Cradle

I had become very familiar with fire and all the sensations it could bring. I knew what it was to feel my veins and nerves screaming in agony, my skin melting and my organs rupturing from the inside.

There was nothing worse to experience, no more greater torment. Was this a surprise that one of the most popular and true depictions of hell was a place full of flames, brimstones and ashes?

The star that was feeling from above was one that seemed to promise untold pain, untold destruction.

We should have all melted to nothing the moment it appeared in the sky. Something so bright, so dangerous, so packed with demonic energy should have only left wanton carnage behind.

I should be scared, trying to do something, anything to make sure my peerage and I escaped. This was what my brain was telling me.

My heart was saying something else. Instead of fear, I only felt warmth, instead of fear, I only felt ease. How couldn't I?

I smiled at the falling star with all the love I could mutter "Hello Uncle Surtr" I whispered and the star smiled.

 "Rias."

Words that weren't only words. Words that were conveyers, conveyers of concepts and ideas. The star may have only said my name but I felt more. I felt as if I was in the only place I belonged to. I felt love. It was as if I was flooded by foreign emotions, foreign intents.

The star began to shift condensing in a smaller shape, in a humanoid one. One still as bright, one still as big as the castle of my brother.

 "Finally at Home."

Features began to draw themselves on the face of the giant. Harsh ones, features that would only be called barbaric and primal took place on a once-empty face.

 "You've changed. You've grown stronger."

Limbs began to sprout from a torso made of orange infernal flames. legs of fire as hot as a star encountered the grass and didn't burn anything.

He finally unfurled like a butterfly out of his cocoon. His gaze locked itself on us, on me. Without warning, one of his arms came flying toward me.

 "Time flows differently. Fate changed."

It was fast, fast in a way I was only able to see the blur of something moving. The hand stopped centimetres away from my face. If this had been a real fight. I would have been dead.

"BOOST" I heard coming from my side. "Rias, move!" Issei shouted at me.

 "I knew I recognized this smell. Ddraig, at last, we meet again!"

Images of destruction, of crimson red, flooded my mind. Images of desolation that could only be brought by a superior being, by a celestial monster.

Issei had activated his sacred gear. With one hand, he had placed Asia behind him and with the other, I could already see an orb made of draconic energy and was that ice that seemed to be ready to be sent flying to the gigantic form of Surtr, the rook of my brother.

"The girl fought. The girl screamed. The girl lost. Eisha was her name. Will you be like her little dragon?

I saw a girl, one who didn't seem much older than me. She was looking at an orange star in the sky with hatred. Around her, only ashes and the laughter of a cruel monster remained.

The light of the boosted gear erupted brightly as if the sacred gear itself found outrage in the words of Surtr basking the garden in an eery emerald glow.

"There is no point in fighting Issei. He's not an enemy. If he was, most of us would most likely have been already dead. This is the rook of my brother. He would never hurt me. Lucifer would ask for forgiveness from god before he did so," I said to my pawn.

 "The blood of the horde is thicker than the water of the egg," Surtr spoke his booming yet soft voice reverberating.

I may not be your blood but I was more a family to you than your biological one I translated mentally.

The gigantic hand of fire twisted at the wrist, turning and opening before me its palm. I followed My memories and my instincts and hopped into his palm.

Warm, his hand was warm but not in the scalding hot kind of warm. He felt warm like a blanket did when it was too cold. It felt warm like a hug.

Sirzechs loved me. It was something no one even those who hated him could deny but it didn't change The fact that my brother was Satan Lucifer. He had responsibilities and duties to fulfil for the good of our race.

He couldn't always be there even though I knew he wished it could be the case. This is why when he hadn't been there and the original Rias had needed, had wanted company, someone to be there, the ones who were chosen to stay at the side of his beloved sister were his peerage members.

Surtr who I called Uncle Surtr wasn't the original one. He had originally been a copy, an inferior one. No one knew who had wanted to clone the future destroyer of Asgard or why they had done so.

The original Surtr had been trapped by Odin in Muspelheim with runes and seals. The god has wanted to delay Ragnarok and my uncle had been a possible way to launch the prophecy of the doom of the Norse pantheon.

True prophecies always came true no matter how much you wished it wasn't the case. The only thing you could do was to manipulate it in a way you found acceptable.

When my uncle was born, the first reaction of the Norse gods was to try to kill him. He was able to fight and escape, to survive because even though he may have been a lesser copy of an apocalyptic monster, he still was a copy of the beast of the end of the Norse pantheon.

For decades, he fought, staying alone and surviving until he met my brother. I don't know how my brother did it but he was able to succeed in making Surtr a part of his peerage.

This was also one of the reasons why after the other factions of our pantheon, our next direct enemy was the Norse pantheon.

