I've seen a lot of strange things during my life, but a devil cosplaying as a Magical Girl was a first. Or maybe she was a magical girl who just happened to be a devil? Doesn't matter, honestly. What matters is that she got the role down perfectly. She appeared with sparkles and everything. Like something straight out of an anime. Not Sailor Moon, the other one.
Oh, and also, she was like, super strong. Maybe not as much as that Lucifer guy, but she had to be up there. Another Satan, perhaps? What was it that Red called them? Superman Devils or something?
As soon as the sparkles started to dissipate, the woman whizzed past everything at almost imperceptible speed (not to me, but you get what I mean) and grabbed onto Sona.
"So-tan~☆! Mou… Why do you only call when it's important?" The woman pouted while she was manhandling poor Sona, who, by the way, looked like she had just made the worst decision of her life.
"Unhand me, Serafall!" She grumbled with a red face.
"Never! You can tell me what you want while I get my mandatory Sona-dose, right?" The woman, Serafall, shifted position just enough to give Sona some breathing room. Not that it helped the blushing girl much, since Serafall was still clinging to her like a koala. Pretty wholesome, if I do say so myself.
So I watched with the occasional giggle as Sona, along with Rias, recounted events of the past thirty or so minutes. Sona, of course, tried and failed to wiggle out of Serafall's grasp many times during that explanation. Each attempt only served to make Serafall more determined to rub her body against the girl.
And Raynare? The woman looked shellshocked, to say the least. You know that thing where you're supposed to play dead when a bear attacks? Yeah, she was doing exactly that.
Only, the thing that eventually zeroed in on her was not a bear, it was the now pissed off magical girl.
She gave the fallen angel a look that simply said, 'you're dead. ' Serafall then took out her phone, which was hidden in her cleavage, and called somebody. That somebody picked up after only three beeps.
"Azazel, mind explaining to me why there was a whole gaggle of fallen and their associates inside Kuoh?" She said with all the previous cheerfulness gone. Wow~ Her entire vibe shifted in a matter of seconds.
"Hmm… Rogues, you say? One of them is still alive. You sure you don't want her back?"
"That's pretty cold, Azazel-kun. But sure." She ended the call before the other side had a chance to speak and stuffed the phone back where it previously was.
"Well, there you have it. Azazel claims that this whole team went rogue. We are to do with her as we see fit." Poor Raynare actually started trembling. Can't blame her, she was about to be executed.
"And the machine?" Rias asked with interest.
"What machine? There was never a machine here. Especially not one that could remove Sacred Gears.*wink-wink*" Oh, okay, I get it. That machine is a bribe for her to sweep this whole thing under the rug instead of responding in kind. Pretty smart since I'm sure the guy can just make another one.
"You guys clean up, and I'll go check out the church. Come, Sona." Serafall gave them a pointed look and dragged Sona along with her inside the building.
"P–Please don't kill me! I told you everything." Raynare started pleading once Serafall was out of sight.
"Shut your disgusting mouth, you fallen whore." Akeno spat with venom, and Rias cringed slightly.
"*sigh* Akeno…" She muttered and pointed her hand toward Raynare while a small crackling ball of destruction manifested on the tip of her finger. And then, without a second thought, she fired it straight at the fallen's chest, carving out a huge chunk of flesh right where her heart should have been.
Raynare fell backwards without having a chance to utter a single syllable. I actually felt bad for her.
Damn, that was cold and honestly pretty surprising. It's one thing to kill a person in a fight, and another to execute them in cold blood. Don't get me wrong, I've done that, sure, but then again, I was not exactly normal to begin with.
I chucked it to them being devils, and waited for anything else interesting to happen.
It didn't, and five minutes later, a happy-looking Serafall and an exasperated Sona came out of the church.
"Okay~ Everything is in order. Ajuka is going to send somebody in fifteen minutes, so you are all free to leave. I'm going to stay here until they come. Oh, and I'll swing by the school in the morning for the full explanation." With that announcement, the curtain closed, and my movie was over. Man, what a great way to spend an evening.
Though maybe I should wait for the post-credit scene? And you know what? I did, and when the promised fifteen minutes went by, a sickly green teleportation circle opened up and a handsome man with green hair appeared.
"Aju-chan~ You didn't tell me you would come here personally." Serafall said with an exaggerated pout, to which the man chuckled lightly.
"It is not often that something made by Azazel falls into my hands after all. I am here simply to ensure a safe transportation." He said with a slight smile and surveyed the surroundings.
"You and your toys… Anyway, Aju-chan, I've got to go, or I won't finish with the reports before midnight."
