It was almost not a surprise when Yuno, Noelle, Klaus and Magna came bursting through the dark miasma of the latest devil breakout attempt, looking for Asta, that they found him too easily. Yuno and the others (the Golden Dawn came as backup when the Black Bulls called the headquarters) had been taken off guard when the demon in Asta's grimoire pulled Asta into the other plane without so much a warning. Ten minutes later, another devil arrived to begin causing trouble on the outer reaches of the Clover Kingdom.
Asta was just standing there, in his half-demon form, motionless.
It was very unlike him. Asta seemed to be waiting.
"Asta," called Noelle, gently.
Yuno was not one to freeze, not anymore, not since the first and last time someone kicked the shit out of his best friend in front of him without consequences. But he froze as Asta turned. Klaus gasped. Magna cursed softly. Noelle put her hand over her mouth, looked like she was going to cry.
And Yuno didn't move.
Asta was not in his half-demon form, but nor was he in a full demon mode. Both Asta's eyes were red, the normal white of his eyes were pitch black. There was a sneer on Asta's face, which definitely didn't belong on that face. The only thing familiar was how he stood there, confident, with one of the Anti-Magic swords in his hand.
"I'm sorry, little humans. The boy isn't available at the moment. I'll take a message. You had best get out of here. I don't have time to coddle you like he does."
Thankfully, there was one of their party that did not care about devils.
Bell, Yuno's Wind Spirit, yelled, "Give the annoying twerp back! You have no right to his body."
The demon in Asta's body scoffed, continued to sneer, "Go back to whatever realm you crawled out of, Wind Spirit. Don't make assumptions of things you don't know, sprite."
Yuno finally regained his speech functions thanks to Bell's fury. Bell may not have liked anyone other than Yuno, but Bell knew how much Asta meant to Yuno. "Asta would never give you his body, so where is he?"
The demon shook his head and sighed. "Only for his dumbass would I deal with these idiots…Listen to me and I'm only saying this once. I did not take the boy's body by force. He leant it to me, because he's not here right now, like I said. Now, I need you all to fucking LEAVE." The demon roared the last bit because now another portal was opening, a large claw reached out. The demon cursed, turning to the portal and pulling out another of the Anti-Magic swords. "Well, too late now. Don't die or I'll never hear the end of it from Asta. Get ready, fools, the Big Bad is coming."
"WHERE'S ASTA," screamed Yuno. "HE'S MY RIVAL, WHERE DID HE GO?"
The demon in Asta's body turned and for a split second, Asta was back, green eyes and all, "Geez, Yuno, don't freak out so much. I'm in the hellscape at the moment, talking to my demon's sister. I'll be back. Trust my demon, he'll handle the bad guy coming out of the portal."
With that Asta was gone and the demon was back in charge, smirking.
"You all ready to meet the King of Hell, namely the King of Demons, dear old dad, Lucifer?"
Yuno cleared his head. Asta was doing something to protect everyone elsewhere at the moment. He had to believe in Asta like always had and it was time for Yuno to step up and help Asta's demon defeat the King of Hell. No big deal.
"Bell, let's go all out!"