"This is a really good burger." I smiled contentedly as I wiped a bit of sauce from the corner of my lips with a paper napkin. "I'm lucky that you were able to find such a good place so quickly."

My new Bishop, Lisa, had a complex expression as she looked at me.

"...How the hell do you look like you're being airbrushed as you're eating a chili cheese burger?"

I blushed at the compliment, backhanded as it were.

"I'm sorry?"

She snorted as she snacked on a mouthful of fries dipped in barbeque sauce.

"I'm sure it's some bullshit about Devils having to seduce humans and stuff anyways. But yeah, I normally don't use my analyzing abilities for hunting down good eateries because it used to give me more trouble than it was worth 'cuz taste is so subjective, but I'm feeling a lot less strain from using my powers now. So that's the Devil physiology?"

I nodded.

"Like I stated before, we have a robust and adaptive physiology. Since no two Devils are quite alike, the body adapts to its nature rather than the other way around. It probably also helps that you're a Bishop Piece, which is known for increasing magical, spiritual, and mental powers."

Lisa chewed on the fried pieces of potato as she glanced at the rest of the diner.

"I still can't believe how flexible magic is. You can just conjure up some boundary line that prevents people from listening in on us. That's some Stranger bullshit power right there and just any Devil can just do that?"

I chewed on a final mouthful of burger before swallowing.

"I mean, unlike human magic which is based on calculations pertaining to the flow of magic of the universal weave, Demonic Power works based off intent and imagination. That doesn't mean it's easy to imagine the exact nature and effect of what you're looking for and make that applicable to multiple people without it falling apart. There's a reason that most Devils just throw around raw bursts of mana instead of doing anything complex. Truth is most Devils probably couldn't do much better than drawing a line that magically kind of forces non-magical people away."

"It's still impressive, Adam. Take the damn compliment."

I chuckled as I gave in.

"Ok, ok. And if I remember correctly Stranger is your classification for powers that encompass stealth and such, right?"

Lisa nodded as she wiped her slender fingers with a paper napkin.

"Yup." She said, popping the P with extra emphasis, "I'm glad my crash course on Cape terminology hasn't fallen on deaf ears."

"It kind of seems like life or death in understanding the state of modern day affairs in this world." The corner of my mouth tugged tiredly into a grin, "Especially since there isn't a better way to explain away Devildom without just spilling all the beans."

I wasn't about to make some mistake thinking myself invincible simply because I was strong. I was still outnumbered billions to one as one of two Devils that existed on this Earth. Knowing the lay of the land mattered. Kingdoms had fallen for less and I was just one Devil with a new member of family to protect. Even if said family member knew this world better than I.

Lisa gruffly chewed another fry, taking a moment to fully break it down before swallowing.

"Speaking of Devildom. I should just keep using my power to adapt more to it to grow stronger? What exactly should I be doing?"

"Well, there's three ways you can grow stronger as a Devil. First is simply training, although you can focus on just your Cape powers right now, since that's more subtle. Manipulating Demonic Energy tends to be pretty flashy. Plus I'll have to teach you how to even manipulate magical power in the first place. It's decently instinctive, but a guiding hand is always recommended for a reason. We'd also need someplace private and away from prying eyes, so that's somewhat off the table for us right now. We can still do physical conditioning though, that'll help plenty for now. The second is by making Contracts with humans."

That definitely caught Lisa's attention, although she looked slightly uncomfortable from whatever preconceived notions she'd likely have.

"What, like, trade for people's souls?"

Like that.

I waved a hand, gesturing away to brush off the implication as if brushing dust off a shoulder with the back of a hand.

"Oh no, that's an archaic myth. No, um, ok, well actually, our Devil ancestors did used to demand souls and sacrifices, but if I'm being honest, that was mostly just them being cruel mixed with the ignorance of old beliefs that more recent magical research has debunked officially. We never needed anything like that in the first place. Not that souls don't have power and value, but using that stuff always would cause more harm than it was ever worth. Nowadays Devil Contracts often fall under the classifications akin to freelancing and odd jobs."

Lisa snorted as her power likely started throwing together information for her, extrapolating information from the implications of my words.

"Devils for hire? I guess we'll move furniture for grannies and rescue cats from trees for little tykes?"

"Hilarious, but that might actually be something that gets requested of you." I rolled my eyes, "Normal procedure tends to mean that you'd have a familiar hand out flyers with a little magical imprint that promises to fulfill people's wishes. A crest of the Peerage you belong to but tweaked slightly to add a personalization of your own name. Teleporting to it becomes easier that way-"

"We can teleport?!"

