"So, you're telling me that you fought this fucker for five hours straight."

"Yep."

"And he could manifest swords without pause."

"Mmhm."

"And he was just a little under the Overlord ranking…"

"Yes."

"And you fucking killed him with your bare hands after fighting him for three days straight?!"

"Technically I killed him with my claws, guns and bare hands, but you could say that…"

And upon processing what Mikazuki had just told him, Husk found himself growing a little pale as he facepalmed and clawed at his eyelids in annoyance. Currently, he, Niffty and Mikazuki were all gathered in the Alastor's radio station/home's living room, where the aforementioned Radio Demon was currently working on his radio show. Mikazuki didn't really care enough to tune in, though according to Niffty, it was incredibly good. Husk thought it was shit, and Augus was more inclined to believe the latter.

Regardless, Mikazuki had just returned from completing a task given to him by Barbatos to kill a demon working under Vox. For once, this task had lined up with Alastor's aimless ambitions, as he was more than willing to help the little gremlin deal with anything Vox related, and after about… two days days of searching and, as Husk had mentioned previously, three consecutive days of fighting, Mikazuki was able to put him down under.

Alastor thought it prudent to make an episode dedicated to the three days of combat, more so to mock Vox more than anything.

"Woooo… that sounds very cool, Mr Mikazuki!" commented Niffty with a star in her eye as she clapped for Augus, who shrugged at her complement as he laid back on his spot on the couch, eliciting a snort from Husk as he leaned back on his beanbag chair and sighed.

"Cool? More like fucking insane. What kinda bullshit have you been up to before you died, kid, cos what you managed to pull off borders on the realm of cool and bullshit," spat Husk as he eyed Mikazuki curiously. His simple response was a shrug as Augus rolled to his side and closed his eyes.

"I just have a knack for making the impossible possible, I guess," muttered Mikazuki before he drifted off to sleep, and at that, Husk scoffed a little while Niffty scratched her chin thoughtfully.

"Wasn't there someone else who used that title?"

"Fuck if I know, Niffty."


Mikazuki didn't really know what to think about Husk.

The guy was a vulgar one, that much was obvious. He liked to cuss everyone and everything in existence, and by god, did he have some creative lines to make use of. Luckily enough, however, the pilot had skin that was rather thick, to say the least, and he could hold up against the cat demon's insults with minimal issue.

On rare occasions, however, the cat demon did tend to show a rather soft side of himself, though unfortunately enough, that was whenever he was shitface drunk, and though Augus did find it nice to see the usually pessimistically depressive demon smile a little and talk about the good ol' days when he was still alive, or when he drowned a guy in a toilet, there were times where he'd rather not hear it whatsoever.

And now, as he hid behind a club's bar counter alongside Husk as several demons working for the Overlord Valentino fired upon them with Tommyguns, was not one of those times.

The pilot had been invited to have a drink with Husk a few hours prior, and though he was a little taken aback by that request, he didn't deny it, mainly because it gave him an excuse to delay him going after a new target given to him by Barbatos. Augus didn't have a thing for alcohol, though he did accept a cup or two just to pass the time, though it came as no surprise to anyone that Husk drank a lot more than he did in two lifetimes.

In the middle of their drinking, however, a few demons made an attempt on their lives, with them quite literally pulling Tommyguns out of nowhere to try and mow the two down. By then, Husk was properly drunk, which more or less forced Mikazuki to throw him over the countertop to pull him out of the fight, and at that, he stood against the Spider Demons that attempted to kill them for quite some time, only to retreat behind the countertop after he began to feel overwhelmed by the bullets flying everywhere.

"Y'know Mika, you're really a guy that a demon can talk to, all five of ya," admitted Husk as Mikazuki ducked down behind the countertop and reloaded his pistol. As he did so, he gave the cat demon a deadpanned stare as he loaded the clip in, and shortly thereafter, he raised his head back up over the countertop and took several potshots at the remaining demons ahead.

In total, there were about six demons, all themed after spiders, present to kill him. Or rather, there were six. About four had been taken out thanks to Mikazuki throwing a grenade back at them earlier on, and the remaining two were attempting to gun him down with Tommyguns, with the two wielding two Tommyguns each in their four sets of arms. To say that they had Augus pinned down would be an understatement, though he didn't care much for that as he opened fire.

