A/N: So, here we are. My first Makai Ouji fanfic, and my first full-length fic at that (~62,000 words all told, not counting author's notes, which is in a completely different league to anything I've uploaded before). I'll try and keep this introductory note short - well, I always say this, and they're always far too long regardless, so feel free to skip it! I do feel, however, that since this is a decent length thing and anyone who might want to read it ought to be told what they're letting themselves in for (*evil laugh*), there is some admin I'm required to deal with first, so here goes.
This is based on the anime, not the manga. I haven't read the manga, and thus might contradict it in some places. I might contradict the anime too, but only in very minor ways, and always intentionally. Dark Dawn takes place after episode 10 of the anime and replaces the season ending, so obviously it contains spoilers for basically the entire series.
There will be relationships that are yaoi, shounen-ai, BL, however you want to describe it. If you don't like it, don't read it. It will NOT be explicit (if nothing else, that would completely violate the ethic of this show. Also I would never write that...!). I understand it's also customary to state which relationships are going to appear, but I don't really want to do that here, because it's basically giving away the ending. Rest assured that it's not going to stray from what's presented in the anime itself, though it will go further than just hinting at potential relationships (like the show does) and actually resolve them. Needless to say, with that setup, not everyone can have a happy ending...
In terms of structure, this is going to be a bit different. There are five chapters, each told from the point of view of a different character. Each chapter will alternate between third-person prose following what that character is doing, and first-person narration, taking on a variety of forms. It did not occur to me that this would make it extremely difficult to string together a linear plot, so after the first two chapters I do relax the structural rules quite significantly, but it was an interesting structure to explore - do let me know what you think!
Right, I think I'm pretty much done with the general notes. Congratulations if you survived reading through my ramblings! Just the actual fic to go... ;) I hope you enjoy it!
Obligatory disclaimer: I don't own Makai Ouji or any of its characters. Obviously. If I did, this wouldn't be fanfiction - it would be season 2! ~CS
A/N: Now onto notes for the chapter... yes, I will probably do this for each chapter if I think there's something that needs saying, sorry! At least it's fairly brief here. One thing I want to justify is my addition of an OC. I'll hasten to add that she's a minor villain (though I am very fond of her!) whose only purpose is to move the plot along for me - she won't be involved in any relationships or anything (*shudder*. Not that I dislike OC fics or anything...) and she certainly won't interfere with the main focus of the story. Except occasionally by showing up and stabbing people :D Now I call her an OC but I really didn't create her... rather, I borrowed her from another show, whose third season was airing at the same time as Makai Ouji, and whose theme of New Hell vs Old Hell was a major influence on this fic. Free virtual cookies for anyone who can work it out! (Hint: as if it isn't obvious enough for anyone who has seen the other show, I didn't even change her name for this, so, you know...). Now... on with the Revolution! :D ~CS
Dark Dawn Revolution
by CrimsonStarbird
ASPIRATION,
or The Deepest Longing Of A Romantic Realist
The Head Boy was not merely allowed to boss the prefects around; at Stradford School, it was an unwritten commandment that he had to do so. Only the best made it to the top, after all, and someone had to remind the prefects, while they were lording it over the lower students, that they were the ones who had almost but not quite made it, and to encourage them to continue striving for a higher position of power. It was a lesson that hardly needed to be taught to the young elite of the British aristocracy, but the Headmaster, charged as he was with raising the next generation of the country's rulers, would not let himself be seen passing up a chance to hammer home that crucial sermon in yet another way.
Sometimes, though, William thought that the Head Boy took things too far.
If visitors respected Nathan Caxton, it was only because they did not know that behind that cool, calm façade hid a demon intent on disrupting William's innocent and harmless life goal of graduating from the school with the best grades and an even better reputation.
If teachers admired him, it was only because they saw the results of the means he used to keep the prefects in line, rather than the cruel political manoeuvring and utter lack of consideration with which he dealt with them.
If students thought him a great and inspiring leader, it was only because he had never sent them out to investigate rumours of mysterious activity on the school grounds at midnight. Alone. With no promise of reward or gratitude.
