What exactly caused this slow decrease and ultimately the stop of Angels coming to our help is still unknown. There are some theories out there, but nothing to seriously prove them.

The really interesting point is: just as fast as religions all over the world gained power and support they lost it.

At first the governments were trying to hide the fact of the decrease of angelic help.

After the big attack on London in 2026 the Parliament could no longer hide it and the public opinion changed.

The attack was barely fought off and nobody understood why no Angels appeared to save them.

Public opinion on religion, superstition and similar things made a 180° change, slow at first but speeding up.

Many laws were taken back, the ministry was dissolved about a year and a half after the London incident.[…]

Before 2026 there were actual trials regarding witchcraft in court again and people burned at the stake for it. After the attack some people took their anger out on those who blamed others for witchcraft.

[…]

From 2030 up to now we have a situation where religious membership is close to approximately 0,0001% of the population. Every religious community, association, club, meeting, event, etc. is closely monitored and is always on the verge of being prohibited.

So the Demon Invasion didn’t turn out to be the revival for religion, but conversely it was it downfall for most. The most sarcastic thing is: now we have proof of Demons and Angels at least, but nobody believes in God.

In most cases only real fanatics still cling to their religion.[…]

From time to time such dangerous groups […] are found and exterminated.

-Jeremy Luther, Cambridge University Press, 2035, A Overview over religion in Britain in the 21th Century, chapter 5. p.133-146

---Time: 2054.03.02, 13:04:23---

---Location: Europe, England, London, ADCF, Underground Laboratories---

---Population estimated: 12.233.000---

---Patrick Dawn, Blue Flower squad member, Rank:SSS---

I knock at the door.

A shield outside says headmaster. Quite funny if you think about it for a moment: the guy has the highest military authority over the whole DCF in the UK and is called headmaster. Instead of leading a school, he is leading a place where young children are ruthless indoctrinated, drilled, used for experiments, sent to battle and even to their death. And you call him headmaster.

How twisted the meaning became. I guess in George Orwell’s book 1984, they would call this the first step towards Newspeak. A small sarcastic smile appears on my face.

“It’s not the same. They are still teaching us and you know that.”

I look at my partner Clara.

She conveys her feelings and what she means through our mental link.

Once you have such a link with someone expressing your thoughts, emotions and everything else using speech seems quite primitive. Imagine a caveman and a modern business man. Jep, that’s the difference, you simply don’t want to go back.

After we hear a quiet “come in” we go in.

The headmaster stands with the back to us, looking outside his window at the Academy beneath us.

A female in a white lab coat was standing to the left side of his desk facing us.

We have never seen her before.

“SSS-Ranked Squad “Blue Flower”, first my congratulations on achieving something no Squad ever achieved: catching a low class Demon Lord and bringing him back alive to the base. I know it must have been very straining and I hope you are still fit. We already have a new task for you. A special one. It starts the moment you leave this office.”

The headmaster looks at us. We are tired and wanted to rest a bit. Killing a Demon Lord is far easier than to catch him alive. No idea what they do with it.

I think our displeasure showed a bit, because his lips twitch into a smile for a second.

“No need to worry, you will not be sent into battle. I can’t promise you that it will be a easy task, it depends on his cooperation.”

“His cooperation”, Clara asks.

“Doctor Orahara, your turn.”

We look at her, no idea what to expect.

She walks forward and gives us a folder. To be more correct a file on a Person.

“You will be guarding and teaching Ragnar Rok. He is 16-years old and a Broken.”

Utter silence.

“So want us to guard somebody who went insane? And even teach him more stuff, so he is harder to kill the moment he goes berserk?”

The scientist just smiles mildly.

“No. He is already a Broken for many years now and never gave in to his bloodlust or went insane.

He is reasonably stable for somebody in his state. If you look at his file we have an estimation of roughly how many Hellsteelblades he already absorbed.”

Clara grabs the file, flips through some pages and finds the mentioned report.

My jaw drops. Clara turns pale, if that is even possible for her.

“45 to 50.000?”

The Headmaster raises an eyebrow.

