As Aki basically had a mental meltdown over how he should have notice or several other inane questions to which he actually answers and rebuttals to, hours passed, he was escorted back to their house by hand and the whole family was called.
"Ok, i've freaked out about it for a while now, but Aki doesn't seem close to getting the lights on again, so let's get this over with. I'm pregnant of five weeks." Mari said, getting several expressions of surprise, quickly followed by happiness and mirth, though Kora seemed to look at her belly with an intense gaze with scary thoughts, but she ultimately attributed it to her swearing to protect the baby or the like, the girl was just like that.
"I'LL BE A BIG SISTER!" Exclaimed Clair, seemingly waking her father from his stuppor with her shout of joy as she jumped in place with a goofy smile.
"It's, actually, yeah." He stammered, trying hard to go for a different logical loop and thinking of all the counter measures he could take to avoid his worst fears. Problems of miscarriages and death at birth were the simplest, he'd break thousands of souls if it ment keeping the child whole. Any deformity could be undone with a new shape to the soul mold during the gestation period, though brain cirurgies were still quite hard even for him, nevermind on a child, while he'd likely have a panic attack. That would likely require several more sources of energy for the procedure itself, any complications, possible interruptions and defenses for...
His thought process was quickly interrupted by a slap to the back of the head. Looking at his wife with confusion, Aki found Mari pointing to her eyes with a tired expression. He blinked again before noticing he was dilating time and his eyes were shining.
"It will be alright dumbass!" She said to his face, the shorter woman not exactly shouting as she peered into his fears, shacking slightly from whatever she saw in his eyes.
He blinked.
"Sorry, I'm just terrified." He sighed, yet again stopping his magical effects. His family already noticing something was wrong. Specially Kora, who quickly recognized guilt and fear like she'd seen in herself that one time she looked into a reflective surface for long enough during her journey to becoming a demon lord.
Really, it's amazing how long you can go without when you go batshit crazy.
She hesitated for a moment, but got up and hugged him from behind anyway.
"Maybe, try to put your fears in words?" She softly suggested, taking some of the medicine he'd suggested to her. The pills just floated out of her hand and into his mouth with an audible gulp.
"Ok? Maybe it would get me some kind of mental buffer?" He munbled, starting to breath slowly, because he'd not been doing it at all till now. "To begin with, my family is propence to either have terminal diseases or live a long life, sometimes both. While that part is clearly solvable by my capabilities as a healer and mage, i can only speculate on what kind of new disease could appear, nevermind that my own brand of genetics has several altists, which i have no clue how to correct. I mean, i could probably rewire my own brain several diferent ways, but i'm already like this in personality, so just changing my thought capability and correcting any kind of deviation would not nescessarily make me be diferent without changing my own points of view on everything and... Do you girls even know what is altism?" He asked, beeing taken out of his rant through the confused looks starting to appear as he went further down the abyss of technical giberish.
"Some kind of incurable problem?" Chanced Sera, completly unsure what to do. Those were all fairly good points as long as she could see, though she was quite sure there was something making him even more anxious because it was his blood child.
"I think i heard of it before coming to this world, but i'm not so sure. Shouldn't it be something that'd make you a bambling fool or something?" Asked Kora, not having actually lived to the XXI century.
"To sumarise, it's an inability to process the world outside of your own head with the same importance to everything in a level that'd make you have problems in living life. It goes all the way from people like me who can just look kind of hyperactive, childish and/or aloft after some conditioning, to someone that can't properly develop their own body and mind. Everyone is different from birth, so the phenomenon itself makes different people even in the same degrees of affecting them. Diferent from other malformations, it does not mean the body will develop irregularly, though those with chances of being autistic are also more likely to have them. I'd explain how the female's body structure would also influence the chances of such, but ultimately those are irrelevant here as everyone of us don't have the weight our height, age or physics would suggest and it hardly affects us." He slowly explained, calming down as he soaked in their care and support. It was mostly himself expecting some kind of reproach even now, though as he said, no matter how sickly his family was, his own genes were already vastly diferent because of the system and his own modifications.
He still couldn't feel any security in all that because he was still unable to determine with perfection that nothing bad would come from such. As someone capable of doing so much, of course he'd not forgive himself for ruining a life so important as that of his children. Or unlife.
"That does explain some things." Comented Mari, getting several nods. "Though i definetly didn't understand everything you said, can't you fix basically everything that would stop our child from having a relatively normal life and accept the rest." She worriedly asked, pretty sure her husband had in fact done enough to warant more confidence than this.
