Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Demons ❯ Chapter 1

 

Disclaimer: Although some of my ideas resemble closely to Devil Man, I consider this work far enough from Go Nagai's Manga to classify it as original. Nonetheless, all ideas taken from Devil Man certainly belong to Go Nagai.

 

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Demons

 

I watch his demonic body from the corner of my eye because I do not want to turn around. The view out there is too captivating: colorful explosions of red, white, and orange, a magnificent firework of destruction above a barren wasteland riddled with craters of epic proportions. In here, it is quiet. None of the sounds from outside carry through. I can hear his breathing even as I long to be outside. In here, it is dark and empty except for him and me.

 

The sun is rising slowly, sending its blood-red eye above a horizon shrouded in black clouds. Winged forms are dancing in the air, sometimes attacking each other with blasts of light and magic, sometimes smashing down into the ground because of their petty squabbles. They are my brethren, although none of us look alike. They don't have a uniform shape, a uniform color, not even a uniform amount of limbs. They are so different from each other, with their only common ground being their diversity. They are demons, just like me.

 

I catch sight of my own reflection in the window - a small, nondescript human barely out of childhood. One might even call me beautiful. It is not my natural form, but the only form he knows me as. I have taken care to hide my heritage from him. And now, he has finally come to seek the truth.

 

Behind me, he towers over me, almost two heads taller with burly arms, vicious claws, and metallic blue scales. I don't need to see him to know what he looks like. We have fought and lived together ever since everything began. I have seen him in this form more times than I can count. I know that his dark bluish-purple wings are strong enough to carry both him and me into the air. I know that his thin, spiked tail is a formidable weapon against incautious enemies. I know what those teeth look like when they are stained with blood. And I know that, despite his appearance, he is human.

 

He's fought countless battles in his demonic form. Nonetheless, he seems uncomfortable with his height, unnatural in his movements. He seems at odds with his body and with the whole world around him. He looks at me beseechingly, hoping I have the answers, but at the same time dreading them.

 

The glass of the window trembles faintly, but my voice does not.

 

„So you finally know what I am?“

 

In the reflection of the window, I can see that he shakes his horned head; I can't tell whether it is in disbelief or in denial. For that I would have to turn around.

 

„Why,“ he whispers, a strange sound coming from a throat more suited to gravelling amalgamations of bellows. „Why have you been playing with me like that?“

 

His accusations are harsh. I don't think he really understands, despite all that has happened. I don't think he sees that I have stayed with him all that time. And I don't think he realizes just how much I have done for him without him ever having to ask.

 

I have never `played' with him. I wanted him to grow stronger, prepare him to survive in this new world. He seemed to appreciate this demonic form I gave him well enough, making good use of the abilities it allowed him. And now he thinks I have manipulated him?

 

He had caught my eye a long time ago, a strong soul in a weak, human body. The way he had kept on going to school despite being beat up almost every day impressed me. No matter how much they hurt him, he would always get up and smile at them. He even found time to protect others at the expanse of his own health.

 

In those days, I hid myself in a human body because we demons had been all but forgotten. I was the only one alive, my brethren locked away somewhere for nearly two millennia. I joined his school and became one of his classmates.

 

Despite my mindset not being conform with all those unsuspecting sheep around me, he started calling me a friend. But, after that first time, he always stopped me from punishing the underdeveloped examples of the human race that beat him up. I still can't understand why he kept doing that. After I cut off that one boy's fingers, they certainly left him alone for some time. It took a while for him to speak to me again. But he said that he would keep being my friend.

 

Then, in our final year of high school, humans finally dug up the nest of my demonic brethren, the sign I had been waiting for.

 

Two thousand years ago, I had been the only one strong enough to escape imprisonment. Humans back then had known enough magics to force us out of their world, at the sacrifice of a hundred of their best sorcerers. The rest of my species had been forced to revert to their infant forms, and then they had been buried in the farthest corner of this planet. Their place of imprisonment had been warded so strongly that I had never found any signs of life from them.

