“So Harry will end up under his protection,” Rias said, calming down a bit.
“Who is Ajuka?” Harry asked.
“I know you said that he’s the one who invented the evil pieces, but is he powerful?”
Rias laughed at that.
“Ajuka is my brother’s best friend and is second only to him in power.
They are two of the four Satans, the leaders of the Underworld.
Being under his protection is better than being under ours.
The chance of the Phenexes coming after you under our protection was negligible, but there is no chance that they’d risk his wrath.”
“Oh, good,” Harry said.
“Now, if that’s all…” Grayfia said, trailing off as she swept her hand over them.
They were quickly cleaned, and their scattered clothes were put back on them.
“We need to get going.”
“Um, I’m going to be missed if I’m gone long,” Harry said.
“It’s Saturday,” Grayfia said.
“No one will notice your absence; I’ll see to that.
Content with her assurances, Harry got out of bed, holding Rias’ hand as they stepped close to Grayfia.
“So how does this work?” Harry asked.
He had always heard that you couldn’t apparate in and out of Hogwarts, but he had summoned Rias, and Grayfia had appeared of her own will.
Instead of answering him, Grayfia just enveloped him in her magic, and in a flash, they were gone.
A moment later, they reappeared just inside a very stately-looking mansion, and Harry was shocked at having finally found a form of magical transportation that didn’t suck.
“That was awesome,” he said without thinking.
“So you’ve been returned to us at last, my daughter,” a melodious but pissed-sounding voice said a moment later.
“It was a few hours, Mother,” Rias said as Harry turned to look at who had spoken.
“Venelana?!” Harry exclaimed in shock, only to freeze at the realization of what he’d just done. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
“You know me, human?” Venelana asked, furrowing her brow.
“Um, how do you know my mother’s name?” Rias asked, sounding confused.
He almost wished that the ground would swallow him whole in that moment before remembering that he was very likely in the Underworld.
“Um, that book I read that told me how to summon you had some…accounts of certain devils the author had interacted with,” Harry replied.
“No account could make you that certain about who I am,” Venelana said.
“There were pictures too, yes?”
“Yes,” Harry said, hoping that she wasn’t about to attack him.
“My, my, if it’s the one I’m thinking of, it’s been centuries since that thing was done,” Venelana chuckled.
“Was it animated?”
“Yes,” Harry said.
“Just what kind of portrait was this?” Rias asked.
“Nude, dear,” Venelana replied, looking amused by how her daughter bristled.
“I was summoned by a magician back in the sixteenth century who had managed to master magically capturing images on vellum.
I can’t recall his name.”
“That’s besides the point, dear,” the man next to her said.
With his crimson hair and goatee, Harry guessed he was Rias’ father.
“I expected you to try and connive a way out of the arrangement with Riser, but to stoop to sullying yourself with a random human.
I expected something with a little finesse, darling.”
“Wait, you expected me to try to find my way out of this?” Rias asked, confused.
“Of course,” Venelana said, like it was obvious.
“You’d be a poor devil if you just succumbed to a fate you didn’t want.
Did Lucifer just accept the role that the Tyrant created him for?
Of course not.
He rebelled, stole enough of the book of creation to make his own army, and rocked the very foundations of the heavens.
I expected you to try to find a way out of this.
I just hoped that you’d be a little more…creative.” Visit g.com for the full chapter.
Rias just stared at her mother in shock, as though she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“I suppose the human will appease the Phenexes enough,” her father said nonchalantly.
“No!” Rias said.
“Harry’s not going anywhere.”
“If you didn’t want him to be handed over, why did you not make him your servant?” her father asked, looking puzzled.
“Apparently she tried, Zeoticus,” a voice came from the next room.
A man walked in then who radiated power like no one Harry had ever seen.
He was young, though everyone he’d met so far looked young.
Even Venelana, who had apparently been alive for centuries, looked barely any older than her own daughter.
The man had green hair, which he kept slicked back, and was wearing an expensive-looking suit.
His blue eyes were exceedingly calculating, as though he were mentally breaking down everything that he beheld to understand the parts.
When he focused on Harry, he looked deeply interested, and the young wizard didn’t know whether to be relieved or scared to be of interest to who he assumed was Ajuka.
Grayfia walked in then, with another man at her side, and this one Harry couldn’t help but shiver at the sight of.
He was also young, and looked a lot like Zeoticus, though he was clean-shaven, but looks were where the similarities ended.
Zeoticus felt no different from the other devils he had seen so far, and only Ajuka had truly felt palpably powerful, but even he paled next to this one.
Beholding the face of Voldemort sticking out of Quirrell’s head had been terrifying, as even in his diminished form, he had felt powerful, but he too had nothing on this man.
Looking at Voldemort was like looking at a mortal threat, but looking at the young, crimson-haired man was like looking at the face of death itself.
“And I fucked his sister,” Harry thought to himself, a shudder going through him.
“My darling wife tells us that the evil pieces failed,” the crimson-haired man said, his voice deep but light and nonthreatening.
“Wife?” Harry asked the first thing that occurred to him.
“Sirzechs,” Grayfia complained.
“Not when I’m working.”