Blasting wildly, Mikazuki managed to hit one of the drum magazines of one of the Spider Demons' Tommygun, causing an internal explosion that caused him to stagger briefly. Their partner turned towards him in surprise before turning back towards Augus, though in that brief period of time, Mika was able to vault himself over the countertop and begin his counterattack.

As the Spider Demon took aim with his Tommyguns yet again, Mikazuki raised his leg up and kicked a chair straight at him. At near-mach speeds, the chair went soaring at the demon and crashed into his face before he could react properly, causing him to stagger backwards a little in the process. Shaking their head a little to get their vision back in shape, the disorientated Spider Demon ended up widening his eyes in shock when he saw that Augus was already upon him, with the pilot lunging towards him with his pistol at the ready, and in a panic, he took aim with his Tommygun and fired.

Before the trigger could be pushed down fully, however, Mikazuki jolted his Lupus Rex arm out and grabbed onto the barrel of the Tommygun, forcing it to aim up into the air before it opened fire on the ceiling, eliciting a shocked gasp from the Spider Demon in the process. He attempted to aim and fire his other Tommygun at the pilot, though, upon noticing this, Mikazuki swiftly lifted his pistol wielding arm up below the demon's chin and opened fire with very little issue.

Upon pulling back on the trigger, the Spider Demon's head exploded upwards in a mess of gore, splattering the area behind himself as his now headless body stumbled onto its back. Thereafter, Mikazuki sighed to himself and backed away from the headless corpse, with him pulling back on his pistol's hammer all the while.

Right as the hammer slammed itself against the barrel of the weapon, however, Mikazuki perked his ears up when he heard the distinct click of a reloaded weapon to his side. Swiftly, he turned towards its source and saw that the other Spider Demon was now back up on his feet, injured but not out just yet, and he was taking aim with his still intact Tommygun all the while. On instinct, the pilot got ready to take aim and fire before he could be pumped full of demonically charged lead, though it seemed as though he would be slow on the draw…

… and right before the Spider Demon could even pull back the trigger, a glass bottle slammed itself against the back of his head, causing him to go ramrod straight for the briefest of moments before swaying from side to side in a daze. Shortly thereafter, the Spider Demon fell onto his side, apparently unconscious, revealing the one that had inadvertently saved Mikazuki as…

"Husk?" muttered a bewildered Mikazuki as he held his pistol up beside his head, to which the aforementioned cat demon shrugged and took a sip from the bottle of liquor that he used to knock the Spider Demon out. After he downed the entire bottle, he threw it over his shoulder nonchalantly and snorted at Augus.

"What? Surprised I saved your ass, kid?" quipped Husk smugly as he marched up to Mikazuki, who nodded awkwardly as he did so. "Well fuck you then. My heart's dead, but even I have some decency left inside of me. Besides, you're one of the more tolerable demons I know of, so to have you fucking die on me would make shit boring."

"Ah. Thanks, I guess," thanked Mikazuki awkwardly as he pocketed his pistol, and at that, the duo left the club and walked off to God knows where, though as they did so, Augus rubbed his chin and asked something that was on his mind. "I thought you were drunk."

"I'm always drunk, kid," deflected Husk as he pulled a flask out of literally nowhere and drank from it, eliciting a scoff from Mika as he nodded. "At this point, I can just turn it on and off whenever I want."

"Alright then."


"Hm…"

"..."

"Hmmmm…"

"..."

"Hmmmmmm…"

"..."

"HMMMMMMMMM…"

"Niffty. Is something wrong?"

"YES! YOUR FASHION SENSE IS AWFUL, MISTER MIKAZUKI!"

Blinking a little as the cycloptic demoness yelled at her, Mikazuki looked up from his pistol as he raised a brow at the girl, who stared at him disapprovingly whilst keeping her arms crossed. The duo were currently sitting in a bar within Hellborn Well, a location in Hell that was home to most of the aquatic type demons, with most of the city being located close to one of the few oceans in Hell.

Appropriately, the ocean was mostly red in colour, though that was more attributed to the blood that kept getting splattered into it rather than Hell itself.

