Love and War

by A Decent Hoonter

Cursed with a power he feared, Alfred lived his life in anxious loneliness until one day, a letter arrives. Come to Kuoh, it said, and all your dreams will come true. It was an odd thing, but he had long since learned to accept the strange. Or at least, so he thought. But in a town controlled by devils, he will have to face stranger things than he could ever dream of. (WC inspired)

3. Cursed With You

Alfred had expected to spend a few hours trying to find the address Kiyome had given him, seeing as the system Kuoh (and by extension the rest of Japan) used was complete nonsense to his western brain. Thankfully, she had the foresight to have instructions on how to get there written on the back of her business card. So, small mercies.

All he had needed to do was cross the bridge leading to the other part of the city and keep heading northeast until he reached another patch of forest, though this one far smaller than the one bordering the western part of the city. It had actually been a rather nice walk, especially once he got to the suburban area past the bridge. It was much less hectic, with fewer people and shorter buildings. All in all, a nice area.

Stopping a hundred or so feet inside the small forest, he raised an eyebrow at the final instruction written on the business card.

Find the rose tree, and circle it thrice.

It was an odd instruction, and one that actually took him a few minutes to get. At first, he assumed it meant just some tall rose bush, and so started looking around for one. However, he soon realized that there was no such bush anywhere near the area and thus readjusted his aim. He instead just started looking for a rose, singular, and eventually found one growing out of the base of a normal looking tree.

"Here goes nothing."

He walked around the tree once, finger tapping the bark as he looped around for a second time, feeling more than a little silly. On the third swing around, however, he found his patience rewarded greatly as a large manor appeared before his eyes within the forest.

"Woah."

Glancing back, he expected to still see the city behind him but was shocked to see a continued stretch of forest as far as the eye could see. He looked around, wondering if he had simply gotten turned around due to the circling, before realizing that it was just gone. It was somewhat worrying to be honest, but he decided not to dwell on it and instead make his way towards the manor gates.

At first, he had assumed that the gates were made of some sort of metal. It was a safe bet, and one that he reckoned anyone else would have made. However, upon closer inspection he realized that they were actually made of some sort of light stone material with odd carvings all throughout the structure of them. Strange, but not the weirdest part of this whole experience.

Pushing the gate open, he walked onto the manor grounds and felt his jaw drop.

The grounds were massive by themselves, with two decently sized guest houses on either side of the main house and a long set of stables on the edge. But what truly shocked him was how many mythical creatures wandered the grounds with one another. Centaurs discussed the forest alongside satyrs and stubby green things with flowers on their heads that he figured must've been Japanese tree spirits, or Kodama.

Harpies flew above alongside some massively oversized birds, perching on top of the buildings and giving him heavily seductive looks (the harpies anyway, the birds didn't much pay him any mind). Lamia slithered along the ground in tennis uniforms, holding their rackets while occasionally talking to several walking fish heads who swam laps back and forth in a pool.

It was then that several armored soldiers burst through the door, helmet under their arms, revealing them to be dullahans. They surrounded him, swords pointed at him before a familiar voice called out from within the manor.

"Ah, don't hurt my experi-guest!"

The dullahans stood down, parting way so that Kiyome could step through. She ran in, wearing only a blouse and short skirt alongside a thick pair of goggles and a white coat. She bounced towards him (which was the first way his hormonal brain thought to describe it), grabbing his arm and dragging him into the manor while talking his ear off.

"I have to get some samples from both you and that familiar of yours! The symbiotic relationship you two seemed to share is a first in my entire family's history, which is something that I thought a lot in regard to you. As a phenomenon you are just extraordinary, you know that? I mean, to generate so much magic that your body must constantly leak it out of you is astonishing!"

They took a series of twists and turns, most of which he had no way of memorizing as he soon found himself in some sort of laboratory with a glass roof. He got his bearings together, watching as several small fairies flew around the edge of the glass and watched from outside. Kiyome meanwhile, gathered several tubes and machines and began to wheel them over to the center of the room where a chair sat. She gestured to the chair, patting the back of it as she pulled on some rubber gloves.

