Chapter 55: The devil, a heretic and the antichrist went to Japan

Millicas was the only child of my brother, at least alive from what I learned of what happened with Serafall.

He was the only child in all of devilkind whose parent was a Satan, which meant that he was probably more protected than the mother of Christ in Heaven.

Kidnapping someone meant whisking them away without them wanting to. What we were doing was thus technically not one because I don’t think I had ever seen Millicas smile as much as he did right now.

With wide red eyes he inherited from his mother, and how he looked soft like a porcelain doll that had seemingly been given life, calling Millicas Gremory cute would be an understatement. Sometimes, when our brains are confronted with something too cute, we get the burning urge to eat, bite it.

I was fighting against those urges as Millicas looked at me, a small etched smile on his face. That was ridiculous, unfair. How could someone so cute exist? It's like I was before a puppy but ten thousand times cuter.

"Don’t bite the child, must not bite the child," I repeated to myself like a mantra. A part of me was sure that with the way my luck worked, there would be a possibility of me actually biting through his flesh and hurting him.

“Rias-Onee-sama, are you listening to me?” he asked me, a frown appearing on his face.

“Of course, Millicas,” I lied. Saying that my nephew was sheltered would be an understatement.

Millicas had only interacted with members or servants of our family all his life. Grayfia, his mother, was the one deciding what he could or couldn't do, who he could or couldn't talk to.

It seemed overbearing, controlling until you realized that Millicas was kind and unfortunately amongst devils, kindness was a weakness to exploit.

They would try to use him, to manipulate him. I think that what Grayfia feared wasn't any attempt at doing so. I'm sure she had plans in case to make sure it wouldn't happen.

No, I think she sheltered him this much because she didn't want the world and its cruelty to change Millicas.

She didn't want Millicas to lose his innocence, the one that shone so clearly in his eyes. I couldn't blame her for this but too much of a thing, no matter how good it was, was always synonymous with bad.

The plan had been to quickly retrieve Millicas and leave the Underworld with him. This is why we had teleported to his room.

My brother and I hadn't expected Grayfia to appear seconds after our arrival as if she had sensed a disturbance.

Thus, our kidnapping that wasn't really one because I was sure one wasn’t supposed to be enjoyable by the one kidnapped, in our case Millicas, failed and Sirzechs had to leave with Grayfia to negotiate, leaving me alone with my nephew.

Millicas was talking to me about a TV show, one called Ninjutsu Kaisen that screamed Mathers’ involvement. It was a clear rip-off or recreation of Jujutsu Kaisen.

I guess he was more serious than I thought when he spoke of making devilkind stronger through anime. What have I done? What kind of horror had I unleashed? Would Devils in the future be throwing Kamehameha? They already did. Let's think about that later.

“You’re right to say that Satoshi is cool, but in my opinion, he's not the coolest,” I told the boy. He was talking about how Expy Gojo was the coolest before asking me if I thought the same.

“No way! Satoshi is the strongest and the coolest! Who else could be cooler?”

“Geta,” I answered him. I could see him opening his mouth to deny my choice. “Let's think about it for a second Milli. Sure, Satoshi is the strongest, but except that, what? Would Satoshi be as interesting as he is if he wasn't strong? Satoshi is interesting in the sense that he is defined by his power. He's untouchable, literally disconnected from the world and all of its ugliness, unable to be touched, but Geta I think is more interesting because he's inherently bathed in this evil.”

“Geta,” I continued, my gaze locked with my nephew’s. “wasn't born strong like Satoshi. He had to fight, to eat, merge the evils of this world with his soul to become as strong. He’s the total contrary of Satoshi, a cursed vessel that cares too much.”

“He betrayed Satoshi when they were best friends,” Millicas told me. “In the end, he wasn't able to change anything. He wasn't strong enough.”

“This is where you're wrong, Milli. He changed Satoshi, he changed a god. What's funny is that maybe if he had cared less, maybe if he was more like Satoshi, he could have become the strongest.”

“Why are you saying that?”

“No one died except him, Millicas. He held back and even in the last fight, he wasn't at his best due to the curses he had released prior. He's Satoshi’s foil because he wasn't uncaring enough. He’s Satoshi's foil because even bathed in darkness, he always sought light.”

“Does it mean that true strength can only be reached through selfishness, is it the moral? If it is, I don’t like it, Rias-Onee-sama.”