"I can, that's the problem." He exclaimed, confusing everyone around. "In case they are sucessfuly birthed i'd very likely not stop them even if they wished to just roam everywhere and destroy existence as long as they didn't hurt our family and some closer friends. I'm not afraid of being a bad parent, i'm worried that no matter what i do my progeny will be a monster." He clarified, tears coming to his eyes.
The was silence in the room.
Aki was not the kind of person that'd use that word like normal. Beasts, cursed, sapients, whenever they were by themselves he'd use such words to describe many a race and species. He didn't really think of dangerous fauna and flora as monsters, they all knew that at this point.
They also understood where he came from with his conjectures over the tastes of the child though, all having long noticed his for both death and battle. If it was something that had higher chances of happening because of him, the young man sitting on that sofa would clearly be the first and most fervent acussing voice.
Xera was the first to recompose herself, sighing and breaking the silence.
"If it will happen or not doesn't mean we should suffer like this, we can only do our best." She shrugged, walking forward and bending to kiss Aki's cheek. "Now get up." She ordered and he followed. "Go make the table." She pointed to the kitchen and the wrily smiling teen somehow looked embarased, happy, tired and defeated all at the same time. Seeing he'd left, she sighed again. "Let's try to keep his mind ocupied. I wish it was as easy as just strapping him to bed like some kind of bad romance or the like, but he'd probably get so into it he'd level his skills to a ridiculous point and escape, so let's just make sure he's not alone for long. My best guess as to when we will be able to stop is the moment this baby is born, when he will start fauning over the child and use that anxiety as motivation to be the best father he can be." She shamelessly explained, her small daughter not really registering the mention of sex as she tried to understand what was happening entirely.
"The table's ready." Announced Aki, the women exchanging a look and going to the kitchen, lunch was pasta with meatballs and parmesan, finding the man of the house wrily smilling as he drank some passion fruit juice.
*****
"And now you want to participate in a war?" Questioned the demoness, her still tall form striding through the gray hallways, right now purple, of the conquest tower. "I mean, have you even died once yet?"
"Die? Wait, is that why you brought me along?" Asked the pale beauty hiding her lower face with a red veil with intricate phoenix embroidment matching her scarlet and gold classic wedding dress.
"Of course not. It's because you're going to be the one keeping control of the army while i take a pause every now and them." Aki rebuted. "Besides, it's not like you're not pissed with the guys you tried to court, so what's the harm in a little game. Also, of course i died once. Only once though." At first he refered to Tianyi, but then he had to show some 'personality' to Vera.
"I will never understand pride demons. First you come to me with such brutish request and then you present me to a lesser form that is somehow equal to lesser lords." Grumbled the succubi matriarch before sighing. She didn't mind keeping her current floor and letting others fight for whatever, but if she was going to try and step up her operation then she needed to at least reach the floors with two digits, so if her partner wished to do all the work for her she'd not complain.
One good thing about him was that he didn't actually care for the prizes or victor rights that came with his battles. Why would he? Being a material agent pretty much made having a bank account impossible, and neither did he seem like the kind that enjoyed fucking randos in the ass till they died.
It never got old for her though.
"Ok, so i just jump down there and kill everyone? How fast can you occupy a floor?" Aki asked, his helmet comming up and his voice changed some time before they reached the edge of their level.
"Ten minutes or so. Having devils under your thumb is usseful." She bragged with a shrug and a small smile.
"Bitch." He spat before jumping, turning several spider people into insect pancake.
"This place is so fucked up. First we were in that strange hotel and office place then we suddenly are here. Is the alcohol at least good around here?" Complained the more normal woman.
"You will probably vomit your guts out with one sip." Replied the succubus paying attetion to the several ways her partner was murdering demons, thinking of ways to counter him and realising the list was getting damn long.
"The good or bad alcohol?"
"The bad alcohol."
"Say, how much do i have to pay for something even stronger?"
*****
After dragging Tianyi out of hell.
"I don't really see how you actually beat a gluttony demon, a lust demon and a sloth demon to a drinking contest at the same time, but we're fucking fixing that later!" Complained Aki as he dragged the dead drunk woman on his back while holding her crystal wallet.
"Mawwy me...." She snorred and complained.
"No more letting her have free time, i'm matching making her and Mark together the moment this bitch wakes up even if i have to brush her teeth myself." Grumbled the man who had been barfed at twice already.
His wives weren't so sure on what he did while out, but they were happy their plan had seemingly worked on both fronts, seeing as that woman would not be mopping around their house while they were busy in the border if she had a lover and Aki was more than pissed enough to actually do something about it now.
They could have tried something themselves, but the necromancer wasn't actually that easy to approach and befriend.