You wake this morning determined to make more out of it than yesterday. You have far too much to do at the moment to risk wasting time. Whether it be the endless slog for souls, finding some poor smuck to tie down with a Soul Contract, having to worry about Aria and Ina there was plenty to do. You'll have to check up with Soprano at some point. He still owes you six souls, the second half of your payment after he's satisfied Gary will work out. There's also his former subordinate, but you have no leads and are far too busy trying to deal with your own issues to invest in such a thing.
On the plus side one of your side projects should be reaching it's conclusion today. Sherry will be popping round this afternoon and you have every reason to believe you can solidify your hold on her in a lasting way. What you'll be able to achieve with that control you aren't sure, but you are determined to draw out some benefirs from your work. There are plenty of other projects on the table but you'll always need to make sure you balance them with more important and pressing work. Usa was expecting you this weekend for some training so there's no reason not to start there.
The only thing left to decide is whether to bring Lucy with you. Yesterday you left her behind when you went out so maybe you should bring her with you today. She likes rabbits so maybe she can help relax Usa's guard for you. She looks up at you with her big eyes, clutching at your shirt. Shit, not the eyes... Fine, you'll take her with you! Just stop it with the expression! Fuck, last night you were brutally murdering a bunch of bratty teenagers in some crazy chick's head, why are you so weak to your little sister's cute face!
One immediate benefit of bringing Lucy springs to mind, while you are walking to Roger's you ask your sister to talk to you about her day spent with mum. As it turns out, Lucy spent much of the day with Elisa, however, one time your mother disappeared for a while. Lucy eventually tracked her down to her room and found her lying on the bed, touching herself in 'weird' places and moaning like she was in pain. Your precious little sister clearly didn't understand what she was looking at but she did remember hearing Elisa call your name at least once. So it would appear your mother has started playing with herself while thinking about you. That's a pretty good indication of her progress. Now if only you could capitalise on it...
You decide to spend the morning trying to get to grips with your training. As useful as Null Presence may well be it's too expensive at present to utilise effectively. If you can get used to using it that cost should hopefully go down. On the spur of the moment you decide to introduce Lucy to Usa. She's seen enough at this point that she shouldn't be too surprised and she's fond enough of rabbits that she might be able to give Usa some positive attention while you train. If nothing else she might be able to save you the headache from having to listen to the creature ramble on!
It turns out this was a supremely good idea! Lucy is immediately excited to meet the 'tawking wabbit' and Usa is equally happy to have someone to talk to and shower it with affection. As a result it's much easier for you to focus on your own training allowing you to finally get more comfortable using your skill. It shouldn't be such a pain any more. To cap things off, it seems as though Usa has decided to take Lucy on as a second 'apprentice' and has granted her an ability to improve her luck. That will probably make it easier for her to 'accidently' cause some problems. More than likely the rabbit would have no idea that it's gift will be used in such a way. Hell, Lucy herself doesn't even know! You can't help but wonder how her friends and classmates are holding up with her newfound 'clumsiness.'
As much as you would like to take advantage of your current progress it's almost time to meet up with Sherry. Of course, there's no reason why you can't leave Lucy here and come back to pick her up later. Or even have Roger drop her off later. Not like he's likely doing anything right now.
Leaving Lucy here to ingratiate herself with Usa seems nothing if not beneficial. And there doesn't seem to be any reason to bring her back with you. If anything it will allow you to work on Sherry without distraction, not that you expect Lucy to be much of a problem in that regard. So you give Lucy instructons to stay here, keep out of trouble and spend some time with the nice rabbit. Roger agrees to watch over Lucy for you, he actually seems happy to have received an instruction from you. Nice of him to feel useful you imagine.
You make it with time to spare and grab a quick lunch with your mother. You consider trying to persuade her to put some clothes on for when Sherry comes over but decide that it's probably easier to just keep her out of the way. Not like Sherry would be upset about seeing Elisa's body, after all. If you've done your job properly she shouldn't be upset by anything.
Sure enough, once you've let Sherry into your house and she takes a look around, spotting your mother sitting on the sofa without a stich of clothing on her reaction is as you expected. As in not at all. Her blushing, bashful face goes blank for a moment as she automatically screens out the negative reactions she is supposed to have, leaving a simple widening of the eyes in momentary surprise before she seems to deliberately switch her attention back to you. It's fun to watch, even if it means you can't farm any more malice out of her. But you have other ways of achieving that.
Hand in hand, you lead Sherry up to your room. It will be the first time you've been in here in a while, seeing as you've effectively moved into Elisa's room. But your mother still has a Suggestion in place keeping her out of here so you shouldn't be distrubed here while you work. Maybe you should let someone in here every now and then just to prevent the dust from setting in. For now though this embarassing car room will do. Sherry certainly seems excited to see her crush's room. You relish the thought of all of these emotions being locked away and under your exclusive control. Time to make that particular fantasy a reality.
