Southern Cross Boy's Monastery

Somewhere In Japan

Orimura Ichika woke up drowning. Not in the ocean or anything, no. Ichika was in his own bed, covered in his drenched sheets, with absolutely no clue as to what was going on, where he was, or what year it was. Unfortunately for the young man, such wakings were commonplace, due to the fact that he had a bad habit of falling asleep anywhere (not that he was narcoleptic, he was simply too lazy to drag his ass to a proper bed).

The reason for such a violent awakening, besides the lack of early morning brain function, came in the form of the person standing next to his bed. Ichika's twin sister, Madoka Orimura, with a frigid expression that could freeze glaciers. Ichika's alarm was blaring somewhere in the background.

"Nii-san, your alarm has been beeping for the last 20 minutes. GET THE HELL UP AND TURN IT OFF!" She shouted, scaring Ichika into tumbling off his bed. Just for good measure, she stomped on his tail to ensure her twin was awake.

"MADOKA! YOU BITCH!" Ichika cried, nearly strangling his tail to try and make the pain stop. Demon tails were one of their few weak points, to the degree where some of the weaker demons simply died if their tail was severed; which would explain why Ichika was curled up on the floor, trying desperately not to cry. His alarm was still going over his stream of curses, which incensed the boy further.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" He shouted at the clock, to no avail. What it do, however, was draw the attention of his surrogate father, who entered the room to see what was going on.

Shiro Fujimoto chuckled at the sight of his charge attempting, and failing, to pick a fight with an inanimate object. Had the boy not been curled up on the floor with tears in his eyes, his plight would have seemed less laughable.

"What are you laughing at, shitty old man!?" Ichika yelled, which only made Shiro laugh harder. The old man walked over and gave the boy a firm thump on the back of his head.

"Learn some damned respect, ya brat." He admonished, trying and failing to repress a smile. "Now turn that damned thing off and get ready for work. You don't want to be late again, do ya?"

Ichika stopped his whining fairly quickly after that, remembering his boss' threat of what would happen the next time he was late, before jumping to his feet to turn off his alarm. Ignoring his still-stinging tail, Ichika ran through his morning routine as quickly as he could, before running down to the monastery's kitchens to grab an even faster breakfast. Tossing together a simple sandwich consisting of just some sliced meat and bread, then nearly swallowing the whole thing, Ichika was out the door within minutes of waking up. The young man nearly forget to tuck his tail into his short, but luckily it got caught in some bushes between the monastery door and the gates.

His tail still hadn't properly healed from earlier, so the sudden jolt made more tears spring to Ichika's eyes. Quickly taking care of that mess before it could get worse, Ichika continued on his way to work, running at speeds that would've made Olympic runners envious.

The tail and demon business should probably be explained. Shiro had told Ichika and Madoka of their status as the children of Satan, a few years ago when they were thirteen. It had been quite the shock to the children, learning that they were the things that the majority of the human world hated. Ichika cried, thinking of what would happen if his friends ever found out, while Madoka went into quite a rage, throwing furniture using that demonic strength that now made sense to her. The poor monastery had taken quite a beating that day.

Once the children had sufficiently calmed down enough for Shiro to hold a proper conversation with them, he showed them Kurikara, explaining its significance to Ichika. The first time Ichika had drawn the sword, he dropped it due to the thing becoming coated in blue flames. He hadn't noticed that he himself had become covered in the flames as well until Madoka blasted him with a fire extinguisher. The following argument led to the discovery of his tail, pointed ears, sharp teeth, and, obviously, his immunity to the blue flames. Actually, immunity is not an apt word; control is a more fitting description. This control was worked upon throughout the years, whenever Ichika wasn't feeling too lazy to actually apply himself, that is. As a result of his reluctance to exert himself in anything except delinquent scuffles, Ichika's flame control was abysmal despite Shiro's constant urgings.

Ichika arrived at work approximately thirty seconds before the deadline, heaving a massive sigh of relief. He noticed his boss at one of the checkout lines, due to the supermarket being slightly understaffed, shooting him an extremely dirty glare, but unable to actually do anything since he wasn't actually late. Ichika had to resist visibly shivering, settling for letting his blood run slightly cold instead. Regardless of his demonic heritage, that woman scared him. It seemed the phrase 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned' was true, to a degree. His real father would have probably burned this woman and this world to ashes, as is to be expected of a demon god.