Sitting down in the chair, she grabbed his arm and pulled out a needle which made Threat begin to freak out, enveloping his whole body and forming several pointed tendrils. Alfred winced, convincing Threat to calm down as some of its mass retreated up his arm and allowed Kiyome to find a vein for her to poke. While waiting for her to draw blood, he couldn't help but make some small talk. "So… what's the whole situation with the devils? Like, the basics I mean?"

"Oh, them? They're normally pretty harmless, only drawing in ambient sin using casinos or clubs. But lately they've been a bit more aggressive for some reason, though why escapes me. I'm worried they might tear the Veil to be honest."

"The Veil?"

Kiyome pulled the needle from his arm, eyeing the small hole as it quickly healed itself. Jotting something down on her notepad, she began to inject the blood into a vial. "It's a townwide spell which helps keep the supernatural hidden by some clever illusion magic and compulsion, which is why the streets are always nearly completely empty at night. Though 'cause its devil magic, the effect fades during the day which is why they never act then. Though even it has its limits."

"Why are they here and not in like, Hell or something?"

"Because this is where sin is at its easiest to find. Plus, Kuoh happens to be a town where the layers cross."

"Layers?"

Putting the blood vial away, she grabbed a pair of scissors before attempting to cut a piece of Threat off. Said creature then tried to cut a piece of her off, stopped only by him firmly telling it to behave. Holding his hand out, Alfred forced a section of Threat to pinch itself off from the rest, entering another test tube as Kiyome answered him once more. "The different realms of reality aren't really occupying their own space, rather the same space in different layers. The Underworld tends to rest mostly just below the surface of the human realm, but there are portions of it which rise just high enough to cross into parts of the surface human world. Kuoh is one of those places."

"So, anything can cross from the Underworld to here?"

"Not anything. Crossing between layers requires a bit of fourth-dimensional understanding so most beings can't, and most that do have to use rituals or other tools to facilitate that. Of course, during points of intersection the layers tend to rub against one another and tear fairly often. That's one of the reasons why the Veil keeps everyone indoors, as during full and new moons demons tend to wander through the tear. Oh, tonight is a new moon, which is actually the worst one of the two!"

The excitement in her voice was not something Alfred shared, especially with the word "demon" attached to it. "What's the difference between a demon and a devil anyway? I always thought that devil was a singular title, not a species."

Stuffing both samples into some crossbreed between a computer, centrifuge, and small stone monument, she took careful notes of whatever was being shown on the display. "A common mistake. Devils are descendants of the original Fallen Angels, who had been cursed by the biblical God to become the opposite of what an angel should be. Demons are just animals born in the Underworld. Oh, though I should say that fallen angels are a different thing from devils! They get very mad when people make that mistake."

She oohed at whatever her computer told her, before pulling over a different machine which looked like two fans made of stone on some kind of stand. She put one on either side of him, pulling a lever and watching as the two fans went up and down in perfect sync. It was an odd display, but not one which would distract him from his curiosity. "You said biblical God, as if that was an important distinction. Are there others?"

"Oh yeah, hundreds. Really, just about every religion was right in some way, which is kinda lame. But yeah, the Greeks and the Norse often compete with one another while the Celtic and Hindu gods often have some kind of beef regarding who's pantheon is cooler. The Shinto are one of the few who have retreated into their own domain, vowing to never interfere in the human realm."

Her brow furrowed as her machines stopped, pushing aside the two of them as she pulled out a giant magnifying glass attached to a plastic arm and pushed it over his chest. Tilting it 90 degrees, she began to adjust some settings on the giant slab of stone that must've acted as its brain, or whatever equivalent made sense there.

"What about you? What's your whole deal?"

That took her by surprise, as if the very thought that she was interesting in any capacity was as foreign to her as this whole situation was to him. "Me? Well, uh, not much. My family have been researchers of supernatural creatures since, well, since forever. There used to be more of us, but this tends to be a dangerous line of work, and we've dwindled to now it's just me managing all this. I love the work though. I mean, what else in life is as fulfilling as learning about the world we live in, right?"

