"This is a massacre." Azazel said while gazing at the destruction that was displayed before him. He had simply been researching in his lab when his Penemue had informed them that a soldier had come back to inform them about what they had discovered on their mission. It was just a normal reconnaissance mission just researching for any sacred gear users and failed not to find any within the region.
Azazel was a collector and research fanatic mostly to sacred gears. Sacred gears that were special items that were left behind by God that was bestowed on humans or hybrids since they were the only ones that can born with them. They can reincarnated into a devil or angel but the original owner would have to be dead in order for it to move on. He likes to research them to see what abilities they hold, how they expand, weaknesses, pretty much everything about them.
So when he hears anything about a possible sacred gear user, of course he's going to send someone to scout the said individual if not himself when he has time, but what he didn't expect was this. Upon coming arrival to where his soldier had told him to arrive, he wasn't expecting to see a castle styled building that was destroyed. Corpses laying all around the place, on the field up to the gate, and certain parts of the castle were on still on fire making him wonder how it hasn't spread yet but then again that's not what he's here for.
"Azazel." A voice called out to him, to his side he saw Penemue who had come with him to inspect the said location. She was wearing a business-like suit that revolved around a secretary, with black heels, dark violet eyes and long black hair. "What is this?"
"I honestly wish I could tell you but I don't know. From the looks of things, whatever happened here is awful and whatever is the cause of this escaped is on the loose." He answered her. "Come on, let's see what happened here." He grew his wings as did Penemue and both of them started flying over the field, the latter grimacing at the number of bodies all around the field. As they arrived at the main gate, they saw giant double doors that were smashed open, one indented to the wall while the other was missing its lower half.
"Pardon the intrusion." Azazel joked as he ducked his head underneath the door as did Penemue following behind him. Right as soon as they got in, they could see another set of corpses upon them and it was the same as what they saw out front. Bodies were all over the place.
"Poor saps." Azazel commented as kneeled down turned over one of the bodies. Once he did, he was caught off guard at what he saw. The body was… well something. The body of a random guard was completely grey as if it was slowly decomposing, the pupils were gone only leaving an endless pitch-black orbit, the mouth was wide opened, all the teeth gone only leaving the rotten flesh as bugs and worms left the mouth.
"Well, that's something." He commented watching the worms crawling onto his fingers before flinging his hand in a random direction tossing them off his hand.
"Azazel… this is very disturbing. Whoever did this, really wanted to kill these people." Penemue spoke as she saw the numerous bodies around them. She then looked up and frowned at the sight of a person's corpse that was hanging off the wall with a polearm embedded in their head. "They were hellbent on it."
"Agreed. For now, let's just search this place and see if we can find something that'll help explain things." Azazel ordered as he walked over the corpse and went deeper into the castle. Both Fallen Angels searched through the entire place and unfortunately for them they could not find anything useful to help their investigation. All that's left behind was literally nothing but the corpses of the those that all lived or worked under whoever was in the castle. After searching forever, they came down to the an empty family room and they were somewhat relieved they didn't see any bodies around.
"This is a massacre." Azazel repeated as he sat down in an empty seat. "Nothing, there's absolutely nothing here to tell us what had happened." He pinched his eyebrows in irritation as they finally came to a stop. "This place is literally a corpse paradise."
"Your attempt to joke at a time like this, is not what I need right now Az."
"No, what you we need is a long drink at a bar when we leave her." Azazel clarified as Penemue couldn't help but agree as she too needed one. "Still, there should be something here."
"And where do you think that is, we've looked all around this castle and haven't found a single damn thing in this place. Unless, there's something we're missing here, I would like to call it quits and have this place get cleaned up and go home." Penemue stated as she sat down at an empty chair and placed a hand on forehead to soothe the headache she was having.
Azazel let out a sigh and was about to call it quits and go along with his secretary's idea to leave until his eye caught something. On the ground in front of him, he saw a trail of blood that was going around the table leading to the steps up to a shelf and ended right there. Azazel could only look in disbelief at the shelf for a few seconds before letting out a few chuckles.
"Hmhmhm, I must be getting old if I'm missing small hints like this." He said while he walked over to the shelf as Penemue followed his figure. The said general stopped at the shelf and hummed in thought looking over the entire shelf until his eyes landed on a book with a dark brown cover and white outline. He then reached and pulled the top of it back and suddenly a lock sound could be heard. He stepped back and suddenly the bookshelf split itself apart into two and revealed a hidden staircase.
"You've got to be kidding me." Penemue had a blank expression as Azazel chuckled loudly.
