Chapter Text
Iruma-kun,
How have you been doing lately? I heard about how you won both the Harvest Festival and the Music Festival. That’s amazing! Congratulations! You’ve really grown into quite the celebrity around Babyls, haven’t you?
To tell you the truth, I wrote this letter because there’s something I’d really like to talk to you about. I understand if you’re not comfortable with it, but if you’re willing to hear me out, I’ll be waiting in the forest to the east of the school for an hour after classes end today.
- Kiriwo Amy.
P.S.: I’m almost embarrassed to ask because I know how fishy this will sound, but if you do come, can you come alone? I think it’ll be easier to have a calm conversation if it’s just the two of us.
Iruma lowered the letter as he finished reading it aloud, a tense, expectant frown tugging on the corners of his lips. “So, what do you think…?”
“Suspicious,” Asmodeus and Clara answered in tandem.
“Didn’t you just mention earlier,” Asmodeus continued, “that Amy-senpai was arrested following his actions during the Battler Party? Doesn’t the fact that he was able to send you a letter of this nature suggest that he’s an escaped criminal?!”
“Devi suspicious!” Clara added.
“You’re far more forgiving than other demons, Iruma-sama, and I do admire the limitlessness of your mercy and grace, but it would be absurd to meet privately with someone who attempted to destroy the school and kill who-knows-how-many of its students!”
“Super duper devi suspicious!”
“And that’s to say nothing of the fact that he stole the firework shell - your brilliant invention - to further his fiendish schemes! There is no doubt in my mind that the only appropriate course of action is to notify the chairdemon at once and stay far, far away from the eastern forest until this matter has been well and thoroughly settled!”
“Super duper mega ultra extra devi-devi suspicious!”
Asmodeus grabbed the collar of Clara’s shirt as she danced in circles around them and planted her at his side. “Will you please close your mouth.”
Iruma gave a faint, uneasy laugh at their assessment. The letter, handed to him earlier in the day by a student from another class who said that they had been asked by someone else to deliver it, had been weighing heavily on his mind all throughout the afternoon, and just as soon as classes had ended for the day, he had asked his two closest friends to join him in Royal One’s indoor garden so that he could explain the situation to them - which had in turn necessitated finally going into detail about what had happened on the first night of the Battler Party.
It was a story that Iruma had long felt unable to tell, one he was glad neither Asmodeus nor Clara had ever asked him to tell. It was a story he’d never quite come to grips with, a Kiriwo he’d never been able to reconcile against the kind, gentle senpai whose benevolent ideals had drawn him in.
He’d always been so convinced that there was something more to it, something beyond Kiriwo’s self-professed passion for sowing despair. And the letter felt, at last, like an invitation to find out just what that something was.
“That night,” Iruma began, his gaze entreating and steadfast, “I used up all my mana and lost consciousness in midair. I should have fallen, and with everyone so distracted by the fireworks, I probably should have died - but someone saved me, and there was nobody else there who could have done it but Kiriwo-senpai.” The letter crumpled as his fingers tightened on its edges. “But that’s weird, isn’t it? If all he wanted was to see everyone’s unhappy faces, why didn’t he just let me fall?
“I am curious about what Senpai wants to talk about,” Iruma continued, “but more than that, I want to ask him about what happened that night, about why he saved me, and this might be my only chance to do that. But,” his shoulders wilted, worry pinching his brow, “I know that going alone would be reckless, and if I ask you two to come along then he might not be willing to talk to me when we get there… I don’t know what I should do.”
Clara’s hand darted up over her head and swung to and fro. “Hey, hey! What if you bring us with you!”
Exasperated, Asmodeus smacked down the waving hand. “If you’re not able to follow the conversation, could you at least spare us your tedious attempts to participate in it? The whole problem is that Iruma-sama was asked specifically to go alone!”
“I know that! Jeez!” she pouted. “But Kiriyan-senpai only asked him to go alone! He didn’t say Iruma-chi couldn’t bring anyone with him!”
“What kind of nonsense–”
Iruma, though, took earnest interest in the suggestion. “Clara,” he said, “do you have some kind of idea…?”
The discussion in Royal One had taken little of the hour that Kiriwo’s letter had promised he would wait and the forest that bordered Babyls’s eastern perimeter wasn’t far, but a keen sense of anticipation, or perhaps of apprehension, moved Iruma’s feet just a bit faster than his usual pace, Asmodeus and Clara following closely behind. As they arrived at the forest’s edge, the late afternoon sun casting their long shadows through the trees, he slowed, stopped, and turned to face the other two.
