(A/N: This is actually my first Majin Tantei Nōgami Neuro fanfic, but the plunny's been bugging me for a while now. While short, I still enjoyed it. The ending was hard to do though, surprisingly. Please enjoy.
Disclaimer: Hah. I wish…)
Forgetful
He stared at her for a moment, green eyes surprised. Her own eyes stared unseeingly up at him, blond hair slowly turning red as the blood spread around her, almost like wings.
She should've known he was immortal.
She shouldn't have stepped in front of him when that gun was pulled out.
She shouldn't have stood her ground, refusing to back down even as he yelled at her in that split second of realization that no human would've had.
Gloved hands clenched into fists, fingers pricking slightly through the material to poke him in uncomfortable ways. Pointed teeth clenched as he stared at her sweater turning from pink with a yellowish tinge to red. Pure pure red. It was almost as if the Hellish Paint of his 777 Tools of the Demon World had been spilled all over her chest.
When had breathing been this difficult? His breathing wasn't like human breathing, but he had forced his body to take on the autonomy of the human world, at least for this short time.
Had that been why she had done it? Because he was becoming too human.
Was he becoming too human?
His knees hit the ground by her head, face still emotionless even as emotions surged through his body. Memories assaulted him as he reached forward, afraid that if he touched her it'd all become real, but knowing that, just like every other mystery, he had to know the truth.
Fear. Fear wasn't something a demon like him felt. It was something puny, pathetic, stupid, ignorant, blind, silly humans felt.
Humans like her.
Since when had death affected him so? This reaction was a human reaction, was it not? He still didn't understand human emotions, despite the now raging hurricane of them within his being.
Hatred, anger, jealousy, greed, animosity. These things helped him feast, but only jealousy really managed to prick him. Usually when Higuchi was near by.
His fingers touched her cheek and, when she didn't move, he let them rest there, pressing them a little closer. Her skin was loosing its warmth. Why was it loosing its warmth?
Because her body isn't generating any more heat and the concrete floor is absorbing it.
But why did it have to loose its warmth? In both the literal and the metaphorical sense?
Footsteps behind him. Neuro looked up to find Sasazuku standing there, his eyes suspiciously wet as well.
Suddenly Neuro realized he had become too human. Still immortal, but too human nevertheless.
Sasazuka choked out something, but Neuro wasn't listening.
Standing, the demon turned his back on the body and the crime scene. He had already eaten this mystery, but there were still others out there.
Deaf to the shouts of anger, protest, and indigence, he walked just as calmly as he ever did out the door. Already the memories of the young girl who had a hole for a stomach, who shifted uncomfortably in front of the press when they asked her how she had solved the latest mystery, her quivering voice when she spoke his name as he protected her, her glace when he insulted her intelligence, her squeal of pain as he turned her head in directions it should probably never go; all of it was disappearing.
Only a single memory of her turning in surprise when he entered their so-called office and giving him a genuine smile stuck. That and the lifeless eyes and the cooling flesh that he could feel even through his gloves.
Slowly a smile spread across his lips, teeth sharpening into points and eyes loosing their human-like quality.
Someone was going to pay. And then… then…
He realized he no longer wished to dine on mysteries. But then should he return to the Demon World? Was that it?
No, he realized with a sudden clearness. No. He'd just wither away like all demons did when their purpose in life was gone.
Did that mean she was his purpose?
Footsteps sounded near by and he knew with some baser knowledge than he usually had that it was her killer.
Following after the killer from the side of a building, Neuro let the idea dangle for a second. The idea that she was truly his purpose. Then he pushed it aside.
It didn't matter. Or wouldn't matter, in just a second. Whit his death, Sai would loose interest with the Sicks, despite his actions. He was too fickle to stay with them while Neuro was dead.
The Sicks would loose power and be overpowered and destroyed. Neuro knew it with a sick satisfaction, even by his standards.
But it wouldn't matter. She wasn't here anymore. And neither was he.