After obtaining my sword I can honestly say I was beyond excited.
I saw my father using his own to 'show off' and I admit that it was awesome. He only released its first form since the second was too dangerous, but even then he was strong enough to, with one single swing, cut down the peak of a mountain more than 4 kilometers away.
I could not hear the name of his sword quite clearly, but its appearance and power changed when he called its name and I want to be able to do the same as well.
I basically come from a clan of fucking Shinigami's! How could I not be excited about having the equivalent to a zampakutou?!
"*COUGH*COUGH*" Chisa released a very fake cough to call for my attention, I may have spaced out while looking at my weapon. "I know you are excited about this development, but you must understand that this is no toy. While it is true that it is incapable of wounding you it still is more than capable of cutting others so you should always be careful with it. You may go back to rest as this process usually tires one out quite a bit and tomorrow is your big day and I don't want you to look like a rotten orange!" Chisa said energetically, with me only capable of sweat drop at this while giving a wry smile. She has quite a few weird costumes, but overall is a good enough person.
Huh, now that she told me of it I AM quite tired. I should do as she said, but before that I have to ask her one thing.
"Chisa, can you wake me up when father gets home? I want to talk to him!"
"Sure, I doubt I even have to do that considering the way he acts but I will go call you as soon as he arrives. I think he and your mother will want to see you as soon as they arrive." Chisa said.
"So mom will be coming too? I thought she was too busy on her fashion tour in Milan." My mother was a well-known fashion designer in the human world and in the underworld. She usually is quite busy, but she always finds some time to spend with me. But considering it is the fashion week I am surprised she can still find time for me.
Don't get me wrong, I love the fact she can find the necessary time but I also know how busy she usually is because of her work.
"Of course she found the time. It was not easy but she managed it somehow. Now go on, you should rest before tonight. Your father said he wants to tell you how to use the sword and you must also prepare for the party tomorrow." Chisa said seriously.
I nodded and went right to bed, my eyelids already feeling quite heavy.
*KNOCK KNOCK*
"Joseph-bochama, the clan head has arrived. I heard a voice coming from the other side of the door.
Why can't he arrive a bit later? It has only been three hours, and while normally that would be much more than enough time for me to be back to normal, right now I want nothing more than to rest some more.
I did not realize how tiresome the use of the house trait was, but I really want to rest some more!
Sigh, unfortunately it is not to be. Peko-Chan is already here and knowing her she will continue standing on the other side of the door until I get up. She is absurdly dedicated for such a little girl, she just turned 4 years old last month, but she still acts way too dedicated to me.
"I am going, Peko-chan."
"Young master, please don't call me with a -Chan! I am just a weapon, using such cute name in me is unnecessary."
Damn, I can almost see her pouting. It is always funny how much she likes to copy her father, he comes from a clan of bodyguards to my family that work under us for the last few thousand years. But, even knowing that I don't want to hear her calling herself a weapon or whatever. She may be already training to be my bodyguard, but I want her as my cute friend.
Thinking that I opened the door to see her standing there all serious and emotionless, but I know just how to break this fake front of hers.
HUG
KISS ON THE CHEECK
And with that she becomes all flustered. Her face is all beet red to the point that it looks just like her eyes. She can't even form full sentences right now.
"What are you waiting for Peko-Chan, let's go!" and with that I caught her hand and started walking ahead to where my family probably is, sometimes I give little peeks at her to see how she is and her face being all red and not knowing what to do is just so funny.
Yep, she definitely is too cute.
Opening the door to the living room I was greeted to the sight of both my parents.
My father, Alexius Barbatus is a very imposing man. He was extremely fit, with extremely defined muscles, a handsome face with a small piercing bellow his chin and with long red hair and deep blue eyes. His very presence make others feel inferior, and with his trusted sword on the side he clearly is among the most powerful devils alive, many say he should have been the new Asmodeus since he too was just as strong and has a much better work ethic than that lazy bones. But his father was not interested, he choose to be one of the new elders in the council and work in changing the laws in a more direct fashion to try and improve the life of the lower class devils.
