Exalted
Chapter 34, Reminisce
I think we are far enough along for me to begin to delve into the heavier aspects Minatos abilities.
The Devil is a part timer is hella fun to watch, especially the abridged version. I admit, Maou from Dpt and Kirito from Sao-A are the two main people I think of when I made the personality of Big D, the older one that is.
The scene and name of the restaurant is just homage.
Minato basically absorbed the Persona Thanatos into himself after his transformation into his 'God' form. I hinted at it when he was missing from the Persona that crowded around Minato and Big D in the Sea of Souls that chapter.
Hypnos is the twin of Thanatos, as far as this story is concerned, so no Takaya clones are going to be showing up. It wouldn't really make sense for that to happen, at least not to me. The rest of the siblings will play their parts in the story, we just aren't quite there yet.
I am not going to be addressing any more questions about Messiah from this point on. He has his part in the story, whether it has already been filled or not is left unsaid.
Maou-D is meant to be pronounced 'Mighty', you'll understand when you see it. Make an acronym for the name and you will understand the joke.
I do not own anything relating to either series. Seriously. What a shocker.
[EX]
Minato was having a bit of an awkward day, to say the least. He woke up to not only Ophis and Lilith curled into him but somehow Kuroka as well, acting as his pillow as his head rested upon her bosom. It was not the worst way one could wake up, but it was not how he fell asleep.
His morning ritual consisting of making sure Ophis or Lilith stayed out of the bathroom as he was bathing was not disturbed, nor was his dressing and departure to the dinning hall where quite a few began to gather for breakfast daily. Sona, Tsubaki, Kiba and Koneko were the only Devils that had shown up, the rest seemingly skipping out for one reason or another.
It didn't bother Minato any, as it just meant less mouths to feed. Sona and Rias had insisted upon paying for the food that Lucifer and Asia cooked for them, and Minato did not turn down the offer. It was expensive, feeding more than a dozen people multiple times a day.
Bennia was refusing to look him in the eyes, as were three of the Devils that he had come to associate with. Koneko, however, seemed to be the only one who was bold enough to approach him, even going so far as to drag him from the house, leaving Nyx to distract Ophis and Lilith with a new flavor of Marshmallows.
Seeing as it had been quite some time since he took a stroll with the young Nekoshou, he splurged a bit and bought Koneko as many sweets as she wanted. It ended up being expensive enough to leave a high end salary-man hungry for a week, but the way her face lit up made it worth it.
The two found themselves walking around town idly with no real direction in mind, going as far as walking to the docks and then back in the direction that the Cult of Thanatos gathered in. Asia could be heard giving her sermon, mentioning the names of the two Dragon Gods in one way or another from what Minato and Koneko could hear from the entrance to the wooded area.
Minato shrugged his shoulders when Koneko gave him a questioning look, as he saw no harm in what Asia was doing. He had moderated what Asia could and could not reveal, as well as tried to steer the growing Cult into a positive direction instead of otherwise.
Twenty or so minutes later found Koneko acting as a space heater for him as she rested her head on his chest. Minato had led them to the Gallery, one of his favorite places to laze around and think in. She sat in his lap once more, though she did not have the habit of grinding her hips like her sister seemed to display.
'Just what is going on with them?' Minato thought to himself, idly running his gloved hand through the hair of the petite Nekoshou while his other hand rested upon her back, 'Did I do something to... oh, no. Please tell me Gasper didn't...'
"Koneko, you wouldn't happen to know of the website being run by Gasper... would you?" Minato questioned with ever increasing nervousness.
She wiggled her hips a little bit as if she were checking something, and after a few seconds, she nodded her head minutely. "Yes. It's really popular."
'This explains so much.' Minato thought with a frown on his face, ignoring the fact that Koneko just proved him wrong about her lack of similarities to her sister. 'Gasper, this means War.'
No wonder the Devils wouldn't look him in the eyes. If Minato was honest, he would have a hard time looking him in the eyes after seeing what was most likely the most embarrassing hour of his life as well.