“This many? The last time the estimation of you and Doctor Stein was 10.000 blades. Doctor Orahara, we will talk about this later.”

The woman turns to the headmaster.

“The last time we didn’t have time for a proper way to estimate it, but now we had. We looked through all the missions report were he took part in. There is always a number of roughly how many demons were there, so we calculated that he always took the swords of maybe 60% of them. It took us nearly 3 weeks to come up with this number. Do you have any idea on how many missions he was on and how many files that means?”

The headmaster gallantly ignores her last question and instead answers with his own question.

“So the number might even be higher?”

“It might be.”

She waits for other questions from the headmaster, but he gestures her to proceed.

She turns back to us.

“We still need him. Since he probably will tell you anyway what we want to try I might as well tell you. Ragnar will be linked with a new Controller. Until then you will be guarding him.”

Clara and I look each other into the eyes. What the hell are they thinking?

Isn’t that just like killing a Controller right of the bat? Do we have this many people just to waste for a try?

We hear the voice of the scientist, which is suddenly ice cold.

A look at her reveals a dangerous smile.

“Do. Not. Let. Him. Enter. A. Battle. Under no circumstances. Is that clear?”

Silence.

Clara and I aren’t sure why. How would we know?

We are not an insane idiot, so we can’t imagine what he is thinking.

She stares at us, until we give an affirmative answer.

The headmaster than continues.

“So, after she informed you about the most important stuff I will inform you about the rest.

To actively remove him from service we will station him and you two in a new Academy we will open in Scotland. Since no new found Academy can spit out well trained Squads from one day to the next there will not be any missions in the near future. You two will also teach the higher classes since we have a shortage of teachers for now.

The Broken will teach the lower classes.

So I guess it will be a bit relaxing.

That’s it, you may leave now. I still have work to do.”

Dr. Orahara leaves the room and guides us to an elevator.

Once inside we skip through the file.

His physical condition seems to be really bad. He has scars all over the place and his Armour seems to fall apart any moment. There are dents, scratches, cracks, fissures and even some chunks of it are entirely ripped out.

I shudder at all these wounds and the pain. Clara soothes me fast and ensures me she will always be there to heal me.

We continue to read. His organs seem to slowly have taken some damage.

This Broken seems to need an increased amount of sleep to cope with his injuries.

We continue to his personal record, but most of it is blackened and we already know the rest.

As an SSS-ranked Squad we close to never experience blackened files.

Next his psychological profile. Again most of it is blackened.

What the hell?

Clara finally asks Doctor Orahara.

“So how is he?”-Clara

“Hm? Oh, you mean Ragnar?”-Dr.Orahara

“Yes, the Broken.”-Patrick

“Please don’t use that in his presence. For him it feels like an insult, even though he pretends not to care.”-Dr.Orahara

“But it is true”, I insist.

“Even so, just don’t use it.”-Dr.Orahara

“We will not use it in his presence, promised.”-Clara

The woman looks at Clara, who just smiles.

Finally the scientist smiles back.

“Fine, I will take your word.

Ragnar is a bit complicated, to put it simple: he is a loner.

But I guess that is to be expected. He doesn’t want anybody close to him, so he pretends not to care.

Many, who don’t know him well, think he is emotionless and coldhearted. And I guess in a way he is.

He really tries his best to not get emotionally attached to anybody and keeps anybody at a distance.

Even his Squad mates experience this.

But if you look through the reports of the missions he took part in you can see something quite clearly. He never puts the life of his Squad mates in danger, if it can be avoided, and always takes the damage himself to prevent somebody from getting hurt. In most situations the only one getting hurt is him. He pushes forward and tries to kill the Demon Lord as fast as possible. Quite reckless, but I guess in a way pleasing for him.

At the same time he places the civilians as top priority in battles.

He still hasn’t overcome the loss of his controller, but I guess that is not surprising.

No Broken ever has.

The rest is not relevant for you to know.”

As soon as doctor Orahara finishes the lift stops and with a subtle *bing* the doors slide open.

Clara and me are wondering what exactly “the rest” is.

