Heart Devil [OP Yandere Schizo Ramble LitRPG XD]

One week after Tax Day. Sweet Oasis.

Sweet Oasis cooled under the setting sun, lanterns hanging heavy and bleeding warm light across the crystal clear pools across the natural resort. Inside the Temple of Gula, silks sagged in a comfortable coil and incense curled in lazy ribbons. On the cushioned throne, Gula lay half-sprawled, her eye lids low with a pleasant daze that follows a gluttonous meal. Her avatar had gorged itself on essence of gluttony laced with primal desire to strike at Profit in Neel, and the bill had come due in her muscles and bones.

Hans stood beside her like a cliff, his shadow swallowing half the chamber. In his hand, a black letter, its writing picked out in sly, pale-pink glyphs. As he read, his eyes narrowed, then widened; fingers tightened until the paper creased at the sides.

Gula's gaze roamed from his face to the page. She pushed herself up with a languid stretch, stepping in close to peek over his shoulder. "Is something troubling you?" she murmured, voice softer than usual.

Hans didn't answer at once. He took a steadying breath and tightened his jaw, he said at last, "The Young Miss kept her part of the deal. She sent me the key to my ascension…but…"

Gula held down the spark of delight at the word ascension, but held it down, and folded the feeling neatly and inquired. "But," she echoed, her smile thinning. "What's the problem?"

His face became grim. "She says my bloodline has been shackled by a shaman, a devil nomad in the western wastelands."

Gula's expression cooled. "Did she say where?"

She leaned in further, pretending her chest wasn't pressed against the edge of his arm as she studied the pink script. Hans' eyes didn't stray; his will was steel and mind tenacious, the sword heart he cultivated was folded too many times to bend from such proximity.

"Yes," he said. "And it's a tribe I know well."

He turned to her fully then, the letter hanging at his side. The old rage he held was not loud, but it was evident. "It's next to my old tribe. My birthplace."

For a moment, Gula saw the boy under the titan, sandy ankles, split lip, a pit that taught ruthless battle as scripture. She rubbed the hard muscles of his back with a slow palm and let out a long, unamused sigh. "Of course it would be there."

Hans looked back at the pink glyphs, and the glyphs seemed to look back. In them lay routes, rites, and an unbinding ritual. Hannya's payment was written in the coy handwriting of someone who had already moved three steps ahead.

'As expected…' He thought to himself.

Gula slid the letter from his fingers and smoothed the crease he'd made. "Then eat the chain," she said. "Find the shaman, break the shackle, and climb."

His nostrils flared once. "We'll need supplies, guides, and a way to keep Profit busy when the Gate opens."

Gula smiled, finally letting her mischievous grin show. "Leave lunch to me. You fetch breakfast."

