Team Z(eta)

An air dome was drowning below the Atlantic Ocean. Among the maritime and flying daemons, despair was born from a being whose existence was beyond the human and demonic limits demonstrated until then.

Its skin was impenetrable by human weapons, from its mouth escaped a fire that evaporated the seven seas. The first trumpet echoed through the sky of the world, and everyone knew the outcome of the confrontation.

They had angered the most unclean sin.

Below a world flooded by the sea, only by the movements of its sovereign, death was present.

Heavy eyes ran across the battlefield, breathing heavily. His energy was depleted, he could barely move. Wounds and pains he had never felt attacked him from every point of his body.

"Even a Sephirot…" his failing voice escaped.

A body was thrown into the rubble, with a crushed arm and a burned face.

He tried to hold his left arm, which ached like never before, and then he realized he was trapped between steel beams. When he tried to crawl out, an iron rod tore through his thigh.

The cold iron touched the muscle fibers and almost reached the bone, then he groaned in pain.

His head was about to explode. The blood, pumped by his heart, was being lost rapidly, and weakness dominated.

It was difficult even to keep his eyes open.

Then… His terror arose.

After a final clash of swords echoed on the battlefield, he quickly sought the origin. Not far from him, there it was: a man, with long black hair, was hanging by his neck from a supernatural creature.

Tentacles fell from its head like strands of hair, having a horn in the shape of a spiral blade on its forehead where, right next to it, ears emerged with an exotic shape almost like fins.

Its skin was blue… An armor of scales without gaps or weaknesses, no one could hurt it.

The man, suspended almost four meters high, hung his arms wielding a sword — in each hand — and revealed the damaged blades. His navy blue hanfu was completely stained with blood, as were his dry hair.

The last lotus petal fell to the ground.

"Izu…" Seeing that scene, murmurs escaped his mouth. Lamentations arising with disbelief, followed by a state of denial.

Tears streamed down his eyes and followed his blood-soaked face to his trembling lips.

"Izu…"

The creature's eyes, shining like a natural light, turned to the owner of that pain.

The vision blurred again. When his eyes opened with a blink, a tail, in the shape of a blade, extended towards him.

Feeling his body being torn to pieces and these same pieces being crushed brutally, his green eyes snapped open.

He woke up.

Throwing the covers away, an incandescent light exploded in his retina, making him recoil.

"Bell?"

A dark-haired young man, wearing a black shirt, called his name. Still not covering his head, Aslan Karahan looked curiously and fearfully at his roommate.

"What happened?" he asked, frowning.

"Was that… a dream?" Azbell muttered, looking at his hands.

Quickly, a memory arose; his hands bathed in blood and full of calluses. His vision returned to the present, where his hands were new and without any injury.

"Was that really a dream?..."

"Had quite the nightmare, huh?" Aslan commented, fully putting on his shirt.

Touching his face, Azbell felt a liquid consume his hand: it wasn't blood, as he expected it to be, it was just sweat.

"Who had a nightmare? Bell?"

Coming out of a door near Azbell's bunk — the bathroom door — came Grey Halfman, a young blond man wearing only a towel.

"You're all messed up, man. What happened?"

"Yeah… A horrible nightmare, really…"

His green eyes showed that he didn't want to talk about it, his trembling hands signed that same agreement. So, his companions respected him and asked nothing.

"Hurry up. We have to pick up Tina at the women's department and go meet our supervisor," Grey said, opening a backpack thrown on a mattress.

"Izumi Kairen…" Aslan muttered, reading a notification on his cell phone. "Do you guys know him?"

'Izu…' Azbell's pupils dilated.

The image of the black-haired man being suspended by the ancestor of the seas drowned his memory.

He squeezed his chest and tried to hold his heavy breathing.

'Did I really… come back?'

"Kairen, huh?" said Grey, putting on a black leather boot. "He's one of the five dominant families of the Michizane clan, the most powerful clan in ancient Japan alongside the Sugawara. It's the family that holds the monopoly on the cards of the god Susano'o…"

"Oh… So he's a noble?" asked Aslan, sitting on the mattress in front of Azbell and Grey.

"Not really… The Kairen family is middle class, but their head, Izumi's father, is a Rank A Sephirot," replied Azbell, struggling to stand up completely.

"Oh… His father is an Arbiter? Cool… How do you know about them?"

"Er… The border. In the refugee camp, the Michizane clan is well known, especially its five dominant families, who are all over Asia seeking to destroy demons and help in charitable projects."

Jumping from the top bunk, Azbell fell to the floor, feeling a headache heat up his body. Straightening his light gray shirt, he walked to the bathroom.

