Chapter 30: Mal'akh

A good question.

Too good.

"I'm not sure whether to call it trouble-" Izaya tried to distract, but his efforts didn't bear fruit as the demon's expression only grew in hunger for answers.

"If it's something only the demon lord can fix then I doubt it isn't."

He wasn't going to let go of the matter, was he?

"It's a matter of morals and power," Izaya tried, hoping the demon would stop asking once he figured the topic was none he could solve himself.

Because no matter Shizuo's strength, the decision of whether or not to oppose an actual goddess was not one an ordinary demon could make.

He was ready to serve ambiguous answers to confuse Shizuo and make him leave the topic, but it seemed he had already succeeded as he faced a puzzled expression.

"Moral? What is that?"

Blinking shortly, Izaya couldn't help but snort.

That was what irked him?

Clearing his throat Izaya tried to suppress showing most of his amusement.

"You choose between right and wrong," he said, but it seemed his explanation was far from enlightening.

"... I just do what I have to do," Shizuo announced, failing to see the issue of grading his actions, and Izaya paused for a moment as he realized that it was not the word that irked him but the concept itself.

A philosopher somehow popped to mind and how he said only humans were evil for actively choosing evil.

It was funny how accurate he appeared to be.

"Don't you have, like, a common sense of what should be done and what not?" Izaya asked, curiosity now pulling him by his own leash, and Shizuo shrugged.

"I only act on instinct, is that so bad?"

Instinct, huh? So like hunger, anger, sorrow and joy?

Cringing slightly, Izaya imagined what other demons in hell might be like. It at least explained the way Shizuo talked and acted on nothing but his own accords.

"What if the other party doesn't want you to?" Izaya asked, hoping for the slightest sliver of understanding.

The demon merely frowned at the question, "Huh? That wouldn't be enjoyable now would it?"

Enjoyable?

"You enjoy killing?" Izaya asked, and the confusion only seemed to double.

"Huh?"

Brows furrowed, Izaya tried to piece together just where they had drifted off talking about two different topics.

"I was talking about killing monsters, what were you thinking about?" And somehow the expression grazing Shizuo's features revealed exactly what it was as he blinked in a moment of stupor.

"... the same."

A lie.

And Izaya knew why.

Snorting shortly he threw the demon a judging glance. "You aren't as innocent as I thought you were."

A scaled, ripped from the Serpent's shed as if it were made of banana peel was thrown towards Izaya, but he dodged with ease and a smile on his lips.

"Shut up-" the demon grumbled and Izaya couldn't help but snort as he shook his head.

Well, no matter the misunderstanding, he had arrived at the conclusion he had hoped for. Because for whatever reason, this demon seemed awfully concerned about what others thought and felt upon his actions.

A moment of silence grazed the two alongside a cool breeze picking up from the mountain tops.

The sun was setting faster now that it had started its descent.

"You aren't going to tell me the reason you want to visit the demon lord, right?" Shizuo asked after a while, and Izaya was glad to find the words oddly void of blame.

The demon was basically telling him it was fine to not tell him his true objectives, and Izaya was gladly taking him up on that offer of privacy.

"Not if I can help it," he smiled and the demon clicked his tongue.

His thirst for knowledge was obvious, but so was his respect for Izaya's boundaries.

"Does your offer still stand to guide me there?" Izaya asked, but seeing a point to waste more time tiptoeing around a topic that the demon already knew was coming anyway.

"Pretty rude to ask for a favor after having lied to me," Shizuo pointed out, and a deep sigh left his lips as he looked at his human with eyes that felt as though they were discovering him anew entirely. "But I'm not the kind to back down on my word," he finished, and Izaya felt a hint of relief put him at ease.

"You know it's really funny, but for a demon you act awfully humane," he commented and Shizuo snorted.

"Is that supposed to be an insult?"

"In this world probably." Izaya hadn't spent a lot of time up there, but what he had seen had been enough to draw his own conclusions about the society and its behavior. "I saw them up there. The kind of people living here," he mumbled, "I would lie if I said my world has no bad sides to it, but it's at least better than here."

Blinking shortly, Izaya stopped in his thoughts as he suddenly realized that Shizuo had never doubted his stories about modern civilization, electricity and peace, because he simply didn't smell a lie on him when he spoke.

Glancing to the side he looked at the demon he had been accompanying so far.

He seemed to have a lot on his mind. Possibly even more than Izaya with his current situation.

Silence took over for a second and Shizuo crossed his arms with a sigh.

"I don't want to be here," he mumbled quietly and Izaya hummed.

"Inside hell?" he concluded, and his answer had hit the nail on the head as the demon frowned.

"I hate this place."

Understandable.

Izaya would too. Even if he weren't a human too weak to survive against the creatures living down in hell. The surroundings, the lack of interaction, the way Shizuo behaved just spoke volumes about what it was like to live here at all.