My mother was with him. She was a beautiful woman with fair skin, voluptuous figure and shiny golden hair that looked almost like golden treads. Her soft smile was something that could heal anyone in my opinion, she was as beautiful as any woman could ever hope to be.
When father saw me entering the room he smiled and said with his usual confident voice.
"Son, I am happy to see you! Show me it already, I need at least one good thing for today." Mom pinched his waist. "Besides being besides your mother, of course." She nodded, and I admit I almost laughed out loud from this. The two are really a perfect match, both equally confident and demanding, even if sometimes mom seems to be the one using the pants on the house.
I then released Peko-Chan's hand and took out the sword that was hanging from my back (it was too big to post it on any other place). When I took it out I noticed that it was slightly different from before as it now had some small carvings and ornaments here and there.
Seeing my shocked face father smiled and said.
"So this is your sword, it is a good blade. And it seems like it is already finishing its carving process, good to know."
"Carving?" I asked as I heard nothing about this before.
"Oh, did I forgot to tell you? When a member of the Barbatus clan creates his sword it is only released in its most elementary and basic form, but the higher the potential the user has the faster it will begin what we call 'carving' in which the sword starts fully fusing with the piece of your soul there. Considering how fast it started happening then we can expect that you will probably reach the first release before you are 12, at least that is what happened to me so maybe you can reach it too by then."
Oh, I will get my sword release so early, lucky.
Seeing my happy face mother approached me and said sternly.
"I know you are happy with your sword, but remember that tomorrow will be your big day so you should try not to do anything reckless until then. You are our precious treasure and we will make sure that everyone knows it." She then smiled sweetly and said. "If everything goes well I will get some free time after tomorrow and you will be able to help you in using the house trait you received from my side too, the power over gravity."
That is gonna be so awesome! I can even imagine already, my enemies being all cocky before I increase the gravity around them and make them kneel down before me. And there are just so many ways to go about using this power, it is fun just to imagine what I will do with it.
...Shit. I was getting so excited with this new development that I almost forgot what I had to do.
"Father, I heard that something happened to make you late today. What was that all about?"
"Ah, that huh. Apparently a Nekoshou went crazy, killed her master and tried to escape. But she sure was unlucky as she had chosen to escape through our territory and was promptly captured before she could take one step out of our land. The other elders are thinking of killing her, but I am trying to stop them as we still don't know the situation involving her with all details so an execution is probably too hasty of a decision." He explained. Him explaining all of this to his son while he isn't even 5 may sound weird, but our family produces many leaders and members of the military from thousands of years and it is a costume to teach the new generation since young about the world, politics and military matters.
"I understand, but what was decided?" I asked.
"I managed to avoid execution for now, but unless we find out what happened, prove her innocence and find someone to keep her she will be executed." he said with a sigh. Devil's politics are, as my father usually says, a bloody nightmare. There are just too many factions and there are few who actually care about what is correct and fair, most just care about taking advantage and looking after themselves first and foremost. I bet they hadn't even heard her side before there being calls for her execution.
"Father, where is she right now?"
"She is on the dungeons under the house. They asked me to send her to the dungeon of the capital, but I refused since I know there would be the risk of someone just killing her before a verdict is reached."
I nodded at his decision, it was probably the best option as there have been antecedents of this sort of thing happening in the past. I then got an idea of what to do.
"Father, let's go see her. If she is truly innocent maybe she could stay here with us!"
"No." mother said, interrupting the conversation. "We are not sure of the reason she did what she did and if she attacks and hurt you I don't even want to imagine what I will do."
"But Mom-"
"No 'buts'. She will not be staying anywhere near you, young man." Mom said with a Stern face. All I could do was turn to father for help, he was about to agree with Mom but I used the secret technique that only small kids can use.
