007 Deal with a Satan
"Hello, young Phenex. Let us talk more in my office." Says Ajuka as he walks through the large oak doors into a vast room that appears to be an office with a much bigger laboratory surrounding the office on two sides. Glass panels separate the office and the lab.
Looking over the office, I notice it is very bare with only the necessities. To my left, a glass desk with an oversized white leather swivel chair behind it and two white leather armchairs that sat lower than Ajuka's chair. To my right, three white leather sofas are forming a U-shape with a coffee table between them. Finally, the office had a cabinet on the far right corner with refreshments inside.
The office as a whole gives me a Tony Stark vibe, but instead of cars, it is lab equipment that I can't even recognize.
"Your office is a lot different from the rest of the house." I say, trying not to sound as nervous as I do standing in front of a Super-Devil, one of only three.
"It's newly built for a private project I am working on." Ajuka says while walking over to the sofas on the right. "Sit. We have a lot to discuss and not a lot of time." He gestures for me to sit on the sofa furthest from the door and closest to the glass wall separating the office from the lab.
Ajuka waves his hand towards the coffee table, and a bright green magic circle appears and disappears, leaving behind a few sheets of paper along with a silver pen with intricate engravings along the side depicting chess pieces. Ajuka seems to really like chess, maybe a little too much.
"Before we can go on, you will have to sign this non-disclosure." Ajuka says, gesturing to the papers on the desk.
"Why do I need to sign a non-disclosure?" I ask Ajuka confused.
"Hmm, Most Phenex kids would be raging by now, compelled by the Sin of Pride inherent within your bloodline. How curious." Ajuka says while he gives me a contemplative look. Ajuka, clearly lost in his world, continues, "Interesting, interesting. You don't have any of your Sins active yet. Most probably not yet taking effect due to your low demonic power."
I don't particularly appreciate that he treats me like a lab rat he is studying. And I clearly remember the Administrator talking about it. He said it would change my personality. Not seeing it in my status, I didn't think about it anymore. But according to Ajuka's mumbling's to himself, I now know one of my Sins will be Pride and that it will start affecting me when I get more demonic power, something I will have to watch out for. I don't want to be just another Draco Malfoy shouting, "My father will hear about this!" Not that he would care all that much.
"Lord Ajuka, you haven't answered me regarding the non-disclosure or why your servant kidnapped me from my hospital room." I ask, trying to sound authoritative and that I'm not freaking out inside. "I highly doubt my parents and the other nobles will be happy to find out I was just taken without my parent's consent and told to sign a contract without them to look it over."
He chuckles to himself and says, "Nobody knows you are here, little Phenex."
"What about the doctor?" I ask, knowing he led Fazal to my room.
"Ahh, you are talking about Doctor Cooper?" I nodded to his question. "Doctor Cooper works for me. I instructed him to look out for anything strange about you; I grew increasingly curious how a member of the Phenex clan that no one even knew existed before a year ago ends up in hospital with a disease of unknown origin." Ajuka stopped to watch my reaction to the news that the only person I could count on to tell my parents that Ajuka kidnapped me works for the very man that kidnapped me.
I was rightfully frightened to find out that I was here with a Satan with no one the wiser. But remembering him saying that 'We don't have much time.' It made me calm down a little, realizing he was most likely not going to harm me. I hope.
Seeing me calm down, Ajuka waves his hand to the wall. Above the cabinet, a hologram appears, playing a video of me in the hospital unmoving before I suddenly combust in orange flames. At least I now know why my room was in such a state. As I continue to watch, the orange flames start to condense around my body, slowly beginning to turn black with royal blue accents.
"He notified me as soon as you were reborn from flames."
"You recorded me in a coma. That's creepy." I say before I realize that I'm saying it. I look over to Ajuka to see his reaction to what I said. The only change in his expression is a twitch of his eye.