There was a texture to her voice that felt almost bitter, which was hard to see if the tone was also reflected in her eyes due to the goggles. Regardless, he felt somewhat bad for her. "Seems lonely."

She laughed hollowly, turning the magnifying glass around some more. "How could it be lonely? I'm never alone, not when I have all my friends with me right here."

It was hard to relate to her situation exactly, seeing as he'd never lived near so many mythical creatures. However, he remembered what it was like being surrounded by friends but never being able to fully relate or open up to them. It was a different kind of loneliness, one which was harder to find comfort for. "Dunno. During my junior year in high school, I felt like I was surrounded by friends all the time. But they just lived different lives than me, and had different problems. Their world was not one I could fully step into, and mine was one no one else seemed to share. Would it be lonely then?"

Her fidgeting with the dial stopped as she stared at it, or perhaps through it. Again, it was hard to tell from her gaze alone. What wasn't hard to decipher was her voice, and the soft tone it held as she whispered her answer. "Yes. Yes, it is."

She suddenly cleared her throat, tapping on the glass as she quickly changed the subject. "S-SO, may I ask you what sort of effects you've noticed your magic has?"

Running through his memory, Alfred began to quickly list some off the top of his head. "Well, it tends to bring out the negative emotions of those who are affected by it. It makes my own emotions more potent when it's out of control, and it tends to feed off of my emotions so sometimes there's a bit of a feedback loop there. It… it makes me stronger. Not just physically, but I feel more confident. Surer of myself. Less nervous honestly. Oh, and when I generate too much I start to warm up and sometimes I shoot electricity out of my hands."

At no point did she stop and look at him as if he were crazy, writing down each note and then comparing it with whatever results she had gotten so far. "Seems to fall into order so far. Right now, it just seems like an abnormal case of ki, life energy. Though you seem to be only capable of generating negative ki, which is usually enough to drive some people mad, but you seem to be able to handle it just fine. Maybe she could help…"

She quickly glanced at the magnifying glass contraption, taking a single step away from it before suddenly lunging back to it and tapping on the glass a few times. Her head began to shake, which was the worst thing she could have done to calm his nerves. Well, the second worst thing. The worst thing was her next words.

"Well, that's not good."

"What? What's not good?"

Grabbing her notebook, Kiyome quickly sketched something out before shoving it into his face. Giving it a quick look over, it reminded him of some kind of 6D cube from a random video he had seen on the internet, though with gaps missing in its structure. "What is this?"

She pointed at the structure, specifically at some of the missing parts. "This is what seems to be the source of all the negative ki coming from your body. It looks to be a magical core of sorts, not a rare phenomenon but I've never seen one this complex. It looks to operate on the foundations of fourth dimensional physics, or in layman's terms, take energy from some exterior layer of reality and refine it into a different form. My best guess is the Dimensional Gap, but even then, my scanners don't seem to pick up any of the chaotic signatures that would naturally be given off as a consequence of that, so I doubt the energy comes from there."

Her scanners were mostly comprised of rocks, but he wasn't about to voice that opinion. Not when she was the expert here. "And what about the missing bits?"

"I'm getting to it. Anyway, the core's advanced state is only hampered by its incompleteness, which looks to be due to a rushed construction. This is likely why it never stops generating energy, even at the detriment of your own body. Or why you likely have so much difficulty controlling it properly. Or even why it seems so unstable."

"Unstable?"

Pulling the drawing away, she flipped her notebook to a previous page and began to explain some of her findings. "While this is only based on surface level scans, I can say with some degree of certainty that the energy inside you is some of the most unstable I've ever seen. To be honest, the fact you haven't exploded by now is a miracle."

"What."

"I mean, I would've thought your body would mutate into something horrible by now even if it didn't."

WHAT!"

She waved her hand dismissively, reaching into one of her cabinets and pulling out what looked like small stone nipples. "Those are just surface scans, they're bound to be inaccurate anyway. If we want anything more concrete, we'll need to go a little deeper. Bare your upper body for me."

Concerned and very willing to get some more information, he had Threat recede down his back until it was just covering his lower body. Kiyome then placed one stone thing on either of his shoulders, another over his heart, one over his stomach, and three along the length of his spine on his back. Despite having no glue or anything, they stuck to his skin rather tightly.

"Right, now with these in place I'm going to have you perform some field experiments. Just monitoring your ki levels through some minor stress testing. Wear this over your ear."

She handed him another stone thing, this one carved to fit around an ear. He fit it behind his left, surprised at how comfortably it rested. The thing then began to vibrate, painfully at first before it suddenly came down to a slow piano melody.

"That is a device made by my fairy friends, and it can transmit vibrations almost anywhere in reality. Well, anywhere from the human world to its sublayers. If you go to the Underworld, this thing is as good as useless."

Still useful, especially since he had no plans of ever going to the Underworld. He wondered if the other stone devices she had were also made by fairies, considering their legend of holding a disdain for iron. Kiyome seemed to recognize his question before he could even ask it, giving him a quick history lesson as she opened the window. "Fairies can't stand any sort of industrial metal, as during the industrial revolution they became symbols of mankind's ruin of nature for their own selfish purposes. I try to have as few as possible to accommodate them."

Gesturing for a few of the fairies to come closer, she let out a few high-pitched whistles and pointed to a section of forest northeast of the manor. They whistled back, flying off as she looked towards him and tapped the glass. "You're going to go two miles down to the northeast for these tests. Don't worry about collateral, I just told the fairies to evacuate the area so go nuts. But not too nuts, landscaping is expensive."

Not knowing what the right response to that was, Alfred just shrugged and leapt out of the window. Threat crawled back up his body, a tendril shooting out of his palm as he yanked himself out of the air and away from the manor. He swung through the forest, bouncing off the occasional branch as the communication piece on his ear began to vibrate.

"Hello? Is this getting through?"

"Loud and clear."

A sigh came from the other end as he grabbed a branch and spun around it, letting himself go on the upward swing as he broke through the roof of the forest before falling back down. He let out another tendril, pulling himself up feet first so that his hand could graze the ground on the swing.

"Good. These rock comms are a bit old, so I wasn't sure if they'd work. Anyway, how close are you to the test zone?"

"Pretty close. Quick question, what exactly is this place? I know it's a pocket dimension or whatever, but what does that even mean in this context?"

He tightened his core and crossed his feet, going through a small gap between branches before turning his body around and sending out another tentacle. It was surprisingly easy, perhaps a combination of his own power-enhanced senses and Threat's subtle assistance making a smoother ride than it otherwise would be.

"As far as I'm aware, it's done through making a sort of sublayer of the human realm. Something about folding space to create a small 'world' in a world. I don't know, it's not my area of expertise."

Giving one last flip in the air, Alfred landed on the ground before giving his surroundings a look. It was… just a forest. Nothing interesting or special, just grass, trees, and the occasional rock or twig. "At the testing site. How are we doing this."

"Well, first I need you to stop holding yourself back. If we're going to test your magical core, we need to make sure it's working at normal levels and not being restrained."

Stop holding back? The thought had never come to him, having spent his time with this power learning only how to suppress it. At this point, holding back was as natural as breathing. He could scarcely remember what it was like to just let go, and it actually took him a moment to even start releasing his restraint.

It wasn't some massive exertion of force or scream of rage to summon his strength, if anything it was the opposite. It was a calm exhale of his breath as the tension he had carried in his shoulders for as long as he could remember faded away. The weight his body was constantly under, to the point of it being a warm friend, eased itself off of him until it was gone in its entirety. And the fog over his mind that had convinced him it was all there ever was pulled back to reveal a clear sense of his being, a clear mind.

"Holy- I said stop holding back not charge up!"

Alfred opened his eyes, lighter than he had felt in years as he stared at rapidly browning grass and reddening leaves. "I did. That was me letting go."

"…Perhaps it's for the best that you hold back whenever you're around anything alive ever."

Raising his leg, he pressed his shin against a tree before returning to a normal position, holding his breath, and slamming his leg into the tree. The bark cracked and splintered as his leg buried itself halfway through the tree, bits of wood exploding outwards from the force.

"What was that?"

He coughed into his hand, stepping away from the tree as he tried to act casual. "Nothing. So, what now?"

There was the sound of some sort of fumbling in the background, before Kiyome eventually spoke up. "Okay, now I just want you to perform some basic magic."

"About that…"

"…You don't know any magic, do you?"

"I usually just punch things."

There was a sigh on the other end of the comm, before she eventually amended her statement. "Just do anything that drains your energy."

There was an embarrassing amount of time where he just sort of stood there and punched the air, hoping to drain some of his energy before remembering the lightning thing from the night before. He held his hands out, unsure of how to actually do it as he gathered his energy into his hand and watched with excitement as they began to spark. He pushed more into them, electricity bouncing between his fingers before one final push got it blasting out of his hands and into a tree, leaving a scorched mess behind.

"A massive amount of energy just dropped on my end, how are you feeling?"

He flexed his hands, the skin of his palms tingling a bit from the electricity but otherwise with zero side effects or damage. "Pretty great. Last time I tried that I exhausted myself and ended up crashing hard."

"I'd imagine. While it's hard to compare, I'd say you just let out half the amount of magic I could channel for a day into that blast."

That much? It hardly felt like it to him. If anything, he was still feeling ready to go and drop a couple more of those. "What are my levels at?"

"Nearly full, which is both amazing and terrifying. No wonder you overheat sometimes, your natural regeneration rate is enough to kill a normal person in days."

"But not me?"

He experimented with the energy a bit more, letting out smaller bursts of electricity as he tried to get a feel for the control of it.

"Apparently not. I'm still trying to figure out why that is. I may need more tissue samples, and some new equipment, to figure this out."

"Sorry."

"Sorry? This is the best day of my life! You are a fascinating specimen, the best I've ever had!"

His cheeks ran a bit red at that, not sure if he should feel as complimented by it as he was. "W-Well you're pretty cool too."

"I know. Do something else now."

He cracked his knuckles, unsure of what to do next when Threat began to make a series of gestures. Watching carefully, Alfred managed to make out a sword shape, some kind of ghost, and an explosion. It made no sense to him, but if Threat was excited then he'd indulged.

He tugged on his center, holding his hands together as ki began to form between them in a ball of red haze. Tendrils then began to wrap around the ki, condensing into a ball before another layer of ki formed over and another layer of tendrils formed over that and condensed. This process repeated a few more times, going to a total of five before the strain was becoming too much. He held the ball in front of him, watching as a final bit of energy pushed it forward and made it splat against a tree.

"…Was that really-"

The splattage began to move, spreading itself up the tree as it began to break through the bark and infect inside. He watched in a mix of both curiosity and disgust as the slime possessed the tree and made the branches move like arms.

"Your energy levels just dropped to near zero, what happened?"

"I have no idea how to describe it."

Wanting to remove the slime from the tree before Kiyome found out, he went to reach for it when it ripped itself from the tree and attached to his hand. He started to freak out but paused as the slime shifted to form a basic sword with tendrils coming out of it. "I think I made a tentacle sword."

"Tentacle sword? Ah, I knew I forgot something. That familiar wrapped around your body? Well, the biometric scan rendered completely nothing from its sample. Like, there was zero living tissue in there. However, it did pick up on the magic sensor. My current theory is that the creature is somehow a bit of sentient, solid magical energy. More testing needs to be done to be sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's the answer which, if true, may be the most important discovery of the century. Of ever even!"

Curious as to the usefulness of the sword, he swung it against the nearest tree. It cut a few inches through, which wasn't bad, but then the sword shifted its form in his hand. He swung it again, and this time it got a few inches deeper. It adapted to the attack once more, getting sharper as the next hit went even deeper. "Yeah uh, that might be right. The sword seems to be adapting each time I swing it. You know, to be a better sword."

"Well considering the kind of magic it's been feeding off of, I'm not surprised."

"How so?"

"Well, it seems as if your magic's instability may be intentional. Or at the very least, it's functioning in a way that seems to be. I'm going to try something real quick, wait just a moment."

