Serafall yawned as she opened her eyes.
She felt like she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in years.
“Good morning, dear.”
“Morning, Momma Gremory.” Serafall yawned again, adjusting her position on the couch. “Where’s Red?”
“Sirzechs is getting scolded by Grayfia right now. He woke everyone up with some screaming.” Venelana Gremory spoke.
The Gremory Matriarch was tidying up a few things in the room.
It wasn’t just them.
The other Satans were present as well.
Ajuka was face-first on the coffee table, lying in a pile of his own drool.
And Falbium was halfway off the other end of the couch, over the armrest.
“Hoooh boy, I haven't drank that much in a while.” Serafall stretched. “Sorry for the mess.”
“It’s no problem. It reminds me of the old days when you kids would have sleepovers.” Venelana reminisced warmly. “Though, there was a bit less drinking involved.”
"Hahaha…yeah." Serafall looked away.
“Oh, don’t act like I didn’t know you kids were sneaking stuff from the alcohol cabinets.” The Gremory Matriarch rolled her eyes. “I’m curious, how did you get Ajuka—much less Falbium—to get together? Ajuka’s been so busy these days, and Falbium is… Falbium.”
“Womanly Charm!” Serafall declared. “And a healthy dose of blackmail.”
“Well, it’s nice either way.”
“They both needed a break so I figured it would be fun to get together like we used to. Rias told Red about a new anime she was watching, so I thought, 'Why not?' I promised Falbium I would do some of his paperwork, and I threatened Ajuka that I would add to his.”
Venelana giggled as she politely covered her mouth.
“You kids are still the same.”
They had all been friends growing up.
Sleepovers at the Gremory house were normal enough that they may as well be Venelana’s kids as well.
Both Ajuka and Falbium were different kinds of lazy, so her surprise at both being present wasn’t strange.
Ajuka was the type who despised things getting in the way of his hobbies, or things he was interested in. So his work ethic could be described as lazy.
As for Falbium, he was the type that would sleep whenever possible.
His work piled up because he was usually napping through the day, which meant he had a large backlog.
Ajuka got up, drowsy, while Falbium rolled off the couch, still snoring.
That was normal for him, though.
For as long as everyone knew him, he could sleep through a war happening.
In fact, he did that multiple times.
His magic had been developed to such an extreme that it earned him the status of Satan, and it all originated from the fact that he didn’t want to be disturbed while sleeping.
When he’s asleep, his magic barriers grow in power to such a degree that even Sirzechs Lucifer would have trouble getting through them.
“Hey, Mom." Sirzechs himself walked in the room.
“Breakfast will be ready soon, sweetie. And next time, don’t wake the entire Underworld up with your screaming.” Venelana patted her son’s cheek like a mother does.
Sirzechs looked sheepish as she left the room.
“It’s already almost noon.” Serafall found herself yawning again. “We only managed to sleep for a few hours, but I slept great.”
Ajuka grumbled; he was a bad morning person. “I regret agreeing to stay up all night to watch some…anime with you.”
“Oh, come on, Grass Head, you know you enjoyed it.” Serafall rolled her eyes. In fact, she found it to be excellent; she thoroughly enjoyed the series and would have to thank Rias for suggesting it. “I’m surprised we hadn’t heard of it until now; its production quality was…very good.”
“Yeah, the animation was great.” Sirzechs perked up. He was similar to his sister and loved this kind of stuff. “Are you sure it’s something new? This isn’t the kind of thing that a new studio pumps out for their first run.”
Serafall shrugged. “It’s what Rias told me. She said that it was just an anime and a visual Novel for more stuff. And it’s not a studio; it’s like just a website or something.”
The Leviathan Satan looked at Ajuka. “Come on Juky, say you liked it too.”
Ajuka rolled his eyes. “I didn’t dislike it. I’m not such a stick in the mud that I can’t enjoy a show or anime. I simply think I had better things to do with my time.”
“It was a fun interpretation of things.” Serafall ignored his complaints. “Heroic Spirits, that’s neat, isn’t it?”
“The theoretical logistics of it were explained clearly and concisely. And the magic system, I admit, was intriguing.” Ajuka switched gears after Serafall hit the right buttons. “The conceptual nature of those ‘Magic Circuits’ gave me several ideas for some things I want to make. The idea that a human has pathways—circuits running from their soul throughout their body to harness magical energy from the world is fascinating. As the basis of their magic system, it further explains a lot of their limitations and abilities. Since the ‘actualization of mysteries,' as they call it, originates from internal mechanisms, it removes the need for words to create spells. It becomes an Aria, a self hypnosis method to make them believe in the results to cast their spells.”
Serafall scrunched her nose. “I’m way too hung over to understand half of what you said.”
“I was simply praising the consistency of the writing and philosophy that the creator managed within the fictional universe," Ajuka huffed. “I appreciate the time and effort on the details. It’s not simply waving your hand, saying some special words, and casting spells. It has logic to it.”
