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Chapter 25 - Chapter 24

Azazel quickly looked around the place for a way to distract the clearly distraught kid. While he preferred to stay away from kids, that didn't mean he didn't know how to handle them. You pick up a lot of skills and knowledge over thousands of years of life. The place was actually pretty nice for being in the middle of a junkyard. Three three-by-three meter sheds took up the majority of the space. One was clearly the kids bedroom but the other two were just as clearly work spaces. The first had a couple of tables with smaller more delicate tools while the other held a smelter, forge, and larger power tools. All of which ran off of a combination of solar panels, re-purposed batteries, and a generator.

Seeing all of that, Azazel decided to be honest and see if that helped, "I gotta admit kid, for a homeless street urchin you've got a rather sweet set up. It just shows how much potential and ingenuity you've got. Though, I gotta know, how did you get all of this stuff? I know that some of it you have to be an adult to purchase."

The distraction seemed to work as Junichiro muttered deprecations about being a shota and the unfairness of age criteria when shopping. He took a few deep breaths and eyed Azazel. So far he hadn't been kidnapped so, that was good... right? He took a deep breath and thought about his answer before deciding to take off his improved notice-me-not bracelet and toss it to Azazel. The effect was so weak Azazel hadn't even registered it at all.

Azazel's hand shot up and caught the bracelet. He examined it with a smile, "Oho, how interesting. A minor enchantment that gets people with weak magical power to ignore you? So... mostly only effective on mundane people? Interesting." His mind whirred with possibilities for a bit before he spoke once more, "With something like this you could just walk into a place and walk out with whatever you wanted, right?"

Junichiro nodded, "As long as I don't do anything to draw attention to myself to break the effect. I have another that just makes people disregard my age as well."

Azazel let out a low whistle, "Pretty impressive considering the conditions you're working in." He glanced around once more before looking at Junichiro again, "If you're willing to join the Grigori you'd have access to a fair amount of resources. I'd really like to see what you could do with proper facilities and materials."

Junichiro fidgeted for a bit before mustering enough courage to say, "No."

Azazel seemed to pout a bit, "Why not? I thought I made a decent offer."

Junichiro looked pretty torn before he simply decided 'fuck it' and made his feelings clear, "Because of the three Abrahamic factions, I think the fallen angels are the absolute worst. Not that anyone is a saint, not even the saints, in your trio. It's like all three of your factions are racing to the bottom."

Azazel blinked at that, though he was hardly offended by the opinion of a thirteen-year-old. Still the response made him curious, "Why do you say that?"

Junichiro leveled a bland gaze at Azazel before he answered, "Because every last fallen angel is a traitor. Worse, you all betrayed your families and then proceeded to turn around and murder other members of your family. I can only think of a few crimes worse than betraying family."

"You think that's worse than what devils have done?"

Junichiro scoffed, "I'm not implying devils, or even angels and the church, are good. But in the case of devils, they are biological weapons created for the sole purpose of waging war. That is literally what they were created for by Lucifer and Lilith. The fact that they're trying to rise above their base instincts and genetic programming speaks volumes about their current leading faction. But despising devils for being deranged mass murderers, would be like despising a tiger because I punched it in the nose and it decided to maul me."

He shook his head, "As for the angels, well they're all a bunch of ignorant children who can't keep in control of daddies people. The church is rife with corruption. Everyone knows just how bad it's gotten and the prevalence of priest and little boy jokes is entirely their fault. None of you is anywhere close to innocent or good."

Junichiro knew there was probably more to it, he was also very certain that the first angel after Lucifer to fall, was likely slaughtered on God's orders. Honestly, all three sides of the Abrahamic faction were fucked up. Which just made his desire to join the Devil's show how fucked up he was himself.

Azazel pondered Junichiro's words. He didn't agree with the kid, not at all, but he could see where he was coming from. That was the thing about discussing something in a mature manner, people could disagree and didn't have to be overly offended by it. Obviously the kid didn't have all the facts and had come to an incorrect conclusion, but he wouldn't hold that against him. It was far from a simple black and white situation and no one involved looked good. Azazel just nodded his head and addressed Junichiro once more, "So, not interested at all then?"

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