They stood listening to the growing night, the rush of quiet water, the distant laughter of drunk demons, the slow drum of Sweet Oasis' patient heart, while the black letter drank the light and waited to be obeyed.

~~~

Hazy Mountain.

Baku's private training ground lay halfway to the peak of Hazy Mountain where the wind moved slow and patient, carrying the faint drifts of white dream mist. He sat cross-legged on the packed sand, a low whetstone across his knees, drawing his blade along it in long, even strokes. Tempering it the way he always does.

Noh arrived the same way the fog did, subtly first, and then obvious. She stepped out as if she exited a fold in the air and said nothing until the next stroke on the blade ended. The fortress lord didn't look up.

"Well," Baku asked in a lazy voice, his eyes staying on the line of his sword, "what did you unravel?"

"I interrogated him in your dreamscape," Noh answered, soft as falling snow. "But he's more useless than we thought."

"Useless you say?" Baku didn't slow. "Don't tell me you broke his mind before he could spill the beans. I told you I can only bring his sanity back a few times. Everything else is fine."

She shook her head and came to sit beside him, hands folded over her lap. "No. It's not that he won't speak until his mind unthreads. The issue is that his information doesn't match. To him, he's telling the truth, but the facts are against almost every word."

That made the blade pause halfway down the stone. Baku glanced over to her. "What do you mean? Are you telling me he's already living in a different reality?"

"Exactly." Noh's eyes were calm, but the corners were tight in suspicion. "His information is unreliable. One glaring example: he spoke at length about hating natural devils… yet the evidence I found tells a different story."

Baku turned fully, setting the sword aside, the tip resting in the sand. "Explain."

Noh pulled out her fan and tapped it once against her palm. "He doesn't remember when he decided to take Hazy Mountain. Only that he told his master it would be a good idea and his master accepted. And the second assault?" She tilted her head. "Not his. A subordinate brought him the plan, but he can't recall who suggested it."

Baku squinted his eyes. "Puppeted, then. By who?"

She hesitated only a breath. "And… he's a natural devil, Baku."

A short silence followed.

Baku blinked. "Lazmer? Natural?" He was incredulous at the revelation.

Noh nodded. "He thinks he's Union, swears by it even. But while I was… unbinding his skin," she said with dainty indifference, "his core happened to show up."

Baku didn't take the bait about the method, even when he knew cores rested far deeper than a layer of skin. He simply arched a brow. "Go on."

"Union cores are symmetrical," Noh continued. "Clean radial lines, nested geometry, almost orderly. His core is not. Swirls, color bleeding into color, asymmetry everywhere. It's a painter's riot in there. A classic natural signature."

Baku rubbed his chin, the whetstone rocking once over his knees. "Then either someone rewrote his past, or he's walking a borrowed timeline in his head." His laugh came low and humorless. "Kahuhuhu… This is messy."

But before he could say more…

Dream mist pooled behind the practice dummies at an unnatural speed. It swelled, gathered, and a towering devil stepped out of it wrapped in a black silk blanket. Clearly, he'd brought his bedding along for the trip.

He was easily seven feet tall, tousled and messy hair, eyes half-lidded with the kind of sleepiness that barely survived the travel. He yawned, a deep, unhurried gulp that made the mist around him tremble in sympathy.

Baku and Noh were on their feet before they noticed moving. Then, recognition struck, and their eyes widened at the same time.

"You-" Baku started, both in surprised greeting and indignant accusation.

The newcomer blinked once at the change in light, once at the blade resting in the sand, then let his gaze settle on Baku like a cat finding a warm slab of stone to settle on. He yawned again, covering it with the back of his hand as the blanket shifted and slithered to a more comfortable drape over one broad shoulder.

"Brother," the Eversleeper said, his voice heavy with a drowsy bass. "Where is my nephew?"

The question landed like a thrown pillow that hid a stone. Noh's grip tightened on her fan. Baku's jaw worked once, then stilled. Hazy Mountain seemed to hold its breath to hear the answer.

"Which one?" Baku said at last, a little too carefully.

The Eversleeper's mouth curved, but not quite into a smile. "The troublesome one," he murmured, as if that narrowed anything down. "The one smelling more of dreams than devil now."

Baku's eyes flicked to Noh; hers were already on him. A second passed, then another.

"It's complicated," Baku said finally, reaching down to lift his sword, dusting the sand from its edge. "Kahuhuhu… and getting worse." He slid the blade back into its scabbard and met his brother's sleepy stare. He shook his head. "You picked a good time to wake up, Somnus."

~~~

Hellnia Capital City - Some Back Alley.

Night blanketed over Hellnia's capital sky. In a narrow lane between humble pawnshops and rowdy bars, a handsome young devil strolled and whistled like the city belonged to him. A black throwing knife flipped lazy cartwheels over his fingers. Its blade caught the meager light, revealing a curious design along the spine, six half-moons etched end to end, like phases that refused to finish the inevitable cycle.

He reached a silent iron door sitting at a back alley from the street, he glanced left, then right, and rapped a precise pattern with his knuckles. The viewport scraped open. Harsh eyes measured him, then snapped shut. The locks thudded and slid, and the door creaked inward.

The young devil sauntered through without breaking the spin of the knife. But a different sort of break did occur…

A line of sight.

The young devil never saw the watcher that followed him all the way there.

A figure in a maid's uniform, veiled in black, kneeled on a distant rooftop like a patient predator. Penelope's eyes glowed the particular pink, a sigil of hurt remembered all too well. She slid a slim comm-crystal from her maid's sleeve, rolling it across her fingers until it drank the starlight above.

"Pain always remembers…" she murmured, her voice a ribbon of promise and prayer, and set the crystal humming for her sisters. "...No matter how thoughtless the hand may be."

