This is one of two short-fic ideas for MTNN over the last few days. It just happened to be the one I needed to put down on paper because -
Well, like I wanted to have something that required spending a chapter, however short, in Sicks-PoV rattling in my skull any longer than necessary. (Having Neuro himself eating my head, rearranging some furniture, taking up a room near Kuja etc. and making himself comfortable is plenty for me, thanks.)
...
Demons were funny opponents. They were all powerful and nearly invincible - unless you starved them long enough...
Or did a little bit of research and found the right name to use at the right time with the right preparation to turn an implacable enemy into something else.
Sicks was the portrait of relaxed calm, on a throne made from the lacquered and treated dissected remains and bones of normal humans; it was a fitting display of their destined role, to be calmly broken down and used as a tool for his convenience. His elbow rested on one of the arms, taxidermied, skinless, into the armrest, as if the figure were reclining with just the hands and fingers tensed in anticipation of something horrible. He rested his cheek on his hand, a hand that had one end of a chain leash wrapped around it. The chain curled down his wrist, coiled in his lap, and he gripped the other end in his other hand that trailed slightly over the other armrest, holding it close to a stiff metal collar as if it were the jess of a falconry bird that just happened to be too large to be kept properly hooded on a glove.
That collar held what had been perhaps the one being he'd seen as a credible threat to his goals, now kneeling by his throne, head bowed in submission, keeping still and silent. His original intention had just been to annihilate the creature, and it was still certainly an option, but after his meeting with the demon, he had taken the time to go back over his family's records. It wasn't that surprising, that there had been times the Bloodline had dabbled in demonology previously. It was a fascinating subject, from what information they had managed to glean; compared to human society, demons were a whirl of chaos and conflict, with unhidden malice and displays of dominance and submission instead of politeness and pleasantries. Neuro, by all evidence, was no exception to this, so it was less and less surprising that Sicks's one potential rival had been not anything spawned by the mortal realm, but a powerful demon.
He knew the demon and his pets had arrived together, and then split up, or been split up; it had been well according to plan - separate the King from the other pieces, set a proper snare, and then deal with the other ordinary human rabble at leisure.
It was the girl, really, who was the more interesting target of the two, so he was glad she was the more likely to stumble across this first. Since checking over Sai's memories he'd been curious what about the child so fascinated Neuro, as the demon definitely held her closer than "just a pawn" or "just a target for the public eye". There were flickers of decent potential, for one of the lesser breed of humans, but aside from what training and conditioning she'd already had, she was still almost depressingly human, and yet little could drive Neuro into a rage like an outside threat messing with his little toy - an emotional attachment that formed one of the most glaring blemishes in Sicks's demonic rival.
That was what Sicks wanted to test, now. The next time he let go of the leash, he was going to see the demon torment, defile, break and destroy its own human pet. It would be amusing enough to watch for just that; Neuro had done well at conditioning her to handle it, so that it was assured to take time and effort to overcome that and break her. At the same time, however accustomed she was to the demon's abuse, it wouldn't save her; heat metal under one set of circumstances and it strengthened - a different set, and it shattered.
The more interesting test would be the demon's reaction. He certainly hoped just that wouldn't be enough to leave a dent in a creature that was definitely far older than him and supposedly "superior", but it would be start on achieving a true and utter victory over Nougami Neuro - not just killing or leashing the demon, but crumbling and breaking the creature.