Chapter Text
Skipping through the forest ahead of you, Levi bent down to admire plants and creatures with the same excitement every time. You walked after him, giggling as he awkwardly stumbled on his newfound legs. Finally, after he’d almost tripped over the fifth rock in a row, he turned back with a firm pout on his lips.
“Stop laughing at me! I know I’m a weird fish man on land, but you laughing at me is just plain cruel!”
He turned away, tears brimming already in his swollen eyes. You chuckled to yourself seeing him act like his normal sensitive self. It almost made you forget the tragedies of earlier that morning. Almost.
Whether it was to comfort yourself from your dark thoughts or to reassure Levi’s insecurities, you found yourself slipping your hand into his.
Leviathan’s whining suddenly stopped, hand gripping yours back. He took a quick breath, desperately trying to stop his face from turning completely red. His heart was fluttering despite his best efforts to stay calm.
Even though you didn't want to break the comfortable silence, you found a question burning through your mind. “Levi… do you even know where we’re going?”
He shook his head, grin wide on his face. “No idea whatsoever! I've lived in the ocean for my entire life, how would I know where we’re going?”
You groaned, slowing down and tugging Levi back. His eyes sparkled sheepishly. “I think we’re going to the Royal Kingdom, right?”
At that very moment a chill rushed through you, freezing your brain and making you stop dead still. The image of a man with frozen eyes, staring back at you.
“MC?” Levi stopped in front of you, crouching a little clumsily on one knee to look into your eyes. “MC, what’s wrong?”
“I think there’s somewhere we need to go first.”
You grabbed his hand again, dragging him along through a slight opening in the trees. He yelped loudly, foot catching on a stick in his haste to keep up. Eyeing his uneasy form, you raised an eyebrow. The question that had been toying with your mind spilled out. “I get that you did a deal with a sorcerer for legs or whatever you said happened. But where in the world did you pick up those clothes? You were only wearing those shorts when you first showed up.”
He went red, hands running down his torso to anxiously clutch at the edge of his oversized cardigan.
“Look.. I found it in the village. I really didn't want to do anything like disturbing the dead but-”
“Don't feel bad about it. You can't go around naked.”
Levi could feel the conversation was over and loudly cleared his throat, hand nervously reaching to grasp your palm. You didn't refuse the comfort, and continued walking through the forest hand in hand.
It became obvious that you were approaching something out of the ordinary when the temperatures dropped below zero. Icicles hung dangerously low on the nearby trees. The grass ahead of you was frozen and white with fallen snow. Levi, forever unhappy, complained constantly about the temperature constantly. You ignored him for the most part, letting him amuse himself with theories on why only this part of the forest was freezing.
This went on until your heartbeat began to thunder in your chest and your eardrums popped.
“Levi, wait here.”
He turned back to you, frowning. “MC, it's a dangerous forest. I can't let you out of my sight- not that I could do anything to help you really, I'm actually super lame-”
You gave him a reassuring smile. “I'll be fine. I just.. I know that I need to do this alone.”
“What's this?”
“I'm not too sure yet.”
Levi slumped a little, obviously not optimistic about the circumstances. Yet there was really nothing he could do to stop you. So instead, he relented, slumping down at the base of a nearby frozen tree. His lonely eyes watched you walk away.
You crept into the frozen clearing, your feet scratching over the icey ground as you walked. A small wooden shelf was centred in the clearing, seemingly immune to the snow that fell around it on the ground. Inspecting it slowly, you pulled out the books one by one, inspecting their titles and reading them aloud under your breath.
“The Tale of the Seven Lords. Henry and the Third Lord. Wisdom of a King. The Most Powerful Brother, 1,2,3,5,6,7. Wait. What about the fourth brother?”
“Yes. What about the fourth brother, indeed?”
