Magic Hunt at MFing Aokigahara

[disorder_heaven]

The fact that Urushihara had a keen eye for patterns and trends was one of his less appreciated skills. As one of the war generals in Demon King Satan's army, it made his division highly feared and nearly unstoppable.

Here, it had gotten him something more along the lines of a snarky comment from Ashiya. "About time," or something like that. Hard to tell. Urushihara hadn't really been listening.

Either way, upon Urushihara's elaboration regarding the Suicide Forest, Ashiya had grown more and more uncertain. Eventually comments about warning signs and body sweeps deteriorated into snide remarks about cell phones failing to work and the pitch blackness that came with noon.

A bowl of miso soup full of something-whatever beta took care of the bitching, but Ashiya managed to come out of the bathroom just long enough to lob a thick volume of Maou's favourite manga at the back of Urushihara's head. So, when Maou returned home from his long, hard day at MgRonald's, it would be to the sight of Urushihara on the ground and Ashiya in the bathroom groaning dramatically.

Just another day at the Devil's Castle.

Comments

[disorder_heaven]

"Donno." Urushihara's eyes were fixated on the forest as he walked through. Already there was a good deal of litter, trash and bits of other things. A broken shoelace. A sweater someone had dropped. A flashlight with, he assumed, a dead battery. "From what I could find, there's less of this human debris after about a kilometer in. Which is somehow scarier."

He glanced around at it all as he walked, tense. He was no masochist. In fact, he absolutely hated pain. However, the burning in his back was familiar and not unpleasant.

"Look. It's like one in the afternoon and it's already so dark up ahead."

[mickeyd_emon]

"No kidding," Maou muttered under his breath. "Much farther'n it really will be totally pitch black." The burning in his gut was more like a broil. Urushihara may have delighted in the feeling of human misery flowing directly into him, but Maou hated it. The knowledge of where it came from only served to piss him off.

Which meant, of course, that he'd exaggerate his cocky attitude to make up for it. Maou grinned sharply.

"I expect beyond that kilometer, we'll find somethin' good."

[disorder_heaven]

Really, Urushihara wasn't too thrilled with the emotion he felt flowing through his veins like lifeblood itself. He reveled in human fear, fear caused by him, who had suffered so much because of humanity. For him, it was vengeance.

This kind of despair was hard to take joy from.

He rolled a shoulder back, trying to alleviate the pain building in his spine. His posture grew lazy again, his hands stuffing into his pockets as he walked hunched over.

"I'm hoping so. Just keep your ears open for any sort of buzzing noise. It's giant hornet weather and I hate those things."

What he also hated was the sight of a human body, long-since decomposed, clothes caving in on the breaking skeleton. It was at the base of a tree, beneath a broken branch. Urushihara expected the human had hung themself there, long ago. He drew no attention to it, but kept his gaze firmly ahead.

[mickeyd_emon]

"Yeah, yeah . . ." Maou's flippant mumble trailed off as his eyes settled on the body. His hands in his pockets, he stayed in steady step with Urushihara, thoughtfully gazing at the bones as he passed.

The Demon King has killed innumerable humans, but he had never before thought of what was left behind. What was on this body? Identification, a Relax Bear wallet? Or did they dump it all along the way, with the rest of the trash in that forest?

Maou liked quite a few humans, and he wanted to protect them and their world. But he'd never understand them.

"Hey," he said, turning his sights forward. "Whatever's the source o' this magic? We're taking it all. And we're absorbing every single bit o' the despair in this forest."

But his lack of understanding didn't mean he wouldn't try to help.

[disorder_heaven]

"And what then?"

Urushihara wasn't sure what to do after they left the forest, or even what to do if they found a power source. As they walked, the forest seemed to get darker, heavier, more oppressive. It was as though the lack of light was a physical thing, pressing down on them like thunder that was not yet ready to break.

It touched on another issue he'd been playing with.

Maou loved this world. He talked about protecting the people in nearly the same breath that he spoke of conquering the world. If they got their magic back, what happened? Was going back to Ente Isla really an option on the table? If they got their true forms back now, what would happen upon them leaving the forest? Maou could hardly go into work in his true form, and Urushihara's wingspan was greater than the width of their apartment.

[mickeyd_emon]

"Then . . ." Maou's eyes drifted to the ground ahead of them, as if it held a clue as to where he was going. Sadao Maou was a contradiction, a conglomerate of desires and aspirations from two different worlds, literally. He could easily consolidate these various wants within himself, but once they required spoken words and actual sense, it wasn't so easy.

Rather than look to the weight of the dark canopy like he might otherwise, he turned to Urushihara, smiling. "Then we save it for a rainy day. I got way too many shifts this month to bail now."

