Hank stood at the stairs to the subway, looking down a gaping maw into Hell. Evil brewed in its cavernous depth, held back by two earthly things.

A yellow crisscross of crime scene tape, and the ever-glowing presence of Hank.

"What do you want?" he screamed at the black.

Hell whispered back. Death.

Beasts and monsters flew about in a rage. Moments prior they'd roamed the city, free and unabated. Now, at Hank's insistence, they stayed underground, fearing the light of day. They knew though that, like the day, Hank's reign would not last. Other portals of entry existed, and the world was rife with the sin of those wanting to serve the devil. People who harbored ill will, who writhed in the embrace of hate, who glorified suffering for its sake. Their kind outnumbered those more like Hank by a factor of over a thousand, but it took only one like Hank to hold back their legion.

He presented himself as a sacrifice, with hands open and palms out. Take me. Leave them be.

The beasts converged, having him to themselves. They burbled an inch from his face, slipping tendrils under his skin. The air grew heavy as they sought to drag him down, crushing him with ungodly weight. They hesitated, even though he put himself at their mercy, fearing his courage and kindness.

They needed not to act hasty. Eternity was on their side, where all Hank had were precious moments.

In six minutes it would be 4:15.

The Universe gave way as the beasts gained strength and ground. They clambored about in Hank's mind, and he saw how they wholly despised him. A mortal thought of as a god by Others, presenting himself as a lamb, allowing the black in his veins, so much so he thought he'd explode.

Suddenly, Hank rose in the air. He felt heavenly, ethereal, light. His feet left the ground and he flew.

Rio had gripped him by the waist like a python. Showing strength that belied her small size, she lifted him and spun him in a half circle, placing herself between him and the stairs. Once there, she plopped him on his feet and bellowed into the dark.

"Go away!"

She threw so many walls down the shaft that the ground shuddered. Now having Hank to herself, she turned and attacked him again.

It still astounded him how hard she could hug. "Goshujin! Beware! They will kill you!"

He patted her on the head, then stroked her scented hair. "Yeah. I already kind of figured that out."

"What are you doing?"

"It's the message you said Milton would send. It told me to come here."

"I don't think it was him. He would not send you to your death."

"Well, whoever. I don't care. I'm going to stop this war, and this is where I'm gonna do it."

Rio peered around Hank and watched the SWAT team converge, taking positions to put him, and now her, in their crossfire. "How?" she asked, seeking guidance.

"I don't know," he confessed. "I can't fight, and I can't make people fight for me. I just have to prove we're better."

Rio threw more walls, encircling her and Hank. He looked on in mild amazement as the world outside her perimeter grew hazy.

"Well that's interesting," he remarked.

She gave him a sideways grin. "You could do it too, if you tried."

"I dunno. You seem pretty good."

"I have seen you from inside. Anything you dream is yours."

Hank pondered for a moment. "That's something Aika once told me."

The hardness in Rio softened as she held back tears of sadness for Aika. Hank had never seen her eyes shine so bright.

"She is still with us," Rio said. "Reach for her spirit through me."

She walked around and stood in front of him, shielding him from a phalanx of rifles. He held her with gentle hands by the shoulders, pressing her back to his chest.

"Dream," he heard her rumble.

Reality faded as Hank opened the cosmos. He saw thousands of souls at his mercy, then millions, then the whole world. Reality poured in and the Universe emptied, yet still he could hold more. He felt endless, eternal, immortal. Nothing could sate his entirety, neither time nor space, nor intent.

Rio's eyes opened before him, two galaxies rimmed in red glasses, spinning in the void. Through his reflection, they took in what he saw.

"Goshujin," someone like Rio quipped. "You really are quite big."

"Shh," someone like Hank scolded back. "I'm busy."

"Nyah, nyah!" teased Death, mocking Aika. "Too late!"

The time became 4:15, and the commander of the SWAT team called out. "Both of you! By the stairs! On your knees with your hands up!"

Rio gripped the hands Hank had on her shoulders, squeezing to show concern. "I don't think I can stop bullets," she said.

Hank heard a dozen rifles cock. "Well, you'd better try," he advised.

A rumble grew in the distance, approaching at sonic speed. The commander looked at his team as a wave in the earth threw them from their feet. It struck Hank and Rio a millisecond later, liquefying the ground beneath the bricks where they stood. They stumbled as the bricks disappeared in the mud, hopping from one to the next, lest they sink in as well. Eventually they reached the center of the dais, where a large slab of circular concrete was surrounded by other curved pieces. The ground here held firm, as blackness oozed all around. Still, their footing was uncertain, as the earth writhed and groaned.

