Hiro tried not to fidget, although he was certain that next to Joe he would look composed no matter what he did. Joe looked as nervous as though this was the real ceremony, as though he was worried his bride might realize her mistake and decide not to show up.

Even as everyone involved in the actual ceremony part was trying to be composed and well, not professional but treating this with the seriousness and a commitment deserved and the happiness weddings were supposed to have, various interested parties appeared to haggle over the seating arrangements.

Hiro was just glad, for his sake and theirs, that he wasn't sitting down there and no one was arguing over who got to sit next to him. Neither his family nor Yamato were the type to back down.

The bride's family was in the front on the bride's side, Fumi had claimed a large area at the back so she could catch up with her foster family, Keita and the woman who came by and argued with him (his social worker?) had been designated as sitting at the back of the other side until the woman and Airi actually got here, at which point the four of them, with Airi's father, ended up sitting in a row more towards the middle. Makoto had claimed seats for herself and Yamato by draping her jacket across them, but then Midori had shown up with the bow among a box full of other cosplay items she was using to mark seats for people and ended up not just sitting Ronaldo next to Makoto but Saiduq next to Yamato's other side, hopefully because she was under the impression that the two of them were friends since they'd shown up together and suffered through costume-selecting along with Hiro. As for Ronaldo, he was a friend of Makoto's, so he must be a friend of Yamato's, right?

Haru and Himiko were up to the left of the stage in the 'choir' section. Abel, who had provided his sound system, rushed in a couple minutes after Hiro got here, taking his place after dusting the dirt off his hands. That neatly avoided the problem of who sat next to Abel, too, since people would want to catch up and Kaido, for example, might not wait until after the ceremony.

There was one section, guarded by Yuzu (who was among the ushers/coordinators and would be here the whole time in case anyone tried any funny business) where clearly she and Atsuro intended to sit, with Keisuke next to Atsuro & Yuzu on the outside in case she needed to get up to fix anything at the last minute.

It was probably Atsuro who had draped Naoya's kimono over the chair behind him, next to two seats covered by Hiro and Abel's father Kazuya's old green jacket. Abel always called it the jacket of doom for some unknown reason, but their father never left it behind when they went on a trip. Ever. Even when traveling to a tropical island, apparently. Hiro was just glad Kazuya and Yuka were understanding about Naoya being Cain and Abel being king of much of the underworld now, but he supposed that since they'd taken Naoya in while Abel was very young, and Abel had his memories too, they were sort of used to their children being, well… When they came clean about it, Father probably said that it explained a lot and insisted on ruffling Naoya's hair despite how old Naoya was then. He did that.

It would have been kind of interesting to see everyone try to rearrange everything so they could sit next to all their friends, but between Amane and Yuzu's presence there was only a little optimization, not the kind of free-for-all Kaido might have preferred if Mari hadn't moved them close to Atsuro and Keisuke anyway. Well, Keisuke he wasn't the happiest about, but Mari had been their school nurse before the lockdown, so they were the ones she knew best.

Hiro found himself wishing they'd just hold the actual ceremony now, so he wouldn't have to go through this twice, with the first time even longer due to everything getting stopped whenever anyone messed up. He'd much rather fight another of Al Saiduq's relatives.

At least the people who were only here this round to claim seats could leave.

The things he did for his friends…

Well, he was kind of interested to see who got invoked for the ceremony. Was Midori serious, that they'd been considering Alcor? Hiro didn't think Joe was especially religious, but if his bride was, they could call up Amaterasu herself. He just hoped she wasn't Christian, although he probably would have heard about that by now. From Naoya, even if everyone else would probably either have been too nice to mention it or not cared enough. Well, no, she couldn't be Christian or Amane wouldn't be performing the ceremony, Hiro realized, and calmed down a little. The ceremony still seemed fairly Western, from the presence of a Best Man in the first place.

He was happy for his friend Joe and he didn't want to mess up his part of this either, but he'd much rather be doing something…

…Like finding out if someone had included him in the family wedding gift or something, because it had only been two days, and he'd been focused on the bachelor party. It wasn't exactly like he'd had time by himself to go shopping, either. The house was big, but not huge: all the teenage boys had been assigned to a single room, with Yamato up on the bed in under the blankets because he'd gotten soaked. Abel had spent most of the first day hauling a ton of stuff including futons and blankets and letting people go back home to get nightclothes and toothbrushes: Atsuro too after Naoya turned him loose. Six of them in there: Al Saiduq had said that he really didn't need a bed, but they weren't going to leave him out. Keita kept accusing people of rolling over or not giving him enough space because he was still short. Even though they'd just had a really long day they were still all too excited to go to sleep for ages, and then last night was the bachelor party.