The puppy dog eyes.
And it was super effective.
"Dear, if she truly is innocent we could leave her under the care of Chisa, she most definitely can subdue her if the need arises and this way Joseph here would have more people to talk with. You too have commented about the fact he needs more friends around his age and she has only turned 9 not so long ago therefore she would fit in well. Maybe she could even be a member of his peerage in the future." Father said, and adding my puppy dog eyes mother relented and agreed to it.
"Fine, but only if Chisa agrees with this and if she truly is a victim." She said and I hugged her and gave her a kiss on the cheek for it, which she smiled to.
After that we had dinner with me teasing Peko-Chan every chance I got and father laughing out loud to it while mom smiled playfully as well.
"Joseph, would you like to see the new models I just made?" mother asked me as I instantly agreed. It may sound weird but as I grew up seeing mother's work I ended up gaining an interes in fashion designing as well. Mom even let me work with it every once in a while and she said that if I keep at it she will introduce me to the work as well.
No need to say that the model for my clothes is usually Peko-chan. It helps that I even work with cosplaying, and I got to say that making Peko dress up as a magical girl is just too funny.
One bad aspect of this body is that I am always looking for things to entertain me as everything just becomes too easy to me after a while.
"Sure, let's go to your study to see it." I said, but before that.
"Sorry dear, but Joseph will be coming with me." Father said. "If he is so insistent about helping that girl he should at least know her and we should hear her story as well."
Mother sighed in defeat and let the two of us go.
As father and I entered the dungeon I could not help but notice the smell. It was honestly disgusting, but I shouldn't expect much better considering how we usually put here those who try to invade devil territory. The territory of house Barbatus is right on the limits of the devil territory and is surrounded by a few tribes of other species like the elves, giants, werewolves, fallen angels, fairies and demons.
Weird, I know. Many consider devils and demons being one and the same but this is far from the truth. Demons are humanoid creatures that usually just live for carnage and most of the time are stupid beings that go out devouring and hunting whatever they see. There are a few exceptions, but even then they are usually hunted down by their own kind so it only natural to not trust them.
Well, I would still like to meet one who wasn't from the idiotic kind, maybe it could be part of my peerage.
Anyway, considering how surrounded we are by potential enemies we constantly have new 'guests' in these dungeons, most being idiots that want nothing more than to attack us, assassins from one other clan, or just your regular spy. Naturally we developed methods to extract info from them, and these methods sometimes are quite messy and this smell is the result.
The smell of blood and putrid flesh.
And in one of the cells we saw our target, a girl that couldn't possibly be any older than 9 years old. She was chained to the wall by her neck and arms with special chains that blocked her powers completely. She had a wrathful face, as if she wanted nothing more than to bite our heads off and get away from here.
Considering how scantily dressed she was we could see multiple marks of torture and punishment in her entire body, but one thing attracted me attention more. The fact that her ears were of the wrong color. Instead of black her hair was maroon and she only had one PINK tail.
"Here she is, the Nekoshou Hainekou." father said, much for my confusion. "Didn't you have questions for her? Go right ahead."
Well, at least this means that Kuroka's situation still might be more salvageable. I may have wasted all this effort, but on the other hand I know that Kuroka is still with her scummy master and I still have time to accumulate influence and power to save her.
Anyway, now that I am here anyway I might as well ask Hainekou what happened.
I entered the cell slowly as I didn't want to startle her and when I was close enough I took of her chains as a sign of good will. Father is here anyway so she definitely will not manage to wound me anyway.
After I did that she warily looked at me, probably waiting to be attacked, but I did nothing as I took a step back and presented her with a chair to sit down.
Father was looking at everything from a slight distance as he wanted to see how this would go.
As she sat down I could see how exhausted she was, her body almost dismantled on the chair as her tiredness won over her wariness and she simply sat down in utter exhaustion.
"Your name is Hainekou, right? It's nice meeting you, my name is Joseph Barbatus." I said, presenting my hand for a handshake. She, very slowly, took my hand and shook it back.