Below, the young devil continued with the steps of a confident mantis, unaware of the cruel oriel perched above. He stepped into a room that had taught light not to pry. A round table sat beneath a creepy chandelier; five hooded shapes occupied it. He tipped his chair back and dropped into the sixth seat, the knife finally stilled between his fingers.

"You're late, Jack." rasped someone old and irritated.

Jack shrugged. "I'm here now, right, old man?"

A woman's voice hissed from his left. "And where's your hood? Were you followed?"

He wagged the knife and leaned back on two legs, insolent as a cat on fresh laundry. "I can be whoever I want, little Luxuria. No one can tail a face that doesn't stay the same. Relax."

A palm lifted at the head of the table. The room obeyed and calmed. When the figure there spoke, the tone was even, gentle, almost kind, like a parent asking a child to mind the stove.

And still, the temperature in the room fell.

"Next time," the leader said, "arrive when you're asked. And wear the cloak. It keeps us all safe." He paused, his voice as warm as a blade behind a curtain. "You understand, yes?"

Jack swallowed. "Yes."

"Good." The hood dipped in faint approval, then turned to the elder at his right. "Status of the Dream Faction project?"

"Seventy percent conversion," the old man said, voice steadier now that it had a report to recite. "Archons and key officers. All operations successful for our natural-devil… clients. We excised slivers of their native cores and replaced them with the Onirik fragments. Integration now stable."

"And the missing thirty?" The head's tone didn't change. Yet the room braced anyway.

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"Loyalists," the elder said, and a shiver ran through the heavy cloak at his shoulders. "To the Eversleeper. Or devils who don't sleep at all, like Archon Vizras." He cleared his throat. "The outliers keep each other awake. Most likely aware of something amiss."

"The Eversleeper's status?" the leader asked.

"Still asleep. Far beneath the estate," the elder replied. "The chamber is intact, and the seals are holding."

He gave a quiet nod. Then the hood turned towards Jack.

"I am sorry about your brother Dozueff…" The leader's sympathy wore the right shape, but none of the actual weight. "…but sacrifices are needed for the greater goal."

Jack let his grin do the talking while his fist clenched out of sight. He spun the knife with his other hand, caught it by the inlaid moons, and let the chair legs touch down. "He knew what he was getting into," he said lightly. "Even if he doesn't remember."

A chuckle drifted from the head of the table. "Is that consent, then? To vows forgotten?" The leader rubbed his chin through cloth, thoughtful. "Though… it seems he remembered a bit."

The hood tilted, the gaze sliding to a silent figure two seats down. "That tenet of his… a mockery of yours, wasn't it, Ewin?"

The cloaked devil addressed did not respond. The silence he offered was not empty; all could feel the condescension in his posture.

"No matter." The leader slid the thought away with a small sweep of his hand and returned to Jack. "Upper Dream is largely ours. We now move to Pride." A smile warmed the words and chilled the listeners. "Your other brother remains useful."

Jack didn't fidget. "Showueff will be at the estate, training. I'll see him tonight."

"Good." The hooded head made a slow circuit, surveying the table. "Remember our fundamental point, true unification is the key to prosperity."

Hands twitched at the phrase like old wounds recalling older battles.

The elder picked up the conversation, eager to remain inside the leader's current grace. "Onirik fragments continue to outperform expectations. The converted archons report heightened clarity, less… dream-drift, and full compliance. Our sponsors are pleased."

"Pleased sponsors become loyal sponsors," the leader said, as if quoting a proverb. "And loyal sponsors pay on time."

The woman who'd scolded Jack earlier leaned in, her voice light and silky. "Pride will resist transfer. Their cores are… stubborn."

"Then we apply the same pressure that taught Dream to sleep," the leader replied. "Approach through culture. Not force, not law."

Jack spun his knife again, moon-etchings flashing like a small private code. "Speaking of pressure," he said, "the Eversleeper's house is buzzier than usual. Noise in the pipes. Perhaps people noticed."

"They can notice," the leader said, gentle as ever. "They cannot act." He lifted two fingers. "Our assets in their council will smother any inquiry. If an questions insists, we break a leg and mark the stumble to 'accident.'"

A soft laugh traveled around the table; it died quickly.