“I’ll go by myself from here,” he said with a nod, a smile, and Asmodeus straightened his posture and laid a hand against his chest.
“Understood, Iruma-sama. Then, allow me to confirm our plans one final time. If you feel at all uncomfortable for any reason at any point,” he gestured to Iruma, “you say…?”
“S-‘So, about the MagiApp Battler!’” he answered. “And then you and Clara will come and interrupt while pretending to have been looking for me.”
“That’s exactly correct, as expected,” Asmodeus replied with a nod of approval, and he turned his gaze on Clara. “And if we hear Iruma-sama say, ‘Anyway, I have a lot of homework to get done,’ then how are we to interpret it?”
Clara’s hand shot up into the air. “Ooh, I know! Pick me, pick me!”
“I’m literally asking you.”
“Complaining about homework means that Iruma-chi feels like it might be getting dangerous! Azz-Azz goes and checks on him! Meanwhile! Clara calls someone and obtains the imitation!”
“Explains the situation,” Asmodeus corrected, and he heaved a sigh. “As long as you get the gist of it, I suppose…”
So saying, he took his hellphone into his hand and tapped at its buttons, and in the next moment, and Iruma’s rang in his pocket. He brought it out just long enough to answer the call before returning it to its place.
“Okay,” he said, patting his side to make sure the phone was situated well before looking up to Asmodeus, who put his own to his ear as Clara crawled up his back and perched on his shoulders. “You can hear me okay, right? Not too muffled?”
“Perfectly! This amount of obstruction is hardly enough to prevent me from attending your every word!”
With an awkward laugh and a gesture to the forest behind him, Iruma gave a brief nod and took a step towards the trees. “All right, I’m gonna get going, then.”
“Best of luck, Iruma-sama. Please don’t forget that you have us by your side, and don’t hesitate to call for us for any reason.”
“And don’t forget to bring back souvenirs, too!” Clara added, waving her arms in farewell from either side of Asmodeus’s head, and Iruma laughed once more, more genuinely. He returned the wave and, with the so very familiar sound of his friends’ squabbling trailing behind him, started through the underbrush and into the woods.
As Iruma pushed aside foliage and delved deeper into the forest, he took in a long, deep breath, released it slowly, and carefully collected his thoughts. It was hard to remember the mellow and harmless Kiriwo to whom he’d felt such kinship and not think that such extensive precautions were unwarranted. It was hard to remember that that same Kiriwo had worked for years towards the violent destruction of Babyls. It was hard to believe that that same Kiriwo had nearly killed Asmodeus and Clara and everyone else gathered at the plaza that night.
“Geh.”
“Wah–!”
Iruma stumbled both from his thoughts and his gait as the toe of his shoe snagged on something sprawled across the ground: something large, person-shaped, and half buried in a shrub. And as the something extricated itself from the tangle of branches and maneuvered itself up onto its knees, Iruma quickly recognized the face that appeared.
“K-Kiriwo-senpai! What happened? Are you okay?!”
“Oh, Iruma-kun!” Kiriwo greeted, his pale features brightening. “I’m fine, I’m fine. I just tripped, is all. And since I was all tuckered out from the trip over, I thought I might as well rest for a bit.”
“I see… Inside a bush, though…?” Iruma offered a hand, pulling the other up onto his feet when it was accepted, but Kiriwo didn’t release his grasp even after he was properly upright. A moment passed, and then another, and Iruma inclined his head to a side. “Senpai…?”
“Oh! Sorry ‘bout that!” Kiriwo smiled as he let go of Iruma’s hand. “I got distracted thinkin’ about how much more grown-up you’re looking now. It sure has been a while, hasn’t it?”
Iruma couldn’t help but return the smile. “It really has,” he agreed. With a jolt, though, he suddenly remembered his circumstances and, reigning in his nostalgia with small shake of his head, summoned the very sternest tone he could manage, “Um, so, to tell you the truth, I really seriously considered not coming. Actually… I really seriously considered just giving the letter to Grandpa or Kalego-sensei and letting them handle it.”
If the confession phased Kiriwo at all, he made no indication if it, his serene smile still painted on his lips. “I think that’d’ve been pretty reasonable, what with what all I did. So, what made you change your mind, then?”
“I, um…” Iruma took a breath, squared his shoulders. “I wanted to ask you a question, Kiriwo-senpai. But first, will you tell me what you called me out here for?”