 

I had been searching for them for centuries, but even after two millennia, it had not been me who had freed them. It had been humans, the very same race that had buried them such a long time ago. Humans had forgotten about us, completely ignoring all those warnings their ancestors had left. Or, in their short-sighted arrogance, they had believed themselves to be superior to those warnings.

 

In any case, they had unearthed the nest where my brethren had been imprisoned. And then, they had started experimenting. They had thought that my brethren's bodies were no more than ancient fossils, surprisingly well-preserved in the pack-ice of Antarctica. They never had imagined that my brethren were only asleep.

 

When I had felt he first signs of their awakening, I had known that our time had come once again. Humans didn't have any defenses against us; with all their superior technology, they had completely forgotten the ancient ways that were their only chance at defeating us again. Despite their scientific advances, they were all but helpless when faced with us.

 

And I had known that the one who is now standing behind me wasn't strong enough to survive.

 

Gradually, news of my brethren spread around, at first only in tabloid columns, but as they were slowly returning to their old strength, they became headlines on the front pages.

 

'50 Students Massacred Brutally', `Increasing Amount of Demon Sightings', `They Are Amongst Us'.

 

I sought them out, establishing myself once again as their leader. We were laying waste to human settlements, inspiring the age-old fear of prey within their puny little hearts. We razed their houses and burned their grounds. We killed and slaughtered and reveled in their fear. We hid ourselves in their bodies, making them distrust each other. We took on their forms and sowed destruction throughout their lands.

 

They formed groups of Demon exterminators, which actually managed to kill some of our numbers. But for every real demon they caught, they killed at least a hundred of their own. It is funny; as many deaths as we were responsible for, they were doing a much better job at exterminating themselves in their headless panic.

 

There also were those criminal elements of their society, those who took advantage of the confusion that was rapidly escalating. They were amusing to watch; some of them even took the time to costume themselves as one of us only to prey on their fellow humans more easily. They were the most fun to watch when they realized they were facing one of us.

 

Most of the time though, I stayed with him. I let him believe I was merely human. I wanted to see how he was faring in his rapidly changing world. He still had his strong soul in a weak body, but he was trying to become stronger to fight. After all those times he let humans beat him up, he suddenly wanted to fight demons.

 

I didn't understand him. I still don't. But back then, I understood him even less. I granted his wish.

 

Without his knowledge, I gave him the body of one of my strongest generals. I merged his weak, human physique with the body of a demon. I sacrificed one of us so that he can stand besides me now.

 

At first, he was devastated. He didn't come to me until he knew enough to assume a human appearance once again. He hid himself from me. He was loath to transform, scared of his new body and its instincts. And he was scared of the reactions of others.

 

Since he didn't know of my involvement, it took him a long time to tell me of his new abilities. Only gradually did he see the advantages of demonic strength, and he began using his powers more easily. He even managed to create a hybrid form - half demon, half human.

 

Despite the violence his demonic body doubtlessly craved, he reigned himself in and only fought to help his former species. He battled my brethren to save humans. He also tried to protect humans from themselves, rescuing more children and families from criminals than I can count. And they were scared of him. Probably because he looked like one of us. They didn't see what he did; they only saw what he looked like, and so they hunted him. I stuck by his side, asking him why he didn't give up.

 

He ignored me and kept on fighting for them, just like he had kept on going during High School. For no reason I could discern. Whenever I asked him, he just became angry with me, perhaps because he began to suspect I was more than I seemed.

 

And then, they fired their Atomic bombs. The first one was an over-eager accident, and all the others responded without thought. They thought they could blast us from the face of the planet if they were only persistent enough. They completely forgot that we demons can endure under much harsher conditions than they can. While uncomfortable, we certainly can survive several hundred degrees of temperature. They cannot.

 

Just like that, over the course of less than 72 hours, human population dwindled from over 6 billion to less than two. Of those two billion, another 1.5 billion are going to die of radiation sickness. The rest is probably sterile to a large percentage. Those few capable of reproduction are going to father severely mutated offspring and die early on due to cancerous cell growth. If they don't starve first.

 

Just like that, humanity managed to annihilate itself.

 

Throughout it all, I stayed human and stuck to his side. We survived in a cellar. Day by day, he was looking at me with more suspicion in his gaze. There were a few other people together with us, hoping to weather out the radioactive storm raging over our heads. One by one, they first got unexplainable nosebleeds, stomachaches, and one day just didn't wake up anymore.

 

I was the only one besides him who wasn't affected. I could see how he wrestled with the truth his mind tried to tell him. But he fought against it with all his strength. As soon as one of us started to talk, we would get into arguments that grew more and more serious as time progressed.

 

Finally, he couldn't bear it anymore and left.

 

I let him go into the inferno above because I knew he would be able to survive it. My general's body is strong, and even though the human part of him was troubled, his soul is strong, too.

 

With him gone, there was no reason anymore to keep hiding, so I went back to my brethren and rallied them to my name. They told me of the few humans surviving, their civilization all but destroyed. Now, we are the rulers of the planet.

 

The rulers of a planet that is nearly dead.

 

There are only a few stretches of untouched wilderness, where there had been too few humans to notice before. Now, those oases of greenery are refuge to the few survivors left. How long that will last with impending radioactive precipitation, nobody knows.

 

I have taken up residence in one of the few buildings that are still somewhat intact. It is part of a large city that has mostly turned to rubble. My brethren are amusing themselves with the destruction all around us, trying to see if they can make it even more dire than it already is. They have not yet realized that we will soon be the only living creatures around here.

 

And through all that chaos, he has returned to me.

 

I have always known that he would return to me. His human soul wouldn't allow him anything else. He had to torture himself by coming back to see the truth for himself despite having already found it.

 

I keep watching the beautiful bursts of color as the first rays of the sun illuminate my brethren who are currently diving into and out of the dark clouds hanging overhead. I also keep watching his reflection in one of the last whole glass panes in this world.

 

It is ironic. He, a vicious demon, is bent threateningly over a mere child. In reality, our roles are reversed. He is the human one, and although he doesn't say it in so many words, he is pleading for me to give him back his illusions. The illusions of me being human, too.

 

He is looking at me with eyes that probably would carry tears if demonic bodies could weep. I can smell how devastated he is. And finally, I turn my back on the sight outside and face him. I don't tell him what he wants to hear, but what he needs to hear.

 

“I never hid my nature. You chose to ignore it.”

 

He rears back as if I had slapped him. I can see that the truth finally sinks in, as much as he doesn't want to. I think he would have believed me had I denied my nature. I think he would even have preferred me to deny my ancestry. But it is time for him to see me for what I am.

 

His demonic body contorts into astonishingly human forms of grief.

 

I merely watch him. From behind me, the rising rays of the sun throw my abnormally long, childish shadow across the room. His metallic blue scales are glinting in the light as he looks down to the floor. His golden eyes follow the line of my shadow until it meets my feet. I know he cannot see me as more than a shapeless form through the rising sun.

 

He wrings his claws before he unfailingly seeks my eyes.

 

“Are you happy now?”, he asks.

 

Despite being in a demonic body, he is easy to read for somebody who has spent as much time with him as I have. He wants me to tell him pretty lies so that he can keep believing in his view of the world. Instead, I tell him how I see it.

 

“You are alive.” That is, after all, why I have given him this body.

 

He growls. A very demonic sound. Nonetheless it speaks of hurt and conveys entirely human emotions. “And how many others aren't?”

 

I know he is only referring to humans. He only ever thinks of humans. Although more than half of my brethren lost their lives during the Atomic explosions, he doesn't count them. And so I give him the only answer that I can.

 

“They were human.” And they were the ones who brought their doom onto themselves.

