Chapter 2: Niren and the law
Being a Maou was troublesome to Niren, he lost a majority of his freedom like the others but unlike Sirzechs his queen wasn't so focused on making him do his work. Niren's Queen was the possessor of Innovate Clear, Holly Green, she was too interested in being yandere-ish. Niren didn't like the thought of losing Zagan as his family name to Satan, instead he takes Satan as a title, on paper it would be read as Niren 'Satan' Zagan and thanks to Serafall being his wife she got to do the same, Serafall 'Leviathan' Sitri. Truth be told for them, the names are merely titles. Niren saw it as rude to take up those names as despite fighting against them, he respected the family behind the names, well, all except Mammon of course.
Serafall was very lax in her duties as really, she had the least amount of work to do. With dealing with foreign affairs, most of her work was doing meetings with potential allies, scouting out potential allies and writing them all up afterwards. Of course there is extra behind the scene sort of stuff but all in all her life was nowhere near as hectic as ours. Still, he didn't let my workload take away my free time too much. He cut back on being a professional dancer and only performed at parties and balls he was invited to, or whenever Serafall asked him to cosplay with her which he did happily surprising the Underworld.
Niren was a hard man to figure out for the devils but there was a way to read him. His personality can switch dramatically at any time but that's because he is a dragon/devil hybrid. His dragon side holds his justice and wrath where his devil side holds his kindness and spirit. He was serious when he needed to be and relaxed when it was alright to be. His position as Satan would make him be the most strict out of the five, so you would think but that isn't the case with him. He loves to let go and enjoy life, acrobatics isn't a sport but a past time to him, it's something he gets joy out of. Seeing this some people would start to think and maybe even question on whether he was the right person to be Satan and rule over the judicial system as the Supreme Arbiter. Niren answers that properly that he is the right guy for the job. When it comes to the judicial system he is focused, attentive and careful. With people, he is stern and aggressive. Being with him is unnerving, even to those not being questioned or looked at as a person of interest. To Niren, it's a very serious job and nothing will take him away from it once he has started a case or paperwork.
To put it simply, he has a work mode and a procrastination mode.
As a Maou, you would expect Niren to act and look like one even in his down time but no, that wasn't him. Niren neglected to look the part even when he was working. Niren didn't like to wear formal clothes other than a tie, if he was pushed you could see him in a casual shirt and a black, always black, tie. From the day he joined the Anti-Maou faction till this very day Niren wore the exact same clothes albeit with a new addition made from his dragon scales that he coloured black. It was a simple black jacket with a hood shaped like a dragon's head, the hood cast a shadow over his head when in use and at the end of the sleeves were claws that could appear over his hands at any time. It was a practical addition to his everyday life because of his position.
Unlike the other Maous, keeping fit and strong was a part of his job. He had to stay in shape to work best, he had to be the strongest, or one of the strongest to perform his job well and so did his peerage. Even the creatures in his peerage, the dragon, the tiger and the hound. The hound was a Cwn Annwn, a welsh spectral hound and followed Niren everywhere unless he had a mission of his own. The hound, Du, also worked as Niren's carrier pigeon delivering letters around the Underworld, he did it out of formality and as a way to give Du work and the occasional treat afterwords as unlike the humanoid servants Du couldn't really do contracts other than chasing animals away from crops. The same could be said for Byakko but honestly, the Divine Tiger was a slob and just lazed around the Satan Castle being fed and petted by the maids.
Because of this, Niren actively participated in Rating Games. Unfortunately for Niren's ego, his results weren't official in the table and were merely for the occasion but despite that his peerage didn't slack off even against the 'weaker' teams. He fought the whole top five and won with Diehauser Belial, the top ranked Champion, being the only one to hassle him. This just increased his popularity as a person and a fighter, he was renowned and revered.
