So this was my Day 6 Entry for Shizaya Week - Crossover. I did -Man because it's one of my favorite anime/manga and also because it updated the day before I was working on it so... yeah.
In this Izaya's pretty much working as a Broker for the Church, just like the Brokers for the Millennium Earl - he notifies the Church of possible Innocence, locations with high Akuma population, and high populations of possible victims for the Earl. Shinra's role is pretty much a Doctor for the Order, and then Shizuo and Celty are Exorcists - Shizuo's Innocence are bands kind of like Chaoji's from canon, and Celty's is her scythe.
I won't go into too much detail for the DGrayman info other than that, but if anyone gets confused by any of the terms, let me know and I'll try and clear things up!
Disclaimer: I don't own Durarara or
Sacrifices
Izaya makes a sacrifice in order to protect the people he tentatively calls his friends. Drrr x DGM crossover
This is the moment, Izaya thinks, as the Akuma aims its gun at his forehead and takes fire.
This is the moment his life ends.
"Ooh, scary!" Izaya's hopping behind Exorcists Heiwajima and Sturluson as they make their way through the London side-streets. "The big, menacing Black Order thinks there's Akuma, here? In London? Lord, have mercy on the humans here!"
"Don't act so surprised, you asshole," Shizuo grumbles wanting to turn around and punch the smaller man in the face. He restrains himself though, if only because Celty would get upset, and because he doesn't want to get in trouble with the Generals again. "You're the one who told us they were here in the first place."
"So I did!" He laughs, and skips ahead of them just as they break out on the other side of the alley to a street directly across from a graveyard.
"Well, here we are!" Izaya throws his arms out as he gestures towards the graveyard. He spins on his heel to face the two Exorcists head-on. "A wonderful playground for little Exorcists such as yourselves to beat up Akuma as much as you want!"
"You sound too fucking excited about this," Shizuo's words are aimed at Izaya, but his eyes are directed at the crowd milling around them. Any one of them could be an Akuma in disguise, and neither of them would know until they removed their skin. "Do you even care that people are dying because of those Akuma?"
"Ah, but Shizu-chan! Dying is simply a part of human nature!" Izaya's smile stretches wide against his mouth, eyes crinkling upwards with his grin. Shizuo fucking hates that nickname. "And if it so happens that a human's death is caused by an Akuma, then so be it. And if that human's death happens to cause a visit by the Earl to another unfortunate human, well, that's the cycle of life and death!"
He ducks out of the way as Shizuo's fist crunches on the lamppost right behind where Izaya had been standing moments ago.
"Temper, temper!" Izaya cackles, as Celty shakes her head in disappointment at the two.
"Anyways, have fun you two!" He gives a jaunty one handed wave and, quicker than either of them can blink, he's pressed a sneaky kiss along the bottom of Shizuo's jaw, and bounded off before they can properly react. "The usual payment method will suffice, and the Church knows how to contact me if you really need me!"
Celty motions a sigh as Izaya disappears back into the side streets, and Shizuo's screaming silently in fury as what just happened finally processes.
It takes letting him beat up all thirteen Akuma that reveal themselves shortly after to get him to calm down, and even then, he goes off again shortly after they return to headquarters when Shinra asks how the meeting with Izaya went.
Though he would never admit it, Shizuo does care about Izaya in some way. While, yes, he does want to punch the man's face in whenever he sees him, and something constantly seems off about him, Shizuo would never wish him a death by Akuma. He's seen several people die at the hands of Akuma poison, and it never gets easier. Izaya's a sleezeball who makes money off of the Church by selling information about Akuma whereabouts, but Shizuo can't blame him when he's on a tighter leash than the freelance informant.
Which is why, during a meeting gone wrong, Shizuo shoves Izaya out of the way at a surprise Akuma attack.
It was supposed to be a quick meeting in the town right by headquarters. Izaya had had some important information he had to share 'immediately', and the only one he would apparently divulge the information to was Shizuo. Shinra, of course, tagged along because it was his day off, and Celty came along as well because of both Shinra, and out of fear for what might occur to the town were Izaya and Shizuo left alone to their own devices.
None of them expected the attack by four different Level 2s, but it doesn't mean that Celty or Shizuo aren't prepared for the unexpected assault. Shizuo shoves Izaya in one direction out of the initial assault, and then Shinra's following him flat on his ass by Celty's push getting him out of the way of the second. The two activate their Innocence, and with a sweep of Celty's scythe and a punch of Shizuo's fist the first of four gets taken out.
"This is so amazing!" Shinra's practically vibrating with out of place excitement as he shuffles across the stone pavement to hide by Izaya behind an overturned cart. "I've never actually been in the field before with an actual Akuma! Do you think that I'd be able to study one of these?"