“A question for me?” Kiriwo repeated as he laid a hand against his cheek. “Now you got me all curious. But sure, I’ll go first.” He lowered his hand, folded his arms behind his back, and began, “Well, you remember back when I showed you the MagiApp Battler’s secret storage room? We talked about my dream of levelin’ the playing field between low- and high-ranked demons, and you said it sounded wonderful.”
Iruma nodded, “I remember.”
“Y’see, I’ve been working real hard at turning that dream into a reality, and it’d be just perfect if I had you on board. And when I thought back on it, I realized I never actually heard ya say that you didn’t approve of my vision, so I thought maybe, just maybe it’d be worth askin’.”
So obvious was his answer and so well should Kiriwo have already known it that for several moments Iruma was lost for the words to respond. But perhaps that uneasy confusion was exactly what Kiriwo had hoped to elicit - he was a demon, after all.
Iruma took a breath.
“I guess you’re right. I never actually said it clearly,” he finally replied. “So let me say it now: If your vision of a ‘level playing field’ was one where everyone could be treated fairly and live happily regardless of their ranks, then I’d be proud to support you. But,” he tucked down his chin, “that’s not what you mean, is it?”
Kiriwo hummed, his expression never shifting. “If I say it’s not, then will you think of me as an enemy?”
“…What about you, Senpai?” Iruma countered. “If I refuse to support your dream, does that make me your enemy?”
“Well, sure,” Kiriwo said with a shrug, nonchalant. “If you’re going to get in my way, then we can’t possibly be anything but enemies, right?”
“Then, why did you catch me back during the Battler Party? I got in your way, didn’t I? I ruined the plan that you spent years preparing. If that made us enemies, then why didn’t you let me fall while I was unconscious?”
At this, Kiriwo’s features finally changed, first to surprise and then to confusion and contemplation. “Huh… Now that you mention it, why did I do that?” he wondered. “If I’d just put a few barriers up around where you were falling, no one would’ve been able to catch you, and then for years to come that whole bright and cheery little tradition would’ve been remembered as the time the chairdemon’s grandson fell to his gruesome death. Wow…”
The utter fascination with which he considered the possibility tied a knot in Iruma’s chest, and that knot pulled just a bit tighter as Kiriwo clapped his hands together, triumphant. “Aha, I know what it was! Say, Iruma-kun,” once more he was smiling, lips parting and fangs revealed, “there’s something new I learned to do with my bloodline ability recently. I think I can answer your question a little better if I show it to you, so d’ya mind takin’ a look-see?”
“Huh?” Iruma blinked, disarmed by the sudden change of subject. “Oh, um… Sure, I guess…?”
“Much obliged.” He raised his hand, his eyes trained on his fingers pulled them into his palm and flexed them out again. “My bloodline ability,” he said, “lets me make barriers anywhere I envision one, y’know? And I’ve always kinda thought of ‘em like walls and avoided makin’ them run into stuff, but then I started wondering: What would happen if I made a barrier that overlapped with somethin’ else? And wouldn’cha know it, even if there’s something in the way, the barrier goes riiight where I want it.”
Blue-green eyes flicked up, and at once Iruma was seized completely, almost dizzyingly, by the compulsion to get away. Within the next second, his heel slid backwards, his body began to turn, his lips parted to call out to Asmodeus and Clara,
and something thumped down into the grass beside his left foot.
“Anyway, gettin’ back to your question, Iruma-kun. Now that I think about it, I’m sure the reason I couldn’t let you die back then…”
The shrill alarm screaming in his head dulled to a whisper under the drum of his heartbeat hammering in his ears, his body all at once paralyzed and his breath like sand in his throat. Upon the ground lay his arm, meat and muscle and bone all exposed by the almost surgically precise laceration that had separated it from the rest of him just a bit above his elbow. In perfect time with the thud, thud, thud that thundered in his skull, his upper arm disgorged spout after spout of dark, viscous crimson that pooled thickly in midair, spilled over the edge of an unseen surface, and splashed the ground in rivulets.
Iruma’s stomach wrung itself into knots, his head spun, and as he slowly, breathlessly, shakily lowered himself to the ground to avoid outright collapsing there, Kiriwo grabbed him beneath his chin, squeezed his jaw between a clawed thumb and forefinger, and beheld his handiwork with utter delight.
“…was because I wanted you to show me this face.”