Lord Joyde The Madman: Heylo, everybody! How're you all doing?

I'm really hoping my little musing managed to inspire some of you out there!

Although, the kind of inspiration I was going for was artistic in nature, it would appear that I've turned some people religious.

Not entirely sure how I feel about that... By the way, in order to fix the timeline into a little bit more... comprehensible level, I've officially added a date!

Don't mind me guys and girls! I'm just a line break...

October 1st, 2022, Rome - The Following Morning - Zatara Family Mansion - Leonardo's Point Of View...

"-ould seem that our days of extended summertime have finally come to an end, as the first day of October has arrived, carrying with it a rather intense drop in temperature! The sudden change has not only affected Italy but all of Europe, as some of the northernmost German states have reported signs of snow and ice falling." I heard myself yawn as I shivered in my seat.

Turns out, gathering enough Qi to save myself from dying does not also mean that I won't get extremely sick, hungover and experience copious amount of acute pain. Everywhere on my body."ACHO!" I coughed out loud.

A steady hand places a cup of hot tea onto the table in front of me as I turn to look one of the two new maids, Anna."Heard you've had quite the rough night, young master." Her deathly pale face is only made even more entrancing by the waist-length snow-white hair she has.

Extending a hand towards the table to take the cup, I say."What can I say? The greater the fun, the bigger the hangover... but I honestly didn't expect to get sick too."

"That's what happens when you fall asleep with a coat full of sweat, blood and other unmentionable liquids." Her more edgy sister Belle, mutters out in sheer disapproval before letting out a sigh."Still, you've accomplished something amazing yesterday. Something which will surely spread like wildfire within the Inhuman community."

Ahh, even more trouble is coming my way."What exactly does that mean?"

"It means that you've become a sort of hero to the Inhumans in this city. The Shivering Cross has been torturing our younger generations for ages and, even when the different races of Inhumans joined together, we still failed to hunt them down."

Realization dawns upon my frame."But with me giving Helix that paper, you've been able to find them."

"Not just that though... Though killing those shivering dicks alone is amazing, its what you did afterwards that really sticks out?" I blinked."Huh?"

The sisters look at each other and sigh."Oh my, what a hero. He does not even realize what he did..."

"Well excuse me for only finding out about The Magic side of the world like legit two-four days ago." I blankly point out and they laugh, as the black haired sister, the meaner one, says."Sure, but you don't need to know magic in order to understand killing. Mate, you've killed over a dozen master Vampire Hunters, none of who were easy prey even for us elders... and well, even if they call themselves Vampire Hunters that does not mean they don't butcher any other Inhuman they happen to find."

Oh, they think that I killed all the people in the basement, but that was the Skeleton Templar."Errr, actually, I didn't kill them. There was this old undead Templar Knight guarding the place I was going to and he killed them all."

A blink from both of them."Then why do you have their soul trace on you?"

"Soul trace?" I asked with my head tilted sideways in confusion. They sisters shared yet another joint sigh. God, its like I'm talking to Yomi while seeing double."You really are new to this world, aren't you? Oh well, let me educate you then, young master!"

The white haired one says as she taking in a breath for drama. Do Vampires even need to breathe? Probably not."A soul trace is the trail of mana left by the persons soul around their body when they die. If left alone long enough, the soul is teleported into the Well Of Souls for reprocessing and the trace disappears. However, should the soul be consumed, the trail follows that person for as long as the soul hasn't been completely processed. And you, young master, have a ton of soul traces chained onto you right now. Why, its as if you've never even properly eaten any of the souls you've devoured."

"Oh... how many in total?" I asked with a quirked eyebrow and she hummed to herself for a moment."You currently have the traces of 813 souls around you."

"So pretty much everyone I've ever killed, eh? How exactly am I supposed to process a soul?" They tilted their heads in uncertainty."Not too sure you'd wanna do that. It'd cost ya your living state, after all."

I blinked as I turned towards the black haired one."So, if I actually eat one of those souls completely, I'll become undead?"

They nod and I feel a tugging inside of my mind, a resounding click, telling me that that would be a very bad idea."No... do not... eat... fuel... burn for eternity..."

An image of a couple hundred souls continuously burning in Eadom's fire shows itself to my mind. Hmm, so he does need fuel in order to keep himself ablaze. Wait a minute, this almost sounds like."Hey, you two, can souls burn?"

