ALL NOVEL Off with the heads
Thoughts and worries of different kinds flooded Sirzechs’ mind. He was scared of possibly not being able to shield Rias away from the consequences of her deal with Zekram, from the consequences of the release of sinners from the Underworld through the rampage of her pawn. He was scared of the possibility of bathing himself again in destruction against those who didn't deserve it like the devils before him.
This was the last revolt that hadn’t been yet quelled. Grayfia was the one who was supposed to quell it. Sirzechs had appeared and said to his wife who was now standing in his back that he would be to one to take care of it.
Grayfia could be ruthless and he knew that his wife wouldn’t hesitate before brutally putting down the reincarnated and low-class devils before him. Chances were slim but Sirzechs hoped that he could stop any meaningless loss of life.
“Sirzechs Lucifer, HERE TO DIE!” Shouted the devil before him.
The devil appeared young, painfully young for Sirzech. It was a devil who was probably not even over 200 years old.
When your race was immortal and had existed since the beginning of time, it was hard to see devils of a certain age as nothing less than babies.
It was one of the things that had been a thorn in his side since he and the others became Satan. Even now, after having lived for more than a thousand years, the Satans were still called youngsters.
“Aaron,” Sirzechs said softly the name of the devil before him. “We don't have to fight. This would be madness. People who don't need to die would! I'm sure we can find a compromise, a way to ensure there’s peace.”
“Peace?!” the boy repeated the word as if it were an insult. “Sometimes, plop, an idea shits in your head. And you think that shit smells good. Peace is a beautiful but shitty idea. Peace sound like a good idea at first but in reality, it is a shitty concept at least for those who never benefitted from it.”
“There was peace when some of us were forcefully reincarnated! There was peace when we were treated as if we were worse than trash because we were low-class devils! There was peace when you did nothing Crimson Lucifer!”
Why couldn't he understand?! “Things weren't the best and you're right when you say they need to change but what you're doing will only make things worse. Stop, make the others stop. Things can still end without more bloodshed.”
“Will the pure-blood devils we annoyed by daring to want for more allow this? Can you promise that things will be better?” the reincarnated devil asked him.
“I can only promise you on the heads of my son and my sister that I’ll do my best so nothing happens to any of you.”
“It's a shame you know,” the reincarnated devil sighed. “When they said that members of the Gremory clan were different, that you were different, I didn't believe it but looking at you now, I can see you're not a monster. You're just like us shackled in a different way. You're just a puppet You should have never been a Satan”.
The boy raised his sword at Sirzechs “We chose death and our choice doesn't change. Better a quick death than an eternal torture!”
Why? Why couldn’t they understand that their death would change nothing? Why couldn't they understand that their lives would end meaninglessly? Things no matter how bad they were could become better. Sirzechs ignored the voice at the back of his mind that whispered that things could become worse instead.
“We are free!”
“We are free!”
“Death before slavery!”
“Freedom before everything!”
They shouted in anger, in despair, in hope as they rushed toward him. Everyone here on this battlefield knew what would happen in the next few minutes. Everyone knew that this battlefield wasn't truly one. It was a graveyard that was on the point of being consecrated.
“Sirzechs, I can do it for you if you want,” he heard his wife whisper at his side. Sirzechs hated this, he hated the useless bloodshed, he hated the fact that he would have to destroy again with his hands. He hated the fact that he was wondering if there even was a point.
Sirzechs was the strongest yet he never felt more weak. “No,” he answered softly. “I chose to take this crown. It is my, duty, my burden. It would be best if you take some distance.”
“Understood my king,” Grayfia answered him before disappearing with a bat of her wings.
Dark Crimson pooled into reality as Sirzechs released into the world a fragment of his true self. It took a simple shape, the one of a spear. Sirzechs grabbed it.
They closed all around their weapons, their magic centimetres away from their skin. Sirzechs plunged the spear into the ground. The spear made of the power of destruction began to lose shape before it exploded.
A wave of destruction erupted in an omnidirectional wave all around Sirzechs. It met the rebels, the reincarnated devils and erased them from existence.
In a flash, they were all gone as if they had never existed. In a flash, Sirzechs Lucifer slaughtered Thousands.
In a flash, lives, flesh and souls were all extinguished from reality, blown out like the fire of a candle.
It was easy, so easy, too easy and it sickened him. He had killed people who were right, who had only wanted more. Sirzechs killed again for an ideal he wasn't even sure he still believed in.
Sirzechs, the strongest who couldn't change anything. Sirzechs the strongest who couldn’t save anyone.
“The different clans of the Ars Goetia will be pleased my king,” Grayfia said at his side.
“Yeah, they will.”
“I'll now stop talking as your queen and will now begin to talk as your wife. Are you alright Sirzechs?” He could feel in the normally icy voice of his wife's care and love.
Many had called his wife a heartless monster, a frigid bitch and other worse nicknames. Only Sirzechs knew how all of those things were wrong. Grayfia cared, Grayfia loved like a Gremory maybe even more deeply than he ever could. Sirzechs could understand even if he could never feel the same way the hatred many felt toward Grayfia. After all, she had been one of the Aces of the old Satan faction before falling in love with him. She had wiped out entire bloodlines and tortured mercilessly childhood friends.
“I'm not Grayfia. I truly am not. I'm wondering if there is even a point to this anymore. I am tired. I feel tired,” he told her truthfully. He was a being of nigh limitless stamina and strength. He shouldn't feel exhausted yet he did.
Grayfia hugged Sirzechs from the back. He felt her touch, her love, her support as if she was a pillar on which he could lean.
“What do you think this?” she asked him softly.
“The war, the nobles clans, Us, Rias Millicas, my father. There are so many important things at skate and only one error would be enough to make everything crumble. I became Lucifer because I never wanted anything like what the old Satan Faction did or the suffering that occurred because of the great war to ever affect our race again yet here I am doing exactly the same thing as them.
A depreciative laugh escaped from the lips of the crimson Lucifer “It must seem like I'm complaining for nothing right? Boo hoo hoo, poor me, It's so stup-”
“Stop,” the icy voice of Grayfia cut him. “I would not allow anyone even you to speak in such a way of the devil I Love.”
“Sorry Grayfia.”
“Make sure it never happens again. “
“It won’t Grayfia.”
“Good. I'll follow you no matter what you do or don't do Sirzechs. The world you want to create, create it. If for that, You Gotta Kill, Kill… If you Gotta Burn It All to the Ground, Then Let It Burn…"
“I made to myself a promise Grayfia. I made to them a promise to not become like the old Satans,” Sirzechs spoke softly.
“Satan represents kindness to those who deserve it, instead of love wasted on integrated,” Grayfia quoted one of the sacred texts of devil-kind. Her words weren’t simply words. They were some of the original commandments created by the Original Lucifer before his demise.
Of course, Grayfia knew them perfectly. She was born a Lucifuge, a devil whose original goal only had been the respect and the application of the will of Lucifer himself.
“If we do this, if I do this, there’ll be no steps back. If I do this, I'm no better than them Grayfia.”
“Sometimes, beautiful flowers can only bloom from rivers of blood soaking in their roots and petals. You don’t have to do it now but Think about it. If now, you and the other Satans died, Do you think the devil-kind you left behind would be one you would be proud of?”
The words like a sword pierced his heart. Was he satisfied? Was Sirzechs Happy? Was he able to change truly anything? Were devils not doing things that were wrong simply because they were wrong or were they not doing it because they feared the possible consequences he could bring on them? Would he be proud of the race he left behind?
“I need to think,” Sirzechs thought out loud.
“Take all the time you want beloved.” He felt an icy kiss touch his cheek leaving it numb. Serafall wasn’t the only Archdevil of ice their faction had. Had Grayfia done so on a lesser being or on a mortal, she would have simply killed them, giving them a true death kiss. “I'll wait for you in the castle,” he heard her voice whisper in his right ear before she left.
What did he want to do? Who was Sirzechs free of every shackle he had self-inflicted himself with?
Was his true self a father? Was his true self a son? A brother? A husband? A monster? What did he truly crave?!
He was exhausted from this endless spiral. He hated this never-ending cycle of tragedy and pain, this never-ending cycle of destruction and pain.
It felt as if he was born damned. It felt as if he was a sinner and his punishment was this but he could change it, he could change it!
It wouldn't even be hard! Love didn't change anything! Only power did! Only power did and Sirzechs didn't lack power. With a step, Sirzechs disappeared from the place that once could have been a battlefield to a place he hadn’t set foot in for a thousand years.
Before all of this, before being a Satan, before having to fight, He had been a teacher, a simple music teacher.
It hadn't been something his parents knew, that most knew. The only ones who did know were the other current Satans and his wife.
He had been exhausted, weary from his role of heir of the Gremory clan, he had been exhausted of the casual cruelty and evil of the other devils.
This place had been his solace, this place had been the place he had considered his first home.
Time hadn’t been kind to it. The destroyed woods that remained after all those years seemed on the point of collapsing into nothing with only one touch.
The only things left of this place were ashes, rot and destruction yet memories of life, of laughter, of music assaulted his mind each time he continued to look.
If this place hadn't been destroyed, if they hadn’t died, Sirzechs would have never become a Satan.
They had been orphans, low-class devil orphans yet for him, they were special. He had never met before the strength they continuously displayed.
They were hated, seen as lessers yet they soldiered on, they were seen as lessers yet they never stopped smiling. They showed to Sirzechs what he had thought of as true strength.
This strength he admired in them, the strength in their heart that he loved wasn't enough to save them.
A pure-blood devil from the house of Asmodeus had chosen without provocation, without any reason to kill them all, to destroy the orphanage.
The Asmodeus did it because he could. The Asmodeus killed them and in return, Sirzechs brought down everything to make him pay. When the monster inside of Sirzechs was satiated, it remained from the Amodeus clan only one devil, Creuserey who had been a child of no more than ten years old at that time.
Looking back, Sirzechs should have killed him. The boy chose on the first occasion to betray them and join the old Satan faction.
He destroyed the old order to create a new one, one that was better, one that was kinder, at least, this had been his goal. It was clear to him now that he had failed.
“I tried to be like all of you,” Sirzechs spoke softly. He knew they were completely gone but even then, it felt cathartic.
“I tried to be something you would be proud of. I tried to create a world where concepts like status, power, wealth wouldn't define everything. I tried and failed.” the only thing Sirzechs had truly done was drowning himself in rivers of blood thinking those despicable acts served a better future.
“I am scared,” he revealed to the empty air. “For the first time in my life, I lost a fight, I lost doing the only thing I was good at.” It didn't matter that he wasn't fighting with his full power. It didn't matter that now that he had experienced it, no such thing would be affecting him the same way. Sirzechs was supposed to be the strongest? Who was Sirzechs if he wasn't the strongest?
“My sister became entangled with an Evil so deep it could swallow stars because I hadn't been smart, strong enough. if it had been someone else other than our grandfather, my little sister would have died. I would have been powerless as my sister died before me. I don't even think that things in the future would be alright because she made a deal with our grandfather, an Archdaemon!”
“I feel like the end is coming. I don’t know whether it is the end of our race, me losing my life or even something else. All this time, I was shackled to an ideal, to an image because I wanted you wherever you all are to see me and be proud of what I have become but you are all dead.”
Sirzechs had been foolish. He had let the past restrain him. He should have grieved and gone forward “I don’t care anymore. The only thing that matters to me now is those I consider family and me.”
Sirzechs before being Sirzechs was a being of destruction incarnate. How could something that went against its own nature even thrive?
A simple unremarkable phone appeared in the right hand of the crimson Satan. This was a special device, one created by Ajuka, one that would ensure that wherever he was, he would be able to join the other Satans. This was a device that couldn't be tracked, completely undetectable. He pressed it against his left ear and pushed his demonic energy into it.
After an instant, he heard the voice of Serafall “What's the urgency Sirzechs? Is Heaven attacking without us knowing?” she asked him.
“I'm sure he would explain if you let him talk,” drawled Falbium. It seemed the slothful Satan had been taking a nap when Sirzechs’ call awoke him.
“You were all right,” Sirzechs softly.
“Of course, we were right! What were we right about?” Serafall asked.
“About the pillar clans, about us giving them too much power,” he answered.
“Take that Ajuka! You lost! You owe me a custom-made Galaxy! Wait, Ajuka you lost a bet?”
Annoyance seeped from the voice of Falbium “Couldn't you have taken more time like maybe a thousand years before calling us?”
Sirzechs heard Ajuka sigh “I lost,” the Beelzebub spoke as if he couldn’t believe it himself. “How surprising. You’ll have it Sera.”
They had made bets? “Did you all make bets on me behind my back? You all are unbelievable”. Even though was saying it, a smile was etched on his face.
“That’s why you like us~” Serafall sang.
She stooped abruptly, the easiness and softness of her voice disappearing to be replaced by a cold emotionless apathetic tone “Ajuka, what would be the best plan?”
“The plan is simple. Don’t use your bloodline powers, use your bare hands. Don't be merciful, don’t hesitate. In the end, even if they hate us, the chances of the remaining pillar devils changing and things becoming better for us will become 60% likely. Don’t worry about killing them all if you must. In the case you do, I'll just clone them. I'll also be making sure from afar that nothing wrong happens.“
“Understood,” Serafall answered. Her voice didn't seem as cold. Sirzechs could sense in it a sense of happiness “A lot of old devils had dared laughing at my sister. I'm sure their head will make her feel better.”
“Sirzechs, Falbium, Serafall, remember, no hesitation,” and with those words, the communication was cut and the underworld was bathed with blood.