It was saddening almost.

To know how much time the demon had already had to spend here.

"Then come with me when I leave this world," Izaya joked, unsure whether he was even able to leave by himself, and suddenly the demon stilled.

Surprise marked his eyes, along with something Izaya couldn't quite decipher.

"Idiot," the demon spoke quickly, and somehow Izaya got the feeling that his spontaneous offer had meant a lot more to him than he let on. "Come on, get your ass moving. It's starting to get cold," the demon announced and Izaya looked down the steep ledge that had almost served him death earlier.

"You want me to jump again?" he raised an eyebrow and Shizuo rolled his eyes in response.

Before Izaya could even start to complain he found himself picked up from behind and off the ground.

Air slapped his face, albeit in a not too uncomfortable fashion and Shizuo's wings spread far and wide.

They were proceeding fast. The area, wide and hostile, went by in a matter of seconds and while holding onto the body carrying him forth Izaya spotted the mountain. The one holding Crysteria.

Hope blossomed inside his chest, thinking they were actually going to simply fly over. With a pace like this they would arrive in under five minutes, but to his disappointment Shizuo's wings folded all too soon and the demon descended.

The forest was past them and a ledge, leading to a stony area filled with purple sand and circled constructs made of plants extended before them. Leaves larger than Izaya in height and breadth extended into the sky and served a light glimmer of green shining from their underside.

Izaya couldn't help but feel they reminded him of street lamps.

"Why did you stop?" Izaya complained as soon as his feet touched the ground and Shizuo snorted.

"You want me to fly all the way to Crysteria?"

There was obviously some kind of joke hidden in the question, but Izaya was missing the intel to understand its origin.

"... yeah, why not actually?"

Blinking shortly the demon seemed to understand the lack of knowledge and rose his head before tipping his lips in thoughts.

"Oh. You can't see."

Question marks appeared in Izaya's face upon the obviously flawed conclusion. "As far as I am aware I have perfect vision," he announced, but Shizuo waved him off.

"That's not what I mean," he laughed and before Izaya knew it the demon had moved over.

A hand was extended towards his body and the demon grinned, "Hand."

… the request was clear. He wanted Izaya to take it.

Unsure of what he was about to see, Izaya did and Shizuo spoke.

"ວɿɒnɟ ƨiϱɟ."

Izaya wasn't sure what it was that he had heard. Voices, as though it were more than one, seemed to merge with Shizuo's as the words he couldn't quite understand reverberated in the air.

And suddenly they appeared.

Frames in the sky.

Almost like cylindrical bubble shapes, blocking some areas. Some more, some less.

"And that's…?" he asked, fading out at the end as he had no idea what he was looking at.

"The sovereign," Shizuo replied, leaving Izaya as lost as before and Shizuo snorted upon the judging side eye he received from his human. "Sorry I keep forgetting how little you know."

Letting go of Izaya's hand he touched his chin instead in what looked like a moment of deep thought.

"It's where the Mal'akh live," he started his explanation and already triggered another question.

"Mal'akh?" Izaya asked, thinking he was talking about a folk of demons. Flying ones maybe. After all, if there were Serpents digging through the ground, arachnid creatures festering in the forests, who said there were no winged demons that preferred living in the sky?

It was what he expected- and he wished Shizuo would have confirmed that idea.

"Messengers from this world's god," Shizuo suddenly said, "You know, those creature's wearing white wings and too many eyes to be comfortable. Don't humans worship them or something?"

Sight glued to the constructs above Izaya felt his throat constrict despite his urge to speak.

"Are you telling me angels are living up there?" he asked, hoping for denial or a joke, really, anything that was not a confirmation of this idea forming in his head, but Shizuo wasn't going to give it.

"Ah, right, that's what you call them." He announced, with the ease of a child that had just remembered a color it had forgotten to name.

And Izaya's guts froze almost immediately.

Angels- if angels were living up there- then what he was looking at right now, was heaven.

And if it was heaven what he was looking at then-

Turning around Izaya glanced over his shoulder as if he expected the goddess to appear behind his back with her most gruesome smile.

He could still remember her face, her grin and that horrifying expression she showed when she was about to devour him.

Heaven was the goddess realm as far as Izaya concerned, and he had been convinced that if there was one place on earth where she couldn't reach, then it was hell-

But had he been wrong? Was she there all along? Waiting for the perfect moment to strike?

"I thought this was hell? Why is heaven inside hell-?" he breathed, too quick to be healthy and too anxious to hide his fear.

Shizuo noticed it of course, and his smile fell.

Nothing had happened. They flew. They landed. Shizuo failed to find any injury on his human's body, and yet he could smell the way his blood accelerated. The way his body's temperature rose and his breath stilled.

Fear.

His human, who had not feared Shizuo for even a single second, seemed to be actually afraid.