I didn't like it either, but it didn't change the fact that it was the truth, whether I liked it or not. Selfishness, greediness and lack of morals literally made us devils stronger. We were after all creatures of sin and darkness no matter how human we looked.

Even then, “I feel the same,” I told him. “Most unfortunately think like this and I don't think it would be fair to deny them the right to think such. The world, Milli, is complicated, complex, and people everywhere are ready to do anything to survive.”

I forced a smile on my face. “Fortunately, we, Milli, are the exception. We are Scions of the Gremory clan and our greatest strength had always been our family. We don’t need selfishness because we have our family there to push us forward and protect us.”

I crouched down to be at eye level with him. “Don’t let the world change you, Millicas. Don’t let anything do so, and if things are hard, don't forget you're never alone. Understood?”

“Understood,” he answered me.

“Good,” I told him before standing up. “Your dad should be back soon, but while he's not there, is there anything you would like to do or talk about?” I asked my nephew before watching his face light up as if I just gave him the world.

Just because I was interested in him. I didn't really know him, I realized. The original Rias hadn't. She had loved Millicas because he was family, but she hadn't searched to know him when she could have.

Fortunately, as he led me by one hand to somewhere only he knew, things were never too late to change.

*scene*

I watched Sirzechs step into the room from the corner of my left eye. While he had been talking to Grayfia, Millicas had brought me to, according to him, his favorite place in the castle where he was raised, a music room.

I wasn't a music genius like my brother, and Millicas, like he showed me by playing the violin, a song that had almost made me weep when I didn't think I was a crybaby.

It had been as if my soul had been plucked out of my body, drowned in an ocean of pleasure before being put back in my body yearning for more.

He had encouraged me to try to play an instrument, but unlike Millicas who seemed to have fingers blessed by the predecessor of his father, my attempts were less awe-inspiring.

It's not that I wasn’t playing well. In my previous life, I had been tutored in my younger years to play the guitar and the piano. The fact that I was also a devil, with literal faster-than-lightning reactions, helped too.

I was playing at the level of human genius like Lucciano Pizzichini, which meant nothing when it was just adequate before the literally godlike music of Millicas.

I wonder what would happen though if I cheated by using my demonic energy? Myths spoke of Orpheus who through his music was able to do miracles, wander through the Greek underworld unarmed.

Could I by plucking the string of a guitar make mountains crumble? Could I by plucking the string of a guitar literally shape the world?

A chuckle escaped me. Of course, I could. I was a devil. The question wasn’t if something was possible. The question was if you were strong enough to bring into reality the effects you wished to create.

It seemed that I wasn’t as discreet as I thought or maybe Millicas noticed things more easily than expected, but his gaze traveled away from mine to fall on the form of his father.

“Father!” he screamed before reappearing before his father and hugging him. He hadn’t used any demonic energy, or if he did, I wasn’t able to feel it. This was interesting.

I put back the guitar in my hands on one of the shelves. “Can we go?” I asked my brother.

While I wasn’t paying attention, my brother had chosen to hold Millicas in his arms. Sirzechs looked human, soft. The mask of Satan had been shed to reveal the father.

Sirzechs loved Millicas, and Millicas did too. I didn't need to be a devil, to feel it, to see it through a metaphysical lens, to understand that. My brother loved his son wholeheartedly, and I knew that looking at the smiling face of his child justified in his head any sins he must have hated committing.

“Yes, Grayfia and I came to an understanding. Millicas is free to go with us as long as he comes before his tutoring lessons tomorrow.”

I watched a frown of displeasure bloom on the face of my nephew. “Don’t worry,” Sirzechs whispered to Millicas even though it was mostly for show because I could still hear him, and I was sure Grayfia could too. “I lied to your mom. We’ll be having fun instead.”

“Really??!!” the boy asked, wonder and amazement in his eyes as he looked at his father. “You were able to trick mother?!”

Sirzechs puffed his chest up like a chicken. “Of course, Millicas, I'm Lucifer, the prince of lies after all.” It looked ridiculous in my opinion, but I guess nothing else mattered right now for Sirzechs except what Millicas felt toward him.

I walked to his side. “Let's go, Sirzechs, before your wife changes her mind.”

“You’re right, Rias.” A demonic circle filled with runes blossomed under our feet. He turned toward me. “It's time to show you your new kingdom.”

“A kingdom?! Rias-onee-sama became a queen?” Millicas shouted out in surprise.