In fact, William had a hunch that the only person who didn't think of the Head Boy as great and inspiring was himself, precisely because the only person Camio ever sent out to do these thankless tasks was him.
He had respected the not-quite-man called 'Nathan Caxton' once upon a time. Top of every exam, looked up to by all the students, and with good relations between himself, the staff, and the important visitors who came to the school, the Head Boy was everything that William had wanted to be. Of course, that was before William had discovered that Nathan was actually the demon Camio, come to Earth in order to make William's life a living hell… or in the hope of being elected as the Interim Ruler of Hell, though those two things had turned out to be one and the same. How difficult could it be to pass every exam when he had already lived through ten times as many years as any man could hope to see?
Over time, William had come to respect Camio again, only for completely different reasons. He might not be as straightforward as Dantalion or Sitri, and his motivations and loyalties were at times unclear to him, but – on a good day – William could feel with some confidence that, even though he didn't understand it, he might have formed a connection with Camio again.
This, however, was not a good day. It was not even a day at all, but a deep, bitter night. It might have been spring, but it was an English spring, and so it came with no guarantee that the temperature would remain above freezing in the dead of night. As the heels of William's boots snapped along the crisp ground, and he pulled his coat closer around him and cursed Camio under his breath, there wasn't a single ounce of that empathy in his mind.
Camio had a whimsical streak that some might call playful and others might call vindictive; rarely-seen, but dangerous when it appeared. Before he had been revealed as a demon, Camio had appeared to show no more than a cursory interest in the young up-and-coming prefect called William Twining, but now that his position was known, he seemed to take a mild amusement in picking on William at every opportunity – and not even rewarding him in the way that any civilized Head Boy should have done, with connections and recommendations. They had a connection, yes, and it transcended the relationship of Head Boy and prefect, or even that of friends. Keepers of a shared secret, actors on this stage of school life while their real lives played out in the tumultuous politics of Hell; they were bound in a way that neither of them could properly describe – but none of that changed the fact that, at that very moment, William resented Camio more than he had thought possible.
His feet knew their way automatically; it was, after all, the third time he had been down to the forests at midnight that month. The fact that the first two trips had turned up nothing out of the ordinary hadn't been enough to convince Camio to have mercy; nor had the fact that William had wanted to get a good night's sleep before the mock mathematics exam tomorrow. Even Isaac, who would normally jump at the chance for an investigation which had a slight chance of supernatural involvement (and who usually didn't care about flunking tests either) had considered passing tomorrow's practise exam too important to jeopardize. Sitri had merely laughed when William had complained to him, and after that, he hadn't even wanted to tell Dantalion. They were probably all in on it, those demons, watching from somewhere and getting a good laugh out of discovering yet another way to disrupt William's dream of a peaceful, ordinary-
Something glinted in the trees up ahead. Now that was interesting. His previous investigations – triggered by complaints from students whose dorms offered views onto the forest in question and Camio's malevolent decision to put William in charge of fixing the situation, despite the fact that he wasn't attached to that dorm or the events in any way – had turned up nothing out of the ordinary, so much so that he had begun to suspect that the reports were being turned in by fellow prefects who were also taking amusement in the Head Boy's torment of the one who always beat them in exams. But if there was actually something here to find, some concrete evidence that the curfew was being ignored or illicit activities were going on here at night, then he could go straight over Camio's head to the Headmaster. That way, there was no way that the demon could cheat him out of any recognition he should get for solving the matter-
Lost in his idle dreams of the power and fame that this one act could bring him, William hardly saw the clawing shadows of the trees closing in around him as his feet carried him impatiently along the path. He did not notice the blur of motion streaking across his vision almost too fast for the human eye to see, nor did he hear the cracking of the earth or sense the momentary collision of worlds which, back in their separate rooms at the school, three other individuals felt like lightning jolting across their senses.
Yet William was not ignorant of his position, nor was he entirely unaware of the constant danger that surrounded him, despite how oblivious he might pretend to be. He had started to develop a sixth sense about these things – not one he often paid attention to, mind, but the adrenaline had set his instincts on high alert. Besides, when alone in an unlit forest at midnight, even the most stubborn realist would heed a supernatural warning.
