Chapter 39: Timing
How?
Why?
Blankness defined Izaya's head for a moment as he could do nothing but stare at Shizuo.
He was still the same demon he had met upon arriving in hell. Nothing had changed, and yet everything had.
He was the demon lord? That couldn't be right-
But it was.
The strength. His manners. His confidence.
The Serpent and guardian of hell, Shizuo had said it might kill him if it got him by surprise.
Might.
A guardian of hell. An entity close to a god.
He had always been speaking with the premise of himself being the strongest entity around and yet Izaya had failed to draw the right conclusions.
He was the strongest. And from everything he had seen hell stayed true to its own colors when it came to its rule of living.
Survival of the fittest.
That was the prevailing atmosphere. It had been there, plain obvious, for so long and yet-
"And you think we will obey you now?!" Loud voices, thwarted and distorted suddenly started shouting in the masses and Izaya flinched.
Obedience and prideful conduct, that's what Izaya had expected of the demons meeting their lord, but it seemed animosity was all they had to offer. It was only then that Izaya remembered the way that demon tried to kill Shizuo on the way to Crysteria.
Why was someone trying to kill the demon lord?
"You were gone for centuries!" Another yelled, almost comically on time to his own internal question and Izaya blinked.
Gone for centuries?
Right, the memory loss-
"Since when do you choose your leader by their time of presence?" Bold and strong Shizuo's voice wavered in the presence of thousands of death lusting demons. He showed no fear, nor a shred of guilt.
For some of the demons that kind of conduct was enough to shut them up, but not for all.
"We don't but I refuse to yield to someone who has been sleeping on the ground like a dead worm-" a lizard-like creature close to the front hissed and sharpened its claws.
Agreement and dreadful whispers immediately filled the rows and caused Izaya's guts to sink.
"That's right! When was the last time that you fought a higher demon?" another one yelled from afar and Izaya blinked.
Killed.
Not too long ago actually.
The demon that had tried to kill him-
"Today." Shizuo spoke slowly and the chatter of the hall immediately ceased. "Killed one on the way here."
Izaya expected doubt, expected the demons to act up even worse and try to kill this demon lord themselves in order to take his position, but it seemed his worries were all in vain as paleness defined their expression.
Of course.
Shizuo had told him.
Most demons could tell when someone was telling a lie. The terrifying silence rendering the room quiet was a clear sign that at least most of the demons present knew he was speaking the truth.
"... no way. Who died?" Quiet whispers traversed the hall. Only a few were close enough for Izaya to catch.
"Can't be Hephaistos. I saw him outside," a humanoid snake uttered under her breath and suddenly a small creature, not much taller than the anilas turned its head in quick anxiety.
"Wait," it whispered with the sweetest voice, tearing loudly through the hall. "Where is Alkbahar…?"
And suddenly dead silence ruled the space.
Izaya never got to learn their assaultor's name, nor did he bother thinking about who he might have been. But it wasn't hard to understand that the demon Shizuo had killed was the one they were looking for.
"But that's an Archdemon- The throne, he wanted to…" the humanoid snake faded out and Izaya released the breath he hadn't realized he had held.
The demon Shizuo had killed was no average demon.
Yet there was not a scratch on his body, except for the ones on his left wing, now hidden by his human form.
"So?" Shizuo asked, pretending as though he hadn't heard the horrified gasps and avid eyes.
And suddenly they moved.
The demons.
In unison, as if they had never done anything else before.
"Long live the lord-!" the words hallowed inside the tall hall and Izaya swallowed relieved.
They seemed to have accepted Shizuo as their lord. And Shizuo-
A glance.
A glance was all that Shizuo was willing to cast into Izaya's direction. Guilt, regret and somehow the hint of an apology rested inside his somber eyes.
An explanation. Izaya wanted one.
And with a soft nod Shizuo promised exactly that.
