"Lucifer has chosen his candidate"
This rumor had quickly spread throughout the underworld. All the Demons were aware of this:
"Well, if anyone's got a chance at winning this thing now, it's either Satan or Diablo"
No one else stood a chance against these three big names, but what were they talking about? What did they mean by 'win'?...
--
As Ray lay in bed, the same night as Kenshin's death, ignorant about the tragedy of his dear friend, he felt a slight discomfort in his chest. He got up to get himself water. As soon as he rose he had a sudden ache in his heart as if someone was squeezing it.
"Ughhhh..."
Unbearable pain struck him. Without any time to call for help, he fell unconscious due to the pain. His body just lay there by the bed as if he were asleep.
--
"Huh?... Where am I? What's happening?"
Ray woke up to see a middle-aged, tall, and heavily built man in a black trench coat standing with his back at him. The man had a rather overgrown stubble and dark long short hair, slit back messily, if he was in an anime he'd make a really cool looking character. Ray was still dizzy, it all seemed like a dream to him. He looked around, there was nothing other than the fireplace without a chimney right before the cool looking man. The man turned around.
"It took you quite a while to get a hold of yourself, boy. You wanna get down to business?...."
Ray was confused as any normal person would be and more importantly, he was scared, of not being able to feel or see his body, only his conscious suspended in space. It seemed a lot more realistic now. He wanted to speak back, but he had no mouth to do so either.
"You might wanna calm down boy. Isn't that a bundle of negative emotions you experiencing right now. Honestly, I don't exactly have an issue with that but how will I explain the terms of Hell's competition to you otherwise"
"Hell?..... Competition?..... What's going on? I couldn't be dead.....No....There's no way...."
But there was a way, in fact, that was exactly what had happened. When the last thing he could remember was his pain and when he realized why he didn't feel it anymore.....it hurt a lot more than the physical pain he'd suffered from. A question still struck his mind though.
"Why am I in hell? I never sinned. Nothing to land me here."
He said with a wavering, hesitant tone of voice.
"Weren't you listening? You are here for a competition of course. The competition to take my place. I guess I should introduce myself first though. You might know me as Satan....
THE KING OF THE UNDERWORLD
--
Wait Satan?..What did Satan just say to him, a competition to take his place as the king of the underworld.
"But why me? I am not a bad guy, I never intentionally hurt anybody."
Satan laughed at this statement,
"You really think the realm whose very existence is solely to whip the hide of wrongdoers in life, has a criterion of an evildoer themselves to be it's ruler."
Continuing with a grin on his face he brought to attention the fact that his sadistic side is indeed his most prominent feature. But Ray wasn't really listening at this point, his thoughts were scrambled all over. Whatever it was, it was definitely not a pleasant thing as far as he was concerned; everything that was happening.
"But why me?!!!" Ray loudly screamed with his emotions.
"Well, if you really want someone to blame you should try Lucifer's candidate, he was the one because of whom my attention was drawn towards you anyway."
"What? Who...Lucifer?...What'd I do to any..."
"Don't worry too much about the 'Why Me?' question kid. I really don't like that. Us devils might like to scheme but in the end, we don't really have patience, we select the first person that catches our fancy. You think I'll be going through every single potential candidate when I just want to toy with them"
He didn't hide his sadistic nature one bit while saying the last line; Ray was shook by it, But he managed to ask this man to clarify what competition was he talking about.
"Aren't you and Lucifer supposed to be the same being? " He added.
"It's just idiotic to think that Lucifer and I are the same person, though, you wouldn't be any more correct if you think we are different. It's complicated boy, not something you can try to comprehend just yet. As for the first question?"
He paused for a while, took a moment to think, and again with the same sadistic look went on:
"Is it any fun if I tell you everything already though? Well, I suppose I'll tell you the bare minimum so you don't end up dying; again"
Ray saw hope. Maybe he could come back alive and well if he won this game of theirs, he hated to be a puppet on strings, but he had no choice against this man, or rather this literal demon, whose mere presence was so intimidating.
"You'll be sent to another, really pleasant world, different from the world you came from."
Ray started feeling like he was fading away already, he couldn't communicate through his thoughts anymore, he couldn't even think, his mind was getting dizzy, he had neither the time to ask any more questions nor the power to do so. He couldn't even get the answer to the question most prevalent in his mind the whole time, who got him in this situation? Who's responsible for making Satan choose him? He could feel slowly being swept away, just like what he felt before his consciousness suddenly appeared in this world.
"Oooh and there's one more thing..... "
--
As Ray's consciousness vanished away he could hear a voice, he couldn't make out what it was saying, but he could still tell that it was different from Satan's own.
"You sure it was worth the risk?"
The voice asked as the man with the beautiful silver hair who'd greeted Kenshin emerged from behind Satan, of course, Ray's conscious had already ceased there to hear or see any of this.
"I know he isn't exactly the kinda guy you'd want for this sorta competition. But isn't it way more interesting this way? Especially I can't wait to see his reaction when he finally finds out who your candidate is, Lucifer."
Lucifer, is what this man was referred to as, so does it mean.... So is Kenshin the candidate of Lucifer that Satan was talking about!?
--
"Stop!"
Sweating profusely an old man scared to the teeth yelled
"Get away from this man. Someone try to restrain him. Take him away! "
--
Fin.