You spun around to face the sudden voice, a chill setting in to your already freezing body. Something was freezing you in place. You struggled to move your eyes up to the man before you who had spoken, What you saw was no man. A fox with nine flowing tails stood before you, each of his tails tipped with the same glowing red that seemed as if they were made of fire.
Now that your eyes met the foxes, the thing that had kept you in place seemed to break. You fell to the ground, trembling and panting to breathe. As you slowly raised your head, you watched the fox leap up into the air and when its feet touched the ground again, they were no longer fox paws. Your eyes lifted from the bare human feet, past the ceremonial robe to his flowing blond hair and sharp eyes. The fox ears on his head twitched.
“The fourth brother isn’t mentioned in any of these books. Surprising, isn't it? It seems a little impossible for an entire world to forget someone of such high status, especially since he's been mentioned in so many books.”
“Who are you..?” You whispered.
The man-fox looked away from you. “I'm a Kitsune. A magical, nine tailed fox.”
You shook your head, still a little starstruck. “I didn't ask what you were.. What’s your name?”
“I don't know, to tell you the truth.”
You stumbled to your feet. “How can that be? Everyone has a name.”
“Oh, little harpy.” The man sighed, shaking his finger at you as if you were a child. “You have to know that not everyone has a family to name them. And not everyone is born into this world. Sometimes we’re created in the very purest depths of hell.”
You walked in lockstep with the Kitsune man, eyes never leaving him as you circled him.
“Why do you keep your books here? Is this some forest library?” You remembered the similarly titled books. “What are they about?”
He waved his hand dismissively, long claws at the end of his fingers catching your attention. “They're all on the Seven Demon Lords of the Devildom. I have no idea who they are, but it seems like they're very important.”
You scoffed. “If they're so important, why have I never heard of them?”
He mirrored your scoff, nine tails whipping behind him in anger. “It says in one of those books that after a failed uprising against the King, each of the demon lords were banished from the Devildom.”
“They were turned into part human creatures so they could repent their mistakes. Each of the brothers experienced a fate worse than the last, depending on the amount of their betrayal.”
It sounded oddly familiar. Even though you knew that you had never heard the tale before.
“And what were their names?” You murmured under your breath, the cold making your breath fog up in front of you.
He blinked, confused. “What?”
“What were the demon lords' names? Tell me.” You paused. “Tell me, please.”
His ears twitched suspiciously. His eyes inspected your every step. “Their names were-”
A loud rustle sounded in the bushes and the Kitsune spun around to face you. His large hands clamped against your mouth, desperately trying to quiet down your squirms and shouts.
“Shush! You have no idea of the dangers in this forest-”
“Oi! Fox guy!”
The Kitsune spun to look over at the entrance of the clearing. Within seconds, Levi was pulling at the man’s multitude of tails, trying to fight him off.
“Get off my friend you weirdo! Freak! Hybrid!”
Shoving the both of you to the ground, the Kitsune whisked to the side of the clearing, icicles growing out around him in a protective shield.
“Hybrid?” The Kitsune hissed, flattening out his robe from Levi’s thourough wrinkling. “Like you have any room to talk.”
You both turned to face him, eyes wide. “How can you tell that Levi isn’t human?”
He snorted. “Humans have souls. Demons have half souls. Other creatures however.. have none.”
The man’s eyes trailed over the two of you, eyeing especially the way Levi had come to stand protectively before you. “And in this clearing, I can sense zero souls.”
“Why does that even matter?” Levi replied.
The man’s tails swished aggressively behind him. “You’re not normal. And I’m not normal either.”
Levi’s jaw went slack. “What do you mean by not normal?”
The blond snorted loudly, a wild look in his eyes as he stepped towards Levi who began backing away desperately. “Haven't you noticed yet?”
A small clink of metal resounded through the quiet forest as the kitsune pulled out an expensive looking chain with three small shamrock green jewels.
You let out the breath you hadn't noticed you were holding. “You have matching necklaces.”