Regardless, they were more or less here just because Mika was told to blow a part of the city up by Barbatos. Something about some demon called Astaroth losing a bet against him and telling him to go fuck himself or whatnot. Honestly, Augus has long since stopped caring about the trivial matters behind Barbatos' tasks, with him finding it better to just nod and go on with his objectives rather than ask about them.

Niffty being with him was more or less a mistake on his part. The pilot had requested Alastor to teleport him to Hellborn Well as he had no idea where it was, and of course, the Radio Demon had done so without pause… and right as he got the teleportation circle up, Niffty ran in and was accidentally dragged along for the ride.

Of course, at that time, the pilot was more concerned over the fact that Alastor had teleported him straight into the ocean of the city, where several tentacle monsters and massive demon sharks attempted to drag him down into the abyss, though through a combination of good luck and intense swimming, he was able to get himself and Niffty out of there in one piece.

With that over and done with, Mikazuki, with Niffty in tow, blew up the specified spot. It was unguarded, which was surprising, just not in a bad way, which allowed Mika to rig it with explosives he got from I.M.P. He made sure to specify that he didn't want miniature nukes this time, and he was relieved to know that Blitzo had kept his end of the bargain when he pressed the detonate button.

Once all that was said and done, Mikazuki had initially believed that he'd just head back to Pentagram City to recommune with Alastor and perhaps try and smack him for teleporting him into a hentai episode, and as such, he was suitably caught off guard when Niffty abruptly took him clothes shopping.

"Your wardrobe is atrocious, Mister Mikazuki! You keep wearing the same green jacket, blue shirt and padded pants! You need variety!" scolded Niffty as she dragged him off into a small, totally legit store with a centipede-esc demon manning the counter. Said demon didn't really seem to care much about the visitors as he watched the cycloptic demoness rush around to look for a new shirt for Augus, who had no say in all this as he watched her go about enthusiastically.

"I like my current clothes," defended Mikazuki rather noncommittally as he tugged on his collar, to which Niffty pouted.

"Well, you could always try out some new ones!" argued the cycloptic demoness, to which Mika snorted.

"It's not like I'm going to be written wearing anything else, though…"

"What?"

"What?"

"..." nothing more was said thereafter as Niffty went back to work, with Mikazuki sighing to himself all the while. He wasn't gonna change her mind any time soon, he reckoned, so he may as well resign himself to his fate.

Whilst Niffty tossed clothes around, much to Augus' amusement and the centipede demon's chagrin, however, Mikazuki couldn't help but feel a strange sensation run up his spines. His Alaya-Vijnana spines tingled a little as he looked around warily, feeling almost as though he were being watched as he flexed his golden claws, ready for a potential fight.

And, without warning, the pilot whipped out his pistol and took aim at a spot on the ceiling, though before he could fire, an unseen entity whipped the pistol out of his hand, causing it to clatter onto the ground, before Mikazuki himself was struck in the chest, sending him flying into a half-broken display rack all the while. The Centipede Demon didn't seem to care, as all this happened, with him just watching in mild amusement as Augus got up to his feet, removing a wedding veil from the top of his head in the process.

"Tsk…" groaned Mikazuki in annoyance as he got up to his feet, only to narrow his eyes a little when he saw what looked to be light reflecting off something. Right as he noticed it, however, an unseen entity attempted to strike at him, and on instinct, the pilot dodged to the left, and then to the right, before he brought both his arms up to catch a third punch. His assailant was clearly taken aback by just how perceptive Mika really was, and as they remained silent for a moment, Augus threw them into the closest wall, breaking apart a few shelves displaying some headdresses in the process.

The impact was apparently a lot more intense than Mika had intended for, as it had short circuited whatever cloaking tech the demon had on them, revealing them to be some chameleon looking demoness with quite a bit of armour on her. Augus twitched his eye a little when he took note of the Vox and Valentino emblems that could be seen on the breastplate and crotchplate of the demoness' armour, though he opted to not comment on it as she growled and lunged at him.

Several punches and kicks were quite easily dodged or blocked by Mikazuki as he worked his way around his opponent. She was skilled, that much was obvious, though her hits weren't particularly strong, even if she made up for it with her speed. She was too fast for Mika to reliably launch a counterattack before he had to defend against her again, and that in itself annoyed him to no end as he ducked under a kick and made an attempt to sweep at her legs with one of his own.

