I would be grateful if ya'll would leave a review of your opinion on my story. *bows down* The sauce of the day is Coulis
"You called me… it's been years. I was worried when I heard your voice." A girl exclaimed only for Sona to nod.
"Hello Serafall. I am sorry for this, but it's my Rook. He has been in an Afterlife Trauma for two days now." The girl's eyes widened while she looked around. "And the only word he keeps saying is your name."
"He? I thought you only had one Rook." Serafall smiled proudly and pulled her sister into a hug. "I missed you so much Sona."
"Don't embarrass me in front of my Peerage. Could you please see what is going on with him?" Sona asked while leading her older sister into Atlas' room.
Serafall only saw a boy sitting on a chair, looking out of the window without blinking once. Next to him sat a red-haired girl she recognized immediately. "Tomoe feeds him and puts eye drops into his eyes to keep them moist. Every night at around three in the morning he yells your name once and stays awake from there on."
"How long was he dead?" Serafall asked only for Sona to look at Tomoe.
"For twenty minutes. He was dead by the time he used his last spell to wake me up." The red-haired girl explained.
"You should have let him die. The trauma at that point is no joke." Serafall explained as she took Tomoe's spot. She looked down only to see both his hands covered in blue dots. "What happened to him?"
"It's a book. Every spell that he reads hurts our heads. It's definitely holy, but he became so accustomed to the pain that it started to attack his body." Sona explained as she sat down on another chair. "His legs are in a similar state. Demonic healing didn't work."
"And it won't work," Serafall said while turning the boy's head so their eyes met.
"S… Se… Sera..." Atlas managed as tears started to form in his eyes. "F… a… ll..."
She looked stunned at the boy while he kept looking in her eyes. "H...a...nd...so...me s...s...sta...r s...sp...an...gl...e...d g...l...itt...e...r m...ag...e." Atlas said with stutters between almost every letter.
"Handsome star-spangled glitter mage?" Sona asked with a questioning look.
"Impossible!" Serafall yelled out before jumping up and stepping away. "Sona, who is he?!"
"Atlas Paimon," Sona answered without hesitation while looking at her scared sister. "Serafall, what's wrong?"
"I killed his family." She whispered out to herself.
"No, exorcists did that. He was glad you killed the four branch families. They would have taken on the new spot in the devil realm and he didn't want that." Sona explained while Serafall shook her head.
"No, he is not who you think he is. And there is a reason why Ajuka never sent a Paimon into the Afterlife!" Serafall yelled in anger. "They steal the desires of others and dominate their afterlife. They basically live their own heaven while we devils are supposed to repeat the same moment over and over again. But since you probably looked into his eyes, you will end up like the last few patients of project Afterlife. Never waking up ever again if you die once. No afterlife because they steal it!" She hissed while holding her sister away from the boy.
"I don't care, he is my Rook and I want him back. And why does he keep on yelling your name!" Sona yelled back at her sister.
"Because he stole my desires," Serafall answered while looking at the ground. Sona on the other hand widened her eyes. "He is not a normal devil compared to the rest of his family. Have you never asked yourself why they had these problems while he was just intelligent?"
"He kept on saying he was raised by old devils, but in fact, he was never raised by anyone," Sona said in realization.
"Atlas was stillborn in my time," Serafall said while Sona widened her eyes again. "His mother became a strong alcoholic after her two oldest sons left. That's where these 'quirks' came from. But he was a dead baby. His ashes are buried in the front yard of the old Paimon territory." She said while a tear left her eyes.
"Arzarith, his mother, pleaded Lilith herself to give her a new son. Lilith gave her one. A cursed boy praised with the same level of intelligence that the apple gave Eve. But it had a price. The baby couldn't die in its infant form, but it couldn't age too unless the mother stops drinking for an entire month and kisses her son on the forehead with lips free of alcohol." Satan just shook her head as she looked at Atlas and put her hand on his cheek. "He is just a few months older than I am. He would have been a good Belzeebub or Asmodeus."
"But how did he get your desire?" Sona asked curiously while Serafall smiled.
"I used to babysit him. Sitri and Paimon were allies. I was supposed to marry him someday. Then I became a Satan and the families revolted. Paimon was the first one to claim that I took Atlas' spot. The main house vanished while the branch houses tried to overthrow us new Satan's. That was where I killed them all." Serafall finally finished and sat down on the cold floor.
"And we bullied him because everyone, except Ruruko, was older than him." Sona laughed a bit.
"This has to stay a secret. No one is allowed to know this. The only ones that know are our parents, Lilith, we Satans, and now you. Can I trust you Sona?"
"Yes. You can."
It was in the same room. He could clearly see Serafall and Sona talking to each other. Their lips were moving, so why couldn't he hear them? He stood right next to them. Why didn't they see him? "Atlas, calm down." The chill voice of Penelope made him turn around.
"And don't talk." Before even a sound could leave his mouth he stopped. "The spiritual world that exists between death and life. I brought you here. I actually wanted to eat the holy energy but it's a good tool to cut your spirit from your body too."
Atlas just made signs with his hands towards his mouth while the girl giggled. "You are allowed to talk here if you want to end up dying. There are things that live here, things that have no ties to the factions and kill whoever dares to enter this realm without their consent."
He nodded upon seeing a transparent being hover through the room and directly through the wall. "Matters of the living world do not concern us. They don't exist for us." Again he just nodded before walking over to his body that was staring out of the window.
