Planned Domination

"What…are you doing?" I ask, trying my hardest not to stare.

"Oh, it's nothing really!" Kanada says cheerily, his smile bright and unbothered by the massive amount of blood covering every part of his body. "I just got a little too into it, I guess." 

I open my mouth to speak, and then shut it close. I turn my eyes a little to the left, and I bear witness to the manic expression on Sae's face. Her usually innocent look is gone, replaced by an eerie shine in her eyes. She looks almost possessed.

Their captive screams in pain and terror as Sae jams another needle into his body. There are over seven hundred needles stuck on the poor man.

It doesn't take much to realize what the two were doing. They were probably experimenting on curses. Perhaps they were trying their hardest to create an especially powerful curse? And maybe it was so that they could harvest it or something.

I'm not sure, and I don't really want to be sure. 

Seeing these two like this, their usually innocent looks caked in blood, their smiles manic and their gruesome euphoria almost tangible to feel,

The gore doesn't bother me much—I'd seen far worse before. It's the glee they carry that makes me feel somewhat sick.

This is, unfortunately, not something I can fix. Dealing with Curse Energy—with any sort of corrupting force is not done without risks. The mind is a delicate thing, and prone to damage. Even I'm not immune despite the Primal Energy inside me. And it isn't rare to find my sanity slowly slipping through the cracks as I fight on and on.

I glance at the crying man. He's a stray exorcist, sent here under Kokabiel's orders to survey Kuoh. And just like all that came before him, he was brought down. It was Kanada and Sae who fought the intruder this time, and they'd done a splendid job in defeating him. 

But unlike me, they opted to bring the injured man to an old abandoned house, chained the man against the wall, and proceeded to torture him. They did all sorts of things, all with the purpose of inflicting as much pain on the man before he eventually passes.

And then, his accursed soul will remain, bound to the earth through the soul-shattering pain he went through.

Still, I can't find it in myself to pity the man. This guy is the fifteenth agent Kokabiel has sent in the past month, and it's beyond grating. The cadre keeps sending people here, uncaring of whether they live or die, all in the hopes that it'll tire or wear me down or whatever.

And you know what? It worked. He wore me down.

My patience, that is.

It's-, ugh. I've had enough. The cadre has sent nearly two hundred agents my way, and he's done nothing but sit on that stupid self-appointed throne of his, spouting bullshit after bullshit to make him seem stronger than he really is.

He's being wasteful, and every part of my being screams in frustration over it all.

So I had enough. Just minutes before, I'd teleported just above the place Kokabiel and his cohorts are camping at. I seared the location into my memory, flew up to the mesosphere, found myself a mostly-intact meteor,

And promptly kicked it towards Kokabiel's base. I'd watched it descend, and like a gift from the heavens, it pierced through the flimsy barrier surrounding the place and promptly turned the entire place to a charred ruin.

Suffice to say, the cadre won't be bothering me for a while. Not like he could—most of his men died then and there.

I didn't kill the cadre, though. I have no reason to kill him yet. Let the crow stew in his anger. Maybe he'll make a stupid decision and finally come here. Or maybe he'll swallow his pride and beg the Khaos Brigade to give him more power. Either way, it benefits me in the-

Suddenly, a horrid shriek sounds, and I have only a moment to leap back as the entire abandoned building is drowned in a wave of accursed power. The walls rot, the ground tears, the air shakes, and the world screams under the weight of a shattering soul.

It's…sort of fascinating, really. To see all those emotions bleed out, tearing through the soul they'd been contained and flooding out into the world as a force of rot. 

This is a Curse. Not mere ghosts who can possess people, or artificial beings created by fools thinking they are gods.

This is a Curse. A force born from emotions, one so strong that it'd torn itself out of the soulful shell it's once lived inside, now filled with nothing but the remnants of the darkness it'd been born from.

But I…can't really find myself fearing it. Or even interested in it.

All I can do is grimace as I see the Sae and Kanada high five each other, like they've just finished a school project and not horribly torture some man until he turned into a being a spiritual rot.

