5 Underworld Interlude

Sirzechs Lucifer, formerly Gremory, the legendary strongest devil ever and inheritor of the Lucifer title, had recently received a message summoning him to visit his best buddy (and absolute shut-in), Ajuka, as soon as possible for "undisclosed reasons." Finally, he had a proper excuse to get away from his never-ending paperwork and his nagging (*cough* loving) wife.

Sirzechs teleported to Ajuka's lab, expecting to find his buddy bent over a microscope or immersed in programming his latest magical robot of doom. However, he was surprised to find that Ajuka wasn't alone in the room. One of their fellow Satans, Serafall Leviathan, was with him. She had bags under her eyes and clearly looked exhausted from overwork, much like Sirzechs himself.

"Hey there, Sera. I see you've been burning the candle at both ends with work as well," Sirzechs said wearily.

"Hmmf, you two have the easy jobs as fellow Satans. Meanwhile, I'm stuck with the difficult task of preventing other pantheons from attacking us every time some idiot devil decides to reincarnate someone they absolutely shouldn't touch into their peerages. A member of the Ball Clan just tried to sneak into the Island of the Amazons and kidnap some girls for his harem... I mean peerage. Needless to say, it didn't go well for him, as his head was promptly cut off. If you're going to attempt such foolishness, at least be a member of the Phoenix Clan, so you have a chance of survival. Unfortunately, he's dead, and frankly, we're probably better off without him in the Underworld," Serafall added with a sigh. "Thankfully, the Greek pantheon found it amusing overall and isn't pressing the issue. So, at least there's that," she said.

"It's times like this that I regret creating the Evil Piece system," Ajuka chimed in. "Honestly, if they weren't necessary for saving our race from imminent doom, I would activate the kill switch and deactivate all of them remotely."

"What?! There's a kill switch that turns off the Evil Pieces?" Serafall asked, surprised.

Ajuka snorted. "Haha, of course there's a kill switch. I plan for every scenario, especially if all the reincarnated Devils try to rise up and slaughter all the pure-bloods. Not that we wouldn't have it coming, mind you. But I'd rather it never happened in the first place. Hence, I have a kill switch that disables their access to magic," he explained. Sirzechs nodded in agreement. As a close friend of Ajuka, he was well aware of it. It was definitely something they would never disclose to the reincarnated Devils. Revealing its existence would only lead to their failed uprising and defeat the purpose of having a secret kill switch.

"Okay, moving on from the dark topic," Serafall interjected. "Why did you call both of us here and make it seem so urgent?"

Ajuka chuckled. "I'm glad you asked. It has to do with this." Ajuka threw a newspaper called The Daily Prophet between Serafall and Sirzechs, ensuring they could see the headline. It read, "Here are the three champions for the Triwizard Tournament." The article began with, "British citizens are angry that the champion for Hogwarts is surprisingly not British at all. He's actually an American transfer student named Jake Gremory. This is an absolute tragedy for Magical Britain…"

The article continued to slander the boy named Jake Gremory and Americans in general, portraying the situation as a tragedy for the country. Sirzechs thought to himself that the article was highly sensationalized. But what caught his attention was the mention of a certain Jake Gremory. He had never heard that name before.

"Who is Jake Gremory?" Serafall asked, voicing the same question that was on Sirzechs' mind.

"Who indeed," Ajuka replied, a playful tone in his voice. "I was wondering the same thing, so I sent one of my sneakier familiars into Hogwarts. And let me tell you, the security wards there are laughable, especially considering it's known as the safest place in Britain—spoiler, it's not. Anyway, I sent my familiars to grab some hair samples from Jake Gremory so I could run a DNA test. And congratulations, Sirzechs, he's your half-brother."

"What?!" Sirzechs and Serafall exclaimed simultaneously, taken aback by the revelation.

Sirzechs couldn't contain his excitement. "I can't believe I have a brother!" he exclaimed joyfully. "I wonder what he's like. How old is he? How come I've never met him before?" Sirzechs bombarded Ajuka with questions.