[disorder_heaven]

"Yeah, and how're those shifts gonna work out if you're two and a half meters tall with horns scraping ceiling tiles into the fryer? Or are you gonna stretch hair nets over your legs, Satan?"

He rolled his eyes, continuing to walk a pace ahead of Maou. Occasionally, his gaze still flicked to the ground, watching for roots or body parts that might have ensnared their feet. However, as they went deeper in, the litter and abandoned bits of life grew fewer, until his keen senses could only detect egg shells, burrows, leaf litter and a dead nestling or two at the bases of the trees.

Still, there was definitely some force in the forest that made him feel twisted up inside. His heart was in his throat, and suddenly he stopped, waiting for Maou to reach his side.

[mickeyd_emon]

"Hey! I could shave."

Maou trekked after Urushihara, sulking. His positivity was being shoved down like a soggy pile of leaves, and Maou pushed back. There had to be a way to switch to their less conspicuous forms without spending all their magic. He just had to figure out how within the half hour it took them to beat whatever made Maou's breath hitch as he stopped beside Urushihara.

"Hey. What's . . . What's wrong?"

[disorder_heaven]

"Shave your legs and slip your hooves into sand...als..."

He glanced back at Maou, then ahead. There were no sounds from the outside world in this dense forest, but still, not a single sound seemed to do much besides warn of danger. Every sharp bird's call and quick rustle of leaves made the back of Urushihara's neck tingle. Their heartbeats seemed intrusively loud in the woods.

In answer to Maou's question, it became suddenly clear why he'd stopped to wait. If Maou had been behind him, he would have been blown backwards violently, thrown back by the force of Lucifer's wings bursting from his back. His shirt tore open, the shoulders alone holding it to his form. Even so, the trees were so dense that it was troublesome to keep his wings extended. He folded them awkwardly against his back.

"...I'm freaked out, aren't you?"

[mickeyd_emon]

Maou only grimaced at the lone sound of explosive wings in the vacuous space, a brow wryly crushing an eye closed.

"Freaked out?" he started, insulted, before he threw an arm out at the trees. "Of course I'm freaked out this place is terrifying! An' you addin' t' the foreboding atmosphere really isn't helping!"

[disorder_heaven]

"What the hell, man?! My WINGS are freakin' you out?"

Their voices did not echo. That, to him, was even worse.

"Why don't you Power Up and keep us safe from whatever on-Earth-Akuma are around hauntin' our asses?!"

[mickeyd_emon]

"So I've gotta protect us? What, those wings just for show now?!" Maou huffed before continuing, "Ugh, damn, fine. I hate this feeling, so you better be grateful."

He slipped out of his plain t-shirt and tossed it at Urushihara. "Hold on t' that."

[disorder_heaven]

Urushihara held the shirt in front of him between the tips of index finger and thumb, looking miserably at Maou.

"I was so hoping you wouldn't..."

Still, he couldn't deny that this made him relax a bit. It wasn't so much that he was afraid; it was more like, it had been too long since Maou had been... Well, his regular demon king self. Perhaps Ashiya made that line blurry. He certainly couldn't be Lucifer with Alciel around.

Either way, a moment later, Urushihara was pretending not to look. A tree a few feet away seemed very interesting~.

[mickeyd_emon]

"That shirt was ¥700 . . ." Maou said, black smoke streaming toward him like a fire working backwards. "I can't rip it!"

A whorl of darkness gathered around him as Maou drew from their surroundings, and for a moment, light flickered through the canopy. The rare rustle the forest had previously produced stopped altogether, leaving them in brief, total silence.

The shadows faded back into the trees, and the Demon Lord stepped forward. His one viable horn snapped a twig as he moved. He cracked his thick neck and rolled a shoulder, making ridiculously bulging muscle ripple.

"Much better," he rumbled. Then Satan looked down at his goat-like hooves and stared. "Aw man, I forgot t' take off my shoes!"

[disorder_heaven]

"You really are an idiot."

Still, there was a hollow feeling in the pit of Urushihara's stomach. He respected Maou, and he was loyal to him. Especially now.

Didn't mean that Demon King Satan wasn't terrifying in his true form. Urushihara stretched his wings briefly and then folded them again, preening without touching them directly.

"Well, there are so many abandoned pair of shoes around that I'm sure you can pick yourself a new pair. In fact, if Ashiya knew how much stuff was just lyin' around out here, we'd probably never be allowed to buy new clothes." His voice was trembling slightly.

[mickeyd_emon]

"Considering he thinks I already look like a vagrant, I think he'd restrain himself," Maou said dryly, still a little miffed by the memory of Ashiya's passing insult.

