A Marvelous Devil:
Chapter 3: When the Past Wakes.
Dante Andormalius.
The Underworld.
My head was killing me. The throbbing inside my skull was unlike anything I had ever felt.
No, it wasn't only my skull. It was everywhere. Behind my eyes, inside my ears, running through my brain like when Father got too excited during sparring and forgot I wasn't made of stone.
And that wasn't all.
I felt my very soul shudder. I had no idea why I could feel that. Devils had souls in theory, yes, but I had never felt anything that proved it. Yet even without understanding, I knew I was right.
It felt like something locked away inside me was pounding on a door, demanding to be let out.
Something old.
No… ancient.
Older than the universe itself.
Through the pain, the word eons came to mind.
Where did that even come from?
I blinked hard, my eyes blurry as I stared at the ceiling. It looked like my house, but I didn't remember what had happened or why everything hurt. The thought of eons made no sense.
Devils lived long lives, but not that long. Even the oldest among us hadn't reached ten thousand years. Not eons.
Just like Zekram Bael, one of the oldest devils alive and someone some people considered to be more powerful than the current Satans.
People whispered that nothing in the Underworld happened without his approval.
A feeling of disdain drifted through my mind. It was mine, but at the same time, unnatural to the extreme.
I would never think that about someone like Zekram Bael. Not with my family's situation, not with how powerless we were.
So why did some part of me see the ancient devil as... quaint? Like a child playing with forces he didn't comprehend.
Where did that come from?
I pushed myself up on trembling elbows and froze. I wasn't in my room. Or anywhere familiar. Now that the pain cleared a little, dread crawled up my spine.
The house looked like my house, but… wrong. Empty in a way that made my instincts scream.
And there was a metallic taste in my mouth, like blood mixed with sulfur.
I knew that taste. I had no idea how I knew it.
"What…" My voice sounded rough to my ears. "Where am I? What's happening?!"
I scanned the living room that wasn't my living room. Something shifted on the couch. The outline of someone was there, even though the seat looked empty.
But I knew it wasn't empty.
"Show yourself!" I shouted, trying to gather my magic to break the illusion. Nothing happened. It was like I had no magic at all.
A laugh echoed from the empty couch. Smooth and amused. Familiar, yet I was sure I had never heard it before.
Every second made my skin crawl.
"You can sense me?" the stranger barked a laugh. "Oh my, I didn't expect you to feel me inside my domain."
"And not this soon," he continued as the outline hunched. The image grew clearer, but somehow, I felt blinder than before, as if he was forcing my senses shut.
"Relax, Seere," he purred. "And prepare. It only gets worse from here."
Worse? Seere?
Why did that name feel familiar? Like it belonged to me. No. No, I was Dante Andromalius.
This guy must be confused. Just great. I didn't want anything to do with him or whoever Seere was.
I forced myself to sit up despite the pressure building in my head.
"You must be confused," I tried to say calmly, but even I heard the hitch in my voice.
I wanted to beg him to let me go, to insist he had the wrong person.
But my pride flared hotter than ever before, my expression twisting into a snarl.
How dare he? Who gave him the right to make me feel like this? Me? Se— Dante?!
"No," he laughed louder at my expression, making me angrier by the second.
"What did you do to me?!" I shouted. My entire being fought against whatever spell blocked my magic. Nothing worked.
"To you?" he replied lazily. "Nothing much. I just helped you remember. Though I can see my actions had some unintended consequences. That's why I avoid dealing with souls. They are so… delicate. Even one as strong as yours."
I had no idea what he was talking about.
He looked at me, or at least I felt like he did, then sighed.
"Here," he snapped his fingers, "let me make it faster."
The pain before was nothing compared to this moment.
I clutched my head and screamed until my throat burned.
Images. Flashes of a life that wasn't mine.
A castle more grandiose than Lucifer's own. Bigger than anything in the Underworld. A dimension of blood and fire.
A feeling of power so immense it should have made me crap my pants, but instead… it felt like home.
A contract written in my blood. Eons ago.
Then, a red-skinned demon who whispered sweet lies to a mortal woman inside a garden. Another being stood in the distance, watching, she had green horns. The first to fall. Humanity's innocence shattered under the demon's tongue.
A massive serpent made of black water. Billions of gnats forming a single colossal body. Endless darkness. An emaciated skeleton that made me shiver.
Beings of unimaginable power… yet all I felt was loss.
Tears streamed down my cheeks.
"What is this?!" I gasped, my voice cracking under the weight of the pain. "What am I seeing?! What are you making me watch?!"
"You should know by now, Seere," the stranger said. "Accept them. Embrace them. That's who you are."
"I'm Dante," I choked out, even as the memories pressed harder.
Even as part of me whispered… No. You're both.
I didn't want to accept anything.
Not these memories. Not this pain. Not this being calling me a name that I knew wasn't mine. No matter how real these flashes felt, I was Dante.
I couldn't be anyone else. I was Dante Andromalius, a simple, weak, and unimportant devil who shouldered his parents' expectations and dreams.
All my effort was for them, everything I did until now was to make them proud, even when I knew that they would accept me even if I failed. Because they loved me.
But the images didn't stop.
More came. Each one was sharper and clearer than the last. Each one felt like another veil was being torn away, like I was seeing with eyes that had been blind since birth.
A magic circle drawn in blood. A human woman kneeling before me, crying, clutching the edge of the circle like it was the only thing keeping her alive.
The memory continued, no matter how hard I shook my head.