"Well, its official. All castles have hidden labyrinths that lead to the unknown." He joked as he stared down at the stairwell before him. "Shall we?"
He motioned as they both went through the dark staircase that led to their destination. However, neither of them would be mentally prepared for the horrors that they would soon discover.
Azazel slowly opened his eyes in shock before relaxing as he realized that he had just woken up from his dream. Well, a recurring dream at that. It was the same dream he had come and go but no matter how many years had passed, it would never leave his head. The chilling revelation of what had occurred in that place and what had happened to those that were trapped there was a constant reminder to him of how cruel people are. No matter what you are, no matter who you are… there is always someone out there that shows you that they only exist to cause pain and torment and are evil in many ways.
In all of his years of living among Earth, he's thought he seen the worse of evil, but he was wrong. He wasn't the only one. He turned his head to Penemue, who was staring at a notebook with tired eyes. One of the few items they had founded at that place.
Like her general, Penemue also couldn't get that day out of her head, especially when she discovered who was in that place and who owned it. To the people that owned it and were responsible for the crimes they've been doing for years, she was furious that she didn't have the opportunity to kill the captors herself and show them what they have put through. All those bodies they found that day, they were all in on that scheme and secretly took people of all ages for those experiments.
'I hope every last one of them rot in the deepest pit of hell.' She thought furiously before her anger turned into sadness as her thoughts moved to something else. Out of those experiments, only two had survived. Two children. Two children that were trapped in that place for a decade. Suffering through every needle that injected chemicals and experimental drugs into their bloodstreams, every cut that received from whips and knives, and then the last one…. she couldn't think about it without angering herself to the point where she wanted to lash out and completely destroy whatever was in front of her.
Realizing that she was about to get angry, Penemue quickly took a deep breath and calmed down, setting the book down on the tray and walked over to the door. As she did, she turned her head to Azazel who was staring up at the ceiling in thought, he felt her gaze on him and turned to look at her and nodded his head.
Returning the gesture, she opened the door and closed it behind her leaving the general by himself as he let out a sigh. He knew where she was heading, it was the same thing she would always do after her job was finished and it would be searching for those kids. He does the same whenever he's out and about. He didn't trust anyone other than her to talk about what they had found; he didn't trust the other factions due to the war that had happened between the three factions, and he did not trust his other general Kokabiel.
Of all people in the Grigori, he did not want that warmonger to find out what he and Penemue had discovered. If he did, it would only mean more death and chaos for everyone.
'If that old fart, found anything about them, he would do nothing to stop looking for them and use them once more as weapons. I'll be damned if I let him get his hands on them.' Azazel thought as he stood up from his chair and stared out at the window at the dark purple sky above Grigori. Crossing his arms, he then thought about what to do next. Suddenly, a communication appeared aside his head ringing. He tapped it and answered it.
"Hello."
{Azazel-sama, this is Raynare speaking.}
"Ah, Raynare, it's nice to hear from you. How are things in Kuoh?"
{Fine sir. We've haven't encountered any devils and we've made sure to hide our presence.}
"Any word on the sacred gear user there?"
{Yes sir, it's a teen named Issei Hyoudou. Unfortunately, we don't know what type of gear he has yet only that we can sense him.}
"Very well. Remember Raynare, I want you to find and observe, do not kill or harm okay. There's already enough bloodshed as there is and I prefer peace instead of violence. Let me know if anything changes, I have some things to take care of in Grigori."
{Yes sir.}
"And Raynare…. Do not do approach him without my permission. Same with the devils but do not fight unless you needed to."
{…. Yes sir… Raynare out…}
Ending the call, Azazel hummed to himself on what he should do. Now that he knew that there was a sacred gear user in Kuoh, he needed to play this carefully. Regardless he knows that he'll get the devils attention but it's how the situation is handled and the aftermath of it that counts. He just hoped her group didn't do anything too drastic that would make things worse than they already are.
"Maybe I should send Vali out there, to keep things from escalating…" He pondered as he was thinking of different ways to handle the situation in case things go south while at the same time, thinking about any sightings of the two teens that may've ended up.
In a different part of the world, there was a man running down an alley with panic spread across his face. Running through the alley bumping into trash cans and knocking over as his life was in danger from whoever was chasing him. He ran and then found himself reaching a dead end, looking left and right for another way out, soon his eyes landed on a ladder. He quickly went over and was about to touch when suddenly-
Slice!
His hands were cut off as he started screaming in agony. His hands laid down on the cold cement as blood leaked out of them. The man writhe in agony as he tried to get up but couldn't due to having no hands to help stand, so he pressed his back against the wall and looked up at his assailant.
