Well, they succeeded.

It was difficult and mind scrambling and tiring, but they succeeded.

Rin lay in the thick cover of ashes on the ground below where the Artificial Gate used to be, slowly being buried in the still-falling ashes and cinders. He didn't remember falling, but his body sure did.

It was hard to keep his eyes open and it felt like his head was being split open by an oncoming migraine. Due to the migraine, he deduced he must have had to use his power over damned souls to win the battle, but he didn't remember how or why.

Eventually, he tried to sit up and take a deep breath in, but inhaled ashes and coughed for a good few minutes before he could breathe again. Blood splattered across the ashes next to him as he hacked.

His senses all seemed to be dulled. His hearing was muffled and there was a piercing ringing sound in his right ear. As soon as he registered that he was sitting up, his vision tilted to the side and he had to clench his eyes shut both against the blinding sunlight making itself known to his retinas and the tunnel vision sudden dizziness gave him. His body moved irritatingly slow every time he tried to get up and get just kept ending up falling back down and stirring up more ashes and debris.

Finally, he just stayed down and groaned, throat feeling sore and dry. He curled up on his side and did his best not to breathe in any more ashes as he took deep breaths to keep the bile in the back of his throat from rising any further.

Rin had no idea how long he laid there, but the sun slowly went down and the sky was a pink-purple, just on the edge of dusk. He could finally open his eyes again once the sunlight was gone.

He looked around as best he could without moving so as not to make the pounding in his skull come back after it had settled once he'd stopped moving around earlier. He could see lumps in the ash-some pieces of the Gate, some Exorcist equipment, and others were bodies. He could feel some anguished souls trapped in some of the bodies-their owners hadn't been ready to die and tried to stay even after their bodies passed. Some were still dying, ever so slowly, as they suffocated under ash or bled out from wounds or their crushed bodies tried to pull them free of fallen debris.

Rin, without thinking, tried to reach out. He broke off a piece of himself to find the souls trapped on the battlefield and guide them where they were meant to be.

He sent the ones who were innocent of evil, but also innocent of good, to Asphodel. Others, he dragged their dark souls that glowed with negative light down with chains and weights, sending them falling to the pits of Tartarus.

In the middle of his work of freeing the dead abd seemingly being the Grim Reaper, Amaimon found him and the Earth King signaled Bon. The piece of him guided them to Rin's body and he smiled tiredly up at them.

"Oh, Rin." Bon dropped to his knees and carefully scanned Rin's body. It seemed to be physically fine as far as wounds went, but mentally, he was off. "It fought back at you until you destroyed it." The boy realized.

"Don't remember it at the end." Rin murmured, though his hearing was still messed up.

"Let's get you home and see what we can do for you back at home, yeah?" Bon suggested. Rin avoided nodding to keep the pounding at bay, but made a noise of agreeement and clenched this eyes shut in pain when he was picked up. Amaimon snapped them home and Rin was able to calm somewhat with the familiar scents and colors of the Manor washing over him.

It took a spell of Balance and two restoration potions from Amaimon to get his senses back to being operational and a full day of sleep to get him perfectly healed. During his day-long rest, he contemplated the day before.

§~•~§~•~§

They set all their equipment up at four and were ready and in position by five. Starting any earlier was prohibited because from three to four in the morning was what humans called the Witching Hour, AKA the hour where demons were most powerful.

The members of Team Alpha were Ryuji, Izumo, Lucy Yang, Osceola Redarm, and Lewin Light. Team Beta consisted of Shiemi, Shima, Drac Dragulescu, Yukio, and Konekomeru. Konekomeru had been added because of his extensive knowledge of shielding mantras and his skill as an Aria. He'd be placed in the center of the Defence group, well protected.

Rin, Mephisto, and Amaimon were team Omega. Rin would be channeling power directly into one part of the Gate's border and Amaimon would be tearing away the physical part of the border that was made of some kind of Gehennan stone. Mephisto was on standby until Rin cued him to slow the demons pouring out of the Gate.

Rin was a mix of anxious and excited as everyone got into position. Once Karura raved over to give Rin the Okay, he commenced the plan. He'd located the constant stream of raw supernatural power running through the borders of the Gate and saw how it fought against Mephisto's spell. He reached in and attached himself to that magic and slowly spread his touch as far as it would go until he had a pretty sizable chunk to work at when he started channeling his own combating magic into the stream.

It snapped back and he fought with the toxic magic as it tried to take him over. Instead, Rin channeled more power into the stream,watching it turn crimson and inky black instead of the bright, blinding yellow and electric blue of Lucifer and Satan's combined power.

Rin felt Amaimon begin to weave his own power through the physical border, turning the stone to mineral sand bit by bit. It was slow work and Rin wished he could see how Alpha and Beta were faring, but he couldn't concentrate anywhere but the Gate unless he wanted to be overtaken.

For a long while, Rin and the Gate were stuck in a standstill, practically playing tug of war, until Rin gave a hard shove forward and more black consumed yellow and blue. Red creeped along slower and he realized it was because the red was his power as the Demon King of Love and he wasn't putting much force behind it.

He drew off of the love he felt for this lovers and friends, who happened to live in Assiah, and was able to have the red consume the brighter colors. Assiah was his home and soon, Gehenna would be too. If Gehenna was going to be his home, it couldn't be tainted by these disgusting colors. It needed to reflect him, as it's true King. By extension, the Entrance to his new home should also reflect him. Red and black consumed more blue and yellow and Rin felt his confidence boost.

