Disclaimer: Beelzebub belongs toTamura Ryuuhei.

Chapter 2: Agreement

"You…!"

As soon as he heard the familiar voice, Baby Beel jumped from the wet nurse's arms and hugged Oga's face as firmly as he could. The human father himself didn't show any signs of joy about being reunited although he was glad to see the infant again. He was glaring daggers at the woman next to the King when he took Beelze with one hand and placed him on his usual spot on his shoulder. "What's the meaning of this?! Where's she?!"

The Demon Lord made a hand signal and dismissed the woman. "Yolda has been taken care of my Youngest for almost three years now."

"Don't give me that shit! Where – the hell – is – Hilda?!" Oga repeated his question on the verge of losing his temper.

"Calm down, Oga." Furuichi rushed to his side. "I'm sure there's a reason for all this."

"Well…?!" Oga insisted upon an explanation.

"Hilda – as you humans call her…" the King announced, "…is quite busy right now that she hasn't time to see you off."

"See us off?" Kunieda, who was slightly intimidated by the Great Demon Lord, asked nervously from behind. "Isn't Hilda-san coming with us?"

Whereas Furuichi shot her a warning look, Oga never tore his gaze apart from the throne as if waiting for the King to answer her question.

The latter glanced at the girl and talked in a serious tone. "It seems that your little friend doesn't exactly know about our agreement, Oga Tatsumi. Your task was to have demonic power under control. Thereby, I'd leave Prince Beelzebub in your care. As for Hilda… she was never part of our deal."

Oga gritted his teeth at that. Of course, she hadn't been part of the deal since he assumed that she'd come along with Baby Beel no matter what.

"Now, now! Don't look at me as if I'm your fiend, Oga Tatsumi." The King continued nonchalantly. "It's not that I'm holding her captive or something like that."

"You kidding me?!" Oga, as well as Furuichi and Kunieda were surprised at his words.

"You heard right. In other words: it's Hilda's own wish to stay here in the Demon World."

They couldn't believe what they just heard. Hilda was supposed to part company with her master? No one lucid, who knew Hilda to a greater or lesser extent, would imagine nonsense like that.

"Say something, Beel." he muttered to the baby on his shoulder. However, Baby Beel had a sad expression on his small face and buried his head silently on his back.

"Dammit!" Oga cursed under his breath. He really hoped for a return home without any major problems but who was he to have high demands of that ilk! Something off-key was going on there right now and those people wouldn't tell him anything. Thus, he had to find out himself and take the bull by the horns.

"Oga…" It was his best friend who spoke next to him. "If she doesn't want to come along with us, we shall just-…"

"Here." He passed the little prince to Furuichi and interrupted him. "We'll accept the Demon Lord's offer and stay for a while."

"Oga, wait!" the silver-haired protested. "I don't think that's a good-…"

"Beel needs to rest before we hit the road. The human world will keep anyway!" he stuffed his hands into his pockets and went off.

"I said wait! Where are you going?"

He passed Kunieda and went on. "I'm gonna go take a shit. It's the safest for you guys to stay with Beelze here until I'm back."

"That goes for you, too, Oga Tatsumi."

The last statement of the Lord made him stop for a moment as he explained further. "Remember that you're my special guest today but I can't guarantee your safety outside of my palace. After all, humans aren't very welcomed here and we all know that you have enough deadly enemies among the folk…"

"Tch! As if I'd need your protection, dumbass…!" he murmured and left the palace without listening to the warning.

Yolda escorted her sleeping master and the other two humans to his room. Furuichi and Kunieda didn't say a single word until they reached their destination because they wondered about the absentee in their group. It was the craziest idea to let Oga stroll through the Demon World on his own. Then again, he wouldn't listen to any of them in his currently pissed mood. What was he planning to do by delaying their return? What could he do about the whole situation?

"We're here."

Yolda opened the door to a huge room, which was at least as big as Furuichi's entire house, he thought. She placed the sleeping baby on his bed with caution and covered him with a blanket. This would be her last day spending with the little prince. Beelzebub was even harder to deal with than her previous master was, who would have been easily impressed by games and plays. In spite of that, she tried her best to look after him at least half as much as her sister had done.

"Stay here with Master Beelze until your friend comes back. Moreover, don't wander around in the palace and cause me any trouble!" Yolda's words sounded more like a firm command.

"Wait a second, Yolda-san." Furuichi called after her. "Why are you taking care of Baby Beel now? What happened to-…"

"I'm not obligated to explain anything to the likes of you!" was the wet nurse's final statement before she left the room.

"What's wrong with her? She's a little bit too cold even for her taste…" he noticed while scratching his head.

"Furuichi-kun, can you tell me more about Oga's agreement with the Demon King?" Kunieda asked curiously.

"Well,… there's nothing much to add. The Demon Lord must have been impressed by Oga's extraordinary strength that he gave him the chance to prove himself in the first instance. After Oga declared that Baby Beel's place was by his side, the King temporarily broke the bond between them and sent Oga back to our world. His mission was to gain full control on Beelze's demonic power without the limiter or catalyst stuff, which I don't understand myself to this day."

"Is it even possible for a human body to store that amount of demonic power for good?" Kunieda thought aloud.

"Besides Oga, there was only one human who succeeded and that was Saotome-sensei. However, it took him five years of training to attain his goal. The Demon Lord overcharged Oga to test his skills and he was supposed to finish his training within four years."

"Four years?" Kunieda exclaimed almost too loudly. "But…"

"Yeah, it took him merely three years. After all, mankind will be saved as well because many have seen this as a power struggle between En and Beelze to decide on the rightful heir to the throne. I guess that won't be a problem anymore since Baby Beel will come with us and step back so that En will become his father's successor."

"So this would make Oga to the savior of our world…?" Kunieda smiled to herself.

KNOCK! KNOCK!

The beating on the door interrupted their conversation. When they invited the visitor to come in, a Muu entered the room and saluted them briefly.

"Dr. Forkas sent me to inform you that your friend has recently been hospitalized."

A/N: Seriously, I'm beginning to wonder how this story will end!

More details about the pact may come later since I wanted to keep the chapters short.

About Baby Beel: His appearance hasn't changed because his real age was just recently revealed by Hilda in the series. So he's still… the Baby Beel you know since demons seem to age more slowly than humans. I won't go into detail about how much the other characters have changed physically within the three years but you can simply calculate their ages: Oga (19), Hilda (in human terms: 19), Furuichi (19) and Kunieda (20).

If it takes too long to write the next chapter of "A Father, A Lover", I may update this next weekend…

Thanks to all the readers who posted a review last time.KH-Hardcorefan4483: I hope that you've survived the past few days. :-)

Please review again and have a nice weekend!