JUNE 17th, 2014.

Kat straightens her orange tie in front of a dimly lit public bathroom mirror, with the room illuminated by a weak greenish-white fluorescent light.
Her hair is noticeably untied at the back.

Knock.
Knock.

Two quick knocks on the bathroom door cause her to glance over, glaring at who she can assume is behind it.

“Hurry up,” Yasu says strictly, seemingly annoyed. “Just got new info from Liam.”

Kat pulls out a hairband from her pant pocket and begins to tie her hair back as she usually has it. She sighs, internally rolling her eyes.

“Convenient timing, huh. Who’re we after?” she says, distracted by finishing up her hair.

“Can’t say anything here. Let’s go.”

Kat exits the bathroom with her hair tied up again, walking alongside Yasu. They were in the lobby of an airport, as various civilians made their way to and from the lobby, carrying suitcases and talking amongst themselves.

“So, I’m guessing Keith isn’t showing up?” Kat asks Yasu, cocking her head in his direction while walking with her arms at her sides.

“Flight got delayed. News was saying it was a fueling issue…” Yasu replies, trailing off to imply there’s more to the situation than it seems. They walk out of the airport, leaving through automated doors near the front as crowds of people walk around them.

“And he reported a spirit? Maybe a signer?” Kat says, looking forward while trying to find where they parked.

Yasu glances around while maintaining his composure, checking for eavesdroppers. If there were any around, he would’ve noticed them.

“Worse. The body of a politician’s security chief was found in their private cabin.”

Kat curiously tilts her head, as she puts her hand to her chin and looks upward in thought.

“Hm… politically influenced, or…?”

They approach the blackish-grey sedan, opening the doors and entering it. Yasu is driving, and Kat is sitting in the passenger seat as per usual. They both close their doors before continuing the conversation.

“Seems so,” Yasu pulls out a flip phone, opens it with a flick, and presses a few buttons until he shows Kat a photo taken from the crime scene.

It shows a white card stained in blood— around the size of a letter envelope— with a gold insignia in the middle. The insignia itself was intricately detailed, with heavy lines of gold representing three pairs of angel wings, six in total, symmetrically expanding toward the top of the crest-inspired shield below it. Around them and spread throughout the insignia were seven eyes, all of them staring forward. Just below the wings, a circle went around the entire insignia, with a string of text in Latin repeating twice around it.

Deus Nolens Exitus. Omnis Exitus Initium Est.

Kat’s eyes widen upon looking at the insignia, as a chill causes her shoulders to shift.

“Seraphim…?” she says, hoping for a ‘no’ in response, but knowing it won’t come. “I thought they only hunted signers…”

“Until now. Liam finally translated that quote, too,” Yasu begins to say, grabbing his phone back and looking at the insignia again. “Roughly… ‘God’s Unwilling Exit. Every Exit— or End— Is A Beginning.’”

Kat scoffs, as if she can’t believe what she’s hearing.

“Terrorists trying to overthrow God…? Well, it’s flashy, I guess.”

“That’s not the screwiest part.” Yasu taps the arrow to the right of the middle selection button, scrolling to another picture. “Look.”

“What…?” Kat says, not sure how to react to what she’s seeing.
It was an image of the card from before, but flipped over.

On its reverse side, the black background was exchanged for a white one.

In black letters, from what seemed to be a marker, very haphazardly and quickly written onto the page at an angle— making it appear as if the author was psychotic— were three words, arranged as follows:

WELCOME HOME
PROGENITOR

“‘Pro…genitor’? What is that?” Kat asks Yasu, at a loss.

“A progenitor is one of three things. An ancestor, a precursor, or an originator.” Yasu replies, using his fingers to count out the three as he speaks them aloud. “Liam picked up movement on an Archangel. I’m guessing their leader’s back, if he was even missing, and now they’re feeling a little confident.”

Kat looks forward at the dashboard of the car, before glancing back to Yasu as she realizes the implication.

“...Which means they’re going to be more aggressive now. But…” She pinches her chin again, thinking deeply. “That doesn’t make any sense. If their leader returned, why’d they welcome him with a murder’s calling card…? It feels more like it was meant for someone they don’t have contact with.”

Yasu stares forward, before his eyes open wide, showing an unnatural shock with his experience. He immediately starts the car and pulls out of the parking lot.

“What? Where are you going?!” Kat asks, confused and seemingly worried, given the topic that was at hand before. Yasu slams his foot on the accelerator, dodging between cars as Kat is pressed against the back of her seat, stabilizing herself. He grips the steering wheel tightly, squeezing it with his left fist.

“...Get ready to die, Reaper. If you aren’t, you’re going to end up leading a lot of people over the river.” Yasu says, taking on an extremely serious tone, almost devoid of emotion.

“What are you…?” Kat tries to say, before being cut off.

“It’s shit luck. That Archangel is heading toward the Numet-class signer,” he says, handling the shifter and pressing down the clutch as he goes down a gear to turn a corner.

Kat’s eyes open in shock as her jaw freezes, unable to do anything but keep her mouth slightly parted.