A jump to his left was all that saved his life. Something long and black streaked through the air and slammed into the ground beside him, throwing chunks of soil as large as his head up into the night. Pale moonlight flickered along a black spear seemingly made of writhing darkness, but only for an instant, as before William could get a good look at the weapon or who had thrown it, it dissolved into nothing.
A quick glance around revealed nothing but the ominous skeletons of trees. "Who's there?" William demanded, with a kind of righteous courage. "Show yourself!"
There was a flash of movement between the trunks of two trees on William's right; this time, with his heart pounding its alertness in his chest, he saw it. He narrowed his eyes at the tree the shadow had vanished behind, but saw no further movement. From his left there came a horrible tormented sound that might have been the wind howling between the budding branches, or might have been laughter.
"You're trespassing on school properly!" William tried again. An onlooker would have thought his voice surprisingly strong. "If you leave now, we won't have to take this matter to the magistrates-"
"Little worm," interrupted a voice that came from everywhere and nowhere. It sounded amused. "Bearer of Solomon's soul, no? Dangerous indeed, but not when alone, I think. How fortunate I am to find you all out here, so very, very, alone."
William remained silent. His eyes flickered around for a glimpse of the voice's owner. They were probably using a tool to amplify their voice. Perhaps there was more than one of them. Yes, that was it. Most likely Camio had put them up to it in a more spiteful twist on his usual bossing around-
He took a step backwards and tripped over a tree root. Sprawled on his back, dazed by his head's collision with the trunk of the root's owner, he gazed out past the claw-like branches to the skies above. There, only a few feet away from him, a cloud of darkness was gathering like black smoke contained within some invisible vessel. Numbly, William watched as the darkness spread out into a vaguely human shape, blurring from a featureless cloud into a replica of a human body – a human girl, in fact. If you ignored the small horns, the fangs, the blazing red eyes, and the bright, unnatural green of her equally-unnaturally long and straight hair, it was almost perfect.
Wide-eyed, William could only stare as she leaned forwards until her face was inches from his. Her irises were blood-red, and her thin mouth stretched into a cruel smile as she regarded him. In her hand, dark smoke swirled as if it were a living thing. There was empty air beneath her bare feet; she hovered several inches above the ground. "Goodbye, Solomon," that inhuman girl said.
She drew back and raised her hand, and then a black spear was flying directly towards him. This time, there was nowhere to run.
And William knew that he was going to die at the hands of a creature that didn't even obey gravity.
Well, that was half-right. Of course she had to obey the laws of gravity. They were, after all, universal certainties. She was probably using wires or something. Yes, that tree over there looked like a good place to suspend a stage wire from-
And the part of William's brain which wasn't prone to coming up with a rational explanation for everything regardless of the evidence presented was focussed on the other certainty.
He was going to die.
I don't know when and I don't know how, but at some point, I came to love the demons.
Dantalion, of course; Sitri too; and even Camio, in a strange sort of way. At some point, I stopped resenting their presence in my life. It wasn't as if I had just become used to them – though I certainly have become used to them, it's something more than that. Being hunted by supernatural creatures and saved by demons, occasionally finding myself plucked from my comfortable, safe, familiar home and dropped into a world which couldn't possibly exist – it was hardly the life I would have chosen for myself, and, at some point, I began to grow more and more relieved that I had never been offered that choice.
I suppose there is more to life than passing exams and graduating at the top, just as there is more to this world than most people will ever know. I had never considered attending Stradford School as an important part of my life. It was nothing more than a tool to get me to Oxbridge, which was in turn a tool to elevate me into elite society, and to begin reclaiming the fortunes and influence that had once belonged to my family. When the demons showed up, school life suddenly became a living nightmare. I had to fit in exam revision between visits from vengeful angels and various assassination attempts on my life from the underworld; try to keep the school in order despite infiltrations by so-called supernatural beings; deal with Dantalion's meathead friends and Sitri's dumb fan club, and the way that a whole host of students had suddenly become antagonistic towards me because of how the two demons paid more attention to me than to them. If only I could have explained that it was unwanted attention! Let them have Dantalion, let them have Sitri, do what you want with them, just take them out of my life-!