I guess that for those who didn't know he had specially reincarnated Surtr to face Rizevim one day, it would seem that the Devil found a way to obtain a weapon capable of dooming the Norse pantheon. The thing with true prophecies was the fact that even though they always happened, they could be controlled.

Purists and conservative devils saw the action of my brother as one worthy of being called Lucifer and for our enemies, his action only confirmed their biases and ideas they had against us.

"I missed you Uncle," I told him honestly. The original Rias truly had done so but she had wanted to cut herself so much from the underworld that she hadn't kept contact with him.

She hadn't dared ask him to come visit her on Earth. The reason was that Surtr was a giant. He could technically be considered a direct or indirect relative of the primordial being Ymir.

The giant deities of the Norse Pantheon were called giants for a reason. Even now as he towered over me and stood equal to the castle, I knew he was still restraining, limiting himself.

The original Ymir's body had supposedly been what was used by Odin and his siblings to create the universe.

With the fact that this world was one with Demiurgic Archangel, I would be surprised if that was the case but it didn't mean Odin and his brother hadn't created anything.

It wasn't because the tetragrammaton was the creator that he created everything. The other realms connected by Yggdrasil, which were equal in size to Earth had been created due to Ymir's body.

I didn't exactly remember the words but According to the prophecy, the original Surt was supposed to plunge his sword in the heart of Asgard and lit it aflame. Only a giant the size of a planetoid would be able to do such a thing.

My uncle I knew had a similar size if not a little bit shorter. The original me hadn't dared ask him to come to Earth where she knew he would have to restrict himself even more. The worst was that she knew the rook would do it without hesitating.

 "No words spoken or written."

Weirdly, it felt as if I was looking at the disappointing glare of an orange cat, a grumpy fat orange cat to be precise. I felt a sigh escape me. "I know, I should have not done so. I won't do it again."

I infused my demonic energy into my voice and my words, trying to replicate how he was communicating to make him understand that I was honest.

 "Good."

I felt a quiet satisfaction emanating from him. He was very very comfortable. His hand was looking more and more for me like an impromptu bed.

I knew the sleep I would be having in his palm would be more than a divine one. I'll do it later. For a giant apocalyptic being, the rook of my brother was very bad at saying no to me.

Well in his defence, it wasn't only him. The original me had been more than spoiled by the members of the peerage of Sirzechs.

The only one who could be said to have tried to not indulge in every one of my whims was Grayfia and even then, I knew due to the memories I inherited that Grayfia treated me exactly the way she treated Millicas or maybe it was the contrary with me being born before.

I switched positions to face my peerage. "Issei, Asia. You're the only one here who doesn't know who this is. Allow me to present to you Surtr the second, only rook of Sirzechs Lucifer, my brother."

I could see urgency and fear disappear from the two of them. "Hello mister Surtr," Asia said to Surtr.

 "I smell, I see his light in you child."

Images of angels, armour-clad exorcists and angels flooded my mind. The way Asia's eyes widened, she also saw it.

"I have been excommunicated before becoming a devil. If you see light mister Surtr, it's probably not mine," she said softly. I could see with my eyes sadness and pain in her soul but I could see something else growing in it. Acceptance, I deciphered.

I don't think Asia would ever stop believing in him, in his teachings but she felt resigned to be a sinner cast away from his light.

What was worse? A believer who stopped believing in their god or a god who stopped caring about their believers?

 "Is that so?"

I could feel amusement, excitement, and anticipation as if he knew something we didn't, something he couldn't wait to see be revealed. 'What did he see?' I wondered. Surtr was old, older than some countries. I also didn't know if he also inherited a part of the memories of the original Surtr. Before I could ask him why he said this, a voice rose from the boosted gear.

I could read caution in the eyes and the body language of Issei. He was looking at his arm as if cutting it would be the end of all his problems "Śuri, I see you're unfortunately still alive," the voice of Ddraig rumbled from the boosted gear.

 "Śuri is an old name Y Ddraig Goch. One of once better and youthful times."

Images of volcanic eruptions, plagues, great consuming fires, of devastating plagues. I saw a star laughing above as destruction and pain bloomed amongst mortals. I saw those mortals die and be consumed in the inferno who was holding me right now in his palm with all the care of the world.

Instead of being disgusted or angry, I felt exhausted and weary. Everyone I was close to was a monster. Everyone, I considered family, everyone the original me saw as family, and loved was a monster.

Even after what I saw, the love I held for him didn't change. Maybe the church was right to want to exterminate all of us.

"The juggernaut drive releases the limits of my power. You may have been strong, stronger than most but you were and still are lesser than a celestial dragon. I remember dismembering you limbs to limbs and turning you to a nothing even Teleuth shouldn't have been able to save you from."

