Satan, January 5th

Satan shrieked as he rose from his bed memories of the previous night flooded in. Beads of sweat coated his forehead, which he quickly wiped away. He took a few deep breaths, and tried to take in his surroundings. White walls, a white bed, a matching bed on his left, and a tv on the wall.

Nico sat on a couch across from the bed with raised eyebrows. His eyes, blue with a hint of gray to them, seemed to look at Satan concerningly. “Hey, uh, you alright?” He gently pried.

“Not really. How long was I out for?” Satan straightened up, rubbing his shoulders to soothe himself.

“I think it was twelve hours.”

Satan’s eyes widened as he tore the blanket away. “I was asleep for twelve hours?” He threw on his shoes and wrapped his chains around his waist in seconds. “You ready?”

Nico nodded. Satan teleported them, and in the blink of an eye, they arrived at the hospital as the blood went back into its chained form. Fellow demons lined the waiting room, filling up most of the seats.

The receptionist, a short woman barely visible above the desk, rushed over to Satan as he approached, pointing to the only empty seats in the waiting room. Before they could sit down, a doctor with blue skin appeared from a hallway.

“Hello again, Mr. Satanel. Some of your family members are in more critical condition than the others, so recovery times will vary..” The doctor motioned for the duo to follow.

One by one, Satan checked in on his children in their various hospital rooms. Some talked with Satan like nothing happened, while others were still as statues, saying very few. Despite the varying conditions, his heart still stung upon seeing each of them.

Finally, the duo checked on Arsene. Satan opened the door to see yet another small white room with Arsene sitting on a bed. She faced the doorway as she talked with a doctor. Satan’s eyes were drawn to the blue fabric that covered her eyes. He recognized the fabric to be the same that Arsene would wear around her head on most other days. Satan furrowed an eyebrow. ‘She’s hiding her eyes? What’s up with that?’

The doctor rushed out of the room, while Arsene slowly stood up. Her mouth curved down slightly, and she faced the floor. She began walking out like she could see as normal, albeit slowly, despite the covering on her eyes.

“Arsene? Are you alright?” Satan asked, wrinkling his brow.

“I’m fine.” Arsene said monotonously.

Satan and Nico looked at each other for a moment, with upturned eyebrows and slight frowns, as she walked ahead of them. They matched her pace quickly and walked to the main room. While leaving, he noticed some of his children walking out.

“Hold on, I want to talk to them for a second.” Satan looked over at Nico and Arsene and held up a finger. He raced over to the group as they made their way out. “Hey!”

“Hi dad.” His eldest son greeted, his bandages on his mouth still there as they were earlier.

“Where are you guys headed to?”

“Home.” His eldest daughter said. She had blue hair, similar to Arsene’s, but more messy, like Satan’s.

“I know you guys are ready to run back home, but what if you stayed with us in Ayuzuma for a couple of days while we wait for everyone else to be discharged?”

“I just want to go home. We’ll talk to everyone else once they're discharged. And, uh… keep an eye on mom, alright? I’m worried,” his eldest son said. The other siblings nodded profusely.

Satan frowned and bit his lower lip while looking back at Arsene. Just yesterday, she laughed and smiled with the rest of the family, but at that moment, her face was completely blank, devoid of any expression. “Alright. I’ll let you know when that happens.”

The trio landed back at the palace. Immediately, Arsene walked to her room.

‘What can I do for her? I feel like I should know since we’ve known each other for so long and even were married, but I genuinely don’t know how to help.’

Satan and Nico looked at each other again.

“Should we talk to her?” Nico expressed.

Satan shook his head. “Later. If I talk to her now, I think she’s just gonna shut down. I have someone to call first.”

Before entering his room, he stared at the door to Arsene’s room, right across from his. Lingering for a bit, he finally entered his room, walked over to the black curtains, and opened them. Darting over to his desk right across from his bed, he opened the drawers and rummaged through old journals and books, until he unearthed a large, leather journal that slammed on his desk after dropping it.

‘This should be it…’ Satan thought as dust clouded the room, coughing as he waved a hand around to clear the dust. He rapidly flipped through the pages and scanned every word on them until one name caught his eyes.

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‘Reyes Valencia, 202-452-5429, [email protected]. I hope that’s still your number…’ Satan thought as he dialed the number.

“Hi, this is Reyes Valencia, monarch of the Hell dwarf planet Eris by day and detective by night. How may I help you today?” said the voice on the other end.

“Hi Reyes- erm, Mx. Valencia? I don’t know which I’m supposed to use, but this is Satan Satanel.”

“Oh! Satan, hi! Oh, uh, sorry about the recent… stuff.”

“Yeah, speaking of that, I want to talk to you about that. We still have zero idea about why anything happened. Would you be able to help us figure it out?”

“Yeah, yeah! Are you looking to turn this into a court case? I can also hook you up with a lawyer if needed.”