She trembled as she crawled forward, pressing her lips to my feet. Her voice shook as she begged me to save her daughter.
It wasn't for power, or even wealth. If it was for revenge, I would have understood. But no.
Just her child.
The shock that followed hit me like it was happening now. Her offer wasn't subtle or crafted. She promised anything. Everything. Even her soul with not a single ounce of hesitation. No regard for her own life.
Only the girl's.
And I remembered my own confusion. Feeling touched enough that I warned her of the consequences, the cost, the permanence of what she was offering.
She didn't care. She would burn everything she was if it meant saving her daughter.
Then, the moment she signed our pact.
With no fear or complaint. Just hope.
And worst of all… the warmth I felt. The first time I didn't feel cruelty, or even hunger for more than what she offered. I just felt genuine satisfaction when I saw her expression lit up when the girl opened her eyes for the first time in decades.
That's why I made sure she would be safe and comfortable in my dimension. That she wouldn't regret selling her soul for eternal torment. No. I couldn't do that to her. To the woman who changed who I was, who showed me there was a different path forward.
Even if it wasn't in the deal. It didn't matter, and I didn't regret it.
I saw myself, tall and crackling with a power that I didn't comprehend, standing guard over the girl as assassins surged through portals of red smoke.
I tore them apart. One by one, each one more powerful than anyone I had ever met in person.
All of them, until no threat remained. Even when it cost me half my essence for a century, I did it with a smile.
I felt pride. Pride in a promise kept. To the woman who had risen to become the head maid in my domain.
I wasn't a monster. Not completely. I didn't have to be one to become powerful.
Not unlike him.
A being of red skin, the same one who took the ethereal woman with him in one of the previous memories. Mephistopheles.
The mere flash of his silhouette made me clench my teeth in pure hatred.
The hellfire that always accompanied him as second skin, or the way his eyes were like pits that swallowed everything.
The way my mind was violated by his all-too-knowing eyes.
How he had smiled at me. Not kindly, not amused. But hungry.
"You are stupid, but young," he had told me as his chains wrapped around my wrists. "Let it not be said that I, Mephisto, am not without mercy."
How it all was a lie. How he wanted me to keep growing until I was a meal good enough for him.
A being with enough power to crush worlds.
One who I laughed in front of his face. Amused, unbowed.
A being I didn't fear. No matter how assured my end was.
He despised that.
And then he ripped part of my soul out, consuming it to increase his already absurd power. Then threw me to the void, all because he couldn't have everything.
Me. He had thrown me away. Like trash, just to make sure I didn't come back.
And at last… a final deal. One made hundreds of thousands of years before my death.
With a being weaker than me, but one capable of doing things no one else could offer.
A second chance in life.
A concept given dragon form, dreams personified. A Dragon God who could hide me where even Mephisto couldn't reach.
My breathing became ragged.
"No," I whispered. "No, no, no, that wasn't me. I'm Dante Andromalius. I have parents. I have a life. I am not…"
"Seere," another voice echoed inside my head.
Not the stranger's.
But a deeper version of my own. Tired, amused, and most importantly, irritated, "You are me. And I am you. Just… shaped by different circumstances."
"No!" I clawed at my hair, my mind splitting like it was being pulled in two directions. "If I accept this, I lose myself. I don't want to lose everything. Mom, Dad, my life!"
"You don't lose them," the voice answered. "They are part of you. Just as much as I am. You were never two people. Just one soul living with some baggage."
"That doesn't make sense," I gasped, feeling my whole body tremble.
"It does," the older me said. "Because both lives mattered. Both are real."
Souls weren't meant to be split. I knew that.
And they definitely weren't meant to recombine.
Pain ripped through me, heat and cold and a pressure squeezing every part of me until I couldn't breathe. My vision blurred as I felt my heart try to jump out of my throat.
Then… it stopped.
Like two rivers crashing together, one massive and overwhelming, the other faster and sharper, their currents bleeding into each other until neither could be separated.
The water didn't disappear or even grow weaker.
It simply took on a new shape.
My mind resisted for a final, desperate moment.
Then it clicked.
The memories weren't invaders. They weren't even new.
They were always there.
My pride. My instincts. My refusal to kneel. My sense of honor. My disgust at subservience.
They didn't come from nowhere.
They came from… Me, Seere.
And my tenderness. My loyalty to my parents. My fear of losing them. My desperation to make them proud.
Those came from me, Dante.
Two lives. A single soul.
Both truths.
Slowly, painfully, the storm inside me calmed.
My head finally didn't feel as if it was about to explode.
The memories stopped fighting. They merged, finding peace and comfort with each other.
I was Dante Andromalius, son of Hadrian and Celestine. Eighteen years old. A devil struggling to restore a fallen family.
I was also Seere, an ancient demon born from Nemesis itself. A being who bent reality to his will and paid his debts in blood.
The last of the pain faded like smoke.
Slowly, I looked toward the stranger on the couch.
And this time, I could see him clearly.
The illusion peeled away. Reality shifted around him like a dream being formed.
His human form disappeared as red scales shimmered to life, his wings larger than what the room could hold as they folded impossibly into themselves.
The presence was so vast it nearly crushed me. But I endured.
The embodiment of dreams. The Dragon of Dragons. The one who made this even possible.
"Great Red," I said.
My voice wasn't Dante's uncertainty. It certainly wasn't Seere's ancient authority.
It was something new. Something whole.
The Dragon smiled.
Before I punched him in the snout, "What did you do, you fucking lizard?!"