"Anyway, I'll get ready soon."

"You have ten minutes!" said Grey, putting on a long-sleeved black shirt.

"I only need five!"

He needed fifteen minutes.

With Azbell's delay, the fourth member of the group became… Irritated and agitated.

The three boys hurried through the HQ, heading to the main lobby. When they passed the women's department, the response from Tina's roommates was: she was red with anger, the air was even heavy. She left here threatening to turn you into food for Professor Alencar's shikigami…

'Damn Bell!' Grey and Aslan thought simultaneously.

Meanwhile, Azbell was calm.

'If I'm not mistaken, she was around here…' Bell thought, scanning the huge hall.

Ordinary people, whom he had probably never seen in his life, were filling his field of vision and preventing him from finding his companion.

Searching, searching… His pupils ran over every meter of that huge hall. Until, suddenly…

"Tina!" said Azbell, pointing cheerfully.

The other two looked in the direction and found her too: a girl with black, curly hair, with some strands dyed purple.

She turned around and gave them a tense and, indeed, stressful look.

"Sorry for the delay…" said Aslan, throwing himself on Bell's shoulders. "This idiot overslept."

In fact, he was thinking about the "nightmare" while the shower water fell on him.

"So what? Inspector Halfman hasn't arrived with our tutor either."

Tina crossed her arms and began to shake her leg anxiously — also out of stress, as they were almost twenty minutes late.

"Oh, yeah… My uncle hasn't arrived yet…" Grey commented, looking around.

Squirming after Grey stated the obvious, Tina stomped her foot on the ground and looked up stressed. She sighed before closing her eyes.

"What role do you want me to play?" asked Izumi, looking through the glass window that led to the training grounds.

Sitting in the chair at the head of a huge rectangular table, Inspector Halfman crossed his fingers and looked at the glass door — frosted on the outside, preventing anyone from seeing who was inside, the same applied to the window Izumi was observing.

Besides mentioning four Sephirot and the Sephirot, Ragon no Michizane, the current leader of the Michizane Clan, Halfman had not said another word.

Well, until that moment.

"Ragon contacted the German Ministry of Defense recently, and his main agenda was about the descendants of the Michizane Clan. As you already know, the five dominant families of the clan are scattered throughout Europe and Asia, with a strong focus on Germany and Italy…" Halfman said, but Izumi interrupted him.

"Yeah. Because they border the Lust Domain, we gather here. What does that have to do, at the moment, with Ragon?"

"He summoned all the Michizane." Without deviating from the subject, Halfman immediately revealed the situation before Izumi got annoyed with cheap stalling. "The members of the Kairen, Katayo, Ganfujin, Fuhigan families, and the main family, Michizane, he demanded the presence and preparation of everyone…"

Walking to the wall, Izumi leaned against it and looked Halfman in the eyes.

"For what?" he asked, understanding that it was something absurd. "Ragon wouldn't summon everyone for…"

"Retaking the Korean territory, dominated by three Archdemons."

Izumi froze instantly.

"You're… lying…" he said almost whispering.

"I'm not. He plans to recover the Korean territory to have some space. Then, he will initiate humanity's first invasion of the Gluttony Domain since Satoru no Michizane. The Michizane Clan is intending to invade Japanese territory and recover it from Onikyo's hands."

Pushing himself away from the wall, Izumi casually placed his hands on the table and looked at Halfman again, however, widening his eyes in a mixture of feelings.

Upon hearing the rumors that Takashi had told him, Izumi thought it was just more of a wish than a reality. He never imagined that the Michizane clan was actually just a few steps away from carrying out such a… Dangerous mission.

His stomach was attacked by a strange sensation: as if a butterfly were flying inside him.

"How long do I have to prepare?" he asked enthusiastically: still, fear was evident.

Izumi wasn't shocked, he was happy. He finally received the message he wanted.

Since the domains invaded the world sixty years ago, Japanese territory had become the most inhospitable place on the planet alongside Australia. For Izumi, a descendant of a rigid clan from Japan, nothing remained but stories.

Tales, blurted out. A fable told in books. Photos on the internet, which transform the place into something almost mythological.

Seeing the sparkle in his grandfather's eyes when he spoke of Japan encouraged him to become a Sephirot. Above all: above his goal of killing demons, above being a "government dog," above his own life…

The reason for Izumi's strength was solely to breathe the air that his grandfather so divinized. Not only that, but also to recover every inch that the demons had taken from humanity.

To bring home those who only have the sky to take refuge in.

"Six months," Halfman stated, admiring Izumi's brightness.

'Just like when he was a student… The brilliance of a virtuous person never truly fades, does it?'