For a panicked moment he thought of giving them the island, but that would be regifting.

Airi left her father under Keita's supervision and came over to take a look at Abel's sound system and keyboard. "So you're really studying music?" she asked him.

He nodded, pressing one of his headphones to his ears as he worked.

"Why? Shouldn't you be studying politics, or, I don't know…"

"Demon politics isn't very much like human politics," he told her, then added, "Thank goodness." Then he glanced away from the equipment at her. "You're the musician?"

"What? Oh, well, I was." She looked down at her hands, then tucked a piece of hair behind one of her ears self-consciously. "Not anything… modern."

"What's wrong with traditional music?" he asked her. "3/4 time aside. And there are lots of rhythms besides heartbeat. It doesn't have as much effect on most demons as on humans." He doubted rock music would affect Al Saiduq as strongly as Haru's, although right now he had a show to put together so this wasn't the time to experiment. Well, maybe, "Would you mind playing something on the keyboard for me? Something simple so I can keep an eye on the equipment while you do?"

"Um, well, I guess I can see what I remember," she said, sliding onto the bench as he vacated it and raising her hands above the keyboard.

Silver-haired Naoya appeared with the grey and white-haired boys in tow five minutes before the real ceremony and quickly observed the seating situation, picked up the bow marking Saiduq's spot, moved Makoto's jacket so it only covered one seat, moved Ronaldo's over so he was still next to her and made room for the two boys by himself and Abel's parents. If anyone asked, this was another part of the evil plan: the two of them adored children, and would certainly have had a second right after Abel if Naoya hadn't been dropped into their laps and taken into their hearts. Really, Naoya had moved out because it was a little hard to work with an evil group bent on demon-summoning and other evil stuff when his stepmother kept knocking on his door and serving tea to his guests.

Yamato was contentedly pushing instant ramen noodles up into his mouth with a pair of chopsticks, taken from Naoya's stash of all-nighter supplies. Hot, salty and possessed of absolutely no nutritional value whatsoever, aside from the salt and water themselves: his minders would have had a heart attack, although Yamato had no intention of having one. The heat still pooled in his stomach, like tea: the warmth radiating throughout him brought with it a feeling of well-being, that the world wasn't such a really bad place, was a place where one could afford not to be aware and ready for attack all of the time. Inner peace was a risky thing that might bring with it complacency, but at the moment there wasn't anything particularly wrong with his world. Well, yes, there was probably still panic in other parts of it, people being what they were, but it wasn't his problem. Not unless he chose to make it so.

And he certainly should go back to JPs, at least for a little while, he'd already decided. They were used to his competent leadership: how would they be able to handle an incompetent political appointee that wouldn't know how any of Yamato's organization operated and would be looking for others to pin the blame on? Even if he found a half-competent successor, he would still have to retain a supervisory position so his choice wasn't replaced with an incompetent the instant his back was turned. If he had to pick a successor Makoto was the obvious choice, but she wasn't cynical enough to handle his superiors.

Yamato wondered if he could somehow send Ronaldo after them.

Regardless, Yamato agreed with Naoya that college was a waste of time in and of itself: he could learn the material much more quickly with self-study and tutors, if necessary. However, attending would force them to give him valid non-classified ID and would begin creating a paper trail, on top of building contacts in the outside world.

He remembered a piece of candy pressed into his hands by a dying man, something he'd hoped to give to his daughter but wanted Yamato to have, even after Yamato verified that he knew who Yamato was. The head of JPs, who had denied them food. Who theoretically could have had all the candy he wanted. Not that he had ever been exposed to any until after he'd internalized the belief that he didn't want any.

He wondered what that man must think of that conversation now that he was alive again as Naoya sat and gave his stepparents a dignified nod, only to be given a crushing hug by his petite little mother-aunt.

That seemed a little… far too demonstrative. In public, too! But although Naoya's body was a little stiff, he didn't seem embarrassed or displeased at all.

Yamato decided that the two of them must be worth meeting: Naoya seemed to think relatively highly of them, "for parents," and while Cain and Abel had both come into this world with memories of other lives, they had actually raised Hiro, who didn't recall much of Seth. That spoke highly of their capabilities and influence. Hiro had certainly seemed happy to see them, which immediately proved they weren't anything like minders. So he stepped closer, Alcor trailing behind him with the bags of ramen, Ramune, squid-flavored chips, even more equally alien alleged foodstuffs & Hiro's favorite candy that Naoya had decided to bring back with them from his apartment.