Before Izaya knew it a few demons approached Shizuo from the front and he quickly drew behind the curtain as he tried to make sense of this mess.
Shizuo was the demon lord.
As much of a surprise as it had been, what did it mean for him?
His goal- the goddess, defeating or killing her- no what about them? What about this sense of familiarity? What about their actions? Just before-
Rubbing his temples Izaya tried to ignore the way he had maneuvered himself into an even greater mess than before.
Nothing made sense anymore.
Why did he meet Shizuo? The demon lord? Conveniently suffering from Amnesia? Why did the demon lord remember him from a life they could have never possibly spent together? Why was Izaya's memory missing only the people of his previous life? The social connections? And why was the goddess even on his heels? What did she want?
Demise had been what she had said, but seeing how conveniently all of this played out none of her words made sense. If she wanted him to suffer she could have reincarnated him as a farmer's child beaten daily and abused. As a woman accused of witchery. As a man suffering from every illness to be found with no cure in sight. The possibilities were endless, really- and thinking about it now, the way she chased him and avoided humans- if she really wanted to make him suffer wouldn't it have been much wiser to just kill those few humans present to get what she wanted?
His head was a mess and not gaining any of the desired information as time passed on.
An hour? Maybe two?
He didn't know how much time had passed, all Izaya knew was that his head hurt by the time Shizuo emerged from the curtains and his breath stilled.
Demon lord.
Shizuo.
Both of these terms seemed incredibly hard to combine and yet the second Shizuo approached him Izaya felt as though no description suited him better. The way he acted. The confidence he held. And the spades of generosity and good will only expendable by someone with power suddenly made a lot of sense.
"...surprised?"
It was only one word Shizuo spoke and yet it was filled with a load of answers to Izaya's questions. Shizuo was still Shizuo. No matter what had happened in the past, his memory loss, or the fact that he had been and was now reelected as the demon lord changed not a thing about that fact.
And so he sighed softly as the mess in his head forced itself into the back.
"That's an underestimation."
A smile, unreal and more than Shizuo felt he deserved was directed at him and he hesitated to speak.
"... angry? Disappointed?" he continued on despite hoping that none of the adjectives hit the mark.
It was a sight somewhat funny but also incredibly endearing.
A demon lord capable of so many things was anxious about mere words that Izaya might speak.
And suddenly Izaya remembered his request. This was why he made him promise.
"Not in the way you think," he sighed and let his back thud against the wall leading to the curtains. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"
Shizuo shrugged, "Your opinion of the demon lord wasn't exactly the best," he tried, but it seemed his own guilt was consuming him as his voice brittled. "... and somewhere along I missed the timing to tell."
Timing, huh?
Certainly they had nothing but bad timing so far.
Meeting back then with the creature eating Shizuo's pendant and Izaya's pretense of being a demon hadn't exactly set a good start for honest conversations. And by the time Shizuo realized Izaya was human after all and asked about his goal- well.
Secretive as Izaya had been all the time he couldn't blame the demon for keeping this one detail from him.
"I can see that," he whispered and searched for his own emotions reacting to this situation. Disgust? Hate?
He seemed to feel nothing even remotely negative about this outcome.
With Shizuo being the demon lord he probably had more positive options available now that he-
Ah.
So that's why Shizuo had been so confident that he wouldn't die facing the demon lord. Because he was the demon lord. Lifting his gaze Izaya looked at the arguable nicest demon he had met in his life.
"Why did you drag me here?" he asked as he looked at the hallway. This secret entrance. Their trip to Crysteria. "You could have just told me," he pointed out, but Shizuo seemed to have a different opinion.
"I was afraid you might not believe me. Especially after I said I didn't want to attend this shit."
This shit.
Certainly. Shizuo had not hidden his reluctance to go to Crysteria even once. And yet- why had he accompanied Izaya all the way here if he detested it to this degree.
It almost seemed like he despised his own position as the demon lord.
"You dislike Crysteria?" Izaya asked and Shizuo sighed.