"Very well, goodbye for now." He nodded her way, and she disappeared with the use of a teleportation circle.
"That must have been quite the battle Sona and Rias had." He said idly while looking over the pile of bodies, and just as his gaze was sweeping over the tree I was hidden in, his eyes suddenly flashed like a cat's would in the dark. Oh shit, have I been had?
"Mm~? Now isn't that a strange thing?" He looked more intrigued than anything else. How did he notice me, though? I erased my presence comp— Ah. That's how. How dumb of me. But I'm going to give myself some slack, since this was the first time I did that, and dragons are not known for their stealth, you know?
"There is nothing, but there should be at least a little bit of something." He muttered to himself.
Basically, I made myself into a blob of void, and the nothing I created around me stood out against the world's something. Welp, the cat's out of the bag, so might as well talk to him for a bit.
"Yo!" I greeted him once I jumped out of the tree.
" So, I'm guessing I erased my presence a bit too much, huh?" I asked the man.
"Hmm…ah, yes, you did… the hair, the eyes, the tattoos, and the scars match…I am Ajuka Beelzebub. You must be Takumi Akabane, correct?" He idly answered and looked at me with undisguised curiosity.
"I guess Lucifer mentioned me then."
"How could he not? You've been a constant presence in his mind for the last couple of days."
"Tell me, why is somebody like you hiding in a tree?" He continued.
"I wanted to watch the fight, and I guess also to make sure the little devils came to no permanent harm. I kinda pointed them in this direction."
"Explain… please." He added that please after an awkward pause.
"Oh, right. I just told Rias that if she wants to recruit Ddraig and Vritra, she should hurry up because the fallen were already watching him, and as you can see, they hurried the hell up." At that, the green-haired devil's eyes widened.
"Ah! So that is the reason Sirzechs was excited for the last couple of days. Each of them would be a fine addition to her Peerage." He said in a pleased tone, sounding happy that he figured it out.
"I guess so. Though if you don't mind me asking, why does a teenage girl need that kind of power? She even asked me if Lucifer sent me to help her." It was mostly just idle curiosity that made me ask. He, meanwhile, regarded me with an inquisitive look.
"For a rating game. She wishes to beat her husband-to-be and escape the marriage." Yeah, I guess that would do it. I guess I could help her out? For a little something in exchange, of course.
"And let me guess, her brother doesn't do shit because of politics, right?"
"Well… haha~ That's certainly a way to put it, but yes. Now then, I indulged you, so how about you do so as well?" He said with a laugh.
"Sure."
"Your true title, what is it?" And wasn't that an interesting question? He knew just what to ask to get the most information out of me. You see, the titles each of us holds are not just titles; they are literal interpretations of us. They give true insight into who we are and what we can do, and I'm not talking about just power. All three of us are impossibly powerful in the physical sense. No, I'm talking about the concepts we embody. Red has dreams and the apocalypse, Ophis infinity and chaos, and me?
"*sigh* I'm the Dragon God of the beginning and the end. You know, creation and destruction, life and death. You get the meaning." That was pretty cringey to say out loud, and I barely suppressed the shudder. But my powers are awesome.
"Interesting…" He rubbed his chin in a way that I didn't like at all, and he must have noticed my disgruntled expression because he suddenly stopped.
"Ah, apologies, my mind got the better of me for a brief moment. Information on your kind is almost non-existent." Well, of course it is. Red scarcely, if ever, leaves the Gap, and Ophis is barely capable of stringing together two sentences. Honestly, I think that I'm the most normal out of all three of us, and that is saying something.
"Don't worry about that. I understand your curiosity." I waved him off, since I was a nosy bitch myself.
"Then would you be open to further conversation? In the future, of course. Despite what some might say, I am still one of the four Satans. I can make it worth your time." There was this teeny tiny greedy glint in his eyes while he said that.
"You know what? Why not. I was going to visit the Underworld someday anyway."
"Excellent! I will send you a devil phone so we have a way to discuss the finer details later." He looked like a kid who got exactly what he wanted for Christmas.
"Kay~ Till next time, then."
"Until next time." He nodded my way, and I walked away.
—
Ajuka silently watched the woman's back as she was walking down the street, and when she finally disappeared around the corner, the tension he hadn't realized he was holding dissipated.
"*whew~* Is this how others feel when they stand before us?" He muttered. Despite how illuminating the whole experience was, Ajuka was glad the woman left quickly. Those two minutes they spent talking felt like hours, and he didn't know whether to curse at Sirzechs or thank him for telling him about her.
Without the prior knowledge, Takumi Akabane simply felt like a human. Powerful human, sure, but a human nonetheless, and Ajuka knew how to deal with those. Even if she were a dragon, he could handle that. He got along with Tiamat well enough after all. But she wasn't that, was she? No, she was one of the elusive dragon gods, the beings beyond the world's power hierarchy.
"My friend, you are playing a dangerous game... Hah, and I am as well now. I wonder how to convince her to help out with my experiments. Her power might prove instrumental… Further observation is necessary, it seems."
—
You know, when he said that he would send me a devil phone, I thought he meant like, through the mail or something. But apparently not, since while I was having breakfast, a gorgeous woman, who introduced herself as Falak, brought me the package.
The phone looked like a normal smartphone, but with it, I could access the Devil-net and apparently, call other realms. How? Dunno, maybe multidimensional phone towers, or maybe it's just magic, or maybe… It's Maybelline.
Har har har.
Enough about the phone. Do you wanna know what I heard today at school? Kiba Yuuto approached Issei Hyoudou during class and invited him to a meeting with Rias after school. The same thing happened with Saji, only he was approached directly by Sona.
Care to guess who also received an invitation?
Yep. Yours truly. Though my invitation is an hour after school, likely to deal with Issei first. So after the school day ended, I patiently waited in the teachers' lounge until someone came to get me. Can you imagine my surprise when fifteen minutes later, Kiba knocked on the door? I honestly thought it would not take them that long to convince the kid to join. All the devil girls are beautiful, and Issei is a teenager.
I know for certain that if somebody offered me to join a group of gorgeous women when I was seventeen, I would have jumped at that chance in a heartbeat. Race change notwithstanding.
"Akabane sensei? If you would follow me, please?" He poked his head through the door and politely asked.
"Of course. Lead the way."
"Issei agreed then?" I asked him once we were out of the main school building.
"... yes. He was rather uhh– enthusiastic, to say the least." Kiba said with an awkward face.
"I can certainly imagine that. So is Rias going to try to recruit me as well?"
"I think that's a conversation you should have with the president, not me." He tried to evade my question and failed miserably. She was totally going to recruit me.
"Right…" I rolled my eyes, and the rest of the walk there was done in absolute silence.
Once we got inside the clubroom, all the chatter that was going on ceased instantly, and they all looked at me.
"You're a devil too, Akabane sensei?!" Issei broke the silence.
"*sigh* No, she is not. Don't mind him, sensei. Please sit, and Akeno will bring you some tea." Rias sighed, and Issei somehow did not get the memo to shut up.
"Then what— ugh!" He was starting to ask, only for Koneko to drive an elbow straight into his ribs.
"Shut up, pervert."
"Ah, thank you, Akeno. Let's cut right to the chase, okay? You want to recruit me." Yep, I just ignored him entirely and focused on Rias instead.
"I– Yes. Yes, I do."
"You know, I had a nice little chat with Ajuka Beelzebub just yesterday. He told me, so I get why you'd want me, but neither you, your brother, nor any other devil could ever possibly reincarnate me as a devil."
"You—How— Wait, what do you mean by that?" Her initial shock was quickly replaced by confusion.
"Hmm~ I'm too strong. But I could help you in another way, and for a tiny little price, too."
"I find that hard to believe, sensei." I let go just enough to prove my point, and prove it I did. The effect was instantaneous. Issei fainted outright, and Kiba, Akeno, and Koneko started sweating buckets. Rias was the least affected out of them all. Her breathing was short, her face flushed and covered by a sheen of sweat as she strained her body to sit up straight, but despite all of that, her face showed nothing but immense interest.
"Believe me now, little devil? That was about point one percent of my power." Ugh… Why the fuck did I say it like that?! No, no, no… Am I becoming chuuni?!
"As I said, I can help you in another way. This club is still lacking an advisor." Quick, quick, come on, catch on and forget I ever said that shit!
"Y–You mentioned a price. What kind?" She asked once she put herself together. YES!!! I'm saved.
"Women." I did that on purpose.
"What?" "Huh?" "Ara~?" So what if I was using this to get some action? The guy said I'd meet someone here, but there's no way I'm getting involved with a student or a regular human. I'm just expanding my options, you know? Plus, Rias must definitely know some hot devil ladies, right?
"C–can you elaborate on that, sensei?"
"I help you out with your problem, and you introduce me to hot devil women. It's a fair trade, no?"
"Just an introduction? T–That's a relief. I almost thought you wanted… well, you know… slaves or something."
"Oh for fucks sake… I'm not that kind of dragon. An introduction is enough. So do we have a deal?"
"Deal."