They blink."Well yes, if one were to master the use of Hellfire, then yes, they could potentially burn the souls of their opponents. Although, the practice of it is extremely painful, for both the user and the applied."

I calm myself, focusing onto a single finger on my right hand as I extend it outwards, the image of Eadoms fire shows itself in my mind and soon, a small blaze bursts forth from my fingers."Can you tell me if this is it or is it just normal fire?"

Nodding towards me, the White haired one extends her right hand and a wave of blue mana forms, touching it for a moment before she screams and leaps away."HIYARH!" Her heels dig into the ceiling with ease as her soft, pale face twists into a monstrous one, a clawed left hand cutting off her right one as it falls onto the floor without any blood inside of it, promptly bursting into flames and turning to dust.

I had the modesty to apologies."Uh, sorry?"

Anna seemingly manages to calm herself and falls back to the floor."Oh my, that was very impolite of me! However am I going to explain this to the master? Oh, and its fine young master, you couldn't have known what would happen."

Then she takes in a deep breath before saying."Young master, what you have is... difficult to describe. It is most certainly Hellfire, but it is... pure."

I blinked."Pure? How so?"

"I have, unfortunately, been exposed to actual Hellfire before and, while certainly just as potent, it carried with it the filthy essence of Hell. Yours does not." She explains as best she can but thankfully, Eadom completes the explanation."Not Hell's fire... our fire... our essence!"

I nodded towards them with a smile on my face as I began drinking the hot tea, appearing to fall into a state of thought and meditation as the two merely shrugged, cleaned up the mess and then left.

"Welcome back, o worried people of the European Union. Sadly, I must say that we have been right to worry for these last few days, it would seem. First off, let us start the news by announcing the birth of the so-called Balkan League, a newly formed presidential republic which will focus mainly on military development. Sources say that this is in order to repel and remove the encroaching Muslim threat from the east and that the authorities of the newly formed state have been recorded stating how The Balkan League will become the Antemurale Christianitatis of the modern age, should the need for it arise. For now, they appear to be content simply removing all Islamic peoples living within their lands, be they long-standing or refugees, seems to not matter at all. Poland has actively been aiding in the formation of this new state and seems to intend to continue its support by sending much military as well as economic aid."

Hmm.. this may present an opportunity for us to intervene. Italy has long since expelled any form of Islamic culture from its lands and so has France. In fact, Germany seems to be the only country still attempting to introduce the Muslims peacefully."A... new... crusade... draws... near..."

Eadom whispers into my mind as I find myself grinning, refocusing myself onto the TV."-ngoing battles against the newly-formed Espers rage on within the United States, but that does not appear to have deterred the liberal groups of America from attempting to ruin the funeral of America's former President Donald J. Trump, who had been assassinated a mere five weeks ago. Sources say that the only reason why it even took so long to organize the funeral is because fanatics and vandals broke his casket several times, often sending death threats and other such profanities to his family, who has finally managed to gather together to safely deliver the heroic president to heaven with the aid of the volunteer military forces, who are currently blocking hordes and hordes of liberal fanatics, as well as many feminist and anti-racism groups from across America. One can only hope that once the funeral procedure is over, his grave wont be robbed or soiled on a daily basis, but you can never know with America. Such a shame that the current President, Samantha P. Matthews is actually allowing this to happen to one of the two men who saved the world from world war 3."

Heh, they're talking about the rooster guy again. Well, he did save the world alongside Putin, when they decided to forgo politics and acted in time to defuse nukes stolen by the middle east. Basically, what happened was that terrorist stole and launched four nuked to hit four zones in Europe. Their goal wasn't casualties but rather ecological-damage. They set the bombs to fall in such a way that it would pollute just about all of Europe and make around 60% of out farmlands unusable. Thankfully, Putin and Donald decided how the shame from the world knowing they got their nukes stolen by terrorists was less of a pain to deal with than the countless reparations they would have to pay once the bombs fell. So, by quickly communicating with each other and finding out which nuke is whose, they managed to insert the proper safety codes into each bomb, thus disabling them. One bomb fell into the Adriatic, two in the Mediterranean and one into the lower end of the English Channel.

