Sitting inside of the library's upper floor, Alciel was drinking a fruit concoction reserved for angels. It had the sweetness of a mango, but the citrusy-bitter aftertaste of an orange peel. It was only yesterday that the Marcel brothers got into a scuffle while he was leaving, and neither of them had left the room since. The fight could still be going on for all he knew, but he wasn't about to interrupt a fraternal battle to the death.

A soft pressure on his head alerted him to the consciousness of another angel impeding on his own. He opened his mind and the angel nervously informed him that the guests have arrived.

Alciel massaged his shoulders as he waited patiently for the disgusting demons. He couldn't stop his sneer, but he fought it back as much as he could.

A chill ran up Alciel's two spines as a dark, damp power sorrounded him. It filled up his nose like a bad stench and stuck to his skin like tar.

The door opened to an unnaturally dark hallway in which seven figures loomed like treacherous predators. The darkness seemed to follow them as they sauntered into the room, taking up the plush seats and occupying the room as much as possible. Their greyish-red skin was sickening with it's light opacity that outlined their organs and the incomplete patches of hair like god just tacked it on wherever. Not that God had anything to do with these hellish nightmares of sin and sacrifice. Their twisted amalgamation of bone they called horns visually distinct from the rest of their race scraped the walls and ceilings as the largest among them had to crawl in a space humans and angels occupied with room to spare.

Alciel kept his cool as he was surrounded by the Dukes of Hell, the seven most powerful demons behind the Demon King himself.

"Well?" asked the smallest demon, the only one who knew the angel language. "Where is this political prisoner you've been protecting?"

Alciel ground his teeth, but was well aware demons did their best to start fights, so he deflected, "She's being brought up right now. It wasn't easy to catch her, I hope you've reconsidered compensating us for our efforts."

Four of the demons growled, which spooked the little angel, thinking they secretly understood angel. When the small demon growled at them in various tones, the guttural demon language, the demons huffed air in viscous laughter. Alciel kept his expression unreadable, but gently wiped off some slobber from his cheek while drinking his fruit.

"Is there anything I can get while we wait?"

"Are you stalling?" the small demon demanded. "How am I expected to believe the most anal compulsive of all seven races to not have their-"

A loud knock at the door startled everyone in the room, until Alciel expanded his consciousness and felt who was on the other side. The angel got to his feet and floated gently to the door, opening happily to placate his demon guests.

On the other side of the door was a heavily bleeding Goddard, carrying two unconscious bodies. The first was Mini, who was limply swaying over Goddard's shoulder. The second was the body of a much larger student, thick like a tree and heavy enough that he had to drag the body rather than carry it.

"Good, you brought... them?" Alciel asked in confusion.

"Who is this?" the lead demon asked.

Goddard glanced over at his most hated enemy, the Demon Lords who wrought hell on earth, and scoffed.

"I'm the one whose going to kill you in twenty years," Goddard declared while flopping onto a nearby chair.

The temperature of the air dropped twenty degrees as Goddard ever-so nonchalantly withdrew a packet of cigars he promised he wouldn't smoke in this life and pulled one out. The demons were enraged, their blood boiling over as a mere human dared to assume his superiority in their presence.

"You think you're in ANY way strong enough to kill one of us!?" the lead demon barked.

"Not right now," Goddard said while patting his coat for something to light. "But give me, say, twenty years, and not a damn one of you will be capable of touching the hairs on my head."

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The demon Baphamet, an insect-looking thing with a hardened carapace and sharpened pincers, moved faster than Goddard could see to his backside. His pincers were around his neck and pressing just hard enough to draw blood from the already battle-weary boy.

"Cocky, aren't you? How about I kill you right now?"

"None of you are going to do a damn thing to me," Goddard said, rubbing his fingers together hard and fast enough to generate a flame that he used to light his cigar. "If you kill me now, it's because you think I'm right. That I'm going to follow through on my words and make you all look like chumps in twenty years. You would be telling everyone that humans are powerful enough to challenge the very Dukes of Hell. I think my head is worth the face you fuckers would lose taking me seriously."

Goddard inhaled the cigar, while looking up with relish at Baphamet, blowing smoke directly into his face with a delicious smile.

