Congratulations, Lucy's soul corruption has been completed! You can now do whatever you want with it and it'll be far more difficult for others to influence your little sister from now on! You can now interact with Lucy's soul directly and alter your sister's behaviour and personality!
You awaken abruptly to more words being burnt into your head by the Diary. It really would be nice if it found another way to communicate with you!
'Well done, you seem to have acquired another willing soul! This would go to show that the previous one wasn't some sort of fluke! I did say I wouldn't be giving out any more freebies, but I suppose I can give you a discount. Normally unlocking a Tier 2 category would require a Grade 3 soul, or 40 Grade 1s. This time I'll knock the cost down to a Grade 2. In case you didn't notice, you've already got one of those, so fancy trading it in?'
It takes you a moment to understand what the Diary is talking about, but you realise it must be referring to the soul of the agent you tortured to death the other day. His mental resilience must have been part of a blessing from the guardian dog that raised the value of his soul.
Your Soul is now Tier 2! You'll be easier to sense by demon and divine powers alike and positive emotions and divine auras will have a greater effect on you but with risk comes reward! You'll be able to distinguish the lowest grade of souls from better grades and your ability to communicate with other souls is improved! And of course you now have access to Tier 2 Soul abilities. Though you'll need to use malice to unlock them first! No freebies this time!
You decide to spend the morning having a little talk with your adorable little sister Lucy. After detaching her from your chest you sit her down on her bed with the door closed to make sure your mother doesn't overhear. Then you being to explain to her that her big bruhba isn't normal. That he's been given magical powers by a big bad lady and needs to use them to do bad things, but he'll always love and cherish his precious sister. And one day bad things will happen to big bruhba and he won't be able to stay like this any more. And Lucy will need to know how to find her bruhba again if they want to continue being a family like normal.
You decide to leave out about the part where you aren't actually her brother, you have all Zach's memories so you may as well be him at this point. And it's not like she calls you by name anyway. You also leave out further explanation of what you mean by 'bad things', focusing instead on making sure she understands what you are and how to respond if the worst case scenario happens. Much of this preparation actually happens beyond simple words. Instead you reach out with your own soul and touch Lucy's, getting it accustomed to the feeling of your souls connecting and helping her to distinguish you from others.
Lucy accepts your explanation with a childish wonder and promises she'll do her best to find her bruhba if bad things happen. You aren't sure how useful her efforts will be but her soul is useful to you and you want to make sure you don't lose her when you inevitably end up in another body. Having her recognise you if you approach her with your new body will be useful enough on it's own.
Lucy will now be able to recognise you no matter what body you are in and will even try to find you if you go missing for a period of time! You've taken your first step to insuring she's a first rate minion for you!
Another tedious school day, at least this time you have an actual purpose. You need to acquire a suitable target for Soprano and start the likely irksome process of reeling him in. Noone from your own class meets the criteria, so you'll have to hope there's someone close enough in the next class, Sherry's class. You briefly consider asking one of the girls for help with this. But no, you'd best not get entangled with those three today or you'll end up being tempted to spend your time messing with them rather than doing what you need to.
You also need to remember that even with the forward payment of six souls, you won't have enough to meet your deadline. Assuming that Soprano isn't a master manipulater he likely won't have the boy in a suitable position within the available time frame, which likely means you'll have to scrape together the remaining four souls yourself, unless you want to do something truly desparate and trade in Zach's soul for likely a fraction of what it would actually be worth.
But you can worry about the remaining four once you have the initial six. And before you can do that you have stupid class. And before class you have to deal with Sherry spying on you from behind a bush. Oh, no, she's running away. Her emotions must be a mess right now. It probably hurts her just to look at you. You can cash in on that for a few days, but in order for your plan for her to truly take effect you'll need to keep pushing her.
Class passes by with the same dull tedium as ever. You decide to use Obedience for your Aura again this time round. You are fairly confident that with a dose of both the morning and afternoon Auras the majority of your class should be in a position where they will be hard pressed to disobey you. This is good, you'll only have one more day until the Church investigation begins and your options will likely be limited at that point. A strong hold on the class before then should allow you to continue manipulating them without having to rely on your Aura, which would be the most likely thing to give you away.
After class is over you quickly head out of the door to catch as good a look as possible at the class next door. Surely someone in there will be a good match? That one? No, eyes wrong colour. That one? No idiot, that's a girl! Though to be fair the picture in your hand does look like a girl. Say what you want about Soprano (and you can think of plenty to say) but he does a good job! Perhaps too good!
After it feels as though you've scanned the entire class and earning yourself some strange looks you spot a boy with blue eyes and black hair leaving class with his friends. He doesn't really look that much like Alex, but it should be close enough for Soprano. Now you just need to decide how to do this.
You scrape your mind, or rather Zach's mind, for information about your target. Apart from the fact that his name is Gary you don't really know all that much about him. What you do know is that the two kids he's currently eating lunch with are the same two boys that were being bullied before. You aren't sure if they'll be happy to see you or not considering your prior interaction. But it's all you've got to go with so you'll have to make do.
You approach the trio. It's evident that they recognise you and just as evident they don't consider you in a good light.
'Hey guys,' you greet, 'how are things going? I meant to see how you were before now after last time but things kept getting in the way.' They mutter something noncommital at you.
'We're fine,' Gary replies, coldly, 'no thanks to you though, I hear.' You shrug.
'Hey,' you protest, 'I don't think that's fair! I got the bullies off of them, right? It wasn't like I could fight them, so I had to do the best I could!' It would be a reasonable argument from an adult's point of view. But a bunch of moron kids see the world differently. They don't buy your reason and aren't likely to warm up to you quickly enough for you to make this work.
'Tell you what?' you say, 'I'll buy you all some juice, I don't think what I did was wrong but I don't want to be on bad terms with anyone either.' With the promise of free juice in play they begrudingly allow you to sit with them for the rest of lunchtime. You make a few efforts to break the ice, but it isn't going to crack so easily. You'll need to do something a little more drastic than you had hoped.
It's frustrating, but at the rate you are going with these three little punks it'll be next year before you are friendly enough to achieve what you need to. Fortunately, you have demonic powers for just such occasions as this, though you had hoped not to have to use them for something stupid like this. You plant the same Suggestion in all three of their minds.
'Zach's not really that bad, maybe we were too harsh with him, we should hang with him tomorrow to find out.'
Without an easy way to influence each of the boys without the others noticing you are forced to Null your Presence. That combined with the Suggestions costs you a ridiculous 35 Mana just for this one act. You console yourself with the knowledge that an unpleasant fate awaits Gary once you are finished with him and make a promise that you'll make these other two twerps pay as well. With your earlier Aura and your afternoon Aura that will only leave you with 15 Mana for the rest of the day. You just hope you aren't going to need much more of it.
Still angry at being forced to waste so much time and effort on Gary and his idiot friends you struggle to maintain your Aura during class, eventually just giving it up and just fuming to yourself. It isn't your fault those dorks got picked on! What had they expected you to do? Try and take on five older boys on your own to rescue them? It's not like they had the guts to stand up for themselves so why should you? Bastards, this is why dealing with idiot kids is such a pain! You really need to get out of this stupid child body and go back to dealing with adults.
You try to cheer yourself up by reminding yourself that your first private study session with Ms Erikson is coming up after this. You can amuse yourself throughout the rest of class by planning what you intend to turn her into and how you plan on doing it. A bit of evil scheming has always helped to cheer you up in the past, you are sure it will work here!
It's a difficult decision. Considering your plans for Venus are currently on hold while you work out how to undermine the rabbit it might be an idea to make Ms Erikson one of your possession targets. She's one of the few adults you know after all. But you realise that you'd be just as stuck in this fucking school in her body as you are right now in your own. Sure your influence and authority might increase a bit, but it wouldn't give you that many more options than you have now. So you shelve that idea for now.
An image comes to you of a sexy secretary, doing your paperwork and liasing with your other subordinates so you don't have to. That would be good too, but that's a bit too long term for your needs right now. You can grab yourself a hot secretary later. Right now you need more freedom during class time and more malice to afford the Tier 2 abilities. Making your teacher an accessory to your misdeeds would be a good way of achieving that.
Your decision made you attend your private session with Ms Erikson. The work is harder, of course, than what you were studying in class but it's still something targetted for children so you don't struggle with it. You still make sure to dumb yourself down a little bit to give her a chance to actually 'teach' you. Otherwise she might not feel as though these sessions are worthwhile. The last thing you want is her to lose heart and just send you away with a text book.
You decide to ease into things, spending the first half of the session with your nose to the grindstone, waiting for her to decide to give you a short break, at which point you engage her in conversation about school and class. You lead the conversation towards how unfulfilling you find the various classes and how you've enjoyed her private lesson far more. Then you launch your attack.
'I don't want Zachary to grow frustrated at school. Covering for him so he can cut class every once in a while shouldn't hurt.'
Thanks to your improved Suggestion she doesn't resist your words this time and goes along with your manipulation. It's a good start, but it'll take a lot more work to have her actively participating in your schemes.
Ms Erikson will now permit you to skip the first or second half of class time once per week. This will allow you to do something more interesting or nefarious in that time, so long as you don't get caught!
