Michael-1

Michael found himself sighing in sadness, longing, grief, and sorrow as he gazed upon his father's throne. His seat of power. The great throne of heaven—or whatever name people called it nowadays. The throne, which looked like it was carved out of marble and starlight, still looked as majestic as ever, yet it didn't feel like it once did.

It didn't feel as warm, welcoming, and fatherly as it used to. No, it felt static… lifeless…dead… like a constant reminder that their father is now gone.

It had been centuries since the day they lost their father, yet here he was, kneeling before his father's throne, praying, hoping—waiting for his father to show up and say, "Hey kids, how have you been?" or maybe "It's been a long time, huh?" or… or maybe just "I am back." It didn't matter what he'd say. Even if he didn't say anything… couldn't he just come back??

He felt his heart tighten, his stomach twisting, his eyes blurring as he wept in silence. Like he always did. For the loss of his father, no matter how long ago it was, still felt just as saddening, just as sorrowful— somber, distressing, depressing, and everything in between.

There wasn't a word in any language—spoken, written or forgotten—that could describe how he feels, alas he couldn't let himself waste away in sorrow no matter how badly he wanted to for he has siblings to take care of, a realm to manage, a system to maintain, and a hundred different things to keep in check, for it was his duty as the eldest to keep going, to be brave and shoulder the responsibility…no matter how heavy said responsibility was…

He was Michael, the eldest of the archangels, the first-born son of Heaven… the twin brother of Helel—or as humans call him now, the Devil.

Sure, he might have opened his eyes after Helel—and even that was only because he was basking in his father's light—but that didn't mean he (Michael) wasn't the eldest… and no, opening your eyes 0.000001 time faster doesn't cancel the fact that you were created 0.000001 later, Helel!!!…

Ehem, a stray thought had kind of gotten away from him there by the end but still 'how nostalgic…' he thought as he remembered one of the oldest and silliest arguments he had to date. He remembered how he and his twin used to argue about who loved Father more, who prayed to him more… who… sigh… He shook his head a little forcefully as he stopped himself from thinking about it.

It still hurt… the betrayal…

Humans might think they knew why Helel turned away from grace, or how it happened. They'd try and theorize, rationalize and pretty much blindly guess the reasons, but they wouldn't, couldn't and won't…

He couldn't blame them though for that was just the arrogance of mortals talking. For how would they know something when he himself didn't know…

All he knew about the topic of why his twin did what he did was the simple and unmistakable truth. He was meant to… God doesn't make mistakes—his father doesn't make mistakes. So Helel's departure, his betrayal, what he did to himself in order to become the being known as Lucifer, and all the subsequent events after were always a part of his father's plan.

Still, that didn't mean that betrayal didn't hurt…

"Sigh~ I really should get going," he mumbled to himself, shaking his head as he stood up and started walking towards the system interface to do the daily check-up and see if anything needs his attention.

Navigating through the marvel of magical/divine engineering that is the system, he couldn't help but be in awe of his father's knowledge. To create a system so complicated and advanced that even after a millennium of study he still couldn't figure it out… it really was a marvel to behold.

Now with his daily humbling session out of the way, he entered the commands for a full system diagnosis and stood aside, waiting for said diagnosis to finish.

It didn't take long either; the diagnosis was done in less than forty seconds.

You'd think a system that oversees the angels, the operation and defenses of the realm, regulates the conversion of faith into divine energy, controls the afterlife and reincarnation process, and pretty much holds the very Heaven together would have taken longer—but you'd be wrong.

Sure, the system has problems, but those stem from the fact that there has been no administration log in, check-up, update, or even a boot-up. It was his inability to access the full scope of the system, and his lack of authority that made the system as faulty as it was nowadays…

Nevertheless, something else has been bothering him lately; it was this little exclamation icon in the upper corner of the system interface that indicates a leakage of divinity and light… he didn't know where it went, didn't know why it happened and that was eating at him.

Oh he had his suspicions but nothing that could be proven or otherwise talked about. That was why he needed to talk with his wayward of a brother—Azazel. To see if his suspicions had any inkling of the truth. And so after mentioning to his brothers that he was going out for a bit, and reassuring Gabriel that she didn't need to accompany him, he descended to earth…

The call went as he had predicted with Azazel proving once again that he was… 'ugh, let's just stop thinking about it and go' he grumbled as he teleported himself to the intended location.