"He seems to be a decent kid. He's 16 years old, and it appears that most of the students at the magical school he's attending like him well enough, despite what that newspaper said about everyone hating him," Ajuka explained.

"But how could we have never heard of him before? Half-devils aren't exactly looked upon favorably in the Underworld. But being the son of a Duke and the half-brother of the newest Lucifer, everyone would have respected him anyway," Serafall added. "How could he have gone unnoticed for 16 years? Was your dad ashamed of having a child out of wedlock and hid him from you, Sirzechs?" she questioned.

Sirzechs felt a surge of anger at the insinuation. "Gremorys never abandon their family! That's what sets us apart from other devil families. My father would never hide a brother from me. He must have fathered a child during one of his encounters in the human world and never known about it. It's his fault for not checking up on the woman he was with," Sirzechs said, ending with a sigh.

"Both of those are solid theories," Ajuka said, "but neither is actually correct. The truth of the situation is rather peculiar."

"Peculiar how?" Serafall asked, her curiosity piqued.

Ajuka smirked mischievously and adjusted his glasses. "Well, let me tell you. The truth is that the residual ambient magic on Jake Gremory's hair doesn't quite match the current temporal stream. It's close, but not quite aligned. This suggests that his quantum alignment is currently skewed with our timeline."

"Can you please speak in simpler terms for those of us who aren't as intellectually inclined?" Sirzechs requested, letting out a sigh. Sometimes he felt like Ajuka deliberately used technical jargon to confuse people. Serafall nodded in agreement, finding the techno-speak equally annoying.

Ajuka huffed playfully. "Fine, you've ruined my fun. Here I am, solving problems you two didn't even know existed, and all I get is complaints. So, here it is in simple terms: Your brother, Sirzechs, is apparently a time traveler from the future."

"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," Serafall said, shaking her head in disbelief.

"Are you sure?" Sirzechs asked, his mind grappling with the concept.

Serafall gave Sirzechs a pointed glare. She couldn't believe that Sirzechs was seriously considering the idea that his supposed half-brother was a time traveler from the future. As one of the most powerful beings in the Underworld, she knew that time travel was generally regarded as nothing more than a fantastical concept. At least, that's what she believed. The notion of it being real seemed utterly ludicrous.

Ajuka noticed the skepticism on Serafall's face and chuckled. "I understand your doubts. Time travel is indeed a controversial and often dismissed concept. But in this case, the evidence suggests otherwise. The discrepancies in Jake Gremory's magic signature and temporal alignment point towards a temporal anomaly. Of course, we'll need to conduct further investigations to confirm this."

Serafall crossed her arms and let out a sigh. "Well, I suppose anything is possible, but it's hard to wrap my head around the idea of time travel. If it's true, though, it would explain the secrecy surrounding Jake Gremory's existence and how he managed to stay hidden for so long."

Sirzechs pondered the possibility. The idea of having a half-brother who was a time traveler intrigued and bewildered him at the same time. "If he's truly from the future, there must be a reason he traveled back in time and ended up in Hogwarts. We need to find him and learn more about his situation."

Ajuka nodded in agreement. "Indeed, and I have a plan for that." Ajuka turned and stared at Serafall.

Serafall stared right back at him. "No!" She said.

Sirzechs laughed. "He didn't even ask anything yet!"

"I know what he was going to ask me." She replied. "It's the same shit you two had me do during the war. You want me to go and flirt with him and slyly find out information about why he time traveled." She explained.

Sirzechs and Ajuka glanced at each other.

"Well I mean she said it not us…"

"Indubitably, and it worked fantastically during the war. Those horny old satanist devil's loved spilling all their deepest secrets to the lovely Sera-tan." Ajuka said.

Serafall just frowned at both of them. "You know what? Fine, I'll do it! But while I'm gone, you two will have to handle all the foreign affairs that I've been exclusively doing till now. Maybe you'll finally understand a bit of my pain at dealing with complete and total morons all day long!" She huffed out.