1 Chapter 1

Azazel, leader of the Grigori, stared intently at what should've been the corpse of a teenager, 'should've' being the key phrase. The black-haired teen shouldn't have survived the operation, experiment, or whatever you wished to call it. Again, 'shouldn't have' being the key phrase.

"How long are you going to keep staring at a teenage boy? Or are you planning to reenact the sleeping beauty story?" A purple-haired woman walked up next to him, dressed in a black dress that tightly hugged her buxom figure.

"You should know I'm not interested in teenage boys that don't have breasts, Penemue." Azazel gazed her up and down with an appreciative glint in his violet eyes. His secretary was one enchanting woman and there was no doubt about that.

"So older and fat men. I will keep that in mind." Penemue teased him and frowned afterward. "You have work to do, paperwork which you've been sending my way for the past week."

"I can't help it." Azazel pouted like a child. "This is too good for me to ignore."

"I thought you said you weren't into teenage boys without breasts?" Penemue's eye twitched as she stared at the leader of their organization.

"It's not like that," Azazel shook his head and returned his gaze back to the boy as if trying to prove the truth in his secretary's accusation. "There is something special about him."

"And that is?" Penemue questioned.

"The fact that only he survived out of all the 50 humans that underwent the operation." Azazel was quick to reply.

"And what's the difference between him and them?" Penemue continued interrogating him.

"He's the only one that willingly accepted." Out of the 50 humans, 49 of them were inmates with life sentences. Murderers, rapists, human traffickers, the trash that won't be missed. The boy had accepted, even asked to be included.

"His soul was damaged and he was slowly dying. He had a month at best more to live. The chances of his survival were the lowest of all, yet he is the only one that is still breathing."

"Joshua Arata." Penemue cupped her chin in thought. "The one that came to us seeking help less than a month ago. If I remember correctly, he somehow found the summoning circle of a Devil and tried making a deal with someone from the Old Satan Faction."

"That's the one." Azazel nodded. "Unlike how most Devils deal with contracts nowadays, those guys still keep up to their old ways. Joshua was unlucky enough to summon Shalba Beelzebub."

"He's lucky to have even survived." Penemue said.

"He would've preferred to have not considering the price. The souls of his family and half of his own. All of that just for the chance of using mag-" Azazel paused as Joshua's stirred and opened his eyes. Green stared into violet as a somber silence filled the room.

"And now kiss." Penemue harshly broke the stillness in the room.

"Please don't." Were Joshua's first words upon waking up.

"So..." Azazel wondered if he should ask Joshua how he was feeling, or if he felt any discomfort, but in the end, he decided the more important matter. "Do you have any idea what your Sacred Gear does?"

Azazel himself had designed it, but he had no idea what it would do since it wasn't exactly a normal one. None of the Sacred Gears he created were normal ones since they weren't part of the system created by God, but this one was special.

Sacred Gears were objects tied to a human's soul that granted their users some kind of ability. Common ones could give the user weak telekinesis, faster processing power, the ability to double one's strength, and etc.

Rarer Sacred Gears granted powerful abilities to the users that allowed a human to fight against supernatural creatures. Those ones were usually artifacts thought of as legends by humans or they had a powerful being sealed inside them.

Azazel had been trying to recreate a rare Sacred Gear. It was created with the intent to contain a powerful being, but he didn't have any he was willing to risk, so the ones given to all of the humans were empty. The Sacred Gear was supposed to connect to the Dimensional Gap and draw power from there, and the chances of success were less than 0.1%.

As confident as Azazel was in his creations, he didn't believe his Sacred Gear could ever contain a being like Ophis the Ouroboros Dragon or the Apocalypse Dragon that had recently taken residence in the Dimensional Gap.

And hadn't that been a surprise to the Governor of the Fallen Angels. There had only been a single being that lived in the Dimensional Gap, but now another one had appeared. Where did the second one come from?

Azazel theorized something else existed beyond the Dimensional Gap. Though checking that out wasn't an option. Both Dragons weren't very hospitable, not to mention how unfriendly the environment of the Dimensional Gap was.

With that in mind, Azazel tried to create a Sacred Gear that would draw and seal a being from somewhere beyond the Dimensional Gap. He wasn't aiming for something big and powerful since this was just the beginning of his experiment.

Success wasn't even in his equations since Azazel believed he would need to fail many times before he could create something that would work. Yet Joshua had survived and his soul had even stabilized. That was a boon he hadn't even imagined.

