Disclaimer: Black Clover is owned by Yūki Tabata, Studio Pierrot, and Shonen Jump.

Saga 4: Hallowed Be Thy Name

Hage Outskirts, Clover Kingdom, Forsaken Realm (Evening)

A blade of wind cuts clean right through a tree, causing it to topple over.

For the last several hours after finishing all of the Church's chores, Yuno went out into the same woods where Asta used to train his body.

The now-empty bottle hanging on one of the tree branches was proof enough that he was once here.

Yuno closes his grimoire after finishing training his magic. He then looks around to see if anyone's nearby.

"No one's around. Alright then." Yuno sets his hands and feet, flattens his back, bends his arms closer to the ground, and then tries to pick himself back up.

With emphasis on "tried".

"How does Asta even do this? Let alone more then one!?" Yuno struggles to push himself off the ground. "No. I'm not stopping. I'm not giving up!" Yuno's trembling arms push him off the ground, and after his first, he plops to the ground in exhaustion.

"And Asta was doing a thousand of these every evening!?" Yuno realizes upon learning the fact that physical exertion was more taxing then magical exertion.

A rustle was heard from the bushes.

"Who's there!? Show yourself!" Yuno readies his grimoire, ready to fend off the assumed intruder.

Said "intruder" was actually Nash, who came out of the bushes, wearing a despondent expression on his face.

"Yuno-nii..." Nash grumbled. "Why aren't you giving up?"

Yuno was shocked by Nash asking such thing.

"I mean..." Nash pauses.

"Look Nash." Yuno clasps his hands onto his shoulders. "Why are you giving up?"

"Because Asta died."

Yuno's eyes open slightly.

"If someone weak as Asta died yesterday, then it pretty much means that me, Recca, Aruru, and everyone else that's in the Forsaken Realm..."

Nash falls to his knees, clutching his stomach.

"... We're next."

Yuno's concern turns to anger. "Nash." He says in an ice-cold tone. "What makes you assume that Asta is weak?"

"He didn't have magic." Nash retorted. "Because in this world, magic is every-"

"And despite all that, he saved my life ten years ago." Yuno still remembers that winter where he ran into a violent drunk trying to steal his pendent for more booze.

If it weren't Asta, a missing pendent would be the least of his worries.

"And even faced with death, he fought to the bitter end, without fear." Yuno choked through his tears. "Nash, if you call him weak ever again, you better pray that I only let you off with a slap to the wrist, understood?"

Nash was now on the verge of tears.

Yuno pauses for a moment to realize that he was too hard on him. "F-Forgive me, Nash. Asta really meant that much to me. I really didn't mean to harm you in any way." Yuno looks away from Nash in shame.

"No... I'm the one who should be sorry." Nash then begins to sob into Yuno's leg.

Another rustling sound was heard from the bushes.

"NASH! GET BACK!" Yuno pushes Nash out of the way as a boar charged out of the bushes towards the two. He then prepared his grimoire against this flame-helm swine.

"[Wind Magic: Crescent Moon Sickle]!" Yuno swings out a blade of wind towards the boar, but the animal side-trots nimbly out out of its way.

The boar then stampedes toward's Nash's direction.

The whole world then slows down around Yuno, as the thoughts in his head go haywire.

His brain then flashes images of yesterday.

The exact moment when Revchi's leg was severed by wind.

A wind sphere... around his thigh.

"Will it even work?" Yuno hesitated.

"AHHHHH!" Nash's distressed cries for aid snapped him out of his funk.

"Only one shot." Yuno muttered.

HE'S NOT GOING TO FAIL THIS TIME!

"[Wind Creation Magic: Air Bubble]!"

A ball of wind surrounds the boar's head.

"[Separator]!" The ball closes into the boar's head at the same time Yuno balls his right hand shut.

The beast stops in his tracks.

Then its entire head slips off of its cleanly-cut neck.

Nash opens his eyes and sees Yuno panting from overexertion, and the boar, now-headless.

"Yuno-nii..." Nash brushes himself off the dirt on his clothes. "Please train me so I can get strong as... no."

Nash stands up firmly in front of Yuno, wiping his tear-stained face with his sleeve.

"Please let me train with you so I can be stronger than you."

Yuno smiles at the boy's newfound resolve.

"Starting tomorrow, we'll train for six months. Until then, can you keep up with me?" Yuno then encases the boar's carcass in a dome of wind to lift it off of the ground.