When had that changed? Why had it changed?
I didn't know the answers to those questions. Perhaps I had never really resented them at all. Perhaps I always found it flattering that they would come at my call; that I had a unique kind of authority over them, regardless of my heritage – well, it did come from my supposed heritage as Solomon's descendant at first, though I am willing to believe that that is no longer true. Perhaps it was the power of our shared secret. Perhaps…
Perhaps I have become a romantic fool. Just because they no longer constantly badger me to elect them in exchange for saving my life or someone else's; just because they protect me without thought for themselves or their political standing in Hell – it doesn't mean that they've reached the same conclusion as I have. They might be scheming behind my back. They might be trying to find another way to become the Interim Ruler. Just because my refusals to elect anyone no longer have anything to do with my denial of the occult, it doesn't mean that their lapse in reminding me of my duties show that they feel the same way.
But, at some point, I came to love life with Dantalion, Sitri and Camio. However much they annoy me, I find myself not wanting this to end. When they leave to deal with business in Hell, I am constantly aware of their absence. Without them, life doesn't have the same shine as it does when they are around. They keep things interesting, do my maddening and infuriating friends, and I will never let things go back to how they were.
Let Camio continue to boss me around. Let him be someone for me to look up to. Let me see the compassion in his eyes when he fights for the few people he cares so very deeply about.
Let Sitri always be followed about by his fan club. Let him eat all the candy in the school, and flunk his tests so that he might win help from the older students, and add them to his fan club too in the process. Let his arrogance be matched only by his uncanny ability to hide it behind his pretty face and unnatural elegance; let him go on pretending that the temporary alliance with Dantalion for my sake isn't slowly but surely tearing down his aloof façade.
Let Dantalion declare to the world one more time that I belong to him, and him alone. Let me never lose sight of his loyalty, or his faith, or how he has stayed at my side even though I can see the pain in his eyes every time he looks at me and remembers that I am not his Solomon.
Let the world stay like this, just for a little longer. Let this state of affairs, which I have ever so slowly grown to love, hang in this dangerous equilibrium forever.
I wish I could tell you how I feel. It's easy to pretend to be annoyed by you, since I've had a lot of experience of feeling that way. I guess it is more from habit than anything else, now. I am fonder of your interference and your troublemaking than I can possibly say. I wish I could tell you that, but the words are so difficult to find, and there never seems to be a right time for it.
As a scientific realist, I could never accept anything that wasn't real – certainly nothing as strange as you – in my life. Yet, somehow, you have become a part of my reality. Living with you has become as natural to me as passing exams; as enforcing the school rules; as being and breathing and loving.
Yes – don't ever leave me, my beloved demons.
He also knew that he was not going to die.
The deadly weapon plunged towards William's heart, and rather than thinking about how much he wanted to live, his brain was demanding to know what on earth was keeping Dantalion.
Then he was there. The sense of danger was gone as the forest lit up with Dantalion's presence, shining in the fire which appeared from nowhere and forced back the spear of darkness, strong in the hand which gripped his shoulder reassuringly, filling him with a feeling of warmth and security. Dantalion had come to save him, as he always did. It was something they had both come to accept. While at school and in ordinary life Dantalion's sudden arrival was normally accompanied by a great deal of complaining on William's part, in life-or-death situations such as this, he was always glad to see his demonic protector, even if he couldn't say that either.
The green-haired girl stepped backwards, putting a cautious distance between her and the angry demon. Dantalion was truly a sight to behold when he fought. Fire rippled like water along his ragged black cloak, concealing the hard muscles and well-formed physique that all the other players in the school's rugby team had come to admire beneath the immaculate clothes befitting a Grand Duke of Hell. Out here with only demons and the Elector to see him, the proper grooming expected of a student at Stradford School had been abandoned along with any pretence at being human; sleek silver piercings lined his pointed ears, and beneath his wild black hair, his eyes burned red with the fires of Hell. William stared up at him from the ground, his magnificent protector. When the need arose, Dantalion would leave behind his playful and childish side; throw out all notion of teasing William. Unquestionably loyal, and devoted in a way that even William didn't quite understand, Dantalion was the one upon whom he could always rely to be there right when he was needed.
