In the alley that Ryosei stood in, frost crept outward, a bubble of silence rising out in his mind as the frost crept even further, suffocating the entirety of the market place where people were once so, so happy...
In his mind, Ryosei, now a child, was curled up in his mother's embrace, a soft lullaby rocking him to sleep as he felt happy for the first time in a long time.
"A canary sings
A cradle song
Sleep, sleep,
Sleep, child!"
"Above the cradle,
The loquat fruits sway
Sleep, sleep,
Sleep, child!"
"A squirrel rocks
The cradle by its rope
Sleep, sleep,
Sleep, child!"
"Dreams in a cradle,
With the yellow moon shining down
Sleep, sleep,
Sleep, child!"
Ryosei closed his eyes to sleep, while in the real world, the ash white hair he had had since birth rapidly turned to pure snow white, the default black of his demon eyes shifting into a pale white color, forever changing his ocean eyes to icy blue. A metamorphosis was occurring inwardly and outwardly within Ryosei as he slept, trapped within his 'mother's' embrace.
His mother's once beautiful face twisted into a smile, fangs peeking out from her ruby red lips as she slowly lowered her head, the long tresses of her silky black hair falling in waves, surrounding Ryosei's sleeping face.
"Sleep child, sleep..."
———————————————————————————————
10 hours.
For 10 hours straight, Eika had been doing paperwork without a single break or reprieve from her burden, and she was very annoyed; she had hardly slept well last night as an odd feeling of foreboding had itched at her incessantly, but she had drowned it out for the sake of sleep—but even then, much wasn't granted to her before she had to hit the paper.
Again.
Like she'd done for every single day she was here.
She plunked her head on the table with a groan akin to a dying whale while simultaneously slamming her fist down onto it repeatedly, whining some more as she finally finished a stack, only for more to be brought in; this was literal hell... oh, wait.
She WAS in literal Hell.
Eika swore under her breath while Beelzebub just sweat dropped at the sight of the normally composed princess appearing so defeated; he could understand her pain as he too dealt with copious amounts of paperwork—demon's were surprisingly unreasonable people when it comes to what happened during certain incidents, even more so than humans—but nonetheless needed her to finish the work because he knew it would help her in the long run when she disappears for 50 more years if she finished all the backed up work now.
'On another note,' he marveled quietly with awe on his freckled face, 'that table is really durable to withstand her assault like that... did Master make it? Possibly... I can't think of anything else being able to survive her tantrums...'
But enough about the table's apparent durability; the important thing was Eika was absolutely exhausted, and exhausted meant hungry, and hungry meant angry, and angry meant frustrated, and frustrated meant exhausted, and so on and so forth until the end of time because by the HOLY GHOST she was NOT going to so much as touch her pen again unless she got some shut eye or did something to burn off her excess energy.
"This is why I hate paperwork... it never ends! It's like the demon birthrate—with the amount of demons romping in their little nets, the census is absolutely nuts this year! Seriously, how much down and dirty have these guys done to make the population triple?! AND WHY DO I HAVE TO DO SO FUXXING MUCH??!"
Beelzebub stared at her with a forced grin and a twitching brow as he reluctantly replied, "Well, to be fair, you have been gone for 50 years, and work piles up whether you want it to or not so..."
She slowly rotated her neck to face his direction while still laying on top of the table before she whined, "But didn't I have a secretary once... where are they, they're supposed to do all this crap while I'm gone!"
"They quit, saying that you were an irresponsible employer for forcing everything on them, before promptly leaving."
"... Isn't that the point of even having a secretary?"
"... That's a slave, Eika; a slave."
"But I was paying them decent money, you can't deny that!"
"They still packed up."
"Ugggghh—nope! No more, I'm going to the Solace room that Father built, and you're not stopping me Beelzebub!" Eika stomped away, huffing angrily while the freckled demon followed her, nagging for her to go back and at least finish the paper work so that she can rest easier.
The turquoise eyed demon gently grabbed her wrist, securing it with an iron grasp before he gently murmured to the indignant Eika, "Princess Eika, you are to be Hell's ruler one day; please, as the heiress, you need to handle this responsibility in the homeland better, even if you have already established international and interstellar stability in all the other realms. Please, finish this bit of work, and then you can rest—believe me, in the long run, it will be better for you."
Eika looked annoyed at that, her expression indignant before stomping back to the room, and using telekinesis to levitate the papers and sign them as she read all of them before responding to the complaints accordingly. In five minutes, all of the paperwork was done, and Eika was panting while muttering, "How on earth does Father do that all the time?!"
Beelzebub smiled a gentle smile while kindly patting head while using frost magic to cool her down, "Practice Milady, practice; Our Lord Satan has had several millennia of practice, resulting in now being able to do all of this work while sleeping."
"Huh... I need to invest more time into practice then—my control's shaky in comparison to Father's... Now then, Zee, can I go to Solace!? I finished it, so please!"
Beelzebub simply laughed and responded, "Of course Princess, you've done a very good job finishing all of the backed up work and current work assigned to you; you may rest at ease."
Eika hopped with happiness, her long tresses of white hair shimmering and bouncing with the movement as she yelled, "Yayyyy! Freedom, finally!"
She then turned to Beelzebub, a smile on her perfect face, her dual eyes shining and her hair whirling before she hopped up and gave the 7-foot tall demon a big hug, exclaiming, "Thank you Zee for doing the paperwork for all those years and lightening the load even now! I love you!"
With a parting peck on the cheek for the surprised and blushing male demon, she ran away, giggling through the halls of the castle while screaming like a madwoman, "I'm free from all the paperwork, FREEEEE!"
Unbeknownst to her, Beelzebub tenderly touched his pale, freckled cheek, a heavy red blush on them from the affectionate contact, his expression full of wonderment. He then smiled gently at the memory of her smile, content that the time in the Mortal Realm had done some good for her—she was less likely to end it all now...
His expression fell as he remembered how his beloved Princess had once been—her eyes empty as silent tears flowed down her violently perfect face, her body limp and thin, the posture not unlike a thrown away doll's. She had been small then, still but an adolescent, and with trembling fingers she had reached out to Beelzebub's coat, her voice wavering as she'd whispered three words that broke his hearts to this day:
"'Please love me.'"
Beelzebub looked upward, in the direction of his Lord Satan's office, his handsome face uncharacteristically sad for the usually jovial demon.
"Please," he whispered, his mellow voice meek, "please stay happy Princess. Please, find someone to love you..."
Silence was all that greeted the mourning Demon Lord; because of the nature of his existence, he could not even pray to God for his Little Princess' salvation.
◆◇ⅠⅠⅠⅠⅠ◇◆
Eika took a deep breath in before slowly releasing it from the grasp of her lungs, her chest rising and falling in the silence.
She was in the Room of Solace, a room designed by her father to reflect whatever setting and atmosphere the soul of the user desired. It was also an ideal place for soul-healing and recovery, along with the "purification" of all the wear and tear and grim the soul collects over the many years.
As such, her desired setting was a pure, crystalline blue lake and an eye-achingly blue sky whose silvery white clouds were reflected in the perfectly still waters of the lake. No movement save for the rise of her chest and the flutter of her pure white lashes could be seen, the tranquility granted by the Room of Solace permeating her soul.
The strength of her soul was great indeed, as the realism of the lake and the sky and even the clouds made one believe they were in another realm altogether, not a simple illusion of one; it was only to be expected really. Eika was a demon whose main abilities dealt with dreams as her primary power, and as such had a great deal of experience when it came to creating hyper-realistic renderings of the world.
There was a reason her class was an evolved form of the rare class [Architect].
However, the attribute of her power—or the things that actually fueled and strengthened her existence as a metaphysical being—were emotions; though she indeed dealt with a wide range of emotions, her power attribute was actually a fairly rare dual attribute, otherwise known as a bilateral attribute.
Her attribute was Love and Hatred, and she could control both to a certain extent, so long as she understood both. Hatred for example, she understood to a degree so excruciating, that she could make an entirely loving person despise her or others enough to go insane; love on the other hand...
Well, suffice to say, she knew what hatred felt like rather intimately, and she even felt a somewhat constant burn of it towards certain individuals in her chest—but the sudden disturbance that bloomed violently within her soul was unfamiliar.
It was more wrath than hatred; more cold than hot; more terrified than assured; more reckless than calculated; more horrifically primal than it was terrifyingly intellectual. Then all of a sudden, it was more sorrowful than despairing, and more broken than numb.
It was more Ryosei than Eika.
The range of emotions alerted Eika to the prelude of the disaster that was to come, leading her to sit up briskly, hand to her chest as she considered the emotions, analyzing them with a serious expression; what in Hell's name made him so furious?
She'd sensed that he had been undergoing extreme stress through the empathy link she'd established with him when he turned so that she could monitor his emotional state, as she was more than aware how volatile they could be, but she wasn't used to this overflowing of emotions from the oh-so composed and ever restrained Ryosei.
'Wait, overflowing?'
She touched her soul body, forcing the soul passage between her soul and her homunculi to activate for the sake of seeing what was going on; of course, this was a temporary connection, one that would last at most five minutes without the proper proceedings and restriction lifting from the World—but five minutes was more than enough time for her.
Besides, she was Eika for Satan's sake—such a task was as simple as breathing.
Closing her heterochromatic eyes, she traveled the length of her connection to the homunculi, opening her eyes into the familiar too-small glassy prison of glowing blue water and noting that the ever-present Ruri was gone—a fact most unlike the workaholic alchemist.
Eika narrowed in on the homunculi's senses, extending them to encompass the city—but she didn't even get half-way before her spatial and spiritual sensing was interrupted by a feeling of wrath and sorrow so dense, it was forcing the molecules in the air to freeze into ice.
Eika's true eyes flashed open, her expression disturbed as she sprung up to her feet and began to leave the room, muttering as she stormed away, "Ryosei, what the Devil did you do this time!"
It was then, right when she was to open up the door to the Room of Solace to leave, she halted, a pleasant, yet hollow ring sound greeting her sensitive ears; it was similar to the ring of the system, but slightly off, and a great deal colder, more hollow and empty than mechanical.
"...What? No way... there's no way it would..."
{ R i n g ! }
{ Notice: The sentient metaphysical entity [ the World ] has sent a request to [ User: Eika ]. Will [ User: Eika ] accept request? }
Eika's hand began to tremble, her hearts fluttering with unease in her rib cage as she whispered, "I accept."
{ Permission acquired! Opening contents of [ Request From the World ] file... }
{ Content's of message acquired! Now displaying [ Request From the World ] to [ User: Eika ]! }
When Eika saw the message, her eyes nearly popped out of her skull in shock as she exclaimed, "What is this!?"
{[ // The sentient metaphysical entity [ the World ] will lift half of all restrictions on [ Lower 7th Dimensional Being: Eika ]. // ]}
"....What?! Why? Are you trying to destroy Earth?!"
{[ // The sentient metaphysical entity [ the World ] will lift half of all restrictions on [ Upper 7th Dimensional Being: Eika ], in exchange for fulfilling [ the World ]'s request. After the request is fulfilled, [ the World ] will reimpose remaining restrictions on [ Lower 7th Dimensional Being: Eika ]. The [ Grace Period ] with half of the restrictions for [ Lower 7th Dimensional Being: Eika ] will be 2 hours. If [ Lower 7th Dimensional Being: Eika ] cannot complete [ the World ]'s request in the allotted time frame, then [ the World ] will ban [ Lower 7th Dimensional Being: Eika ] from the [ Lower Dimensional Plane ]. Does [ Lower 7th Dimensional Being: Eika ] accept request? // ]}
"What is the request??! At least tell me that before the consequences!"
{[ // ... [ the World ]'s request contains the following: [ Save Demonic Half-Breed Ryosei From Himself and the Humans ]. // ]}
It was then Eika's entire world the condensed into a single singularity, with the request message from the World being the epicenter for the singularity, her entire attention focused on that single message panel. A cracked, hoarse voice came from her usually impeccable sounding tone.
"... Ryosei, what... happened...? What's going on...?"
The look in her eyes was one of devastation; the trauma that her own [Class Up] still haunted her to this day, as well as the memory of how her second Turned had died when trying to complete the [Class Up], therefore forever leaving the process to completing demon-hood incomplete.
{[ // Does [ Lower 7th Dimensional Being: Eika ] accept [ the World ]'s request: [Save Demonic Half-breed Ryosei From Himself and the Humans ]? // ]}
"... I accept it of course—now get the bloody restrictions off me, you fuxxing tree."
{[ // The sentient metaphysical entity [ the World ] wishes to note that they made subduing [ Being: Ryosei ] easier for you. // ]}
"So? You're still coming to me for help you fuxxing pu—"
{[ // The sentient metaphysical entity [ the World ] is now leaving; soon the selected restrictions will be released, and a [ Spatial Corridor ] will be made to the direct location of [ Being: Ryosei ] as per [ Lower 7th Dimensional Being: Eika ]'s calculated request. [ the World ] also wishes to transmit a direct message to [ Lower 7th Dimensional Being: Eika ]. Do you wish to open the message? // ]}
"Why not, she'll just cuss me out."
{[ // Message start: ["Fuxx off you little sh!t. I almost wish you will fail just so I can banish your fuxxing cheeky *ss."]. Message end. [ Spatial Corridor ] opening. // ]}
"Hah! Called it!"
{[ // Notice: Selected Restrictions for [ Lower 7th Dimensional Being: Eika ] has been lifted. Prepare for interdimensional traveling via [ Spatial Corridor ] is 10, 9, 8, 7... // ]}
Eika stretched, her muscles taunt as she did so, her impeccable face screwed into an expression of forced relaxation. She will save Ryosei; of that she was certain beyond belief.
{[ // [ Spatial Corridor ] opening. // ]}
"Showtime," she breathed before getting sucked into the corridor, her expression serene as she left the Room of Solace with no regrets in sight.
◆◇ⅠⅠⅠⅠⅠ◇◆
Alas, Eika should've been more vigilant in concerning dealings with the World.
"Demonic Half-Breed Ryosei? Messages from the World that allow the release of restrictions? And Satan's oh-so dearest Eika being at the center of it all? My, my, my, how very interesting... I might've just found the perfect test subject..."
Eika should've looked for the regrets in the shadows, as letting this man hear about Ryosei's dilemma would become one of the greatest one's in her existence.
If only she knew about the all too familiar keen gray eyes that had spied the messages to Eika from the World, and the smile that had crept up the handsome face of the shadowed perpetrator.
Perhaps she wouldn't have regretted it so much; perhaps she wouldn't have had to leave.
Perhaps she wouldn't have lost herself later on...