"Hainekou." is what she said, her voice quite horsy and dry. She seems to be suffering from dehydration and malnutrition, and it doesn't seem to be from just one day either. Just looking at her ideas about what happened to her already formed in my head, and none of them is good.
"Hainekou, I know this will probably be hard to believe but I want you to listen to what I have to say carefully since this might be your last chance. I want to hear YOUR side of the story, the reason for you to kill your master and everything involved. Right now we are the only chance you have of keeping your head, so you can either talk now or keep your story to the tomb as these are the only options left to you." I said, my voice filled with power despite how young I am. My father nodded on the back, if it was in agreement to what I said or if it was due to being proud pf me was anyone's guess.
Hainekou looked at me with distrust, but after a while she relented and started telling her story.
"I don't remember my parents, but I heard that my old tormentor killed them due to some disagreement with a payment. My first few memories were of him, he abused me physically constantly because I was his 'pet toy', and I only knew pain back then. I even remember how he once beat me to the brink of death more than once."
At this her voice started trembling, she tried to talk but words could not get out at all so I turned to father who had an impassive face as he produced a cup out of sheer demonic energy before filling it with water by the use of water magic. He passed the cup to me and I repassed it to Hainekou, who took it without even knowing what to do exactly. Yet she managed to drink it, and with it she calmed down somewhat, at least calm enough to continue her tale.
"After he beat me to the brink of death so many times he ended up going one strp further once and he resurrected me as a Pawn for his peerage after killing me, his words were that he still needed me to relieve the stress from his work. Apparently I was the perfect softness to not hurt his precious hands but still firm enough to make the right amount of sound effect. Even my scream were appreciated as he sometimes asked the other servants to beat me up while he sleeps just to have a better night of sleep." At this she could only start releasing her tears as if a damn had broken in her face.
Father was looking at this with a serious face, but considering how the metal bars from the cell that he was holding were bending over while it should be impossible to do it I can safely assume he is 'just a bit' pissed right now.
And it is a mutual feeling, I am doing my best to not go to her side and start saying that everything will be okay.
"What happened that made you snap and kill him?" I asked, this time in a much more gentle tone of voice.
"I-I heard from the other servants that he discovered that I had a sacred gear. I didn't know what that meant but when he took me to a room and started saying how blessed he was that now he would be getting a sacred gear for himself, I understood what he meant. He was going to remove my sacred gear and install it on himself, he was going to kill me again. I-I couldn't take it anymore.
I tried to escape him, but his hands, always oily and stinky, held me down. I then saw him raise his fist to hit me again and I just reacted. I don't know how but my sacred gear activated and he died before I could think of anything. Seeing this I could only think of getting away from there, I have heard from the others that I could get back to the were-beast area if I passed through here. As I am part were-beast I thought it would be my best chance, but I was captured anyway.
But please, even if you are going to kill me, please save the others! Please!!" She said, sniffing all the while to the point that by the end of it I could barely hear her voice. Yet the message was clear as day for anyone who looked for it.
Father could no longer sit back as he advanced one step before asking.
"There are others?" It was quite unusual, my father speaking in a low tone like this.
"Yes, there were a few others just like me. They too were tormented by that monster, there were 5 too that were turned against their will after being killed and one who was captured not long ago and they probably can all die any moment now. That monster's family probably will want to hide any proof of what I just said, we were just toys anyway so who would care if we were to die, right? RIGHT?" She said, but I simply stepped forward and gave her a hug.
She did not know how to react, she probably never had anyone being gentle to her for as long as she remembers, but I will make sure to change that.
After the shock she started looking all around, trying to understand what was going on, but after some time her eyes started tearing up again and this time she did not stop until she passed out. Her body being too weak to hold itself together anymore.
Without even asking father I put her in my arms and started carrying her out of here.
She deserves better than to stay in this place a moment more.