A/N: Hello all! I'm really going to try and keep this note short this time, honestly!
So I've been wanting to do something with Beauty and the Beast for a while, since it's my favourite Disney film, and I just finished watching TWGOK - and I just couldn't resist sticking the two of them together, especially when they seem to overlap so well. It might be a strange crossover combination, but hey, it was great fun to write. It's not an incredibly well-written piece (I wrote half of this while on an aeroplane, and I went on to hand-write the entire thing on holiday), but it's just supposed to be short and fun; a bit of light-hearted relief.
As I haven't read the manga for TWGOK, this is set somewhere in Season 2 of the anime.
I don't own Beauty and the Beast, or The World God Only Knows. This is simply the less well-known story of what went on behind the scenes of Belle and the Beast's romance.
In the absence of any friends who have watched The World God Only Knows, this is dedicated to Ben, Michael, Jacquie and Jamie, who I will forever think of whenever "divine intervention" crops up.
Well, I think that's all the business out of the way. I enjoyed writing this immensely, so I hope that you enjoy reading it too! Feel free to drop me a review - feedback, especially constructive feedback, is always appreciated!
Divine Intervention
by CrimsonStarbird
Part One, In Which A Not-Quite-Fairytale Begins
The weekend started out like any other.
Keima was out of the classroom and halfway down the road before the bell signalling the end of the school day had even finished ringing, leaving an exasperated Elsie alone in the classroom, her dejected cry of "Kami-nii-sama!" hanging in the empty air.
If anyone in the streets had been listening to Keima as he passed them in a hurry, they might have heard him muttering something to himself that sounded like "Gamesgamesgamesgames-!", but this was Katsuragi Keima, and people tended to pay as much attention to him as he did to them.
Like he did every weekend, Keima threw open the door to his house and marched straight towards his bedroom, pausing only to inform his mother that this was a weekend to be spent gaming, and he wasn't to be disturbed.
That was when the nice, safe pattern of Katsuragi Keima's weekend began to fall apart.
As he walked past his mother, she casually reached out one hand and snagged his collar, stopping him in his tracks with a strangled sound. "Now, now, Keima, don't be so rude," she told him disapprovingly. "You have a guest."
More to satisfy his mother than to fulfil any curiosity he might have felt, Keima turned to see who was sitting at their table – and let out a groan. "Not you again!"
Before his guest could reply, a delighted cry tore through the room: "Haqua!" As full of energy as ever, Elsie bounded in through the door and threw her arms around her old classmate, squealing in happiness.
"Hey, Elsie," the purple-haired demon greeted coolly, carefully detaching herself from Elsie's embrace in time to grab the back of Keima's shirt before he could sidle off into his room.
"Games..." Keima moaned pitifully.
"Not so fast!" Haqua reprimanded him with a grin. "You're not going anywhere. We have a loose soul to catch!"
"Find your own partner, you failure of a demon," Keima muttered darkly.
Elsie interrupted before Haqua got a chance to respond to that. "What do you mean, we? Do we get to help you, Haqua?"
"Well, I guess so..."
"Yay! We get to work with Haqua again!" Elsie exclaimed, bouncing up and down, as excitable as ever.
Blushing slightly, Haqua coughed to hide her embarrassment. Checking that Keima's mother was out of earshot, she began to explain, "There was been a development at the castle."
Elsie blinked twice. "What castle?"
"The castle."
"Oh, that castle!"
"What castle?" Keima demanded, but Haqua ignored him. He tried in vain to pull away and retreat to the safety of his room, but she had a death-grip on his shirt.
"After ten long years, the loose soul is finally stirring," Haqua continued. "This might be our only chance to capture it, so I've had it assigned to you and Katsuragi. I'll be accompanying you of course, to make sure that you do your job properly."
"No!" Keima protested. "This weekend has been set aside for gaming, and nothing else! I'm not hunting for any more loose souls; that's cost me enough gaming time already!"