You decide to have a bit of fun with this, you distract Sherry with a kiss on her cheek, then hit her with a Sleep as she's trying to process what just happened to her. It takes effect quickly and she slumps against you, only your grip supporting her weight. You lay her down on your bed and activate your ability, entering her dreams.
You bring her back to the same dark area from before. The chest from before is still here, but this time you have her imagine that it's begining to fracture. Cracks are appearing on the surface and the shadows are begining to leak out. You again appear before the troubled Sherry in your soul form.
'It isn't enough, is it?' you encourage her as she stares wide eyed at the chest. 'It isn't possible to keep all of that nasty emotion locked up forever. Do you know why?' She looks up at you with wide eyes and shakes her head.
'It's simple enough,' you explain, 'normal feelings lead to bad feelings. All the love you feel for Zach, all those wam feelings seem nice at first. But what if he doesn't feel the same way? What if he loves someone else?' You conjour up the same image from before of Zach and Ami together.
'Your love will lead into sadness,' you tell her, 'you won't be able to stay happy like this. The bad feelings will escape soon.' You allow a crack to widen on the chest, allowing Sherry's feelings of betrayal and despair at her unrequited love to resurface. She clutches her hands to her head and cries out.
'Don't worry,' you soothe her, 'I'll take them all away. All the bad emotions. And everything else as well. You'll never have to feel sad, or scared, or angry again. Just leave it all to me. Trust in me and surrender all of it! I'll look after all of it for you, so just rest and let me do all the tricky thinking from now on!' She nods at you desperately, still trying to ward off all the awful feelings you are feeding her.
So you conjour up a second chest, larger than the first and deposit the first chest into the second. Then you carry on, guiding Sherry into pouring all of her emotions into it. All of her memories, all of her feelings. Everything that makes Sherry, Sherry. The core of her existance, her humanity. She gives you all of it and you put all of it into the chest. The mental projection of Sherry looks up at you with blissful relief before jumping into the chest herself. You close it behind her and lock it tightly, binding it with thick chains. The key you keep for your own use.
'I'll be the one to decide when you need to think and when you don't,' you conclude, 'but even so I won't let the bad feelings hurt you again. Rest assured and sleep well.'
You withdraw from Sherry's mind, feeling worn out but satisfied. Then you guide Sherry up into an upright position and check her condition. She allows you to move and position her but makes no other reaction. Her lively blue eyes are now dull and vacant, staring directly ahead without a hint of life. You wave a hand before her face but she doesn't blink. Doesn't react at all. Her eyes blink every now and then and her chest still moves as she breathes, but that's it. No other reactions at all. You take her gently by the chin and angle her head towards you, looking into her blank eyes. She looks back at you... actually no. She isn't looking at you. She's looking through you. At nothing.
Perhaps it's more accurate to say the Sherry isn't actually here right now. Everything that makes her who she is has been packed up and sealed away, leaving only a shell in her place. Perfect. But you aren't done yet. You use Suggestion to implant a trigger in her head. With it in place you can now switch Sherry back and forth between this and her former self. She still won't be capable of expressing negative emotions in her 'normal' form so that might need a bit of tweaking but otherwise you are finished. Complete success. You give Sherry an order to stand and she obeys instantly. Her face still angled where you left it, staring sightlessly. She belongs to you now. Completely. The Greed aspect of you must be thrilled!
Greed's position inside your head has changed -10% influence. Sloth gains 8% influence, Pride (you) gains 2%
As much as you'd love to keep your new puppet here to play around with as much as you'd like you have to face reality. You may have Suggested that Sherry's parents ignore any strange behaviour but they would certainly notice her missing. And as much as that would net you a lot of juicy malice, it would also be very risky. If having her around was in someway beneficial for you it might be a different story.
Instead you'd be better off switching her back for now and sending her home. Just a few preparations first. You start by establishing a basic 'puppet' programming for 'Sherry.' Maybe you should think about renaming your new toy? A decision for later. For now you install instructions that will allow her to eat and drink when prompted as well as clean her own body and use the bathroom.
In situations where you have specifically given her a command while in this mode you include 'tells' in her behaviour that will indicate to you when she is in pain, needs to use the toilet or is hungry. That way you can use her as you like without needing to worry about missing anything and inadvertantly causing her harm. You did promise you'd look after her. When you have more subordinates you can have one of them monitor your puppets and take care of them so you don't need to concern yourself with such tedium.