“Yep,” I told him. “A kingdom for me and being one of its owners means you're the only prince for now.”

It didn't really mean anything with the fact that an empty repurposed Takagamahara was nothing before being the heir of my brother, but hey, as long as he was happy, that's what mattered.

With the way, he had reacted, I wondered if he truly knew what being my brother’s son really meant status-wise. Was he that sheltered?

My thoughts were interrupted by the flash of the teleportation circle activating before we reappeared in a world of ice and rhyme.

*scene*

“It is better than it looks,” were the first words said by my brother after we arrived at Takagamahara.

“Do you truly believe this, brother, or are you trying to convince yourself too?”

At that, he chose to stay silent. “What about you, Milli? What do you think of my kingdom?”

“It looks prettyyy??!”

“You’re a really bad liar, Milli.”

Takagamahara looked as if it had gone through an extinction event, more precisely a glacial one. Snow fell from the sky as if the realm was stuck in an eternal winter.

Takagamahara looked grandiose with buildings made of gold, silver, and obsidian. More than that, Takagamahara was big, almost as big as a big country. If my calculus wasn’t wrong, as my eyes peered at its entirety, Takagamahara was around millions of kilometers, probably around the size of India.

It was a land where maybe once, life, luxury, and divinity existed. Now the only thing left was a world of ice.

I could see devils clad in what seemed to be heavy clothes and heavy furs working to remove what seemed to be statues of ice.

With the fact that Takagamahara had been the home of the Shinto Gods, it was clear to me that they weren't sculptures at all.

“The ice sculptures look so good! What are they trying to move them?” Millicas asked me innocently.

"Because they're corpses," almost escaped my lips. “Not everyone sees the beauty you see everywhere, Milli.”

What was worse, I think, was that I was sure that Takagamahara had been worse. I was sure that what I was seeing was a vision resulting from hard work.

“Staying here is pointless, brother. Let's explore,” I told him. “Maybe, things would be different from a different perspective.”

I doubted it, but hey, you never knew. We strolled toward the ice-covered realm. The realm, this supposed new kingdom of mine made me think of a corpse, embalmed, cleaned to appear magnificent to hide the rot inside. The question was what was this rot?

Even then, I think it wasn’t fair for me to complain. After all, Takagamahara may look like a wonderland made of ice but this was an ice I could easily bear as a devil.

Millicas had at no moment shivered. My brother was my brother, so his having a reaction would have been more than surprising and worrying.

More than that, I could feel remnants of demonic energy in the ice, demonic energy knew I would be able to take control of, shape if I wished to do so.

Sona’s bloodline fell under the control of water. This realm would be akin to throwing her

in an ocean.

It made me wonder if Serafall knew before her rampage what would happen after her slaughter of the Shinto gods.

She was a devil, more precisely a Satan. I wouldn't be surprised if a part of this was planned, if she hadn’t used what had clearly been a bad situation to her advantage.

Devils, divine magic realms, divine wars, politics, there were so many things things to juggle with.

I wished things could have just gone the same way as in canon. Kokabiel attack, the peace conference and most of the stuff that followed.

I had wanted this life to be everything my first hadn’t been able to be. Just, not in this sense. For god sake, I ignored the irony, I had wanted to do more simple things like recreating cool mangas here, change the entertainment industry of this world with the things of my original work.

I knew it would have been plagiarism but hey, I was a Gremory and money wasn’t an issue. I would have compensated them.

With magic and the wealth at my disposal as a devil heiress, I would have created wonders the like could have never been imagined in my first life.

An asshole just had to bombard the Vatican launching a second edition of the Great War.

“Rias-onee-sama, are you okay?” I heard the voice of Millicas say, bringing me out of my memories.

I turned toward the young devil and forced a smile on my face. “Everything’s fine, Milli, don't worry. Just was thinking about stupid things.”

“Stupid adult things?” he asked. I ignored the soft smile that bloomed on the face of my brother.

“Yeah, stupid adult things. Most adult things are stupid, Milli.”

His nose scrunched as he began to think, making him look like an overgrown rabbit. Must not bite, must not bite, no matter how cute, I reminded myself.

“If that's the case, I don’t want to get older!”

“We all get old, Milli, whether we like it or not. Look at your father. He’s a moving prehistoric skeleton pretending to be young.”

“Hey!” Sirzechs said in outrage. “I resent that. I'm not that old!” he complained.