"Our friends from United Korea have just sent us a very startling set of facts today, for it seems that the Grand Coliseum has been approved by Kim Jong-un. For those who do not know, The Grand Coliseum is an arena spanning kilometers across in both length and width, made for the sole purpose of sending death-row inmates to their doom, all for a chance of freedom. However, reports state how this horrendous project against humanity itself has already acquired several thousand millions worth of dollars from anonymous donors from across the globe, with several nations, such as China, beginning to form deals with Korea, allowing them to send their own inmates to the Coliseum, for a share for its eventual profits as the structure will be built in such a way that all of it is visible on camera, allowing for easy TV and WWW streaming."

Oh, so the arena's really gonna become a reality. Wonder if I could participate one day. As one of the killers, of course.

"News from Japan tell of a very tragic story, as a supposedly normal robot butler butchered a family of six today over in Tokyo this day. Authorities claim that there was a bug within the robots core programming and that the three laws usually present within a machine core were not there anymore which indicates that the robot had been hacked. Reports state how the family's only son was known to be very good at robotics and programming in general, so the police suspect that this was not the dreaded case of an AI revenge, but rather a more tragic case of forced-joint suicide. Even so, this event has caused thousands of revenge-killings across the world and many families are sending their robots into disassembly, fearing for what may happen to them should the machines stay so close to their children and loved ones. On the other hand, here in Italy we have managed to finally convince our esteemed President, Mr. Efiso Evengelista, to allow full citizen rights to any and all Sentient AI within our country. Many of our European neighbors disagree with our decision, especially since it has happened on such a tragic day, but the people have decided to stand firm behind it and no protests have been heard, or are likely to appear in the near future. Already, this has caused several worker robots, mainly of the maid and butler type which our nation is surprisingly fond of, to come out as fully-self aware. Government agents have been seen coming to pick them up and new housing districts, built specially for our metallic friends, are being drawn into city plans across the country."

Hey, that reminds me. I should probably call mom and tell her that I'm going to Japan... maybe I should visit her sometime too. Grabbing my Huawei, I promptly punch in the last known number entitled as Mother and wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait.

God why is it taking so long."Hello?" Suddenly, a voice spoke from the other side.

It was a startlingly familiar voice, soft yet cruel, just as I remember mom's voice used to be, yet also...

Older."Hi, Mom."

"..." Silence takes hold over the other line for a good minute."Uhh... are you there?"

"AH! Uh! Um... uhh... I'm sorry about that, Leo.. I just... wasn't expecting that.."

"Wasn't expecting what exactly?"

".. N-nothing, you wouldn't understand. Anyways, not that I dislike the chance to hear your voice but, what's the occasion?"

"I just wanted to tell you that I'm going to Japan and will probably stay there for a bit. Thought you might wanna meet, chat, that sort of thing."

"W-well yes! O-of course I would, honey! B-but, why didn't you tell me earlier! I have a room to spare, you didn't need t-"

"Mom. You have a new family over in Japan. Now, knowing you, you didn't tell them about me and what I do. There's no need to let my half-sibling, or siblings, know what I am. At all."

"... So, you're coming here on a job?"

"Well.. no actually, I'm going there to see a friend. Also potentially dig another one out of trouble if possible."

"The bastard! He's hired you to kill me! Your own mother!"

I blinked."What?"

"Your father has finally told you to come to Japan in order to kill me, hasn't he?! Well, I'll let you know that I've become the General Superintendent here so I wont go down easily!"

"Mayumi." I said with barely contained anger seeping from my voice.

A screech of surprise escaped from the other side."Y-yes?"

"I want you to listen closely to me. I am not going to Japan in order to kill you. If I was, you would not know about it until you were dead. Now, can we get this stupidity out of the way before I actually lose it?"

"How can I believe you?" She asked with worry in her tone.

I replied, annoyed."Why wouldn't you believe me?"

"You said that you were coming here in order to help some friends. Leo, I am not stupid, you can't have friends. You need emotions to have those."

"Yeah, well lots of things have happened while you were gone and now, thanks to some specialized medicine, I can actually feel things, unlike before... come on mom, I'll tell you the full story once I arrive. For now, I want you to tell me about my half siblings. Even if I won't be living alongside you guys, I might as well give them some gifts."

"W-well, you have three siblings to meet once you come here. You have a sister who is your age, a younger brother and a baby sister who really lik-"

Don't mind me guys and girls! I'm just a line break...

And that is it for this chapter of Euphoria.

Good god, three thousand words for a single scene.

Meh. At least we got this part over with. Time to begin the second arc for real, in the Land Of The Rising Sun!

Anyways, read and review! And Good Morning/Day/Night to you all! ADIOS FOR NOW!