Next you plant another instruction into her subconcious, similar to the one you implanted Lucy with. Sherry's conscious personality should now start inadvertantly generating malice for you in the same way your sister does. You've used up over half your Mana Reserves so far but hopefully you won't need much more of it today. You switch Sherry back, spend a bit more time making small talk with her, practice switching her back and forth a little bit and establish that she'll obey your commands now even when conscious. Finally satisfied you send her back to her house as your new sleeper agent.
Similar to Lucy, Sherry will now unconsciously generate malice for you during weekdays!
With the last couple of hours of your evening you convince your mother to put her clothes back on and drive you over to Soprano's. You enter through the front entrance this time and a member of staff recognises you and leads you round back. Soprano seems pleased to see you as usual. You ask him about Gary and Soprano tells you that he won't be a replacement for his precious Alex any time soon but that he's on his way to being a capable member of the troupe. As such he doesn't mind handing over the last six souls of your agreement.
Without all that much time left in the evening you ask about odd jobs you can do around the place. There isn't much you can do in your small body but you busy yourself as best you can. Maybe he takes pity on you, maybe he really thinks your work is worth it or maybe he just wants to encourage you to come back, but Soprano hands you another soul as payment for your work. If it is charity, you'll take it happily. You are a lot closer to fulfilling your target now. Though maybe one day it might be more satisfying to gather these souls yourself rather than getting them all off of other people.
7 souls gained, 3 more until you've reached your target!
This time as you lay your head down on your pillow with your family either side of you it's a lot easier to feel satisfied about your day. You managed to get a lot done, certainly when compared to yesterday. You'll be back to the limitations of school after today but at least some of the pressure is off of you. Dare you allow yourself to relax for a bit? There's still a lot more that needs to be done.
Perhaps most importantly you are going to need more upgrades. You are slowly but surely proceeding to fulfill your one hundred soul quota. What happens after that you have no idea, but you are fairly sure your mistress isn't about to turn around and say that you've done enough to be let free from your bondage. You certainly wouldn't if you were in her position. If you don't want to be her errand boy all the rest of existance you'll need to challenge her. Before her demands become more unreasonable than you can meet.
You need more power, more abilities. Perhaps then you can speak to The Diary about obtaining them. This time when you close your eyes you aren't looking for anyone's dreams but seeking out the presence you felt before, the one always by your side. This time you find yourself standing in a familiar alley way. Two dead bodies lie before you. One is your own. Charming. The Diary is sitting on it, swinging her feet.
'Hi,' she greets you, 'I've been waiting! You really got into the spirit of things with that purple girl! I was worried you were about to try and whip it out right then and there!' You pause for a moment, then decide that she's referring to your newly aquired Soul Contract.
'You said before that there were some more systems that could help me?' you question her, deciding to get straight to business this time.
'That's right,' she replies, cheerily, 'Lord Kairos installed them when he made me! There are three: The Weekly Challenges, The Gacha and The Inhouse Rewards! The Weekly Challenges are just as they suggest. At the beginning of a week I'll offer you some missions and if you can finish them by the end of the week you can get rewards!
'The Gacha is, well I don't really get it myself. The Demon Lord was really into it back in the day. You pay some malice or souls into the Gacha and something comes out! Sometimes it's better than what you put in! Sometimes it isn't. But it's always something!
'Finally the Inhouse Rewards are a way to get bonuses and upgrades that will make things easier! New abilities, improvements, quality of life upgrades and even useful advice and information. If you have a big enough D you can get whatever you want!'
'D?' you repeat. She gestures with her little arms.
'Diary points!' she answers, as though it's obvious, 'D for short! You need a biiiiiiig D! Huge! That way you can afford all sorts of great stuff!' You gape at her. Huh?
'You mean I need a lot of D,' you attempt to correct her. She looks puzzled for a moment, then consults a book she produces out of nowhere.
'Urm, nope!' she counters, 'that's what the instructions say. Get as much D as you can so you have the biggest, most impressive D ever! Biiiig upgrades only with a biiiig D! Says so right here!' She points to the relevant section in her book. You resist the urge to facepalm. Fucking Demon Lord, what kind of stupid crap are you making this little demon girl say?
'And how do I get a, er, big D?' You ask her, mentally cringing. She consults the book again.
'Through Weekly Challenges, maybe the Gacha,' she rattles off, 'but mainly through Storytime! I am a Diary afterall, a record of the Demon Lord's rise to become the very best, like no one ever was! See?' she points again to those exact words in her notebook. You sigh.
'So if I listen to your boss brag about his lifestory at night,' you conclude, 'I'll be rewarded with points I can use to afford new upgrades?' The Diary nods, looking excited. Well it sounds a tad confusing but this must be the way this Demon Lord likes doing things. And if it helps you out then fair enough. Now, where to start?
