Chapter 41: Change of air
"We have been waiting for you for the longest time. Your return is a blessing to us."
Bullshit.
Eyes narrowing, Shizuo looked at the demons presented in front of them.
He might not remember much of the majority of his life, but the past year had been long enough to teach him that demons never subjected to anyone with joy.
The smiles, broad and intentionally pleasant spreading across the various jaws and mouths only seemed that much more disturbing without context.
What were they trying to do?
Had Shizuo been alone he couldn't have given less of a crap. But with Izaya here-
Glancing over his shoulder he briefly met Izaya's eyes. Eyes of a human. A human that could easily be killed by any of these the second he failed to pay enough attention.
He saw the disdain in the demon's eyes and the second their bodies moved Shizuo did as well.
"I won't be staying." The declaration came as much as a surprise as it forced them to freeze within their motions.
A particularly ugly specimen in front, wearing the head of a skeleton wrapped in flesh cluttered its jaw as it stepped forth.
"... pardon?"
But repetition wasn't what they sought and Shizuo was aware of that.
"You heard me," he hissed lowly, with a glare settled upon his expression. "I will leave just as quickly as I came." His words were an order, not to be negotiated with anyone, lest those lowlifes and they seemed to understand.
"Your majesty, you can't do that-" one of them pleaded, but Shizu o had already turned. Gasping softly Izaya closed his eyes the moment he was swept off his feet.
Wings unfolded, agitated whispers spread throughout the air and Shizuo glared over his shoulder- "I can and I will." -before taking off.
Fast.
Faster than expected at least-
Gushes of air rushed past Izaya's face and in a moment of blindness he was left to do nothing but hear.
"Is that a human?" he could hear them. Demons. Hot air from outside Crysteria enveloped them both in under a second and shrieks of too many demons to count traversed the air.
Eyes, too many to count, stuck to Izaya's back and animosity of various kinds directed itself towards his body.
It was a horrifying sensation- the kind that shackled one to their bed in the face of shadows reaching for their neck. He could feel the killing intention in their voices and his body tensed.
A quick flap of Shizuo's wings suddenly brought them to a standstill midair and Izaya took the chance to regain his sight.
They were in the sky.
Way above Crysteria.
The fortress looked small as a tree in the distance. It caused the mountain supporting it to seem much grander in comparison and Izaya's eyes narrowed as he tried to make out movement.
They should be there. The demons. All of them and their hatred, but he didn't know whether they lacked the ability to fly or the guts to follow but fact was that they remained in place.
"We are leaving?" Izaya asked and his voice cracked halfway from the force of air clashing against his throat. "Isn't this place like your personal castle?" he tried again, a bit louder and with a quick flap of wings the demon came to a halt midair.
Glancing towards Crysteria he seemed to search for the right words to explain.
Izaya could still see them, the demons, rushing from one spot to the other like ants whose colony had been destroyed.
"I'm not really too keen on keeping you around this place," Shizuo explained and nodded towards a particularly rich spot of demons below. "No demon present comes even close to me in strength, but if they decide to go after you it won't be easy to fight."
A shudder traveled down Izaya's back as he found his earlier thesis confirmed. The demons that had approached them with the excuse of wanting to serve the demon lord, they had been out for him after all.
"How did they know I am human?" Izaya asked, but Shizuo failed to answer as his eyes narrowed.
Izaya hadn't seen it, but Shizuo did.
The way some of the demon had started to take off from the ground, and the idea of them coming for them caused his hair to stand on ends.
"Save any questions you have right now for later, okay?" he declared and with that he took off again.
Strong and quick, his wings accelerated their speed midair, leading farther and farther away into the direction of lands that Izaya hadn't seen yet.
A bit of worry befell Izaya for a second as he glanced into the sky. Heaven was invisible again as the effect of Shizuo's spell had worn out, but he knew about its existence and about the border it provided.
Flying to Crysteria had been no option, but it seemed taking their distance right now proved no difficulty.