"... hey, are you okay?" he asked, but Izaya only frowned.

"Just answer the question, please."

Please?

Startled more by the word than Izaya's state, Shizuo felt his own body tense without reason.

Something was obviously off. Something that for once he failed to see.

Was Izaya scared of the messengers?

Could be they looked pretty shitty, obviously, since they weren't meant to seduce humans but watch in their god's stead. But somehow that didn't seem to be it and Shizuo felt his own body tense in action as if he were needed to act at any moment.

"... of course heaven is inside hell. I mean, where else would it be?"

Izaya swallowed hard at that.

He had arrived at a new world. A world that appeared to be one not too unsimilar to his own, apart from a few minor adjustments, like magic and its use. It had been the similarities that caused him to prevail in the idea that heaven was supposed to sit in the sky. Between the clouds, above the human realm.

Sinking down into hell had brought him as far away from the goddess as possible, that's what he had thought.

A wrong idea overall.

A bitter smile spread across his lips as he realized his mistakes. It explained the goddess' appearance. He had always thought she looked like she came crawling out of hell. With heaven residing inside it, it made a lot more sense for her to look this gruesome considering she stemmed from the same goddamn landscape.

"So those angels come down here?" he inquired further, but thankfully, at least this time, Shizuo actually denied his conclusion.

"Of course not."

A bit relieved, albeit more confused than before, Izaya found his breath again.

Right.

He needed to calm down.

The goddess had not once attempted to kill him, so some rule had to assure she was staying away from this place.

"Why do they not?"

A glance was cast towards the shapes forming in the sky.

"You see the pillars, right? Blocking the way and the sky?" Shizuo asked, pointing to the sky.

"I do," Izaya confirmed and Shizuo nodded.

"They see the same looking down. We can't pass them, and neither can they."

Oh.

Like a barrier.

Despite being translucent it was keeping the demons and angels separated.

Was that barrier created by the world itself? Or the demon lord? Or the goddess?

Funny how demon's basically were forced to live inside a cave with no ceiling despite owning wings. No wonder they got so cranky over time.

More and more ideas started to fill Izaya's mind with no definite answers to conclude.

And those so called angels- they had the world and sky's free to traverse didn't they?

"Seems unfair," Izaya mumbled aloud and Shizuo blinked.

"What does?"

"They have the entire human realm and sky and you have just the ground," Izaya answered bitterly, trying to get rid of the goosebumps that had traveled down his spine.

"True. But in exchange we have freedom," Shizuo added with a shrug, tearing Izaya out of his spiraling thoughts.

"How so?"

"The messengers are deployed," Shizuo sighed, "Working for the goddess all day round. There is no break for them, no chance to rest or death to release them from their fate." Pointing towards the farthest edge of the translucent shaped pillars he frowned, "Sometimes you find one of those oversized eyeballs. Disintegrating somewhere on the edge of the pillars." A glance was cast towards his human.

He seemed fascinated over his words, more than he appeared to be afraid and so Shizuo continued to talk.

"Demons on the other hand have no such shackles on their life. We are free to do as we please. With more freedom than probably healthy," he added, "I'm not saying it's good to wander around with no goal at all, but compared to the slavery going on up there I would always prefer hell's rules over heaven's."

Theory after theory built itself in Izaya's mind like a city of skyscrapers, growing and rising, only to crumble halfway and build themselves anew.

A funny analogy to cruel corporations and gruesome bosses driving their employers to suicide formed in his mind and prevailed for a moment.

Hell was unemployed, drifting about aimlessly.

It was a funny mixture of both extremes taking place on earth. A middle section, bringing both forms together.

Humans were both free and chained at the same time. Some more, some less.

Did the degree of freedom decide who they were going to be once they died?

"Hey." Shizuo suddenly called, and Izaya realized he had fallen quiet for quite some time. Honest concern seemed to reflect in Shizuo's eyes as he approached his human. An innocent glance and pure honesty seemed to brim in his voice as he spoke with confidence. "I will protect you, okay?"

A bit surprised by the sudden statement, Izaya found himself quite perplex and void of an answer.

"...where did that come from?" he asked instead and the demon sighed.

"Don't ask me, you were the one freaking out over angels."

Ah, so he noticed.

A witty reply was on the verge of his lips, but somehow it got stuck.

And somehow he found himself believing the demon with more trust than he should.

He knew him since, what? A day? Two? Hell's days, okay, but still.

And yet he felt as if he had never parted a single second from this demon's side.

The sudden sound of water trickling in the distance caught Izaya's ears and he turned into the direction of the glowing leaves.

"Are you done with the questions?" Shizuo suddenly asked and Izaya turned his head to look at him.

"What's that?" and Shizuo smiled, "Crysteria's trail."

to be continued~

C: We are slowing getting somewhere xDDD Things are gonna get quite intense now with the following four updates hahaha

See you next Saturday~