This time, like the time before, and the time before that, Dantalion did not insist on a promise that William elect him before he fought - in fact, he didn't even bring up the subject. All his attention was focussed on the threat to William's life. With his fingers digging tightly enough into William's shoulder to hurt, he demanded of the intruder, "How dare you harm my Elector?"
The demonic girl did not seem afraid. Instead, she cocked her head to one side, looking at Dantalion with an expression of curiosity and amusement. Without warning, she became a dark blur once more as she rushed towards them, spear of black smoke at the ready, and Dantalion sprung forwards to intercept her. Fire and darkness met in a blinding explosion. William threw up an arm to shield his eyes, and when it seemed safe enough to lower it again, he found himself looking upon a smouldering scene of destruction. Above the circle of blackened trees, many of which were still burning, Dantalion and the other fought with uncontrolled fury, denying those laws of physics which were so dear to William. He had long since given up trying to explain that phenomenon to himself.
"William!" someone shouted. William jerked his head round to see Sitri running towards him across the scorched circle of earth with a speed that the stiletto heels on his white shoes should have forbidden. "Are you all right? William?"
"I'm fine!" he replied. He pushed himself to his feet before Sitri could reach him and offer to help, and he brushed imaginary specks of dust from his coat.
"What happened here?"
"Dantalion happened," William said crisply, pointing at the sky, where the fight continued. Of course it was Dantalion causing the destruction. If they kept this up for much longer they were bound to be discovered by someone influential, and then how would he be able to explain all this away? The demons had nothing to lose, but his tuition and future were at stake here!
As he opened his mouth to begin explaining why the other demon should put aside his rivalry and help Dantalion end this battle as soon as possible, Sitri narrowed those beautiful blue eyes of his, guessing, at the very least, what William wanted him to do. "I wouldn't normally be interested in helping a Nephilim," he sighed wistfully. "Oh, but he is so very crude and rough. I don't think I can sit back and watch this display of brutishness."
Sitri took off in pursuit of the combatants, wind ruffling the feathers in his hair. There was something of a satisfied smirk on William's face as he watched the two demons, enemies in the struggle to become Interim Ruler of Hell, work together seamlessly to bring their opponent crashing down to earth. Dantalion and Sitri landed softly on either side of William, cautiously regarding the smoking crater where they had thrown their defeated opponent. The bright green-haired demon struggled to her feet, smoke rising from her clothes. Despite the bruises decorating her fair skin, she still managed to give a sadistic smile as she sprung back into the air. The black night seemed to liquefy and swirl around her.
"Dantalion, Grand Duke of Hell, chosen of Astaroth, and protégé of Lucifer, no? And Sitri, Viscount and Prince of Hell, nephew of Baalberith, fallen angel, with the blood of Gabriel in your veins? We'll meet again, I think."
"Who are you?" Dantalion roared, fearsome in his determination. "What do you want?"
The girl drew herself up to her full height, blood dripping from the various cuts on her body and steaming where it hit the ground. "My name is Lune," she told him, with a grin that revealed all of her sharp teeth. "As for what I want… or, I should say, what we want…" One hand curled into a fist that punched towards the night sky. "Long live the Dark Dawn Revolution!" she crowed, and then she disappeared into the darkness.
Everything changes.
This isn't the romanticist or poet in me talking – I've had quite enough of that for one day. No, it's a fact of life, plain and simple. And it's one that no one can deny, however much they might wish against it – not even me. There are the little changes, like Kevin coming to live on campus with us, or Miss Mollins leaving the dorms, but ultimately, they don't change that much in life. You adapt, and move on. And then there are the big changes. Something as simple as a word or a gesture, so small at the time, can alter the course of history forever. Those are the moments in which, the romanticist in me would say, destiny is reshaped. Those are the moments that define us.
