Chereads / The Unusual at Trost Academy / Chapter 53 - Oddly at Home [Bill]

Chapter 53 - Oddly at Home [Bill]

"Are you sure this will work?" Akumura looked around the room, "I mean, there's no way we can just do it now, there's gotta be some kind of-"

"It will. Scorpio and I made sure this room is good for it, and I've talked with my dad about this almost every night. I don't want to use too much power though, we can't break the seal. We'll have to go one at a time." I drew a circle on the ground, and filled it with glyphs from a book Brit gave me. I held my hand to it, and dug into my memory. "Odhv hkw rgqqx, qqlz V'grj eb. Rdhq vzdug gqh hkw. Hgloorf vgouoz." The circle began glowing, and my vision wend dark.

My eyes shot open, and I surrounded by the familiar light brown rocks of Hell. "So," Akumura looked around, "One of us at a time, eh?"

"It's harder than it looks, alright?!" He crossed his arms, "Whatever. You know where we are?" I looked around. We were on a cliff, and there was a city a few hundred meters away. "Well, you want the good news of bad news?"

"Well, I've already been fed a constant stream of bad news since yesterday morning, so I'll go with the bad news first."

"Well, how are you with regenerating your legs?"

"Right now? Not the best. I used almost all my energy yesterday."

"But can you?"

"Probably."

"Alright, good, because you're gonna need to jump off that cliff." I pointed to the ledge. "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! That's gotta be at least 50 feet tall!"

"Looks like it. But I mean, you've jumped off higher, right?" Akumura glared at me, "Yeah, but I-" He growled, "Fine. But it'll take some time to regenerate."

I landed next to where he was. "Why couldn't you carry me down?" He sat on the ground, one of his legs facing a direction I don't think legs should face, and the other facing normally, but with a shin cut clean in half. "Because," I folded my wings, "I can barely hold my own weight, imagine doubling that." His legs started to reform, "Well, you go on ahead, I'll catch up with you."

"Dude, your legs are fine now." He looked down, and jumped up, "It-" He kicked me in the shin, "It doesn't usually happen this quickly. You think it's got something to do with where we are?"

"Maybe. I'll, have to ask Brit about that."

For some reason, I knew exactly where to go. I'd only been in the city once, but I knew. I knew the Demons were left with limited resources, but I didn't know things were this limited. A majority of the houses were made of stone and rusted metal, with holes for windows. "There's something off about this place." Akumura looked around, "I mean, there's no one here except us. Are you sure Satan is here?"

"Yes. Everyone's probably hiding because we're not from here. Among a majority of demons, we stand out, especially you. I mean, imagine if a chimera started just waltzing through the streets as if it owned the place. Most people would want to hide from it." He shrugged, "I mean, you make a point, but don't compare me to a chimera again." I looked forward, and finally saw something living here. A Demon stood in the street with a coat, "You two aren't from here, are ya?" He said, "Well, I got something that could help." He opened his coat, and pulled out a map. "This should lead ya wherever ya need to go. If Selzar asks though, I never had it." He bolted in the direction we came from. "What the hell was what?" Akumura looked behind himself, "And who the hell is Selzar?" I shrugged, "My guess? The guy who originally had this map." I opened it, and sure enough in Demonic, is said "Selzar". "Alright, so, we're about three blocks from Satan's castle." Akumura sighed, "Great, how long should that take us?"

"About 5 minutes." He sighed, "I'm really starting to regret agreeing with Brit's idea."

Despite Akumura's griping and my general tiredness, we reached the castle. Well, it was, kind of a castle. It was more of a mansion or a generally large house. It was missing a lot of castle features, namely any defenses excluding a chain-link fence. "Well, here goes nothing." I walked to the door, and slammed the knocker. "Just a second!" I recognized the voice. "Alright, wha-" Satan opened the door, and froze before he could finish. "Is it really you?"

"Yeah, we've, got some news."

"So," Satan cupped his hand together, "Lucifer's gained that much of his power already. How long did you say we have?"

"I'm not sure the exact measurement," Akumura grabbed a knife from a shelf, "but from what Jamie's been saying, somewhere around 5 months." Satan rubbed his eyes, and stood up. "Well, I guess it's better than nothing. Bill," he motioned for me to come toward him, "Follow me, I think I might have something that can help. And you," he pointed at Akumura, "Try not to break too much. It's taken millennia to build this place and I prefer it not be destroyed by an adolescent Vampire screwing around." Akumura nodded, "Yeah, sure."

We walked into a side room, "There are only two Demons who know about this," He opened a box, "Well, three now, I guess." There was an arrow in it, with a dark red tip. "This arrow is the strongest thing in the Universe. There are only two of them, and I have one of them. The other, we have no idea where it is." He pricked, his finger on the tip, and his hand started to dissolve. "This was the weapon we were going to use to win the war, one for Lucifer, and one for God. If we can't take out Lucifer by conventional means, then perhaps we can use this."

"Have you tested it? I mean, on anything other than Demons?"

"We've tested it on Vampires, Demons, and Angels." I grabbed the arrow. "Careful with it." I set it back in the box, and started walking away.

"We've got to go, Scorpio's probably having a heart attack right now."

"What do you mean?" "

"I understand the time dilation here. Akumura and I took around, an hour to get here, plus the time it took to get to the place we used to get in Hell. I'd say, in total, we've been here for an hour and a half, that's two hours in the normal realm. So, it'd already be four hours just to get back, then another hour to make it back to the dorm." Satan sighed, "I guess. If you ever feel the urge to visit, you're welcome to come." I opened the door to the room Akumura was in, "Come on, we're leaving."

"Alright. Gonna be honest, it was getting kinda boring here."

Satan escorted us to the cliff, well, not as much escorted as teleported. "Remember what I said. When you break the seal, let me know before so I can get the arrow." I nodded, "Understood." My vision went blank, and then I woke up in Scorpio's house. "And what exactly were you two doing here?" Scorpio was leaning over me. "Yeah, so we kinda needed to go to Hell."