It was funny.
Izaya had never met a demon this troubled by its own existence.
"I dislike hell in general," Shizuo whispered, only confirming Izaya's thoughts. "But they need a ruler. And if it's not me then they will just gather to haunt the human realm again."
"Again?"
"The previous demon lord was a bit too lenient," Shizuo sighed and for some reason Izaya felt this world might not be so fantastic after all. Of course there was the matter of spells actually working. Holy magic, dark magic presumably too and the existence of demons. But what if all of this was just a part of humanities' past that had long been forgotten and cut from history books.
In modern days demons and the like were assumed to be entities the people of the time invented to explain the inner workings of the world they had yet to truthfully discover.
But what if they had been there all along?
Traveling back in time seemed to be another option of Izaya's reincarnation, but its perks or downsides caused his brain to go into overload.
Too many assumptions, too many theories possibly completely in vain filled Izaya's mind and he quickly chased them away.
He had to work with the reality he was facing right now.
With Shizuo the demon lord and his past.
"... your father?" Izaya voiced slowly, figuring that the demon realm worked in a similar fashion to dictatorship where the son was taking over the father's legacy.
But to his surprise Shizuo shook his head.
"No. Demon reign doesn't work like that. Blood is of no importance. Strength is," Shizuo corrected. "If you overwhelm the king then you are fit for the throne."
Wow.
Hell really lived the phrase of survival of the fittest.
But it made sense.
"So you killed the last demon lord?"
Bull's eye.
Izaya didn't even need for Shizuo to answer that question as his expression spoke volumes about the truth of his assumption.
"At least from what I heard. You know, memory loss and all…"
Right.
Shizuo didn't know about his deeds. Killing millions of people, killing the last demon lord and waking up a year prior only to hear of the gruesome way he had lived his life- it had to take an unimaginable toll on his mind.
"Then that demon that attacked you-" Izaya concluded and Shizuo nodded.
"Most probably had aims to compete as a new demon lord."
In other words, killing Shizuo.
Guts churning in the worst ways, Izaya remembered their fight.
"You had a hard time with that one. Was he that strong?" he whispered, but to his surprise Shizuo shook his head.
"No. Not at all actually," he sighed, only doubling Izaya's confusion as he suddenly moved over.
His palm grazed Izaya's cheek for just a moment and his eyes softened to ones of regret and pain. "But I learned that it is much more difficult to protect someone else than myself."
Love.
That was what Izaya saw in his eyes.
So pure, unrivaled and honest. How? Why? Izaya couldn't make sense of it, all he knew was that he felt the same burning sensation inside his chest and realized what that meant for his goals.
This result- Shizuo being the demon lord- it changed everything.
"Are you mad?" Shizuo asked and Izaya sighed.
He was obviously talking about the little detail of him having kept his true self a secret, but that was not what caused Izaya's forehead to wrinkle.
"Not really. It was my fault I never asked," he sighed. It was then that he remembered the reason for Shizuo's kindness and his expression fell.
"Ah- but what about your heart?"
A shrug was all the demon lord gave, however, and Izaya sighed relieved.
"Strength is strength. No matter who wields it," Shizuo explained. "My favor for humans and refusal to kill them might be a thorn in their eyes, but as long as my strength prevails my rules are theirs to follow."
Rules?
Right. Shizuo was something like a king to them. One who ordered them around and whose orders were to be followed at all times.
"Which are?" Izaya asked, infinity curiosity sprouting from his mind and this fresh view of perspectives.
"No trips to the human realm for one thing," Shizuo announced, but the intel of his demonic responsibilities were obviously the least he was worrying about right now.
"But that's not important," he interrupted himself and before Izaya knew it the demon was even closer than before as his eyes looked at Izaya left and right.
"Tell me," he whispered. "What is it? This favor you need the demon lord's help with?"
to be continued~
Good question demon lord C: See you next friday everyone~ xD