“No… No, that’s going to—”

“I don’t care how many corpses you have to step over,” Yasu begins to say, giving her an ultimatum. “Either you kill one of them, or you die trying. Understand?”

“...That’s the job,” she says, similarly devoid of emotion. Casting it away, as it’d only hinder the both of them.

It’s what we signed up for.


. . . . .



Upon exiting the elevator to the fourth floor, Seth notices that the hallway containing his apartment looks like it was turned into a warzone. The walls were damaged as if someone had taken a sledgehammer against them, and doors were ripped off of their hinges as they lay in the middle, strewn about and illuminated by the pale orange light that was cast above the entire hallway. Seth expected to smell the stench of blood from this scene alone, but didn’t.

What happened here…?

Seth walks forward, stepping through chunks of concrete and broken glass belonging to destroyed vending machines and windows overlooking the city as the wind and rain rush through them, leaving puddles on the windowsills and the floors below.

He walks over all of the debris toward his apartment, before hearing a woman in an apartment further down the hallway, yelling. The line of broken-off doors extends another three apartments down, ending at where the voice is coming from. There are a few more apartments with their doors and walls intact further ahead of it.

“P-Please…! Don’t hurt him! Please!” she desperately begs, sounding as if she’s trying to save someone.

It’s… none of my business. I’m out of here in a day anyway.

“PLEASE! STOP!” her yells only become louder as she begs the assailant to stop whatever they’re doing.

Shit…

Seth steps inside his apartment, more trashed than it already was, as he quickly reaches behind a hole in one of the walls behind a large shelf, picking up a gun. It’s a .45 long-slide pistol, modified with a textured grip. The gunmetal grey contrasts against the silver of the barrel, as it refracts the light in Seth’s hand.

It’s better if I end up dying, than someone else…

Despite Yggdrasil’s earlier warning echoing in his head, he knows that if that woman or whoever she was trying to protect dies, they won’t get a second chance at life like he does. He brings the pistol upward, close to his chest with both hands gripped onto it. Slowly approaching the apartment where the yelling is coming from, he puts extra caution and thought behind his path, making sure not to step on anything that would produce too much noise. His heart rate rising, he steps in front of the door, searching the room instantly for the source of the damage.

A very muscular man— around Seth’s age— with fierce ruby eyes,  spiky, faded crimson hair, and multiple piercings in his right ear was standing over a woman and her child, both with brown hair and brown eyes, terrorizing the both of them with a sadistic grin. He wore a torn, black, white, and red jacket with black and white undershirts. He had his left fist raised back above his head, acting as if he was going to hit her as she clenched her eyes shut in fear, protecting her young boy.

Seth held the gun positioned directly at the man’s head, as he glanced over at Seth with the same sadistic expression, not turning his neck.

“Put your hands up. Now.” Seth says, attempting to subdue the man with a serious, deadly expression across his face. Seth was not the type of person to be unable to shoot someone, and that fact was reflected within the intensity of his eyes.

“Oh…?” the man said, incredibly intrigued by Seth’s audacity.

The man began to slowly raise his hands and arms upward above his head, stepping away from the woman and her child. His grin had somehow grown even wider, and his teeth looked sharper… more like a dog’s than a human’s.

Getting a better look at his figure, Seth realized he had two wide, repurposed oxygen tanks on his back— around the same height as his spine— with what seemed to be two red IV tubes each going from them to his forearms. They were wrapped in bandages, and secured close to his jacket using straps on the sleeves, likely to mitigate any risk of being ripped out.  As Seth opens his mouth to continue instructing the man, the man does the same, never letting up his sadistic smile.

“Take. 400 milliliters.”

In less than the blink of an eye, despite Seth having his pistol trained on him for the entire time he’d been in his line of sight, he felt his stomach being pushed inward as the man instantly closed the distance between them with a full-force punch. Groaning loudly as his eyes almost bulge out of his skull, Seth gets flung backward and slams against the wall outside of the woman and child’s apartment, feeling as if he just had half of the bones in his body broken at once. Seth’s vision blurs as he falls onto his knees, losing the strength in his body.

“Now, there he is… There’s the guest of the hour!” the man says, grinning and staring at Seth with wide, excited eyes. As if he gained some kind of sadistic pleasure from doing this.

Seth coughs up a small amount of blood onto the ground, staring with deadly defiance toward the man who had just brutally hit him. This sends the man into a frenzy, as he smiles even wider and clenches his fist, pointing at Seth and then himself as he speaks.

“Right, that’s how this should be. Yeah… you, trying to break me… and me, trying to break you.”

He claps his hands together with while laughing to himself, complete with a heavy dose of insanity. It’s as if he’s applauding Seth, while also hyping himself up.

“The name’s Vain… the seventh Archangel. It’s one hell of a pleasure to meet you…”

He stares forward, letting his body slouch downward as he sadistically disassembles Seth’s body just with a gaze. Imagining killing him in countless different ways, countless different times. Out of both respect and jealousy. Seth shifts upward as he speaks, slowly regaining his strength as he forces himself to fight.

“...’Progenitor’.”