"Who all has seen it?" Minato questioned lowly, stopping his hair petting for a moment to allow the girl to look up at him, still blushing rather heavily.
"Everyone." Koneko admitted, averting her eyes a bit before pushing her face back into his chest to hide it once more. She didn't admit to having saved the video to her phone, nor what she did with it.
"I will never live this down." Minato lamented, hanging his head so that his face was buried in the white hair of the Nekoshou.
He didn't seem to understand the fact that the number of fans he had in the Underworld exploded once more. It seems that the adults needed entertainment just as much as the children, and that while Magical Girl related television was great, nothing beat five well endowed men and one not so well endowed man beating up muscular 'bad guys' in nothing but tight spandex and heavy looking helmets while the red one kept shouting about things like friendship, chivalry and justice. Minato did his best to stay silent throughout the entire ordeal, finding that his 'companions' spoke enough that it was not needed. Gasper had even gotten into character well enough to ignore his shyness the moment the helmet was placed on his head, inflicting the most brutal of the accidental injuries that came with supernatural beings beating one another up for entertainment.
Minato had absolutely no idea that people were into that kind of thing. A petition had been signed by too many to further ignore, and the die had been cast. Thus began the reign of the Super Maou D Gang, topping the entertainment charts of Hell among the Devils and Fallen in just one night.
[EX]
Minato sat alone in the large void of colorful blackness that allowed him passage between different areas disconnected from one another, his legs crossed and his palms pressed together almost as if he were praying. All around him, what seemed to be shadowy figures rose up unsteadily from the pools of darkness, only to collapse and fade away.
The humanoid shadows continued to crawl their way from the darkness until one by one, they stood before Minato. Circular white eyes that appeared to contract and expand unsteadily stared downwards at the being that called vacantly.
Minato regarded the many figures before allowing his stream of energy going into them to diminish, causing the beings to once more fade away. Closing his eyes, Minato went back to channeling his energy, this time changing the shape as best as he could. Instead of humanoid shadows of his size appearing from the darkness around him, this time it was smaller, thinner figures that rose from the umbrageous pools of black.
They too, appeared to be a human, though their hands were shaped in the form of scythes instead of claws. One by one the figures flickered, twitched and bobbed, as if growing antsy at being created for nothing. Instead of allowing them to collapse, however, Minato puppeted the many creatures by pushing his own will into the empty vessels of shadow that stood around him in a circle.
Minato pushed himself up from his kneeling position and eyed the dozen figures that only reached to his knees in height before pointing his finger to a distant shape that rose as well. Acting as a single unit, the scythe armed phantasms raced forward and began to tear into the shape, each action being remotely controlled by Minato.
It was mentally taxing, trying to maintain a link with so many different bodies despite how small they were, but progress was being made rapidly. Another three shapes rose from a pool of darkness, flickering figures that seemed to be canine in nature.
The three shadowed wolves launched themselves at the large figure that the tiny phantasms were working on, adding to the strain on Minatos mind just a bit.
He continued for another two hours on manipulating the shapes and sizes of the phantasms he could summon, dubbing them 'Shades' in his own mind. It was as he was leaving the corridor that seemed to stretch on for eternity that he stopped, if only for a moment.
A tiny Dragon, no larger than the size of a few of his fingers with circular eyes floated in front of him at eye level. It was far more solid looking than the rest of the shades and seemed to be a natural resident and not something he created, not flickering like smoke in the wind as the others did. It was matte black, however, and besides having the shape of a Dragon, Minato could not make out any details of the creature.
"How curious." Minato murmured, reaching out to stroke the head of the tiny dragonoid shade, only for it to latch onto his finger like a lizard would and begin to climb towards his shoulder. It disappeared beneath his jacket, though Minato could still see its tiny, white eyes staring back at him from the shaded inside of his jacket.
If it didn't remind him of Lilith, Minato would have been a bit concerned about the strange, tangible creature that hitchhiked its way into his home from the corridor of darkness, and eventually, onto the head of his High Priestess, Asia.