The leader tipped his hood toward the elder. "How many of the thirty percent are names I care about?"

"Vizras," the elder said promptly. "And three deputy archons bound by old oaths to that mountain. The rest are small, but stubborn."

"Vizras doesn't sleep," the woman added. "His mind won't accept Onirik grafts. He's… awake too much."

"Leave Vizras to me," the leader said mildly. "People who never sleep eventually dream with their eyes open. That's when they fall the hardest."

The leader tapped his armrest for a moment and continued. "But enough pleasantries, let the true meeting begin." The leader set his hand flat on the table. His sleeve slid back an inch.

Three black stars marked the inside of his wrist.

Around the circle, cloth whispered. One by one, the other hooded figures mirrored the gesture, each revealing the same three-star brand on the same spot, quiet, deliberate symmetry turned into a creed.

Last was Jack.

He tugged his sleeve up, flashing his own three stars before the fold fell back into place.

The head of the table considered him. "And again, Jack, the 6th Invidia, remember to wear the hood next time. Any visible link between us invites questions. Despite what you may think, there are still those who know…and fear, rumors of the Sixth Theory."

Jack grinned, then shrugged. "Well, they should… since we've all finally gathered now." He inclined his head, the knife's six half-moons catching a dying candleflame. "But I'll follow your command… Gottlieb."

~~~

Hellnia Capital City - Superbia Main Estate.

Moonlight spilled over the Superbia estate in white steel. Lanterns along the halls burned low; the gardens slept within carved obsidian, ruby reds and opulent gold. Only the training court breathed with effort and exhaustion.

Showeuff staggered across its tiles, shirt half-torn, breath ragged. Pride aura hissed in rough waves. Every mistake he made snapped back twice, not his choice, his mother's.

"Again," Requel barked, bare handed and merciless. Gold pins held her hair; her eyes forgave nothing below perfection, least of all effort that looked like effort. "You were named young master over every branch whelp. That means you don't get tired, you only get better."

He drew up, stance shifting, somewhere in the back of his mind the softer, hungrier thought promising reward the moment she approved. Marriage, his very first consort, the clan's favorite policy. He grit his teeth and pushed harder.

He would marry his mother at all cost… yes, an honorable and lofty goal everyone respected. No one would look down on him after such an achievement.

But suddenly, while his hotblooded will boasted it's peak. Footfalls whispered by the small courtyard. A tall figure in a dark cloak took the center path toward the main house. He didn't hurry, didn't look left or right, he paced through the court like a man measuring a room he already owned.

Requel's lip lifted. As a superbia elite, to be seen training was bad enough. To be seen training by a stranger who didn't even acknowledge her was an insult in a whole other realm. "You," she called, voice high with haughty threat. "State your business, branchman."

The figure turned. Gray-gold eyes ticked in a small, smooth rotation. Once, twice, then, without another spin of interest, he turned away and kept walking.

The disregard horrified Showeuff. His mother was a mainwoman. For a branchman to not even acknowledge her words were tantamount to treason. Even in the superbia household, pride had its limits. And the stranger had stepped over the line like a Vainglory crossing the crest hall without bowing.

Heat shot into Requel's face. In a flash of pride aura she crossed the court, appearing before him, fist already chambered and aimed. The blow she threw was textbook Superbia, a clean vector, centerline, backed by blood-born disdain.

A hand shot up from a different vector, it cornered and dove. Twice as fast, twice as effortless, intercepting Requel's prideful strike. Two fingers then touched the top of her knuckles.

Tap

Her arm snapped off course as if a wire had been cut. The aura around her fist sighed out and died, her control scattering helplessly.

Requel stared at her own hand, stunned. It felt like someone had swatted the concept of force out of it.

The cloaked devil looked mildly down at her, then past with a scoff. "What was that?" he murmured, more to himself than her. "Is that what the Superbia consider strength now?"

The words hit like a slap in front of her son. Requel's humiliation burned into rage. "You dare mock a four-star low born!?"

He lifted his gaze, and the three fine rings within each iris turned once, deliberate. "Low born?"

