Satan, January 4th

When Satan, Arsene and Nico were ready to leave for the reunion, they gathered outside of the palace on the bridge.

“Everyone has what they want to bring?” Satan asked.

Arsene and Nico nodded.

‘Blood: transform’ Satan mumbled in demon tongue, his native language. The chains wrapped around his waist appeared to melt as they turned into blood, flowing down Satan’s clothes. Before they could move any further, Satan said, ‘Blood: move,’ as he brought his hand out to the side, the blood following his hand. ‘Blood: teleport,’ he muttered made a circular motion with his hands, moving the blood around the three until blood covered every inch of their vision and bodies. Finally, they took off.

After a ten-minute journey, they ended up on a long stone bridge that led to a gothic styled palace of mainly jet black and charcoal gray with crimson red accents wherever possible. Towers reached high in the air and windows dotted and decorated many surfaces of the castle, all with decorative carvings depicting various demons, angels, and other heavens and hells.

At the entrance gate stood a woman in red with horns curling inward toward her face. Satan squinted as he looked at her from afar.

“That’s definitely Lillith, right?” Arsene said.

“Not sure. Can’t tell from over here.” Satan said.

As the woman ran forward and her features became clearer, there was no doubt it was Lilith with her upturned, widened eyes of pale red, her thin face, and pale pink skin. Upon reaching Satan, she tackled Satan in a hug.

“Ah, mom geez!” Satan smiled as he hugged her back.

“It’s so good to see you. And you finally brought Nico to the reunion. Dia will be thrilled to see him after all these years!!” Lilith zipped around as she greeted them all. “Why don’t you make your way inside? Everyone else is here. We haven’t really done much yet, but we’ll probably hang out, and chat a bit first.”

“Does that include Luce?” Satan mumbled to Lilith as they began walking forward to the castle..

Lilith sighed, her demeanor immediately deflating like a balloon. “I wish it did.”

“Have the search parties been able to find anything?”

“Still no. All my friends keep telling me that maybe it’s time we stopped looking. Maybe he really is-”

“Well, did they ever find a body?”

“No.”

“Then we don’t know if he’s dead.”

“We don’t know if uncle Lucifer’s alive either though,” Satan’s youngest child piped in out of nowhere.

Satan turned to glare down at him.

“What? I’m just saying.”

As they finished up their conversation, they began to enter the first room of the palace, which had coats and shoes scattered about in the front. They took a left and continued down a long hallway until they came to a red door. Behind the door were all the rest of the family members, which were mostly just Satan and Arsene’s other nine kids from before divorce, having long reached adulthood at that point, plus some of their kids’ partners.

Once they entered the room, Lilith took Nico over to Diablo, while Arsene went around talking to some of her children. Satan stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, looking at the rest of his family members being involved in a conversation. As some of his children greeted him, he’d greet them back, but not without looking back at Diablo every couple minutes.

Finally, when his children were busy talking to others, and Diablo walked away from Lilith and Nico, Satan smirked.

‘Fucking finally. I'll talk to dad and quit ruling over the stupid Hell of Ayuzuma and live in the Earthinian Hell again!’ Satan cheered in his head as he made his way over to Diablo.

Before Satan could even get a single word out, Diablo raised his voice. “Alright, who’s hungry?”

Everyone cheered in response.

‘Fuck, and I don’t want everyone at the table to know about this… I can wait until after food then, I suppose.’ Satan’s eyes twitched as he made his way to the dining room.

The ceilings were lofty, walls crimson red, and the floors were wooden and gray. High above the table was a stained glass window with Satan’s family members and other various family friends. The table was long and wide, with lots of chairs. Black porcelain plates, utensils and various foods lined the surface. Satan, Arsene and Nico each placed their own contributions in the space in the middle of the table. Satan brought garlic bread. Arsene scurried off to a much smaller table set to the side, and placed down her blue and white cupcakes with angel motifs, referencing her being a patron goddess of angels. Nico joined Arsene and placed down a ten tier cake.

Nico and Arsene ran back over. Finally, they sat in the three seats that were right near Diablo. Crow ran off to sit next to one of his siblings.

Satan, Arsene and Nico’s eyes fell onto a large ham in the middle of the table. It was a beautiful brown ham sitting on lettuce and even roses. One of Satan’s children fussed with the ham.

The last few of the children brought in their contributions and took their seats, with only three seats remaining empty.

Diablo rose from his seat at the head of the table.``Before we begin, I’d like to say a few words. These past thousand years haven’t been easy. Two thousand twenty-three years without Lucifer and it hasn’t gotten easier. We still know Arista’s out there, but we have not seen her since. And it’s been ten years since Araya left to look for them. We haven’t heard from her either, but when, and not if, but when she gets back, we need to thank her. I’ve known her since Satan and Lucifer first met the Mendozas, and she’s one of the strongest women I’ve ever known. Today is a happy day as well. I get to take a break from my duties of ruling the Earthnian Hell and spend time with all of you. Now, Let’s get to eating.”

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They barely got through five bites of their food before Satan watched the stained glass windows from across his seat windows shatter. Something, or someone skidded across the floor, black clothing or fabric covering it, or their entire body, The family all froze in place, some even dropping their utensils on the table. Satan glanced over at Arsene and Nico, who were frozen in place with widened eyes like everyone else, then turned his gaze to his parents who rose out of their chairs.

“The rest of you, keep eating. We’re gonna see what that was about,” Satan mumbled.

Satan and his parents rose from their seats and ran over to the person. As they got closer, they noticed white horns protruding from their heads. Satan watched Diablo get down on his knees and gently hold out a hand to the person.

“Are you alright… sir? Or ma’am? Um, fellow demon?”

The demon in black sat up slowly. They smacked Diablo’s hand away, making Satan and Lilith glance at each other again.

“Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Satanel. You’ve made things much easier.” The person gave an evil grin.

Satan raised an eyebrow as he looked at the person. Blood surrounded the demon, and in seconds, they sped past them, making their way down the hallway in their blood comet-like form. A chill ran throughout Satan’s body as he watched, the feeling growing stronger when he looked over at the table and saw all the seats were empty.

“They’re gone!” He alerted his parents.

His heartbeat quickened as Satan went to run down the hallway they had entered from. He was slowly being covered in black magic particles. He tried teleporting farther down the hallway to get it off, but it stayed stuck to his body. He shook his limbs around in a frenzied panic, when in a flash, the particles disappeared. Satan inspected his body rapidly, with more and more questions popping into his head with his heartbeat pounding in his head like a drum, While he checked himself, the chains around Satan’s waist turned back into blood and dripped onto his robes. He held up the bloodied ends of the robe and groaned.

Satan looked behind him and shouted, “Did… whatever that was mess with your magic, too?”

“Yes!” His parents yelled from a distance.

Diablo quickly approached Satan, matching his pace as he panted out: “I just texted the family group chat. I don’t know what’s even going on, but we need to check the palace and see if they’re here or not. Go to the armory and grab some weapons in case you encounter that person again.”

‘I guess there are downsides to only having a weapon I need to form out of blood.’ Satan thought as he went into the armory. He grabbed a pitchfork, hand still trembling and briefly glanced at his phone. His stomach sank as he read a barely legible text message from one of his children, one that only mentioned two of his children were attacked in the kitchen. Images of his children being violently murdered flashed in his mind. He bit his lower lip as tears clouded his vision.

‘Get your ass together, Satan, if your family dies because your ass was too emotional, that's on you.’ Satan berated himself in his head as he sprinted toward the kitchen.

Upon reaching the kitchen, he kicked open the door and saw his two oldest children with their partners. His children’s partners attempted to fight off new attackers all dressed in black, his eldest daughter lay on the floor as one attacker moved a sword back and forth on her legs, eyelids threatening to fall while his eldest son’s head was bashed into the kitchen counter.