"Pft, it's not like that you're any better then me at doing what Asta does everyday."

Both chuckle slightly.

"Joking aside, if that's what it take to protect Sister and everyone else at church while you're gone, then yeah, I'll do it."

Yuno drops the boar onto his shoulder, fully intending to carry it himself all the way back to church.

"Six months, Nash. That's how long I have until the Magic Knights Entrance Exam. So make every moment count."

Nash nods firmly to Yuno's declaration.

Unknown Location (Night)

Asta once again opens his eyes, but this time around, the space around him was only dark, not monochrome like back at Limbo.

"Roth..." Asta reminiscences back to his preincarnation that he met back at Limbo.

He gets up from whatever he was on, and from the feel of it, it was a made of stone. He tries to roll out sideways, but then falls hard onto the dirt below.

"Oww..." Asta gets up from the ground. He tries to look around for any light in this dark area, but there was nothing but stone, darkness, and-

"Kuh-kuh-kuh-kuh."

A sound was heard. Asta follows where the sound was coming from, and sees an exit at the end of the tunnel.

"Kuh-kuh-kuh-kuh."

Asta then looks down, and sees a bird with black feathers, red chest, and dead-looking fish eyes.

The bird flies up towards a withered tree illuminated by a sole ray of moonlight coming from the fissure above it in front of Asta, where similar birds of color were perched in its twisted branches.

"Umm... Excuse me. I was told by Roth to find you guys. So can any of you tell me on what's going on?" Asta internally groans at himself for talking to birds out of all things to talk to, but upon learning that his preincarnation was a demon, then the idea itself doesn't seem so ridiculous in hindsight.

All the birds then begin to flap their wings wildly, scattering their feathers onto the barren grounds in the cavern.

The bird with the fish-eyes flies down from the very top branch, and in mid-flight, transforms into a black-winged, gray-haired human that looks like a young adult adorned with simple black garbs and a crescent-like designed tattoo on his left cheek.

The figure standing before Asta was also a Demon. A Fallen Angel, specifically.

The Fallen Angel approaches Asta, then kneels down towards him.

"For a millennia, I have been waiting for you, milord."

"Eh?"

The other birds flies down from their branches and all of them transform into Fallen Angels, who all of them, upon landing, kneel before Asta.

"WE'VE ALL WAITED FOR YOU, OUR PRINCE!"

"EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!?"

Asta was flabbergasted upon the roughly-fifty Fallen Angels bowing before him.

"W-W-WAIT A MINUTE! CAN SOMEONE TELL ME ON WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?"

"Oh, pardon us, milord." The demon stands up from his kneeling before saluting by putting his right hand over his heart and left on his back. "I am Claudius Nero Bael, your humble general, dedicated tactician, and loyal vassal."

Claudius then extends his hand toward the other kneeling Fallen Angels. "And these are the rest of your vassals, and together, we are the Ars Goetia, the army of the Demon King, Apocrypha."

"EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!?" Apparently, Asta now has his own personal army.

"So milord, you still have yet to see your new form?" Claudius then turns toward the other demons. "Someone take him to the springs!"

The two demons in the front stand up and guides him towards another cave entrance. In the middle of the cave was a giant underground lake, unspoiled and pure, clear enough to see a person's reflection.

Clear enough to see that Asta now has Roth's wings on his back and the similarly-designed tattoo on his face.

Claudius then approaches Asta from behind. "So milord. Have you decided on your name yet?"

"What do you mean?" Asta asked.

"To celebrate your reawakening, of course." The demon then extends both of his arms to the sides. "To symbolize your ascension! To signify your resurrection! To properly start a saga to your new life! A new name must be engraved onto your very soul!"

Asta then looks back at his new reflection on the lake.

"So milord. Have you decided?"

Asta smiles at the Fallen Angel.

"Astaroth. Call me Astaroth."

Claudius bows before him once again.

"ALL HAIL PRINCE ASTAROTH! FOREVER THE PRINCE OF WAR!" Claudius boomed.

Every other demon enters the cave and kneels before the now-redubbed Prince Astaroth.

"ALL HAIL PRINCE ASTAROTH! FOREVER THE PRINCE OF WAR!"

To Be Continued...

Author's Notes: And with that, the two boys have now taken their first step on their journey to become men.

Yuno has now doing push ups, chopping wood manually, and just killed a boar for dinner.

Asta is now Astaroth and now a Fallen Angel Prince.

And the canon Nero is revealed/retooled to be Claudius Nero Bael.

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