The blood within the small courtyard heard him say it and obeyed. It wasn't a shout, it wasn't even loud. It was a bloodline stepping forward and putting a knee on the neck of lesser pedigrees. Pressure landed on their spines. Their skin prickled and breath shortened. Requel's posture sagged a fraction her pride couldn't explain; Showeuff's chin dipped in an instinct he'd never practiced.

Requel felt her composure beginning to bleed, and she reached for the oldest move in the clan. She raised a hand, pointed at the stranger and shouted. "Tenet: Pride and Prejudice!"

"…"

"..."

Nothing answered her. No law rose, no rumbling sky, no swell of oppressive self-regard. Her tenet sat cold and quiet like a stone on the side of the road.

The stranger didn't even look at her as failure hit. He'd already turned his face just enough to set those rotating eyes on Showeuff, inspecting, cataloging. "Hm," he said, clinical. "Losing composure and calling a tenet so easily. So you are courting that one over there. Your pride couldn't take it."

Requel's jaw ground. "What did you do to me! What ability is this!?" Fury failed to hide the thin thread of fear.

He finally looked down fully, he towered over her, tall and lean under the cloak. "Pathetic," he said, her status clear to him. "This is the sort of devil allowed in the main estate now?"

A twinge of annoyance pinched his features. He couldn't help but compare. That six-star in the abyss a week ago whose blade, will, and law practically rewrote the world with each swing; and now here… the posture, the easy breakage, the tenet dropped like slogans.

Indeed, all he could think of was a single word…

Pathetic.

Yes, she was a Six and they were Four, but he had seen Fours far better than this years ago.

He glanced at his right hand. A faint pink sigil, possessive and cruelly elegant. It hid in the lines of his palm. His fist closed over it.

"I didn't use an ability," he said, returning to Requel. "My blood simply told yours to comply, low born."

Their bodies trembled, from reflex, not consent. He ignored it. He'd grown up with that reaction in a hundred different rooms.

The cloaked devil pushed back his hood. Gray-gold irises, rings turning; a face carved from marble and superior blood, black horns tinged with oppressive gold; black hair longer than the old paintings destroyed long ago from this very estate.

Save for one…

Across the tiles, Showeuff froze mid-breath, mouth half open. That face. It matched a portrait he'd once found in a locked archive well above his current status. He was sure it was the same.

One of the 'Past Vainglories'.

The last sighting was over six hundred years ago, the picture shelf-tagged and dust-covered. The same eyes, the same unhurried posture that made threats sound like policy.

Showeuff swallowed, his voice slipping out of him without permission. "Vain-"

Requel's glare could have scraped out bone marrow. "Showeuff. Silence."

Vainglory lifted his chin at Requel. "Take me to the treasury."

She bristled on instinct. "You do not command-"

"I'll be taking Vanity," he continued, as if she hadn't even spoken, "with or without the council's approval."

Silence tried to form in the courtyard… and failed spectacularly. Showeuff found his voice first. "Vanity…?" he repeated, weak around the edges.

Vainglory's eyes cut to him, and this time he lingered, the gaze like a microscope. There, laced through the devil's pride aura, a foreign thread. Faint, anchored, wrong. Not chi, not mana. A law, but not Superbia's. The All-Seeing Eyes chased it along its trail before it tucked itself deeper, as if it read being read and chose to be less there.

'Interesting.' he thought.

Requel saw the glance, mistook it for contempt, and stiffened her neck in indignation. "You think you can walk into the main house and make demands?" she said, voice sharpening. "Who are you to-"

"Take me to the treasury," Vainglory repeated, no louder than before. "Or I'll find it faster than your pride allows you to admit it even exists."

She ground her teeth.

Requel glanced at her son, calculation racing her humiliation. The patriarch was already sour with Showeuff; another scandal would scald them both. If she refused and this devil forced his way through the house, Pride would look weak. If she complied, and took him to the treasury the council's wrath would land on her head.

He watched the math write itself across her expression and felt nothing but impatience. "You have three options," he said, voice still even. "Lead. Point. Or get out of my way."

Requel's tenet nudged like a sulking child, still refusing to rise. Whatever this devil was, that bloodline authority was not a thing she could box. She swallowed what pride wouldn't let her say and sliced her hand at Showeuff. "You," she snapped. "With me."

They moved.

