Akira knows one thing for sure: "I'm not that great." Despite having the name of for intelligence, Akira was not far above his peers. Average is an generous description for him, 'unremarkable' is more accurate. Cookie cutter is the story of his life, and it is not outside the norm of many of those around him. Not that it matters in the grand scheme of things. The chance for Akira to rise to any semblance of greatness is laughable. Upward mobility is pointless to someone like him when everyone else crawls up the same ladder.

He is not lazy; rather, he sees himself as being more practical. He is going to be hounded at school and be forgotten when the next class rolls in to take his place. Accepting this to be true, Akira has little hope on his future prospects. "At least," Akira looks to the side of his room where his desk is. With his four year old hand-me-down computer and stacks of manga beside it, Akira is not the least bit worried, "I don't have to be special." What does the universe owe to a single individual? The answer to Akira is a resounding 'nothing'. But this nihilistic worldview prolongs a sense of joy in his mind. He can enjoy what he can as it happens.

Sitting up from his bed and plugging up his phone, Akira scratches an itch as he stretches from his laying position. Life is slow and repetitive, and he works fine with just that. He can live retroactive in his small slice of the world, controlling what little he can. He comes to a stand as he ponders if he should grab a snack or wait for his father to cook dinner. "Wait... we don't have anything sweet right now." His head hangs low, his appetite more driven by taste than hunger.

In Akira's bored state-of-mind, a sudden scent fills his nose. Up of the most prominent smell in the world awakens Akira's survival instincts, "Smoke?" He lifts his head to find the source of the smell, only to find his room as he left it. He moves to evacuate, but he finds his feet to be frozen in place. More accurately, he feels that his ankles are being restrained. The feeling only spends further across his body, his knees bucking in order to remove this hidden vice to no avail. Thrashing around, Akira looks to his closed door and makes a feeble attempt to reach for it. "Someone! Help! Help!" he calls out, but remains clueless as to how anyone can be of any assistance.

With a shift in the ground beneath him, his body drops a meter as his arms mildly cushion his fall. This is the limit of what his arms can do as the suffocating sensation grips them as well. Akira is scared out of his mind, "I did nothing to deserve this!" Is this how he was going to die? With a lack of explanation, it seems so. What would he expect to happen next; having the grip surround his neck? He thinks he is not far off as the world around him goes black.

Everything is still around Akira, and his mind races just for a meager understanding of what has transpired. He is not choking, he is not frozen. Yet, his freedom of movement is restrained. He blinks his eyes, but there is no difference in the darkness he sees. Was this the afterlife?

Then there is a blinding light, causing him to close his eyes reflexively. In the interval of an instant, he feels a change in the pull of gravity and feels a new surface against his body. At last, his motor controls are free from the strange binds. Opening his eyes, he finds himself in the middle of a forest, surrounded by middle height trees and patches of rocky terrain under the foliage.

Picking his head up, he spots a suspicious person with a reddish hue in their skin. It is only the first sign that this person is not a human, while other tells are a tail and horns on their head. A devil, or at least that is how Akira sees them. At another look, Akira notices that she is more human-like than he first suspected. Her crimson eyes and prominent fangs that pierce the gap in her lips are different, but she seems to be eerily similar to some kind of character in a game or manga. In the back of his mind, the thought emerges that she is a little cute, but it is buried by the much more pressing questions.

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He raises his body to a stand as he finds this being to be slightly shorter than him. Smokey-white hair is groomed around her horns and stops at her shoulders. The black clothes she is wearing seem a little excessive for someone traveling through a forest, but a closer look has Akira guessing that it is armor of some sort. He gets a sense of foreboding. If this girl was a devil, demon, or monster, he must not be on Earth anymore. His mind spins as his sense of reality is flipped on its head.

The lady snickers at the clueless face Akira is making, "Oh ho ho... You'll do." She takes a step closer as she examines the prize she fished up, "You lack some meat on your bones, but that would make for a good show."

A shiver goes down Akira's spine as he is being eyed by this mysterious lady. "W-What going on...?!" Any attempt Akira is making to appear brave is undermined by the shaking of his entire body. "W-Who are y-you?"

The lady makes a one-eighty and paces away from him, "Now, if it makes you stop quivering in your shoes, you might want to know something." She flashes the back of one of her hands, showing a series of markings present. Withdrawing her hand, she blows on it as she speaks away from Akira, "You should have something similar on yourself, yes? It marks that you were summoned here by my permission."

Akira quakes as he slowly confirms a sigil on his hand that was never there before. "W-What is...?"

The girl faces him and smirks, "It's a brand. A little sign that you are mine." She sees that the explanation has done nothing to calm Akira's nerves. With a distasteful click of her tongue, she leers at the frightened human, "Just take a moment to thank me for what I have done! I gave you the decency of understanding what I am saying here!"

A tinge of anger finally manages to break through in Akira, "Thank you?!"

"That's a start," she quickly quips.

The fuming Akira continues, "No! Why should I thank you?! You took me away from my home! I want to go back!"

She tilts her head to the side dismissively, "I'll consider it." The lie is not masked. She waves her hand in the air and in front of Akira's eyes, a simple metal sword manifests from thin air. "Now to get to work." The corners of her mouth curl as she tosses the blade at the befuddled man's feet. "You can start hunting with that."

Akira looks at the sword and looks back at her, "What...?"

The grin fades from the girl as she explains what she expects from him, "I summoned you to fight. Now be a good obedient pet and fetch me some goods."

The fire in Akira's belly intensifies as he wield the sword and closes in on her. Punishment comes swiftly when he freezes as a red skinny pitchfork is pointed at his nose. His blood runs cold as the girl smiles, "None of that now. One, I have the weapon advantage and the expertise to use it. Two, you have no hope of finding a way out of here." She manipulate the head of the pitchfork to slightly strokes Akira's head, "It's for the best. Don't die now. Little ol' Lilith here has a fortune to make."

Akira grits his teeth as the prongs of Lilith's weapon are centimeters away from his face, "Are you really going to force me to fight?"

She nods, "Better than any alternative you can hope for. You can have some of the straps later."

With no cards in his favor, Akira's first meeting with Lilith the sadistic demoness shapes the beginning of his hell. His want to live an average life is stronger now more than ever.