Wtdsik oneshots i found on Ao3

A Little More Like Hell by suudonym on Ao3. [2/3]

Chapter 2: Never again the same: Part 2
Notes:
divin' straight into the juicy bits this chapter ᐠ( ᐛ )ᐟ

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text
An illusion.

It had to be an illusion, didn’t it? Something like Clara’s Toybox magic, or something like Orobas’s Trauma bloodline ability. It couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be real.

But could a mere illusion feel like this? Could it sear his skin like fire? Could it sting and needle at him like barbs? Could it pry open his ribcage and grab his lungs and wring the air from them until he was dizzy, until he was sick?

If it couldn’t, though, and it was all just as real as it felt, then Iruma couldn’t afford to just sit on his heels, numb with disbelief, as the blood drained unremittingly from his severed arm. With Kiriwo’s presence all but forgotten, he recoiled from the hand around his chin, scrambled out of his uniform’s jacket, and clumsily, falteringly tried to wrap it around the end of his upper arm. The fabric slipped loose again and again, and as his shoulders shuddered from panic that he couldn’t forfend, Kiriwo watched with an expression full all of fondness.

“You really are something, Iruma-kun,” he remarked. “So quick to get right down to what needs to be done, and with nary a peep to boot. But, y’know,” he reached for the dismembered arm and gathered it into his lap, lips pursed in contemplation, “I may’ve jumped the gun a bit there. If I was gonna take off an arm, I really shoulda taken the one with the Ring of Gluttony.” He leaned in a little closer as greed crept into his features. “I wonder if I can just take ‘em both?”

Get away, the alarms in Iruma’s head shrieked, his hair clinging to his brow and his shirt sticking to his back as he clamped his teeth down on a blood-wet sleeve and pulled hard against the awkward knot he’d managed to tie.

“No, no, no,” Kiriwo said, and he pulled back with a shake of his head, “I gotta be careful here. I’d have hell to pay if I overdid it and you ended up dying.”

Get away. The thick cloth didn’t do nearly as much as he’d hoped it would to staunch the bleeding, and his one-handed, unsteady grip couldn’t draw the jacket tightly enough around the wound for it to function as an effective tourniquet.“But, like, it’d be a waste not to make a little more of this situation, wouldn’t it? Maybe just your fingers…?” Cheeks flushing pink, he touched a fingertip to lips that parted with anticipation. “Hey, Iruma-kun, whaddya think? If I took the fingers off your right hand one by one, how many would it take to make you scream…?”

Get away.

A frigid chill crawled down Iruma’s spine, and he immediately, frantically reeled backwards, failing to find the coordination to get his feet underneath him and run. Unable to answer to the instincts carved into his body, he could only squeeze his eyes shut, suck in a ragged gasp of a breath, and call out in vain to help that he knew too well couldn’t reach him in time, “Azz-kun, Clara–!”

All at once the evening shadows retreated from the amber light that flooded the woods, and a familiar, comforting warmth brushed gently over Iruma’s shoulder as a bolt of flame sailed past. The barrier that Kiriwo hurriedly raised in his defense withstood the fireball and scattered it into sparks, but he was forced back nonetheless as Asmodeus swung mercilessly through the heathaze with a sword of pure fire magic.

“I apologize for butting in of my own discretion, Iruma-sama,” he said, gritting his teeth as his blow glanced off of yet another barrier, “but it sounded like something strange was going on, and I–”

“Iruma-chi!” Clara was close on Asmodeus’s heels, and as she arrived at Iruma’s side, she all but fell down next to him, the color draining from her face as her hands hovered helplessly around the end of his arm and the soaked, dripping jacket wrapped thereupon. “W-Wh– Your…!”