The result of that attempt was for the chameleon demon to jump over his leg and land a flying kick on his face, causing him to stagger back up to his feet as a small bit of blood began flowing from his nose. Wiping at it, Mikazuki huffed to himself as he licked some of the blood and went back to it.

"Hey, Mister Mikazuki!"

Oh right. Niffty. He almost forgot about her.

"I found some clothes for you to try out!" informed Niffty politely as she bounced up to him. She didn't seem to care about how the pilot was quite literally jumping around to avoid punches and kicks from his opponent. Rather, she simply handed him the shirt, and instead of ignoring it, Augus accepted it and grumbled to himself.

"Thanks," thanked Mikazuki half-heartedly as he threw it at the chameleon demoness, who was momentarily blinded by the 'attack', giving Mika enough time to jolt forwards and headbutt her, breaking her nose in the process. Staggering backwards, the demoness recovered relatively quickly as she reached into a compartment on her waist and pulled out a handful of blades, throwing them at Mikazuki and, by proxy, Niffty shortly thereafter.

Grimacing at this, Mikazuki grabbed onto the cycloptic demoness and jumped away from the inbound blades, even if one of them did graze his arm, and as he did so, Niffty pouted.

"You didn't try it on!" complained Niffty, to which Mikazuki stared at her in bewilderment.

"Later," groaned Mikazuki, only to grimace a little more than he already was before he threw Niffty up into the air. The little demoness squealed a little in surprise as she soared across the air, though as she did so, Augus leaned backwards and dodged a flying kick from the chameleon demoness, whose heel just barely missed the tip of his nose. The demoness herself seemed suitably surprised at Mikazuki's flexibility, though right as she passed him, the pilot jolted upright and lunged forwards, with him catching Niffty mere milliseconds before she could hit the ground.

"Oof! Mister Mikazuki! That was mean! At least give me a warning next time!" complained Niffty as she was caught in Augus' Lupus Rex arm, to which the pilot simply rolled his eyes at before scoffing to himself. And, not even a moment later, he flipped himself back up onto his feet to avoid being hit by a heel slam from the chameleon demoness, who slammed her heel down onto the spot where Mika once laid at, causing the concrete beneath to cave in on itself.

"I'll keep that in mind," assured Mikazuki as he held onto Niffty via his regular arm and flexed the claws of his Lupus Rex limb. Thereafter, he made use of them to knock a handful of thrown daggers out of the air before they could make contact with him, and thereafter, he held the limb up to defend against a full body tackle from the demoness, who made an attempt to pin him down. Unfortunately for her, however, Mikazuki had braced himself before she could knock him off his feet, and as a result, the two found themselves locked in a brief clash as they both attempted to overpower the other.

As the seconds ticked by, however, despite the chameleon demoness making use of both her arms to try and shove Mika back, Mikazuki's sheer brute strength was more than enough to make her efforts all for naught as he began to push her backwards, with the demoness' expression morphing into one of anguish as she began to realize this. Niffty, not able to read the room properly, began cheering for Augus to win this thing, catching his attention briefly as he turned to glance at her, and when he did, the chameleon demoness grinned and leaned backwards.

Making use of the momentum Mika had built up when he was pushing her backwards, the chameleon demoness used it to throw Mikazuki over herself as she leaned onto her back, flipping him up into the air and causing him to land in a clothing display. On impact, the pilot grunted a little in annoyance as he found himself tangled up in clothes and lingerie, and as he attempted to recover from the issue, the chameleon demoness charged forwards, fully intent on capitalizing on his immobility as she drew yet another knife from God knows where and lunged at him…

… only for her lunge to be halted when Niffty, in the nick of time, pulled out a can of pepper spray and blasted it at the demoness at maximum power. She was not expecting this, to say the least, and as such, she was blinded by the blast as she brought her hands up to her rapidly tearing eyes, and this small display of pain gave Augus enough time to untangle enough of his limbs to make his move.