"Well," I say, smiling slightly. "Don't make too much of a mess, okay?"

"Okay!" They chorused together, and barely a second later, the two dive forward into the cloud of malice. And they begin eating, literally tearing chunks of darkness and malice from the Curse and consuming it. 

The Curse howls as the two continue to feast themselves on its Spiritflesh and Soulblood. It tries batting them away, but it does little. Sae and Kanade continue to eat, smiling and giggling all the while.

While they busy themselves with their new meal, I let myself ponder.

It's been an uneventful week. I mean, there's been a number of rather important events happening lately, but none of them directly involved me in any way. I could have involved myself, but I'd…rather not. I've just gone through nearly four months of back-breaking work just weeks ago. I'm not that much of a workaholic.

Instead, it's been a week spent mostly experimenting. Testing out new ideas for Infernal Arms and Sacred Gears, continuing my training to meld Primal Energy and Divine Energy together, blackmail gathering on the Vatican. That sort of thing.

It's been fun.

This will soon pass however, and this tranquil calm the world now floats in will soon fall away. It'll happen eventually, inevitably. There is an army gathering, and those from the Khaos Brigade have been awfully suspicious with their actions.

But why should I let them take the first move? 

Their future actions will catch a lot of eyes, and no matter how many people they hypnotize or kill or maim or threaten, the supernatural veil will be lifted, and the world will be changed for good. 

And that's fine. If anything, I'm somewhat surprised the supernatural have kept their secret for this long.

But, you see-

I'm a rather competitive person, and I can't let those lunatics take the first step. If the world is to be revealed to the supernatural, then I won't let it go their way. And more than that, there's a far better way of pulling back the veil than inflicting genocide and such.

After all, I happen to have hours of blackmail regarding the Church, and I'm a practitioner of Magic—the art of manipulating Information.

Televisions are a common thing now. And so is the internet. It won't take much to use my magic to spread the Church's underbelly out to the real world. Some might think it's fake, but I'm sure they'll harrowingly believe once they see some of the…darker things I've recorded.

It'll be chaos, but chaos is exactly the thing this world needs right now. 

Heaven has remained too quiet. The Fallen have become complacent. Devils have grown without restraint. The Youkai are still too fearful to step back into the limelight. The victims of those cruelties have yet to receive their justice.

And amidst it all, Kuoh will become a bastion. 

Of course, it won't be that easy. I have a number of things I need to do before the grand reveal. I have contracts to sign, relations to establish, products to create, and techniques to master.

It'll mean my work will exponentially pile up—again—but it's a worthy price to pay for the gains I can take.

I can't help the grin on my face. Just thinking about it, my eyes reminding me of all the plans currently at work-

It will be glorious.

「Symptoms of Mania detected. Warning issued. Immediately turn to the nearest hospital and-」

"Shut." I whisper. "Let me have my fun."

「Host's plan for World Domination has been noted. Filling New File with previous plans drafted by YHWH regarding his Kingdom.」

"I'm not trying to take over the world." I say, before I frown. "And a kingdom? Like, Heaven?"

I hear a metallic hum ring in my mind. 「Indeed. Plans of New Jerusalem were being drafted before being interrupted by the Trihexa」I wince as pain stabs through my brain. The image of a monstrous beast flashes through my mind, made of seven grafted heads and a body formed from the decaying bodies of a billion men.

"So that's why he died." I say, wiping away the trail of blood falling from my chin. I then grin. "Thanks for mentioning that thing's name, by the way. Gave me the chance to look for what I wanted."

My eyes are silent for a good while, before a grating sound echoes in my head.「Host and YHWH are far too alike.」It complains.

"Hey, I'm alive, aren't I?" I say with a grin, still excited from all the information I gained about the slayer of God. "Besides, I had a feeling I'm strong enough to handle it."

「...Host is correct.」It eventually admits.

…

「Forceful change of topics detected. Host has not confirmed Plan Designation: World Domination. Shall Host-」

I groan.