him Chuuya?" The red haired sighed, glancing back at the ginger who bit his lip before replying, "He's actually really sweet. I think he's still sour about the whole corruption thing."

Tachihara nodded, "Yeah, I saw. His wings look really bad. Not surprised since you're the one who corrupted him."

"I'm already grateful that he gave me another chance. I will get back the throne. Let's go. We need to start our plan." 

The red haired nodded, both devils taking flight and soaring through the sky.

---

Their plan started, they slowly proceeded with the first phase. They were steadily making their plan come to life. Due to both of them having strong influence throughout hell, it was easy to convince all of them. They were naïve and Chuuya was taking advantage of that.

It started off with gaining more souls and spreading the word. Afterwards, crafting fake scenarios and gaining more power was the next step. They threaded carefully, Fyodor had quite a close eye on all the devils after all. Despite all the bad words about the lord of hell, the raven haired had quite a reputation of how strong his fire was. Being able to melt through bones and so much more. 

For now, only Chuuya could match his level of flame. But that wasn't the ginger's goal, his goal was to surpass the other. To make sure there was no slim chance of survival if anything went wrong in his plan and he had to face the other head on, he'll have to win, obviously.

For now, everything was going to according to plan. 

---

The room was rather quiet, everyone doing their own respective work but no one started a conversation willingly.

The white haired glanced at the younger who he had recently appointed as his assistant due to his fondness of how kind she was to the younger angels. He sighed, he was still miserable due to the recent whole corruption situation that resulted in one of their team's most intelligent and strong angel to get kicked out of the skies. It was rather...depressing, really. At least for him. The rest surprisingly looked unaffected.

He was pulled out of his solemn thoughts when he heard an annoyed groan from across the room. He looked up to see the raven haired across him with his head on the table, seemingly annoyed by something.

Due to his kind nature, he spoke up, "Ranpo-san, are you okay?"

"No...everything's going haywire. We're losing so many souls. The devils are a pain in the neck too."

Kunikida sighed, "Indeed, the numbers have been falling."

Atsushi found himself daring enough as he spoke up, "Should we just beg Dazai-san to come back. No one else can do his work like he could."

Ranpo lifted his head and sighed, "No. We cant have a corrupted angel dealing with souls."

"But he won't corrupt them!" The white haired rebuttled.

"Do you know how the skies will view us if we allow a corrupted angel work with us. Not only will our reputation be tarnished, they'll lose faith in us too."

"But everyone knows how good Dazai-san is in his work. It's proven."

"We just...can't Atsushi."

The white haired couldn't help but scoff which made everyone's eyes widened, "You're all just scared about your reputation. Never thought you guys our of everyone will be like that."

"It's not that Atsushi. It's just that..." The purple haired trailed off.

"See? You can't even give me a proper reason. I'm out." 

Ranpo gasped, "What do you mean 'you're out'?"

"Until you apologise to Dazai-san for how you all treated him, I'm no longer part of the angel community."

"Atsushi, you can't do that. Who will teach the younger ones? Kyouka can't handle it on her own."

Upon the mention of Kyouka's name, Atsushi's heart lurched but he glanced at the other who nodded, as if giving him a sign, giving him the ability to choose for her. He went with what he thought was the best option, he knew Kyouka would follow him either ways.

"Kyouka will be following me. You guys are on your own."

With that, the white haired outstretched his hand for the raven haired to hold as they both left the room, slamming the door behind them.