That same night…

"…You know what lies in the other side of that glass young lady? Even more ass!"

*Smack!*

"Ow!"

"Pftttt‼! Bwahahahaha!" Shinji spits out his sake and laughs hysterically as he watches the late night comedy special.

"I forgot how he funny this guy and his wife used to be before the channel axed them off. Fuck. I miss raunchy comedies…"

*HUUm!*

"Oh! My ramen is ready! Lalala!"

As he happily hums and takes his food from the microwave. Shinji turns the TV volume down, puts his noodles by the desk side next to a large amount of stacked papers and sits down once he sets a horse racing broadcast on his phone on the other side.

(I'm counting on you Panty Muncher…Don't fail on me this time! Make Daddy rich!)

Once he said his prayers to the strangely apt horse name. Shinjirou focus on the piles homework and mock exams he has to prepare for the first semester. However, soon as he grabs the pen on his hand…

"Oh…"

…his arms start to shake and he lets go of the pen, falling on the floor in the process. His hands were trembling. A searing pain began to permeate from practically every pore of his body. Shinji almost fell off his chair out of recoil.

(Dammit! Not again! It's too soon for the effects start to wearing off…)

Shinji ignores the pain and drops everything as he quickly turns the handles on the metal door of the cold room…

*****

Meanwhile. Somewhere in an abandoned mansion…

*THUNK!!*

A large man carrying two large bags stained red in hand kicks open the rusted door.

"…"

His head was massive and disproportionate to his entire body. It was hidden by a massive piece of cloth as a sharp protuberance poked through the fabric which glistened under the moonlight.

"…What is the password?" A formless voice from echoed through its eerily quiet room.

"Money is thicker than blood."

Soon as the words leave the man's lips. A figure shows himself out of the darkness but he still retained a very dark silhouette to make him unrecognizable. He was calmly staring at the moon while sitting a luxurious chairs and sipping on a wine glass.

"It's always nice to see recurring customer. Especially a useful demon such as yourself."

*Thud!*

The large headed man throws the bags in his hands towards him from where he stood. Inside were several goods made its weight worth of gold, wads of cash and even gemstones. Some of them were bloodstained.

"There. It should be enough to repay the debt for smuggling me out of hell and all info. I even included the extra I know you two would probably extort me for."

"My! Why you in such a rush huh, Rhino-San?"

"After working with those junkies under you alongside Redhand's palm and seen what they can do? Can you honestly blame me? I just want the info I need so can I get the hell away from that carnage. The sickening stuff they did barely fit the inhuman criteria even for us demons."

"Yahahah!"

The man simply laughs at his comment.

"I'm so glad we are on the same page! Killing is bad for business as you might be aware. But I can assure you that we are safe from him so long we continue to prove ourselves useful for him. Him and the Vermilions are merely benefactors of mine. We use each other for our own goals until the other is expendable. ."

"Whatever. I'm done doing errands and collecting money for you. Time for you to upheld you side of our deal."

"…Of course."

*Snap!*

The man snaps his fingers and a wormhole from above the dusty table next to the demon named 'Rhino'. A folder falls from it and closes soon as it hits the table surface.

"Inside it is photo from the main culprits behind the kidnapping and brainwashing of your lost little friend. Coincidentally they were going to be the last target I would have you to kill before they begin to interfere with my preparations for dream. It's so nice when things laid perfectly with your plans isn't?"

"…"

The horn on the demon began to heat feverish as tightly gripped the picture edges. 

"Hope you have fun with your revenge and learn how to restrain yourself. You may have smack talked about those under the influence of Maroon Dust but I can feel your bloodthirst without even having to turn myself around…Yahaha!"

The contents of the photo were a very familiar group of five. One was a young girl wearing a bunnygirl outfit pulling a dog (maybe a wolf?) on a chain leash and another girl her age punching an old man in the face as the cat on her head seemed to be holding her laugh. A large target was drawn on the man's face….

*****

Hello Everyone! Dumbass Extraordinaire here! Decided to try my hand on one of those afterword to discuss a few things. (It might be a little lengthy rambling of a bumbling buffoon. So there'll be a TL;DR on the bottom for those not quite but still interested.)

