Short explanation:

The old work is now compiled as an archived chapter, the ones labeled Chapter 1 and onwards is about the rewrite.

Long-winded message:

First, I apologize for needlessly worrying some of you. My family and I are doing fine now, for the most part. Again, thank you and sorry for the worry.

Next, more importantly, I rewrote the entire thing.

Yes, this was a very fun fic to write. After rereading it (still enjoying it, mind) though, I find I'm not doing justice on both of them, but DxD particularly, as pieces of work. Yeah, the Demi-Fiend is pretty sick and I actually put out a good scene or two here. But with how I was going with this, I don't think I would've gotten satisfied. Especially considering the DxD characters were slightly sidelined by their own world. It might have been because I never gotten too far from DxD's source material, but I'll improve it.

Now, it could be because the only thing I came to playing after the storm as a small distraction during the aftermath was SMT1, Devil Survivor and Strange Journey. But I never realized I didn't let the rest of the world breathe. Unless the Demi-Fiend was on the scene, the world was a little stale.

Furthermore, in the past months, there was just something cathartic in keeping yourself alive despite being in a very disastrous situation. It might just be me trying to project what happened lately to this fic, I don't know. But that sort of clinging-to-a-knife's-edge is the embodiment of SMT's themes; something I almost forgot because I focused instead at what fancy techniques I wanted the Demi-Fiend to showcase in the next chapter. I'll try to let the characters and the world breathe this time around.

About the Demi-Fiend, I've read reviews saying he won't be as interesting if he isn't nerfed or how nerfing him in general takes away from his characterization. I had my reasons for nerfing him, but now that I'm starting over I'll take that as a challenge. I'll try to keep him an empathetic character without taking a single drop of power off him from the start.

Next, about the DxD cast, I initially put their earlier selves (meaning the very earliest chapters in the series as a baseline for them) in so they could grow with the Demi-Fiend's influence (something I noticed happens a lot with crossover fics, so I tried to emulate because it seemed easier). Now, I think it's a disservice to DxD, as well. So, like with the Demi-Fiend, I'll write the DxD world a little further in the events of the novels.

Writing wise, I'm essentially writing an SMT and DxD epilogue fanfiction and I'll try writing it as if the reader had both never touched a page off the light novels nor booted a second off the games (I say try, though, because it'll be hard). And to the ones who already know either or both of these, don't worry, the scale of how I'll try to put these perspectives against each other will keep it fresh-ish looking enough. But I'm not promising a smooth ride, cause I'm far from a proper writer.

I'll be posting this message along with the first few chapters of the rewrite. (I'll keep the old one up as a tbp-ish post, because I want to re-read it too every once in a while)