Heart Devil [OP Yandere Schizo Ramble LitRPG XD]

Some time after the encounter with the young devil Hannya. Janus' temple inner sanctum .

The inner sanctum of the Grand Temple was built to hold words without letting them leak. A round room of smooth wood and patient incense. No windows or banners. Only marble, offerings, ornaments and a low table painted with old sigils, scuffed thin where generations of hands had rested.

Abigail stood behind a chair and didn't sit. Her robe was fresh and clean but her body was weary. She had slept two hours in the last day and kept telling herself it was enough, despite her mana circuits still recovering. On the far side, Arden rested a palm on the table edge, shoulders square, calm the way he always was before battle. Between them, at the throne of white stone and reverence, the god Janus sat in a marble body like a courtesy. The face was young and precise, the posture aristocratic and calm, and the eyes were older than anything else in the room.

Janus spoke first, leaning back, a single hand propping his chin.

"State what you know. Not what you fear and not what you want."

Abigail let out a short breath. Arden had just asked her what she knew about grand contracts and their relationship with Neel. She answered after some thought. "Neel broke a grand contract. Not a treaty, not a provincial oath. A foundational pact, multi-race, old, and binding. The devils were included. I have no clear cause on why. I only know that it happened… and my goddess is hiding it from me."

Arden nodded once. "All the gods know, we can confirm that. And you think the devils also know?"

"They know," Abigail said. "They are quiet, too quiet. But this encounter was enough to paint the clearer picture. It's isn't inked in ignorance, it's lined with patience. They will not come with legions when the gates open. They will come with structure. A Court."

Silence held for a beat. Then Janus lowered his gaze to the table, as if the wood could answer back.

"I see, now define grand contract." he said.

Abigail looked almost offended. "With respect, sir. You know the definition."

"Define it." Janus repeated, unoffended.

She did. "A grand contract is a platform-sanctioned pact between individuals. Like the devils, their subjects, and hellnia's chaos platform. Under it, the devil's domain stabilizes, Chaos lowers, and demons in the area live more safely. Devils in turn receive added desire as fuel. Both sides benefit, and the platform gains a stronger defender. So the tower text explains."

"Good," Janus said. "Say it aloud enough times and the mind remembers the part everyone forgets." His fingertip tapped the table, writing a word that wasn't painted there.

Platform.

Arden's eyes moved. "The Platform of Chaos making these deals is not theoretical. We have direct adjudications on record." He didn't look at Abigail when he said it. "Panels that answer, rule, even weigh individuals against another."

Abigail's mouth drew thin. She had seen one of those panels before, reflected in her own eyes when she traveled Neel to find a way to break her curse. It always slid in front of her own system panel, blocking any attempt at undermining the authority of the six-star spell attached to her. The memory itched. "The Platform of Chaos exists," she said. "And if a grand contract is broken here, the plane's sanity frays somewhere else."

Janus watched her a moment. "Then let us move to what is not in your books." He folded his hands. "Mainland Neel carries two platforms as well."

Abigail blinked. "Pardon? Two?" She assumed Neel too had a platform, but two?

"Twin platforms," Janus said. "Not a split personality, not an echo of the other. Two true platforms seated in one plane. The Platform of Change, or the Platform of Darkness for the higher-ups of the temple. And a second, veiled by ordinance and worship, call it the Platform of Light if you like the color of its authority, since your own records already name that axis in practice." He tilted his head the smallest degree. "You have felt that light in your dealings. You have called it order. But it's not only that. The other known title is the Platform of Constancy."

'The Platforms of Change and Constancy…'

Abigail's jaw hardened by a fraction. "If this is true, then Neel is not like the other worlds. The others host a single platform. One spine, one overseer. Here, there are two."

"There are two," Janus confirmed. "But not because Neel is special. Because Neel is designed to be contested."

Abigail swallowed hard. The incense tasted colder on the second breath. "That would explain the symmetry we keep tripping over. Chaos rulings that appear where there should only be divine writ. Holy functions surfacing in secular spaces. The city courts that behave like orderly shrines. The shrines that behave like chaotic courts."

Arden spoke in the way he asked a trainee to repeat a drill. "Which twin rules grand contracts?"

"Change," Janus said. "Formally. Every grand contract binds through the Platform of Chaos. The text is devil-centered. The benefit is shared. The platform gains defenders, and the land calms." He lifted a second finger. "But in Neel the second platform is allowed to interleave. Where a city and a temple overlap, where a legislature and a liturgy share a wall, Constancy can set hooks inside the enforcement layer. The Chaos Platform is the producer, the Change Platform requests the contractual demand and offers, and the Constancy Platform is allowed the right to choose registrars for these demands."

'Chaos makes the contracts in Hellnia, Change requests for the contracts to offer here in Neel, and Constancy gives the names for eligible contractees when it wishes.' Her thoughts snapped together the process.

Abigail closed her eyes for a heartbeat. Then she looked at Janus and didn't blink. "That would make the Church a registrar."

He nodded. "A registrar large enough to seize dockets," Janus said. "If it holds the right keys."

Arden's voice dropped as he glanced to Abigail. "Keys like heroes."

"Indeed." Janus said.

The room let that words sit.

Abigail clenched her fists under her sleeves. "Say it plainly."

Janus obliged her. "The pantheon didn't spend six centuries salting the earth out of reflex. They did it because they learned how to move a platform with a mortal face. When the Hellnia gate collapsed six hundred years ago, when the devils and high demons were kept from entering Neel, the pantheon and its allies used the pre-text of crusades to uproot the devil-anchored contracts that remained inside the plane. Crusaders for the eye of the crowd. Registrars for the marrow of the law. The goal was simple. Transfer custody of as many grand contracts as possible from devil administration to Church custody through the loophole of the twin platforms. That is why inquisitors hunted in sanctuaries and why old warlock families who reached too high were erased to the last branch."

Abigail's fingers tightened on the chair back until the knuckles whitened. "You are telling me the crusades were bookkeeping, a seizure?"

"Bookkeeping with swords," Janus confirmed, his marble facade reflecting regret. "A seizure filed in blood."

Arden's eyes met hers. He didn't need to say the inquisitors walked past pain and pity to reach a ledger. They both knew the smell. "If the Church took the dockets, what happens when the gate reopens?" He asked aloud.

Janus looked down to the dull shine of the table. "Chaos remembers. Change recognizes, and Constancy refuses to forget. And the plane understands it all. When the gates stir, both platforms will accelerate their choosing. You have already felt it. Candidates have been marked. Panels that answer faster than prayer. A devilled court calling itself into shape while the Church recites a new foundation."

'Partisan Grand Contracts for Neel will begin to rapidly form. Even without a Court, Hellnia's inhabitants will most likely have an advantage when staking a claim to lands.' She understood, and hoped all this information wasn't clear to the rest of the plane that knew.

Abigail heard the scrape of her own breath and forced herself to still it. "Heroes," she said, calmer now. "Let's talk about their purpose. Not the sermon. The function."

Arden answered patiently, she had the right to know. "Heroes carry systems," he said. "Systems are expensive. Gods borrow the mana well from the Constancy Platforms authority to pay the cost. That's why mortals can bear a system when devils cannot. A god can charge the world for the bill, and the price is paid in absence. Gods cannot remain in Neel for long."

Abigail nodded once. "So… heroes are mobile terminals. Walking interfaces with the second platform. They do more than fight. They register. They notarize. They trigger enforcement lines most cannot see."

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Janus said nothing, which was the same as yes.

"And in practice," Abigail went on, voice flattening as the shape resolved, "that means a hero is a portable right of seizure. If a devil's contract crosses a line set by the Church, a hero's presence lets Constancy reach through Change and take a bite of the right to rule."

"Only where the overlap exists," Janus said. "Only where the city and temple share a wall."

"What's the condition for something like that?" She asked.

"A certain population and a certain number of believers. So it's not that easy to claim a grand contract."

Arden's brow creased. "It is still a blade."

"It is." Janus acknowledged.

Abigail placed her hands on the chair and finally sat. "Then what is a hero supposed to do when the aim is not extermination but custody. If I train them to win battles, I train them to miss the point."

She thought of Damien, waiting in the temple somewhere. This knowledge could very much change everything about his training.

"You train them to read rooms like registrars," Janus said. "To know where the hooks are. To know when speaking is more lethal than a sword. Your own record is full of this lesson. When your party failed, it was not because you lacked power. It was because your opponent was allowed to speak unchecked, to frame terms, to move the platform with words until your strength landed in the wrong ledger." Janus was well aware of Abigails… circumstances. And he let it become clear the consequences of a failure to teach these skills through her own experiences.

Arden's eyes flicked to her, then away, saying nothing. But the cherub was a little surprised, He didn't expect his god to say it so plainly. The battle was an obvious scar to the Magic Hero, yet Janus decided to open the wound; reminding her of the pain and power of words.