'So where shall we start?' you ask The Diary. Probably best to finish with Storytime so you should explore the other two options first. The Diary snaps her little fingers and a wheel of fortune on a stand appears in front of you. The wheel has six equally spaced, differently coloured sections on them. Within each section is a well drawn illustration of part of a woman's body. Breasts, bum, legs, waist, groin and...armpit? You aren't sure about that last one but never mind.
'First,' The Diary continues, 'we'll roll for the Daily Free Gacha. Just as you may surmise, you get to spin it once for free everyday, though you'll still have to come visit me if you want a spin! Kay? Well, here we go!' She spins the wheel and you watch the disjointed woman going round and round. Perhaps someone thought this was erotic in some way? You aren't sure you'll ever understand demon mentality.
The arrow ends up pointing right between this fictional woman's lower lips. You can almost imagine it slipping inside if you relax your gaze a little bit.
'Groin!' The Diary declares, 'that's 2D awarded! Yay!' She claps her hands together, 'but that's your freebie done! If you want another go you'll have to pay up! Though the rewards can be better than the free gacha. We have two Gacha's available at the moment. One for 50 Malice and one for 1 soul! We'll except any kind of soul for this one, which pretty much means you should only sink your ignorant souls into it! So! Fancy a spin?'
You decide to resist for now. The last thing you want is to start throwing all your malice at a gacha and end up with a handful of halfway useful items as a result. Not when that malice could be used to give you more abilities. Maybe when you have a bit more spare capitol you can afford to throw it away on potentially trivial things.
'Not right now,' you tell The Diary, 'shall we move on?' She nods.
'Probably a good idea,' she agrees, 'your luck hasn't been great so far! Though it might be good to sink some malice into the gacha every now and then. Wink, wink... oh, no I'm not supposed to 'say' wink, wink, I'm supposed to 'do' it!' She's still reading from her book as she winks rather awkwardly in your general direction.
'We'll talk about Weekly Challenges next!' A snap of her finger and the wheel disappears. Now she pulls out a small deck of cards.
'Usually I'd randomly determine how many Challenges to assign you,' she explains, 'because there's not enough RNG here, right? This week, as it's your first time we'll just start with the one.' She draws three cards from the top of the deck and holds them out.
'Pick one,' she says, somewhat unnecessarily.
Weekly Challenge accepted. Roll over an 80 on a D100 before the end of the week. Reward: 5d6D
'Normal Challenge, Wheel of Fortune, number 10,' she rattles off. Then she explains the challenge itself to you which makes no sense at all. You haven't rolled a single fucking dice since you came back to life, right? Whatever, it must be some meta thing. Never mind, you'll work it out.
'Finally,' The Diary continues, 'Storytime! No reason not to listen to it seeing as you are already here, right?'
What follows next is what could be considered the first chapter of Kairos' story. It's fairly similar to your own, of course. He did say that to you when you first recevied this power. His background was simple and uncomplicated. An average human with mediocre talent and ability who failed to achive anything of substance during his mortal life. Unlike you, however, Kairos didn't give himself to the demons, they approached him. One demon in particular who called himself The Genie. The reason for that is obvious, he always promised to grant his targets three wishes in exchange for their soul.
Except that the wishes needed to be carefully worded, otherwise The Genie would grant them in his own unique way, usually via a method that is the complete antithesis to what the wisher actually wanted. After having two of his wishes backfire on him completely Kairos made his last wish with a different frame of mind. He wished to always be able to return to being 'him' the being that he defined himself as. The Genie, not seeing how that could really be meddled with in a meaningful way used his powers to bestow an ability on Kairos that would always allow him to return himself to his 'default' state. The Genie believed that this meant that no matter what happened Kairos would always revert back to being a powerless human and mocked the man for choosing such a thing as his last wish.
It was here that The Genie screwed up, for her had underestimated Karios' ambition. For Kairos the being that he defined himself as was ambitious and always struggling to grow, even if he continued to fail. And so he absorbed as much information from his new master as he possibly could. Continually redefining himself to allow him to restore himself while retaining his new knowledge. And restore himself he did, no matter what his master or any of the other demons did to him, whether they attacked his body, mind or soul, he'd always stubbornly pull himself back together, clinging to his newly found knowledge and learning. It was a system that spiralled far beyond the control of the one who set it up in the first place. But that was to be another story.
After deciding not to spend the small amount of D you managed to obtain you thank The Diary and prepare to depart. She leaves you with one last reminder that you will be rewarded the D as soon as you complete the terms of the challenge and won't need to actively report your success to her, though she does express a desire that you come to see her as often as possible. You don't really have all that many options at night so it isn't a terrible use of your time. You'll certainly consider it, at least.