She had expressed her gratitude by giving him a hug and as she was letting go, a kiss on the cheek. Asia giggled and took her new little pet, 'Tanato' to show Bennia, whom Minato immediately heard start complimenting the little creature after it apparently gave Xenovia a wedgie for getting too close to Asia.
[EX]
"Really, Kuroka?" Minato questioned, sitting down at the edge of the girls rather messy bed, "I hope this wasn't just to try and tease me."
He received a text from the woman to come to her room to receive the training he had been interested in, and lo and behold, she stood in all of her glory, naked as the day she was born.
"No, it is needed for this, I promise. I am going to be teaching you the easy way, big man~!" Kuroka promised as she crawled onto the bed behind him. "You need to get rid of those thick clothes you are so fond of for this."
Minato sighed before removing his jacket and the small waistcoat, before setting them to the side. After removing his gloves, he slowly, almost painfully, began to remove the apricot and shirt before he was clad in nothing but his black pants and wool socks.
"Aww, that's all you are going to take off for me, Nya~?" Kuroka had to admire his form for all of its glory, for it was one born from combat. He was not overly muscular, but he certainly wasn't emancipated or scrawny. His torso, arms and back were criss-crossed in scars, some small and others not. Burn marks splattered his flesh as if fire had fallen in droplets while scorch marks born from electricity branched out on his right shoulder blade.
He was heavily toned, and the way he held himself was born from hundreds of hours of conflict, if not thousands. Shoulders tensed, head straight and feet tucked in such a way as to spring away in a moments notice.
"You need to relax for this, Nyaa~." Kuroka breathed in his ear as she pressed her body unto his back before wrapping her long legs around his waist. "Since you refuse to take off your pants, this will have to do."
"Kuroka, have I ever told you how warm you are?" Minato questioned idly, trying his best to ignore the fact that he had a beautiful, cat eared woman clinging to his body in one of the most intimate ways he has ever been held in.
"Oh, you like this? We can make it a daily ritual, if you'd like." The Nekoshou was quick to try and capitalize on his time, and Minato couldn't find a good reason to say no.
Learning Senjutsu was of vital importance, especially concerning Koneko. The petite Nekoshou refused to reveal her true nature, hid away from it like a scared kitten. Her near execution before the interference of Sirzechs, at the behest of Kuroka, had shaken her, as did witnessing the deaths of the last twenty Nekoshou that remained of their race.
The Youkai of Korea no longer had any ties to the Youkai of Japan, not after the war held between the two factions fifty years prior. From what Minato could gather of the incident after reading many different perspectives in reports from the time was that the Youkai Matriarch of the Kyoto branch, the mother of the current Matriarch, refused to bow in subservience and marry her youngest daughter to the Patriarch of the Korean Youkai during a peace conference held between the two.
The leader of the Seoul based Youkai refused to meet with her further to form a peace agreement between the two, as he wanted everything for himself without giving anything in turn. It came as far as the Korean Youkai threatening to have the woman killed for something she had said, and thus, the peace treaty was broken before it could form.
Minato wouldn't have bowed either. Instead of kowtowing, the powerful Kyuubi unleashed the full might of her faction upon the heart of the Korean Youkai faction in Seoul the following day, and it was only the element of surprise that won the Japanese based Youkai the skirmish and thus, War.
The Korean Youkai, to this day, had lower numbers than any other faction besides the one headed by Minato himself due to the brutality of the assault.
The Nekoshou were on the front lines of that assault, being the first to appear and the last to disperse. It was a Nekoshou that scored the killing blow against the leader of the Korean Youkai, taking his head clean from his shoulders with a thrown chakram.
The bounties on the Nekoshou, as a result, were the highest in the lands for quite some time, and the younger the Nekoshou that were brought in, the higher the price.
As a result of that, the Nekoshou went into hiding, gaining citizenship in the Bael territory after quite a hefty sum was paid by the collective handful of Youkai left.
It was the former head of the Bael family, Zekram Bael, that ordered the execution of the remaining Nekoshou, leaving Kuroka and Shirone, now Koneko, as the remaining two.