"You need to get back into your body before you die. Your brain is on life support. Breathing and eating. Your brain isn't even trying to save your eyes. Get back into your body and I will try to get the afterlife memories out of your head." She saw him shaking his head and moving around with his hands furiously while the girl herself raised an eyebrow. "I will leave the memories of your death here. Let the dreamer reapers have something to eat. As a holy spirit, it is my job to protect you from evil, and these are holy beings from your perspective. Some of the afterlife desires you stole were holy and those are the troubling ones."
Atlas nodded a last time and then sat down in the chair of his body while keeping his spiritual head out of his real head. "I didn't understand a single thing you said." The boy laughed before merging with his real body again.
Right as he vanished out of the spirit world, another transparent being entered the room only for Penelope to shrug her shoulders. "Her name is Rias Gremory. Her spirit went that way." She giggled as she pointed into another direction and watched the entity leave.
"Alright let's see what brain damage you actually have." Again she giggled and let her hand vanish inside his head.
Sona just stared with an unamazed look at Atlas who was making faces with every twitch his body went through. Serafall on the other hand looked horrified.
"It's Atlas, whatever he is doing, it's probably just to piss me off. By Satan, was it so hard to send me someone who is normal?" She prayed to herself while Serafall looked worried at them.
"You two must have a special relationship. Is my sister in love?" The older girl squealed out while her younger sister adjusted her glasses.
"Don't you dare think of me so lowly." She replied with a poisonous tone. "Can you do something against his current state? As much as I hate to admit it, I need the old Atlas back."
"Fine, I am taking him to Ajuka. Maybe he can do something." Serafall replied only to pull Sona into another hug. "Please, call me sometimes." She said the last time before a magical circle surrounded her and Atlas before both were gone.
He heard faint and muffled voices and saw laboratory equipment everywhere. His eyes moved around but couldn't make out a single person.
Penelope's hand still sticking inside of his head while his lips twitched up sometimes.
"You are doing way too many favors for your sister." A tall green-haired man exclaimed with crossed arms.
"And? You would do the same if your brother wasn't so..." Serafall looked at her fellow Satan who just shook his head.
"Weird? Is that the word you are searching for because it certainly is my description of him." The man answered before they both turned to Atlas who let out a high pitched yell.
"Yeah, he makes weird sounds too. From his death cause and the way he was brought back I can certainly say that his brain is fried." Serafall spoke with a tone of glee and joy.
Atlas just felt a painful twitching in his skull before blinking and moving his jaw. "Uhhhh?" He stared shocked at his non-moving legs while trying to feel them.
"These sounds are annoying." Ajuka rolled his eyes before turning to Atlas and seeing his head move. "Impossible."
"Impossible my ass! Heal these legs Belzeebub!" He yelled in anger and pain. "When this is done I will fuck a certain fallen angel so hard in the ass that her father will feel it for decades!" He yelled out again.
"He is quite vulgar, for the fact that he just came out of a 20-minute afterlife trauma. Tell me, how did you do that?" The male Satan asked as he kneeled down in front of Atlas with curious eyes.
"I piped down Ereshkigal herself so she would let me leave the underworld! I have no fucking clue what happened, this voice in my head said something about shoving her hand into my brain and restart it." The boy slowly calmed down while looking at Serafall who stood right next to him and smiled.
"You certainly have your way with words, Atlas Paimon." She said while Ajuka widened his eyes and stood up.
"I see, I will prepare everything. Give him these for the start." Ajuka handed Serafall a small bottle filled with an orange liquid that she handed over to Atlas.
The boy drank the entire bottle and only fell a small heatwave wandering through his body before every blue spot on his arms and legs vanished. "Phenex tears, why haven't I thought of that? Right, I was dead."
"Well, also because after a certain time it only starts to heal certain parts. If a limb is cut off and you drink a drop within the first minute, your limb will regrow completely. After two minutes it won't regrow your nerve system. After three it won't regrow your flesh, and after four you can say goodbye to your muscles. The only thing that stays in your bones, which are healed now. Your flesh and your muscles didn't leave your body and so only your nerve system in your legs is completely gone." Ajuka explained while Atlas nodded and Serafall stared airheaded at the two males.
"Well, do you have any device that can temporarily replace my nerve system," Atlas asked while Ajuka nodded.
"I have something. It's a metal-based splint that grows around your bones. It's a millimeter thick but impenetrable and holds your bones in place. The downside is that it's remote-controlled by your brain and you have to learn walking again. Also, the smallest electrical overload could cause dysfunction in your brain." The Satan scientist explained with a smile. "The other way would be Lilith herself."
"Fine fine. As long as my 'you know what' stays intact, I don't care." Atlas said while the Belzeebub pulled out two metallic discs the size of wheels. "Frisbees? Really?"
The man just laid the metal plates on the legs and bent them around the boy's limbs.
The metal started to melt and instantly went through Altas' pores into his body and right around his bones. "It's done. You don't need me anymore." Adjika said while Atlas and Serafall looked at him. "But I need you."
"For what?" Serafall asked while trying to protect the boy.
"Discoveries require experiments," Ajuka said while Atlas looked up. "I need humans. Healthy ones, but not innocent. Bring me those who deserve death so I won't have a bad feeling experimenting on them."
Atlas just looked with a monotone face of the man in front of him while Serafall looked mortified. "How am I supposed to know what's good or bad. I killed people because they called me a clepto."
Both guys suddenly smiled sinisterly and looked at Serafall who had an awkward smile and an innocent look in her eyes. "Don't try to act innocent. You murdered my relatives." Atlas said why standing up only to fall down.
End