"Before I can tell you why you are here, I need you to sign the non-disclosure agreement. You are not in any danger in my company. On the contrary, I promise it will benefit you greatly." He says, just looking at me, not commenting on my comment.
I look at Ajuka's face looking for anything that will show me if he is lying or not. Eventually, I decide to sign the contract after giving it a once over, ensuring that it is only a non-disclosure and I am not signing myself into slavery or something nefarious. The reason I decided to sign it was because of the good doctor. Suppose he reported everything about me to Ajuka. In that case, that means he also told him about my problem regarding my demonic energy growing too fast, And if anyone is going to have a solution, it will be Ajuka.
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Ajuka surprised me by taking the contract from me and also signing it. I know that the contract was magically binding, meaning if either talked about this conversation without the permission of the other, we would suffer a harsh punishment, even he, as a super-devil, can not get around the contract.
"There, now we can talk without restraint. Nothing said between us today will get out." He says to me. "If it makes you feel better, we can ask one question for each at a time. You can go first." Ajuka continues.
"Okay. My first question is, why did you kidnap me and not invite me over?" Asking the first question that came to my mind.
"Simple, I do not want what I'm working on to get out. My private projects are for me and not for the nobles to abuse in their petty squabbles for power. If I had publically invited you, everyone would have wanted to know what I wanted with you. Let us be honest here you are too weak to resist their demands. " Ajuka says clearly, not hiding his contempt for the noble houses and my weakness.
"My turn. Do you know what was killing you? When I ran tests on you to try and determine what was killing you, I came up blank. I do have some ideas, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on the subject" Ajuka immediately gets to the heart of the problem.
I contemplate what to tell him, do I tell him the truth that it was a parasite in my heart that was slowly draining me, or do I lie and say I don't know.
Thinking it over for a minute, I decided to tell him the truth because I did not think I would lie to him and make it believable. Also, telling him the truth will help me in the long run because he is the most knowledgeable devil in the underworld. So he might be able to point me in the direction of the person that infected me in the first place.
"I spent the last five years before I went into a coma looking for an answer, and the only thing I could think of is a demonic parasite from Hades realm." I say, looking at Ajuka's face, seeing the realization on his face. From that look on his face, I know that he knows what parasite I am referring to. Then I see his face harden when he probably realizes that someone did this to me and that I wasn't born with it, as the reports say or that I was not accidentally infected. The parasite is native to the realm Hades rules and, even then, is very rare.
I only know about the parasite because the old Rical looked into all possible reasons for his health problems, only finding out about the parasite hours before he fell into a coma. He fell into a coma because he tried to get rid of the parasite himself by following the book he found on the subject. The book said he needs to overload the parasite with too much energy to handle and it would overload and die. Unfortunately, the book didn't mention the amount of energy he needed to overload the parasite, and Rical did not have a 10th of the required energy.
So when Rical started pushing all the energy he could manage into the parasite, trying to overload it. Instead, the parasite gobbled all the energy up like it was at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
"You tried to overload it, didn't you? That's why you fell into a coma." I just nodded at him.
"It's your turn to ask a question. Ask away." Ajuka gestures for me to ask my question.
"Why do I interest you? How can I possibly help you with your current project?" Looking around at his newly built lab that I'm assuming is for this project he is working on.
Ajuka plays the video again but stops just after the flames change from orange to black with blue.
"That's why." he points to the screen." The changes to your flame indicate a mutation in your bloodline. You are the first devil I have come across that has had his bloodline mutate before reaching the Satan class." Ajaka continues, seeing the confusion on my face." When a devel crosses the bridge between Ultimate and Satan class, their abilities or bloodline mutates to a higher form, anything from changing how it acts or the strength. When you reach the super-devil class, this mutation will fuse with your very life force and demonic energy, which gives you the ability to change into your proper form." Ajuka stops talking, trying to catch his breath after telling me secrets that someone at my level typically would not know.