Turned out that Azazel was not, in fact, where he said he was, and rather he was in his other club…

'I should have known he'd pull something like this'

And so here he was, getting the greeting side of the conversation out of the way and sitting beside his fallen brother, resisting the urge to start some purification rites just so he wouldn't feel like he was sitting inside a cesspool of sin…

"So tell me, what do you want to talk about?" Azazel asked.

"Hmm, well, I wanted to ask if you have figured out anything about what the ward banks truly do…" He decided to get straight to the point for he didn't want to spend one more second than necessary in here.

"Oh, just that. You could have just asked through the phone," Azazel grumbled. "We haven't really figured out much yet. So far we know that we can't replicate the creation of the crystallized ward stones themselves but we know that we could—after some extensive research—figure out the mechanics of the ward banking mechanism…" Azazel paused for a second and looked at him. "Why are you asking about this now though? What brought this on?" he then asked as he finally started to actually pay attention.

"Oh, nothing more than a suspicion for now but ever since we installed that centralized ward-bank up in heaven, there has been a leakage/loss of faith and divine energy… I don't know if it's the stone itself siphoning said energy or if it's going somewhere else but something about the situation feels unsettling to me…" He informed his brother. Knowing that even if he had fallen, he was still connected to the system just like the rest of his brothers and sisters.

"Ah, you're probably right either way, that kid has plans within plans. I am sure he has some insidious hidden function built into the ward-banks but then again, the amount of benefit they offer far outweighs a hypothetical loss…" Azazel informed him as he smiled wistfully for some reason…

"Have I ever told you how I met the kid?" Azazel suddenly asked…

"No, and you didn't need to; the video of what happened back then was all over the internet."

Shaking his head, Azazel clarified what he meant, "Yeah, no, I mean, the second time I met him and had an actual proper conversation with the kid."

"Then no. You did not."

"Well, after what happened the first time we met, you know him erasing a guy off the face of the earth, he then started taking the sacred gears of the guys that were with him…"

And then Azazel started to reiterate everything that happened that day, again. Telling him about how Harry got his hand on the spear of destiny, what he did afterwards, how much he envied the kid for getting his face stuffed between Yasaka's breasts, etc…

"… so after a lot of effort and promising to take care of all the noise he stirred that day, I managed to get him to agree to a meeting. He didn't specify anything at the time, as he left in a hurry as soon as that gremlin daughter of his started to make a fuss… but then two weeks later, there I was sitting at my desk signing some papers and suddenly a small black card with a symbol of—a triangle with a circle inside it and a line going through the middle—appeared in front of me. I checked it but all magic just slid right off it; that got me more curious than I already was so I took it. Flipping it, it read "I am a heaven's reject" and boof, I found myself spinning through something—definitely not space—and landing face first on the wooden floor of Harry Potter's office." Azazel reiterated the story of how his first meeting with Harry Potter went, while smiling wildly; clearly, he was happy about finding something interesting.

'Interesting was what got him to fall in the first place, wasn't it?' Michael shook his head at the thought. His brother was always in pursuit of something interesting. He had sex with a human because it was interesting. He fell from grace because it was interesting. Interesting is why he does anything, which in turn makes him sometimes look like a clown in the eyes of others—probably what he wants, too. He remembered him saying "it's good to be underestimated" more than once…

People these days might have forgotten, but Azazel has had and probably still has the highest kill count when it came to Pillar clan devil deaths or devils in general. He didn't kill angels unless there was no other way; the only instances where Azazel himself was responsible for an angel's death was when he was in the heat of the battle or when cornered.

Still, that was neither here nor there; he wanted to hear the rest of the story. Seeing as his brother was interested in telling it, he'd listen…

"… so here I was, inside his office, my powers sealed and my nose hurting, and all I could think of was—how the hell did he do that, right?…" Azazel said, his face lit like a child telling his favorite story. "So I asked him…"

[ flashback—Harry POV…]

Seeing the extremely familiar way of landing when using a port-key, I couldn't help but chuckle.

"Ugh, worst travel method ever," Azazel groaned as he got himself together and stood up. He blinked rapidly for a few seconds, and I could almost see the gears in his head working overtime—having everything that makes you a supernatural sealed off as soon as you hit the ground could do that to someone— "How did you do that?" was the first thing he asked as soon as his brain caught up with him.