He could do this. He had people to rely on, he had a set goals in mind and a plan to help him get to that goal. A plan that was working. Rin felt Amaimon's reassuring presence next to him and let the familiarity wash over him, pushing back the yellow and blue even further. He was winning this battle, the stream of yellow and blue becoming thinner as he tore at it, over and over endlessly.

To his confusion, Rin felt a jolt and a spike of pain in his back. If he'd been concetrating on his physical body, he would've noticed the axe blade buried in his back, courtesy of an Illuminati agent. Rin ignored the pain and kept digging at yellow and blue, enamored by his own calmer and more comforting colors smothering the annoyingly bright and lively colors.

Unbeknownst to Rin, Illuminati agents poured onto the battlefield, trying to foil the Order's attempt to destroy the Artificial Gehenna Gate. The Agent who'd buried their axe in Rin's back got yanked away by Amaimon's Kin, who formed a barrier around them to protect their hosts from the humans.

Rin finally noticed the Illuminati running interference and subconsciously reached into the jewel holding the souls of his parents and a few others. He pulled them out and they automatically understood their orders without him a really telling them: drag the damned ones to where they belonged.

Shiro, Yuri, and ten other damned souls spread out over the battlefield, throwing heavy spectral chains over the damned souls running around on the battlefield and bodies dropped as their souls were violently and mercilessly chained and weighted to sink into the pits of Tartarus to be punished for all eternity.

From above, the battle was a sight to behold. Mephisto floated above the chaos, awaiting his cue and watching the plan unfold. Looking below the surface and seeing Rin's power overtaking both Satan and Lucifer's had a smug feeling blooming in his chest. Amaimon was tearing the physical border as fast and efficiently as he could, though he moved at mostly the same place as Rin.

Watching the souls of the damned scatter from Rin's choker and chain the souls of Illuminati Agents to send them to their eternal punishment was one of the most impressive things he'd seen yet. Shiro's ferocious grin was not unexpected as he chained souls and savagely ripped them from bodies, sending them hurling to Tartarus. Yuri was not sympathetic to the Agents like one might have expected and instead nearly danced through them, creating a pinwheel of chains and sending entire swathes of souls to damnation with no mercy, several bodies dropping on the battlefield at once and tripping up those still alive and attempting to flee what's er was happening to them.

Mephisto snickered at the thought of the silly human agents thinking this was Holy Retribution from God for the sin of working for Lucifer and Satan. He wondered if there were any innocent souls that would escape damnation by way of not knowing what the Illuminati truly was, only having been sent to fight to prove themselves loyal. He supposed he'd see that result when the battle was over.

He looked to the two groups destroying the guardians and gave an approving hum when he saw they were already through the ones at the top of the Gate and we're moving to the Guardian on the left side.

Ryuji was good at multitasking and Mephisto could hear him calling orders and weak spots to attack as they ruthlessly tire into the demons guarding the Gate. It was made easier with the Time Lord's slowing spell, but he had confidence that if he were to drop it, the two groups could still keep up.

Speaking of the second group, they were amazing defenders, keeping all types of demons coming out of the portal at bay and away from the attacking group. Yukio with his guns wa san excellent marksman and watching both Konekomeru's back and his own. Konekomeru destroyed whole battalions of demons with fatal verses and mantras. Shima destroyed demons with his black fire familiar, Yamantaka, and Drac had his familiars fighting their own kind away from Team Alpha in an excellent show of willpower.

Mephisto snickered. If Shiro were to turn around and see Drac-and by extension, his soul-would he drag Drac down or would he wait until the battle was over? Shiro didn't even need his ability to see other damned souls to know Drac was damned several times over. It would be I tweeting if the scientists soul was just ripped out of his body and sent hurtling into hell, body dropping suddenly next to Yukio with no way for the humans to tell what had happened. They'd probably assume the man had kicked the bucket due to older age and fighting in an intense battle not mixing well.

His attention snapped back to Rin when he heard his name. It wasn't shouted or shrieked-just murmured under his Love's breathe as he fought against the combined power of Satan and Lucifer-but he heard it easily and rose from his position lounging on his floating couch. With a few complicated hand gestures that Naruto had nothing on and muttered words in a bizarre combination of the demon language and German, the demons flying out of the portal slowed down enough for the two teams to have some leeway in fighting and defending.

Mephisto's host was held in midair, floating, cape valiantly fluttering in the wind behind him as his eyes glowed a poison green and his face went blank while he regressed inside his mind to keep his hold on the Gate. His host was in too much pain for him to think straight unless he pulled back from it.

Slowly, like a scene in a horror movie, black tendrils began to grab demons out of midair above the portal and drag them back into Gehenna. Longer, thicker black tendrils began to snap out of the Gate and wrap around the stone borders, crushing them slowly and forcefully pulling them closer together, closing the Gate.

Rin vaguely heard Ryuji shout for them to pull back. He was too enamored in the sight before him to really pay any attention to outside events. Red and black worked through the last little strings of yellow and blue and in an instant, the Gate all but snapped closed, almost pulling Rin with it. His mind felt like it was being split in two and he was barely able to heed Amaimon's advice to let go of the Gate before everything that had just imploded in on itself blew back outwards and everyone was blown away by the force and the debris.

Rin had ended up on the ground, that fully not trapped under debris, Mephisto had dropped to the ground as soon as his spell was lifted, Amaimon and Ryuji had braced themselves. Karura had braced other members of the two Teams dealing with the Guardians. Izumo had utilized her byakko for the same purpose. Shiemi had Nee root her and a couple others into place once they reached the ground.

The Artificial Gehenna Gate was no more.