pika318: All of this was posted only on tumblr before, but since organisation gets messy over there, I just thought to copy everything over here for neatness. This is a collection of stories for all the alternate universe ideas I have for female! Lucifer. In order to keep the gender balance, Suzuno was also genderbent to male. Female Lucifer's name in Japan is Urushihara Tomoyo. Male Suzuno's name is Kamazuki Suzu in Japan. His actual name is Chris Bell.

For all the stories in this collection, the setting that they have in common is that after being defeated by Emilia and prevented from dying by Olba, she was imprisoned somewhere in the mountains of the Western Continent and was badly tortured. Female Lucifer is also more responsible and an older sister figure to Maou. However, for the people who do not know their true identities in Japan, they see her as Maou's younger cousin.

For this chapter, this was mostly written by Nualie from the Hatamaou discord server. The context is that after how much she suffered physically and mentally during imprisonment, she does bear a grudge against Olba and also to some extent, Maou. Because he would go and save Alsiel from being killed in the Eastern Continent but not her. She also saw Maou protect Emi when she ambushed them in Japan (the part where Maou pushes Emi down to the ground and her magic blast hit Dullahan's tire instead), so she also misunderstood that he would rather protect his past enemy than her. This is why she attacked Maou in Volume 1.

One shot: Why Didn't You Save Us

Maou climbed up the stairs to the library, careful not to disturb any of the other visitors. When he reached the top floor, he started searching for another stairway, one which might lead him to the roof. He had spotted something that could be one on the map.

It wasn't long before he found something which looked like a service staircase at the end of a long corridor, which also led to the washrooms. The door was much farther, though, to the spooky end of the badly lit corridor, well past the bathrooms. It gave Maou the creeps, but that could be a convenient hiding place.

He walked closer, and realized the staircase was unlocked. The door wasn't closed properly, as a piece of wood had been used to keep it open, when it logically shouldn't be. This had to be the right place after all.

He climbed up those flight of stairs and he found himself on the roof of the library. The wind blew a gust across his face, and he squinted, momentarily losing balance from the powerful wind.

The platform wasn't that big, and he was quick to spot a small purple haired figure that was curled up in the corner of the roof, half hidden behind a protrusion of unknown use.

"Go away, Satan."

She noticed him right away. Maou had approached the small figure without really hiding his presence, intending to bring her back inside quickly, but before he could say anything, his Demon General Lucifer snapped at him.

"Urushihara, we were…"

"Don't come near me."

Sensing that approaching Lucifer, who was clearly upset, was not a good idea, Maou sat down some distance away from her. One of her feet was dangling off the edge, but despite her lack of magic, she showed no fear. He glanced down- they were quite high up. High enough that he felt a little anxious, knowing that he couldn't fly, but not nearly as high as he'd ever been.

She did not react to his approach beyond glaring at him very briefly. The flash of her face he did see revealed an upset expression. He waited for her to speak, but nothing happened, and he was starting to get goosebumps from the cold wind. Although summer was approaching fast, there was too much wind to stay in a mere shirt up here. One more reason to bring her back inside quickly…

Knowing that they wouldn't be getting anywhere until he said something, Maou decided to speak, tone gentle.

"I heard what happened from Ashiya."

Still no response. Maou decided to continue speaking.

"Look, I'm sure Ashiya didn't mean anything by what he said…"

"So you believe him."

Lucifer finally responded, but the tone of her voice held so much anger that Maou felt the stir of demonic magic in the air. She shouldn't have any of it to spare, because it had all been used up from the confrontation with Olba and her earlier, but Lucifer had always been on the impulsive side.

When he half-consciously reached out for the power, he found that he could take it for himself should he wish to do so. Strange.

Maou licked his dry lips. "I don't know who to believe if you don't tell me your side of the story."

Lucifer didn't look at him. "And even if I do, who would you believe, him, or me?"

In response to such a question, Maou fell silent. There was no way he could answer this. He simply didn't have enough information to do so. After a few seconds, Lucifer simply laughed bitterly, and the demonic magic in the air seemed to increase. Dimly, he hoped that she hadn't caused trouble before he arrived, to have access to magic, but her next sentence wiped all distractions from his mind.

"It's always about Alsiel, isn't it? The rest of us don't matter."

"That's not it!" Maou protested, "I care about everyone! Even-"

"Even the Hero?"

Maou gritted his teeth. Was Lucifer jealous, or something? That was absurd. "What does Emi have to do with anything?!"

"I saw you walking with her." Maou frowned, not understanding what Lucifer was referring to. Her fists were clenched over the fabric of her pants. "You were walking with her as if she wasn't the person who killed so many of your people. You… you still thought she killed me, back then. She killed Adramelech too."

Maou suddenly recalled what Lucifer was talking about; it was the incident when they were attacked the first time, which led to Emi losing her wallet. Lucifer's voice became more venomous. "And in the end, you even protected her. You could've used her as a shield, you could have just… run away on your own, but you would go as far as to protect her…"

Lucifer finally looked up then, and Maou breathed in sharply when he saw that her eyes were bright with unshed tears. Her expression was one of anger, but pain and incomprehension, too.

Rage and vulnerability battled in her purple eyes as she glared at him, teeth bared. "It's not like I wanted to be with Olba, you know. After Emilia defeated me, I thought I was going to die, but he appeared, healed the worst of the injury… and I lived."

Maou's eyes widened. He hadn't known that. He did know that Olba made contact with Lucifer at some point, since they appeared together in Japan, but he never expected contact to have been made in the very beginning.