Ichika ran into the back to change, then quickly went to work; moving boxes, stocking shelves, and helping out the occasional lost customer. Before he knew it, his shift was over, and he was barely winded, even after being active for the majority of the four hours. That enhanced stamina was pretty damn useful. Changing in the back, Ichika went through the door that connected the storage to the customer section of the supermarket when he nearly ran into his boss.

Tanaka Yuka was a short woman, measuring at mid-chest height to Ichika's 5'11". Small as she was, though, she was pretty goddamned scary.

"Uh, hey Yuka. Didn't see ya there…" Ichika trailed off at seeing Yuka's eyes narrow. Apparently that was not the right thing to say.

Along with having her employees be late, Tanaka Yuka absolutely hated to be reminded of her diminutive stature. Ichika saw her draw herself up in an attempt to look taller, and braced himself for the ear-splitting lecture that he knew was going to come.

"You cut it close today, Ichika. Don't let it happen again."

Ichika opened the eyes he had shut tightly. That was it? Looking at the woman in confusion, he was not ready for the slipper that slapped him across 90% of his face.

"IS THAT WHAT YA THOUGHT I'D SAY, YA DUMBASS!? YER ABOUT THIS CLOSE TO GETTIN' YER ASS FIRED!"

Ichika was now caught of guard, and fairly certain that his eardrums were bleeding. For someone so bite-sized, she packed quite an impressive set of pipes.

Knowing better than to mention that, or stick around to get slapped again, Ichika sidestepped the woman, then booked it for the door at a full-on sprint. Unfortunately for him though, Yuka's slipper had somehow become a heat-seeking missile in the last half second, because it firmly clocked him in the back of the neck when he was mere feet from the door.

He stumbled and hit his head with concussion-inducing force on the glass, which miraculously didn't break. Lucky for him as well, his impact flung the doors wide open, as he tumbled onto the concrete sidewalk, eternally grateful for his demonic skin protecting him from scrapes and abrasions.

The walk home was rather uneventful, until he passed by the basketball court on the backroads he usually took. He noticed a group of four teens, crouching down around something. They were dressed like stereotypical thugs with their piercings, tattoos, and baggy clothes. Two of them were even smoking, something which made Ichika crinkle his nose in disgust. It was an unsavory habit that Shiro indulged in, and always resulted in him stinking. Shiro liked to claim it calmed him down, something Ichika sort of understood. As the Paladin of the True Cross Order, Head Priest at the Monastery, and surrogate father of twins, Shiro had a lot of stress in his life.

These kids, on the other hand, looked to be around Ichika's age, and considering the shine of their shoes and the model of phone one was holding loosely, they were probably rich.

'Oh well,' Ichika thought, 'If these idiots want to give themselves lung cancer by the time their twenty, they can go ahead and do it.'

Then Ichika took a closer look when he saw movement in the center of their huddle. It was a pigeon, with, whose wing was pierced straight through by a...stick? Examining the group, he noticed one of the thugs holding something that looked suspiciously like a crossbow.

"Hey! What're you guys doin' to that bird?" Ichika called out. The thugs were surprised for a moment, before the one who was presumably the leader stood up and called back.

"None a' yer damn business, kid. Now get lost!" The guy had white-purple hair and these weird eyebrow piercings that made Ichika cringe on the inside. Piercings on any part of your body that wasn't your ear were pretty disgusting.

"You know abusing animals like that is illegal, right? I'll call the cops if you assholes don't go!"

At the mention of law enforcement, the punks developed nasty sneers, but they didn't particularly look worried.

"Call the cops if ya want, bitch! All they'll find are two dead animals! Get this kid!" Shouted the presumed leader. The rest of the guys stood up and ran after Ichika, who was mentally preparing himself for going up against multiple opponents. He had trained in Kendo and Krav Maga, at the insistence of his surrogate father, just in case he lost his sword during a particularly nasty exorcism. It was better to be able to at least punch the demons than get crushed like an ant. Ichika had an advantage too; his demonic strength.

Of course, with how efficient Krav Maga was, he couldn't exactly use it on these guys. Not unless he wanted to kill them, which would both himself and Shiro in all types of trouble. Lucky for Ichika, Krav Maga was a rather loose martial arts style, and could easily be transitioned into normal street fighting due to its design for real world use.

The white-haired guy hung back and let his lackeys do the real fighting, expecting Ichika to be overcome by numbers. The one with dreads attempted to tackle him, and went flying when Ichika just sidestepped. Another, a kid with long black hair and glasses was out with a simple hook to the jaw. The guy with a bandana over his hair advanced slowly, seemingly weary of how easily his buddies went down.

Apparently, that was not what was happening. Dreads had gotten up and tackled Ichika again, this time succeeding, pushing the blue-haired teen right up to Bandana, and forcing him to take a punch to the face. The demon blood shone through, however, when Ichika barely stumbled before returning a belt of punches to the abdomen and face. Dreads went down hard, Bandana following soon after when he tried to, once again, tackle Ichika, receiving a hard elbow to the temple for his troubles.

Now it was just Ichika and the gang leader, whose fury had been growing with every one of his buddies that went down. He ran at Ichika in a blind rage, attempting to unleash the mother of all haymakers, when Ichika, who was rather irritated, stopped his momentum with an uppercut that hit Whitey square in the chin. Whitey did an entire backflip, his admittedly long legs nearly scraping Ichika, then hit the ground head first.

Ichika winced a bit. That had to be a concussion for sure. He hadn't exactly held back, if the way the thug went flying was any indication. Looking around, the hanyo saw no witnesses, meaning he could just leave these guys here and act like nothing ever happened. Whitey hopefully had amnesia, and the other guys were probably too prideful to talk about how they all got their ass whooped by a single dude.

Ichika turned to leave when a powerful gust of wind buffeted him from behind, nearly toppling him over. Turning around, he saw nothing except the prone body of Whitey. Hesitantly turning again, he was hit by another blast. He spun around, and saw Whitey, who should have been knocked out and concussed, climbing to his feet.

Now, Ichika may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but he wasn't completely incompetent. Normal people didn't just get up after being laid out like that, and normal people definitely didn't summon hurricane-force gales. They also don't suddenly sprout ram horns from their temples and grow bones over their face.

Ichika knew for a fact that he was dealing with a possession, which he was wholly unprepared for at the moment. Kurikara was at home, there were civilians, no matter how irreputable, in danger, and he was in public. Ichika couldn't very well just burst into flames and incinerate the demon. That was just asking for the scrutiny of the True Cross exorcists.

Instead, Ichika turned tail (pun intended) and ran. The thing about possessions is that the demon usually locked onto the first thing their host saw; in this case, Ichika, whom was currently sprinting down the street like Satan himself was giving chase.

Ichika's plan to lead Possessed-Whitey to the monastery went slightly awry when the demon was hit by a truck.

It was testament to the demon's power that it's host wasn't reduced to a red paste on the road, and even more impressive when the demon punched the truck and sent it flying backwards. The airbags deployed, so hopefully the driver was alright, but Ichika had other things to worry about. If he didn't get this demon off the streets soon, many more people would be injured, or worse.

Picking up an empty beer bottle that was conveniently lying around, he chucked it at the demon, smirking a bit when the bottle shatter on it's head. Once the beast's attention was regained, the chase was on once again. Weaving through alleyways, parked cars, and pedestrians whom he shoved out of the way, Ichika slowly got closer to the monastery.

That was when everything went pear-shaped.

Apparently the demon had gotten tired of playing cat-and-mouse, because it had picked up a car, and tossed it. Ichika was nearly crushed by the tons of metal when it landed on him, furiously thanking his bastard father for having done something right. Heaving the hunk of junk off him with a mighty shout, Ichika tried to get up and run when his leg was nearly yanked out it's socket, and he was sent soaring into the side of a building.

Stepping out of the rubble, slightly dizzy, Ichika was not at all ready for the demon to rush him, and as such was quickly pinned against the partially destroyed wall by his neck, the demon growling loudly at him..

Praying to the merciful Lord that any pedestrians had had the sense to evacuate the area, Ichika burst into azure flames and lashed out with his feet. Catching Possessed-Whitey in the chest, the demon went flying with explosive force. It dug a gouge into the road and did a couple somersaults before landing flopping face down.

Taking a moment to catch his breath, Ichika shifted into a proper fighting stance, ready to use the lethal force to take down a demon of such caliber. He was, once again, caught off guard when the demon began chuckling in a warped, distinctly masculine voice.

"Such power… truly befitting a son of Lord Satan!"

Ichika was mentally facepalming. Of course the demon would be able to tell who he was. Blue flames weren't exactly subtle! But it had been necessary, or Ichika may have truly died.

"Who are you!?" Ichika shouted, determined to end this as soon as possible. If he was given a name, he might be able to find some type of advantage.

"I… am Astaroth, King of Rot!"

Shit.

On that happy note, I finally present you with another chapter. Getting motivated is hard. Hopefully i can work myself up enough to write more chapters. If I really just can't, I will tell you guys so you have some idea of what's going on.