Heading back into the same alleyways where you already died once is probably not the smartest of ideas. If there was a better way to gather souls without relying on someone else to give you them you have yet to find it. You don't have the freedom to roam much further from the house as anyone who spots a child wandering the streets at this time is likely going to do something about it. Unless they are as amoral as you are.
Will there even be anyone here? Two people died here only a week ago. Ok, one of those dead people was you, but noone else is likely to believe that some idiot killed himself here so it's easier to believe that two people were murdered together. That kind of thing is likely to scare people off. Of course, druggies, by their very nature, are stupid. They couldn't have been especially intelligent before they decided to trash their own brains with harmful substances. You can imagine the brain power they would have to play with afterwards!
Your small frame makes it a little easier to move undetected and you take a chance to range a bit further than before. Another death here will likely heighten police activity but it's something you'll just have to risk. You need to gather enough souls to satisfy your boss and you don't have much time to do it.
A chance encounter leads you to finding an individual lying face down on the ground to one side. Vomit has pooled around his face and you are worried for a moment that he's already suffocated on his own puke. But no her's breathing, barely. A good chance for you. You draw out your Diary and aim it carefully. With an unmoving target the task is child's play. You plunge the blade in at the base of the man's skull, underneath his thick shaggy hair. He jerks once and goes still. With any luck, anyone coming along will simply think he died of an overdose and won't check the body any further. With that in mind you leave the body as you find it, his pitiful soul now your possession.
After the dirty deed is done you return home. You are hoping the death you just caused won't be linked to the others, though it might still be a good idea to look for alternative hunting grounds in the near future. With the six souls you expect to get from Soprano you still need three more by the end of the week if you hope to stave off punishment from your boss. Still there's not much you can do about it now. You can fend off your mother's concerns to a certain extent, but going missing for many hours is likely to penetrate even her addled mind and cause concern.
Thinking of your mother's mind and the meddling you've done causes you to decide to give her a break today. You need to give Aria's soul fragment time to work after all. Instead you decide to do something you haven't done before and send your mind spinning outwards, trying to find another dream to invade. You find another sleeping mind fast enough, a neighbour you can only assume. You doubt your power will allow you to travel very far.
The dream you are thrust into plays more like a memory than anything else, the surroundings are unusually crisp and focused where usually they are blurred or fuzzy. A simple corridor with a single menacing looking door on the far end. You aren't entirely sure how a simple door can appear to be menacing but the dreamer seems to believe that it is, meaning you get the impression as well. As for the dreamer herself.
She's crouching in the hallway an impressive looking gun at the ready with a number of other, equally well armed individuals behind her, also poised and ready. What they are waiting for becomes perfectly clear as the door they are watching suddenly bursts open and a bloodied figure emerges, grinning maniacally:
'So you came then,' the newcomer laughs, 'I knew you would! You may tell yourself that you are resisting my call but you answer it all the same!' The armed woman answers curtly.
'You are wrong, Kira! We are here for one reason only! To stop you, once and for all!' The blood covered demon, for you instinctively recognise her as such, laughs again.
'You think you can stop us?' she taunts, 'maybe you will, for a time. But our march will never be stopped completely. We will always be here, watching and waiting! You may have escaped my clutches, but we are patient. You've felt the pull and you'll never be rid of it now. You'll live through these moments again and again until they overwhelm you completely! This will be my last gift to you! So look forward to it, my love!' As she rushes forwards the officers open fire on her with deadly accuracy.
Her body shudders and jerks as the bullets slam into her tearing holes across her flesh. Her arm whips out and the blade in her hand soars forwards slamming into the chest of the man just behind the dreamer. She is still laughing as her own blood is released into the air as a fine red mist and finally collapsed backwards, still twisting and chuckling. The dreamer draws her side arm and takes shaky steps forwards until she's standing over the fallen demon. Somehow the creature is still alive.
'What's the matter, Wendy?' she taunts amongst gasping breaths, 'too late to get emotional now!' The officer, Wendy, aims the gun between the demon's eyes.
'Farewell, Kira,' she declares, 'you and your kind will never be welcome here, and I'll continue to hunt you down wherever you may hide!' Kira chuckles again, but blood quickly spews from her mouth as she tries to answer.
'You... can... try...' she mocks, 'but... you will... still... fall! The trigger is in place! It just needs the right... finger to pull it!' Wendy cannot resist one last smile.
'The only trigger here,' she quips, 'is this one!' She fires her gun. Repeatedly. She doesn't stop until her gun is empty and her foe is well and truly gone. And as the dream begins to fade you realise you've been so engrossed in watching the proceedings it hasn't once occured to you to try and meddle with them. Though considering the subject matter, that's probably for the best...