Abigail didn't flush or anger. She didn't have the energy. So much information was bombarding her mind that her focus was more on the implications and consequences rather than the shame and trauma. "Then the purpose of a hero in Neel is to be a hinge," she said. "Between platforms. Between temples and courts. Between definitions."

Janus shook his head. "Don't try to make it honorable, swallow it plainly. The true purpose of a hero is to be used," Janus replied. He let the cruelty of the line rest in the air until it lost its sting and turned to bone. "By their god, by their city, by their own story." He paused, and a sympathetic smile curled his lips. "The question is whether they understand who is using them and for what."

"No one says that in our parades." Arden murmured.

"Parades are for bright-eyed children and concerned mothers." Janus chuckled.

Abigail folded her hands and stared at the old sigils, a strand of black hair sliding down her cheek. She tucked it behind her ear again and questioned. "If the pantheon seized custody when the gates closed, did they take all of it? Or only what they could reach?"

"Not all," Janus said. "Enough though. The seizure was partial and messy by design. You can't take everything in a hurry without breaking the plate it was served on. They left just enough for the world to continue believing in a single platform, the 'Platform of Light' existed on Neel, because a simple story is easier to pay for."

"Which is why," Abigail said, catching the thread, "we that live inside the Church's light can pretend Chaos rulings are outliers, cities like Gomorrah or forbidden zones like the Gloam Reliquary. One-off interventions. When in truth the twin structure has been shaping policy for centuries."

"Now you are seeing it." Janus said, with a smile that was small and tired.

Arden exhaled. "If the devils come with structure, they won't petition in a court humans control."

Janus changed nothing about his marble face and still looked like he nodded. "They will bring their own authority. A Court is their sovereignty. The Church is a court with different fonts. When one enters the other's hall, the platform listens for the highest rank to decide who is law."

Abigail remembered the name she was told from the young devil she encountered a day or so ago. The new name that had not appeared in any index until a pink-haired priestess spoke it aloud.

Court of Gilded Woe.

It had tasted like a threat and a promise in the same mouth.

She straightened. "Let me return to the broken grand contract. If a foundational pact failed, did The Change Platform withdraw consent or did the Constancy Platform interfere?"

"Neither." Janus said. "Humans did. Devils did. Everyone did. If no one follows the rules, the purpose of the contract is meaningless." He rubbed the bridge of his nose at the thought. All of this was so easy to fix yet nearly impossible to implement.

"Grand contracts are robust until the people inside them forget why they exist. Your own histories record why the platform invites such pacts. A calmer domain, safer homes, stronger leaders to defend the plane. The plane doesn't care about your feelings. It cares about not dying. In Neel, the logic is failing from all directions. You have had six hundred years of propaganda teaching peasants that devils are monsters by nature. Gods trained leaders to use heroes as seals rather than stewards. The contract's civic body has been starved of understanding."

Arden rubbed the heel of his palm once along the edge of the table. "So the cure now looks like treason."

"Yes, and to us, the cure looks like sober language," Janus said. "Name things as they are and don't flinch."

Abigail set her jaw. "Name them then."

Janus obliged her again.

"Grand contracts simply stabilize land and life. Even a devil's domain, if correctly held, is a public good. Devils are not the same as demons, neither are inherently evil, and contracts with both are not the same as predation upon the contractee. The Church taught peasants that all devil dealings are enslavement. That was efficient politics and terrible policy."

Arden did not disagree. This was the false news perpetuated in the mainstream Churches and Temples.

Abigail then spoke up. "The Inquisition will call this heresy."

"The Inquisition already hunts through sanctuaries," Janus said mildly. "Heresy is not the word you should fear."

Arden looked at the god. "What word should we fear then, my Lord?"

"Reckoning, my Champion. Reckoning." Janus said.

They let the room breathe for another moment. Somewhere far in the temple a bell sounded and stopped.

Abigail broke the quiet once more. "If the platform chooses candidates for grand contracts, how do we work inside a selection process we don't control?"

"I am taking steps, but in short, you try to influence what the platform counts," Janus said. "The Platform of Change and Constancy rule on compatibility and potential. There have been rulings that even read like jokes, mostly the ones tethered to Chaos. Some saying things like 'I like the shirt this warrior is wearing, I choose him.' but the logic under the sugar is quite cold. If the plane believes a pairing is good for its health, it will favor it. Rage at the heart of it if you must, it will not change the adjudication. The shirt never truly mattered."

Abigail grimaced. A platform would use such a petty reason like a shirt to choose who they favored more for a plane changing contract?