He's peering over the top of the cart, watching as his mute girlfriend slices the stomach of an Akuma, before Shizuo's leaping at it and nailing it in the head. It explodes into dust, and Izaya shoves Shinra's head back down behind the cart.
"Don't get your hopes up," He replies, shaking his head. Black Order scientists, really. Always wanting to study everything. (Okay, so Shinra's a doctor, for the Order, but it's practically the same thing – he'd much rather experiment on Akuma than perform emergency amputations and binding field injuries.)
"Oh come on," Shinra whines, before continuing, "I bet if I ask my beloved real nicely she'd –"
"Kill the Akuma before it had a chance to kill you," Izaya interrupts flatly, "I don't think you understand how much Shizu-chan and Celty care about you and don't want you to die."
"They don't want you to die either," Shinra points out, "I mean, it's hard to believe it from Shizuo, but he did push you out of the way of that Akuma when he could have left you to get shot."
Izaya goes to point out that that is beside the point, as well as being grievously erroneous, but the words get stymied in his throat as a manic cackling erupts from behind them. He falters in his lecture, the two men turning to stare down the manic eyes of the Level 2 that Shizuo and Celty managed to miss.
"C-Celty!" Shinra yelps in fear as Izaya tackles him out of the way of the first swing of the Akuma's scythe arms. The scythe bites into Izaya's side, eliciting a yelp of his own. Blood rushes from the wound as the Akuma yanks its arm out, and Celty's Innocence comes slicing the head of the Akuma off a moment too late as it manages to fire off a bullet in the direction of the two. Despite the wound in his side, Izaya musters enough motion to push Shinra fully out of the way of the bullet.
He doesn't move far enough though, and Izaya feels the bite of the bullet digging into his arm right before he passes out from pain.
"Damnit," Shizuo curses as he finishes with the last Akuma. "Damnit, damnit, damnit!" Dark pentagrams are forming from the bullet site, and quickly spreading up and across Izaya's body.
Shinra is putting pressure on the wound on the Informant's side – the bullets the only weapon in an Akuma's arsenal that contains the deadly poison – but Shizuo doesn't see the point. Izaya doesn't have more than a minute left, if that, before the poison completely overtakes his body and he crumbles into ash. And true, with each passing second, the pentagrams scale up his neck, and Izaya's skin turns a dark gray from the poison.
However, one minute, then two passes, and Izaya doesn't dissipate into dust. Blood is still pouring freely from his side, and slowly the gray color fades from his skin until he's just deathly pale from blood loss.
"Headquarters!" Shinra manages to choke out, whether from relief or excitement Shizuo can't tell. His eyes are gleaming with curiosity, and Shizuo has to admit he is too – by all accounts, Izaya should be dead. "Izaya needs medical attention immediately, we have to get him back to headquarters!"
Celty's signing something behind him, but Shizuo doesn't see what. He does hear Shinra's disgustingly cheerful chirp of, "That's right! If he's an accommodator, that might explain why the poison didn't kill him!"
"Shizuo, can you pick him up?" Shinra directs towards him. "I know you don't like him, but we have to hurry – if we don't get back in time, Izaya might not make it."
And if Izaya doesn't make it, that means the Order just lost a potential accommodator. And in this war, they need all the fighters they can get.
Grudgingly, Shizuo picks Izaya up – he's lighter than Shizuo originally imagined – trying not to think about the blood soaking into his uniform. It's not the first time, and it won't be the last, he tells himself. He takes off towards headquarters at a run, despite Shinra's quickly coming wheezing complaints.
If he whispers into Izaya's hair, "You can't die on me yet, you damn flea," well, no one's around to hear the confession.
"Welcome back to the land of the living!" Shinra greets Izaya exuberantly as his eyes crack open and greet a pasty white ceiling. Phantom pain shoots up his side when he breathes, and Izaya takes care while sitting up.
"Where am I?" He asks, running his hands over stitches and smooth skin. Looking around though, he figures it out before Shinra announces it.
"The Black Order Headquarters!" He sets the chart he had been looking at back down at the foot of the bed Izaya is currently occupying. "We brought you here to stitch you up after the Akuma attack yesterday – of course, considering what happened during the attack yesterday, the Church can't exactly allow you to leave just yet."
"Why's that?" Izaya asks, brain trying to find the memories of the Akuma attack. Shizuo pushing him out of the way, him pushing Shinra out of the way, getting stabbed by that damn Akuma and then –
"Well, you got hit by an Akuma's bullet and didn't die!" Medical mysteries and anomalies always excited Shinra, especially when it came with the sort that involved not dying when someone obviously was supposed to. "The higher-ups think it's a sign that you're a possible accommodator – parasitic, obviously, because the poison didn't affect you – so you're required to stay here until we can get you to Hevlaska to see for certain. I had orders to take you to her immediately after you woke up, but, well, that's impossible at the moment."