"Prove me right," Goddard challenged. "Tell the whole world that you're afraid of a little, human boy."

"I should kill you just for the insult," Baphamet threatened, running his razor pincers across his neck.

"Sounds like fear, to me."

"Enough," the leader said in words heavier than words should be. Everyone felt a weight on their bodies as the air in the room became thick and viscous. "I will play your game. Eighteen years. We'll come back in eighteen of your years. If you're wrong, we're going to kill you. Even if you're right, we'll get to kill you anyway."

Goddard's smugness disappeared as he considered the options, "Are you sure you don't want to see me at full power?"

"I would much rather watch an entire lifetime of effort be spoilt right at the end," the demon leader smiled plainly. He waved his hand and Mini floated into the air as he said, "We'll be going, now."

The demons all shuffled awkwardly out of the only doorway as the smell of Goddard's cigar started to permeate. Once they were gone, Goddard looked down at his brother lying on the floor and blew smoke into his face. Slowly, his eyes flickered open, then he started to panic and pull at his bonds.

"What in god's name is wrong with you?!" Alciel screamed in a shrill, third-grader voice cracked screech. "Those demons were going to kill us all! Why the hell would you antagonize them like that?!"

"Because," Goddard stated, "the demon invasion from my memory happens in 1205. That's ten years from now. Looks to me like I just bought us eight years."

Alciel didn't know whether to be upset or happy, so he just cackled sadistically. Goddard smoked readily as the angel came to terms with how close they had been to death. The winged star student looked down at the frantically squirming and crying Paxton, then smiled at Goddard.

"At least you beat your brother," he breathed a deep sigh of relief. "I can only imagine what would have happened if we had tried to pull some trick on the Dukes of Hell."

Goddard scowled at Alciel for some reason, then leaned down and picked up his brother off the floor. He set the boy next to him on the couch and gave him a hard stare.

"I have never once beaten my brother seriously," Sam stated while staring into the tears Paxton shed. "He said he was an assassin in his previous life. The kind who ends a life as quickly and efficiently as possible. Whenever we sparred, I could see it. He was great at fighting, but he wasn't excellent. He overcompensated in a lot of areas, and all of our spars ended with his victory. When I finally started beating him, I could tell it's because he was holding back. Assassins do not spar, after all. If he ever meant to kill me, there is nothing on this world or in the stars beyond that could save my life. When we fought this last time, it wasn't even close.

"I lost immediately."

Goddard reached up and undid the gag around Paxton's mouth, and at the same time, his entire body shimmered and disappeared. Sitting there on the side of the couch was a black-haired, red skinned, tiny-horned demoness.

"Wha- but- you- how-" Alciel blubbered.

"They must be far enough away now that the illusion broke," Goddard stated as Mini started sobbing heavily.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?!"

"You were the linchpin in this whole plan," Goddard said, taking another puff of toxin as he patted Mini's head in a vain attempt at comforting. "We were going off of your reaction to tell if the illusion could fool... non-humans."

"Then who did-?" Alciel asked before realizing.

Goddard exhaled a stream of smoke as he squinted off into space, "You know, there was an old storybook our mother use to read us when we were kids. It was the tale of how a legendary hero went off to fight the king of all evil. My brother never liked that story, but never said why. I asked him now that we've both lived second lives what was so wrong about a children's book. Do you know what he said to me?"

Alciel shook his head, so Goddard did his best Paxton impression, "A hero is someone who saves, not someone who kills. When you want to kill a king, you don't hope for a hero: you hire an assassin."

Goddard chuckled as he imagined what his brother would say to comfort the crying demon child.

"Half-right, I'd say," said Alciel, still stunned by how the plan had worked and seemed to continue to work. "A hero is not someone who saves, but someone who drives away the darkness with light. They are the person most desperately needed. In that sense, wouldn't an assassin be just right?"

Goddard nodded as he puffed the last bits of his cigar with a smile, "My brother, the hero AND the assassin? Sounds like we've got a children's book on our hands."

"You realize the demons are going to come kill us all when they realize your brother isn't a demoness, don't you?"

Goddard grinned and said, "You realize WHO my brother is, don't you?"

For the first time since they've known each other, Goddard hugged Mini and the little demon responded in kind.