She shook her head clear. "What do we do with heroes in the meantime. Train them as hinges and registrars. Fine. But to what end? If we succeed, do we hand the Church a better seizure tool? Or do we teach the next generation to unhook where they should."

"Both," Janus said simply. "Teach them to see, truly see. Many will still be used, only listening to commands. But some will choose differently. In a plane like this, one with a twin platform, the purpose of a hero must change. It is neither savior nor butcher, but a bridge. A conscious bridge is the only kind that doesn't collapse under the first march towards danger."

The corners of Arden's mouth curled up, his humble version of a smile. "You don't say that in a parade either."

"No," Janus smiled back. "But it can be said in a barrack."

Abigail leaned forward. "My last question. If we do nothing, what happens when the gate opens." She paused, then clarified. "Speak as a god, not a man."

Janus, this time, didn't pretend to sigh or keep his voice casual. The welcoming atmosphere vanished, replaced by the air of a hall awaiting edict.

Abigail almost regretted asking for this type of tone. She hadn't noticed the easiness of the conversation earlier until this point. The sanctum was welcoming and nearly relaxing simply because Janus had allowed it to feel that way. The hall now felt no different from the chilliness she felt in her goddess' inner sanctum.

Janus' marble body took no time to gauge her comfort, he answered with honesty; revealing the future he foresaw. "The gates that were closed for six centuries will glow once again. Old propagandas will crack under new light. Nobles and awakened will scramble to remember what was true. Commoners will hate. Devils will arrive more arrogant than wise and make that hate feel justified. Demons will divide into two camps. The Church will pronounce order. Hellnia's council will appear with gold curtains or bloody veils. There will be fewer battles than you expect and more ceremonies. The first war will be for jurisdiction. The second will be for payment."

Arden watched him for a long time. "And if we do something?"

Janus looked from Arden to Abigail. "Then some heroes will stop acting like single-platform paladins and start acting like officers of twin overseers. They break fewer pacts and repair more. They are taught that a devil can be a steward as well as a predator. They are trained to recognize when a Court brings law instead of war." He let the last word find its own volume. "And when a devil priestess names a court that did not exist yesterday, the heroes don't sneer. They ask for the rules and who the docket will protect."

Abigail sat back. Her face had not softened, but the anger inside it had a place to live now. "Then the training changes tonight," she said. "And the sermons change by spring."

Arden added. "We will need a quiet curriculum. Not the academy. An auxiliary of some sort."

"I'm working on a solution for that," Janus said. "I will be preparing a place and people that already live in two kinds of truth."

Abigail nodded and stood. She had been here long enough and their talks wouldn't get much further today. "One more thing. If the pantheon seized custody when the gate fell, did they keep it legitimately."

Janus almost smiled. "Legitimacy is a word you pick when you need to sleep. The better word is continuity. The Church kept enough of the contracts alive that the plane didn't choke, so it didn't care. If you want me to judge whether it was right, I will refuse." He looked at her with a priest's kindness and a ledger's patience. "If you want me to judge whether it will hold, the answer is no."

Arden turned to Janus. "We should brief the Second Prince and no one else."

Janus nodded. "I will trust your judgment."

"The second prince? Why him?" Abigail then asked. Where did the second prince fit into this?

But Arden just shook his head with an apologetic smile. "We will go over that at a later date."

Janus stood, the stone body didn't creak when it moved. "Then our work begins. I will give you a list of parishes that can survive sincerity." He glanced once at the door. "And Abigail. Stop pretending your own story is not a hinge as well, you are still a hero despite everything you may think now. The devils you have met are not library rumors. One of them already carries a Court in her sleeve. She will not come like a siege, she will come again like a clerk."

Abigail said nothing. She knew she didn't need to.

Arden pushed back his chair. "If the first war is for jurisdiction, we should walk out of this room like officers." Officers of an order that will change the direction of Neel.

"Do that," Janus said, knowing his meaning. "And remember the ugly truth you hate. Heroes are tools. Your mercy and patience is what makes them more than that."

The god's vessel dimmed. The life in the young face vanished like a candle pinched shut. The room settled around the two humans who were not about to call themselves merely human.

They left the sanctum without ceremony. In the hallway, the same incense smelled different. The city was quiet, ignorant, and safe. For now.

Abigail did not look back when the bell sounded again. She walked next to Arden to the temple lobby. She had a curriculum to write that would make priests faint and archivists sigh in relief. She had a boy to protect from his own narrative. She had a Court to prepare for that would not wear the Church's colors.

And for the first time in a long time, the knot in her chest loosened a bit.

Into a plan.