Visitation: Two

The Tenshi caught them unawares, sprawled together naked on the floor of the third room in a contented post-coital haze.

She was wearing gladiatorix armour fashioned from black glass that gave her body the illusion of secondary sexual characteristics. Her wings were scarlet and indigo and emerald, matching the plume from the helmet she wore. Her eyes, like Hanerisu’s, were gold.

Kekkon moved like lightning, untangling himself from Hanerisu’s limbs and hair before Hanerisu himself could fully register what was going on.

Kekkon crouched in front of Hanerisu, ignoring his nakedness, hissing like a cornered cat. His wings were half opened, angled so that his vicious claws, one tipping the joint of each wing, were angled towards the Tenshi.

“I don’t have time for this.” She said, more exasperated than angry, and certainly not afraid.

Kekkon toppled over, unconscious.

“Things have changed,” she said, addressing Hanerisu, who was too terrified to move, but more afraid for Kekkon than for himself.

“This cold war we have been fighting,” she continued. “Has turned into a hot war. We need you, Haneyoukou, on the battle field, not here in this . . .” She looked around herself, and shrugged her wings, unable to find words adequate to describe what she saw. “You have become a pale shadow of your former self Haneyoukou.”

She held out her hand to Hanerisu.

He took it, and remembered who he was.