Chapter 72: Dark times
This was not the time to lose his head. They had to make things work with what they had.
Pushing himself away from the blond, Izaya quickly cleared his throat as he looked at their newest surroundings.
"Alright, hear me out," he started, not quite sure where he was going to head with his explanation, but Shizuo was right. If anyone knew what to do then it was him. "This is 1353," he continued, "Roy sent us back in time to break the curse of Incubi before it even started."
The moment those words left his lips Izaya realized the absurdity of his announcement. Stares made of equal astonishment and looking for hints of insanity traced towards his expression.
They all were incubi, save for Namie, and yet the idea of having traveled back in time for a couple hundred years was a bit much to take in.
Most ironically it seemed the only non incubus was the first to admit their new reality.
Expression shifting to one made of annoyance rather than panic, the woman frowned deeply as she complained. "We time traveled? Are you fucking serious?"
It was funny, but the way Namie's first response to their situation was to announce her dissatisfaction, was oddly comforting in its nostalgia.
She was what she was. A woman made of logic and quick decision making. Not even a timeskip was going to unsettle her that much.
It was setting Izaya free in a way as he felt a heavy load lift from his shoulders.
That woman was right.
So what?
Roy hadn't sent them back to serve them their personal kind of hell. He had done so because he believed they could change their fates. Change what happened back at the monastery. The priest's death. Maria. His siblings.
Looking towards Mairu and Kururi, Izaya noticed the missing hint of panic that Leo had displayed as the two looked at him with every intention to make the best of their situation. He hated to admit it, but they were much more ready to face this new reality than Izaya was.
Breathing in deeply, Izaya took a second before starting to summarize their current situation.
"For those who didn't hear it from Roy, it appears to be the exact date that the church was burnt down." Leo's eyes glinted as he recognized the event, "I heard the priest talk about that," he added between a few sets of harsh breaths. "The reason the church was set on fire is due to priest Marcius taking in refugees beyond what some people deemed as appropriate," Leo explained what he had heard, "And also due to the fact that they thought him to be a demon," he added, his voice fading out towards the end.
Right.
Demons.
"A real one?" Mairu asked with the perception of a dead bird and Namie snorted at the misconception. "Aren't you all real ones?"
Right.
Noticing her slip up the girl showed a quick grin before snorting herself. "True."
"We are just diluted versions of what triggered this entire mess from what I understood," Izaya continued his explanation with a sigh and let his body sink onto a fallen tree's trunk.
Hands folded and fingertips brushing the tip of his nose, Izaya tried to organize the mess of information he had gathered. All the intel the priest and Roy had told them had been interesting, but nothing Izaya had truly deemed worth memorizing.
He was lucky his memory was good by default or else he could be missing out some important hints needed to solve this mess.
Looking forward he gazed at their arguably weak team. Three kids and a woman. His cards could have been dealt better.
Darkness shrouded the forest around them and the few rays of moonlight casting upon the area served not more than the bare minimum of vision.
Unsettling noises traversed the woods and Izaya didn't even want to think about what it was that was lurking inside these parts of the land.
A quick side eye to Shizuo served as the only assurance in this situation.
He was here. And he was strong.
Not only strong-
The way he fought on even terms against guns was already astounding as it was. But in this area?
Shizuo was the ace in this horrible hand Izaya had been dealt. The one card that he was going to go all in for.
Shizuo's strength was unrivaled by anything. Izaya was able to stop time. They were smart too. Psychological tricks were yet to be named although probably already used.
He was a master of those. His silver tongue was going to bring him more fortune than downfalls and with those realizations passing his mind Izaya took a deep breath.
"We have to enter the monastery."
The announcement came as expected as it was unexpected. Mixed reactions displayed in their groups' faces as Izaya continued, "The priest, and consequently the root of this entire mess is there. We need to find out what happened, we need to find out why it happened and how to reverse the process."
Lingering doubt laid in Namie's eyes as she processed what Izaya was telling them.
"That's good and fine and all, but once we do won't you just lose your abilities?"
Awful silence lingered for a moment as the truth of those words sunk in.
She was right.
Izaya knew that as much as the rest of the group. Neither of them was stupid and trying to ignore that fact or disregard it as, yet to be seen, would not only be useless but also insulting.
"How are we supposed to get back?" Namie continued, and a breeze of cold wind brushed across the riverbed as though it wanted to enhance the icy clutch on everyone's minds. Her voice had cracked halfway through the sentence before she turned silent and Izaya understood that she was more unsettled than she was willing to show.
"If we find the demon responsible for this mess and manage to make it reverse the process, who says he doesn't have the ability to send us back?" Izaya tried, but even to his own ears the suggestion sounded awfully childish.
A quiet chuckle was all he received as Namie raised a brow, "That's not like you, Izaya. Hoping for fairy tales?" she asked, but her words lacked their usual bite and sarcasm. She knew that for the time being they had nothing to work with except wild theories and blind hope.