"Pfffttt. Hahaha." I laughed a little. No, I didn’t laugh at him or his question. I laughed because I knew he was asking from a place of genuine interest. "It’s called a port-key travel method and before you ask, no, I can’t teach you how to do it." He was about to say something, but I cut him off, explaining, "Oh, don’t get me wrong; it’s not that I don’t want to teach, it’s that you can’t. And if I did teach you how to use it despite that, you’ll end up doing something catastrophic without intending to."

"Why?" he asked in the whiniest tone I’ve ever heard a grown man use.

"Well, the simplest answer is that your magic just isn’t geared like mine; ergo, you can’t use it," I answered with a shrug.

"And how would you know that without even trying?" he asked again, this time less whiny and more interested.

"That’s because I can tell what your magic can and can’t do."

He made a face that said he was equal parts skeptical and fascinated. "Does it have anything to do with this weird domain thing you’ve got going on?"

"Hmm, you know what? Yeah, let’s go with that…" I answered him. Who am I to complicate matters when someone serves me an already logical explanation? "So now that this topic is out of the way, let’s get to why you went as far as taking the clean-up job just to have a meeting with me…"

"Oh, that’s simple. Because you are interesting. You are human, yet you have a domain that is similar to that of my father. You are a teenager, but you’re already a sage, though it’s more likely that you were born one… see, everything about you is interesting," he explained, and I could already tell why he fell from grace without even needing to think about it.

"That’s why you fell from grace, isn’t it? You got too interested in something and forgot to pray or something?" I asked, genuinely curious.

"Oh, yeah. I got interested in why humans like sex so much, so I went down to observe more…you know, for scientific purposes… and then I got too interested for my own good and decided to try it. And the rest is history," he answered. Truthfully, too.

"So what was your verdict? Was it worth it?" and now I, too, got invested in the topic. Especially after I had just gone through a lot of hentai stories—that are inside my Grimoire—in my quest for some inspiration for the game I am building.

"Well, I’d say yes, but you’ll know I am lying, so there’s no point in that, but the answer is yes and no. No, it was not worth it; yes, I have come to enjoy it greatly over the years, so much so that I became one of the most renowned concierges of beauty in the world." He replied, again fully truthful and more than doubly proud. I could see that he was doing this to gain my trust—or whatever semblance of it he could get in this meeting—and I could say that it was working.

I mean, sure, it wouldn’t work, but he’ll at least get the benefit of the doubt if needed.

—flashback end—

“… and then we finally got to talking about magic, and let me tell you, that kid is scary when it comes to magic. I have never seen someone who could understand magic so intuitively in my life and I have met Merlin!!!” Azazel said, smiling proudly for some reason.

To Michael’s ears though, it sounded like this was not a good thing. Sure, he hasn’t met Harry Potter personally yet, but Gabriel did— although her judgment is biased when it comes to anyone younger than twenty-one years of age—so her assessment on the topic was shaky at best.

He loved his sister, but she was too soft when it comes to kids still. She was the archangel of mercy, so her assessment was kind of obvious.

Still, it’s good to finally know how Harry got his hands on their father’s spear, the one he used to trade with them for that girl, Asia. Yeah, that was her name… and wasn’t that a tough trade to make—not for anything else other than convincing Gabriel that it was for the good of heaven.

That was why she oversaw the trade in the first place. It was the only way to pacify her, telling her to be the one to oversee the trade and judge the kid’s character…thank Father it worked…

Nevertheless, Michael still didn’t know why he felt like something about this Harry Potter guy wasn’t right…

“…hey!! Are you even listening to me? I was about to tell you how I got into femboys thanks to Harry.” Okay, Michael would like to admit that this was a mistake; he should not have paid attention to his brother because as soon as Azazel saw him focusing again, it was game over.

And now he knew things he wished he hadn’t. About how Harry gifted Azazel a lot of manga—One of them called ‘Boku no Pico’ which was Azazel’s favorite— and now he too knew how the story went. How Azazel got interested in experiencing that type of relationship.

‘I should have left earlier,’ he thought, regretting the fact that he let his politeness keep him from running out of the room. ‘I really should have left earlier, politeness be damned…’