Was heaven structured differently in various places? Like a mountain randomly coaxing into existence after having the wind blow dirty upon dirt for a millenia?
Izaya couldn't help but wonder about the physics working inside hell, about nature and its rules.
And about Shizuo whose wing was still injured. He couldn't make out much of their surroundings at the speed that they were flying with, but he saw the scars and couldn't help but worry whether they were going to heal again anytime soon.
It was when the air around them changed to that of high humidity and warmth that Shizuo's speed finally decelerated and Izaya found himself face to face with an uncanny pit of darkness spreading like cancer from the ground below.
For a second he was worried, thinking it to be some kind of hint for another creature's presence, like the tunnels the great serpent's guardian had dug, but it seemed the opposite was the case as Shizuo headed downwards in a straight line.
Clinging to Shizuo's body, Izaya momentarily closed his eyes.
He wasn't sure what he had expected.
Hell's hell? Death's realm?
Something sinister perhaps, or at least dangerous.
But both assumptions turned out to be completely false.
Warmth, pleasant like a gentle mother's embrace at a glittering lake's side spread throughout the air.
Water travelled at even heights as Shizuo's feet met the ground and Izaya blinked as one of them steered right towards his face.
He was facing what appeared to be a cave. One of those filled with stalagmites. The ceiling, the walls all seemed to hold as many rare gems as possible and light reflected from every corner.
The water was at fault.
Or rather, a creature that Izaya had mistaken as such.
Drifting close enough to touch the tip of Izaya's nose he noticed what he hadn't before. Legs. Smaller than a human's lashes they were dangling left and right in various numbers and a set of equally small and black eyes seemed to focus on Izaya's as it sat down on his skin.
It was warm and its body looked like a water droplet having come to life- but the aspect that made Izaya think of them as pretty wasn't their surface or the way they reflected light in the colours of the rainbow, but rather the light within themselves.
As if having swallowed a firefly the center of their watered bodies pulsated with the bright light of a dancing flame.
It almost looked as if the little creature had accidentally swallowed the fire, but the lack of discomfort in its movements quickly proved the opposite.
Izaya wasn't sure what he was looking at.
A stone wall, crumpled and old wearing a deep brown red was the only sight perturbing this almost blessed looking place.
Letting go of his human, Shizuo took a step forward and Izaya's body jerked slightly as his feet touched the squishy ground.
Moss. There was moss everywhere. Turquoise and interrupted by flowers glowing in faint white the entirety of the floor was covered by the plant.
By moss, and one more.
Lowering to his knees Izaya found himself looking at stalks of red. The tip at the very top held what seemed to be a droplet of honey and as if one cue one of the droplet creatures circled right to it.
Food.
That was the sustenance that kept them alive.
"What are we doing here?" Izaya whispered absentmindedly as he gently touched the droplet with his fingertip. A sound of the smallest bells, too cute to exist, rang in the air and Izaya wasn't quite sure whether he had offended the creature or done it a favor as it quickly pushed against his finger once more, before drifting off.
"Most demons attending Crysteria do so in their combat form, which allows them to perceive things as they truly are," Shizuo explained what he had failed to answer earlier. Crouching down next to Izaya he forced his attention away from the droplets and towards the wall of red.
As they truly were?
So that's why they had realized Izaya was human.
Blinking softly, Izaya recalled a different detail, way back when Shizuo realized Izaya was human. His horns had changed color as well as his eyes.
"Do you have a combat form too?" he asked, but his answer was quickly swallowed, because suddenly the wall of stone moved.
Tremors, unbelievably soft and cushioned by the moss all around shook the inside of the cave and Izaya's eyes fixated on the front.
Stone after stone forced its way out of the hard material. Dust drifted away and the droplet moved towards the motion as if they had waited for this occurrence for a long time.
And suddenly they were there and Izaya realized what the stone wall really was.
Eyes.
Elongated to the left and right, they sat and turned as their lids opened and their gaze of red on black focused on Shizuo.