"Okay!" Hank called out to Rio. "I think you got their attention!"

She wrapped his arms around her to keep from falling into the ooze. "It's not me!" she said of the quake.

A blur of brown roared past the SWAT team, who lay sprawled on the ground in confusion some thirty meters away from Hank and Rio. The blur shed its outer layer as it neared, and men wearing noh theater masks could be seen on floes of white fabric, along with the faces of geishas.

Underneath Leanne's duster, Anna wore the uchikake kimono she'd taken from the bridal display at Milton's. Her black hair trailed straight out behind her as she raced towards the center of the dais, unaffected by the roiling ground. She reached into the kimono's left sleeve with her right hand and withdrew Aika's hinged sword. After locking its blade into place with a flick, she held it above her head with both hands.

Her eyes were set square on Hank. "Mahoutsukai!" Rio cried out in terror, attempting to throw up more walls. "I can't stop her!"

Rio positioned herself between Hank and Anna, intending to do battle, but he pushed her to the side.

"Let her through!" he said to Rio as an order, bracing for what might come.

Anna ran up to his face, bringing the sword down with full force. She planted it in the ground at his feet, inches away from his toes. The circle of concrete they stood on cracked as the blade penetrated a few centimeters before sticking and stopping. Black began crawling up the steel, slowly twisting as if alive.

"This ends here!" Anna shouted as she heaved on the blade, attempting to shove it in further. But the concrete held firm, and the sword wouldn't budge. She tried pulling it out to stab again, but it was truly stuck.

Rio positioned herself between Anna and the sword, looking straight up at Anna's chin. She readied a martial arts blow strong enough to chip a tooth, but Hank grabbed her arm as she swung.

"No!" he barked at her.

Anna dodged the deflected blow, still hanging onto the sword, "Whoa, girlfriend," she quipped. "Where's the love?"

Rio growled and snarled. "You're a witch! I see you!"

Anna pondered a moment. "Well perhaps. But I'm nice. Haven't you heard of good witches?"

"Ugh!" Rio grumbled. She shifted her weight while Hank still held her arm and tried stomping on Anna's instep, but her short height and odd stance were no match for the two.

"Hands in the air!" the SWAT team commander cried out, having no way to make them comply, as the earthquake still tossed him about.

"Rio. Please," Hank implored with sweetness. "I'll handle this," he said of Anna. "Could you Prevent them instead?" he asked, referencing the SWAT team.

"Ugh," Rio grumbled again, this time acquiescing.

Hank placed his hands atop Anna's, who held fast to the hilt of the sword. "What are you doing here?" he asked. "And…" he took in her strange garb. "What are you doing?"

With a powerful flinch, Anna threw her hair over her shoulders, getting it to lay straight down her back.

She grinned huge. "Don't I look great?"

Hank had to admit that she did.

"The sleeves on this thing are enormous," she said of the kimono. "They let me hide Aika's sword!"

Hank took in the massive blade. "And why is that?" he asked.

"Well I can't just run down the street with it. People would freak out."

Hank also felt like freaking out. "And why…" he found himself repeating, being all he could say at the moment.

Anna threw her hair back again, keeping her hands under Hank's, and on the sword. "It all makes sense!" she exclaimed. "Can't you see? Aika gave us her sword for a reason."

"Ah… gave us?" Hank asked, confused.

"Well she first tried to give it to you, but you wouldn't take it from her. So instead she gave you something else."

Hank again found himself repeating. "Ah…" was all he could say.

Anna got on her tiptoes and leaned in, nearly kissing him on the nose. "She gave you all her people. Everyone she's ever cared for."

Like a ballista bolt shot from Heaven, lightning struck inside Hank's mind, so much so that he looked up to see if a storm had begun. But all he saw was the sunny sky of a cool day, made vague by the gauze of Rio's Prevention bubble. He dove in, to see the world Aika had given.

He couldn't think of a more pleasant way to show honor, offering the whole of his self to her memory. She spoke as a noncorporeal existence, shedding both her skin and his, leaving them as naked souls.

"Hank!" someone like Aika exalted upon being able to see him again.

She called to him through throngs of millions, making it impossible for him to see her. But as each of the millions had their own scent, Hank found the one that smelled like Aika and drew her in.

She purred with love in his embrace. Eons passed as they kissed.

Oh! I have missed you so much!

