Hello all, new story here. This time it is the story of Demon Lord Touma.
I thought for a while about how I could do a story like this but I just couldn't write a good way to really 'break' Touma, so I went with a different idea. I will admit that I am influenced a lot by what I read watch or listen to, and in this case I was rocking out to "Carolus Rex" by Sabaton while planning this. Similarly, for "The Hall of Valhalla" I was listening to Yumeko's cover of "Shinigami Record" and "Ayano's Theory of Happiness", Wotamin's Cover of "Irony"(not the Claris song, a different one) and "The song of a Broken Youkai Who Loved a Human". Hence why that story was much more saddening in tone.
On the note of Valhalla being a sadder story, somebody posted some long sappy ending they think the fic should have ended. I want to just flat out say this: "The Hall of Valhalla" was never going to be a happy ending. I was not going for some bland tearful reunion, nor was I going to include send-off from all of the characters or cheesy lines about "people I care about". That would completely ruin the feel of unflinchingly following through on a sacrifice until the very end. As somebody who is honestly a bit of an ass, what you wrote was painful to read.
But away from all of that, "Illusion of a Demon Lord" is going to be much much longer than the past couple things I have written, and will naturally update a lot slower. As for whether it will be a sad ending or not I don't know yet but I'm leaning more towards a more upbeat end this time around. As well, characters that some people felt were snubbed a bit in Valhalla will be getting much more screen time here; namely Misaka as she can actually be written into this.
All of the prep talk aside, read and enjoy.
A tall man completely covered in white powered armor slowly picked his way through a completely demolished building located in one of Academy City's abandoned areas. He kept his gun ready and his eyes sharp while picking through the rubble with his fellow dark side mercenaries, searching for confirmation on two dangerous targets. Dust and smoke obscured his view, a side effect of the extended bombardment that had ripped through the building just a few minutes before. The man and his comrades didn't think the bombardment worked, the targets were well known for being very good at staying alive. However, after about 15 minutes of searching he came across two horribly burnt headless torsos with clothing that matched that which the targets were wearing.
Carefully lowering himself to the corpses, he called his comrades while taking out a small device for checking DNA. "This is Corpse Hound 2; I think I might have found the bodies, checking DNA now." The man impatiently waited for the computer to finish its work while looking around. Several buildings had been levelled by the barrage by the Five Over Model Case Railgun unmanned robots their employer had managed to acquire. Nothing but rubble smoke and fire remained of the buildings that were planned for destruction anyway but nobody had bothered to actually demolish them. A few short beeps brought the man out of his idle musings and confirmed what he was hired to do.
"I have DNA confirmation on the deaths of the targets. I repeat, Imagine Breaker and the Railgun are dead." The man announced loudly and clearly over the radio to his superiors. His comrades looked over to him and started lazily making their way over while some of them prepared the disposal unit. After a moment, his superior responded on the radio. "Good work, not only will our employer will be happy but our reputation will shoot through the roof. Looks like some well-paying work will be heading our way boys."
The commander set down the radio and walked over to his drinks cabinet and pulled out a bottle of really expensive liquor. Today was looking to be a good day, aside from the fact that he didn't notice the stars in his own eyes. He moved over to his laptop and made a quick report to his employer.
"Are you sure that tricked them?" Hiding in a dimly lit room underground sat two dirty youths. Just looking at their tattered clothes and messy hair one wouldn't think that they were world renowned celebrities of sorts. Surrounding them were similarly dirty youths, street thugs and street rats tinkering with various things while a blonde youth walked up with two bags. Kamijou Touma took one bag while Misaka Mikoto took the other. "Here, you're gonna need a change of clothes and for the boss I managed to sneak some armor into yours. I figured sparky here would feel weird with metal all over her body." Just before she closed the door to the small room, Misaka shot the blonde Hamazura Shiage an annoyed look before retorting "don't call me sparky or I'll start messing with your piercings." Hamazura wryly raised his hands in surrender while the two closed the doors to their changing rooms.
After a few minutes had passed, Misaka exited her room wearing a shirt a bit too large for her under a cheap coat that was a bit too light for the late fall weather and loose jeans what didn't really match. While not one to obsess over fashion she couldn't help but think they looked a bit weird, but they certainly looked like something somebody without money would wear. She didn't think anybody would expect a wealthy girl such as herself to wander around town in clothes like that. She quickly tied her short hair into an even shorter ponytail before putting on a tattered baseball cap to complete her disguise. Looking around for a moment she spoke up "he's not done yet?"
"I'm here I'm here, it took a bit to get this on right." Kamijou walked through a different door while stretching his arm a little. He wore a cheap looking brown coat with a black shirt underneath and like Misaka was wearing blue jeans underneath. He stopped for a moment to examine himself before asking "well, how do I look?" Misaka took a moment to think while Hamazura smiled a bit and replied "like a true hoodlum, you might get into a couple small fights but with that trick you guys pulled I don't think anybody will be really looking for you. Really, using a cloning facility to only create a body without a head so you wouldn't be killing anybody for a body double, you sure do things in style boss." Kamijou shrugged at those words before replying "I didn't think of that one, those two high-class ladies from Tokiwadai sure come up with some interesting ideas, I didn't know Misaka could puppeteer a body into place like that."
Misaka let loose a slightly evil grin at Touma's statement as she headed for the door a few particularly stout looking youths were guarding. One of them handed her a backpack while another handed one to Touma and Hamazura each. As they stepped out of the door, Kamijou and Hamazura both put on knit hats and simple flu masks. They made their way through the back alleys while avoiding any potential problems with Hamazura's knowledge of the area. Eventually they made their way to the back door of a fairly expensive hotel and met up with a guard. The guard bowed slightly and let them through; Misaka noted his eyes had stars in them.
Passing through the fancy hotel hallways, nobody saw them make their way to the top floor as Misaka quietly manipulated the surveillance to remove any trace of them being there. At the top floor they met a familiar face: a blonde young man in a black suit. Kamijou smiled and waved to his friend "hey Tsuchimikado, that suit almost looks good on you." Tsuchimikado shook hands with Touma while grinning "better than you do in that getup, I'll have to show you some pointers of lying low in style sometime." The blond man opened the door to the room behind him and motioned inside "hurry up, your 'advisers' were getting worried since we couldn't risk radio communications…'Your Majesty'." Tsuchimikado had what could only be called a shit-eating grin on his face as he added that last bit while Touma lightly punched him in the ribs and walked inside. Hamazura and Misaka soon followed suit and Tsuchimikado closed the door after them.
Kamijou and his group walked past a clean lobby and through another door to meet the people waiting for him. When Kumokawa Seria and Shokuhou Misaki saw him their faces visibly brightened. Kamijou and his group smiled in reply and sat at the large round table in the middle of the room. Touma took off his mask and hat before asking "so did it work? That was a lot of destruction for just two people." Misaki happily made a sideways V sign in front of her right eye while reporting "worked like a charm, they would never believe Misaka and I would actually work together right now." Seria popped a small snack into her mouth as she added to the report "these two make quite the frightening combo when it comes to information manipulation, all of the channels show that everybody involved believes that you two died. I guess even with your reputation they'd believe it if they identified an actual corpse by DNA."
Kamijou slumped in his chair a bit and let out a long breath. The world had become a total mess after both Aleister and Laura Stuart had taken each other out in their fight 6 months back. With the sudden power vacuum on both the magic and science sides, all sorts of troublemakers were taking advantage and things had well and truly gone to shit. Despite all of his efforts, Touma could not put an end to the conflicts on his own, and a rather daring plan was hatched. A third world faction that held both science and magic would need to be created; and it would need a leader. That leader would draw all sorts of bad attention to themselves and would likely be in a lot of danger.
It eventually became a consensus among those known as the "Kamijou Faction" about who their leader would be. One person had the courage to face danger, the recognition to inspire the people, and the noble mind that would not be corrupted. It came to be that Kamijou Touma would become their 'king', but preparations needed to be made. As such, a plan was created to fake his death and allow him to move behind the scenes, and Misaka Mikoto was to join him as his protection from conventional weaponry.
The plan was wide scale, included people from all over the world and when all was said and done; just a little bit crazy. Yet despite just how crazy this plan seemed, the world needed them. With Aleister gone the Kiharas had started roaming free to do all sorts of inhumane experiments, and they had the ability to crush those who tried to stop them. Similarly on the magic side, many smaller cabals tried to take advantage of the absence of Laura Stuart to overthrow the existing powers in England, and the flames quickly spread elsewhere.
Kamijou put those thoughts aside as he took a sip of tea from a small cup. From now on he would be secretly working underground to get things ready for the 'coronation ceremony'. He still found the thought of being 'crowned king' to be extremely strange but the logic for the plan was sound and he wouldn't let anybody else take the position of target #1. Nobody disagreed when it was proposed that he would be made the 'king'; Misaki had even taken to calling him her 'prince', though Seria said she had been doing that long before.
As the brief meeting to reconfirm their objectives came to a close, the various players moved to do their respective tasks. When they were dismissed, Seria and Misaki stood up and quietly said one last thing.
"Long live the king"
He certainly hoped so.