I can remember three occasions in my life where a single event changed everything.
The first was when my parents died. Without a doubt, it shaped the person I would grow up to become. Perhaps, looking back, that was one of the events that made me such a firm believer in science and reality. A scientist would say that the accident which killed them was just chance – it could have happened to anybody, they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Someone who believed in fate would have had no choice but to accept that this was God's doing, or the will of the universe, or whatever other nonsense people like Isaac believe in. How could I accept that it was my parents' destiny to die on that day? How could I be that sort of person?
The second was the first time I accidentally summoned Dantalion in the basement of my family's manor house. That was the single event that dragged me from my world of exams and science and aristocratic parties and plunged me into a battle between demons. I resisted that change for as long as I could, but, as time passed and they weren't going anywhere, I came to accept Dantalion, Sitri and Camio in my life.
The third was only a single phrase uttered by a fleeing demon, and it changed everything. I had no way of knowing it at the time, but it was after that day that everything began to fall apart.
Please don't leave me.
Unable to say those words out loud, I had thought them, and thought them often, in the hope that some dispassionate, secretive god might show some mercy to the one he had cursed with Solomon's soul. Sometimes I think that if I had believed in God – if I hadn't been so determined to believe only in what I could see and explain – he might have answered my prayer.
"Dark Dawn Revolution."
Those were the words the demon spoke to Dantalion, Sitri and I. A meaningless phrase; a pointless utterance; three powerful words that meant nothing to me, but would be forever branded onto my mind as the herald of the beginning of the end of my world.
Just three words.
And the wonderful, idyllic life I had only just begun to embrace was gone.
Sitri was looking at Dantalion.
Dantalion was looking at Sitri.
Ordinarily, William wouldn't have cared less that he knew they were keeping something from him, but when both the demons were acting as seriously as this, he knew that something was badly wrong. Once upon a time, he might have made a fuss about scolding the underclassman who thought it would be funny to dress up as a ghost-girl and terrorize the dorms. Even after he had come to accept that there would be supernatural creatures trying to kill him – trying to kill Solomon – he had continued to pretend otherwise. The demons expected it of him; furthermore, there was something indescribable that William liked about the earnest way that Dantalion would reprimand him for his refusal to believe. It was when the laid-back, casual Dantalion Huber vanished, and the raw, pure, passionate demon who desired acceptance by Solomon above all else at last became visible. Even if he, William, had nothing to do with what had happened between Solomon and Dantalion, and did not believe he was really the target of the demon's fervent words, Dantalion's ardent and emotive determination moved him in a way he couldn't explain.
Yet now was not the time for this. The two demons looked worried, and there wasn't much that could faze them. Once William might have been pleased that their confidence had been shaken; now, seeing his friends and protectors so concerned, he was worried too. Trying not to sound overly interested, or overly apprehensive, he asked of the two, "Who was that? What's going on?"
At first, they did not answer him. The familiar feeling of annoyance rising up in William was quickly crushed by the dark look in Dantalion's eyes. "What is this 'Dark Dawn Revolution'?" Silence. Worry drove a reprimanding tone into William's voice. "Dantalion?"
Slowly, Dantalion turned those severe red eyes from Sitri to William. "I don't know."
"Dantalion," Sitri murmured softly.
Dantalion clenched and unclenched his fists. "A group who have no allegiance to any of the four demon lords, or the laws of Hell. Rebellious scum. Unimportant. Not worth paying attention to; never have been, and never will be."
"Why are they going after Solomon? Why now?" Sitri asked, a frown marring his beautiful face.
"Because they're fools," came Dantalion's short reply. It did not fit with the alarm William had seen in his face when Lune had first announced her cause.
Sitri looked sharply at William. "And what would a proper rule-abiding prefect like you be doing out of bounds after curfew?" he asked, with a slight mocking lilt to his voice.
"It's not as if I'm here because I want to be!" William retorted, wrapping his coat more tightly around his body. The cold of the night seemed to have disappeared with the arrival of the two demons - the action was merely to prove his point. "There have been complaints about noises here at night from one of the dorms. The Head Boy sent me out to investigate."