Minato would have preferred that Kuroka be the one to teach Koneko the ways of Senjutsu and then Youjutsu, but the looming War was still at the back of his mind with every step he took. There was no doubt that Hades had many powerful allies, and he doubted it would be a conventional type of conflict anyway. Instead of waiting, Minato was going to try and help the girl along in his own way.
Terrorist attacks on the many different cities of the Devils and the one massive metropolitan area the Fallen controlled was the biggest threat, followed by a direct assault on Kuoh with himself or any of his associates as targets.
He might not be capable of wielding Chakra or learning Youjutsu, as Kuroka called the energy that flowed through her as an undercurrent of her massive Devil reserves and the techniques only used by Youkai, but he could learn to draw upon the power of nature.
"Alright Kuroka, I think I can live with that." Minato relented after pulling himself from his thoughts, knowing that skin to skin contact was hardly a price to pay for the rewards.
Maybe it had to do with who it was who was teaching him. Just maybe.
[EX]
Training a dozen people at once was not as hard as Minato was expecting it to be. Breaking them down into three groups that would constantly rotate their routines rounded off the rough edges in each individual Devils fighting style to the point that the two Peerages could act in tandem with one another almost flawlessly was easy.
If anything, Sona and Rias had a pretty strong task force assembled between the two of them, and if Asia, Bennia and Xenovia acted as support, it furthered the effectiveness even more.
Kiba, Tsubaki, Saji, Xenovia, Bennia, Koneko and Issei had been forced through a magical gauntlet, so to speak, forcing them to not only demonstrate effeciency in at least one type of support spell, but one type of offensive spell as well.
Koneko, Saji and Issei were most comfortable wielding fire, each in different ways. Koneko did not opt for ranged attacks and instead would coat her fists in flames of her own creation, a pale blue in color, that reinforced the damage she dealt tremendously.
Issei and Saji, unlike Koneko, used fire in the form of their Sacred Gear. Saji had the flames of the Prison Dragon that dwelt within his weapon while Issei was able to call upon the Mudo Flame for more than just a projectile. Apparently the teenaged Devil had been given a rather powerful holy blade named Ascalon by the leader of the Angels, a weapon he could now coat in the flames of Death.
Kiba wielded wind like it was a long lost lover, to the point that he could fire crescent beams of cutting force upwards of five feet past the length of his different blades. His speed was further enhanced by the small understanding of wind based magics, allowing him to even remove some of the wind resistance he felt when utilizing his speed in combat, thus allowing him to move that much quicker.
Rias, Akeno, Sona and Asia, however, were forced through the opposite. The training was grueling, though the Devils that showed up did not complain once. Different groups ended up showing up on different days around the end of the week, and thus the training came to a temporary halt to allow the three groups to get back into the swing of attending school once more.
Kuoh Academy finally opened back up and Minato fell back into the normality for a few days, allowing himself to unwind as he went about mingling amongst those that attended. Instead of heading straight home, Minato, Bennia, Asia and Xenovia would stop by the ORC and complete their duties as new members of the club as per Minatos agreement with Sirzechs and Azazel. The Governor General of the Grigori had been present, helping manage the training of the Gremory Peerage on days that Minato was busy.
Things were almost peaceful, if not for the nagging feeling in the back of Minatos head.
[EX]
'I feel like I keep forgetting something.' Minato thought with a frown as he sat at his desk, going over the latest paperwork sent to him by Serafall and Sirzechs from the underworld. He had no idea why Sirzechs needed his permission to plant certain apple trees around the Cult site, but he gave it his stamp of approval and moved on to the next portion of work that needed his attention.
The charity he donated to, the one ran by Mil-Tan, was holding a small party in celebration of their achievements, and Minato made a small mark on his daily planner to attend. It was for a good cause, and the man made a mean salsa dip that Minato wanted the recipe for direly.
The list went on and on to the point that Minato was beginning to feel that something was off with the types of paperwork he was having to deal with lately.
This was not the type of paperwork one had to deal with while running a small faction that lived together in one building. No, this was the type of paperwork one had to deal with if they ran a large city.
