Chapter 8

The King sighed, disappointed. "Ryuk, Ryuk, Ryuk...once such a paragon, now heart-whipped like a human...what happened to you? Did boredom drive you to this?"

Ryuk was silent as he felt handcuffs squeezing his wrists.

"Did you not think of the example it would set to the other Shinigami? Sure, your little peccadillo would not have done any harm, but it would have set an example. It is a slippery slope, and before you can say 'Whoops', we will all be fighting over the remaining population of humans just like hundreds of years ago." He smirked at his use of the running gag and squeezed Ryuk and Raito together like a child making Ken and Barbie kiss. "Did you really think that King Jidon wouldn't find out sooner or later?"

Ryuk grumbled and swung his bound hands backwards at King Jidon's armored chest.

"I was impressed by your search for a loophole in the law, Ryuk. Turning a human into a Shinigami, that was ridiculous, but it worked. But even one more Shinigami is one too many. You have still created a new life, rebirthing a living creature into a spirit. If you wanted Raito so much, why didn't you just watch him and kill him when he wasn't fun anymore?"

"Because we fell in love, and repressed love is very dangerous. After you express an emotion, you don't feel as affected by it, and can focus on other things. If you deny yourself something for a while, you start to crave it. Better to get regular doses of it than pine for it constantly." He glared at the head Shinigami with luminous yellow eyes.

King Jidon laughed, digging his claws into their backs. "How emotional of you, Ryuk. Emotion itself is weakness. The very fact that you have weakness makes you obsolete. And the obsolete must be destro-AUGH!"

Raito lifted his hand and waved "ice" (it was very hard to draw that kanji backwards), shooting a cold ray at the monarch's eyes. The pain made King Jidon loosen his grip on Ryuk and Raito, letting them flap about a meter away.

Raito stared into King Jidon's small maroon eyes. "You could've just let us have our fun and leave us alone. If you make a big deal out of it, the other Shinigami will be worried about falling in love so much that a few will fall in love and have babies and end everything just because you didn't let sleeping dogs lie."

All Ryuk could do was watch as Raito fired energy at the King, who didn't seem to be defending himself well. He was just floating there like a pie-plate UFO in a B-movie, armor melting and body stationary. Every time the Shinigami King tried to make a move, a bolt of lightning hit his arm, or fire hit him on the neck, and one amusing stroke of lightning hit him in the crotch, sending him hurtling to the ground in pain.

Ryuk chuckled. "Well, it's not like he'll be needing them..."

Then King Jidon flew back up, bruised and battered but still alive. He stared at Ryuk and Raito, eyes full of hatred. The red and black plate mail that covered everything but his hands and head was mostly charred and melting, exposing his tight yellow skin. With his wings beating at a hummingbird's pace, the King lunged forward at Ryuk, who almost made a dodge and winced as his upper chest took a cut meant for his neck.

"I am only trying to save the pathetic little humans! Why do you want our bread and water to disappear? Are you suicidal, like that lovebird Romeo was when he thought his little morsel was dead?"

Raito sighed and casted a fire spell, only to watch the flame bounce off into the king, who was laughing again.

"Fool! When you thought I was in pain from that below-the-belt hit, I was casting a protective spell on myself. None of your little cantrips will faze me now!" King Jidon growled and punched Raito, who staggered a few feet back. Raito clawed at the King a few times, but he only managed to scrape his chin before getting kicked, catapulting him across the castle, eventually landing on the grand staircase, sliding on it to the floor.

"Ryuk...please, try to..." Raito's voice quivered as he struggled to stay alive

"What do you want?" Ryuk looked down at his weakened boyfriend.

"Cast a spell!"

"I can't, my hands are bound!"

"Then do the one...it only requires dancing, no hands. The funny one."

"You don't even know what it'll do! It could kill the user for all I know!"

"It's worth a shot, and we're damned anyway..."

Ryuk clenched his jaw. "Alright, as you wish."

Although it was apparent that the spell was meant to be performed on the ground and not in the air, Ryuk pulled off the dance. Indeed, it was very similar to the hokey cokey, he thought as he put his right foot in, took his right foot out, in, out, in, out, and shook it all about. He snapped his fingers, clicked his tongue, turned himself around, and realized what it was all about when he looked at King Jidon. His face was drained of what little color it had before, he was flapping his wings much slower, and he was no longer grinning that sadistic grin.

Raito smiled as he felt a surge of energy flow through him. Ryuk didn't seem too bad either, with his dancing becoming more and more rapid as Raito felt even more renewed, so he floated up next to Ryuk and sliced off the handcuffs, who then pinned the King to the wall with a quiet thump.

"Don't dance anymore, I got another idea," said Raito as he looked at the King, who was hardly staying in the air. He waved his hands over his heart and then at King Jidon, and began to chant.

"Elekanahmennahmenahtumahtumelekanahmenelekanahmennahmenahtumahtumelekanahmen..."

"No Raito, that's a waste of time! Just claw at-"

"Why do you babble so?" The King's voice was shadow of its old self.

"Should this being have any love in his heart..."

"May it burn him from the inside!" Raito clenched his fists and pointed at the powerless monarch.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" King Jidon screamed the little-known internet meme as his body turned black and then to liquid and dripped out of the cracks in his decimated armor, starting with his feet.

"That's not love that the spell found inside me! That was merely desire to not have both the realms destroyed because my favorite fellow Shinigami couldn't control something he shouldn't have had in the first place! I'm dying of love for life! Not for love of anyon..."

King Jidon's wings finally melted into a dark mud, and after a five-second journey, his ashes landed on the floor.

"I heard 'desire'. Must've been a Freudian slip." Raito smirked.

Ryuk wagged his finger at Raito and smiled. "Hentai. Save that for later."

The two contentedly glided out of the castle.