Izaya would ask for clarification, but he can hear the distant sound of screams, and the laughter of an Akuma enjoying itself a little too much.
"There's an Akuma in the Black Order." He says, and Shinra nods.
"First one in half a century!" He agrees. "We're being evacuated at the moment, but the outlook honestly isn't looking too good. It's a Level 4, something that hasn't been seen in years, but last time the Order had the advantage of having the Generals at base to help out. All Exorcists available are helping try and take it down, but…"
He trails off, and Izaya knows that he's worrying about Celty. There's a flair of worry in his own chest, abnormal, and he knows even though he doesn't want to admit it that it's for Shizuo. As much as he hates to acknowledge the fact, even though he refers to Shizuo (and the other Exorcists) as monsters, he's just as weak and vulnerable to death as any other ordinary human.
"Whoa, where are you going Izaya?" Shinra's arms come to Izaya's shoulders, attempting to push him back down onto the bed as he goes to stand.
"The battle." Izaya removes Shinra's hands from his person, pulling himself upwards onto steady feet. He musters a grin for Shinra that doesn't feel half as honest as it probably looks. "After all, you said I was a possible accommodator, ne? What better way to find out than trying to take on an Akuma?"
"That's insanity, Izaya!" Shinra protests, following hard on Izaya's heels as he heads toward the infirmary doors. "If you try and fight, you'll die! You don't have any training, and even if you are an accommodator, you don't know how to use your Innocence!"
"Thanks for the words of faith, Shinra," Izaya pushes open the doors, staring out at the calamity just outside. Broken walls, mutilated bodies, dying moans – all signs of one of the darker parts of humanity that Izaya normally revels in. "Now, where are they?"
"Two floors down," Shinra informs him, before grabbing onto Izaya's wrist as he tries to walk away, "But I can't let you go! Izaya, it's suicide, and I can't let you do that!"
"But you're perfectly fine with Shizuo and Celty fighting in a battle that undoubtedly will lead to their untimely ends?" Izaya cuts back, and starts walking, dragging Shinra along with him.
"Of course I'm not!" Shinra protests, releasing Izaya's wrist, chasing after him, before taking point and giving Izaya a clear path through headquarters. Shinra's not sure exactly why he's leading Izaya to the battlefield instead of taking him to the evacuation site, but as the sounds of the battle draw closer, something tells Shinra that he made the right choice.
He can spy Ruri and Kasuka protecting some of the scientists on the other end of the hall, while Anri, Celty, and Shizuo are taking point in the active battle against the Level 4. Shinra's not sure what Izaya has planned, but he's pretty sure that he thought Izaya had a better one than shouting,
"Hey ugly! Over here!" To the Level 4, drawing it's attention from the Exorcists to Izaya and Shinra.
"What the hell are you doing?" Shinra demands in a hissing whisper as Izaya steps in front of him and the Level 4 starts paying attention to them.
"Hmm? What's this?" The Level 4 giggles, floating closer to them. "More humans to play with?"
"Get out of there, you dumbasses!" Shizuo shouts from across the hall, him and Celty racing towards the two. The Level 4 is closer, and has the advantage of inhuman speed, putting it at Shinra and Izaya before the two Exorcists
"I guess I'm still a little hungry," It tilts its head to the side, before it's unveiling its gun, trying to decide between Shinra and Izaya before Izaya puts himself in the gun's path.
"You first? I guess that's okay." The Level 4 takes aim, and Izaya takes a deep breath, hating himself intensely for what he is doing. He hates Shizuo for ruining him like this, Shinra, for loving Celty so much that he can't allow this to occur. He hates humans for forcing himself to ruin himself like this.
This is the moment, he tells himself, closing his eyes and hearing the whir of the gun about to fire.
This is the moment his life ends, and he hears Shizu-chan's animalistic roars just as the bullet connects with his forehead and knocks his head clean off his body.
"Oh my god," Shinra gasps, fear lacing his voice and shaking tremors down his entire body as Shizuo's fist slams into the side of the Level 4's head moments too late.
Are you okay Shinra? Celty's forcing her hands in his line of sight, her own fingers shaking as she talks. Did you get hit, were you hurt? Why are you down here?
"It took his head straight off," He never thought himself particularly close to Izaya, but Shinra never wanted something like this to occur to the other man.
"Fucking flea," Shizuo grumbles, skidding to his feet by the couple as the Level 4 tosses him away. "Always causing fucking trouble. Why the hell was his useless ass even down here?"
"Ah," A frighteningly familiar voice coughs from behind them. It sounds like the owner is trying to speak around a crushed trachea. What's frightening though is the fact that the owner is supposed to be dead. "I wouldn't say I'm useless, Shizu-chan."