Slowly walking over to him, was a dark figure.
"Kosuke Yuzuru, you've been on the list for quite some time now. I would say you're under arrest but I'm no fucking police officer or some obedient follower of justice, no I'm here to kill you and end your existence, simple as that." They said, slowly walking over to their said target.
"Y-you can't do this." Kosuke yelled in anger despite the state of his hand. "Do you know who I am? What I can do to y-you!? I Can and will make your life miserable!? Low bugs like only live to serve those higher at the top! You shouldn't be able to do this, you should be on your knees… kneeling and begging for your l-life! You should be grateful to me! You should—"
Slice!
Kosuke's tongue was suddenly removed and slice off as he yelled once more.
"For crying out loud, can't you shut up for five seconds no one wants to hear your monologue about how great and how commoners should be thankful to their betters, honestly, it's annoying because it's the same stupid shit we hear all the time. It never gets old." The dark figure came out of the shadows and fully revealed themselves. They were wearing a black hoodie with dark blue pants and black boots. One of the features was that there was bandages around his forearms and huge bandage around his neck that could be mistaken as a scarf.
"As for you, fame and popularity. It's all gone after the release of this." The young man then tossed a newspaper article towards Kosuke whose eyes widened in shock at what he read.
KOSUKE IS EVIL. A MAN WITH TWO FACES, A LIER AND A DECEIVER.
THE PREDATOR OF THE PEOPLE.
BUSINESSMAN NO LONGER SEEN AS RESPECTED FIGURE; NOW IS ON THE WANTED LIST ACROSS THE GLOBE FOR SHADY DEALINGS!
KOSUKE GONE DARK AFTER TRUTHS COME TO LIGHT
Kosuke was in shock. How did they know, how did they get all of this information, he had bribed all newspaper companies, deleted any camera footage of his dealings, and took care of any loose ends that ruin his reputation, he made sure of it. So how!?
"And now the whole world sees you as nothing more than criminal that they want dead. I mean if there's one thing that the everyone agrees is that people like you don't deserve life in prison because who knows what'll happen. No, no, people like you deserve death."
Kosuke then tried to scramble away or run but his arms and legs were immediately sliced off flying away from his body and splattered against the wall. His screaming was in pure agony at the loss of his limbs.
"PLEASE NO MORE! I DO ANYTHING! JUST PLEASE DON'T KILL ME! DON'T KILL ME I WANT TO LIVE!" He begged for mercy only for the figure above to laugh at his miserable attempt to plea.
"How pathetic, you did the same thing to those people you killed, even worse to the ones that were already broken. And no matter how many times they begged for death, for mercy, for their cries of help to reach someone hoping their prayers would get answered!? You slaughtered them all." The young man loomed over Kosuke whose eyes were full of fear as he stared into the endless void of the figure, as dark red eye.
"Why should your fate be any different?" The assailant said coldly as he raised hand and simply swipe it to the side.
SLICE!
And just like that Kosuke's head flew off his body and into the air before the assailant caught it. He stared at his victim's face that was full of terror and fear.
"Hmhm, now that is face truly worth collecting." He then opened a small portal in front of him and tossed the head into it before closing it, then looked up at his mess. "Hm, well this is certainly unfortunate. Still, as long as I bring his head intact, the rest of the body doesn't matter."
*RING RING*
"Hmm." He took a phone from his pocket and saw the name on the screen, staring at it before answering it.
"Hello."
{Hey, are you almost done on your end?}
"Yeah, just finished killing the guy. Should've seen him, begging for mercy the same way he did with his victims, it's quite pathetic."
{Did you at least leave the body intact?}
"Well…. Aside from the hands and legs, everything is still here."
{Sigh….}
"What? You said that as long as the head is intact, the rest of body doesn't matter!?"
{Yes, but that was before I found out that this guy's prize went up to a fortune! A lot of people want him alive and will pay a good chunk for it. So, now I have to explain to a bunch of people that their target is now dead!}
Sighing, the young man looked down at the body before him and saw that it was still twitching, meaning that it was still alive.
"Look, the body is still twitching and so it should still somewhat be alive. So how about I get over to the market to revive your target fully and then you can do whatever you want to him."
{Wait, you can do that!?}
"It depends on the state of the body and since I just killed it, I should be able to revive him no problem. Of course, without the arms and legs so you won't have a full body intact." He answered.
{As long as the target is alive, I do not care. Now get over here, so I can collect my reward and you can get your share of bounty.}
"Right 1,000,000 yen."