Millicas’ hand moved to pat his father on the head. “It's okay, father. Even if you are old and full of stupid adult thoughts, I still love you.”

I restrained the laugh that wanted to burst out from my lips. Sirzechs looked as if he wanted to cry. “Et tu, Rias?! My own blood!”

“Milli, continue patting the head of your dad. It seems that he’s unfortunately still full of stupid adult thoughts.”

‘I will get back to you,’ he promised me telepathically.

I felt a smug smile split my face. ‘Love you too, brother,’ was my only answer.

“This visit was boring. Ice, ice and only ice. There’s nothing more interesting here. I am bored and hungry.”

I turned my gaze toward my nephew. “Hey, Milli, have you ever tasted real Japanese-made food?”

“Mother had already made servants cook meals from the land of the rising sun in the past.”

“It doesn't compare, Milli,” I told him. There was a difference between a recreation of a thing and the true thing. I won’t say that a recreation could never surpass the original, but there was always a difference I found.

One of the major reasons I liked France, which kind of made me a patriot, was the food. The cheese, the bleu, the camembert, the bread, the ham and the sausage. No one did it like France.

I had traveled to a lot of countries, and none had come close to their counterparts in France.

You could go to the most expensive French American restaurant, and it would be complete dogshit. Damn, I now craved it.

A baguette with ham and some melted cheese, what else could the people ask for? A lot of French politicians would have been way more popular if they understood that.

Could I teleport to France just for that? Nah, it would be too gauche. I didn't want to leave my brother and my nephew alone, and bringing them with me wouldn’t be fair because Millicas had never tasted true Japanese food. Maybe another time.

I took Millicas in my arms away from my brother that let me do so. Maybe it was because I was a devil, but Millicas weighed less than a feather. Wasn't I seeing him with my eyes, I would have thought he was an illusion.

His eyes looked up at me. Must not bite, must not bite, Rias, no matter how cute. He was dangerous, too dangerous, his cuteness a weapon. “What do you want to eat, Milli? Takoyakis? Yakisobas? Ramens? All?!”

“We can eat all of those?!!”

“We sure can try to do so, Milli. The sky isn’t a limit! We can do everything!” I smiled at him.

“Then, let's do it, Rias-Onee-sama!”

With one of my fingers, I made a line through the air. Space distorted following the line I had made before opening like a curtain. On the other, a street littered with Japanese shops with neon lights could be seen.

“Let's leave, brother. Even with your stupid adult thoughts, I don’t think you prefer to eat ice over real food.”

“What do you think, Milllicas?” I asked my nephew. “Do you think your father prefers ice to real food?”

“Father,” the boy said with all the seriousness and gravitas he could muster, which was none because he was too cute. “I still will love you even if you prefer ice to real food.”

“I don’t…what is happening?” I heard him whisper under his breath. “You know what, let's leave.”

I should have known that with things being too much in my favor, something would happen to ruin my fun. At this point, I was either cursed or this was because the creator of this world, if there was one, really loved to make me suffer.

“Your majesty! Your Highnesses!” I heard a shout behind me.

The other devils had acted as if we hadn't been present, and I was thankful for that. I'm sure they knew we were there, but the fact that they gave us the freedom to just be Sirzechs, Millicas, and Rias instead of King, Prince, and Princess had felt incredible.

The fact that they had broken this invisible pact, that they came toward with so much haste probably meant something was wrong.

In an instant, the demeanor of my brother changed, going from the loving father and brother to the tyrannical king of devilkind. They kneeled, their heads turned toward the ground as if fearful to gaze at my brother.

“Speak,” he simply said, yet I felt myself shiver as if he had menaced me. He was angry and he wasn’t hiding it.

I turned Millicas’ head away. “Just something quick and we'll be gone,” I told him, trying to steal his attention away from his father. Millicas only knew Sirzechs as a kind and loving father. I didn't want this to change, at least not now, to see

the reality of what his father was.

“Someone wants to see you, urgently,” what seemed to be the leaders of the guards spoke.

“Don’t make me lose more time. Be clear,” my brother’s voice warned the devil. Or else was silent but I think none of them needed to hear it to understand.

“A nine-tailed fox your Majesty, a nine-tailed fox called Yasaka,” he spoke his voice barely audible. She asks for an audience with you and Her Highness Princess Rias Gremory.”

Of course, here what the shoe dropping. Was a simple day without anything important too much to ask? I hope it didn't get worse…i just jinxed myself didn't I?