"Alright."

A drop of sweat formed on Izumi's forehead. Looking at the table's material, he disguised his troubled and anxious eyes behind his black hair strands.

"With that, here comes your second current obligation…"

'Oh, right. Four Sephirot in training, right?' Izumi thought, coming out of his ecstatic state. 'Wait…'

Along with his widened eyes, Izumi's complexion also faded. Turning literally pale after probably understanding what that meant, he went into shock.

Pressing a button on the table, Halfman released a soft alarm that reached the ears of the security guards outside the room. A few seconds later, the glass door opened.

Six people entered the room, only two were security guards…

"These are Grey Halfman, Aslan Karahan, Azbell Gian, and Tina De Behemoth, four aspiring Sephirot agents in training," Benjamin Halfman, the inspector, introduced the four teenagers.

Izumi adopted an upright posture and turned to the aspirants.

"Now, you will be their supervisor."

"What?" Izumi whispered from the corner of his mouth, turning slightly to Benjamin.

Getting up from his chair, the inspector touched Izumi's shoulder and retorted, also in a whisper: "It will be your turn to feel in your skin what I felt when you were eighteen years old…"

Izumi couldn't be paler.

"Aspirants, this is your supervisor and veteran, Izumi Kairen," Halfman presented, walking to the middle between Izumi and the young people.

Forming a side line, the four aspirants crossed their arms behind their backs and listened to Halfman attentively.

"In six weeks, it will be their graduation. Of these six weeks, four must be field preparation. The final two weeks…"

"The test in the spiritual plane of the archangels…" Izumi completed.

Before he could continue, he sought the eyes of each aspirant.

They were all detestable.

The reason for being a Sephirot was to be someone pure. The one who expunges sins, abandons the mundane, and embraces higher consciousness: the one who is free from desires. But, all those teenagers failed to, at least, convey that.

However, Izumi also left something to be desired. The fact that he wanted to destroy the demons only to rescue "his lands" made him as impure as those boys.

'An opportunity to learn and teach…'

"I'm assigning you precisely because I know of your competence, and also because of your recent promotion. Being at potential one, you won't be able to enter the Lust Domain. You know well that the requirement is at least potential ten," said Halfman.

"Yes. While I'm preparing to return to the domain, you want me to train them, right?"

Izumi looked again at the four teenagers. Analyzing them, not out of disdain, but because he didn't know if he was prepared to take responsibility if they didn't survive.

Sighing, he dismissed that thought. Not caring was the best way for a Sephirot to maintain their sanity.

"Alright. I can do that."

"Do you have another choice?" Halfman retorted.

Intending to face him with a threatening look, Izumi gave up instantly. Benjamin Halfman was an Arbiter, a Rank A Sephirot. There was nothing Izumi could do to someone of that rank.

Putting his hand on his chest, Izumi walked a meter in front of the young people. Bowing slightly, he said to them:

"I will accompany you until graduation, so… Just as I will take care of you… Take care of me."

Also bowing their backs slightly, the four young people responded to their new supervisor's gesture.

"We will also be under your care!"

Halfman smiled, closing his eyes and nodding to himself; proud.

"Great… Oh, and since you were the sixth team, you are left with the name Team Zeta," Halfman announced, crossing his arms.

A vein popped out of Tina's forehead.

"Damn it…" she cursed, clenching her fists. "I told you to arrive early precisely so we could get Team Alpha!"

"Hey, hey! Stop spitting in my face!" said Azbell, complaining about his partner's shouts.

"Shut up! It's your fault, isn't it?!"

Observing, Izumi laughed silently.

"Is she the stressed one of your group?" asked Izumi, the new supervisor of Team Zeta.

"Yes," replied Grey. "Aslan is too, sometimes. Tina is a Pinscher, Aslan is like a lion."

"Pinscher?! Say that again, you son of a bitch!" exclaimed Tina.

"Hey! What the?! I got caught in the crossfire?!" complained Aslan, with a distorted expression: his first impression had been ruined.

Unable to contain himself, Izumi began to laugh inconsistently. A fit of laughter attacked him, completely breaking his leader posture — which the boys thought was his nature…

'Captain…' thought Azbell, watching Izumi regain his upright posture.

Looking at a pair of blue eyes, hiding beneath strands of black hair, Azbell's eyes sparkled. Perhaps like an emerald, or an even more beautiful jewel…

He was happy.

Azbell smiled, seeing Izumi cover his face to control his laughter.

'You haven't changed literally at all…'

Two swords, hanging in the air, flooded Azbell's vision again. A recent memory…

'I won't let that happen to you, captain.'