Urushihara was right, though. He could get another pair, so that wasn't the issue here. Maou gave Urushihara a sweeping, considering look. After a moment, he smirked and laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Come on, Demon General Lucifer. If you can't even quip without shaking, how are we gonna win this battle?"

Despite appearances, his voice held companionship. He patted Urushihara's shoulder, then released him. It was hard to tell if he was trying to assuage fear or feed it, but he was smiling.

[disorder_heaven]

"Dude, please. Last time I saw you take this form you beat the Hell out of me. Literally. Human form get."

But it wasn't necessarily that which freaked Urushihara out. At the sound of his name, his real name, he loosened up quite a bit. He raised his hand to his mouth and chewed at a shred of loose skin on his thumb, clearly ill at ease.

"This forest is like... It isn't actually scary. It's more like waiting for a battle to start. That waiting is worse than actually fighting."

[mickeyd_emon]

"No kidding. This build up better lead to a helluva finale."

Maou would still call it scary, to himself, silently, then never again, but he was at least pleased he managed to get Urushihara to relax a little. At times, it was difficult to reconcile the Lucifer he knew with the hermit he shared an apartment with, but Urushihara was, if nothing else, adaptable. Still, he liked him like this. Maybe Maou ought to take him out more often.

With a jut of his chin and a new spark of hope for their mission, he strode forward, expecting his subordinate to follow.

[disorder_heaven]

Urushihara followed without question, obedient to his lord despite his constant complaints within the apartment. Every now and then there was a rustle as he crossed or uncrossed his arms or shifted his wings in discomfort. Before long, the forest was pitch black. A normal human would not have been able to see their hand in front of their face. There was one source of unease that came from Urushihara himself; his eyes seemed to glow violet with a light that gave no light, his pupils a slitted glimmer in their centers.

"I feel heavier and heavier with every step, man. What'll we do if we even find a source?" And was there one? The deeper they went in, the more Urushihara began to suspect that there was no true source of magic. If possible, the forest itself was just plain evil.

[mickeyd_emon]

"We could gather magic whenever we want. Picture it! Our own convenient energy drink, fear blend," Maou said, heaping on way more optimism than he actually felt. He was beginning to suspect the forest was a dead end as well, but Hell if he was going to admit defeat just yet.

"But it's kinda hard to sense where it even is. All I'm getting is 'forward'." And major exhaustion. Mostly exhaustion. Maou turned a glinting red eye to Urushihara. "What about you?"

[disorder_heaven]

Urushihara's eyes widened, but he didn't respond to that. Yet. An idea was brewing in his head, but his instincts were setting it on edge. He would have to consider it more deeply later.

In answer to the demon king's question, however, he inhaled shakily before speaking. "Something tells me if we keep walking straight, we'll see or feel exactly what humans do before they're driven to end their own lives. That, or we'll walk forever and gain nothing." He also had a slight fear that if they did come out of the forest, it'd be at the exact point at which they'd entered it.

[mickeyd_emon]

"As curious as I am to know the why anyone would kill themselves, let's, you know, not," Maou grumbled, lifting another heavy hoof and stomping another deep print into the earth.

He opened his mouth to speak again before a twig snapping behind them cut him off, and his eyes darted back. No. No, he didn't sense anyone, but for a hot moment he could have sworn someone actually snuck up on him. He had even felt a presence that very much wanted to end him. The specter wasn't scary; the fact unease had fooled the Demon King's senses very much was.

"Iiii'm thinkin' I might level this whole freakin' place before we get much further. Just, you know. A heads up."

[disorder_heaven]

"Yeah, great. Great idea. That'd be subtle. Meanwhile I'm just messin' with the idea of bailing out and telling Ashiya that we found literally fuck-all besides about a dozen human corpses."

It was an exaggeration, but he'd seen at least two, which was far more than he'd seen on this planet yet. And they'd been walking in a straight path through the forest. If they'd seen that many, how many could there have really been?

He flexed his wings, which quivered, lightly brushing against Maou's arm for a moment before drawing away slowly.

[mickeyd_emon]

"Quietly leaving to never return is tempting. But we can't just give--" Maou flinched as Urushihara's feathers brushed him, then settled at the familiar touch. He stopped, mulled it over, then spun around on his hooves.

"Yeah okay this is pointless all aboard the nope train, headed that-a-way!"

[disorder_heaven]

The touch of his wings had been an accident, but Urushihara soon realized that it was him that had made Maou stop speaking mid-sentence. A moment later, he was grateful for it.

"You lead, I'll follow." His drawl sounded a lot more bored than he really was.