He was going to question what it was she was going to try, but a sudden draining sensation that made him drop to his knee answered that question. "The hell was that?"

"I was just using the sensors on you to drain some energy and send it here. I need to introduce it to some outside stimuli, and I'd rather not get anywhere near your circle of negativity right now."

Rude, but fair. Leaning against a tree while his energy recovered, he examined the sword in his hand and watched as it slowly began to disintegrate before his eyes, a lack of energy being fed into it leading to its eventual deterioration. A shame considering how much energy it took to make, but understandable. Well, mostly understandable. It probably took some energy to maintain that form, though why it did he had no clue. Just another mystery to the pile, he supposed.

"Alright, update. I had one of my yuki-onna friends come and perform a basic bit of frost youjutsu near one of the samples, and after some time it began to take in the magic's traits and actually lowered in temperature, even after the magic had long ended."

"How does that even work?"

"No clue. Perhaps extended exposure just leaves an imprint on the energy, or maybe there's some other mechanism at work that we just haven't noticed."

He hummed, not sure how to add to the conversation other than the usual. "Alright, so what now?"

"For now, I think you may want to come back."

"Why would I-"

It was then that his stomach rumbled and he was forced to sit up straight, the consequences of his rushed actions coming to kick him in the ass. He stood up, shooting a tentacle as he began making his way back in record time. "Do you happen to have-"

"The baby wipes are underneath the sink. Do make sure to restrain yourself again before coming here."

"Y-Yeah, thanks."

This, he decided, was the most embarrassing thing to ever happen to him in front of a girl ever. There was no topping it.

… … …

It would be quite some time before Alfred would find his body agreeable, and by that point it had long since become night. He swung through the city, taking advantage of the Veil to stick to the high city buildings and dive through the streets with a last moment tendril to catch himself. It was freeing, but not as much as it used to be.

The restraint, he decided, was the issue. After letting go of himself for the first time in years, suddenly going back to holding himself back felt suffocating. Like he was wearing a fat suit with numbing cream covering his skin from head to toe. It wasn't comfortable, as if he were holding in his breath and never letting go. He could probably make a dozen other similar metaphors, but the point would be the same: he felt restricted.

"You see any demons yet?"

"Not- never mind that, spotted something."

Alfred leapt off the side of a particularly tall office building, he aimed himself carefully, landing on the back of a bus-sized lizard thing that his fantasy brain was calling a wyvern. His clawed fingers dug into the wyvern's scales, not piercing them but finding grooves in the pattern to use as grips as the creature tried to buck him off.

"Stuck on the back of a wyvern! Unless that doesn't mean what I think it does!"

"Oh, those things. They were made after some devil tried to create a dragon species using devil magic but failed pretty badly. They're basically sky rats, don't bother with it."

A little late for that now.

The wyvern began to loop in the air, loosening one of his hands as he held onto dear life with the other. He tried to grab back onto the wyvern with his other hand but couldn't quite get a good grasp and Threat's adhesive trick didn't seem to work on its scales. Threat did, however, have another trick it was eager to share. It began to move down his hand, sharpening into a blade which followed the curve of his hand. Alfred, though dumbstruck at the sudden ability, went along with it and stabbed the wyvern in the back.

Its tail and wings suddenly went limp, the blade likely cutting through the beast's spine, and it began to fall. The two of them plummeted to the ground, the wyvern still screeching as it tried to regain control of itself with no luck to be found. Seeing the concrete getting closer at a rapid pace, Alfred let go of the demon's back and sent a tendril to a nearby building, using it to swing off the momentum and land where the wyvern crashed.

He went to inspect the body, before stopping as a rush of power went through him and Threat began to spasm slightly.

"What's going on? Your energy just jumped up 7%."

Alfred took a knee, moving the wyvern's head around as he adjusted to the feeling. "Dunno. I beat it, and suddenly I feel… different. Better."

"Hm, do it again."

Kiyome's command went without saying, as a maddened lamia slithered out of an alleyway and attempted to skewer him with a dark metal spear. He twisted out of the way, eyes wide as a blaze of heat followed the blade of the spear. Grabbing the shaft, he yanked the lamia towards him and slammed his fist into the side of her jaw. Her hands loosened on the spear, allowing him to rend it from her grip and twirl it around, stabbing it into her chest.

A beat passed, and the full weight of his actions hit him then and there as he stumbled back and let the lamia's corpse fall. "I-I just killed a lamia."

"Did you? Unfortunate, but that's the fate of those born from demons and human women. They can never shake the instinct of demons to kill humans, not usually anyway."

That bit of information was somewhat nice to know but didn't stop the fact that he had killed a fully sapient being. There were lamia milling about Kiyome's home right now, he reckoned. Perhaps he could have tried to reason with it, rather than just blindly murder it in cold blood. Kiyome had, after all.

"Evander? Are you alright?"

His hand reached towards the earpiece, his breath shaky as he counted backwards from ten. "Just… thinking. Could I have reasoned with her? Did I… did I kill her for no reason?"

"Not likely. You need a special kind of incense made from the feathers of an angel to ease their minds. The only reason my family has any was due to an old deal made with the Church a century or two ago, and even then, I barely have enough to keep the ones here sane for the next few years."

What an awful life that must be, in a constant bloodrage outside of your own free will. He leaned on the spear, not reacting as several more lamiae began to peek out from the alleyways, anger in their eyes as they saw their comrade fallen beneath him. Threat tensed around his body, urging him to crush them as easily as he had their friend. But he didn't want that. They were a victim of a curse they never wanted, a victim of circumstance.

He wanted to help them.

One of the lamiae lunged forward spear first but was quickly subdued as he smacked her weapon aside and grabbed her neck with his hand. She tried to escape, but his other hand gripped onto her face as he forced her eyes to lock onto his. She screamed for a moment, but stopped as the golden gleam of his mask's eyes found its way into her own.

"Lust for blood no longer."

The lamia went limp as he dropped her, head splitting as a red haze threatened to cover his vision. He covered his face, crouching to a knee as several tendrils burst out of his back in a protective manner. The thirst for violence made his arms shake, and the only thing he could do was recite a brief mantra in the hopes that the repetition would ease his aching mind.

"I am in control of my body. I am the master of my mind. I am my own man, no one else's. I am in control of my body. I am the master of my mind. I am my own mind, no one else's."

Eventually, the feeling began to fade away as his mouth began to dry. He could feel himself panting, sweat pressed against his skin due to the tight nature of the symbiotic suit he wore. His arms fell to his sides, head raising as the lamia he had grabbed peered down at him in a mix of confusion and concern. She hissed at him, saying something though the words were impossible to understand. What he could decipher, however, was the intent behind them. The uncertainty, the need to know why.

"Because… I understand."

The lamia's eyes widened, before she hissed loudly to the others who looked ready to try and make swiss cheese of him. Threat kept them at bay, though they only faltered in their desire to kill him as their companion began to talk to them in their snakelike language. They hissed back, unconvinced of whatever she was saying, but stopped as she grabbed hold of his arm and helped him to his feet. She begged him with a look, gesturing to her friends and then his eyes.

"I'll… try…"

The mask around his face pulled back as he grabbed the rock comm on his ear, giving it to the lamia and gesturing to her ear. She put it on, hissing as it vibrated before starting a conversation with Kiyome.

"Can she hear me?"

His strength was coming back to him, enough so that he was able to stand on his feet without any assistance. The lamia nodded after the comm vibrated, likely only understanding because of Kiyome's translation.

"I'm going to take their bloodlust into myself, please take care of them for me afterwards."

He didn't bother to wait for an answer, his mask coming back up as he made sure each of the lamia were in his field of view. He took a deep breath in, searching for the bloodlust within their hearts. He found it easily, a cancer on their lives which brought more pain than good. He called to them, his existence brushing up against theirs as tendrils of a no-so-physical kind gripped onto the hatred and began to pull.

"Let me bear your bloodline's hatred."

Each bit of bloodlust ripped off of the lamia, receding into him as he pulled away and digested their curse. A pain entered his throat as his wail tore through it, claws digging into his own flesh as what little of his sane mind remained directed all his newfound rage inward. Their malice became his. Their ill will flowed through him. Their sins weighed on his shoulders. All of it became his to bear, and he took it all headfirst with purpose.

The aspect of their curse of violence, its goetia, became his.

His next bout of consciousness came on the top of a roof, lips cracked and throat hoarse. He rolled to his chest, struggling to push himself up as his arms protested their use. Still he persisted, eventually getting to a wobbly footing as he leaned against a large vent.

"Fufufu, up so soon?"

In his later retellings of this moment, Alfred would choose to describe his next movement as strong in the face of absolute exhaustion. That was not how it was, as his body flopped to a knee as Himejima sat across from him on another vent in her priestess garb, a cocky smile on her face.

"You…"

"Yes, me."

She rolled her eyes as she hopped off the vent, peering down into the city streets before sending a bolt of lightning down at some random demon. "Don't rush to thank little old me, it's not like I saved your life from some nasty little wyvern hoping to get a free snack."

"Wh-Why…?"

Her hair blocked his view of her face, so he couldn't say what her expression was. He could, however, notice the odd tinge of warmth to her voice as she gave her answer. "Because that kind of stupid, unnecessarily heroic behavior was… familiar to me. Idiotic, but familiar."

So, she had seen his little stunt with the lamia then. What that answer meant, he wasn't sure, but he still didn't like being so vulnerable around an enemy. "No… ritual…?"

She scoffed as she turned to him, idly frying a wyvern out of the sky as she glared at his weakened form. "Still with that? Just because I don't kick dying puppies on my work hours doesn't mean our little spat is over. Far from it, I still plan on killing you. Just, not now is all."

A deflection, but from what remained a mystery. Regardless, his fatigue-addled mind only managed to put together the fact she wished to kill him, missing the context around it as he raised his arms in a brawling stance. That made her laugh rather loudly, hands crackling as she regarded him with more amusement than threat. "You have quite the one-track mind, don't you, Berserker? Very well, I'll oblige a little punishment for you~"

Her lightning flashed before his eyes just as an alarm went off beside his head, making him jolt awake before wincing as his crotch tingled painfully. He glanced around his room, eyes landing on a note folded neatly beside his alarm. He grabbed it, wincing as he threw his leg over the bed and read it.

You're lucky I don't mix business with pleasure, else you'd be a smoking mess on the sidewalk.

P.S. You may want some ice for that gift I left you~

The paper crumbled in his hands, brow twitching as he limped over to the mini-fridge in the corner of his room and grabbed the ice cube tray.

That bitch shot his balls with hell lightning, and he was going to make her pay.

… … …

A bit of an exposition heavy chapter, but one that was necessary. I've decided to sort of ignore the Waifu Catalog as a concept in this fic, and instead sort of blend it into the world. How I'm going to do this is, well, actually really easy. But that's for me to know and you to eventually find out. Anyway, no multiverse shenanigans here.

On a different note, I hope that Kiyome's explanation of the world didn't take away from the fantasy too much. One of the things about magicians in canon is that their magic is based on logic and algorithm/math, so I figured that it makes sense that a magician would explain the world in a way that feels pseudo-scientific. The whole 4D thing was a particularly egregious bit, but that was actually the easiest way for me to explain it if that made sense. I was watching Curious Archive's video "Simulating Biology in Other Dimensions" (great video, highly recommend) and his bit on fourth dimensional space inspired me to make that be the basis of how dimensional magic worked (that, and the catalog description of a magical core literally says it draws power from an interdimensional space) so that ended up being important. The world still operates on a supernatural focus, humans just have a tendency to try and rationalize what they can't understand and the magician's order is the epitome of this.

Also, Goetia are starting to make an appearance. The ramifications of which will be felt next chapter and onward, but still. They here now. I kind of wish I had more to say, but I really don't. A common issue for me, but oh well.

This has been A Decent Hoonter, and I've been blasting my edgy boi playlist for this story.