Aleister Crowley liked to say that, as a boy, he imagined himself as the biblical Beast.
Aleister Crowley was probably full of shit, and Aleister Crowley was probably a crazy lying son-of-a-bitch, but Naoki Kashima likes to imagine the same of himself; a little boy underneath his covers with a flashlight, picturing his own face with the mouth of a lion. Ten horns, ten crowns, a throne.
He can't remember if he ever read the Bible as a kid, but then again, there are a lot of things he can't remember-his mother's name (it seems strange that he even had a mother, because he can't figure out what he'd need one for), who his friends were (there was a boy and a girl, not that those distinctions matter much), in what ward of Tokyo he lived.
There aren't many things he misses from the Pre-Conception, but he'd like to see if his house is still standing; he remembers his video game collection and his cheap Ouija board and his Enochian chess set; he remembers his books on Qabalah and the Goetia and tarot, on Hermeticism and cartomancy and LaVeyan Satanism.
They aren't much use to him now, but it makes him laugh to think about all those stores of useless knowledge: John the Conqueror's root, pentagram necklaces and omamori. He just wants to grind Choronzon, Baphomet, Horus and the Mother of Harlots beneath his heel, because he knows he can.
So he does.
He doesn't remember much of being a human (weak limbs, pimples, unintentional hard-ons), but he knows this is what he's always wanted.