Chapter Text
If he were being honest, Asta couldn't remember his life before awakening as a lesser demon. He knew he was a human before, but that was about it, and it wasn't like he cared much to find out who he used to be or the life he used to have.
His previous life had passed, and all he could do now was learn to survive in this world he knew to be Hell… besides, if he ended up here, that meant he probably did some awful, unforgivable things in the past that he would rather not remember.
It wasn't like it mattered now, anyway, as he was being prepared by other souls bound to servitude to become their King.
As for all the awful things Hell had to offer, its rules felt like they were written to favor him.
Those who are proven weaker than oneself shall bow down and serve.
And as someone with a restless nature and infinite time to grow stronger, Asta built a path for himself to reach the top seat, although Lucifero stepped down before even facing him in battle, excusing himself on the fact that he had grown bored of ruling things and had thought of getting a successor anyway.
Asta didn't quite get it, but the wind whispered to his ear not to question it and just take the chance. And despite how badly he wanted to test himself against the soon-to-be-retired demon king, he decided to listen.
Because the thing about Asta is that he always followed what his soul –or whatever a demon's equivalent of one was– desired, but whenever the wind spoke to him, with a soft voice only he could hear, Asta couldn't find it in himself to say no.
As he shifted uncomfortably in the dark, regal clothes tailored for him, he thought of the first time he'd heard the wind's voice.
The boy opened his eyes to a world covered in red.
The sky, the trees, and the water he soon realized was about to swallow him. Confused and not unaware, he kicked and flailed his arms around, splashing the water as he became concious of how hot it felt, as if it were boiling. The first emotion he experienced was fear, as his body sank into boiling red waters and his lungs filled with the hot liquid.
He experienced desperation next, closing his eyes shut as he felt those burning as well.
Just what in the world was happening?!
‘You need to calm down.’
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, and the boy was so surprised he opened his eyes to look around for the source, only to feel the burning water in them instead.
‘The river isn't deep enough to drown you. Just calm down, try to get on your feet.’
That's easy to say when you're just a disembodied voice!!! The boy tried to speak and ended up gulping even more boiling water instead, but in his struggle, he eventually managed to plant his feet at the bottom and push himself out, breathing heavily, only to realize even air could burn his lungs in this place.
‘There. It wasn't that hard, was it, Asta?’
The boy kept trying to catch his breath as he looked around, trying to find whoever was talking to him, eventually answering with another question.
“Are you… the wind?”
There was silence for a bit, but then he felt a light, cool breeze that felt like heaven against his burning skin.
‘You can call me that, if you want.’
“And you called me Asta, just now. Is that my name?”
‘If you want it to be.’
From the moment he emerged from that lake, Asta found himself fighting to survive.
As it turned out, he wasn’t all alone in this burning landscape after all. Besides the voice of the wind, he could hear the laments of other souls around him.
“What even is this place?!” Asta yelled as he punched down another ghoulish creature that tried to get hold of him.
‘Hell.’ The wind answered. ‘The circle for the wrathful, to be precise.’
“And what exactly am I doing here? I don’t feel particularly angry!” Asta said as he tried to shake off some other creature that had gotten hold of him underwater. “These things are annoying me, though!”
The wind chuckled and Asta laughed out loud as he heard it, feeling a kind of warmth in his chest that was entirely different from that of the burning waters he remained stuck in.
“You're ready, Lord Asta.” The imp that remained by his side spoke, not daring to look up at him.
“Just Asta is fine, Liebe, please.” Asta almost begged, not feeling the lord title. The imp only nodded in agreement and returned to Asta’s shadow, from which Lucifero had created him only a few days ago.
Finally on his own, Asta moved slowly and stiffly as he tried to appreciate his new clothes: the golden embroidery, the glistening rubies sewn into the fabric in a pattern that he didn't quite comprehend but found stunning nonetheless, the long black cape that was undoubtedly fit for a king.
He took a deep breath.
Was this really something demons could make? Weren't they all just meant to be creatures born to destroy?
This outfit was too intricate and way too fancy for someone like him. Wearing it made him feel stiff and heavy despite how light and soft the fabric was.
“Is it really okay for me to wear this…?” Asta said as he looked at his reflection, but Liebe didn't show up again to answer, and the wind didn't make an appearance either.
Asta gripped his gloved hands; the wind had been absent since preparations for his coronation began, and he'd had to endure all the rituals Lucifero prepared on his own.
“Hey, wind, are you there?” Asta asked, but there was no answer. “I think… I'm scared.” He sighed, turning his back to the mirror. “What if… after all this, I’m no longer myself?”
The demon frowned as he looked at the stone floor. His body began to show changes during the rituals; half of his hair had become pitch black, his horns had grown bigger, and his right arm was now covered in dark scales that had already begun to crawl their way up his shoulder.
Asta gripped his right arm.
Would he end up looking the same as Lucifero? Would he… begin to see things the same way as he did?
Asta gulped. For what little time he’d known Lucifero, he could already tell he didn’t like the older demon.
The way he stalked from the shadows and walked without making a sound, how he always sounded detached even as he spoke of the countless extraordinary worlds Hell connected to, how easy it was for him to crush other demons out of boredom .
As a demon, wickedness was meant to be part of his nature, but he didn’t find joy in murder and violence the way his peers seemed to.
“It’s time,” Speaking of the devil, it slid out of the shadows. “You remember the procedure, yes?”
“Yeah,” Asta didn’t like Lucifero. Not one bit.
How he sounded so detached, as if he wasn’t about to step down from his throne in front of every demon he’s once commanded.
As if being King truly meant nothing to him.
In an attempt to distract himself from this entire thing, Asta had counted every step it took to get to the balcony where the ceremony would happen.
To his dismay, two hundred and forty-three steps did nothing to help him feel any better.
At last, the elder demon moved to the side, and Asta could witness the hordes of hell lined up before him, weapons at the ready as if marching to war. He had to admit it was impressive, a little intimidating even, but also just… too much. In a way, Asta felt overwhelmed, he wouldn’t have gone along with it if the wind hadn’t insisted on it.
Tired of seeing his successor lost in thought, Lucifero cleared his throat and gestured with his hand, inviting Asta to move forward and claim his new title in front of those beneath them.
Asta shifted uncomfortably and gulped. All this formality just didn't sit well with him, but Lucifero insisted, pushing him forward towards the balcony so that the young demon was in full view of every soul present.
His throat felt dry and his right hand wouldn’t stop shaking. The one thing he would ever thank Lucifero for was not forcing him to give any sort of speech.
“Our leader,” Lucifero declared firmly as he stood by Asta’s side, removing his own crown and making a show of placing it on Asta's head. “May he reign eternally,” the former king continued as he cut his own chest open with his sharp, elongated nails, pulling out one of his blackened hearts and bowing down, offering it to Asta.
The smaller demon didn’t hesitate to take it with one hand and hold it above him, tilting his head up and opening his mouth inhumanly wide to engulf it whole. Lucifero had explained earlier that this would transfer the king’s authority to him, but he didn’t feel different at all.
Maybe that was a good thing.
“As the new Demon King!” Lucifero finished his speech and bowed to him, and then the rest followed.
Asta then realized that he desperately wanted to flee.
He felt so out of place taking this position, and he couldn’t shake the feeling of forlornness that was taking over. Asta struggled to keep his composure, where was the damned wind when he needed it? This was all happening in its name, and the dastard dared to be absent and make him go through everything by himself!
‘I’m right here.’
“You better be,” Asta whispered, angling his head to keep Lucifero from noticing his smile. The wind’s voice immediately put him at ease, and he was glad that even after consuming one of Lucifero’s hearts, he could still… feel something.
‘But I can’t stay, you’re not the only one with an important event to attend today.’
“What, are you whispering to someone else’s ears today?” Asta jokes, his words and his laughter didn’t escape Lucifero this time, but the elder demon didn’t seem to mind.
‘I am to get married today, Asta. To a human prince.’
“Don’t play with me now, what does that even mean?”
That was ridiculous. The wind was a force of nature; why would it have to marry a human? How would that even work? Would…
Would he never get to hear its voice again if that happened?
‘I’m sorry, Asta. I’m here to bid you farewell.’
Suddenly, Asta felt overcome by grief over a loss he wasn’t even sure would occur.
For all he knew, the wind would still be there by his side as it had been since the beginning, but to think that it could somehow become someone else’s, that its soft voice would be heard by others, drove the newly crowned demon king’s soul into disarray.
He couldn’t let them take it from him. And although he didn’t fully get why, an echo on the back of his mind demanded that he didn’t allow it to happen again.
“Then I’ll cross to the human realm and find you.”
The wind didn’t respond.
“I will find you.”
Asta voiced before his shadow expanded all around him in shades of red and black.
He had no idea of what he was doing, but his wish was to reach the human realm, and so his newly acquired authority allowed it to happen.
A large smile formed on Lucifero’s face at the sight of the darkness spreading and reshaping itself into an odd structure. He’d been stuck in his position of king for ages, forced to do nothing but watch over hell and the other realms alike as he was unable to break into other worlds due to gate’s curse, and incapable of finding a single demon he could spar with for entertainment.
After eons of ruling, after all other primal demons succumbed and banished without a trace, Lucifero found himself prey to the illness only eternal beings could acquire: boredom.
It was such boredom that led Lucifero to claim Asta’s soul when the human had been murdered, dragging him to hell to observe how a hero's soul evolved into a fully fledged demon, a being capable of facing him.
But he knew when Asta stepped into his throne room that the young demon wouldn’t stand a chance against him in his current state and had been disappointed that his experiment had failed, yet he found it in himself to be amused when a cold breeze and a colder voice reached him before he even thought of raising his hand against Asta.
‘If you make him king, I know he’ll be able to open the gates.’
The wind had spoken back then, except Lucifero was ancient enough to know the forces of nature had no such voices.
‘Asta will find his way back to me, even if you sealed his memories away, because he loves me and I love him.’
Of course, Lucifero knew of Asta’s lover, and it didn’t take much for him to recognize this abnormality as ancient elven magic.
‘So don’t get between us, and you’ll find a cure for your boredom.’
What moved Asta in this moment, even if he himself didn’t know it, was his love for the one he’d so far only acknowledged as wind, but whose true name he’d called lovingly in his previous life.
“You were right, little elf prince” Lucifero almost didn’t recognize his own laughter as Asta’s darkness continued to expand and warp, columns resembling piled-up corpses forming and connecting to create the arcs of Hell’s doors. “This is becoming quite the spectacle.”
Asta could only call it instinct, how he knew to summon the demon-dweller sword when he turned towards the doors of hell, pointing at it and slowly moving the sword downward before simply pushing past them, finding wind the only thing on his mind as he stepped into the darkness.
Lucifero could only stare, his little experiment had given him so much more than he could’ve asked for, his remaining hearts beating like he hadn't felt them in eons at the prospect of leading an invasion to another realm. He turned to the hordes, who didn’t quite understand what had happened or why their new king hadn’t dignified them by giving them even a single word.
Most of them were too young, only a few centuries old at best, to understand the blessing that had just been bestowed upon them, that the doors of hell were being opened for the first time in millennia.
This didn’t matter to the former king; the stage had been set, and it was nothing short of perfect.
“Our king has opened the gates,” He spoke, raising his elongated arms, baring his sharp teeth with a grin, his wings fully expanding as if demanding everyone’s attention. “Our invasion of the other realms begins at last!”
As Lucifero sped through the gates, leading the hordes of hell, he tried to imagine the face the first human king would make if he found out his seal on hell’s gate had finally been broken, and the horrified expression he pictured did nothing but make him laugh.
Darkness engulfed him swiftly, and the next time Asta took a step, he did so over the greenest grass he’d ever witnessed, finding himself surrounded by trees that weren’t burning but blooming, the harmonious chirping of birds instead of tortured screams.
But he had no time to admire the change of scenery or the way his own body had morphed upon crossing the door. The regal attire he found to be so uncomfortable had been tarnished and replaced by heavy, black armor that covered his entire body, his head adorned by two sets of elongated, black horns. Sharp red claws protruded from his hands and inflicted death upon every tree he even so much as scratched with them.
Asta didn’t know where to go until the breeze carried sound towards him, music and many different voices, but none was the voice he wanted to hear most.
He took that as a sign of the wind calling for him to follow, though, and so he did, until he found himself walking out of the forest and into a well-kept garden adorned for a celebration.
The music stopped abruptly once Asta walked into the garden, colorful flowers slowly withering away as people stood and stepped away from his path, disgusted, then horrified as his darkness spread and crawled up the bodies of those who didn’t stay far enough.
Their screams didn’t reach Asta’s ears, however.
“ Wind ?”
Asta moved forward, scaring away fae and humans alike with every step he took towards the one person that hadn’t so much as acknowledged his presence.
“It’s you, isn’t it?”
The newly crowned demon king was so fixated on reaching the figure in front of him that he hadn't realized how the world warped around him, nor the demons that started to make their way out of the forest’s shadows, ready to feast.
“Hey, look at me! I know it's you, wind !”
But wind remained unbothered, giving their back to Asta like he wasn’t even there, the only movement that of the veil they wore swaying with the breeze.
He stood still for a moment, fearing that wind couldn’t hear him. That even if they turned around, he wouldn’t be able to see him.
“I’m here to see you, please stop ignoring me,”
If he reached out, would he even be able to grab them, or would he go through his body like a ghost?
“Please, just look at me, Yuno– !” Asta’s clawed hand grabbed Yuno’s, pulling the elf towards him.
Tears welled up as the weight of pronouncing that name settled in him, making his hearts beat faster and his mind become a complete mess of memories past and present that kept turning and reshaping until they became somewhat coherent.
“How long do you think I’ve been waiting to hear you call my name?” equally teary eyes finally meet his, golden like Asta has never seen before, but that he fondly remembers at the same time.
His mind is still trying to piece it all together, but when Yuno embraces and kisses him, everything that isn't the two of them becomes blurry to the demon king.