Even the girls seemed to have picked up on the mood as Mairu quickly spoke up, "Okay, but maybe it can. You all have abilities. Maybe one of us will discover a similar one?"
Right.
Looking towards his siblings Izaya couldn't help but frown for a second.
They were incubi. No matter what. That fact had always weighed on his mind heavier than stones. He had tried to keep them away from all the troubles that these genes brought and tried to protect them.
Having Mairu announce she wanted to help with her ability was both a relief as well as a direct blow to Izaya's guts.
Getting an ability- he didn't even know the fundamental rules that triggered their appearance. The sheer idea of having to experiment to get that desired result seemed worse to Izaya than them having been sent back in time.
"I have one," Leo suddenly announced, drawing the group's attention. A forced smile, bitter and gruesome, displayed on his lips as he tried to force himself to not show his anxiety and regret. "You saw it. The flames," he whispered and his voice dropped.
Izaya didn't need to read thoughts, like Shizuo did, to know what it was that was going on in Leo's mind.
"It's not your fault they died." The announcement came quickly, and the conviction Izaya felt saying those words stemmed from pure honesty, but Leo didn't seem to agree as his eyes dipped into a frown.
"He is right, if anything you saved most of us by burning that place down," Namie added, and even Kururi agreed as she clasped the boy's hands in her own.
"Smoke. Good." She announced calmly, with eyes filled with trust and gratitude.
More conviction than that was needed to truly absolve Leo's guilt, but at least he seemed to accept her words as he showed a sad smile.
Leo saved them.
Back then.
They were alive due to the smoke screen and Shizuo's rampage.
But... now?
Feeling the clutch of horror grasp Izaya's neck in a moment of truth, Izaya couldn't stop his deductions from arriving at the one and only truth of their situation.
He knew about this timespan.
The hardships to come. The life in front of them- Izaya had studied enough of history to realize just what kind of doomed society they had fallen into, and that prospect was so dull it made him want to retch.
Knowledge was something amazing, something he had always been proud to have, but right now he wished he didn't as all the information only served a punch to his guts.
This era was void of technology. Void of sane people. Plagues, medicine, science- the beliefs of the common folk-
None of these topics was going to work in their favor in the slightest and it caused Izaya to feel a hint of nausea.
And his expression gave away most of how he felt.
"What's wrong?" Shizuo asked with more worry than Izaya deserved and he took a deep breath before speaking.
"I will be honest with you, everything we do now could be in vain."
Unsettling everyone present was the last Izaya wanted to achieve. But at the end of the day withholding crucial information could end up putting them in a worse position than they were now.
Namie seemed especially disturbed but showed it the least.
"What do you mean?" she asked carefully and Izaya sighed before meeting her gaze.
"Everything Roy told us about incubi was just a hunch," he started, and his words held as much disdain as he felt speaking them. "Stories, handed down by generations." He could still remember the pictures on the walls. The ornaments, the burnt part of the church.
The monastery was heaven on earth for a historic when it came to the endless amount of theories and hypotheses to be derived from the monastery's state, but when it came to Izaya's wish to find the one definite truth it was a true horror.
"Who is to say it actually started here? And who is to say we can stop it?" Izaya spoke the most intrusive of his negative thoughts and Namie faded to silence.
No matter what they did they weren't going to get a guarantee that anything they tried to achieve was even going to work.
It was only Shizuo who defied all logic as he shrugged.
"I will find a way."
Had Shizuo said he wanted to defeat a dragon with bare hands it would have been equally convincing as his words and yet-
Blinking shortly at the dark ground, Izaya lifted his gaze to meet Shizuo's.
He was so damn confident. Every fiber of Shizuo's body screamed of conviction and it showed. In his actions, in his tone, in his eyes.
It was stupod, but it was arguably better than the void of darkness consuming Izaya's chest.
It saved him in more ways than he was willing to admit. Because this was Shizu-chan. And at the end of the day, he always managed to do the unexpected. It was silly, it was childish too, but somehow the faith Izaya had in Shizuo's abilities exceeded the dread he felt.
And so he nodded and Shizuo moved.
"Wait-" Grasping Shizuo's wrist, Izaya quickly held the blond back from executing their newest task on the spot.
"Why?"
And somehow it was right there that Izaya realized Shizuo was a bit out of it too. Not regarding their situation or their new goal but rather regarding his own self.
He had killed so many people.
Police officers. People out to kill Izaya and everyone else at the monastery, but humans nonetheless.
Right now Shizuo looked like a straight up demon doused in the blood and guts of his enemies and Izaya spared Shizuo the details of his look as he spoke.
"We have to get rid of our clothes."
to be continued~
Alright, here we gooo~ Right at the center of panic and despair xDDDDD Just how I like it :D xDDD
Sorry for disappearing for so long without any notice, I got sick and regretted being alive for the past few weeks xDDDD Fever is okay, as long as it stays around 38 degrees, but above? Come onnnn xDDDDD
But now I am back so you can look forward to your weekly Saturday Shizaya dose xD
With that being said, I hope you enjoyed this update and see you next Saturday~ C: