Arguments with everyone from Sariel to Michael had grown worse.
Lucifer did not match their appearances in too many ways, but he remained well known. The leader of the archangels. The most wise. The mos powerful. The most beautiful.
He hated everything.
This time, it was Gabriel. They fought, fought about how Lucifer was second-generation and did not deserve his title, about how he was unworthy and ungrateful.
Lucifer thought Gabriel might suffocate, with his head so far up God's ass.
The war was coming. It was already in progress, little battles destroying what little of Heaven remained after Ignora's experiments were realized, after the humans and angels experimented on fled to the new world known as the Red Moon. What remained of Heaven was broken and barren, but the angels fed from the tree of life, suffocating it and draining it all the same.
Gabriel said that Lucifer was the herald of Heaven's destruction. He was the first angel to be born with his color palate, the first angel to be born as a human. Gabriel and Sariel had been made immortal by their work with the scientist, but Lucifer had been made immortal in her very womb.
Lucifer had a choice to make. Whether he fought with his mother or father. Whether he remained loyal to his family or his friends. Whether he fought alongside the angels of Heaven, or descended to those poor humans and angels that had been tainted by the Sephira fragments Ignora had been experimenting with.
The angels hardly needed any help.
Lucifer turned his back to Gabriel, his white wings flashing in the sun as he opened a portal to the new world. He did not need to make his point verbally. It was quite clear he had chosen Hell. Chosen his father.
Chosen the Demon King, Sataniel.
-
He could no longer think.
The war had not ended well for either side - few ever do - but after the angels' victory, those on Sataniel's side had scattered to the wind. Or... Had it been Satan that had taken up his mantle?
Lucifer couldn't remember. The angels and humans that had been defeated had scattered like feathers on the wind. Feathers. So many bloody feathers sticking to his skin, to the ground below him. A moment later he realized he was on his side. When had he been knocked down?
He wasn't sure if he recognized the faces of the angels who were attacking him. Lucifer didn't belong anywhere now. The humans and angels that lived on the Red Moon, the ones that survived... They'd become something else. Horns and tails, hooves and claws and feathers. Larger sizes, sharper fangs. Lucifer fought not to cry.
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, and he refused to cough, refused to let whatever archangel was sneering down at him know that he was choking on his own blood.
Lucifer had chosen the wrong side, according to them. To him, he'd simply chosen the losing side.
He felt the knife beneath the bone of his wing, painstakingly carving away flesh and feathers for no purpose other than to cause him agony. His feathers were no longer all pure white. Some were, retaining what purity he had left, but others had darkened to grey or even black, the dappled colors of some birds he'd always seen as more beautiful than the plain white doves.
The whip fell across his side, his shoulders, and he turned his face into the dirt and closed his eyes. The ground was cold, and it felt wonderful. He focused on that cold, and not the burning of the pain, of the blood. He winced at the cold that flowed down his wounds a moment later, before realizing it didn't hurt.
Holy water. The angels laughed as he flinched from it, but Lucifer smirked into the ground.
His wings were no longer white, but he was still a celestial being. Holy water did not hurt him. They poured more, and while Lucifer cringed again, the action was on purpose. Let them think it hurt. It distracted from the real pain.
It wasn't the first time he'd been so methodically tortured, and it would not be the last. Heaven had fallen. There was no hierarchy amongst the angels anymore. The ones that beat him had nothing better to do, though he'd come on a mission of mercy, to check on Gabriel and Michael and the tree, to see if any angels wanted to come to the Red Moon, which had lost the war but now flourished.
He could not remember if Sataniel had died in the battle. He did not know if Satan would become the new king, or if he had to wait, or if he had fallen.
The torture continued. Lucifer felt bones break in his side and hand and wings. His legs were spread and he was defiled, laughing at the thought of these pure angels defiling him by forcing themselves on him. As he was whipped, as runes were burned into his flesh, as his pure white feathers were torn out by the handful as they tried to get a better grip on him, he laughed, and it was the only thing that kept them from killing him, afraid to try.
It also kept him from screaming, from crying, from begging for it to stop. Another bone in his wing snapped, and his eyes snapped open, violet but tinged with red, a horrible sunset. Where was his father? Where was God?
What if Sataniel was dead?
What if Satan had fallen?
Surrounded by the pain and the hate and the laughing angels, Lucifer watched the fallen and bloodied feathers on the ground. They smoldered and sparked, turned black.
Then they exploded, and the angels scattered, screaming.
-
Sataniel had fallen. Satan had taken up his mantle, and become the new Demon King. As the demons had so little magic left, he had no choice but to unite each and every one. The Black Goat clan, or what was left of it, followed him without needing to be coaxed. Others, like Alciel and the Iron Scorpions, were easily tempted with promise of peace and happiness for the demons involved. Here and there were demons that lashed out, irritated at the lost of the original king.
Lucifer was not one of these demons.
He had seen Satan taken in by Lailah, and knew what it meant; like him, Satan had a taste of the other side. He would never be as corrupt as the demons, just as Lucifer would never be as pure as the angels.
If corruption and purity were all they were known for, at least. Lucifer was having trouble finding complete corruption amongst the demons, just as he'd learned early on that even the most powerful angels were anything but kind or pure.
Men with faces like skulls and angels with wings changed to leather or metal and demons altered further by Ignora's experiments gathered in droves. They gathered under Satan's rule, but also to oppose it. Demons that had once been angels went mysteriously missing. Goblins and trolls that had been lower to Satan before the original Demon King had fallen turned up dead.
And Lucifer watched, now, as three demons, two with the heads of bulls and one with the lower body of some terrible wolf, approached the goat-legged demon that was now his king. After Sataniel fell, Satan took over right away. Alciel, always on good terms with both demons, had become the first of his rumored-to-be "procession" of Demon Generals. But Alciel was not here, and Satan was engrossed in paperwork.
Lucifer assumed he'd learned to read from Lailah, but that wasn't important.
It was in a rush of black wings that the two bull-headed demons were separated from the third. What happened to them happened out of sight, a crunch, choking and squelching, a bellow of inhuman pain. A moment later, a beam of magenta light had disintegrated the wolf-bodied demon in his clueless approach towards Satan.
The assassination attempts taken care of, Lucifer stepped out into the open, approaching Satan nonchalantly with his wings folded behind his back, a sign of respect.
"You wanted to see me, sire?"
And Satan, completely unaware his life had been in jeopardy mere moments before, looked to his old companion with a fanged smile.
"Yes, Lucifer. I have a proposition for you."
-
This world had no room for him.
Lucifer spread his wings, but they were crumpled, the space too small to accommodate his full wingspan. He looked outside, at the sun, the clouds, and ached to be there. He didn't care about Heaven or Hell. He simply wanted to fly, to feel.
When he'd been in Heaven, he'd been trapped by the Archangels. In Hell, he stayed on duty in the Devil's Castle. After his confrontation with the Hero, he'd fallen into the trap that was Purgatory. Even before he'd been born, he'd been caged and tortured and experimented on in his mother's womb.
This was different, somehow. In all those places, he at least had the power to be himself.
He folded his wings and sat, preening them, combing his fingers through feathers as black as pitch, pin-feathers stinging his fingertips and making him smile, remembering.
He got to his feet quickly what felt like moments later, though he knew he'd been sitting there for a long time. He cocked his head, listening to footsteps ascending a staircase.
In a flurry of feathers, he'd withdrawn his wings, knocking over the trashcan beside the table as they receded into his back. He sat in front of the computer and pulled up a browser just as Ashiya arrived home.
Already, he was yelling about trash on the floor, and Urushihara never leaves the house, so the least he can do is clean up around here, or at the very least he can clean up his own messes.
Unseen, beneath the desk holding his laptop, Urushihara played with a lone black feather, murmuring "Yes, Ashiya," without having heard him.
-
"Look, my child. It's an angel, coming to help us. Our prayers have been answered."
Lucifer landed amidst the humans, so taken aback by his grace and beauty that they did not seem to notice or care that his wings were raven-black. He folded them behind him, watching the humans gather around him in awe. Then the awe turned to horror as he was joined by Alciel, his whipping scorpion tail anything but angelic. Lucifer spoke, his voice guided by Heaven and Hell, heard by all.
"Humans of Ente Isla. I bring glad tidings," he said, smirking and spreading his arms wide. "In order to stop the in-fighting of the demons on the Red Moon, we have come to an accord. We will stop tearing each other apart, and we will stop invading your lands. But you must give us something in return."
He fell silent, watching reactions, feeling them. He was certain many believed his words were too good to be true, and dreaded his demands. He was just as certain that even more of them would give him almost anything, if only out of desperation. As his dramatic silence continued, a middle-aged man cried out.
"What is it you ask for?!"
"Demons have overcrowded the Red Moon, and our sources of energy have been depleted. We are bored and restless and agitated, and that is why so many have invaded Ente Isla. No more." He shook his head, his eyes deathly serious. "We will take part of Ente Isla for ourselves. The center of the cross will become demonic territory."
He raised a hand to silence the cries of outrage and protest, which lowered to a dull murmur as he continued.
"We may travel to the surrounding islands, but I assure you, these travels will not be invasions. The other four islands will remain human territory. We will even use our strength to help in transferring you. However, the center of the islands will become ours. With these terms, you will see the battles become fewer, the human casualties far less common."
"What if we refuse?"
It was a boy now, a teenager in the process of becoming a man. Calmly, violet eyes turned onto him, but as he spoke the pupils of those eyes burned with a terrible opalescent sheen.
"What if we don't want you demons on our world?!"
Lucifer laughed, the edge of insanity playing on his next words. "Child, there are already demons on your world. Look around you. Do you think we demons alone slay each other in disputes for food, for territory?" The boy faltered, and Lucifer continued harshly. "Hardly. Angels did it, and demons do it, but you humans are the worst of all. Give us Isla Kentourm, and you will find the infighting growing less. Retreat from here, and protect your miserable lives, and those of your families."
"You're not a demon!" the boy snapped suddenly, making Lucifer narrow his eyes and causing the crowd to tense and draw back. "You're not an angel, you're not a demon! You're nothing but a tyrant, just like your king!"
Before Lucifer could retaliate by tongue or magic, the boy's mother stepped forward. She was an elderly woman - he wondered how she could seem so much older than him, for he was so young - but she shoved him behind her all the same. Her voice was terrified when she spoke, but Lucifer felt respect for her; there was a steadiness there, a loyalty to her family that Lucifer so rarely felt in anyone.
"Please, Demon General Lucifer," she pleaded, clearly knowing exactly what those black wings meant. "He's only a child! He doesn't mean the things he says; he doesn't understand!"
"Understand what?" It was another man, older than the boy but still quite young. Lucifer had difficulty gauging humans' ages. "Understand that demons need to kill and maim people just to keep their sorry selves alive? That they're invading our land because they have no place to hide on their own world anymore?!"
Lucifer would have humoured him, if not for the fact that he and another human lunged forward. They did not target him, but Alciel, silent and intimidating behind Lucifer's back this entire time. Alciel killed one with a blow of his tail, impassive, but Lucifer was quicker than Alciel could ever hope to be; he slowed the other human with a wave of a wing, feathers blowing his kneecaps out before Lucifer killed him with a magic shot straight through the head. The crowd gasped, cried, but no one turned to run.
"We will not harm you," Lucifer said, gritting his teeth as he turned red and violet eyes back on the crowd. "That is, unless you harm us first, or attempt to."
"Lucifer--" Alciel began, but Lucifer cut him off.
"No, Alciel. These were the terms of our lord Satan, Demon King of all three worlds." Alciel fell silent, allowed Lucifer to glare out over the humans. His wings arched back over him slightly. "If you humans attack us, we will kill you. You invited us here, by developing your churches and building your walls and gathering your armies. This is the closest you will get to a peace treaty from us. If you want war, so be it."
"We'd rather wage war than surrender to you," snapped the boy again, and his mother moaned pitiously, horrified by her son's behavior. What made it worse for her was that her son was one of few who wanted to protest. Most were too afraid, and many saw logic in Lucifer, and Satan's, proposal. A fifth of their land was so little to give in exchange for so many lives.
"Boy," Lucifer said darkly. "Come here."
The boy's face went deathly white, and the mother screamed, begged, pleaded for Lucifer to show him mercy. After a moment in which the boy did not move, the woman cried, "Please punish me instead! It's my fault! I did not raise him like this!"
Lucifer smiled, beckoning.
"Then come, Ma'am." Those beautiful and terrible eyes turned on the boy again. "Will you let your mother sacrifice herself for you, boy?" Alciel's tail lashed from the corner of Lucifer's eye. Everyone in the crowd waited silently.
To Lucifer's disgust, the boy just stared, then looked down, all but bowing his head. The woman trembled, but as she saw her son unwilling to take his rightful place at Lucifer's feet, she kept her honor intact and approached Lucifer.
"Kneel," he whispered, and his eyes seemed to be the only light present, despite the clear sky, the fact that the sun had not completely set. The woman, sobbing, got to her knees, praying to a god that had abandoned Lucifer so long ago. No one stepped forward to save her, not even as Lucifer raised his hand, glowing, crackling energy trapped in the world between his fingers and wrist.
The woman prayed, and the humans watched in horror, and Lucifer exhaled, tilting his head back, reveling in all of it. The fear, the hatred, the grief, the absolute terror in the air. His lips twisted into a smile that was meant for God itself, as though to say, "See what I've done without your guidance?"
Then the explosion came, an orb of light the colour of a sunset, and the woman looked up at Lucifer with utter shock in her eyes.
"Go back to your wretched son, woman," Lucifer said. Then he turned to Alciel. "Prepare the settlers. Isla Kentourm belongs to us now."
Alciel nodded, flying a ways into the sky and disappearing into a portal. Lucifer, alone in the crowd of humans, smirked at them. Then they scattered, preparing to move, no one wanting to be left behind when the demons came to claim their world.