I'm not complaining; I am a firm believer that knowledge is power. But, at least I now know he is interested in my enhanced bloodline and not my mysterious rebirth."It is my turn again, and my next question is more of a request than a question and is the whole reason I brought you here to my private lab." Ajuka stops to see my expression, which I am trying to keep neutral as possible not to give anything away. Not sure if I am succeeding, he continues, "I want to scan your body and new abilities to further my research into mutations and how they happen. I believe you might be the key I need to complete my project."
I see why he is going to such lengths to keep this project secret; no one will like Ajuka meddling in bloodlines. Thinking he might try to recreate their bloodlines in himself or an army of loyal soldiers with all the 72 pillar families abilities. Mutated bloodline or not, this could get him into a lot of trouble with the nobles and Bael. I doubt even Sirzechs will like his friend messing with mutated bloodlines.
And if the Phenex clan finds out that he is messing with their bloodline, shit will hit the fan. But none of that affects me; all I want to know is how this can benefit me.
"I do not mind you wanting to run a few tests on me, but I want something in return. First, anything you learn about my bloodline stays between you and me. Second, I want you to tell me everything you find about my bloodline that could benefit me. And, lastly, I am sure you have heard about my condition and that I only have a year and a half to reach a high-class in physical strength. Do you have anything to help me with this?"
Ajuka smiles like he just won the lottery. " During the civil war, I worked on a project to try and strengthen our soldiers. But, unfortunately, I was not able to complete the project before the end of the war and the resources were too scarce to make it available to everyone after the war due to using the crystals for Evil pieces."
Ajuka pulls out a crystal bead that looks like it was crafted from the same crystal that the evil pieces were crafted out of. Placing the bead in front of me. I can't distinguish the bead from a pretty marble that a kid would play with. This bead fuses to your heart and changes your heart, adding the ability to use your demonic power to increase your body to the same level as your demonic power."
I smile once again, having hope that this can solve my problems.
"What's the catch? With something like this, there is always a catch? Or you would have handed it out to every high-class devil you could." I say not wanting to use something that could damage my potential or stunt my growth too much.
"Well, for one, The Evil Bead can not be used on reincarnated devils for reasons I'm not going to get into. Two, it uses your demonic power to increase your body, slowly infusing it into each cell, similar to how pure blood devils get stronger as they age so that their bodies can hold their power, just at a much higher level. So using this will slow down the growth of demonic power by 50 percent. And lastly, the crystal used in its creation is used for Evil Pieces, and we don't have a lot of the crystal." Ajuka finishes.
I see. No Noble pureblood would let their demonic energy grow slower to have a stronger body. Ninety percent of purebloods get their power from their bloodline ability that uses demonic energy. Even abilities that affect the body use demonic energy to work. But for me, this is a treasure simply because it will give me more time to strengthen my body and strengthen my body without me doing anything. But there is another reason this is so perfect for me: my Parasitic hell flames that could supply the energy to compensate for the usage of demonic energy that the bead uses. "What did you name this bead?" I ask, not knowing the name of the bead and refusing to keep calling it bead.
"I call it…." Ajuka pauses for effect." Evil Bead's."
I faced palmed after he revealed the name. He said it like he was announcing an oscar winner.
"I'll call it The Demonic Heart since it changes the heart to something else." I say to Ajuka, clearly not happy that I am practically saying his naming sense sucks.
"Okay, I accept. How do I use it? I ask as I pick up the bead to put it away.
"Don't use The Demonic Heart yet." I look up at him with a questioning face, and he replies. "We are running out of time today. If we take any more time, somebody will notice you are missing. Here take this. It has my number programmed in. Give me a call once you leave the hospital to set a date for when we can run those tests and use the Demonic Heart under controlled conditions in case of complications." Ajuka says as he hands me a phone.
"Falak is waiting outside to take you back to the hospital."
"Okay, see you next, Ajuka." I say to Ajuka as I get up and leave his office, seeing Falak outside waiting for me.
AN:
This story is AU, so go with it if anything different from Canon.
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