For a moment, Dantalion's eyes seemed to gleam in the darkness. "Did he now?"
"You're not saying that the respectable Head Boy has anything to do with this?" William demanded, the shock in his voice mirrored only by the alarm in Sitri's wide eyes. "Not that there's anything respectable about him sending me out here at this time of night…"
He tailed off when he noticed that the other two were no longer listening, their attention captured by something behind him. The sound of running footsteps came to his ears. Turning, he saw Camio bursting into the still-smoking clearing. Though he was still wearing the Head Boy's uniform, with his demonic nature concealed behind formal human clothes, smart glasses, and calm golden eyes, there was no doubt that he was ready to fight if the need arose. "William?" he inquired.
"I'm fine!" Exasperated, William raised his palms to the sky in an exaggerated shrug, lips turning down into that automatic annoyed expression of his. "No thanks to you sending me out here, though…"
Camio looked to the other two demons, ignoring William's mumbling. "Who was it?"
"No one of any importance," Dantalion answered, before Sitri could speak. "Another fool who thought that the way forwards is to end the life of Solomon's heir."
"Did someone send them?" Camio persisted. His expression held no more than mild curiosity; his voice was even. William still could not read him like he had come to be able to read Dantalion. "Lord Baalberith? Were they working for anyone? Did they say anything?"
Folding him arms, Dantalion gave a smirk that William realized, with a sudden chill, was faked. "They didn't get the chance."
Sitri looked as if he was about to interject, but after a curious glance towards Dantalion went unanswered, he closed his mouth without speaking. It was unlike Sitri to defer to the other demon; another warning sign that William noted and then pushed aside, as if doing so would make a bad situation go away.
A crease appeared on Camio's forehead, but he gave a single nod. "I see."
There was a brief moment of silent hostility between them, and William shivered. In part because it was true, but in part to change the subject as well, he said, "I know that you may not care about education here, but I have a mathematics exam tomorrow, and my future depends on my results here! I'm going back to bed."
"You're right, it's past curfew," Camio responded coolly. He extended a hand out towards William. "Come along, William."
More than anything in that moment, William wanted to look to Dantalion for guidance - yet to look back would have been a sign of weakness that someone destined for a place amongst society's elite couldn't possibly afford to show. Besides, why did he need the demon's approval? With a nod, he reached out and took Camio's hand, and the Head Boy and the prefect walked together in silence towards the dark shadow of the school dormitories.
William did not look back, and Dantalion did not call to him, but he could feel Dantalion's gaze burning into his back with every step he took.
There have only been two instances in my life when I haven't come top of the class in an exam.
Well, the first time doesn't really count. Since I was framed for cheating by an all-powerful archangel with millennia of knowledge under his belt and an unhealthy love for deception, it was hardly my fault, and I refuse to have it held against my record.
The second time doesn't really count either, because I was too distracted by thoughts of that look on Dantalion's face, and the way he and Sitri had shown outright suspicion towards Camio. I trusted Camio instinctively, just as I trusted Dantalion and Sitri with my life. He had always been hard to pin down, and he had never been as close to me as the others had, but I didn't want to believe anything bad about him. I couldn't. I loved him as much as I loved the others; he was as much a part of my life as they were. I only wish that he would show me that he felt the same about me.
Thus my mind went round in circles, wondering if Dantalion's clear suspicions had any ground; trying to justify Camio's distant nature and strange actions before the doubts crept back in. I had never thought that anything the demons did would affect me so deeply that an actual exam seemed trivial in comparison to the turmoil in my head. Still, it had, and how could anyone hope to perform to the best of their ability on a test in such a state?
Or, at least, that was what I tried to convince myself of as an excuse. In reality, I think I had sensed even then that something had begun that could not be stopped. Things were changing; the equilibrium, that delicate power balance, that I had come so late to appreciate, was already beginning to break.
And there was only one way that this could end.
Don't ever leave me, my beloved demons.
If I can bring myself to say it out loud, will that make it come true?