{Actually, the bounty went up to 10 million, so you surprise.}
"Alright, I'll see you in a bit." He hung up the phone and then snapped his fingers, cleaning any trace of the mess in the alley. Once that was done, he immediately jumped into the air and onto the rooftops, heading straight for his destination.
After dealing with the bounty and collecting the money, the young man made his way home and arrived at a forest. Heading deep inside, he arrived at a wide lake that was all dark and murky with the sounds of crickets ranging through the air and the howls was wolves roaring into the night. Looking both ways and making sure no one was around, he walked towards the lake and once he stepped foot on the water, his body disappeared as it he just vanished out of thin air.
In reality, he had walked through an invisible barrier that only he could see. In front of him now was a house that looked abandoned as there were boarded up windows and all around the house were traps filled with barbwire fences, bear traps, mines and tripwires. Snapping his fingers, he teleported himself to the front door and let himself in.
"Tadaima." He announced as he closed the door behind him. He received an answer from the right side of the house.
"In the kitchen." He heard as he took off his hoodie and set it on the coat rack, leaving him in his t-shirt that showed scars along his arms. He made his way through the house and went towards the living room. Entering the room, there was a tv embedded on the wall, a shelf on the left side and a glass case shelf on the right, with coffee table in the middle beside a couch and futon. Further beyond, is set of steps that led to the backyard and the doorway to the kitchen. Entering the space, his eyes met the sight of his partner.
Standing at the counter was a beautiful girl with chin-length blue hair with dyed green fringe on the right side and dark yellow eyes. She was currently wearing a black top with the words Hell imprinted on the front and Heaven on the back, with matching short shorts and socks, leaving her legs that showed off some scars. She seemed to be wearing a white apron and was in the middle of cooking as she had some pots on the stove behind her and a rack filled with bread on the island.
Seeing her in the middle of cooking, the young man slowly crept up to her and attempted to catch her off guard…. Only to have the tables turned on him. As soon as he was behind her, the girl reached out and grabbed his chin before turning her head and pressed her lips against his, giving him a chaste kiss.
"Welcome home~" She whispered as he let out a small grumble.
"And here I thought I could scare you, Xenovia." He whined as she giggled.
"Bryce, as long as I can sense your blood you can't surprise me even if you go invisible." Xenovia stated as he blew a raspberry stating his disappointment as she rolled her eyes at his playfulness. "So how did your mission go?"
"As well as you expect." Bryce started as he took the rack filled with garlic bread and set it in the oven. "Same old corrupt humans, same old monologue, same old begging for mercy types and etc. Did make good money though."
"How much?" Xenovia asked while stirring some pasta.
"About 10 million yen." He answered earning a look of shock in return. "Hehe, yeah that was my face too. Turns out the guy I was hunting was worth more alive than dead, so big money." He pumped his fist in the air in a sarcastic way to make it look like he was excited at the news. "So, what about you how was your mission?" He asked.
"I've ended up making a mess of things. I killed my target, however I did not take into account that the second she was dead that all of her bodyguards would instantly find me. So, I ended up leaving that place with blood all over me." Xenovia answered while draining the water from the noodles.
"Isn't that a good thing!?" He asked.
"It is, when it's worth something. All that blood on those guards were stale and hers was the only one that was actually still exquisite and delicious. All her bodyguards were nothing more than corpses that were mindlessly following their leader." Xenovia explained while setting the burner to low as the skillet filled with marinara sauce and meat was finished. Taking off her apron, she set it on the counter and walked over to Bryce before sitting on his lap.
"Well, that must've sucked."
"It did but I did get some good money and with the 10 million yen you received, we should be good for a while." She said while stretching her arms above her head. Her stretching gave Bryce a good view of her cleavage as he quickly turned away not wanting to get caught with a small blush on his cheeks. Xenovia noticed this and smiled at his reaction. "Like what you see~?" She teased as he whined before he used his hand to pinch her butt earning a yelp in response.
"Don't tease me before dinner." He ordered.
"Okay, okay but after dinner you take me to bed." She whispered as she slowly wiggled her hips along his lap. She was about to get up until Bryce wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her in.
"You're a succubus you know that." He whispered.
"I know but I'm your succubus…" She turned around fully facing him, straddling him and wrapped her arms around his neck. "you're my incubus."
The two stared at each other for a moment before leaning forward and pressed their lips against each other. After few minutes, they released each other and decided to eat dinner before it got cold and then head straight for bed, unaware of the events they are about to get dragged into.