"Ah. The new and old demon lord."
A creature.
Izaya didn't know what else to describe this monster as, as a mouth spiked with teeth moved just above even ground and his body tensed in a moment of fear.
Huge. That thing was larger than anything they had faced before.
A single eye was larger than Shizuo and its mouth big enough to swallow this place whole if it so wished.
The fact that it had spoken wasn't all too assuring either and Izaya's eyes quickly searched for Shizuo's.
But all the demon held was a smile on the face of this massive creature and he nodded.
"Thank you for your duty," he spoke instead of answering the million questions in Izaya's eyes and the monster laughed.
"It's a pleasure serving you." Low, like the sound given off by a scream far below water, its voice reverberated inside the small cave and Izaya's eyes narrowed.
Moving wasn't easy in this place as the ground gave away at every step he took, but he still made his way over to Shizuo, more or less gracefully.
"Shizuo, what is that?" he asked, as the monster was busy chuckling to itself and Shizuo offered an assuring smile.
"You saw him from above. Most people know about his existence, but only a handful know about the guardian's face."
The guardian-
Face turning towards the oversized eyes, the sight suddenly made a lot more sense.
Eyes moving in all directions and the mouth sitting below so awfully broad- this was the crab.
The carb carrying Crysteria.
The size made sense too considering its back carried an entire mountain along with the fortress and Izaya blinked in fascination.
He knew it was alive and moving, but intelligence was something he wouldn't have expected from the creature.
A soft sound indicating the movement of stones brought Izaya's attention to the ceiling and he raised his head just in time to see the opening they came through close.
It was an uncanny sensation. Felt like a trap almost to watch their entrance shut without being given any reason for it.
Looking at Shizuo Izaya whispered, hoping to not attract too much of the guardian's attention.
"Why are we here?"
A moment of silence followed in which Shizuo seemed to contemplate his own decision. But a soft sigh was all that followed as he faced Izaya with newfound conviction.
"... about staying in hell, are you really serious about it?" he asked and Izaya found himself doubting his own choice.
Of course he didn't want to stay in hell.
Hell was hell. As pretty as it appeared to be, it was dangerous to live in. Monsters of various kinds had already stood in their path of merely attending Crysteria and Izaya was sure there were many more to come that they would have to face.
And yet-
What other option did he have?
Sending Shizuo to his death fighting against the goddess caused Izaya's guts to churn more than the idea of having to fight demons bare handed and so he sighed deeply before answering.
"I am."
"Then you are here to learn," Shizuo finally answered Izaya's question and nodded towards the droplets swarming around midair. It was only now that the ceiling had closed and their glow intensified that Izaya spotted the difference in their shades.
As if having agreed upon who received which, half of the droplets' fire seemed to flicker in colors of white while the others added a tinge of black.
It was too much of a coincidence to truly believe there was no pattern to this and Izaya turned towards Shizuo as he concluded what it was that they had come to do. "You mean dark and holy magic?"
A smile spread across Shizuo's lips as Izaya had hit the nail on the head. Looking towards the ceiling he sighed and his eyes narrowed.
"I can't teach you in places where demons might attack at any given time." He was talking about the demon that had challenged him before Crysteria.
Izaya still remembered the fight better than he liked and the way he almost killed Shizuo just because he tried to protect him. "And now that I left them to themselves and disappeared for what they probably believe to be another millenia they will be sure to search for us nonstop," Shizuo continued, and Izaya swallowed.
He was the issue.
Shizuo had no problem defending himself or killing those lowly demons. But with Izaya nearby…
Looking around he glanced at the sturdy looking walls surrounding them and finally understood what it was that they had come to do here.
"But they won't find us here," he concluded and Shizuo nodded.
This was the place Izaya was going to use to learn to fight.
to be continued~
Yo xD We are slowly starting to get to the good parts haha God how I love coming up with fantastic shit xDDDD
See you next friday~ C: