Disclaimer: I own nothing but my original characters and works; all other characters and worlds belong to their respective owners. I'm just playing with them.
Betad by Priapus, Beans, Marethyu, Mike God of Lore
The Gamer's Guide to Necromancy, Remaster
Chapter 13: The Magical Girl Levia-Tan!
– Serafall Leviathan –
They were never really going to get Zekram in this mess. She'd have loved a chance to defang the very old, very powerful devil but she knew when a fight simply wasn't worth her time. That, combined with the fact that Cleria had been guilty of consorting with an exorcist meant that the old man just wasn't worth going after.
Diehauser was furious, of course. But the return of Cleria did a lot to limit his rage, especially with Cleria herself telling him not to get himself (or their clan) killed or wrapped up in an unwinnable battle for her sake. That didn't stop him from 'volunteering' his services to help take down the Great King faction, which Zekram had washed his hands of.
She knew he was only doing so because of the fertility potions. Zekram was, above all else, an extremely pragmatic man. He saw any losses the Great King faction suffered from this as acceptable if it didn't damage his influence or access to fertility potions. As such, there was no resistance from him as he exiled those involved in the King Piece Conspiracy from his faction and hung them out to dry. He was too wily to get linked to it, never having interacted with the King pieces himself, but she had no doubt he both knew and approved of this conspiracy. Now that it was crashing and burning, he ruthlessly cut them off and cast out those he'd picked to take the fall. A true devil, through and through.
Bedeze Abaddon was dead. It wasn't ideal, but he'd gone down fighting and Diehauser was eager to take out his rage on somebody. Bedeze had foolishly decided to be that someone, thinking the King piece would give him a chance against the Emperor. It did not.
The Abaddon Clan had exiled him the moment the news broke, making his cousin Kuisha their new heir. It was a transparent move to avoid punishment, as Kuisha is a member of Sairaorg Bael's peerage. While Sairaorg himself had also been exiled by his father for not having the Power of Destruction, he was close to Rias and by extension Sirzechs. The Abaddon clan were throwing their lot in with them to try and avoid Bedeze's actions from ruining them. She was fairly certain that at least some of the clan had known what was going on, but with their numbers so low, even with the creation of Kuro's miracle potions, sometimes it was better to just… live and let live. The main culprits were punished, going after everyone marginally related to this would take too much time, effort and cost them far too much. They knew they were in danger, so they'd play nice with whatever the Great Satans wanted, for now. Besides, that was Sirzechs' job as the Satan of Domestic Affairs. She trusted he had it under control.
Roygun Belphegor, however, had surrendered. She put up no fight, no argument as she herself was exiled and lost her status as an Ultimate-Class Devil. Even without the piece, she was a powerful woman, and it was deemed a waste to put her down. Serafall had taken her, because she had plans~
Roygun was remorseful but also unapologetic. She'd enjoyed using the King piece, being a true Rating Game fanatic. While she had been vaguely aware of the conspiracy and corruption, she'd mostly just fought using the power of the King piece to excel in the sport she loved so much. Effectively, she'd done it for the love of the game, uncaring of the corruption as long as it meant she could keep fighting at the highest level. Somehow, Serafall was half convinced that Roygun's current sadness was more about her rating game ban than her exile. At the very least, Diehauser was convinced that Roygun didn't know anything about the assassinations and cover-ups. Her crime was cheating in the Rating Games, nothing more.
In the end, the Great King faction was weakened… but not by much. Zekram remained too damn slippery for that. He'd trimmed a branch of his faction and let them burn it for fuel, but the tree remained strong. She really didn't like Zekram. She wasn't thrilled about Ajuka either, as the idiot had just left them in storage and never bothered to check up on them after deciding they were too dangerous to be mass produced. The Great King faction had six of the nine prototypes, which had all been retrieved and destroyed.
Fucking Ajuka. Pay attention to your super-dangerous projects for once! Don't just leave them to become a problem for the rest of us! His explanation for what he thought had happened to the King Pieces was… 'I forgot'. Crazy scientist. One day, the entire Underworld would blow up and Ajuka would be there scratching his chin going 'Oopsie, I forgot I made a world-ending bomb, tee-hee!' Why were all her coworkers so weird?! At least she just wanted to fuck Sona-tan and had a magical girl fetish/obsession! By most standards, she was downright normal!
Speaking of mad scientists, Azazel still existed. Most of this mess wasn't her mess, despite her having been the one to discover it. They were Ajuka's creations and this was a purely a devil situation, so it fell under Sirzechs' responsibilities. It meant it wasn't causing that much trouble for her, despite the colossal clusterfuck meaning they were all busy. Even Falbium had to do some work, much to his annoyance. No, her busyness came from how many people wanted to talk to her contracted magician. Kuro was a pain in the booty (maybe literally given she'd promised a sex tape if he could solve the Cleria mess), but he was one hell of a profitable one.
He was an asset that more and more factions wanted access to, and she alone had a link to him. Kuro, being Kuro, was happy to leave all the politics and work to her as long as he was getting paid enough by everyone involved. It meant that as the Satan of Foreign Affairs she had a weapon she could use to get the others to play nice.
And the demand for Kuro's time had only gone wilder after his trick with Cleria. She might have considered trying to suppress the news that Kuro could bring back the dead, but Diehauser preempted her by announcing her return for the whole Underworld to hear. She could deny it, claiming she was an imposter, but at this point it would be more trouble than it was worth to try to suppress the truth, so everyone knew that Kuro could bring devils back from the dead.
And after so many wars, every faction had countless missing members. Some amongst the devils would have them hoard this little trick for themselves, and maybe they'd be right. With the fertility potions and the chance to return long-dead devils to life, they'd rapidly increase in power but…
The other factions wouldn't tolerate it. They couldn't risk letting the devils rapidly become the undisputed strongest faction and the risk of them ganging up on the devils beforehand was worryingly high. If they shared this trick, they could prevent one faction from rising above the others and work toward a more permanent peace than the cold war they were currently in. She wasn't sure the devils could come out on top if it became a war with everyone involved trying to crush them. She wasn't sure she even wanted such a world. She knew her people well enough to know how things would go if they became the undisputed strongest race.
So, as word spread, she had members from just about every faction out there trying to find out if this miracle could be used by other races. She'd asked Kuro and he'd helpfully shrugged and said 'fuck if I know'. At the very least, humans and fallen were possible as he'd had plenty of time to… heh, study the Fallen girls in his basement. But, reasonably, he'd never seen a real angel or a youkai, dragon, vampire, or god.
And yes, she had some pantheons asking if Kuro could bring back this or that god. If he could work out how to use his trick for the other races? She'd have the ultimate card to play to prevent anyone from going to war. As long as she had Kuro by her side, she was in a position to win at the great game called politics.
And really, people over-exaggerated how problematic Kuro could be. Sure, he was a big pervert but so was she! And he was a troll, but why would she show up at Kuoh in her magical girl outfit if not to troll Sona-tan? He was a good boy under all that, as long as you played fair and made sure he was rewarded for all his hard work.
Many people failed at that simple task.
Azazel had come to her with a simple request: he wanted access to the magical arena that Kuro had used to make some of the Fallen he'd captured into four-winged Fallen. It made sense, the Fallen were dealing with their own conspiracy at the moment and one that was more damaging than 'we cheated at Rating Games'.
Kokabiel was trying to plunge the world into war, as crazy old warhawks are fond of doing. That was nothing new, she knew the crazy bat had spent years ranting about the cooperation with other factions, wanting to burn it all down. What was new was the fact that he had actually been succeeding far better than anyone, especially Azazel, had actually realised. While Koko had been ranting and keeping the spotlight, his allies and recruits had been sabotaging every attempt at peace or cooperation right under Azazel's nose, and it turned out he had a lot of allies.
Nearly a third of the Grigori, or so it seemed. Many had fled, going to ground and disappearing, along with Koko himself. So, while the devils had this minor quibble going on, Azazel had just lost a third of his subjects and forces. That's not mentioning all the human support that Koko had subverted. It was a right and proper mess, and while some would say now was the perfect time to strike and put down the wily crow that is Azazel, she saw it differently. Now was the time to get Azazel nice and indebted to her so she could get the sane side of the Grigori working on her ultimate peace and friendship scheme!
The great and wise magical girl Levia-tan strikes again, bringing peace to the world with the power of friendship and this weird mage she found. Mwah-ha-ha!
Even the Church was cautiously testing the waters! Sure, they might claim that resurrection was a naughty, naughty sin, taking souls away from their final resting place and all that jazz, but that was when the only option was coming back as a devil. With Kuro being able to bring their most loyal and talented warriors as humans, suddenly they were having second thoughts about the whole staying dead thing. Heaven was equally curious, because nobody really knew what happened when an Angel died. They didn't go back to heaven, they just kinda poofed. If he could bring back their lost numbers as angels, surely it wasn't a sin? For a group so focused on staying pure and on the path their creator laid out for them, some of them could be real flexible at times.
Of course, it wouldn't be long until they started wondering if he could bring back God. The Big G himself. And of course, some devils would want the OG Satans returning. It was not going to be pretty, she'd have to keep a close eye on Kuro to prevent kidnapping, murder, blackmail, honeypots-
Actually, she'd let the honeypots go through. The idea of Katarea Leviathan accidentally becoming a Devilnet pornstar because she thought she could control Kuro with her pussy amused her greatly. Kuro would do it as well, the little shit (affectionate).
But she'd learnt the secret to working with Kuro. You couldn't control or train him, like a dog. You had to tempt and bribe him, like a cat. Aloof, slightly sociopathic, entirely driven by his own interests. Yeah, Kuro was her adorable stray cat that she left treats out for to lure him back over and over again. The type of cat that thought she was his pet servant.
He even loved milk!
Teleporting to his new mansion, which he'd moved most of his operation to, she grinned to herself. She really did deserve a pat on the back. Kuro had kept his experiments to the secret lair he had, but at her request he'd moved to the actual mansion so he would be seen in the Underworld. There was a risk of his Fallen pets fleeing, but she knew better. Fallen, like Devils, fucking loved power and that meant none of them were going anywhere as long as there was a chance of getting more wings. It was why he'd let Raynare out to go fetch him a tasty treat! He knew the little addict would come running right back.
The air in the mansion made her body tingle in the best way. Kuro called it desecration, but this didn't feel like a church that had been tainted by Fallen or Devils. Kuro said it best, there was a difference between the natural desecration from unholy beings living there over time, and the effect of a straight up magical ritual designed to corrupt the very natural magic in the air. For holy beings, standing here would be irritating to downright unpleasant. For unholy ones? Her nipples had been hard since the moment she arrived. Plus, her magic felt more potent. It was a small increase, but it seemed to be a multiplier more than a standard boost for everyone. So, she got a hell of a lot more out of it than most would. A ten percent boost for her was more than some powerful devils had to begin with. Just another gift from the golden goose.
As she entered, she giggled at the sight of Kalawarner in a proper french maid outfit. Proper in that it was short enough to give Kuro easy access to Fallen pussy and put her fat tiddies on display properly.
"Welcome, Lady Serafall. Lord Kuro is currently with his student, but he said to guide you to the alchemy laboratory," Kalawarner replied softly. She was a good girl despite being a naughty fallen. Away from Koko's bad influence she became nice and submissive toward her new master.
"Lead the way," Serafall agreed easily, following behind as Kalawarner took her out of the main building by the backdoor and to the small structure Kuro had requested. Something about 'not wanting to blow up or burn down' his nice new mansion. It was well ventilated, with room for ingredient storage and plenty of room for multiple alchemists to work away from prying eyes.
And by Big G himself, there had been a lot of prying eyes. Her security had to drive away 'curious' devils showing up with thinly veiled excuses. Most were genuinely just curious about the new resident of the Underworld, but she knew that more than a few either wanted to grab Kuro or were trying to spy on him to steal his secrets.
If Kuro alone held the secret to the fertility potions, it might have caused less trouble in the short term as they'd expect him to hoard the knowledge. The fact that he was teaching Rias and Viser meant that he was willing to share knowledge and more importantly, that other people could learn the process. So, Kuro had every family in the underworld trying to get in on this trade.
It wasn't as simple as most hoped, because Ajuka wasn't able to replicate the process. There was something about Kuro that meant that he had to be the one to teach anyone who wanted to do this for themselves. Some trick where only people he personally mentored could hope to brew his potions. Even if someone spied on every lesson and did everything Rias did, they wouldn't be able to gain the same success.
