Chapter Text
- 🌒 -
Suzuki Sullivan Iruma just woke up and he already felt tired. He's here, in the human world, but Alice and Clara were here too and that made it marginally better.
Night had fallen, how long had he been asleep? How did Alice get scarred like that overnight? The last thing he remembered was...
He was looking through the mansion's attic, there was something covered by white cloth and then...
Nothing.
He checked his surroundings again, more calmly now. It seemed to be a hospital room, although it was not the cleanest. The paint from the walls had chipped down, and the curtains were old and ragged. In contrast, his cot was comfortable and his sheet was clean. The window looked Chinese, with an intricate looking circular frame and no glass. On each side of his cot were his soulmates, each with a chair but resting their heads on his bed. They were holding his hands.
Alice's scar looked painful, and Iruma felt his heart squeeze. But some corner of his mind he didn't want to voice right now thought it didn't detract from his prettiness. On the other side, Clara's hair was held in a ponytail, she looked very pretty like that. But a realization struck him hard enough to make him forget about her face. A realization that something was missing....
Her horns.
Her horns. Where are her horns. Where-
Hands trembling, he gently caressed her head, looking for any sort of injury. Clara, instead of flinching, seemed to relax under his careful touch.
"Iruma-sama?" Alice had woken up no faster Iruma's hand had left his.
Gently, Iruma's hand came to hold his face, thumb slowly drawing under the line where his clear skin turned into the burned scar. He looked older, more mature. An idea Iruma dared not face sprouted in his mind.
"Azz-kun, just what happened to you?"
Alice, barely, managed not to melt under the gentle affection. But the question puzzled him to a concerning degree. "Iruma-sama, don't you remember?"
"Tell me, please. What, how, when?" There was a deadly seriousness in his voice. Alice, for who this scar was a badge of honor, suddenly didn't want to say anything about it, for he feared it would hurt irreparably the Iruma in front of him.
"Please. I'll be fine, I just need to know," Iruma insisted and, oh, how could Alice ever deny him anything.
"This mark is the proof of my loyalty to you. I inflicted it upon myself, a year ago."
The words stabbed into Iruma's heart. The truth both balmed and burned, for this was not his Alice, but for there to ever be an Alice that was driven to this point must have been a failure on his part without a doubt.
Alice pulled him into a hug, cradling his head against his shoulder. "It wasn't your fault. Please, do not take away my mistakes and my amends. I chose this, and I would do it every time."
So then, against who should he aim this boiling anger in his gut? To his… other self? What right did he have, when this wasn't his Alice to begin with.
Iruma felt another pair of arms circling him from behind as Clara rested her head against his back, listening his heartbeat.
"Boss-chi, do you want to play?" she nuzzled against him, and he felt infinitely better.
"Yeah, yeah I'd love that, Clara, Alice."
- 🌘 -
The morning light revealed what was hidden in the shadow of the night.
Alice looked so young, maybe they were even the same age. There was a serenity about his face, still round with baby fat, unlike his usual cool and sharp expression. Like he had to always keep it together.
Clara was mostly the same, if you didn't focus on her ram-like horns and heart tipped tail. Fascinated, he gently scratched around the base, and Clara purred in sleepy delight.
This room was very similar to his own, but different in small ways. Not as many plushes, toys, trinkets and mementos. It was less lived in, it had less history.
Two knocks on his door. Alice stirred and Clara nuzzled further into her pillow. It was almost regretful to wake them up, but the day doesn't truly begin before breakfast. "Come in!" he called.
"Iruma-Sama, Alice-sama, Clara-sama, doog gninrom," the person that strolled in was well dressed and regal, so much so Iruma didn't immediately recognize who they were.
"Opera?"
"Hm?" their ears twitched. Not their pointy ears, but the cat-like second pair of ears at top their hair. Instead of the mangy gutter cat look they usually have, Opera looked like an aristo(cat).
"Haha, guess I'm not in Kansas anymore." Iruma chuckled, mirthlessly. Opera however, stopped cold.
With one hand cupped, they yelled, "Sullivan-sama!" And well, call the devil's name and he shall appear.
"Iruma-kuuuuuuun!" and devilish he was, with two big horns, one on each side of his head. But that didn't mattered to Iruma, who was just happy to see him.
"Nonno!"
Sullivan tilted his head, reconsidering Iruma. Under his breath, he made two quick chants, and Iruma could feel something settle almost imperceptible over his skin before it disappeared.
When his grandfather spoke again, it sounded like noise and static, but Iruma could somehow understand what he was saying. "Good morning, Iruma-kun, how are you?"
Iruma felt relieved, finally. "I'm fine, nonno. I'm better now."
"That's good, Iruma-kun, I'm glad." He patted his head gently. "Right now, I'm using a magic spell that encrypts speech, your friends will not be privy to our conversation. Then, could you tell me, who are you?"
Nonnon-- Sullivan looked at him, with both kindness and worry, and void of any sort of reproach. Gulping down the dry lump in his throat, he answered, "I'm Iruma Babyls, sottocapo of the Babel family. And I think I don't belong here."
"Hmph, nonsense, every Iruma will always be welcome in this home, but I'm sure your family is missing you too. We'll find a way to send you back." Sullivan ruffled his hair a bit more before stepping back. "I'll meet you down for breakfast." He left with Opera trailing behind, but not before they threw a concerned glance to Iruma.
As soon as the door closed, the sixteen-year old was glomped by a green tornado. "Iruma-chii!" Clara shook his shoulder, begging for his attention, "Are we playing secret codes? Are you a devii spy!?"
"Stupid Clara, don't be so rough with him!" Alice complained, pushing her back.
Iruma gasped. "Alice-kun, that's not nice!"