Adrenaline surged as Satan charged forward at the attackers with his pitchfork. He swung at one, but they all teleported away when they noticed him.

“Dad.” His eldest daughter weakly mumbled.

“I’m here. Please don’t close your eyes.” Satan dove onto the floor, and grasped his daughter’s hand.

His daughter’s boyfriend raced over with a paper towel and handed them to Satan, together the two wrapped the paper towels around her legs. The boyfriend said, “This’ll work for now. When we can we’ll give you actual bandages.”

Satan rose from the floor and looked at his eldest son, now joined with his queerplatonic partner as he washed his mouth in the sink.

“What the hell did they do to you?.” Satan walked over and gave him a paper towel.

Arian covered his bleeding mouth with it. “Didn’t you see?”

“Well, yes, you know what I mean. Did they mess with your magic as well?”

They all nodded yes.

“Of course. Let me see if anyone else sent a text…” Satan pulled out his phone again. He turned it on.

His heart sank.

Another one of his children described how Arsene’s eye was cut open on the second floor hallway near the bedrooms.

“We need to get out of here! Come on!” Satan shut off his phone and ran up the stairs. He gripped his pitchfork tighter. With how frenzied his run up the stairs was, Satan couldn’t help almost falling every other second. On the other side of the hallway, the rest of the family ran in as well.

Arsene lied on the floor. Her chest rapidly rose and fell. She shut her eyes tightly, as a mixture of water and blood flowed from them.

Satan dove towards Arsene. His parents also joined him, Lilith soothed her as Diablo and Satan helped her get up.

“Let’s get the hell out of here.” Diablo said.

Everyone agreed.

The family made their way down the stairs and out of the palace. The unharmed attendants kept a fighting stance or called for the hospital as they all filed out of the palace.

As they made their way outside, citizens crowded the palace entrance. They filled the bridge, making exiting by walking impossible.

“Why are they all here?” Satan whispered.

“Must’ve seen or heard it or something,” Diablo whispered back.

“I hope they don’t want a speech,” Lilith said.

“Maybe they do.” Diablo stepped forward, closer to the citizens, and adjusted his clothes. “Citizens of Earthinian Hell, I don’t know what you’ve seen or heard, but I can confirm this. Tonight, there was an attack on my family. Just as we began our dinner, a figure in all black broke in through a window. We thought they got hurt or in an accident, but we believe they have something to do with the attacks. Not all of us got targeted, though. They attacked only nine of my grandchildren and Arsene. Of all the thoughts and opinions others may hold on my family, there has never been an attack quite like this. In the past years, since we’ve had our yearly reunion, we have never needed guards. I see now that it was a foolish mistake. The fact that all past reunions have never had an incident like this was luck. We hope to find out more about this later, but for now, we must get to the hospital.”

As Diablo finished up, paramedics and guards teleported onto the scene. They gave their testimonies and sent the others into the hospital.

The unscathed members of the family sat in the waiting room, sounds of unfolding chaos and running from other hospital goers filled their ears as they waited in silence. By then, they’d waited hours for any kind of news.

“So, cut open irises, attempts to cut off legs, making a Glasgow smile and punching in teeth, attempts to stab through the heart, stealing of an eye, cutting a stomach open, shattering of bones, attempting drowning, head bashing. What does it mean? Why only nine of my kids and Arsene? Why not all of us?” Satan mumbled to himself.

Satan suddenly remembered he had his diary on him. He fished it out of his pants pocket and began writing. He wrote out the facts of what had happened. They weren’t anything special, but there was something he couldn’t put on his finger about it all.

“Well, everyone, it’s been… six hours, officially. I don’t know if it’s safe to be in the palace right now. Why don’t we go to a nearby hotel? We can all get rooms and be there for everyone tomorrow.” Diablo got up and stretched.

“Yes, let’s. Satan, wanna room with me?” Nico asked.

“Sure.”

As they exited the hospital, Satan finally had a revelation.

‘Maybe this is all because of… me. Maybe this has something to do with Katherina and Takahiro.’