“I still need to pick something up, before we meet him. Just wait here for a second.”

While we are waiting we are reading the rest of the file carefully.

Many parts are apparently not important or too important for us to know, because they are blackened.

We have never seen a file of a Broken, so we have no idea if this was normal or just related to this Ragnar.

The summary of his fighting style and mission reports are interesting.

It supports much of what Dr. Orahara said.

Suddenly we stumble upon a very interesting part at the very end of the report.

“…thus loses sometimes control and goes berserk….has difficulties to differentiate between friend and foe in this state. Long periods of time without missions might lead to losing of sanity and giving in to a bloodfrenzy. Thus we recommend at least one mission every four days to decrease these incidents.”

We are just confused.

He is not allowed to enter battle under any circumstances, but if he doesn’t enter battle he will go berserk at some point in time.

What the hell? So how are we supposed to guard him?

Probably they meant to guard the surrounding people?

How long are we supposed to guard him anyway?

Many emotions, pictures, colours, memories and questions flashed between our link, while we try to come up with an answer.

Finally Doctor Orahara comes back, pushing a trolley in front of her.

A gigantic Hellstellblade on top of it, weighting at least 100kg.

We have no idea how she is even pushing that. Or how the trolley can hold this weight.

“Is something troubling you two?”-Dr.Orahara

“Eeh, actually….how long are we on this …guarding mission?”-Patrick

“Roughly 6 to 18 months. The Controller still needs to finish her training properly.

We don’t want an unfinished produ- …person.”-Dr.Orahara

“And how are we supposed to …guard him from his….outbreaks?”

She stops in her tracks and gives us a cold stare.

“He might be better than the average Squadmate, but at the moment his education is not finished and his power is not even close to be a challenge for you. So there shouldn’t be any problems for you. Just don’t kill him.”

“So we are supposed to beat him until he calms down enough or loses consciences?”

“Exactly. And don’t leave any lasting damage, just like the Demon Lord you brought back.”

She pushes her trolley forward and we reach a door.

We think we have a way to deal with him for now, to hopefully build up some kind of friendship with him.

I will tease him constantly while Clara will react cold towards him.

The door slides open and we enter the room.

“Stein, why is Ragnar still strapped down and naked? I didn’t think you like nude young men.

Ragnar let me introduce you to Patrick Dawn and Clara White, the SSS rated Squad Blue Flower. They will go with you to the Academy in Scotland. Let’s call them your supervisors.”

The guy seems to blush when he realizes that he is nude and everything is visible to us.

Clara looks him in the eye, pretending not to care, but I feel her curiosity and the wish to look deeper.

Well, I might as well start teasing this guy.

I look him up and down, stare a bit longer at a certain place. I feel how my partner is looking through my eyes for this moment.

I smile at him and lick over my lips.

Ragnar starts to blush even more and a slight look of confusion, fear and disgust settles in his face.

Clara and I share a moment of silent, not visible, amusement with our link.

“Are you finished talking?”

Stein nods.

“Good, would you mind letting him put on some clothes?”

Stein just shrugs his shoulders, takes out some kind of remote control and opens the metal shackles.

“Stein and me still need some time to perform some tests before we can let him go.

So you need to wait a bit.”

We took two chairs and waited quietly in a corner.

His left arm was apparently paralyzed, so he had some trouble putting on his clothes.

Afterwards they tested his senses.

To make a long story short: he can only see black, white, grey and red, taste and smell only blood.

His sense of touch is apparently still fine.

His left eye is now yellow and has split pupil, like a demon.

Even I have still round pupils.

They gave him an eyepatch to hide the change.

Nobody just changes his eyecolour over night.

At the end they took some blood samples from him and he absorbed the gigantic Hellstellblade.

We watched carefully, ready to take him down any moment, but he seemed not even bothered by the mental strain.

Afterwards he could move his left arm a bit.

“If everything is finished we should go and pack our stuff.”

At the elevator he tried his best to stay as far away from me as possible.

Quite funny this guy.

I didn’t think teasing him would be this enjoyable.