Headway into the Games…

"What a catastrophe…" Groaned, the Grigori's Vice Governor-General, Shemhazai.

"*Siiiiiiiiiiiip~!* Ah…nothing beats Irish coffee in the morning." Azazel loudly sipped the mug.

"Really?" Shemhazai angrily looked to his old friend and leader.

"What? You want some?" Azazel offered the mug before pulling it back.

"I don't even want to hear "you" of all people bring up "liquor" right now…" Shemhazai held his head down in pain.

"Ah, its not fully liquor, its 51% Coffee and 49% whiskey." Azazel corrected.

"Well, I hate to break it to you, percentages don't change the fact that it's still alcohol."

"Well, I hate to break it to you, but that's easily debatable."

A day had passed since the party and the two Fallen Angels were walking down a hallway after finishing their meeting with the Four Satans regarding the sudden appearance of the Khaos Brigade, more specifically, their Independent force, Team Vali. This caused the Governor-General to receive an earful from the Maou and their advisers, along with receiving a headache from Shemhazai lecturing him about his part in Vali's upbringing.

Azazel scoffed at this, how was he supposed to know that all of the Independent missions that he's been giving the kid would result in him meeting Son Goku's descendant, Bikou; Kuroka, the A-Class criminal and former nekomata; and the descendant of King Arthur, who has in their possession, the Holy King Sword, Caliburn?

Not to mention that he was responsible for most of the adults being too drunk to notice the threat that was coming their way. Well, all of them except for Katerea and Kai, who were sober throughout the whole thing, but with Kai almost passing out due to Serafall's *AHEM!* "clingy" hold over him at the time.

Despite apologizing, he could have sworn that he felt Grayfia's strong killing intent throughout the duration of the meeting. Looks like getting her drunk in public was just the thing he needed to get put on her shit list, ahaha… He'll probably need to sleep with an eye open if he even dares to sleep over at the Gremory Residence.

Taking a deep sigh, Shemhazai pulls out a binder and reads the report inside of it, "We've managed to collect all of the chimeras that Agares' heir's peerage exterminated."

"How many?" Azazel swirled the contents on his mug.

"Barring the ones that they obliterated, we've collected about a total of 200 bodies."

Whistling, Azazel laughed, "Impressive. It would appear that Rias isn't the only one who gathered a dependable group of servants. So, anything about where they came from?"

"Negative, we did our best to use magic to trace them, but it's currently impossible to locate anybody using our database."

"I see…" Faced with a similar issue back with the Teleportation Magic Circle pandemic, Azazel deduced that it was probably the work of the same person, who also hacked their database.

Luckily, no one during that surprise assault got harmed, well, save for Natsuru, but she had manage to protect Koneko. However, good news inevitably came with bad news, reports from Agares' peerage stated that Michael popped up in the middle of the mess while disappearing from the dance hall meaning someone who was involved with Vali's teammates somehow managed to sneak in.

And lastly, were the worse news or very bad news, there were reports of three deaths taking place around the time of the event. One High-Class Devil and two Devil soldiers. The two soldiers appeared to have died after the party while the High-Class Devil died during it. Although tragic, Azazel was more concerned about many things surrounding their deaths than to simply mourn.

Such as, the way that they died, the two soldiers didn't sustain and damage that would be given to them by a chimera. Instead, they suffered severe trauma to their necks and died by having their necks snapped with acute precision.

The same could be said about the High-Class Devil, but the way that she died was just as concerning since her entire heart was cauterized and gouged out by a Light Spear, meaning one of his people were her cause of death. This obviously was brought up during the meeting and honestly earned some suspicion from the four Maou, which ended up being lightly quelled due to the dead body ending up on the front doorstep of the Underworld's Grigori facility. Someone planted them with the body to take the fall and obviously create dissent amongst their ranks in the alliance.

Now the only thing they had to face was confirm that none of their guys down at the Grigori committed the murder. Shemhazai made Raymond in charge of that debacle since it Raymond's mostly respected amongst the soldiers along with them being just as equally fearful of him. Should there come a dead end, then it wouldn't be far-fetched to assume that an MIA Fallen Angel was the cause since over the years there have been those that disobey orders like Kokabiel while some Fallen Angels left the organization due to their distaste with forming an alliance with the other two factions.

Again, he truly feels sad about the deceased devil and since they were an Extra Devil, who was the remaining member of her family, it only made him more apologetic for the now Extinct clan. Though looking deeper into who they were, Azazel spotted an inconsistency with Michael's report and Rias' account during the party.

The Gremory Heir had claimed that just before his disappearance, he was seen dancing with the High-Class Devil, and Michael's questioning dealing with him revealing her name and her mentioned son. There was obviously more that he knew, but it was apparent that it must have been something personal for the usual loud kid not to blab about it.

"Speaking of the interrogation, it was nice to see little Michael doing well. Last I saw of him was when he was still a newborn. I swear, back then you were doing everything in your power to pawn him off to someone as his caretaker." Shemhazai shook his head.

"Sadly for me that caretaker didn't last long resulting in me having to pick up the slack and watch the brat after I found Vali." Azazel remembered back about hearing the kid's caretaker disappearing since then she's been placed on MIA and has yet to be found to this day.

"Would have saved yourself the effort if you had just taken care of him from the start." Shemhazai suggested.

"You know my track record with kids…" Azazel seriously narrowed his eyes as his voice grew a bit dark.

Catching on, Shemhazai looked a bit understanding but urged, "Yeah, but have you ever heard of the saying "second time's the charm", huh?"