"Lady Serafall!" Ravel squeaked as she arrived. The Phenex girl was sitting behind a desk, typing away in an adorable secretary outfit.
"Hello, Ravel. How goes your work?" Serafall asked softly. Ravel perked up, relaxing as she explained that her current goal was pricing the potions. Frankly, the ingredients were cheap enough that the profit margin was massive but it was simple supply and demand. With only two alchemists, one in training, they didn't have the means of mass production and while the ingredients were cheap, Kuro's time was not. Ravel had already arranged much of the business, taking the role of Kuro's secretary very seriously, even if it meant she was directly acting against her family's Phenex Tear trade. Serafall understood, Ravel needed to make sure that her new master stayed happy with her, after all.
Ravel had picked out a building to act as the storefront in the capital, with Serafall acquiring it and working with Kuro and Ravel to properly renovate it for his needs. The faster his potions began flowing, the better for the underworld.
Healing potions, mana potions, stamina potions… 'stamina' potions. Even beyond just the fertility potions, Kuro was making more and more types as he got access to more ingredients. Serafall supplied the test subjects, Ravel ranked the potions by tier and priced them up.
Kuro could make a simple health potion out of common household ingredients, but as his stockroom grew, he got access to better ingredients that could make more powerful potions. So, just pricing a health potion wasn't enough, they needed to be ranked and tiered because one made from regular ingredients was far cheaper than something made with hard to source materials.
Chatting with Ravel a little more, making sure the girl was more or less unharmed so she'd have more to calm the panicking Phenex family with, she moved on to the laboratory itself. Rows of tables were already laid out, each with an alchemy station on top and she chuckled at the sight of the mindless skeletons working on the simpler potions.
Kuro's time was valuable, after all. Kuro himself was leaning against a table where Rias and Viser were both preparing the same ingredients. Both seemed focused, only looking up as Kuro greeted her.
As she examined the pair, she smiled softly. Rias was looking far better with the wedding no longer hanging over her head, dressed in a pair of jeans and a long sleeved top with a leather apron over the top and a pair of gloves on. Viser was wearing almost the same, but had a pair of goggles on which she pulled up. She'd had Viser's stray status removed. It was a little controversial but the advantage to how much chaos was going on was that most people didn't notice the smaller things. Fertility potions and resurrections were on the front page, Viser's new status was a footnote on page twelve.
"Girls, finish preparing the herbs for the next step. Don't try to move onto the brewing without me here," Kuro ordered, getting a pair of agreements. "Heya, Sera. What brings you to my neck of the woods?"
"Azazel. He's getting increasingly pushy about wanting a meeting with you. I'd almost say desperate, and that's a bad sign. Azazel is a pain, but he's still the only Cadre I'd trust in charge of the Grigori," Serafall admitted.
While he had lost a lot of manpower to Kokabiel, it was worse than just numbers would suggest. Kokabiel's words had the most effect on battle-hardened warriors of old, which meant there were a large number of higher-winged Fallen that had switched to Kokabiel's side in the brewing civil war while Azazel kept most of the one and two winged Fallen. She had no doubt Azazel would win, but at what cost? There was a careful ecosystem built around the Three Great Factions and all the smaller ones, and removing one of the key blocks would send the entire thing toppling down. If the Grigori got fucked, war was inevitable. With who? Who the fuck knew. She was the Satan of Foreign Affairs and even she could only guess and theorise at who would attack who first. Would Heaven fall to its own warhawks, demanding they end the sinful Grigori forever? Would she and Sirzechs fail to calm the bloodthirsty devils, feeling empowered by their new toys? Would a weaker faction try to empower themselves by trying to steal the Grigori's considerable human membership?
There were too many variables in play, too many pieces moving for her to guess what would happen if the Grigori lost most of its power in a civil war. The only benefit is that even Kokabiel seemed to understand that he'd doom his own race if he attacked outright, so the two sides glared at each other, waiting for the other to make a mistake.
But if Kokabiel had been a cautious man, he wouldn't have done this to begin with. More so, he'd recruited all the bloodthirsty Fallen, and as such, he had to act first unless he wanted to lose his own followers or have them turn on him.