Me too! You fill me up! So much so, and I'll never forget!

He looked around, watching stars twirl.

Everything here is so big.

Be bigger. Be us all.

A giant finger approached, piercing the world the couple shared.

Anna beeped Hank on the nose. "You wanna come back to this Reality?" she asked, dripping sarcasm. "We still got a problem here."

Several members of the SWAT team managed to steady themselves in a prone position, aiming their rifles as the earth shook.

"Bullets coming!" Rio cried out as a warning.

Hank could do nothing but smile, basking in the throes of having spent time with Aika. "My pet," he said to his nose-beeper. "I see now why Aika was always so spacey. So happy and wacky and fun. The world she lives in is a dream!"

"That's how she cares for us, and knows what we're doing. She watches as we dream."

"She's a Dreamwatcher," Hank informed. "It's a type of Dot. She shares herself with those she deems worthy."

Anna looked around at Rio's bubble. "And I'm gonna guess," Anna said of Rio, "she prevents those who aren't worthy from getting their mitts on us."

Hank nodded. "She's a Preventer. She prevents bad Realities."

Anna pondered. "So then… that makes me a good Reality Maker?"

Hank's eyes lit up with realization. "Yes! You are. And I'm more like Aika, it seems. I care for those who need love."

Anna again got on her toes and leaned in. This time, she did give Hank a kiss.

Rio groaned. "Anyone wanna keep from dying?" she griped. "It seems like we're going to."

"Oh shush," Anna scolded. "You're in love with Leanne, as we know." She faked a sassy look of concern. "I do hope she's okay. It has been quite a day."

Rio pulled her attention from the SWAT team, and focused a death-ray stare on Anna's face. "She is sweet and innocent and pure, you lousy kusoyarō, and if anyone hurts her or tries to take her from me, they'll be the first to die."

Hank laid a hand on Rio's shoulder. "No, Honey Cup. No."

"I don't care if my heart turns black and rots from my chest. I will kill them all."

He persisted. "No one dies today."

Anna interjected. "Everyone's dying today, starting with Aika this morning."

Hank disagreed. "I just saw her. She seems fine."

A bullet whizzed by his head, as a member of the SWAT team managed to get off a shot. Hank shot an irritated glance at the man, and he soon found himself sunk up to his neck in the ooze, as the ground liquefied all around him.

Anna blinked with surprise at the sight, then quickly recomposed. She looked at the sword in her hands, still stuck in the crack in the concrete, watching the black slowly crawl up it.

She spoke to Hank with haste. "Okay, Sweet Tea. She's a Preventer," Anna said of Rio. "And you can see people in their dreams."

"As a Dreamwatcher," Hank instructed. "And that makes you a Reality Maker. I help make what you create become real."

"Yes. Okay. So then help. Look at the sword. Do you see what it says?"

Hank read the word engraved on the side of the blade facing him, encircled by heiroglyphs and runes. "It says KINDNESS."

"That's right," Anna said. "And that's you. You are kindness personified. On my side, it says DILIGENCE. That's me. I'm the diligent one. I make sure things get done."

"Okay."

"And I'm telling you as your master, and begging you as your pet, to please do as I say. Help me cram this sword in the ground."

"Why? I mean, you know. What for?"

"Well I suppose we can pull it out and swing it around over our heads, trying to take on ten commandos with rifles. But judging by how this black stuff wants to suck it from my hands, I say we ought to ram it in."

The earthquake slowly died down, and silence reigned supreme. As several members of the SWAT team worked to extract the man stuck in the mud, the commander again called to the group.

"Okay. Final warning! Put your hands up or we shoot!"

The silence lasted scant seconds, as a more sinister sound began brewing. It soon became overwhelming, like tin cans being shredded in a blender. The tin cans became oil barrels, and the blender became a cement mixer. Hank and Anna looked around, as the sound seem to come from all sides, but Rio stared straight at the source.

The SWAT team stared at it too, as it came directly from their rear. Buildings crumbled as cars were tossed, then trucks flew and skyscrapers toppled. A fishing boat rode on the chaos, soon smashed to pieces by a barge, then the barge by an oceanliner.

"You'd better look at this," Rio yelled at Hank and Anna, "because it's the last thing you'll see."

A wall of water thirty feet high grew as a tsunami roared in, crushing everything in its path. Within seconds, all would be gone.

Anna spoke in a calm voice. "Hank, I love you and I need you, but we are going to die."

They placed all four hands on the sword, with his on top of hers.

"Now push!"