"Yes, but let's not get hung up over that right now. Like I said before, we grant wishes, but usually smaller, more achievable things. Because what's ritualistically important isn't the wish we grant, or even necessarily the scale of it, but the action of fulfilling a human desire that matters. But it needs to also be transactional and doesn't need to be anything insane as someone's firstborn or their eternal soul. It's not uncommon for a Devil to demand cash, services, or favors in exchange for granting a human's wish. Of course it's perfectly normal to negotiate or even turn down their wish, but completing our side of the deal results in us additionally receiving the contractor's excess lifeforce for a short period of time which permanently bolsters our own magical power in small amounts without causing harm to either side. It's surprisingly symbiotic, but to keep it that way we don't allow humans to take part in a contract for at least three days after their previous one. Frankly we technically don't even need to receive monetary value equal to the job done, as it's more about the act of receiving something from the contractor that we gain power from."

Lisa's eyes squinted as her nose scrunched up, freckles clustering as she did so.

"That sounds really mundane for something as mythically out there like a Devil. I guess we could qualify for some Rogue organization specializing in odd jobs or something if push came to shove that worked for low-ish prices. What kind of familiars are we talking about though? Like black cats and talking owls?"

"Normally there's some paperwork I'd fill out to put us on a waiting list to enter a special dimension that runs parallel to the mundane world that is filled with various magical creatures. I'm not sure if that'll be possible for us though considering the nature of this Earth but even without a Familiar Master like Zatoshi, it should still exist. I'll check on the next full moon if I can't do anything about it though. Normal animals can be used for familiars, but they won't be able to handle commands that are too complex even after the increase in intelligence that they gain by becoming a familiar. We might still be forced to rely on them for a bit of extra manpower though. While somewhat frowned upon it's not actually a huge issue to have more than one familiar."

A somewhat condescending, vulpine grin plastered itself across Lisa's face.

"Alright. But I want a labrador."

I shrugged.

"I'm sure that'd be easy enough."

Lisa snickered as if she was enjoying some sort of joke that I didn't understand, but I let it slide.

It was enough if she was making her own fun from the situation, as having your entire world view AND biology changed was a big deal. I would be content simply if she was adapting to her newfound situation well enough.

"Ok, ok. Let's put the future plans a bit more to the side. What's the immediate plan then, oh great Devil king of mine?"

I frowned. I supposed that was the problem on hand for certain, wasn't it?

"Well, in this situation…" I spoke a bit hesitantly, slightly in shame, slightly in sheepishness. "I'm more inclined to listen to your opinion and follow your lead. I'm considered a High Class Devil by virtue of both blood and ability and am arguably decently powerful, but I'm still too new to this world. I don't have a context of scale for where I match up to the Capes of this world. I'd love to get a good look at your Triumvirates fighting just to know where the upper end of the scale is considered at large, but that also risks too much self-exposure for comfort. I just don't have enough context to commit to any real decision making. Not to mention that I have no ID or money outside of the roughly twenty, twenty five dollars we'll likely be able to keep at the end of this meal."

Lisa hummed contemplatively, eyes flickering as if calculating a dozen ideas in tangent, a faint blurring of bottle green irises complimenting the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose.

"...Well then it's probably smartest to stick to my original plan which is to get out of Boston. I was only here because I had to pick up some stuff for fake IDs in person. I'll talk to the forger and grab some stuff for you as well, it won't hold up as much as my papers, but as long as nobody's actively scanning for information on you it should hold up to a cursory glance and I still have some extra cash I can drop for it all. Might rinse me out though."

A look of both irritation and nervousness washed over her features as she rapidly rapped the tips of the fingers on her right hand against the tabletop, nails clicking with a rapid rat tat tat, ironically reminiscent of small arms fire.

Grasping from her personality, it was likely that Lisa would have been able to hide those emotions a bit better at a cursory glance as the human she would have been before her reincarnation. But Devils were emotional beings, now such negative emotions would only be more pronounced.

I put a hand on the back of her nervously fidgeting hand and gave her a reassuring smile, only for Lisa to flush a bit with embarrassment and fidget in her seat instead.

"I know you said that hypnosis would be bad in this world due to Master protocols, but if we need to save some cash, we can lean very lightly into it without causing any real problems."

She shook her head, blonde hair swishing from side to side. Spreading the scent of blueberry conditioner in the air.

"We really shouldn't rely on something like that unless we really have next to no choice. There's huge ramifications if it's found you have any Master ability. I'd much rather you think as if hypnosis doesn't even exist as an option in this world."

I nodded, frowning slightly as I still didn't quite understand why she kept insisting that I couldn't hypnotize anyone. There really was no side effects to worry about, but a crash course on Cape terminology couldn't cover their politics or history I supposed.

"Ok, ok. Got it. No hypnosis."