"Lemme guess, the arena?" Kuro asked in amusement.
"Well, yeah. Obviously," Serafall agreed. Kuro had known exactly what he had been doing when he'd sent Dohnaseek back to Azazel with a new pair of wings. "That, plus he wants to know if you can bring Fallen back to life. Your trick with Cleria caused quite the shitshow. I've already got a request list ten miles long for people who want family members or lost peerage members back."
"People know that the reborn people are weaker than when they died, right?" Kuro asked.
"Cleria is regaining her old strength. Not fast, but she is improving day by day. Besides, her skills remain the same, it's just her body and magic that need to recover," Serafall explained with a nod.
"Girls, once you've finished preparing the ingredients, take a break. Go get some lunch or something," Kuro ordered. "Come on, you."
"'You'? I'm a Satan, y'know?!" Serafall pouted, stomping her feet. "And your sponsor! Am I just a bank account to you?!"
"Don't be ridiculous. You're eye candy as well," Kuro corrected, getting a genuine laugh out of her as she followed him into the basement where he kept his more secretive projects, along with the entrance to his 'dungeon'. One of them, anyway.
She knew she was sexy. She knew half the male devils in the Underworld had beaten their meat to her at some point. The closer she came to a wardrobe malfunction, the higher that episode's view count.
One of her episodes had a moment where her top got ripped and people insisted they could see a nipple in one frame. They couldn't because she had been wearing a skin-coloured bra with a bit of pink painted on, but that episode was the most downloaded Devilnet show episode of all time. And yet, how many people would outright call her eye candy? How many would have the balls to actually flirt with her? Basically none, as it happened.
She scared them, because male devils were intimidated by powerful women. If Grayfia hadn't been with Sirzechs, the maid might just be a thousand year old virgin.
"Can you at least give me the respect I'm due and call me your sugar momma instead of eye candy?" Serafall pouted as they headed into his 'fleshcrafting' lab. Rows of vats all filled with bubbling liquid and growing… things. Each one seemed to be making something different, but Kuro gestured for her to follow him to the end where a fully formed figure was floating in the liquid.
"...isn't that Raynare?" Serafall asked.
"Eh. It's a Fallen. I used Raynare's blood for this, and didn't have any reason to change the appearance when most were still failing. I can't make four-winged Fallen yet, they still blow up, but I've worked out two-winged at least," Kuro explained. "As for other races, because I'm sure they're already coming knocking, you'd have to get me samples for me to test. In this case, less powerful samples are more useful. I need the experience working with the weaker samples before I try playing with the more powerful ones. It's a good job that I was already pretty familiar with Devil samples or Diehauser's would have been too strong for me to work with."
"...is that Grayfia?" Serafall asked, noticing another vat with a familiar body floating in it.
"...no," Kuro blatantly lied.
"You can clone from breast milk, can't you?" Sera asked with a sigh and a laugh.
"Maybe just a little," Kuro finally admitted with a shrug. "I plan to make a battle maid battalion to defend my new place. I know you're having your people watch the place, but the Grayfia Squad should deter most."
"And really piss off Grayfia, again," Serafall added.
"Completely a coincidence that half my plans make her do that sexy scowl of hers, I can assure you," Kuro lied shamelessly. Grayfia was a prideful woman, seeing a small army of Grayfias at his beck and call was going to cause her to have an aneurysm. "So, yes. I can bring back Fallen as long as their souls can be recalled. Haven't had a chance to test that. As for the arena, I don't want that many people entering my dungeon so I am willing to make a new one on the grounds of this place. I'll get Ravel to work out a payment system and client list. I hope the Phenex don't think they're ever getting her back. She's way too useful."
"Honestly? The more you use her, the more likely it is for them to put up less of an argument about you keeping her. Their main concern is that she's going to end up a Devilnet porn star, but if she's happy and handling such an important role, they're likely going to be fine with you keeping her," Serafall explained.
"I'm not that stupid. Ravel would agree, but she'd never forgive me for shaming her like that," Kuro shrugged. "Happy girls are hard working girls. Just look at you, I made you happy and now you keep giving me more free shit."
…he wasn't wrong.
"You think Grayfia will forgive you?" Serafall asked, amused.