“If possible, then yeah. What would we need to do? When are you free?”

“Well, we need every witness of the attack to give their statements. I can investigate your parents’ palace as long as it hasn’t been tampered with, and we can find potential suspects and narrow them down.”

“Are you able to take my statement soon, at least? I’d like to get mine out of the way. I don’t know about everyone else.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure! Would you be free later tonight, by chance?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Alright then. I’ll make a group chat for your family to let them know what’s going on. See you in a bit.”

Satan stood by the palace entrance, tapping his foot with darting eyes. Blood particles appeared at the entrance. Instinctively, Satan clenched his fists and took a step forward, ready to throw punches if needed.

‘It’s fine, it’s probably Reyes,’ Satan’s heart pounded as he moved out of his defensive stance.

The blood formed into a body, quickly dispersing away from Reyes.

“Wow, what a long journey! Anyway, hi! It’s been so long since we’ve last seen each other,” Reyes greeted. She had a deep fuschia coat and scarf, with a fuschia hat to top it all off. Three white horns also poked out of holes in the hat.

Satan took a deep sigh of relief before leading Reyes into the dining room, where Arsene and Nico sat.

“This is Arsene, my ex-wife but still a good friend, and Nico, technically the bodyguard to both of us, but he mostly works as Arsene’s bodyguard now. Have you guys met Reyes before?” Satan asked.

The two of them shook their heads.

“Hi! As you know, my name is Reyes Valencia. I am the monarch of the hell of Eris by day and a detective by night, but that’s not important now, so no royal formalities! Oh, and I’m non-binary and use she, he and they pronouns. Please, just switch them up and we’re all good!” Reyes introduced themselves.

“Thank you for your help. How is this supposed to go down?” Nico said.

“I’m going to question Satan’s perspective on the event first, you guys can also give me your perspectives as well if you can. It’s a tricky line. I don’t want to stir up any grief, but I also need to question others as soon as possible,” Reyes said.

“I can go after Satan. I don’t think Arsene’s going today,” Nico said.

“Alright. I’ve never been to the Ayuzumian Hell to be quite honest. Can you bring me to a room where we can speak privately?”

“Yes, follow me,” Satan nodded.

Satan teleported, making their way out the palace and going underneath to older parts of the palace.

When their vision cleared, they’d ended up in a dimly lit room with a long table, dust everywhere. Satan and Reyes sat at the nearest seats, coughing on the dust everywhere for a moment. Satan watched Reyes tear up from coughing so much.

After enough of the dust dispersed, Reyes said, “Alright, tell me about the incident from your point of view.”

Satan finished off his side of the story while Reyes rapidly scribbled on a piece of paper. Waiting on Reyes to finish up, Satan took a long sip of his water, instantly moistening his dried throat from all the talking. His heart pounded as memories of last night stirred, as he remembered how each of his children looked after all their injuries.

“Alright, that’s everything that happened. Are there potential suspects or things you think could be connected to all this?” Reyes leaned back while stretching her hands.

“Yes, but…”

“But?”

“They aren’t exactly things Nico and Arsene know about.”

“What? Don’t tell me, did you, like, cheat on Arsene or something back in the day?” Reyes leaned in.

“Fuck no! Why would I do that? Still nothing good.”

“Now I’m worried. Well, why don’t you just get on with it?”

Satan took a deep breath before saying, “So, about two-hundred and twenty-nine years ago. I befriended Takahiro Koizumi, one of Ayuzuma’s most well-known figures of evil.”

“Never heard of him before, hold on.” Reyes had their phone pulled up. From a distance, Satan saw their phone open to a wikipedia article on Takahiro. “So, it seems like this Takahiro dude is dubbed evil by practically all of Ayuzuma at the moment. Did you meet him before the Ayuzumians called him evil?” Reyes said.

Satan almost jumped at his voice. “Yes, sorry. They didn’t start calling him evil until Saori, his and Eris’ daughter, was an adult, and it got worse after his parents died.”

“Before they described him as evil, were you secretive about being friends with him?”

“Sort of..”

“What do you mean?”

“I honestly didn’t think it’d matter if they knew or not. If they had asked, I would’ve told them, but once the evil rumors started, I got really secretive.”

“And there’s also an immortality law in Ayuzuma, where to my understanding, if an immortal marries a non-immortal, the non-immortal may become immortal if they want. When did you learn about that?”

“Same day we met, actually.”

“And what were you doing in those two-hundred and twenty-eight years?”

“Before we met Katherina, it was just hanging out. When Takahiro lost his title as king, Eris and I wanted to help him get it back, but we weren’t good at it. We didn’t take attempting to make Takahiro King of Black again seriously until we met Katherina, which was a turning point of… everything, really.”

“When did you meet Katherina?”

“I wanna say about… 1998? She definitely made us get our act together, but at the cost of our relationships.”

“How so?”