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Faust searched her expression in his photographic memory. ((yes, Faust has a photographic memory, because they're useful.)) A distraction... what could he do? What was he capable of to hold Hao's attention, to buy time for Netsubo, and for Eliza?

He locked his gaze with Hao's. "Why are you doing this? There's no point in threatening someone like me. Even if I'd go after Netsubo in cold blood, I'm not physically able to. A little more stress on these old bones," He could feel the bone in his upper arm hanging by a ligament, which snapped, his arm going limp, "... I'll be completely useless, on every level. The first thing I intend to do, once this is over, is check myself into an intensive care unit and recover properly." He tried to sound light and flippant, not to mention confident, all for Netsubo's sake. Darkness ate away at the corner's of his vision; if he kept this up for much longer, he'd faint.

Faust dug into Hao's hand with his fingernails, but Hao's grip was unrelenting. It was so strange... minutes ago, he'd been completely prepared to die, but now, as he choked, as his lungs screamed for oxygen, life seemed very, very precious. He hoped that Netsubo would make it, maybe come back for his body much later when the danger was past. He and Eliza would be together at last, maybe even buried in the same grave... yes, he would very much like that...

Faust lay where he fell, facedown. The two demons appeared, one on either side, examining his body.

"Is he dead?" Beelzebub asked in his buzzing voice.

"No," sighed Mephistophiles. "For such a melancholy guy, he's got an incredible will to live. So, what do you think will happen to the girl?"

"Oh, Hao'll get her," assured Beelzebub. "And a soul as tainted as his'll be will be easy for us to strip him of. Not like Faust," he added, disappointment and respect mixing interestingly in his voice.

"I will ask you to step away from my husband," said a soft voice.

"Your husband? Like FUN... oh, you're an angel," Mephistophiles said, averting his gaze apologetically.

"His guardian angel," Eliza corrected. "As he protected me in life, so I protect him in death... and you two should be ashamed of yourselves." the demons hung their heads accordingly.

"Look, lady, we weren't trying to..."

"Oh, yes, you were," Eliza scolded severely. "Poor Hans... he needs help, and if it doesn't arrive soon, I'll have to take him home."

"Home?"

"Yes, home. He's earned it, despite your efforts to divert his purposes. I hope that little girl is all right, though... I don't want to fetch away two souls..."

"You know that he almost let your skull get crushed?" Beelzebub asked.

"It's a skull," Eliza shrugged. "I almost wish that Hans wouldn't carry it... people might like his company more if he didn't... I'm glad that he tried to save the little girl. It was very gallant of him."

"So, now what?" Mephistophiles asked.

"Go after Hao. Try to keep him from killing Netsubo."

"Why would we want to?" Beelzebub asked. "We want an impressive soul to take back to our master. Since you and your husband are angels, we can't really exert any power over either of you. If Hao killed Netsubo, we could take his soul."

"And we'd like that," Mephistophiles added. "We were actually trying to kill her for a while."

"Then at least mend poor Hans a bit. His arm, his head. Fix him."

"I don't know if a team of doctors could save him," Mephistophiles said doubtfully. "Hao worked him over really badly."

"Consider it repentence for using my appearance to frighten him earlier!" Eliza said icily. "Hans doesn't want to see a child get killed. We lost our daughter... I know that he doesn't want to lose Netsubo."

((and the word is "suffocate"))

after Naosuke started to battle hao the attention was driven away frow him so he could attack again. He didn't want to destroy the skull because it seemed precious to Faust-san he decided to do something different than usual. ( Naosuke's Numchucks have a gazillion things they can become. they can form into a staff, and more. one of the lesser used techniques is to open up the end of each numchuck handle and pull out 2 swords and take the numchcks in his pocket ,which he uses for double mediuim, and take anothe sword out from that numchuck and use the 3 sword style seen in 1 piece) Naosuke went ahead with the procedure explained in the parentheses and charged furyoku

Shizuka's tonfa was held up to Hao's neck. Using her firyoku, she managed to force a blade on the side, currently being used as the threat. It was obvious that she wanted him to let Netsubo go.