Haqua smiled gleefully, tapping the red iron collar around Keima's neck that only he and the two demons could see. "You know what happens if you don't fulfil your contract!" she sang.
Keima glared at her with narrowed eyes, angry as he only ever was when someone came between him and his precious video gaming time. "You haven't caught a single loose soul yet, so how come you're still alive?"
"Shut up!" the demon snapped back, whacking him round the head with her scythe and turning away, folding her arms crossly.
Elsie ran across the room to Keima. "Kami-nii-sama! Are you okay?"
"Your friend is a psychopath," Keima muttered.
"As I was saying," Haqua continued firmly, "We're going to the castle to confront its master. You're going to get the loose soul out of him, and we'll all be rewarded for stopping such a famous and powerful soul."
Keima was about to nod when something Haqua said finally clicked with him. "Wait a minute, you said 'he'? No. No way. I refuse. I won't do it!"
Elsie looked up at Haqua, concern wavering in her honest eyes. After a moment's pause, peals of Haqua's clear laughter rang out through the house. "How about you let me finish?" she giggled. "Stop trying to get out of this, Katsuragi, and I'll explain to you what the situation is."
There was no way out. There never was. With a groan, Keima dragged himself up to one of the chairs, fished his PFP out of his pocket, and began tapping the buttons defiantly. Haqua knew that this was the best she was going to get, and she gave in with a small sigh. Elsie hopped up onto the table and sat there cross-legged, waiting eagerly for her friend to begin her tale.
"Ten years ago, or so the rumours go, a wealthy young prince lived in a castle. He had everything his heart desired, but there was no love in him. One stormy night, an ugly old woman was passing through the forest and she knocked on the door of his castle, begging shelter from the storm in return for a single rose. Repulsed by her haggard appearance, the prince sneered at the gift and turned the old woman away, slamming the door in her face. In that moment, with the emptiness in his heart plain for all to see, a loose soul entered the prince.
"The prince's heart was so empty that the loose soul immediately gained immense power. The man was transformed into a beast; his beautiful castle became a twisted dark place of nightmare and shadow. The prince's curse even spread to his servants, and it is said that they too lost their human forms. Many Spirit Hunters tried to get inside to capture the loose soul, but his hatred was so strong that it formed a barrier around the whole castle, preventing any of us from getting close enough to even speak with the prince."
"So what am I supposed to do about that?" Keima growled, not taking his eyes off the small, blinking screen of his PFP.
Haqua demanded, "Don't you ever listen? I don't know how you put up with him, Elsie," she added, accentuating her words prodding the side of Keima's head. "As I was saying, there's been a development. Not long ago, a young woman went inside the castle, and has yet to come back out. However, since that day, the barrier around the castle has begun to weaken."
"Then the prince is falling in love with her!" Elsie exclaimed, bright eyes shining.
"So what's the problem?" Keima asked.
Haqua frowned. "The loose soul has been inside the prince for far too long already. If it exists in this world for much longer, we won't be able to capture it at all, regardless of whether or not this girl manages to fill the emptiness in his heart."
The light from his PFP screen gleamed off Keima's glasses. "I see."
"In fact, we've calculated that the loose soul will reach full power on the prince's twenty-first birthday – which just happens to be this Sunday."
"What?" Elsie demanded. "That only gives us one day to capture it!"
"Yup!" Haqua grinned. "I have absolute faith that the two of you can do it!"
For the first time, Keima looked up from his game, fixing Haqua with a cold stare. "So, let me get this straight. I have one day to get to the castle, find these people, and get them to fall in love? And I don't get a say in any of this?"
"That sounds about right," Haqua chirped, brushing her long purple hair back casually with her free hand.
"But it's impossible!" Keima protested.
Elsie curled her hands into fists. "You can do it, Kami-nii-sama! I believe in you!"
Keima looked back down at his PFP, idly pressing a button. The dialogue on the screen disappeared to be replaced by an image of a boy and a girl holding hands as they watched the sun set over the ocean, with the word "Fin" scrawled across it in elaborate letters. He sighed. "I guess I have no choice."