"*Siiiiiiiiip~!* You know, we should visit Ireland one day, or just buy more products with the word "Irish" in front of it. I swear, they'd put beer in anything, even their bread!" Azazel happily sipped his coffee.

"Avoiding the topic, how immature." Shemhazai facepalmed.

Engaged in their conversation, the two Fallen Angels had failed to take notice of a person walking past them.

"Hmph. You youngsters too busy dealing with some problems without at least bothering to greet an old man properly?" The person that they passed by grumbled.

"Ah, it's you, Odin, long time no see, ya Old Bumpkin from the North." Azazel laughed.

"Well, if it isn't the Bratty Fallen Angel, Azazel, weird seeing you in the territory of your lifelong enemies." Snickered, the Chief Norse God, as the elderly man appeared before the two Fallen Angels dressed up in some regal robes as he stroked his long grey beard as he wore his fabled eyepatch over his left eye.

"Former enemies to be exact. Unlike you Old-fashioned northern gods, we're much more caught up with the current "times" and saw fit to combine our powers rather than stay stuck up on old rivalries."

"True, and those are just the right words to expect from weak-whipped dogs. Nothing more than children together on a playdate after they lost their leaders both God and the Original Maou…"

The two men narrowed their eyes at each other rather exaggeratedly before Shemhazai butted in.

"It's been way too long, Chief God of the North, Odin-sama." Shemhazai bowed, "I take it that you're here for the Rating Games?"

"Why yes, but it would appear that these Devil children acting as the new Maou have been preoccupied with their business, so I decided to stop by and see how things are going." Odin nodded.

"Without a bodyguard, I would have thought that a Chief God would have one." Azazel wondered.

"I did come with two to be exact, but I decided to leave them both so one doesn't try anything while I'm gone…that one would happen to be my troublemaker of a Granddaughter." Odin bitterly smiled.

"Which one?" Azazel asked, these gods had many kids, so it was hard to pinpoint who it is.

"The daughter to my son, Thor."

"Ah, so that one, eh? She appears to be the most recent addition to your family, so I heard." Azazel said.

"Yes, and because of that, her youthful vigor surpasses the same vigor my sons had in the past… To be frank its quite tiring… Thankfully, I always make sure to throw myself a Titty-party just to alleviate the stress…" Odin wore a perverted grin.

"Hell yeah! Next time I wouldn't mind joining that kind of party!" Azazel grinned, norse parties were up there with Greek parties as they were the legendary frat parties of all mythologies.

"Heh, if you can handle yourself then I wouldn't mind having you there, Azazel-boy."

"As long as you're paying for the food, then hell yeah!"

The two shook their hands in companionable silence leaving Shemhazai to wonder how they started off bickering to instantly being chummy.

Speaking of Greek parties, Azazel laughed, "Zeus will also be coming! So, lets have the most dankest part ever!"

"Hmhmhm! It's been a while since I last had a drink with the Chief Greek God…"

"But make sure to keep him away from the ladies, or else his wife, Hera will be pissed!" The two continued laughing the seconds away before it was time to part ways with Azazel enjoying a couple of laughs with Odin along with planning a few trips to the Titty-bar with him.

"You can be so incorrigible sometimes, you know that?" Shemhazai sweatdropped.

"Yeah, well can be such a buzzkill, but you don't see me complaining." As the two approached the elevator, Azazel pressed the button and said, "Now I'm off to have a talk with a Devil-Dragon about certain matters before heading over to the Gremory Residence to brief those kiddies about their game plan, so is there anything else you want to ask me?"

"Yes actually, I've been wondering about Michael, and don't complain since you asked…" Shemhazai held up a finger to Azazel's displeased expression, "I've been meaning to know about his name… Hanamura, it's not exactly a name to be found in Britain, yet its that "village" as a clan name in Japanese, why?"

This wasn't really Azazel's favorite topic to talk about, so he decided to state the answer as quick as possible, "That's because the village doesn't just have western culture, they also have Eastern and Northern culture. Centuries ago, the village sought out any information and practices regarding Dragons, and how to slay or tame them through different methods. The Hanamura Clan just happened to be the clan that first introduced them to Eastern Dragon teachings and the first clan in general to be integrated into the village." Azazel pressed the elevator button.

"So, by gathering data and knowledgeable families that dealt with dragons around the world, they were able to steadily build a powerful society there. That would explain why it was difficult for most of the mythologies to ever find them." With that extensive knowledge from having so many impressive people from around the world with them, they basically had a whole archive of skills at hand.

"Yup, before they decided to isolate themselves from the world." As soon as the elevator opened, Azazel spared no time in getting in, "Now are you satisfied?"

"Wait, there's one thing about his name that I never figured out."

"What?"

"Why did you decide to change his name to "Michael"?"

"To prevent any pursuers from recognizing it since it's a REALLY common name on that island." Azazel pressed a button.

"No, I mean, why did you decide to call him "Michael" of all names? Any Japanese name would have been fine since you placed him Kuoh Town, but you decided to name him after the Seraph, Michael, God's beloved son…"

"…"

"Hold on…did you name him that way because-!?" Shemhazai smugly smiled.

Pushing another button, Azazel waved as the elevator's doors closed and took him down, "Bye~!"

"…You may act like he's pain, but you do care. The Evil Governor-General of the Fallen Angels finally has a revealed soft spot…children…" Shemhazai lightly laughed to himself as the elevator arrived and soon entered it.

*DING!*

"Eh?" Upon the door closing, Shemhazai noticed that all the buttons had been pressed and looked at the buttons with half-lidded eyes as he angrily groaned, "I take it back, he's still evil…"