Niren was an anomaly everywhere, especially because he was part Celestial Dragon. Celestial Dragons were created by the Biblical God to protect the entrance to Heaven just like the Cerberus were created to guard the Gates of Hell. These Celestial Dragons alone, in their prime, were just below the 'Five Dragon Kings' in strength and even the strongest devils had a hard time against their holy flames. Unlike the Cerberus, the Celestial Dragons weren't all that loyal to heaven as after all, they are dragons. They aren't creatures that can be controlled easily, you have to repeatedly show your dominance over them or they will leave and do what they want. Also unlike the Cerberus, they had human forms as to increase the amount of guardians protecting the stairway to Heaven. Unluckily, the offspring of these humans and Celestial dragons could never acquire a Sacred Gear through birth as they would always be full Celestial Dragons because a human's blood was too thin and weak, only other supernatural creatures could make them into hybrids like devils, Lady Zagan.
Niren was secretive, even with his wife. Unknown to her, he was an honorary member of Grigori. Although this was just on the basis of sparring, to Niren it was a way for him to keep variety in his training so his skills were never dull. The fact that he was a hybrid gained him immunity from the church and a sort or strange revelry, the dragon side equalled out the devil side at times to them. The Grigori part was known to his peerage and his mother, the Church part was known to everyone but there was one thing that absolutely no one else knew about although Serafall has a slight inkling.
Ophis the Ouroborus Dragon. This being was the second strongest in the world, someone you should be very wary of if you see and the general consensus is to run or be extremely polite as saying one thing just out of turn can mean the loss of your head. None of that could be said to be true if you were to see the two together. Ophis and Niren were friends and close ones at that. As a fellow dragon, Niren gained certain privileges when it came to Ophis. He gained the right to be more casual with Ophis but it was in his genes to be that way and he wasn't afraid of Ophis. His frankness and constant cheerful nature worked, it allowed Ophis to react in wonder and intrigue. Ophis took the form of a young woman, who to a human would look to be in her early twenties compared to Niren who looked to be on the edge of his teens.
Ophis had long black hair and wore Gothic style clothes. Black in colour with scarlet accents, even the frill was scarlet in colour. The headband that she wore with it was black with two real roses on top, one at either end. Her body type was slender just like a pro model. All dragons that had a human form held model-like physiques, it was their nature to appeal to others. Dragons are beings of power, they pull in others without much work and their human forms are a way to intensify that. That's one of the reasons that his Gold and Scarlet hair actually works.
When they met each other one topic always came up and that topic was Great Red. Great Red was said to be the strongest being in the world, he was the Apocalypse Dragon but unlike Ophis, he wasn't a God. He didn't have the ability to take a human form although it was probably within his power to do so as he was fuelled by dreams. According to Ophis, Great Red had drove her out of her home which was the Dimension Gap. The Dimension Gap was a huge space, possibly the same size as Earth itself. Ophis needed help to drive him out of her home, hopefully even kill him and Niren was the first person Ophis tried to recruit into an organisation that was later to be called the 'Khaos Brigade'. Niren declined the request to join the organisation but did say that he would help once they had got to Great Red as he wouldn't mind fighting him himself.
Because of this along with other things, Ophis marked Niren as her mate. Over his left shoulder appeared a black snake that looked to be eating it's own tail. The symbol for Ophis and the symbol for the infinite. Serafall had questioned Niren on this multiple times to which she got no decent reply as the only time she could see it up close was when they were naked and having sex, an easy time for Niren to change her brain's wavelength. But there was a time when Serafall remembered afterwards and confronted him about it to which Niren surprised with how he answered and what he said. Niren told her that the Ouroborus Dragon marked him as her mate like it was nothing. To Niren it was, Ophis wouldn't hurt Niren unless he did something drastic and completely out of order but to Serafall and everyone else alive, it was huge especially if the person you tell is your wife and mate.
They kept this between themselves though, telling anyone else would violate what Niren and Ophis had and may be something that sets Ophis off, even Niren wouldn't know if it might set her off. You wouldn't even want to chance it.
…
At this moment in time, I was attending a meeting with the other Maous and each of the Pillar heads. We were all here today to hear Ajuka's upcoming experiment and by the end of the meeting decide whether it should go ahead and if it needs to be changed at all or restricted in some way but they were more my side of things rather than anything else.