Lisa let out a sigh of relief.

"Good. I'll explain more about why I don't want you using that later, but for now take my word for it since you're following my lead anyways."

I nodded cordially allowing Lisa to continue her explanation.

"I hadn't really narrowed down exactly where I was planning on going next. Logically it would be best to head to somewhere that has a bit of Cape presence on both sides of the spectrum as it's easier to fall through the cracks without any severe consequences even if we decide going Villain is our best option. But we don't want to stay in places like Boston or New York where PRT presence is too big either. Someplace smaller but with a lot of Capes is a bit of a hard place to narrow down, but we have one place decently close by that actually hits that criteria for us. About 60 miles north of us in New Hampshire's a former port city of Brockton Bay. Decently strong PRT presence that gives us some good security even in our civilian personas, but since the shipping industry went tits up, it's become a bit of a cesspool where a lot of more lawless Capes have shown up. But between you and me, I'll take dealing with Lung over the Butcher anyday. At least with the former you just get killed instead of being psychically tortured as the flesh puppet of the new Butcher persona."

"I'll take your word for it." I nodded, "Dare I ask why the shipping industry went dead in Brockton?"

"Leviathan." Lisa replied casually, as if that was supposed to mean something to me.

Although it technically did.

Miracle Levia-tan wasn't a woman to take lightly, despite her somewhat... manic nature.

"I'm afraid that name denomination probably doesn't mean the same for you as it does for me."

Lisa made a funny face as if she had the briefest flash of constipation before facepalming.

"Sorry, forgot. Different Earth. We call them Endbringers. Giant monsters that cause borderline apocalyptic disasters to the cities they hit. Half the time major cities that get hit is lucky enough to have a chance to barely recover, but barely is the keyword. Leviathan lurks in the sea and got into the habit of sinking random freighters here and there making it more and more expensive and import and export goods on large scales. Especially when you might literally lose everything and no insurance company is dumb enough to cover Endbringer damage. Mind you that doesn't mean the shipping industry doesn't exist, but a lot of sea lanes became pruned down and Brockton just lost the roll of the dice. It's in New Hampshire, for one. It just doesn't have the same kind of priority as New York or Boston for example."

No matter which version of Earth, monsters lurked in the depths I supposed.

"Ok. So. Smaller town with a bunch of Capes to blend into. Got it. Anything specific you feel like I should be aware of?"

"Outside of the fact that they have a Villanous Cape that can turn into a dragon called Lung? Uh… Armsmaster, the leader of the PRT team is a Tinker that's apparently close to Dragon, who's a big name Tinker based in Canada. Dauntless, also PRT, is apparently a Trump that is rumored to become someone on the level of the Triumvirate one day… actually that might be a good lower baseline for you to look at with relative safety too, which is good. There's a small independent team of heroes that's a family called New Wave that don't hide their secret identities. Didn't turn out too hot for them though. They lost one of their members, Fleur I think, just two years ago which made her boyfriend or fiance leave. Oh and there's E88, which won't be an issue for us because we look very caucasian, but hmmm. How do I put this into words that makes it sound-"

Lisa shook her head with discomfort.

"No. There's no way I can put it that makes it sound good in any way at all. They're neo-nazis."

"You… want to go to a town with neo-nazis?"

"I don't want to go because of them, they just happen to be there." Lisa rolled her eyes, "I'm definitely not a sympathizer, it's just that they won't go out of their way to mess with us. Probably. Which is technically a good tactical move is all."

"Better to use the Nazis than let them use you?"

"More or less. And if I have to choose between fighting the Teeth and Nazis I'd rather not fight the Teeth. Fighting Nazis would probably be pretty cathartic and stress relieving." She joked, "It's an American pastime, right?"

I chuckled at the joke, feeling full well that Lisa probably didn't care a single wit about acts of patriotism. She didn't strike me the type at all.

"I wouldn't know. I've more experience with Japan. The Gremory clan in various fashions and names owned all the land in a small province and personally ran a quiet town called Kuoh in Japan, so that was where the majority of my human interaction is from. The Heaven Faction ran everything in America except Las Vegas-"

"Fucking figures." Lisa laughed.

"-yes. To no-one's surprise." I replied. "So honestly even being in America is a bit of a novel experience for me."

"Ok. Like hold on. Explain how your crimson haired ass can blend into Japan. Not to stereotype but isn't that country on the xenophobic side?"

"I, uh, don't like to, what's the American term… 'toot my own horn' I believe, but…"

I coughed into a balled fist before turning on the charm.

Without channeling magic, Devils were inherently very pretty. And I was from the noble House Gremory which was founded by Runeas Gremory. A transcendent beauty that would go and leverage both that beauty and the massive hereditary power of the Gremory line to have quite the powerful hold on the political scene of Devil society.

