Lucifer blinked and stood up as he heard a knock at the door. The violet-haired archdemon had been expecting the new Last Fantasy game for a few days now – and though shipping usually took longer, he wasn't one to complain, especially since Maou and Alciel were out and the latter couldn't exactly chew him out for buying things again while he was at the supermarket. Walking towards the door, he opened it and took the package from the delivery man. Signing off on it and walking back to his computer, he opened the box and stared.

This wasn't his game. This was a 12-pack of Coda-Cola, wrapped in a box. For some reason.

"What the…?" frowning unhappily, he sat back and picked up a bottle. "I never ordered this… Maybe Maou ordered it…?"

Well, either way, it was still Coda-Cola, and he was thirsty, so he quite frankly didn't give a damn about where it came from. Taking a can and opening it with a satisfying fizz, he drunk it down.

That was the only thing he remembered before it all went black.

"Maou-sama, I implore you to consider putting parental controls on his computer….. That advertisement was most enlightening…." Ashiya noted, climbing up the steps to their apartment. Behind him, the demon lord Maou lugged along a bag of groceries and sighed.

"I'll consider it… But won't he get all pissy if we do? Plus he could just un-do it, couldn't he?" he debated, placing the grocery bag by the front door of his apartment and knocking. "Urushihara, open up!"

No response.

Opening the unlocked door, the demon lord's eyes scanned over the room. The violet-haired demon was nowhere to be seen – his usual perch by his computer was uninhabited, his presence only marked by a half-empty can of Coda-Cola leaking onto the tatami. The cupboards to the side of the room were open, so he couldn't have been in them, and the bathroom was empty. Placing the bags on the floor and taking a step in, he blinked and noticed a small black bundle of fluff trembling under the table in the middle of the room.

"Is he in there, milord?" his right-hand man questioned, stepping past him to take a look. "That bum, when we find him- Is that Coda-Cola?"

Turning around as his most trusted general began to freak out about soda stains on the tatami mats, Maou looked under the table and briefly poked the trembling creature.

The trembling stopped, and a pair of big violet eyes looked up at him from underneath the now-recognisable fluffy black wings. Jumping back, Lucifer let out a little cry and ran out from under the table in a shirt that now fit more like a dress.

"Don't eat me!" wailing loudly, he ran past Ashiya and threw himself into the open cupboard, sliding it closed and holding it that way with all his might. "Don't eat me! I'm only little!"

Ashiya and Maou stared at each other before moving to look back at the tiny figure hiding in their closet.

"Was that…?" Ashiya began, opening the sliding door with relative ease even though the child was holding it closed with all his might. Picking the kid up by the scruff of his neck and ignoring his wails, the two finally got a good look at their shrunken comrade.

Somehow, his body had changed into that of a four-year-old's. His black wings were fluffy and more like a baby bird's – flapping uselessly against Ashiya's grip. His hair was much longer, falling down to his waist in gentle waves. But perhaps the most surprising thing was how pretty he was – his teary violet eyes were framed by long, black lashes, and his lips a faint pink colour. It was easy to see why he was once called the most beautiful angel of all; he and the Lucifer of the Demon Army could almost be entirely different people. Maou briefly found himself wondering if Urushihara would look as pretty if he bothered to dress nicely and take care of himself.

"Don't eat me…!" The child wailed and kicked, trying to escape the bigger general's grip. "I'm only a little angel, and if you eat me Michael will come and beat you up, so don't eat me…!"

"Michael?" Maou blinked, about to ask more until he was cut off by the arrival of his neighbour.

"Sadao-dono, I wouldn't expect you to be the type to kidnap childre- …?" Suzuno Kamazuki began. Blinking at the purple-haired boy being held up by Ashiya, she stepped back and raised an eyebrow.

"Lucifer?"

Finally seeing his opportunity, the demon general escaped the grip of the older one by sliding out of his shirt. The now naked angel ran up to the high inquisitor and buried his face in her kimono, peeking out from behind her knee.

"Scary demons are gonna eat me…! Help!"

All three of the people in the room stared.

"….I see. So you found him like this."

The three of them were now sitting around the table, Lucifer's shirt now back on his body. The young angel refused to go near his master or his fellow general for fear of being eaten, and as such sat contentedly behind Suzuno, playing with her hair like it was a new toy. Maou nodded and looked at the young boy.

"Speaking of which… Lucifer, what happened?"

Apprehensively turning to the demon lord, the young angel shrugged shyly. Moving his hands from Suzuno's hair, he buried them in her kimono and tilted his head. "I dunno. I woke up, and it was scary, and there was a yucky drink, so I went under the table and then the scary demons found me! And then they were gonna eat me, but I went NO and then they stopped trying to eated me. So now I'm safe!" moving his arms around to illustrate his point, he buried his face back in her kimono. "All safe, Lucifer is all safe now.~"

"Wait, Lucifer." Sadao stared, giving the child a confused look. "Do you remember who we are?"

"Nope!" he chirped, once again playing with Suzuno's hair. "Only scary demons. And scary demons smell yucky."

"Thought so." Maou frowned, turning to Ashiya. "Ashiya, this gives me an idea."

"What is it, Maou-sama?" the blonde blinked, turning his gaze from the violet-haired boy to his master.

"We don't need parental controls!" Sadao Maou, the once-demon-king-now-mgronalds-worker proclaimed victoriously. "We can raise him from the beginning like this, right? Maybe it'll impact on our Urushihara's personality once he turns back?"

"Brilliant, my lord!" Ashiya proclaimed, clapping his hands in approval. "I have but one question."

"What is it, Ashiya?" Maou questioned, standing up proudly.

"How exactly do you intend to do this? The child is terrified of us, and it's not as if Castle Overlord is equipped to handle children running through it..."

"Urushihara's essentially a child anyway. What could go wrong?"

As it turned out, many things could.