Levi whirled around, raising an eyebrow at you. “Matching necklaces? They’re different pendants, different chains and completely different colours!”
“The glow.” You breathed, fingers numbly reaching to stroke the Kitsune’s necklace. The man’s nine tails bristled behind him. His skin flushed slightly as he shuffled on the spot, yet he didn’t move from your reach. Much to Levi’s discomfort, you took another step forward.
Now you were close enough to see the intricate markings on the chain. They were written in a language you didn’t understand. But there was a clear glow in the gems that lit up the unknown script as if to say “This is special”.
The Kitsune coughed loudly and you stepped back, confused. You finally noticed his hands hovering awkwardly in the air above him. The gears began turning in your head, finally realising what had happened.
“Oh great scarlet dragon!” You gasped, covering your mouth with your hand in embarrassment. Your eyes widened as you tried to meet the Kitsune's eyes. “I didn’t mean to invade your personal space, I'm really sorry.”
“Whatever, don’t dwell on it, harpy.” The Kitsune snapped back, however the frazzled look in his eyes left you thinking it wasn’t just whatever.
Levi of course, really didn’t want to dwell on whatever in the worlds you had just done. “So what, matching necklaces that glow?”
The Kitsune snorted at Levi’s abrupt topic change. “Yes. I however have no memory o f acquiring this necklace. I have just always had it.”
“I have similar issues.” Levi acknowledged, toying with his own violet necklace.
The Kitsune raised his sharp eyebrows. “You don't remember getting the necklace?”
“No.” Levi replied.
A clouded look overcame his bright yellow eyes, the specks of violet that swirled in them becoming a violent toxic colour. The dark look that was suddenly on his face was so alien to his normally bright and awkward face. You couldn't help but see a sense of similarity between the two men. They were definitely connected somehow.
And right now, in the frozen clearing of an obscure forest, these men both had the same cold look on their faces as they gazed at each other.
The silence began to overcome you. Finally, you stepped in between the two men, breaking their stares as they focused on you instead. You turned to the nameless Kitsune, considering his blank look and bedazzled necklace.
“Would you like to come with us to the Royal Kingdom?”
Leviathan sucked in a breath, biting back hundreds of reasons to not invite this stranger along with the two of you.
It seemed the Kitsune was thinking along similar lines to Levi however. “Why would you want me to come with you”
“Don’t you want to find out who you are? You don’t even know your own name..” You met his eyes and instantly you felt a song of sadness practically pouring from him. He didn’t want to be left alone in this forest you realised.
A surge of confidence rushed through you and you stepped so close to the Kitsune that you could feel the sharp pressure of his cold breath on your face. You leaned into his ear so that only you and he could hear what your next words were. “I can feel that you're really sad by yourself. Please come with us.”
It felt as if you were begging him to come with the two of you. And a small part of you was. This mysterious man had certainly intrigued you. The sorrow in his eyes would be something you would struggle to forget. “Come with us, even if not because you want to find out who you really are, at least come with us so you won't be alone anymore.”
The man took a moment to stare back at you, the entire solar system seeming to swirl in the light cerulean of his eyes. You couldn’t help but admire the beauty of his face. Something about the framing of his sandy hair served to give him an elegant feel. There was no way that the Kitsune stood before you was just some random forest dweller.
And that only added to your growing fascination with him.
“Are you an angel?”
You heard Levi snort out a very quick “no”, but you couldn’t take your eyes off the man in front of you to scold your friend. The Kitsune’s eyes were piercing through your own. Yet he didn’t seem as sad anymore, his eyes only served to reflect your own.
“Of course I’m not.” You breathed.
The man laughed, his tails moving in tandem with his short laughs. “Alright, maybe you're not an angel. Still, I feel you’ve been excessively kind to me today.”
He nodded his head, still staring at you, now completely lost in his thoughts. Finally, his eyes focused and he gave you a neat smile. “I.. I would love to come with the two of you.”