'Oh, you sneaky bastards.' Minato thought with a frown as he began to see the bigger picture, going over the paperwork he had filled out already before standing from his desk. Walking to his filing cabinet, Minato removed the manilla folder containing the documents signed by the four leaders as part of the Peace Agreement between them.
"As per this agreement, I, Thanatos, declare I will uptake the running and... maintenance of..." Minato read aloud to himself before sliding the document back into the folder, walking back to his desk and sitting back down heavily.
As of a few weeks ago, Minato was the unofficial God of Kuoh, and thus the domain not held by the Sitri or the Gremory fell to him. That left a large portion of the city now falling under his control, and thus requiring him to deal with the paperwork.
Reaching his hand to the right, he sank his arm shoulder deep into a portal of darkness. On the other side of that portal, his hand appeared behind the head of Sirzechs, who was in the middle of eating what appeared to be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while sitting at his desk.
Minato popped Sirzechs upside the head as hard as he could before withdrawing his hand completely, leaving the crimson haired Satan to deal with the aftermath of peanut butter and grape jelly staining the likely important documents that littered his desk.
He would never know who the culprit was, having not felt the rift form or disappear.
As Minato returned to the large stack of work needed to be gone over, he heard a knocking at his office door, followed by the melodious voice of Lucifer. "My Lord, you have a visitor."
"Odd." Minato murmured, checking his phone for any missed texts. Usually when someone wanted to spend time with him, they would check and make sure he wasn't busy before showing up. It was an unspoken kindness, it seemed, stemmed from the fact that his life was hectic at best, and nightmarish at worst as far as time constraints went.
"Who is it, Lucifer?" Minato eventually questioned, only for the Son of the Mourning to open the door to reveal two different figures Minato was not sure he recognized.
"Thanatos, you look a bit different! I hear you've mellowed out a bit since you've come back, but I had to see it to believe it! Look at you, even starting a family with the Number One Existence!" Came the heavily accented voice originating from the figure in the front. He was an elderly man with a long beard that reached his feet with a strange monocle over one of his eyes.
Behind him stood a silver haired woman with ribbons in her hair, her hands held at her waist obediently as she regarded him back. A simple grey business suit covered her body completely, giving her a professional look that Minato found appealing, if only because it made her look serious.
Minato did not recognize either figure, though he could hazard a guess as to who the elderly man was.
"Odin...?" Minato questioned, disguising it as a statement.
"Damn, you act like you can't remember me, D? What, did all that drinking we did with birdbrain and fire-crotch fry that brain of yours?" Odin questioned while stroking his beard in thought, "I know we threw down like the fucking champions we are, but even I can remember those bad ass nights!"
"I... do not." Minato had to force himself to respond after a few moments of silence. "I apologize, but I remember nothing from before my... sealing." Minato admitted after it seemed like Odin was going to continue his tirade.
"That's a damn shame. The Valkyries haven't forgotten about you, though." The elderly man waggled his eyebrows in emphasis of his words. The woman standing behind him seemed to shift a bit while a small blush danced across her face, causing the insides of Minato to suddenly grow colder than ever.
"Did... I didn't..." Minato questioned the woman, who responded in a rapid shake of her head in the negative, her blush growing slightly.
"Who, this boyfriendless virgin? I bet she wishes she was around during those wild ass times, but no. This one is too nerdy to hang." Odin was quick to put her down, it seems, and the tears that welled up in her eyes followed by her collapse to the ground was just as quick to occur.
'So the oddness is universal here, it seems.' Minato thought to himself in morbid fascination, not knowing how to address the two before him. On one hand, he could invite them into his office and perhaps have Lucifer bring the three a drink, as it seems that Odin was here to exchange pleasantries and not cause a fight.
On the other, he sorely wanted to tell the two to get the hell out of his tower and to not come back. As much as he was leaning towards the second option, he went with the first.
'Oh, the things one does for peace.' Minato thought to himself while waving the two in, giving Lucifer the signal to bring a bottle of the finest wine they had. He had a feeling they would be needing it.