With a single, swift motion, Mikazuki straightened the digits on his Lupus Rex hand and jolted it forwards, aiming straight for the stomach of the chameleon demoness. The pilot was quick to raise a brow when he felt some resistance against his claws at first, though before long, they were able to break past the initial resistance and slam themselves into the demoness' stomach.

Metal pierced flesh with little to no issue as Mikazuki buried his claws into the chameleon demoness' stomach, and without waiting for even a moment, he removed his now bloodied hand and ripped out a chunk of the demoness' stomach, causing her to widen her eyes in shock and anguish as she staggered backwards. Blood and guts dropped to the ground as she fell onto her rear in a state of shock, and before long, she laid onto her back and began to slowly bleed out as Mika fully untangled himself from the clothes.

"... Niffty?"

"Yes, Mister Mikazuki?"

"Never bring me clothes shopping ever again."

Niffty chose to not argue against that, especially when she took note of the air of finality behind Augus' words as he said that.


"Cane."

Blinking its singular eye as it was called up, Alastor's sentient microphone cane glanced over at Mikazuki as it remained propped up against a nearby wall. Currently, the pilot was in a store in Pentagram City known as Franklin and Rosie's Emporium, with him present at Alastor's request. Apparently, the Radio Demon knew of one of the two demons who operated the store and had a thing for visiting her, and just this once, he opted to bring Mika down to introduce him.

Surprisingly enough, when speaking to the aforementioned demon, Rosie, Alastor was a lot more sincere in his words. Or at least, Mikazuki thought he sounded more sincere, especially since the static in his voice died down a little when he spoke. Rosie herself was quite a nice demoness herself, by demon standards anyways, though with that said, the pilot was still wary around her for obvious reasons.

Regardless, Alastor ended up walking around the emporium with Rosie just to pass the time, leaving his Microphone Cane with Mikazuki in the meantime as the two sat by a decently comfortable chair whilst waiting for the Radio Demon to return. Inevitably, however, Augus got bored of just staring out the window and watching the territory dispute happening off in the distance and decided to speak to the Sentient Cane to pass the time.

"Hm? Oh, yes, how can I help you, Mika-ol' chum?" responded the Sentient Cane rather chipperly as its singular eye glanced over towards Mikazuki, who picked it up and held it beside himself so that he could speak to it more effectively.

"I want to learn more about Hell," said Mikazuki, short and simple as he stared down at the cane, to which it lowered its cartoonish monobrow in confusion.

"Seriously? Didn't Barbatos teach you that sorta stuff back when?" inquired the Cane, eliciting a shrug from Augus.

"He did. Didn't pay attention, and besides, we don't have anything else to do anyways," responded Mika, to which the cane nodded its iris in apparent agreement. After humming to itself for a bit, it began speaking.

And, for the next hour or so, the Microphone Cane told Mikazuki quite a bit of what he had to know about Hell. He knew most of the basics thanks to Barbatos lecturing him about the simpler stuff down here, though he still did learn quite a bit from the damn thing.

"Demons… can't die?" muttered Mikazuki at one point, to which the Cane shook its… head.

"No siree. At least, not by conventional means. You see, down here, your body technically… doesn't exist," explained the Cane, only to pause when he saw that Mikazuki seemed confused, prompting him to reiterate. "Fuck. In laymen's terms, kid, when you come down to Hell, your soul is the only thing that remains intact. Your 'body' is just excess power from your soul manifesting itself as armour to protect itself better.

"Now, the 'soul' itself is, in a way, indestructible. Your main body can be destroyed, eviscerated, completely torn to shreds, but so long as your soul remains unharmed, you can still reform yourself in a new body… albeit weaker, since you don't have any excess energy to replicate your original demon form. When you kill a demon, however, you do absorb some of their essence into you. This essence is, simply put, a small portion of waste energy that gets added onto your own. Kill more demons, and you'll become more powerful. Think of it as EXP or whatever for your game thingies."

"Ah. Then what about this?" asked Mikazuki, with him raising his Lupus Rex arm up, prompting the Microphone Cane to narrow a little in focus.