“I liked Gilgamesh.” Sirzechs raised his hand.
“You would.” Serafall scowled.
“What’s that supposed to mean!? ”
“Hmph, picking the big bad villain over the proper hero! Don’t worry, Shirou; you’re my favorite. And Saber. They’re cute together.”
“OTP.” Sirzechs nodded.
“OTP!” Serafall declared.
Ajuka sighed. “I also appreciated the emphasis on mythological figures. Despite Saber being made into a woman….I did not find fault with her characterization.”
“What’s wrong with King Arthur being a woman, huh!?” Serafall put her hands on her hips. “You wanna go, Greenbean?!”
“Would you stop?” Ajuka sighed. “You know what I mean. I’m saying that genderbending a historical character would have normally been a poor narrative choice done solely to appeal to certain demographics. I’m saying that they did it well; they made her compelling and gave her depth as a person. Not just giving King Arthur breasts for fan service.”
“Yeah, I also would like to sit on her face.” Serafall nodded.
“That is not what I was saying.”
“Archer was pretty neat too. His magic could let him copy those Noble Phantasms.” Sirzechs spoke up.
Ajuka perked up again. “It sounds like a Sacred Gear. Doesn’t your sister have someone who can do something similar?”
“Kiba.” Sirzechs nodded, though he sort of scratched his head awkwardly, and Ajuka didn’t know why.
“It makes me curious about it now. I wonder if it could achieve similar results. Sacred Gears respond to the will and imagination of their wielders; the possibility isn’t without merit.” Ajuka muttered.
“We should be lucky that there isn’t something kicking around like that sword that Gilgamesh used.” Sirzechs chimed in. “That would be terrifying.”
Ajuka let out a small snort. “As if something like that could exist. A sword that pulls apart reality? ” He shook his head.
“It’s neat though.”
“...I will agree.” Ajuka thought it was neat as well, even if it were unrealistic. “Though, I do wonder how others will react to some of the interpretations.”
“What, you mean like the Greeks?” Serafall questioned. “I mean…it wasn’t bad, was it?” She rubbed her chin. “You have Medea, Medusa, and Hercules. Medea and Medusa aren’t exactly heroes or have much significance. And yet, both of them weren’t treated badly. Though, it did show the Olympians in a unfavorable light. Hercules, though…"
“Hercules.” Sirzechs repeated. “There was nuance. He was consumed by madness, yet the other Servants praised him that despite this, he fought with skill that could equal theirs. But I don’t know if they’ll care about the nuance. They just see a mindless Hercules and the cause being Hera. The story is known to everyone, but you know she would be vain enough that she would get offended that it’s mentioned in a way that doesn’t paint her as the victim.”
Serafall definitely knew.
As the one responsible for external devil affairs, she interacted with the other pantheons on many occasions.
Gods were capricious at the best of times.
“Then you have Lancer," Sirzechs finished with.
"Lancer," Serafall hummed.
“His spear was interesting. The ability to reverse causality—I hadn’t considered a method of attacking like that. The sheer power needed to enforce a causality reversal, though, I don’t know if it would be possible for anyone but the greatest magicians, and it wouldn’t be something so easily accessible.” Ajuka added in.
“Cu Chulainn is significantly more obscure," Serafall continued. “I think the Celtic guys would be thrilled to see him get screen time, but who knows?"
“I like that they didn’t just use famous names.” Sirzechs smiled. “Sure, everyone knows Hercules, Medusa, King Arthur…but who knows Medea and especially Cu Chulainn? I appreciate the research they did.”
“The Church wasn’t painted in a good light either.” The Leviathan pursed her lips. “Not that we usually care about that. Hell, we make fun of them in our shows regularly. But we can get away with it.”
Ajuka was on his phone as he opened his mouth again. “It’ll probably be taken down soon. I’m looking at the page of the website, trying to find who created it, but I can’t find any information. They’re probably not even aware of our side of the world. As soon as this makes it to the ears of another faction, you know how they handle stuff like this.”
It was an open secret that everyone policed things that made them look bad.
Even if the various pantheons didn’t appear in public anymore and everyone worked together to hide the supernatural from the mundane, that didn’t mean that faith and worship were unimportant.
Pantheons still would despise anything that made them appear badly in public eyes.
Though, it was usually too small for a god to well and properly get angry about, so it was delegated downwards.
“You almost sound upset, Ajuka.” Serafall said jokingly.
“I like the quality of the content. Their take on a fictional magical system has me intrigued, and I would like to investigate it further. If nothing else, it has given me several ideas to work with for some future projects. Perhaps I’ll try to find the creator and hire them myself or pick their brain. Human creativity is a resource we sorely lack.”
They understood.
Most devils understood this as well, an odd bit of self-reflection.