"I'm sure Hiro introduced them to you," Naoya was saying.

"Yamato Hotsuin and Al Saiduq, yes?" his mother said, and smiled. "Why don't you sit down?"

"By the way, how would you feel about grandchildren?" Naoya asked them as Yamato did and Saiduq looked for an out of the way place to put the bags before finally making them disappear. When both of his parents stared at him he told them, "Not the normal way." Of course not. He wouldn't bring a child into this hell world, not when he knew how terrible even the modern world was compared to what should have been. "Al Saiduq needs an identity since he doesn't want to go to the demon realm, so I'm considering forging him some papers. He looks young enough that he could be mine if he was born after the Lockdown, like Hiro."

"Excuse me," Yamato said, annoyed, "but if he is going to be put on someone's family registry, it obviously must be mine. The fate of the Hotsuin clan has been intertwined with his for centuries."

Naoya raised an eyebrow at him while Saiduq looked both shocked and touched. Yamato gathered his composure around him, grateful for the practice. If it was Hiro's acceptance that made Alcor grant him the world he wished for, then how much more power would giving him a family, even if it wasn't much of one, grant Yamato? If Hiro was worried about the septentrione, this would give him two reasons to visit Yamato.

He'd have to put up with Hiro spending most of his time at school, even though Yamato had reminded Naoya that the Hotsuin had more than enough wealth that Yamato could hire the best tutors. He supposed he could put up with Hiro spending time with those other friends of his. When he could think of it as maintaining assets. It didn't mean Yamato was going to let an asset like Hiro slip through his fingers, let Hiro choose any of them over him ever again.

Even though it turned out that Alcor hadn't lured Hiro away from him – Alcor clearly didn't have the skills to do that – the thought of it had made him hate Alcor more than he hated him for the fate of the Hotsuin clan and Yamato's own fate. It was fortunate that Naoya had reminded him of Hiro's intelligence and skill before Yamato acted rashly, such as kidnapping Hiro away from his family (these other assets) or destroying Hiro's useful acquisition. Yamato knew how angry he would be if someone killed Hiro, although of course Alcor wasn't worth as much to Hiro as Hiro was to Yamato. Alcor was just an especially powerful or useful employee, even though he didn't expect to be paid. Which Yamato supposed would make him even more valuable if one ever had to worry about money. It had been rather shocking to hear Hiro worry about the property taxes on this island and wonder if perhaps Alcor had actually made Hiro worse off with this gift of his.

"Hey, Naoya," Atsuro said, leaning forward between the backs of Naoya and Yamato's chairs. "I got satellite footage of the island."

"So did I," Naoya said. What of it?

"Over here, there's a little bay: if we got more snorkeling equipment we could take the boat over there."

"Not until I've set up the wards, we have small children with us and this used to be deep water."

"When do you think you can set up the wards? Or should I?"

"I suppose you could set them almost as well." And Naoya had things he'd rather do, like figure out where he was going to put the volcano. Without one, not only would this island be obviously unnatural to any geologist worth their salt, but it would be eroded away practically before Hiro had grandchildren to bring to it, from Naoya's perspective on time. "Take Abel with you: I didn't spend all these years training you for you to be dragged under by an annoyed kraken too quickly to summon anything."

"What? There are demons here?"

"No, krakens are giant squid. They haven't come up as often in modern times since there aren't as many whales anymore. Then there are sharks and salt-water crocodiles, the ones that can easily top forty feet if they live long enough. Not all the earth's dangerous animals have been declared demons, and the part of an island above the water is only the tip of an iceberg. There's a gigantic mountain where there used to be open ocean: some of them might be confused enough to surface. I'll have to look into how to create barrier reefs."

"I am sorry, Ancient One," Saiduq said, finally sitting.

Naoya raised his head from where he'd been calling up an elevation map. "Why are you apologizing to me? Animals, the life forms that live by eating others, are Abel's domain. It's not like you blocked off an undersea vent." He told Saiduq that, "Apologizing too much is as annoying as not apologizing. If you have annoyed me, I will make sure you know what you've done." He could count on that.

"The Shining One didn't until I almost made him panic." How strange it had been to see the collected Shining One practically jump out of his skin and almost beg or demand Al Saiduq stop doing that.