The table we sat at was a large circle shape with Sirzechs sitting at the top centre in his throne with myself and the other three Maous by his side in our own thrones. I was to Sirzechs right with Serafall next to me and Ajuka was to Sirzechs left with Falbium next to him. This meeting was then started by Ajuka who had came out of hir lab for the first time in two months.
"Today I would like to talk about something that runs along the same lines as the Evil Pieces in the fact that they increase the devil population."
As expected, the ears of each clan head perked up at the thought of increasing our population even more.
"This plan is to create more pure-blooded devils. With the permission of everyone and Niren-kun here, I will work alongside Mephisto Pheles and Niren 'Satan' Zagan to create the process. The way I had thought up was the Queen piece, one that every High-class devil has. It's starting to become popular that Male Kings are marrying their female queens and a lot of these have been reincarnated devils. My thought is to make every Queen piece able to make the designated person into a pure-blooded devil. Even if they King doesn't marry the Queen, it will still increase the population of pure-bloods."
"Ajuka, that'd only be for the time really. The people who take the Queen piece are still classed as servants so in our society they aren't so inclined to marry other pure-bloods meaning it'd only really work for one time."
I interjected quickly with my point before Ajuka could carry on earning everyone's attention.
"That is true Niren-kun, I was thinking that to combat this, rather than making ranking up come quicker we could make the promotion test a little easier. And then when they become a High-class devil, the King piece makes them Pure-bloods as well."
When Ajuka finished speaking, everyone's attention turned back to myself as I started to think about his proposal. It was a good thought, something that could help us regenerate our numbers but the thing is ensuring it's success. How would we go about making it work? I need to know whether it would be humane or not.
"It's a good proposal but what are the risks with it? Is there any chance the person who is going to become the Queen or a high-class devil reacts badly to the transformation? If so, how are you going to make sure that doesn't happen?"
"That is what I don't know yet and why I mentioned you for helping out. You helped me with creating the Evil Pieces plus I'd need your input on what is humane or not, I certainly don't want you fining me again."
"That's fine by me. I can't completely sanction it on my end but I can allow the starting process to commence."
Small mutterings went through the rooms as the Lords and Ladies came to their own conclusions and nodded to both of our points and acknowledging the process themselves.
"One last thing from me is Mephisto Pheles himself. Recently he told me that he made a high-class devil, and before you say anything let me finish, Niren-kun."
Before I could say anything Ajuka acted and blocked me before I could do a thing. I just playfully rose my hands up in surrender allowing him to continue with a smile.
"The person in question was a dying human with cancer. Mephisto said he could save the person but only if he would become a devil, he also told him that it isn't fully tested but the success rate was calculated to be high, over 90% at that. The human accepted and it worked, Mephisto now has a brother. Mephisto said that we could use it as long as it passes Niren-kun's inspection."
A smirk found it's way to my face. I was really the only one he who would voice my opinion on such things.
"I'll need to post a few restrictions for this, but other than that it sounds prosperous."
"Then what are your restrictions?"
This question actually came from Sirzechs surprisingly me slightly.
"One per clan and we allow the top Extra Demon clans to do this as well. The person can't be a member of a peerage at all, in the clan or not. Restrict it to Orphans who have no family, give them something good in the world. No one above 15 for peerage and information purposes but I'd need to speak with Mephisto myself for a bottom line age, so we know how stressful it is on a body. Whether they have Sacred Gears doesn't matter to me, the stronger the better. I won't restrict it to just humans either. If you find orphaned vampires, werewolves, youkai then that should be fine. Can anybody else think of something?"
I asked out towards the room causing the clan heads to look at each other before they all shook their heads at me. I then looked to my fellow Maous and they did the same.
"Then yeah, as long as my guidelines and restrictions are kept to then both ideas are allowed within my law."
"Great. Does anybody have anything else they want to bring up?"
As the mediator for every meeting, Sirzechs asks the question that has become a ritual to him and everyone shook their heads with one or two contemplating something but deciding against it. Then Sirzechs smiled and looked pretty cheerful, he loves saying the next part.
"Alright then, everyone is dismissed. This meeting is adjourned."
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