Devils lacked the same creativity that humans had.
Most of the progress that Devils made over the years had been from copying human society.
It was one of the many reasons that human media was actually very popular in the underworld. It let them bridge the gap of lack of creativity by copying or getting enlightened by what humans make.
It was a reason that Rias’s parents never did anything to curb her obsession with Japanese media.
Serafall let out another yawn. “If you find the creator, lend him to me; I can have him help me write episodes for my show.”
While she was joking, Ajuka made a mental note to look into it.
“Actually…” The Devil spoke up. “There is one thing that piqued my interest. What they called "alteration," I think that might be…replicable."
@***@
Alexander yawned.
He didn’t know why it came over him; maybe the hours he’d been awake were catching up.
He had gone through two pots of coffee so far, which was…not advisable, but he was so focused that he didn’t want to stop.
He didn’t know if it was a side effect of the ability he got that increased his memory recall, but he entered a zone where he felt like he was remembering this with much more clarity.
Compared to trying to rewrite the Fate/Stay Night novel, this was significantly easier. It was more like muscle memory in a way; it tickled different parts of his brain.
Alexander had spent a lot of time playing Flappy Bird himself. He remembered when it first came out, when mobile games were still a new thing.
Compared to reading a novel, it was like night and day.
Sure, people easily remember the content of a novel, the words, the prose, and the substance of it. But when you read a book and then remember it years later, do you remember how you read it? Do you remember where you were and what you were doing?
Simply, a game was, by design, more stimulating.
Alexander could remember the time he first downloaded the game, the first time he played it on the whole smartphone concept that came about.
The thoughts and feelings about it.
Graphics, gameplay, physics, the little nuances.
That isn’t to say he suddenly threw it all up onto his keyboard and had a working game. But it let him skip some trial and error as he worked on the, admittedly, very simple coding.
Once he got to the testing stage, he could just…feel the adjustments he needed based on memory.
Once more, they weren’t perfect; it wasn’t transferable one-to-one in the systems, but he had accelerated far past the point that he thought he would have stopped at for the day.
When he finally finished his last bit of code, it felt like his body all but collapsed into the chair.
He rubbed his eyes, realizing they were dry.
How long had he been working?
He took out his phone to check and saw that it was Monday already.
He all but dropped his phone onto the ground and then dropped his hand into his hand. “Fuck me.”
The words that basically summarized his feelings at this moment.
He somewhere lost track of time throughout the weekend, not even realizing that it had passed already.
The office was a bit of a mess. He had ordered food at various points and just tossed the trash to the side, thinking he would clean it up when he finished and left.
He looked up at the screen, noting the time shown at the bottom of the computer. “Fuck it, I’m skipping school today; I’m sick.”
With a long breath, he pulled up several more programs.
It was time to test the prototype.
The art was nonexistent.
The Pips were just black boxes; the bird was just a red box.
He simulated phone gameplay by hitting the space bar for the bird to do its little jump-fly motion to ascend.
It worked.
It felt slightly off, but it was workable for now.
He kept going until he accidentally hit a 'pipe,' making him scowl. He forgot how annoying this game actually was.
There was a sigh of relief.
He just needed to run some tests now.
On one screen, he inserted a program that would do random inputs to find bugs. On another, he had a basic AI set up to hit the fly button perfectly to get through the pipes for testing to make sure the game didn’t crash or glitch once it got past a certain point.
Not really the best in terms of quality control, but it was what he had.
If nothing went wrong, he could finish up the art and tweak the physics and maybe upload the first version by tomorrow.
He didn’t expect it to get done this fast, but here he was.
Now that he wasn’t so hyper focused, he could allow himself to relax.
He checked his website to see the traffic he was getting, and his eyebrows nearly shot through the roof.
“What?”
He read it several times, but it was hard to rationalize the number he was seeing.
7,149 views.
He barely had over a thousand when he checked at the start of the weekend.
What had happened?
All he did was get Rias to go watch it and put up fliers around the school.
He realized that he needed to capitalize on his newfound popularity. It may not seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things, but that was seven times the viewers he had just a few days ago. You need to strike while the iron is hot; in this case, release waifus while he has an active fanbase.
He went to go put another pot of coffee one.
What was staying up one more night?
He was fairly sure that he could get the art for Ishtar finished by tomorrow if he started right now and focused on it entirely.
Despite overworking himself and being hopped up on coffee, he finally felt like things were turning in his favor, and nothing could go wrong now.
@***@
A/N
View of Satans in the anime so far. Yeah, everyone’s just treating it like a story, hence the name of the snippet. But as I said, that will change in the future. I think people knwo the concept, right? Fate things will be brought over by the MC, basically.
I’ll do more ‘reactions’ of other factions as things progress. It’s still very under the radar so most people don’t know about it yet.Something, something, Ishtar is getting popular; that won’t have any negative consequences!