"Meh. She's old as shit, unlike Ravel. Besides, she's too busy being smug that her breast milk is so powerful. Plus, I want her pissed so she'll fall into my traps more easily. I don't need to ragebait Ravel, she's already firmly in my grasp," Kuro explained, showing that there was some method to his madness. "Ravel needs lovebombs, not ragebait. She's adorable and goes bright red when I flirt with her. She's used to sitting in the back while Riser does his fuckery. She's used to seeing sex, and not particularly shy about dressing up sexily, but she's entirely unused to getting attention herself. That said, she kinda loves it. She can blush and stutter all she wants, she still shows up to 'work' in fewer and fewer clothes, finding reasons to pose. She likes feeling sexy, even if it risks pushing me to go further with her."
"Sneaky. I did notice she had more buttons undone on her smart shirt than you'd expect from a princess like her," Serafall admitted with a chuckle. "But enough about other girls, and more about me. I believe I promised you something if you handled the Cleria mess, didn't I?"
As she'd said. Kuro was a stray cat and the best way to keep him coming back around was just to keep giving him treats. Besides, she'd been working hard and she deserved some fun herself.
– Sona Sitri –
With Kuro moving to the Underworld, for the most part, it meant that Serafall had also left Kuoh. Thank the Great Satans. It made sense. Serafall had so much work to do with the realisation that Kuro could raise the fucking dead and the mess with the Grigori.
That said, Sona looked around suspiciously. It had been far too long since Serafall had done something stupid. She knew her sister. Whenever she had to work hard, she compensated by showing up here and being silly.
And Serafall was being forced to work very hard, being far too serious for her liking.
Still, how much trouble could she really get into-
Her phone buzzed, making her pause as she unlocked it before freezing.
'Special Episode Announcement! The Magical Girl Levia-tan, Defiled?! Catch this live XXX-rated episode where the villainous dark wizard Kuu-roh captures and corrupts Levia-tan to the side of evil! (with his penis)."
Closing her phone, Sona calmly walked into a small room attached to her office, in which only a single chair sat. Sitting down, she grabbed the pillow from it before bringing it to her face and screaming into it.
Maou damn it all. She should have kept Serafall here.
Once more, her screaming room had proven to be a wise investment.
— Bonus Scene — Asia Argento
Finding out that the church she was going to had already been destroyed made Asia wonder if she was genuinely cursed. Lady Raynare had explained the brief conflict between her new Grigori friends and the Devils that ruled Kuoh. It sounded messy, but this… Freed sounded like the type of person who truly thrived in his exile from the church. Some exorcists just went wild once they were kicked out, rather than seeking redemption.
For her, she didn't even know what she should do. A small part of her cried that it was unfair. She'd healed a man, not knowing he was a devil. She hadn't cavorted with him, or schemed against the Church. She just healed a dying man. The Fallen had found her, seeing the similarities between her and many of their number. Many Fallen Angels fell without even knowing what they'd done wrong, having wandered off the path God laid out for them due to a lack of information or just misfortune.
And because she was a cursed witch, the Grigori had immediately fallen into a civil war after recruiting her. She'd been left wandering with no idea where to go after finding the church abandoned and demolished, only barely avoiding the devils because they were busy. It wasn't easy, given her lack of understanding of the Japanese language.
But God remained kind, as Lady Raynare had come to find her. She wasn't sure what to think about this Lord Kuro who had taken in the Fallen and exposed Kokabiel's attempts to start a new war. He seemed like a kind and thoughtful man, a human who was spending his time working toward peace. It was truly a noble ambition.
But why did Raynare keep telling her about his manhood? When Asia realised that Raynare was implying that Asia would be… paying for her rent and protection with her body, she'd gone bright red and avoided Raynare's gaze for a full three days.
But… she remained a cursed witch, unwelcome in the holy places she was used to. The Church had regularly spoken about the degeneracy of the Fallen and Devils and now she was to live it first hand. Blushing, anxious and admittedly a little curious, Asia had gone searching for… information. On the ways she could 'pay' while keeping her most sacred place undefiled. The internet had provided no small amount of information that she, a sheltered nun, was entirely unprepared for, but one thing stood out to her.
"...it can go in that hole?!"