"Oh?" Atsuro asked. Sounded like an interesting story there, but then the wedding march struck up and he and Naoya quickly lowered their comps so no one would notice them. Naoya's uncle and Yuzu still gave each of them a look, so they snapped them shut and put them away as the bride walked up the aisle to where Joe, Hiro, Amane and a friend of the bride waited, proceeded by Dr. Otome's adopted daughter, Yuzu's oldest and some of the other female children that had been charging around the place since Hiro said that sure, they could invite anyone they wanted to a private tropical island.

Where Midori had the best dress-up collection ever.

Amane wore the exact same lotus-hat she'd worn during the Lockdown: since it had miraculously survived intact, it was her personal good-luck charm for all things demon-related. She still hadn't had a chance to meet the Lucifer-equivalent, but since Polaris was clearly an evil god, or not the God, she doubted a being who had come to the aid of God's children was evil, so she hadn't opposed Midori's idea to use Al Saiduq as part of the décor so he could feel included in the wedding of one of his friends and the woman whose life and health he had restored even if he wasn't up to resuming human form yet.

She'd made a note to do something about removing him from Naoya's evil clutches before Naoya did anything worse than use him as a beast of burden for snack foods before the ceremony began, but now she was focused on the ceremony and offering prayers onto the Lord God and various other, lesser yet still benevolent deities.

His law said that one should have no other gods before Him, after all. It also said to honor thy father and mother, and that those who aided His children had also aided Him.

So finding out who exactly the bride and groom wanted to give thanks to had been an important part of the preparations for the ceremony. Shiva, Kama and Lugh would normally be unusual choices for a Japanese couple, but Amane had included Lakshmi , Kama's mother, in her personal devotions ever since the goddess aided her during the Lockdown.

Then she'd had to perform rituals to find out whether or not the gods wished to appear at the ceremony, because she'd read the tales of Kama and there were few things more disruptive to a ceremony than the arrival of an unexpected god. Rather like European fairy tales and uninvited fairies.

One unexpected god had already shown up: Loki had taken a place next to the dancer Hinako before the ceremony started, although they'd ceased their chatter when the procession began.

Amane's inner peace and focus on the ceremony were made much easier under the circumstances by the megidolaon she had ready to cast, true. The presence of so many comps would protect the bystanders: one of the surprisingly thoughtful aspects of Naoya's design.

She also knew that if Loki disrupted the ceremony and made this take any longer than it had to, he would have to deal with Naoya if he managed to survive her, and the trickster was no fool. Neither was Amane. As the shepard of these two souls, it was her duty to ensure that the blessing of their union went without a hitch other than the intended sort, just like the best man (who hadn't turned his cell phone off before slipping it into his sleeve, so he could summon quickly if need be).

Just the fact it would take a great fool to interfere with a wedding attended by so many powerful devil summoners, including Cain and Abel themselves, didn't help them much when the world was full of arrogant fools. And so was the underworld.

Here she was worried about someone trying to kill Naoya's little brother and Naoya was, she heard, attempting to pull the pigtails she didn't wear. She prayed Naoya's grandfather would give her patience with his wayward yet beloved child.

At least she knew she wasn't the only one prepared for the worst. Abel didn't have bodyguards, he had friends.

Yes, Abel and Hiro's parents are versions of Kazuya and Yuka (MC and Heroine) from Shin Megami Tensei I that didn't have a nuclear apocalypse happen to them. In-game, someone says Kazuya is Adam, implying Yuka might be Eve & so I couldn't resist.

I don't think they're aware of being Adam and Eve – the degree to which Hiro is aware of being Seth is because Lucifer told Abel and Abel told him after Naoya confirmed it. Neither of them actually met Seth, who was born after Abel died and Cain left, so there wasn't any feeling of recognition or familiarity to begin with. However, there is a degree of recognition between Adam, Eve and their children, or so I'd think. Naoya, Abel and Hiro just put it down to them being great parents, since Lilith, who did recognize them, isn't saying anything because if she did, Naoya's issues would make him start avoiding them because while he protected Kazuya and Yuka's son, he killed Adam and Eve's. I've never said that Naoya was sensible about any of this.

I actually wrote this chapter and the above note before I saw the news about the DS manga where Abel's name is Kazuya. Naming Adam's son after Adam from another SMT game? Looks like the manga artist's a fan.

I tend to interpret Lilith's appearance in DS2 as her old babysitter instincts in action, although I doubt she was aware of that & just thought she was playing around. The humans with her weren't being hurt by the demons, and they were certainly stronger (and healthier?) that most humans elsewhere.