Work Text:
Kalego didn't need Cerberus's hellhound instincts to sense trouble coming. By some twisted humor of the universe, trouble seemed to be smelling him. Hearing Iruma's voice at that hour, outside of the class schedule he taught the Misfits, was a clear and inescapable sign that trouble had found him. Kalego sighed and looked up from the paperwork he was filling out. These were things he could have worked on right in the Staff Room, but out of sheer perfectionism, he wanted to bring them there pre-compiled so he could get on with the next thing. The demon saw the sadly familiar ahoge appearing at one of the windows of the room he was in, one of the many unused rooms within Royal One. Kalego was sure the Misfits were having class with Momonoki at that hour, so there was no point in Iruma pacing around.
"If he's trying to skip class, I'll send him to the principal's office with a single kick and have him suspended once," the teacher mused, grinning, anticipating Sullivan and Opera's reaction when he brought in their beloved student guilty of skipping class. Kalego stood up and approached the window. As he opened it, he heard Iruma talking to himself in a low voice. "Thank you so much, it's just... oh! Thanks, I hadn't seen that! Ahah, sorry..."
Kalego saw no one at Iruma's side. His usual lackeys, Asmodeus and Clara, were nowhere to be found. The strange absence of the two students set off alarm bells in Kalego's mind. They were always by Iruma's side, especially when trouble was brewing. Their absence could mean that the mischief Iruma was about to pull was too much for them, or that he hadn't informed them of his intentions. Kalego found the first hypothesis unlikely, given that Asmodeus and Clara seemed to be guaranteed lifelong seats at Iruma's side.
‘I'll worry about his mental health later. Now I have to catch him red-handed’ Kalego thought, opening the window. However, Iruma seemed to have disappeared. Kalego looked out, but neither saw him nor heard him walk. "It doesn't matter" the teacher said to himself, determined not to let the matter end there. He closed the window and returned to his desk, ready to write a suspension notice. Filling it out gave him, to be honest, a bit of satisfaction. It would make that Chair-demon pain in the ass look bad, humiliate Opera, and get rid of Iruma for the duration of his suspension. In short, three birds with one stone. Kalego let out a satisfied sigh and returned to his work.
After a few minutes, he heard footsteps behind the door, along with an all-too-familiar voice. Iruma opened the door to the room behind him, still talking to himself. He entered the room and closed the door behind him. "Uh?" Kalego heard him mutter, turning to the boy. "Ali-san? I can't hear you anymore, where are you? Ali-san? Ali-san?"
Kalego stood up and stalked toward Iruma. "There's no “Ali-san” here. You, on the other hand, are in big trouble" he declared, his voice cruelly serious. Iruma jolted and looked up at his chest. "K-Kalego-sensei?! What are you doing here?" the blue haired boy exclaimed, confused. Kalego crossed his arms over his chest and replied, annoyed, "That's what I should be asking you. Why aren't you in Momonoki-sensei's class?"
Iruma broke out in a cold sweat. "It’s- That's what I was going to do, I'm sorry..." he replied humbly, lowering his gaze and scratching the back of his neck with his right hand, as he did whenever he felt embarrassed or nervous. Kalego tilted his head slightly. Now that he looked at Iruma more closely, it seemed to him that something was wrong. He scanned the embarrassed student and found several clues: Iruma's hair was a bit messy, with dead leaves peeking through here and there; small scratches adorned his cheeks, as if he'd been playing among twigs; a much deeper scratch appeared above the collar of his school uniform, adorning it with a disturbing thread of red blood leaking from the wound; the school uniform itself was disarrayed and stained with dirt in several places, with two particularly damaged areas near the student's knees.
"Why aren't you in class yet, then?" Kalego asked inquisitively, moving a little closer to the boy. "I, uhm, got lost..." he replied, then chuckled awkwardly. Kalego's suspicion grew stronger. He walked away toward the door with an unusually heavy step, opened the door with his left hand, and closed it with a bang. Iruma flinched, turning sharply toward the door. After a few moments, he sighed in relief. "Phew, he's gone" Iruma muttered.
