DISCLAIMER: I do not own Devil Survivor. Atlus does, I think.
"Demons..." I muttered to myself, head down, left hand squeezing my right arm. "Is it because I summoned the demons? With that song? Everything's my fault... All of Tokyo..."
"That's not true," a boy whose dark blue locks hung over his left eye told me softly.
I flinched, surprised. "When did you get here? So you heard me..." I chuckled nervously. "There's no use hiding it. I don't need your pity. I was the one who summoned the demons with my songs. I... I was the one who destroyed Tokyo..."
"We'll destroy the demons," he said confidently. "Besides, demons were already here."
I raked a hand through my hair. "That's a laugh. That can't be true. Where's any proof in that?"
"Haru, do you know about those murders where the victims' blood was drained?" A girl, who I recognized to be Yuzu, asked.
"Yeah. The bodies were found without any blood at all in them, I heard. So?" I shrugged.
"Don't you think the murder behind those is a demon?" She suggested.
I looked at her questionably. "What are you getting at?"
"Those killings started more than six months ago! So..." Yuzu trailed off, allowing me to finish the rest of the statement.
"So... The demons were here in the city before I summoned one?" I lifted my head slightly as a shred of hope enters my being.
"See?" She smiled triumphantly. "And... Hey! If you're not happy, you're gonna make me all depressed too! So stop being all distressed about this! Be the Haru we both know and love!"
I laughed, relieved. "I see... So that's how it is. And to think that I... I completely jumped to the wrong conclusion. Man, that's so unlike me... Thanks for making me realize that. I was going to make a huge mistake..."
I glanced over, and watched as his lips curled upwards into a small smile. He grabbed my arm as I was about to leave, then whispered into my ear. I blushed, glanced down, then, realizing he was lying, looked back up furiously.
He just laughed and said, "There we go, something natural. Keep that up, Haru," before turning and walking away with his friends.
And now, he's here again, saving me again. I watch the battle through the flickering flames that keep me trapped, cornered at the back of the stage.
"Bufudyne!" He shouts, then commands his demon minions to do the same, punching buttons into his COMP. He looks so serious, but with the cat-ear shaped headphones, I can't really take him as seriously. The red demon, Belial, he called himself, screams in agony as three separate columns of ice erupts from the ground, skewering three different parts of his body. When the ice disappears, there's no blood, not even ichor. There's just... holes.
But Belial seems injured, and stumbles back slightly. His friends, a boy with glasses whose name I don't know, and Atsuro, continue the attack, ordering their demons to pelt it with ice of different shapes. Yuzu closes her eyes and presses the palms of her hands to his back, and I watch as his injures heal, clothes mend. Meanwhile, her demons are hovering above her, healing his demons.
Then, he does something I don't think anyone expected.
He starts sprinting at my direction. The other three teens shout at him to go back, but he just ignores them and keeps running, while the others are forced to grit their teeth and keep holding Belial back, hoping that he won't get them all killed by doing this.
He leaps onto the stage, then disappears because the columns of fire obscure him from my view. A second later, an ice-encased arm shoots through the flames and grabs me. I briefly note the smell of burning flesh before a thick layer of ice coats my body, and I get pulled out of Belial's flames. The ice has already melted by the time I notice the blue eyed boy with a smoking arm standing in front of me.
"How?" Belial roars, sending a jet of flames at our direction. He glances at me quickly—the feeling of guilt punches me straight in the gut—before lifting his already injured right arm, palm out, for a block.
"Bufudyne," I hear him whisper, and watch as ice crystals form, layer over layer, on his arm. There's the sound of hissing steam as the flames make contact and splay outwards, away from both of us. The heat is so intense—even more than the flame cage— that beads of sweat are already dripping down my forehead and I'm forced to shrink behind him to escape the heat.
"I see... So you are not a normal human," Belial observes. I notice that the three holes from before have already sealed up. "It is time to test the power of that woman's demon song!"
Three sets of three demons step out from portals, fall from the sky, materialize from the ground. His shoulders stiffen, and I peek out from behind him to discover that the palm of his right arm is charred back, and the entire limb is shaking, though still outstretched. He slowly brings the arm down, and with his left arm, takes his COMP out from his pocket. A soft green light forms a glove over his burnt hand—bits of skin are falling off, while I bite back a gag—and the hand begins to heal itself, albeit slowly.
"Hmm... The summoning effect is weaker than I expected," Belial mutters. "It must take time for the power to adjust to my body..." The demon breathes fire at Atsuro, who was trying to sneak up behind him, and the teen is forced to dodge behind the stands, though not before sustaining a fairly bad burn. Yuzu gets to work right away and starts healing him.
"I'm through playing with you," Belial smirks. "I have a new purpose. This woman..." it jabs a finger at me, "and all of you! You will all be engulfed in flames!"
"Bufudyne!" I hear someone shout, and looking over, realize that the blue haired boy was no longer on the stage. He was standing mere meters away from the Belial, and had launched a surprise attack, a pillar of ice impaling the demon. The ice vanishes, only to be replaced by two more from his demons, stabbing both legs.
"I won't let you!" He shouts, a new determination set in those navy eyes, as ice crystals rain over Belial. The demon doesn't jump out of the way quickly enough to escape all of the shards of sharp ice. I notice that his arm is still black.
Meanwhile, Atsuro, Yuzu, and the glasses kid are fending off the demons that approach the main battle. Yuzu, I notice, is more focused on healing than she is attacking. Awed by their battle, I notice the approaching set of three star-shaped demons too late.
The three of them each hurl fireballs at me, consecutively, from right to left. And with a stage wall the my right, I really have no choice but to dodge, left, left, and left again, before finally leaping off the stage. The first of the three star-bastards get down before I do, and spinning though the air like a Frisbee, launches itself straight at me, catching me square in the gut and lifting me off my feet. I crash into the metal bleachers, hitting them hard. Spots dance before my eyes, and I can feel something wet drip down the right side of my face. I try to stand up, but my left leg throbs in protest, telling me that I probably twisted something.
"Shit," I swear, clutching the trusses of the bleachers to haul myself up. The demons advance, tauntingly slowly, chittering excitedly.
"We'll catch the song woman for Master Belial!" The middle one says, narrowing its single eye at me.
"And then kill her!" The one on the right declares.
"Kill her!" Lefty repeats.
Then suddenly, lighting claps from the sky, frying one demon per flash. The two wings disintegrate immediately, but the middle one stays strong. It doesn't last long, however, as a mini-tornado whips by and picks it up. When the mass of wind disappears, the demon is gone.
"Haru, are you okay?" Yuzu shouts, rushing over to my side.
"Yeah," I grunt, testing my hurt leg. I can't put enough weight on it to walk, but I can stand, if I'm holding onto something. Noticing the injury, Yuzu instructs me to sit, but I just can't. Not when he's fighting out there, and possibly, dying out there. So I hobble over to where the main showdown is happening, and peek out from behind the bleachers just in time to catch the finishing blow.
A gust of wind sends the exhausted Belial off balance, stumbling straight into an ice pillar, which pierces right through the area where a human's heart would be, and it just freezes. There are a few moments of shocked silence before Belial speaks, its voice little more than an animalistic growl.
"How did this happen...? A mere human, defeating me, Belial? Ghh, I see..." the demon sighs. "The unlimited power of the human brought out the true power of Bel... Haha! Then it's not a bad idea to sleep inside of you!" It gives a hearty laugh. "Now! Assimilate all of the Bels inside of you, and become King of Demons! Strive to surpass demons! You may even surpass God!"
Belial roars, an incomprehensible gurgle, as black ichor bubbles and spills from his mouth. The ice pillar that was holding it up shatters in a shower of ice crystals, and Belial erupts, a column of darkness shooting into the sky. Its previous opponent stumbles back, startled. The darkness quickly condenses into a dark ball of concentrated energy, before it, too, explodes. Then suddenly, the blue-head is cloaked in dark energy, which proceeds to flare a bright white seconds later, then merge with his body.
He glances at me quickly, then falls backwards dramatically. For a few seconds, he just lies there, still. A panicked thought enters my head.
He's dead. He died protecting me.
Then his lips twitch upwards, curling into a small smile. "Bastard," I curse, trying, and failing, to take a step towards him. Atsuro laughs, and saunters towards his friend, the boy with glasses close behind him. Yuzu sighs, mutters something about "...useless men." under her breath, and supports me while I slowly make my way to the fallen teen. I thank her as I lower myself into a sitting position, while Atsuro helps the boy I thought had died mere seconds ago up.
"So?" He says lazily.
"So what?" I meet his aloof gaze with an stoical one.
"What did you think of my performance? Pretty epic, wasn't it?"
"The hero dies a peaceful death after defeating the evil demon." I snort. "That's just cliché and predictable, Mr. Dramatic."
He restrains a dopey smile. "But you fell for it."
"I did not," I stutter, flustered. He just looks at me, unamused. No words are needed to convey his disbelief. "Maybe a little," I mumble quietly.
He grins triumphantly. "I have that kind of affect on the ladies." I glare and contemplate kicking his burnt arm, or even standing up and grinding it under the heel of my shoe. But with Yuzu working to heal my injured leg, I think better of it.
"How's your arm?" I ask, nudging my head at the general area. "It looks pretty bad."
He glances at the limb, lifts it, then tries to curl it into a fist. His fingers twitch, but otherwise, nothing happens. "It'll heal up," he shrugs. "The COMP has this kind of function that makes all injures you sustain in battle within what it calls its "Stadium", heal once all the opponents in the area are defeated and you leave the Stadium's vicinity."
"Really? How does it work?" I wonder aloud.
Yuzu shakes her head. "Oh no, you've just booted up Otakuro."
Atsuro's eyes sparkled. "Well, you see, Naoya's really a genius. The way he programmed the COMP allowed it to produce Ultrasonic waves, which, in turn, activated the..."
The glasses kid nods, interested. "I see, I see..."
I blink, turning my attention back to the blue eyed boy seated across from me. "I do not understand a single word of what he's saying."
He chuckles softly. "That's how Atsuro is. But hey, it's pretty interesting every now and then."
"Knowing you, it'd be more amusing than interesting to you," I scoff.
His eyes widen, and I look at him, bewildered. "Is this..." He takes a dramatic pause. "Do I sense the beginning of a new romantic relationship, between Miss Yoshino Harusawa, and yours truly?"
I laugh, then curtly shove my heel into his gut. "Dream on. Though, I don't find it too impossible myself."
He rubs the hurt area. "Is that acceptance I hear?"
I smirk "It's a possibility. Keep chasing, and you might just get a chance."
"Then I'll chase you to the ends of the Earth, my dear."
"And then, what, make me your queen, Mr. Drama King?" I say sarcastically.
He smiles. "It's a possibility."
Well, now there's two stories for Haru. Haru is the absolute best female character in Devil Survivor, so I didn't get why there was one, now two, fanfictions for her.
I wrote this one-shot to warm myself up to write another story of mine, which is soon approaching its final battle scene. And because of the extreme lack of Haru fics in the Megaten filter. But mostly the latter.
I didn't name the Hero, which I call Abel. He will remain nameless in this story, but you, the reader, can call him whatever you want. Just replace all the times I said "him" with a name.
Enjoy!