"It gives me magic." Joshua answered after staring at him for a minute.

"That's it? What kind of magic? And is there something sealed inside it?" Azazel quickly fired a set of questions at him.

"Yes..." Joshua drawled out and looked at the ceiling. "Wood magic, and there's a cat."

"A cat?" Azazel asked, blinking his eyes a few times. He completely dismissed the mention of the magic, since how powerful could wood magic be? "What kind of? Is there something special about it?"

"It talks, walks on two legs, and has purple fur. Nothing special besides that." Joshua let out a frustrated sigh. "Are we done with the interrogation?"

"There's a few m-" Azazel was interrupted by Penemue, who grabbed him by the ear and started dragging him away.

"He just woke up. Give him some time to get his bearings. You could question him later." Penemue continued dragging him by the ear despite his protests.

"I'll send Lailah to check up on you and I will keep Azazel away from you for some time, Joshua. He has work he's been avoiding either way." Penemue called out to him before they left the room, leaving him alone to his thoughts.

Joshua mouthed 'thank you' in her direction before letting out a sigh as his hand went to his hair.

'How did this all happen?' Joshua was your average teenager, living in Japan with his parents. His mother was from England, hence his first name, while his father was born in Tokyo. They had been a happy family, but his parents were now gone. His eyes swelled and tears formed inside them just thinking about his family.

"It's all my fault. I should've thrown out that paper."

But how he supposed to know that he could summon a Devil with it? Joshua wasn't aware that the supernatural existed until the brown-haired man appeared in his room. He was watching an anime at that time about a world filled with magic. Magic was such a wonderful thing and he wished he could use it.

Then he came. Tall, handsome, and with long brown hair. The Devil asked him for his wish, and he wished for magic, not even knowing what that the price for that was. Scorching pain filled his very being the moment the Devil accepted. His soul fractured, half of it going to the Devil as payment. But that hadn't been enough. It was 'too low value' and the souls of his parents were taken to make up the difference.

Joshua wept upon discovering their lifeless bodies in the living room, crying and begging for them to wake up. He prayed to every God he knew, but none responded to him. For days he stayed there by their side, just wishing he would wake up from the terrible, terrible nightmare.

Slowly dying himself, Joshua didn't know what to do until a man came to his house. He called himself a Fallen Angel and told him he had sensed something amiss in the house. Joshua begged him to save his family, but the Fallen Angel told him he couldn't do that, so instead, he asked for the man to end his misery.

The Fallen Angel refused him again. Baraqiel, he called himself that, sat down next to him. He stayed with Joshua as the teenager grieved. When he had no more tears left in him, he asked Baraqiel to help him get better as he felt himself grow weaker by the day. The Fallen Angel informed him he wasn't capable of such a feat, but he knew someone who might be able to heal him.

Joshua took him on the offer. Baraqiel might've been deceiving him, but he had nothing to lose at that point. What was he going to take from him? His family was gone and couldn't be brought back to life. The only thing on Joshua's mind was revenge against the Devil that caused all of this.

Baraqiel, however, didn't immediately bring him to the one who could help him. Instead, the Fallen Angel first did something Joshua hadn't expected. Baraqiel arranged for the funeral of his parents. Joshua didn't know why the Fallen Angel did that for him, but he was thankful.

Afterward, he was brought to Azazel. The leader of the Fallen Angels explained to Joshua what his situation was and offered him to participate in the experiment after information what a Sacred Gear was and how it could help him. Knowing he didn't have any other options, the teenager accepted, and the rest was history.

Now, Joshua was lying on the bed staring at a transparent screen of all things.

[Joshua Arata]

[Magical Core Lvl. 1]

[Wood-Make(Beginner)]

When he woke up, he hadn't been staring at Azazel's eyes but the screen that informed him of his first magic. At first, he believed he was still dreaming since he vividly remembered talking with a cat that called itself an Exceed. Librarian, its name, was the one that gave him a book titled Wood-Make magic. An influx of information flooded his brain the moment he opened it up.

"Well, you got your wish, Joshua. Are you happy now?" He mocked himself as more tears fell from his eyes. The magic he had wasn't even something amazing, but Librarian told him he could get others in time, though he didn't explain to him how.

Joshua wiped his tears just as the door opened and a pink-haired woman entered the room. As soon as he gets cleared, he will start working on his magic and see what he could do with it. His life was no longer in danger and so he set his sight on his revenge. Joshua didn't know how long that would take, but the Devil will die by his hands, he promised himself that much.