Kalego's eyes saw red for a long moment.
The demon approached the student again, remaining silent. Iruma began to turn his head left and right, looking confused. "I have the feeling that... someone else's there?" he asked, looking everywhere but in Kalego's direction. The teacher took a deep breath, then asked, "Iruma. Where are you looking?"
The blue haired boy flinched, then finally looked in his direction. The look of surprise on his face would have been almost comical if Kalego hadn't understood. "Kalego-sensei, when did you get back?" the young student asked. Kalego reached out to Iruma and grabbed him by the shoulders. Not a hard or violent grip. But one that symbolized his tangible presence there with him. Iruma flinched again, but remained still. Kalego looked him straight in the face with a serious expression and asked, "Iruma... you can't see, can you?”
Under his hands, Kalego could feel Iruma freeze. The young student looked around, as if searching for an escape route. "Iruma" the demon insisted. "Don't take me for a fool, I'm your homeroom teacher. You think I wouldn't notice that you didn't see me leave the room? I'm not scolding you. Tell me everything, from the beginning to the end. What the hell happened to you to get you into this condition?"
Iruma lowered his head, his gaze fixed on the floor. "I... I helped a janitor" he replied cryptically. Kalego remained silent, waiting for the boy to continue. Iruma gulped and after a few seconds of silence continued, "I do it sometimes, and it doesn't bother me at all. The janitors at Babyls are all so kind and helpful, so I try to lighten their load wherever I can. And... one janitor has had vision problems for a while, and one thing led to another... he asked me a favor"
Kalego didn't like the direction the explanation was going. "What favor did he ask of you, Iruma?" he asked sternly. Iruma trembled a little at the teacher's harsh tone and tried to justify it. "Well, he said he just needed it to finish his shift today. There are about four hours left until the end of class, but the janitors usually stay a bit longer to clean and tidy up, so maybe it'll be six hours? But it's not a problem, really! I can take notes in class and answer questions. At most, live demonstrations will be a bit of a problem, but-"
Kalego sighed and asked again, "Iruma. What favor did he ask of you?"
The blue-haired boy sped up, nervous. "It's really a small thing, I swear! And he asked me please, so I couldn't-" Kalego tightened his grip on the boy's shoulders slightly. "Iruma. What. did. he. ask?" he repeated, enunciating his words carefully. Iruma's lips closed into a crooked line. After a few moments, he replied, in a low, almost inaudible voice, "He asked me if he could use my sight until the end of his shift. He cast a spell as soon as I agreed”
Kalego barely held back a curse from his lips. He gritted his teeth in anger, then forced himself to calm down and exhaled slowly. "Follow me, I need to treat you" he stated, his voice less harsh than usual. He held Iruma by the left shoulder and guided him toward the chair he had been sitting in earlier. The papers didn't matter to him at the moment; he had a more pressing emergency.
"Iruma, no matter how much of a pushover you are, you can't do these things. No, not even in Babyls" he stated, as Iruma sat against the backrest, which was too large for him. Kalego watched him test the chair's backrest with his fingers, from the outside to the inside, then move back until the chair touched the backrest. Then he placed his hands in his lap. The sight made Kalego's stomach churn.
"Do you know where that janitor is now? I'll have him summoned immediately" he said, ready to dish out a gruesome education to someone who had harmed a student for personal gain. Iruma shook his head and replied, "No, but he said he only needed my eyesight to finish his shift today. He said my sight will return on its own as soon as he's finished work, and that he will be eternally grateful to me for this favor"
Kalego kicked the leg of the desk and exclaimed, furious, "As if I'd believe that!" Iruma jolted at the sudden noise so close by. He shrugged, then clenched his fists even more. "I know maybe what I did was wrong, but..." he began to say, but Kalego interrupted him with a curt, "Take out the 'maybe,' idiot". Iruma gulped and continued, raising the volume of his voice. "The janitors, they're doing their best to keep the school in order, on behalf of the students, and it's only a temporary inconvenience! Please don't tell the other teachers!"
Kalego cupped his face in his left hand and exclaimed, "For Derkila’s sake! It's their job, Iruma! They're paid to take care of Babyls, and they do it with pride! In what bizarre alternate reality would the students be doing that?!" Iruma remained silent, unable to argue with that point. Kalego removed his hand from his face and continued, "What I'm saying is that it's okay to help the janitors occasionally, but don't commit such a foolish act. If someone asked you for an arm, would you give it to them? Or your wings? Or your legs? Just because they said "please"? What in the actual hell, Iruma! Sight is considered one of the most important senses of perception, along with hearing. It's not something you can just lend out. And do you know why?"
Kalego bent down to Iruma's height. He touched his forehead with the index finger of his left hand and said, in a serious voice, "A demon that can't see is vulnerable. Weak. And the Netherworld is not a world that is kind to the weak"
Iruma's eyes filled with unshed tears. A lump formed in his throat that he tried to swallow. "I understand now, Kalego-sensei… I-I’m so sorry…" he muttered, dejected. Kalego straightened his back and snapped his fingers, causing another chair with a backrest to appear out of nowhere. He placed it in front of Iruma and sat down. "I can only assume that you sustained these scratches because you couldn't find your way around Royal One. That's why you got lost, right?" he asked, only to receive a weak nod.
Kalego summoned a first aid kit and placed it on the desk. "Now stay still, I'll treat you" he stated, while taking out some small bandages and disinfectant from the first aid kit. Iruma murmured a thank you and let him do it. With unexpected calm and patience, Kalego began to disinfect the scratches on Iruma's cheeks, who remained still and let him do it. The long tweezers contained a cotton ball soaked in disinfectant, which he passed and tickled with unexpected delicacy and great care over the young human's skin.
The teacher fixed his hair with a quick stroke to remove any broken leaves and twigs that might still be stuck in the blue locks. "What did you hit to get this cut on your neck?" the teacher asked, lowering her right hand from the boy's hair to his neck. Iruma jumped up when he felt the demon's fingertips against his skin. He let out a small cry and covered the wound with both hands.
“It's nothing, really! I can handle it myself. Thank you so much for what you did!" Kalego tilted his head slightly, taken aback by this reaction. "Sit down immediately, Iruma" he ordered in a firm voice. The human boy obeyed, but he seemed unusually tense over what looked like a slightly deeper scratch. Kalego soaked up the blood with cotton balls, which he quickly discarded, then disinfected the wound and finally covered it with a square plaster. He certainly noticed a deliciously inviting odor during this operation, but his concentration on the student's health overrode his demon instincts.
Iruma tensed like a violin string, something Kalego found truly bizarre. Usually, young demons fidgeted and complained, seeing the dressings given by adults as a kind of affront to their honor or whatever bizarre idea was swirling around in their heads. In a normal situation, he would have put aside his eccentricity with the classic and well-deserved fear that the students had for him, but the sentence Iruma uttered changed the game completely.
"Kalego-sensei, you're really good at this" Kalego lifted his head from Iruma's legs, where he had rolled up his pants to check his knees. Luckily, there were no scratches on the skin, so he unrolled them to return them to their original state. "Good at what?" he asked, taken aback. "Looking after students. Generous and kind, even if you're a teacher" The demon wanted to sigh, but held back.
"Generous and kind? You're the only one who thinks that. It's normal for a teacher to care about the students. Not spoil them, but straighten them out so they can graduate. You students are Babyls's treasure... even if you're a bunch of stupid brats" he replied calmly. Iruma smiled and ran his hand over the wound on his neck. "Don't touch it. You'll irritate the wound," Kalego scolded him, then stood up. With a spell, he revived the teapot he had been using to heat more water, and grabbed another cup to give to the young student. "I'm sorry, it's just..." Iruma said softly, smiling with his usual candor. "This is the second time someone's medicated me, I'm not used to it. It's... strange, but a good thing, I think"
Kalego handed the cup of boiling helltea to Iruma, but thought better of it just in time. The cup was hot; if the boy had grabbed it from underneath due to his temporary blindness, he would have burned his hands. He decided to place it on the desk, next to the papers. The ceramic against the wooden desk made a small sound, but it was audible enough to make Iruma turn his head in the direction of the sound.
"Second time?" the teacher repeated. Iruma nodded and, with his head turned to his left, began to feel the desk. "Yes, Opera-san treated my hands after the Execution Cannonball game. They were really so worried about those little scratches, so they treated and bandaged my hands before I could" the blue haired boy replied. Kalego wasn't very surprised by that answer. As Sullivan's Security Devil, it was only natural that they would also take care of their master's grandson. Probably, the teacher speculated, Sullivan had always been so apprehensive and overly attentive towards his only grandson that he had entrusted his care to his most trusted servant. 'Wait,' he thought, confused. 'So Iruma has always been at the Chair-demon's mansion? Why hasn't anyone ever mentioned it before? Opera-senpai has never mentioned having a child to look after in all these years'
The purple haired demon saw Iruma's left hand tentatively, yet with unusual confidence, move across the surface of the desk. With his fingertips, he tested the contents of the desk, touching the documents but not moving them. He advanced slowly, as if expecting to encounter an obstacle at any moment. His fingers were slightly splayed forward, moving with the same caution as a spider-like creature that had just finished building a web that had yet to solidify.
The boy's hand touched the back of the helltea cup. Then, having located it, Iruma closed his hand, moved it to the left of the cup, and slowly opened it again. His fingertips touched the warm surface of the cup first, followed by his fingers, which carefully circled it. Iruma then moved his other hand, which he brought with greater speed and confidence to the base of the cup. He grabbed it firmly and, careful not to burn himself, lifted it from the desk with both hands. Only then did he bring it under his nose, where he took a quick sniff before asking, "Oh, I've never tried this blend! May I ask what it tastes like, Kalego-sensei?"
The teacher felt his stomach boil before at the sight. His intuition told him something was seriously, dangerously off.
"You're used to it" he said. A statement, not a question, or an accusation, or a rebuke. Keeping his arms crossed over his chest, he waited for a reply, of any kind. Iruma turned to him and said, "I was- uh, let's say- well, I've been through this before? Ah ah"
The embarrassed laugh didn't distract Kalego from the thread he was following. 'Kidnappings?' he speculated. 'Blindfolded for a long time? Prolonged blackouts? No, Opera-senpai wouldn't let any of that happen to him'. There was a subtext Iruma kept avoiding, one that was becoming more and more obvious. The boy seemed to have sensed, because he rushed to add, "Ah, but I was never overly dangerous! The little bird was always chirping nearby!"
If that was supposed to be a reassurance, Kalego thought, it only further confused him. "What the hell are you talking about, Iruma? What do birds have to do with anything now?" the teacher asked, annoyed. The blue haired boy took a sip of helltea, then mused aloud. "Oh, aren't birds used? Then it's a little harder to explain... let's just say I've had the chance to sharpen my other senses for occasions when sight isn't the primary one"
Kalego began to seriously suspect Iruma had hit his head somewhere. He pondered his options, seeing no other way to get around the student's avoidance of the topic. "In any case, you can't show up for the remaining classes today. You'll stay here, where I can keep an eye on you" he declared, unperturbed by the student's feeble protest. He touched the tip of the boy's ahoge with a finger and added, "An eye for an eye, a fang for a fang. If you're so keen to cover up the scoundrel who did this to you, the least you can do is not make it obvious in front of the whole school by banging your face against every wall"
Iruma, his mouth slightly open to express his dissent, decided to give in for once, so he nodded. Kalego was satisfied with this small victory. "Good. You'll be excused, I'll write something about it. You finish that helltea, because you won't have six hours of games waiting for you". He smiled wickedly. "I was thinking of trying a new type of test in class, an oral one. Since you can't see, you can't do a written test" Iruma broke out in a cold sweat and tried in vain to correct his condition. "But I, actually, if I try hard, I can try to-" he said, but Kalego interrupted him with a snap of his fingers. "No excuses. We'll review the topics covered in this week's lessons. I trust you'll have studied the notes you took from my lectures diligently"
That, truly, was the worst part of being temporarily blind for Iruma.
…
Iruma, sadly at Kalego's sadism, didn't last until six hours. After the first hour of back-and-forth during the oral questioning, anyone could almost see smoke coming out of the poor student's ears. Kalego didn't let him rest out of pity, but because he saw him growing increasingly sleepy and tired. The teacher hypothesized that the lack of sunlight was messing up his circadian rhythm, or something very similar. Kalego confirmed that the blue haired boy was indeed asleep, then used a spell to lift him from his chair, lay him on a bench in the room, and cover him with a specially conjured blanket. He sighed softly, then took out his hellphone and dialed a number he would gladly avoid even knowing.
A knock came less than two minutes after the call ended. The door opened before Kalego could even move toward it. A redhead entered the room briskly, their feline tail stiff and cocked. "Who?" Opera asked, the emotionlessness in their voice made heavy by a gaze that was anything but emotionless. They came within a foot of him, an openly hostile aura surrounding them. Kalego had to restrain himself from assuming a defensive posture, because it wasn't him the cat demon's silent fury was directed at.
"I'll open an investigation into this, so I'll leave you with him. I need to update the Chair-demon and the rest of the staff. Take him home and give him a lecture the likes of which he'll remember until he comes of age" the purple haired demon replied. Opera immediately spotted the sleeping boy, and they reached him and knelt beside him. They examined him from top to bottom to ensure there were no more injuries than those they had been told over the hellphone call.
Kalego watched them, but a question rose in his throat. "What does 'The Birdie Chirped Nearby' suggest to you?" Opera looked at him as if he'd said he intended to give all the Misfits top marks for the rest of the semester. "Kalego-kun, I have no time for your bizarre riddles. I will guarantee Iruma-sama's safe return immediately. If his sight isn't restored by the time you stated, you will be held personally responsible. Find the culprit" they said adamantly. Kalego sighed and left without saying goodbye. He didn't want to shoulder anyone else's troubles, especially those who had Iruma as a gift.
That evening, the demon promised himself, he would plant new cacti in the pots he'd recently purchased for the occasion. He didn't want to work overtime.
THE END?
Sukima:
At the end of his shift, Babyls's chief of staff wanted only three things: to take off his uniform, say goodbye to his colleagues, and leave Babyls to go home, where his elderly wife would have a nice hot meal ready for him. Instead, he was summoned to the staff room by none other than the Watchdog.
"Thank you for your hard work today" Naberius Kalego greeted him. The old demon nodded and returned the greeting, surprised by the summons. The other teachers surrounded him, seemingly calm. But something was in the air, something ominous must have happened, he could feel it in his old bones. Kalego rose from his desk and handed him a file. The old janitor took the file in his hands and opened it, beginning to read the information inside.
"The janitor this file refers to is relieved indefinitely as of now. He does not need to come here to work starting tomorrow" Kalego declared, his voice cold and serious. The old demon blinked, shocked. It was a dismissal notice, one of his duties as Babyls's chief of staff, but he didn't understand the reason. "This colleague... has been a dear colleague of mine for many years. May I ask the reason for this?" he asked, trying to understand. The other teachers turned their full attention to him. The old demon felt a pressure unbearable for any other staff member. But he had served Babyls for a long time, and he proudly bore the burden and honor of being chief of staff and head janitor.
"Certainly" Kalego said. "You'll find it on the pages following the ones you're currently viewing; the report is exhaustive in that regard. This janitor deceived a student into temporarily using his sight for his own benefit. He damaged a Babyls treasure for personal gain, passing it off as a greater contribution to his role here. For this reason, he is no longer considered necessary for the management and maintenance of this school's facilities. You'll find the Chair-demon's official stamp on the last page"
The old head janitor felt his knees knock. There had been some reckless newcomers over the years, a common occurrence for demons. But no one had ever dared harm or even threaten to harm a student. Touching one of Babyls' treasures was one of the greatest affronts a demon could ever commit. Disgust made his knees stop knocking. The old demon lowered his head. "Acknowledged. I will act promptly. My colleagues deserve to know that they can no longer rely on a colleague they once considered worthy of respect. As Babyls' chief of staff, I am prepared to shoulder all responsibility for the disgrace that has been created"
"No need" Kalego declared. "Your job is to ensure that an unpleasant incident like the one that happened today doesn't happen again. Take care of the staff. You're dismissed". The old demon bowed his head more deeply than before, said goodbye, and left. In the teachers' room, work returned to normal, finishing the last things to do for the day. The matter seemed to have concluded there, so each demon returned to their own tasks.
Marbas approached the desk where Kalego sat with visible hesitation. He had always been fearful of the other teacher, and feared that anything he said to him would not improve that feeling at all. "I apologize, Kalego-sensei" said the black haired demon, clutching some papers in his hands. Kalego looked up at him, his gaze made more somber by his higher-than-usual left eyebrow. "Tell me, Marbas-sensei" he replied.
Marbas gulped and, gathering his courage, handed the papers to the other teacher in both hands and said, "I did some research on what you asked me, and I've compiled this short report. It's a small thing, but perhaps other teachers should be consulted on the matter, in the near future". Kalego took the papers and placed them on the desk in front of him. "Please, get to the point. The day has been too long already" he urged.
Marbas became more fluent in speaking, strengthened by all the research he had done on such short notice and with such short time. "I checked the meaning of the phrase you asked me about to us teachers, 'the little bird was chirping nearby'. Initially, I found no confirmation because I was literally looking for the meaning of the phrase. Perhaps Honor Student Iruma-kun lived in peripheral places of the Netherworld with customs other than the common ones, which is why he expressed himself in this way"
Marbas paused for a moment, then continued. "The phrase is a reference to a specific custom: when demons are sent into mines or caves in search of precious minerals, a bat or other small demonic beast in a cage is used as a measuring stick for safe areas. Protection spells don't always work, at least in environments not yet fully explored, such as those I included in the report. There are dangers of various kinds, all deadly, such as poisonous gases or fine dust that accumulate long before developing their lethal effects in the lungs. The demon miners continue to dig and search until the demonic beast emits cries. If it stops, it is imperative to halt the advance, if not the work in progress, and exit the site as quickly as possible. Miners tend to work for long periods of time in dimly lit places despite magical items or spells, so it is not surprising that they sharpen their other senses. You said that Iruma-kun seemed strangely accustomed to it, didn't you?"
Kalego couldn't believe his ears, so he decided to believe his eyes. He glanced at the papers and found the exact same information. "Why would the grandson of one of the Thirteen Crowns ever experience life in the mine fields? It doesn't make sense" he blurted out in disbelief. Marbas took a step back, fearing the other teacher's wrath. "I-I don't know, but it's the only lead I could find" he defended himself, his gaze lowered so as not to meet Kalego's.
The purple haired demon focused on the papers. "Which teachers were you thinking of involving?" he asked, lost in thought. Marbas responded promptly. "O-Only if necessary! I thought about Murmur-sensei and, if he's available, Balam-sensei. I understand he recently taught a class that the Honor Student attended, so he may have picked up some clues about the matter... assuming it's a matter, that is! Maybe we're worrying about nothing"
Kalego gave him the dreaded sidelong glance. "I'm not inclined to worry about nothing" he stated sternly. "I've gotten a whiff of a lead. Whether it leads me somewhere or not, it's something I'll check out myself. I second your suggestion of consulting Murmur-sensei. Thanks for your hard work. You may return to your usual duties without further interruption from me, Marbas-sensei"
The black haired demon flinched and hurried away to return to his desk. Kalego sank into his chair, his left index finger tapping the papers. "In the mines? A brat like Iruma?" he mused, more confused than convinced. The thesis didn't make sense. But the calmness with which Iruma faced his temporary blindness couldn't be explained otherwise.
Kalego sighed loudly. That kid always gave him headaches.
THE END