With each of his words, the dragon seemed to be more and more angry "HOW DID YOU SURVIVE?'

 "I'm not as dumb as the antagonists of Rias' novels Red Dragon."

In other words, don't expect me to reveal to you like a cliche antagonist one of my trump cards. I couldn't help myself. A chuckle escaped me. Immortals could learn. You just needed to give them younger family members who will force them to read mangas.

"Hyoudou Issei," the dragon spoke calmly, too calmly. "Find a way to kill him and I'll give you back your lost memories. I'll also give you for free enough power to be able to kill the primordial goddess of Japan. Don't and I'll do everything so that you won't get stronger through the Boosted gear."

With those words, the gear went silent. The emerald glow disappeared to only leave a spark of green behind.

 "Dragons, so prideful, so entitled, so stupid."

Issei looked heartbroken as if Asia had done to him the same thing Raynare had done to him in the past. The gazes of other members of my peerage directed at him were sad, full of pity. They looked as if they wanted to comfort him but didn't know if they should do so and how if they could.

"Why did you kill all those people lord Surtr?" Yuto asked the giant. Even though his words were polite, I could only see coldness in his eyes. Like me, he probably had seen the images of what Surtr had done in the past.

 "You are sharper, better. He would be proud."

A rumble escaped from his torso, one that sent my hair flying and felt like the winds of a storm I realized it was him sighing.

 "They were enemies, Etruscans, gods who wanted the annihilation of the Ars Goetia."

Images of armies swallowed my mind. Images of gods sitting, planning what I could clearly guess was for battle, for invasion.

 "They were fleeing from the Dokatheon. We were still weakened, weaker and less organized. We learnt through the sorcery of the Beelzebub that they wished to invade the territory of the Abaddon clan."

It sounded like a sane plan at first look. Extra devils were seen as pure blood but lesser pure blood devils. It still doesn't change the fact that it would have still been seen as an invasion and it would have been brutally crushed.

"That sounds stupid," Akeno spoke saying what I was thinking out loud.

"It was stupid but they were desperate. They had been fighting and losing for more than a thousand years. They had two contingencies to make sure they succeeded. A device that would have separated completely the land they invaded from the underworld and a red dragon emperor, the strongest dragon emperor, and one woman called Eisha. I did what I had to do for the safety of the underworld and she tried to avenge her people. She died thinking she succeeded and I lived my goal accomplished."

I sent feelings of support and care by sending my demonic energy running in the form of my uncle. The only telltale that he reacted was his hand becoming somehow more comfortable.

"I see." The eyes of my knight were in no way warm but they were softer, less colder than before.

"How am I supposed to fight without my sacred gear," I heard Issei speak softly. I felt my heart break a little at the sound of his voice.

He wanted to fight a primordial goddess in her realm. This was already a task that veered toward the impossible but it became clearly impossible for him if the power of the boosted gear was truly unavailable to him.

Akeno comes closer to him "There must be a way to do something. It is supposed to be a prison before all."

I watched as light coated her right hand and she touched the physical manifestation of the sacred gear with it.

I watched a frown bloom on her beautiful face "There's resistance. It shouldn't be possible."

She removed her hand from the sacred gear "I prefer stopping now. I don't want to possibly do anything that could damage your soul. Don't despair Issei. Know that I will find a solution. It's just a question of time."

 "The decrees of Heaven are weakening. In such conditions, Even a prisoner can become the master instead of the jailed."

"Do you know a way to solve this problem uncle?" I asked him.

 "The oldest rule is that power trumps all. What doesn't want to be given can be taken."

I knew without the images that bloomed in my mind what it meant. Even then, it still sounded insane to me.

"Please, tell me you're not talking of making Issei fight against the dragon of domination alone for dominance in his soul."

He didn't answer me. Instead, I felt his gaze focus on Issei and Issei alone as if the two of them were the only beings existing in the universe.

"He's so much stronger than me. Everything I was able to do this time was because of him, of his powers that I thought were mine."

 "I can see the hold of Beldam on your heart but know something little dragon. Even a fake, even a lesser copy can win against an original. It doesn't matter if the world itself is against you. You only need to never stop fighting until you win. It is time the red lizard learned humility and I Surtr the second promise you that under my tutelage, you'll soar high enough to devour the very gods themselves."

I already knew by looking at the eyes of Issei his answer. I knew that there was no point in trying to convince from not to do so. I just hope he won't lose himself. Supernova shined bright but died quickly.

*scene*

[MEDIA=youtube]SzttaVWYHoM[/MEDIA] (I was never there the weeknd)

Ajuka Beelzebub felt curious, something rare in itself. What was surprise, what could be unexpected when you already knew mostly everything?