 

A spark of life dies in his eyes. It isn't until it is gone that I realize that it has been there all the time. What else did he expect from me? It is the truth, nothing but the truth. They unleashed their firestorms without thinking about the consequences. They were scared. Stupid. Too weak to deal with us without panicking. And they paid for it.

 

His towering form stares down at me. He has never looked smaller to me.

 

“Then what am I?”, he questions helplessly.

 

I try to give him all the convictions I felt when I first met him. I try to tell him why I chose him over my best general, whom I basically killed by giving his body to a human soul. I try to make him see the potential I saw within him years ago.

 

“You are strong.”

 

He keeps looking at me, searching my form that is haloed by red morning light from behind for something I cannot see. Finally, his mouth contorts into a weak imitation of a smile. This is not the reaction I had hoped for, but not entirely unexpected. I had hoped that he would see, and his eyes tell me that he does see. He just sees something different than I do.

 

His dark wings are drooping, resting on the floor defeatedly. He shakes his head slowly and whispers like I have never heard a demon whisper before.

 

“I am human.”

 

The rising sun reflects on his scales, and his horns gleam in the light. The whole room is dyed in patterns of bluish reflections and blood-red rays of morning sun. He still looks strong. But I finally realize that he looks human as well. And the time of humans has come to an end. It doesn't matter that there are still some surviving. With time, they will be gone as well.

 

It is a long moment where I look into his dulled, golden eyes that have given up for the very first time. There is only one thing left I can do for him. “As you wish.”

 

Slowly, I let go of the hold on this human body I have currently limited myself to. He is watching me, finally getting a glimpse of my real form.

 

I can feel all the strength rushing back into me, all that I've had to give up to be human. I can see my shadow lengthening as I grow to my real height. I can hear the rustling of white feathers as bird-like wings sprout from my shoulder blades, strong enough to carry me with ease. My features mature from the child's body I have assumed, hardening into an otherworldly beauty that is close to human, but at the very same time so infinitely far from it.

 

With my ethereally glowing wings settling around me, I can sense that I am whole again.

 

He is surprised, frozen to his spot. Apparently he hasn't realized that not all of us have to look like a nightmare. That is another reason why I have waited to show him my true appearance until he has made his decision. I didn't want him distracted by mere visuals.

 

He looks at my pallid white form with wonder in his eyes, ready to change his earlier damnation of me in a heartbeat. “You are…”

 

I lift my lightly glowing hand and halt him in the middle of his sentence. I know what he wants to say, know of the legends that rank around my form. Some of those legends, I have made up myself. Others, I have merely encouraged. And, of course, the more often they are narrated, the further stories grow from the truth.

 

“I am a demon,” I calmly finish for him.

 

Before it can really hit him what I have said, I hold his beating heart in my hands. Blood and gore is dripping down between my fingers, almost as red as the sunrays streaming through the window. His chest gapes open with white splinters of his ribs sticking out. His eyes are frozen in adoration.

 

It takes a few seconds for his muscles to relax in death. His body crumbles to the floor, the light reflected by his bluish scales flickering through the room in a kaleidoscope of motion. Then everything is still.

 

I turn around again, facing the rising sun. My brethren are dancing through the clouds, each of them different. Some of them have horns, some of them have tails, some of them have claws. Some of them have all three. None of them looks as close to human as I do.

 

I stretch my wings, hiding his dead body in the shadows cast by them. In the morning light, my white feathers look as red as my hands.

 

Slowly, I eat his heart.

 

 

XoXoXoX ~Le Fin~ XoXoXoX

 

A/N:

 

I've always wanted to write a story from the Villain's perspective. There are enough ones out there where the hero suffers from his friends' betrayal, and where ultimately, the hero has to fight his friends as enemies. But what of those friends who become villains? Why have they chosen friendship in the first place? Why have they turned against the hero? Here, I have explained a reason that is not centered on greed and hate. I hope you enjoyed it. Tell me what you think of this!