Lisa flinched heavily at my smile, leaning back into her booth as if trying to press her body so hard into the cushioning as if to become one with the furniture as here iris shrank to pinpricks. It was a little worrying that she was so clearly not breathing at all as she stared at me. I knew not to, but a small part of me wanted to laugh at how she looked as if she wanted to bolt away from the diner.

I let my face return to a bland neutral tone and coughed again as I reached for my cup of iced diet cola.

"People don't ask too many questions when I usually do that. Plus most of Asia is very predisposed for treating beautiful people better than others, even if they are foreigners."

"I… the fuck? I didn't feel any of that Devil magic stuff when-when you.. That's just natural?! How the hell does anyone believe you're human?!" Lisa gasped, her neck reddening as oxygenated blood began to recirculate in her system. "God-OW damn it!"

She pressed her fingers into her temples in pain and I chuckled leaning over the table with a free hand to channel some Demonic Power to ease her headache.

"Sorry, I didn't think that it would overwhelm you that much." I pat her head gently and even though Lisa looked a bit mortified for the sake of easing her headache let it continue for a bit.

She did seem a bit weak to affection, even if she had a bit of a hardened exterior that didn't seem to be used to kind physical gestures.

I supposed that was just a matter of a difference in upbringing. That was fine. I'd have to eventually figure out how to meet the level of physical affection that I was used to receiving and giving (even if those memories weren't real, a small voice nagged in the back of my mind) compared to how comfortable my Bishop was with receiving such.

It was invariable that a few of her sensibilities would change as a result of her now Devil heritage and she would have to figure out new norms for herself anyways.

Best that I help her explore her new boundaries as her King rather than let her sail in the sea of emotions without a rudder.

"I-I'm getting you a separate room at the motel. I was just going to let you use the couch but that was… dangerous." Lisa shuddered, and I nodded without offense. "Let's just go. I'm meeting the forger in a warehouse and I'll arrange for something for you while we're there, then figure out a way to get tickets to Brockton Bay in the morning."

"I could just fly us-"

"No, let's take a bus. It'll be cheap and I don't want to risk anything detecting you in the air. They've got weird Tinker-Tech that could just maybe pick you up on their radars and its really better to not risk it. I still have some stuff that I can pawn if we need to scrape up the extra cash."

I shrugged, deferring to Lisa's lead in this, but feeling a bit guilty she was having to sell off her possessions. She had already explained that for unclarified reasons, as I didn't want to push her for answers, that she had run away from home and had taken a handful of personal valuables that she didn't care about very much with her, mostly in the form of personal jewelry.

I could almost smell the lie and was very much sure that it likely belonged to her parents, but once again, I did not press the issue.

"You know best in this, I suppose." I let down the barrier maintaining the illusion of the two of us having a normal conversation about something mundane. Going over test answers for math, Pre-Calculus to be sufficiently boring and not worth listening in on and waved down a wait staff. "Check please!"

As we left the diner about 40-50 dollars lighter, my treat, Lisa huddled close to my side as a cold wind blew at us, using me instinctively as cover, then adopting a slight look of surprise as she realized that she was less susceptible to changes in temperature now as a Devil.

"We're also going to have to work on your Cape name as well for when you need to do something. I'm guessing you can do some Harry Potter voodoo to magic up a mask, but your hair colors are really distinct. We might want something more like a motorcycle helmet or other full skull encasement-"

"...Maou."

"Hm?"

"My Cape name shall be Maou. It's-"

"Japanese for Demon Lord. Seems a bit on the nose, don't you think?"

I shook my head.

I didn't know if my memories were truly a lie, but the love my family gave me in these strange remembrances were real enough to me. I loved them back, even if they did not even know I existed. We were Gremory. Our love overflowed. And the only person I wished to be like and surpass were my younger sister Rias for her optimism and passion, and my elder brother Sirzech for his duty and love for the people of Hell.

I didn't desire for the role like Rias did in our younger years, nor did I ever.

But there were no Devils to lay claim to the title here.

I was the only Devil of lineage that could even feasibly lead, thus in theory, the title would be mine in this lonely world.

And I didn't know how to go back. Could not, and wouldn't even if I could as I knew my life was yet paradox.

But I now had family here.

I held Lisa's hand, laughing at her sputter.

Whatever little fragment of Hell I would carve out in this world, I would protect her and whatever other cute family members, sorry Peerage, that I would accrue.

"There is no need to change my name either. I am Adam Gremory. I shall be, nay. I am Maou."

There was no need for any officiality.

Thus mentally, I crowned myself forevermore.