First off, I would like to personally thank every single one of you who have read even a single paragraph from this personal project of mine. I've been working on it for over two years by now and I barely scratched the tip of the iceberg with this one. The fact someone took a single second of their time to read anything I ever wrote humbles me beyond measure. Including this one

Secondly. I tried doing a monthly basis for each chapter but the time constraints proved unfeasible for me and the quality even dropped a bit as a result imo and my own enjoyment writing it as well. I've been taking longer than usual because of current life circumstances and frankly speaking. I lost confidence in my writing. (Still think the plot and story is good for what it is. However, doing it justice all by myself is an entirely different question.)

It's definitely an ugly baby. But it's MY ugly baby. So I thank anyone who spent time of their day reading whatever the hell this is.

I have most of the plot points ironed for the entire story. However, I severely underestimated how much material I had for whole chapters. Not to mention the character interactions with each other.

(There's an example I don't think should give it away but will do it anyways to prove a point. From the very beginning. I knew Setsuna was going to awaken Fenrir during Sei's fight. But realized I had no concrete idea HOW I wanted them to talk towards each other and the cast at the time. Most of it I improvised on the spot under three hours actually.)

Speaking of characters. I am also well aware that I might have 'too many cooks in the kitchen' kind of situation on my hands. Some characters tend to overlap in terms of their personalities and mannerisms. But I assure you each and every last one of them is just as important to the plot's progression and have some semblance of importance to the story. Some are even directly involved in another character's development.

Which relates to my next topic. I wanted gather other opinions about doing side chapters. I planned some and most of them are somewhat short or disjointed from the current timeline. But will go over detail about others characters' current lives and their past. Giving more insight on over their motives and character development in the future.

I wanted know if people would prefer for me to do those now or wait until the story to end to focus on them (lord knows when that will ever happen).

Hopefully side chapters not only remedies part of the 'character individuality' problem but also gives me more time to learn how to improve myself with everything in that regard. But again. This totally depends on all of you if I should do it or just focus on the current timeline first.

Regardless of the side chapter decision. I might go back polish the previous volumes since grammar and everything is more amateurish than usual and missing punctuations. Mostly because it was my first time doing something of this magnitude (English being not my first language certainly doesn't help either.) and others were directly copy pasted from notes on I kept on my phone.

Maybe even create a compendium too? To help with lore and world building.

Citing Merry City history, the massive island-like region that composes it, Seven Heroes and terminologies such as the Valkyries, Seraphs and the painted mural of Lena choking the hell out of Hiden. Stuff like that.

The third volume will probably be one of the most important and high points of the entire story so please bear with me everyone until I craft it in a way I personally think it's enjoyable to read for myself and you dear reader. 

As you can see. I have so much I wish and want to do with this personal project of mine that I sometimes don't even know where to start and run in circles like a headless chicken just trying to decide over what to get it done.

Which is why directly anyone's input over which direction they would like me to go help out a ton. I will be placing everything on a small hiatus as I recharge my batteries and go back on the drafting board. Give me your unbridled opinions about what I can improve as well!

Last but not least. I have future plans to have someone to draw a cover for the story. It's long overdue but I wasn't very confident in pursuing this until I had enough confidence with the story and more concrete image of the characters. So I also would love hear suggestions of artists I could pursue for this sort of venture. My country currency also puts a huge snag on anything I can feasibly do. So I'm making a Ko-Fi link and a poll in my profile that will be made with all that in mind.

Lastly, rest assured. I'm always working on something here even if it's not directly related to the following chapter. Hiatus or not. I can't keep my hands quiet haha.

Again, I would like to personally thank you anyone who's spent time of their day to read my story and this rambling that should've stopped over two paragraphs ago.

Toodles! Werto out!

TL;DR

Story might be entering a soft hiatus as I gather my shit together. May go back and polish previous chapters for one last damn time. Tell what you think about my story so far and what you had for breakfast idk.

Looking for opinions about what's next: Side-Chapters, Compendium or Vol.3.

Also looking for an artist to draw a cover. Any suggestions welcomed. Opening a Ko-fi link and poll on my profile to help with that. Papa Werto loves you and is still banned from the family's dinner table. That is all!