Ajuka knew how many people were actually dying in the entire universe. He knew without wanting to what most beings would do. He knew already the thoughts of the devils he ruled and the future opponents devil-kind would face.

His mind was a machine, a system so fast, so efficient it made him divine. After all, the goal of his creation had been to be the match of the Heavenly system of the presence.

He was in one of the deepest layers of hell but he could hear as if just meters away each of the different conversations happening in Olympus, Asgard, the Grigori, heaven and other realms. He knew what happened between the Archdaemon Bael and his two grandchildren.

The only reason he hadn't intervened and killed the Archdaemon with his bare hands was because he knew the actions of the Archdaemon would only benefit Sirzechs in the long run. The Archdaemon made Sirzechs stronger without knowing it.

He could feel and see the different actions of the Heavenly system that had been left unchecked since the death of the Father of the angels, which was weakening while Ajuka was only growing stronger.

Ajuka Beelzebub was more than a devil, more than An Archdaemon. He was God or something as close as possible to the concept.

What was God other than the one capable of knowing everything? Capable of doing everything? This wasn't pride. This wasn't arrogance. It was the truth. It was a fact.

There was nothing he couldn't do, he couldn't create if he wished to do so. The Endless? Ajuka could bind them to his will if he knew it wouldn't be in the long term a bore.

The divine throne left vacant by the presence? He could make it his if he wanted to. The different laws and rules that made it possible to control the different aspects of reality or to change their paradigm like the anti-life equation were things Ajuka knew since his birth.

Ajuka had always been right and it had been so boring. The only constant feeling he had felt since his birth had been boredom.

This is why Ajuka loved Sirzechs and had chosen to follow him even though he didn't care if all devilkind perished.

Sirzechs had been one of the only things Ajuka could not completely predict. Sirzechs was the only one who could understand him. Sirzechs was the only one who could match Ajuka at his best if only the Gremory stopped limiting and stopped restricting himself with simple concepts like morals.

Sirzechs was the only reason why Ajuka hadn't decided to destroy everything and him afterwards. Ajuka loved Sirzechs What other name his feelings could be called than love?

He had seen the love Serafall had for Sirzechs. He had seen how she would have only kept Sirzechs behind, how she would have stopped him from becoming more, how she would have made Sirzechs stop caring as much as he did care about Ajuka.

This is why he had made sure the child died. If the child had lived, Sirzechs sooner or later would have definitely gone to Serafall.

The only reason Grayfia had survived her battle against Serafall for the title of Leviathan was because of him. It was to make sure she would be the one Sirzechs would marry.

If things had gone the way they should have, She and her son would have died because of the invasion by the mechanical divine outsiders while Sirzechs would have been safe in the seal of the triangular beast.

When the other super devil would have been freed, the only one that he would really trust would have been Ajuka. Sirzechs would have been his and his alone but fate changed.

Ajuka knew everything and yet he had been wrong. God made an error and this was because of someone he never had seen as something of value, Rias Gremory.

Something that he, Ajuka couldn't understand yet had happened in the rating game against Riser.

Fate was thrown out of his course. The order he had cultivated had been replaced by pure Chaos and instead of angering him, it made him happy.

He would just make and create new plans. Ajuka always had in the end what he wished. Sirzechs was already his. The question was just when this fact would become known by all.

There was something new, something new he didn't know, out of his predictions, out of his sight. Some called perfection the state or quality of being perfect. According to this definition, Ajuka was perfect.

Ajuka didn't agree. Perfection in itself was a flawed concept and he wasn't flawed at all. In his eyes, perfection was the capability of only improving, of never stagnating and Rias Gremory gave him a path toward it.

The Phenex boy had also grown in strength in the rating game against the little sister of Sirzechs.

It didn't matter that the Phenex was angry, that the Phenex hated this moment Rias Gremory more than anything. Even with demonic magic, it shouldn't have been enough to make the boy evolve from a high-class devil to a very very weak Daemon but still a Daemon.

A spark of something alien travelled between the fingers of Ajuka Beelzebub. A spark of adaptation.

Rias Gremory would never have to fear against Ajuka going against her at least for now because why would you strangle the golden goose?

The spark of infinity, of adaptation sank into the skin of Ajuka and he became more. At the same moment, a flicker of adaptation sank into the skin of a distracted and bound Sirzechs Lucifer. If the Gremory hadn't been under the effects of the anti-life equation, he would have noticed but it wasn't the case. A savage smile split the face of the bored usually looking Satan. Chaos was a ladder of opportunities.

Ajuka could end this war but he wouldn't be doing so. Let the millions of deaths by the altar to his ascension, to the Ascension of the only ones worthy of surviving, of thriving.