As the moved through the estate servants looked up, felt the shape of the air, and decided every speck of dust needed immediate, silent, and blind attention. Showeuff fell in beside him, curiosity and wariness wrestling. "If you are who I think you are," he offered carefully, "then the council-"

"-will be the last to know," Vainglory said as his All-Seeing Eyes grazed Showeuff's aura again.

"Enough," Requel snapped too quickly. "Keep moving."

At the vault stair, armored guards stepped to bar the way. Vainglory's glance slid over them and their bodies responded before their minds did, feet pivoting, shoulders uncrossing, chins dipping in a bow no one had taught them to give anyone short of the patriarch. Confusion followed, then shame at the confusion. He offered no explanation.

They descended.

At the door, glyphs stirred and became visible, waiting for permission to unseal. Requel lifted a hand to wave the seals and stopped. She paused for a moment, and finally spoke. "There's no need to enter," she said, her jaw tight. "Vanity isn't here." Her eyes flicked over to gauge his reaction and hated the quiet patience she found. "It was presented to a Luxuria priestess during the Dreamveil Compact ceremony half a year ago. The council approved it."

Suddenly, the pink sigil prickled in his palm.

Parallel Opinion slid in the back of his skull like a salesman whose smile didn't quite reach his eyes. 'Find the sword to break the curse,' it whispered brightly. 'Or at least generate some Glory. You're dry, Samael. Fetch, now, kikiki-'

Kikiki?

He froze. That laugh wasn't his. It hadn't always sounded like that. He pictured a veil ripped off and a kiss that tasted like poison and honey. He pictured a girl with gilded canines and a curse that had lit a brand into his hand.

'You're not working for me anymore, are you? Were you ever?' he thought, not sending the thought anywhere outside his private files.

Outwardly, he complied with the suggestion because it aligned with a different goal, fuel. He needed a clean source of Glory or a weapon familiar enough to make his body remember itself.

"Open it." he said.

Requel frowned. "I just told you-"

"Open it."

She traced the pattern. Bolts withdrew, the mechanisms sighed. The door swung in. Rows of cases. Pedestals lit like small suns. And there, the long case set apart, glass like calcified fire.

Empty.

A brass plaque beneath it reading:

[

DREAMVEIL COMPACT - VANITY LOANED, WITNESSED BY THE COUNCIL.

]

Requel had the decency…or shame, not to look triumphant. Still, she threatened to keep a semblance of face.

"You'll answer to-"

"I'm very hard to question." he said preemptively, and moved on.

He stood a moment in the doorway, the air of the vault tasting off without that old weight inside it. The pink brand in his palm warmed; his jaw hardened until it eventually softened again.

He would not get annoyed because of her.

Parallel Opinion teased in his mind. 'She's got your toy, Samael. Go get it. Go get her. Kikiki!'

He did not answer it, not yet. There would be a moment, sooner than the voice expected, when he would put that yapping thing back in order. He could feel the way its jokes had grown another set of teeth. He filed the observation under 'Problems To Fix'.

They turned back toward the stairs. As they climbed, he glanced once more at Showeuff. "If you keep training at night, do it where no one can watch you flinch," he said. "And tell your mother to stop calling a tenet she hasn't earned the right to wield."

Requel's mouth thinned. "You will not speak-"

"Pride isn't volume." he said, already done with the conversation.

At the halls threshold he paused, and let his gaze cut through both of them one last time. "Where is the priestess now?"

Requel hesitated. Showeuff answered, eager to be useful. "Ragescar-... Dread Valley. She renamed it."

Of course she did.

He stepped into the moonlight. The estate exhaled like a building that finally remembered it had a spine.

Requel found her voice behind him. "You will answer to the council for breaking seals, for-"

"I didn't break anything," he said without turning. "You did. When you all let a sword walk out the door you weren't qualified to guard."

He let the cloak fall back into place, the pendant cold against his chest, the curse-mark a quiet burn in his palm.

Hannya. Six-star. Faster, stronger, and law-cleaner than anyone in this pitiful courtyard.

'Troublesome.'

He had work to do. A curse to break. A voice to correct. A blade to reclaim.

"Tell your treasurer to prepare an explanation," he added as he went. "And tell your patriarch Vainglory will address Pride's embarrassments when he has time."

Then, he was gone, the night taking him within its arms, and the Superbia estate stood very still, processing what it had just seen and trying not to show its true feelings on its face.