"That's impossible," Shizuo sputters as the trio's attention is taken from the Akuma to the now-animated corpse behind them.
"N-Not quite," Shinra forces out around the surprise in his voice. "Not if –"
Izaya's head is rapidly reforming itself when they turn to face him, pale skin darkening to gray as the dark stars of stigmata appears across his newly formed forehead. As he opens his eyes, the group stares down ochre, not vermillion, and a wild grin is on his face as he says
"Not as useless as you." Just as the Level 4 says,
"Lord Noah."
If Izaya ever had to pick between his White and his Black side, he'd choose the White side every time. He loved wandering around humans too much to just abandon everything for a so-called family that didn't appreciate him. The Earl never appreciated his love for humans, not when he only saw them as sheep to create more of his Akuma.
That's why he ran away from his so-called family, from the other Noahs. It never felt like a family to him, he always felt just as lonely in the Ark with them as he did before he awoke as a Noah. But that's what the Earl treated him as – a misguided run away that just needed to be brought back to the family.
In his time away from the family, the almost twenty years, Izaya had had time to find people who appreciated him better than the ones that insisted they were the only ones who would understand him.
He became an informant. First dealing in any information that he could get his hands on, before starting to deal in information exclusively to the Church on the whereabouts of Akuma and even some of the Earl's brokers. He formed what he thought to be friendships with people – Shinra, a doctor for the Order, Celty, an Exorcist who put up with him because of Shinra, and even Shizuo, who Izaya has some sort of odd feelings for.
It had to be friendship, or something disgustingly similar, to cause the aching in his heart that forms from the betrayed look on Shizuo's face as his Black side is revealed to the Order, showing a sheep within the lion's den.
"You're a –" Shizuo is spluttering as Izaya picks his way gracefully to his feet, the hall falling quiet.
"Lord Noah," The Akuma repeats itself as Izaya steps between the trio of people who once tentatively called his friends, crossing towards the Level 4. He stops just in front of the Akuma, staring up at it. Izaya manages a chipper smile, eyes crinkling as his tone of voice commands just as gleefully,
"Self-destruct."
"L-Lord Noah!" The glee that had been present before in the Akuma's voice has vanished, an odd sort of fear in its voice that none of the Exorcists are used to hearing. "But I've evolved so far! I've killed so many humans, like the Earl wanted!"
"Should've thought about that before you attacked me," Izaya turns away from the creature, shrugging his shoulders, before he repeats himself. "Self-destruct."
The Akuma starts protesting, before Izaya interrupts in a breezy voice,
"That's what you get for trying to kill the humans that are mine to destroy," He's damning himself, breaking the friendships he's spent two decades building up. This is all his fault, after all. The only reason the Akuma is here is because of him, and even if it wasn't, the Order will just believe that it was his fault. "Now, I hate repeating myself." Izaya starts counting down instead. "Ten. Nine."
Eight.
Seven.
Izaya's crossing back to Shinra, Celty, and Shizuo.
Three.
Two.
"One," Falls across Izaya's lips as his feet come to a stop in front of the trio, and the Level 4 Akuma explodes into dust behind him.
He opens his ochre eyes to stare at the trio. Looks of betrayal and horror and disgust are written on their faces, and Izaya knows that it is time to leave before things get even uglier.
"Well, now you know!" He shrugs his shoulders nonchalantly, trying to act as if this whole situation doesn't create as burning of an ache in his heart as it really does.
"Surprising, isn't it?" Izaya continues, "Enemies, this whole time! And you all were dumb enough to trust me."
"Well, I suppose this is goodbye for now, Shizu-chan, Shinra, Exorcists," He bids them farewell with a jerk of his head towards each one of them. Izaya takes a hopping step backwards, then another, a door rising from the ground behind him. "You were let off easy this time! Don't think you'll be so lucky again – next time we meet, it'll be on the battlefield."
Then, because he has to do something to alleviate the painful aching in his chest, Izaya closes the distance between them once more. A kiss gets planted straight on Shizuo's lips before Izaya's retreating as quickly as every other time when he's kissed him in the past. Izaya swallows hard over the lump that's formed in his throat, and he tells himself that he's just trying not to laugh as he fixes a broad grin on his face.
"Don't die before I can kill you, Shizu-chan!" Izaya waves goodbye, before disappearing through the door he created, going back to the one place he swore he'd never return to.
The next time he and Shizuo meet, they'll be seriously trying to kill one another, without repercussions.
And, in all honesty, even as Izaya switches his Black form for his White form, he cannot deny the fact that the prospect of fighting Shizuo to the death has an arousing effect on him.
He can't wait to run into Shizu-chan again.
I didn't mention specifically, but Izaya is supposed to be the Ninth Disciple, the Noah of Dreams. Please read and review and let me know what you thought!