Despite the surprise, he kept quiet, allowing Lucifer to continue speaking. Her voice was quieter than before. She didn't see him when she recounted the events that led to their battle, a week prior or so, as if lost in unpleasant memories.

"I think I lost consciousness afterward. When I woke up, I was in an unfamiliar room, inside a small cage, and chained to the bars. There was something weird about the place, because even if my wings were out, I couldn't use magic. It was cold. It smelled a lot like blood, too. I don't know if it was mine or not."

Lucifer breathed in and out shakily, and continued speaking.

"Later, I found out that other demons captured in the Western Continent were also held here. They were being used as test subjects for weapons… weapons developed to be effective against demons. Day after day, I heard them scream, saw them die, all for the sake of the humans' research."

Maou felt a lump in his throat. He had… he had no idea. Demons weren't familiar with the concepts of experimentation. Maou had barely acquainted his people with the concept of prisoners, during his reign.

Since Lucifer had paused to let her words sink in, he felt like he could speak. It wasn't easy, though, with the growing uncomfortable feeling in his throat. It obstructed his breathing a little.

Still, he managed to squeeze out his question. Hesitantly, he asked, "Were you also a test subject?"

Lucifer shook her head. She opened her mouth, and for a few seconds Maou thought she wouldn't add anything, but she squeezed the fabric of her pants and the words flowed out.

"No," she spoke like her mouth was too dry, "I think Olba wanted to keep me alive, though I never saw him much because he was traveling around with Emilia." She shuddered, and added with an even quieter voice, "I had other visitors though."

Dread pooled in Maou's guts. "Visitors?"

As Maou asked this, he felt a pulse in the air around him, and understood that the demonic magic increased with Lucifer's agitation.

Still, she spoke.

"They were from the human army. They wanted to know more about the demon army so they could use that information to fight against us. I… I refused to tell them anything." She chuckled bitterly. "It's not like they would have freed me, even if I did."

Lucifer's voice seemed relatively calm when she first started speaking, but now, as she spoke, it was as if her throat was closing up and she was forcing words out of her mouth. She kept going, breathing out the words like it was her personal revenge against the guilty party.

"I told them I wouldn't say anything. I told them. I'm old enough to have been on the brink of death before. I told them I wasn't scared." She took a breath, and Maou wondered if she told them the truth. "I told them, but they… continued to ask anyway. At first, they tried to be nice about it, promising things I didn't care for or things I knew they wouldn't give. I think they were a bit intimidated. But it didn't work, so then they decided to force me…"

She breathed deeply to steady her voice, and met Maou's eyes straight on. "Do you know…how it feels like…to have your feathers plucked out one by one?"

She paused. There was so much underlying rage in that young voice. A gust of frigid wind froze Maou to the core, and she talked on, fists spasming open and closed.

"You can't know… what it feels like… to be cut so many times, you think you'll bleed dry… to be beaten until every twitch of your body hurts… to be almost drowned, just almost, over and over… to be burned to seal the bleeding… to be kept awake when they sew your wounds shut… so they can do it all over again…" Her voice broke, and Maou thought she would stop, but she took a shaking breath and went on with a vengeance.

"They left me in rooms that were blank… and cold… for days at a time… whenever they couldn't risk hurting me anymore… and there was so much nothing that I thought… I thought they'd sent me back to Heaven…"

At this point, she was shaking, and the horror that sealed Maou's lips shut compelled him to crawl closer, but she ferociously shoved him away.

"Don't touch me," she growled.

Lucifer glared at him, eyes glinting too hard. Maou couldn't tear his eyes away. She was out of breath from her outburst, and in a flash of lucidity, he realized she would regret it and claim to have lied later; in the same instant, he acquired the absolute certitude that she was telling the truth.

"In the end… that wasn't even the worst of it, though, you know?"

It was the first time she addressed him so directly, and Maou flinched. She looked away from him.

"I can take threats… I can take pain… I can take being alone…" She hugged herself unconsciously, staring hard at the city below. "What I hated the most, was being a helpless thing in their hands. I wasn't a person… or even a pet… I was… I was a thing… An object… Used for their convenience or pleasure. I hated it. I hated being scared… helpless…"

Maou suddenly remembered the terrified look she had given him when he overpowered Olba and her. Guilt tasted like a cold, heavy thing on his tongue, so much colder than the wind on his bare arms. Lucifer's voice was barely above a whisper now, and she could barely choke out her next words.

"I hated… I hate being used…" At this point, the dam finally broke and Lucifer simply broke down in sobs. Maou closed the distance between them, touched her arm.

Lucifer jerked her arm away.

"I said. Don't touch me!" she shouted with an emotion so raw that Maou's heart panged with pain. He paused, but his face soon turned determined. He approached again and wrapped both his arms around her, enveloping her small frame.

Lucifer stiffened and weakly tried to pull away, but Maou didn't budge.

"Let go of me!" Lucifer shouted.

Maou heard the fear in her voice, the desperation, and his heart ached as he imagined what his Demon General must have experienced to react like this to physical contact.

"Lucifer, it's alright, this is okay, I won't hurt you. You're safe." Maou said calmly, soothingly, as Lucifer continued to struggle in his arms. He repeated the words over and over, as if to calm down a wounded animal, and after what seemed like an eternity, Lucifer's movements weakened, and she stopped resisting him. She sighed, tears streaming down her cheeks, and spoke, voice filled with pain.

"Why didn't you save us?"

"I'm sorry."

"You saved Alsiel, didn't you? Then why…"

"I'm sorry."

Maou's eyes were filled with sadness as he apologized over and over again.

That was the only thing he could do.

END