"Well, my little gremlin, if I had to make an educated guess, that arm of yours was always meant to be a part of you," responded the Cane. "A Sinner's physical appearance reflects whatever Sin they've carried out in the past, and based on what little I know about you in particular, you having the limbs of your Gundam was all but inevitable, even if you came to Hell with just your regular limbs. However… for it to be so well formed, especially right after you've died…"

Trailing off a little at that, the Microphone Cane began thinking to itself as it glanced down at the floor, eliciting a raised brow from Mikazuki as he shook it a little, shaking it out of its thoughts shortly thereafter.

"You stopped talking. Is something wrong?" inquired Mika as he glanced over at the Cane, to which the aforementioned Cane chuckled. Best to not speak his mind at the moment, he supposed… this was something that was rather serious in regards to his position in Hell…

"Oh, no. It's nothing, Mikazuki. For now, have you ever heard of the story of Kimaris the Wise?"

"Uh… no?"

And by the time Alastor returned, he found himself wondering why Mikazuki was listening to a watered down version of him ripping the Marquise of Hell into shreds, as recounted to him by his Cane, though he didn't care enough to ask about it as he shrugged and moved to regroup with them.


To Alastor, Mikazuki was nothing more than a simple toy.

Cruel as that may have sounded, that was simply just how Alastor saw him. Hell, that was more or less how he saw the entire world, really. The world was his stage, and his stage… well, he was going to make it a world of entertainment, even if it came at the cost of everyone else around him, Mikazuki included.

Hell, that was the sole reason as to why the Radio Demon had 'hired' Mikazuki as his personal escort in the first place. The pilot was very much a good source of entertainment, and by Satan, the kid had some sick skills up his sleeve! His mobility, flexibility and overall power could've made even the Spider Demons working under Valentino envious, and all of that, combined with a good amount of enemies for him to confront, always made for a good show for Alastor to kick back and relax to.

However… as the days ticked by, and as the pilot's killcount grew by the hundreds, Alastor eventually took note of something… he took note of Mikazuki's ever increasing magic reserves.

By default, all demons, be they Hellborn or Sinners, had a certain level of magical power. Unsurprisingly enough, Imps were among the weakest of the former category, though they were substantially higher than the Sinners, who typically came down to Hell with close to no magical energy in them. However… the same could not be said for Mikazuki Augus.

When he had first crossed paths with Augus, Alastor had found himself drawn towards the carnage that he would bring, and that in itself would remain the same, even now, as he found Mikazuki to be a great source of bloodshed… but more recently, the Radio Demon has found himself feeling… wary around the pilot… and that was due to his abnormally high levels of demonic power.

At best, when they had first crossed paths, the pilot had enough magical power in him to rival a low ranking Hellborn, perhaps a succubus' power rating at best. However, as the days went by, and after Alastor had taken him in under his wing, he bore witness to a massive spike in the pilot's demonic power, with it spiking upwards so intensely that it was almost frightening.

One week had passed, and Mikazuki was already on par with a Mid Ranking Sinner. Not too out of the ordinary, considering how he's been racking up the kills and absorbing residue demonic energy from his victims.

Two weeks, he was on par with a Mid Ranking Hellborn Demon… which was worrying. Based on what he had known, the pilot had been in Hell for no more than five months prior to him making him his personal assistant. It usually took the average Sinner decades just to reach a fraction of that power level, so how was Mikazuki doing it so quickly…?

It was possible that Barbatos' palace had some magic suppressing enchantations built into its structure, enchantations that were made to ensure that no one in his palace could surpass his own magical abilities (unless they were Overlords or higher), and with these enchantations, he could've probably stunted Mikazuki's demonic energy growth. It was a sound theory in Alastor's mind, though he would rather not dwell too much on it as he found himself shaking his head mildly.

Regardless of the hows and whys, one thing was for certain…

Mikazuki was going to become an incredibly powerful Sinner, not just physically, but also magically. Whether or not he could make use of his magical powers was up for debate, but if his growth didn't stop… there was a chance that the pilot could become a truly dangerous foe in the future…

… or rather, he could become an even more entertaining pawn for the little stage show of his that he liked to call his afterlife! Either way, Alastor was very much excited for what Mikazuki would become in the future.

And if they were to clash against one another on the battlefield in the future, well, he just hoped that their battle would be legendary!


World Building!

Assassins after Mikazuki! Oh, the joy!