Chapter Five - Is there anybody out there?
He has no feeling in his fingers or feet.
His face is completely numb.
But at least he is no longer cold. A certain inner warmth has developed in him, as if he had just drunk a large cup of hot cocoa. It is almost pleasant.
He curled up against the roots of the tree, trying to make himself as small as possible in the snow flurry. He can't see the flakes, of course, and he can't hear them, but he can feel them swirling around him. Or maybe he's just imagining it.
It's as quiet and peaceful around him as he's always wanted it to be, and the thought of just falling asleep is very tempting. And when he does close his eyes, he dreams of the day he lost his sight. He often dreams about that day.
He wishes he could go back in time, but he is not sure if he could have changed anything.
Maybe if he hadn't taken his headaches and stiff neck so lightly?
If instead of crawling into his closet and suffering in silence, he had fought his fever openly on the tatami mats in front of Maou and Ashiya? Would they have taken him to the hospital?
He is not even sure about that - no, on second thought, he has strong doubts about it. He thinks he remembers Ashiya telling Maou that he just wanted attention and Maou agreeing with him. But he doesn't know if he really heard that or if he just imagined it. The memories of that night are very fragmented and the rest is hidden behind a thick, blurry fog.
All he knows is that when he woke up the next morning, the headache had subsided somewhat and he could turn his head a little, but the world around him was growing darker.
He was not blind from one moment to the next, it took a few hours. It was as if someone kept dimming the lights until he found himself in pitch darkness towards evening.
But at least it was evening and maybe Ashiya had just forgotten to pay the electricity bill and since he was too embarrassed to ask Ashiya and Maou about it, he rather kept his mouth shut - besides, they would have just made fun of him again.
And he hoped that it would go away by itself.
Well, a bitter smile twitched around his lips, something definitely did pass: his eyesight.
"Lucifer!"
The sound of his name jolted him out of his dark thoughts.
He lifts his head ponderously, trying to pierce the darkness before his eyes for the first second out of sheer habit, until he remembers.
"Lucifer!"
"Satan? Jacob!" Delighted, he straightens up.
"Jac-", just in time he remembers that no one answers to his true name anymore when he addresses them with it.
"Maou? Maou, hic sum! I'm here!"
His throat hurts as he whispers it weakly into the night, but no one answers. Or comes to him. The world around him is as quiet and peaceful as before, and if it weren't for the occasional trickle of snow from an overloaded branch, he would have thought he had gone deaf, too.
But he is not deaf.
He is just blind.
And his exhausted brain has played a trick on him.
Urushihara sees through the next hallucination after only five seconds, because he sees the smiling faces of Satan and Alciel in front of him. He sees them in their true demonic form.
And yet he clings to this wishful thinking like a drowning man to a straw.
He wants to believe that they were looking for him and that he can see again.
He wants to believe it's all just a bad nightmare.
He keeps his eyes open for just a few seconds, and in those seconds he believes with all his might that all is well, and he still believes it when fatigue overcomes him and his eyes close again.
He believes it so much that the next time he feels the ghostly touch of a hand on his shoulder and hears the worried, full-throated voice of his demon king, he reaches out for it. But when his fingers touch nothing but empty air - and a few snowflakes - it's too much, and something inside him breaks.
A dry sob escapes his throat.
Surrendering, he lies down in the snow and curls up into a ball.
Maou tugs at the nylon thread he has wrapped around a crossbeam of the wooden roof of the veranda and then ties Alas-Ramus' charm bracelet to it. And as if nature wanted to encourage him, a strong wind comes up, whirling snowflakes and biting cold towards him and shaking the small piece of jewelry. And immediately, a fine, silvery ringing fills the air.
Maou freezes and listens reverently for a moment. It's a soft but surprisingly piercing sound, and yet he doubts that it can be heard more than ten meters away.
Maou climbs back down from the railing and stares thoughtfully into the night. Beyond the light snow flurries, he can vaguely make out the gnarled trees of the forest. The whole thing looks eerie and menacing, like something out of a horror movie, and sends an even colder chill down his spine than the wind ever could.
"I've been thinking about what Alas said," he says quietly to Ashiya, who is standing patiently beside him. "I think she's right. We've been very mean to Urushihara lately. We never take his side. I never take his side. As king, it is my duty to protect my generals."
Ashiya makes a vague growl.
"Urushihara doesn't make it easy either, my lord."
That may be true, but it doesn't excuse what happened. Alas-Ramus' accusing words never leave his mind. They sit like a thorn in his flesh, digging deeper with each passing second.
It's not true. It's just not true.
He likes Lucifer.
He even likes him a lot.
But when the others are around - especially when Emi is around - he finds it hard to act accordingly.
"I wonder where he is right now?" he mumbles more to himself, but Ashiya hears him very well.
"I guess he turned around and went back to the next village. I'm sure he's sitting somewhere warm now, laughing at us for worrying about him."
"I don't think so," Maou answers quietly and gives him a long sideways look. "And neither do you."
For a moment, Ashiya looks taken aback, but he quickly regains control of his expression. In moments like this, his job is to provide emotional support and confidence to his king, so his own worries and concerns must remain in the background.
"He's not stupid," he retorts. "He will have found a dry, warm place to hide by now. We can't do anything now. It's no use looking for him at night. Let's wait for dawn."
"If only we had more magic..." Maou mumbles sadly, stretching out his left arm and letting a reddish flare appear above his flat hand, bathing everything in a radius of three meters in a blood-red light.
"Don't do that, my lord," Ashiya rebukes him sharply. "Don't waste your few reserves on a light that won't last five minutes. And if Urushihara were only five minutes away, he'd be here already."
Sighing, Maou clenches his hand into a fist and the light dies obediently.
Of course, Ashiya is right in everything he says, it's just so terribly frustrating to be condemned to inaction.