The two demons stopped their antics.
"Iruma-sama?"
"Iruma-chii?"
He's used to them squabbling, teasing or playing pranks on one another, but the name-calling was so childish and mean that Iruma got upset.
"Please, apologize to her," he asked, but to Alice, it might as well be a mandate from the Demon King.
"I apologize, Valac." Alice said, full of remorse, and self-doubt started to sprout. While he knew it was mean, she never once complained, treating it as part of their games, and in fact seemed a bit happy when he called her that. But perhaps he had to reassess.
Clara stopped cold, when just a moment ago she was inflated to gloat. "It's fine! You can call me that!"
"Hmm?!" Alice snapped out of his stupor.
Blushing, Clara averted her eyes, fists pushing down on her lap. "It'd be nice if you just said my name sometimes too, though."
Alice gulped. "Y-yeah, of course, Clara."
Iruma was a bit confused, but with Clara smiling so radiantly, he supposed it wasn't his place to intrude. In so many ways...
- 🌒 -
Kalego's shitty night was growing from bad to worse. Never mind his boss fainting out of nowhere, he had to stop Opera from smashing the, very expensive, antique mirror for causing the above mentioned incident. Then, it was dealing with Shichiro right at the entrance of his clinic. And finally, he could hear an infernal racket coming from the room his charge was supposed to be resting in.
"Silence!" he slammed the door open. His boss (constant cause of stress n# 1) and his made man and woman (severe cause of stress n# 2 and 3), we're playing a tabletop game they got from God knows where.
Oh, and on top of bullcrap he listed above, it all happened on his overtime shift.
"Well, seems like you're back on top condition." Iruma, still dressed in clinic overalls, had one foot over the bed and his hands raised like a thespian at the theater, while minions one and two fawned on their knees.
"The dinner was pushed back a day, on account of what happened today." Kalego pushed up his glasses. "We should be grateful it's the Jackapone. They're more lax, unlike the Levy Alon. You should think of a gift for their boss, as a courtesy."
"Uhh, yeah, of course, Kalego-sensei," Iruma said. "We'll go home soon."
"Soon?" Kalego asked. "Is there something wrong?"
"No...?"
"Then get dressed and hurry along, I don't have all night." With a heel turn, he walked out the room.
A beat of silence passed. Sheepishly, Iruma turned to his friends. "Do you happen to know where are my clothes?"
The outfit presented to him was... very business like. White jacket, suspenders, a fedora? The... other Iruma dressed pretty nicely.
Alice and Clara were looking at him oddly as he was pushing his arms into the sleeves of the jacket. "What's wrong?" he turned and twisted around, trying to see if there was anything out of place.
"No, nothing, Iruma-sama."
"Are you cold, Boss-chii?"
Better take an excuse when given to you. "A-ah, yeah, a little. Well, shall we?" he said as he closed up the buttons.
...
Getting a drive around by Kalego was a novel experience, but just as stiffly awkward as usual when being in close proximity with his irate teacher.
The tension was soon forgotten after they left the backstreets and entered Walter City's main avenues. Dazzling amber colors illuminated the night, and a light drizzle of rain fogging out the windows, as if in a dream.
Rain.
It didn't rain often in the underworld, it wasn’t as necessary. Plants fed on ambient mana, after all. He couldn't say he missed it much. Rainy days meant cold nights, leaks in his tent and the flooding, damp ground.
"Iruma-sama?"
Iruma gasped. His fists released the tight grip he had on his pants. He didn't even realize what he was doing.
Alice was looking at him, concerned. He could feel Kalego's gaze from the rear-view mirror. He didn't think he could come up with a excuse, so he simply smiled. Wobbly, pained, as solid as wet cardboard.
He felt fingers entwined with his own. Clara grasped her hand tightly, smiling more brilliantly than all the lights in the city. Alice took his other hand and stripped it from its glove. Warmth flooded from where they touched, spreading through his veins.
The rain had disappeared from his mind. He could have been in the peak of a snowy mountain and it would feel no different from a lit hearth.
Slowly, he felt his eyelids drop, until finally he fell into dreamless slumber.
- 🌘 -
- Two days after waking up in the Demon World -
Demon school Babyls was exactly like how he'd imagine it'd look like, and yet nothing could have prepared him for it. Students of all shapes and sizes arrived from the air, some not even reaching his knee while others towering twice his size. They all fly on bat-like wings.
He was awed.
He would rather not have grabbed so much attention, but when Opera opened the carriage doors and announced his name to everyone in earshot distance, he simply treated it with the poise of the morning greeting from his subordinates.
Something he noticed however was how students would shy away from him. He'd greet them with a smile, and they would blush and turn away. The girls mostly, but also some of the boys. Had he offended them, somehow? Or maybe the perfume Opera practically soaked him in this morning was offensive to everyone else?
His other self wasn't a known deviant or something, right?
For some reason, Clara started to pout and dragged him away from the gates, with Alice close behind and unbeknown to him, glaring at everyone who got too close.
The Royal One was certainly grand, worthy of its name. During the weekend, Opera briefed him on who were his classmates, and he was glad it was full of familiar faces. It brought him a strange sort happiness, that no matter the world, he was among the Misfits.
"Silence!" exclaimed Kalego-sensei as he slammed the door open. "First, Schneider Allocer will take three days off due to his Wicked Phase."
"Second, today is November first. In according to tradition, since the age of humans, this is the most busy day of the year, the day of Innocent sinners. Demons work the hardest this day to enjoy the most bountiful harvest. As such, we'll have a surprise assessment test today. Hope you're ready." Kalego's smile was downright sadistic.
Ah, Iruma might be in big trouble.