•Black Sheep• || The Devil is a Part Timer || Urushihara / Lucifer

༺Chapter 3༻

Aiko stood behind the young girl, Ashiya in tow behind them. Being only slightly taller than Chiho, she was actually able to see the scene within the small apartment room over the high-schoolers shoulder. A single eyebrow raising in a questioning manner as Ashiya soon speaks, not having seen inside the room yet.

"Look who I ran into while I was at the pharmacy," He stated, "I asked them to come by and-" he gasps slightly as he realizes the situation.

Emi was kneeling on the floor in front of Maou. Though they were a good few feet away from each other, telling by Chiho's face, that didn't matter.

"A-And, I should not have come. I'm interrupting something. You...you two really are a thing..."

"Chi, no!" Maou exclaimed.

"I swear we're not! Its not how it looks!" Emi tried to explain, but alas, in vain.

"Ah! Im sorry!" Chi shakes her head and runs off.

"Chiho!" Maou yells after her.

Aiko gently, but quickly, rests her hand on Ashiya's arm, "I'll go after her," she tells him before going after the younger girl.

"Wait, Miss Yamagishi!" He calls after her. But Aiko is already out of the building and descending the stairs.

"Chiho!...Chiho please come back!" Aiko walks the busy sidewalk in search for the girl.

'Damn it, where is she?...Why did I even volunteer to go after her in the first place? It was as if I did it on instinct...That's, just odd.'

"Okay, if I just concentrate my magic I could sense a human's despair within a 20 mile radius. But that won't narrow it down to much. Who knows how many humans are feeling negatively right now. That's a lot of ground to cover. Maybe I'm just better off-..." Before she could finish her rambling, Aiko feels a large rumble and what sounds like a collapse of a structure. She steady's herself against a light post.

Turning around she can see a bridge falling in the near distance. She runs towards it, hoping to find Chiho in the mass of frantic onlookers.

As she turns the corner she sees the three figures she thought she left behind at the apartment. Maou runs to the rubble and starts climbing up the pile. Aiko sinks back behind the wall, watching to see what the Devil King will do next.

But as he straightens himself up, a glowing purple figure hovers in the sky before landing on his feet. His black wings stretching out to their full span as he places a hand on his hip.

Aiko's eyes widen as big as the moon itself when his identity becomes clear to her.

~

Tears continuously fall down the little girls reddened cheeks as her mother tries to heal her broken wing.

"Why did you leave the cave Aleksandria? I told you to never leave the cave!"

The child shrinks back even further, having known she upset her mother.

"I-I just, wanted to play with them..." she wipes her puffy eyes. "I-I didn't know t-they'd throw rocks at m-me..."

She sobs even harder. Her mother sighs before embracing her offspring.

"W-Why do they h-hate me so much M-Mama?" She desperately clings to her mother's clothing for comfort.

"Aleks, remember how I said you were different from the other young ones?" The little girl nods her head slowly.

"Well, it's because of that difference that they do not think of you as their friend," her daughter looks up and listens intently, "The other demons, they see you as an enemy because of your heritage. You are not pure demon." Tears continued to escape Aleksandria's eyes as her mother soothed her.

"B-But, aren't you a demon Mama?"

"I am. But your Father...He was not. That is why your wings are the way they are."

The little girl, after hearing about her wings, remembers the pain that is currently pulsing through the injured one. Causing her to hiccup in sobs once more.

"But you know what? That will never stop you from becoming someone incredibly strong. You know why?" The child shook her head.

"Because I just so happen to know someone who is almost just like you, and is now considered one of the most powerful demons out there."

'Just like me...?'

"Really?!" The girl exclaimed almost happily.

"Indeed," Her mother smiled down at her daughter, "He is one of Satan's most entrusted Demon Generals..."

~

"...Lucifer." Aiko whispered to herself.

Aiko was immediately pulled from her thoughts from a magically blast that reverberated its sound throughout the streets.

"ASHIYA!" Maou shouted as he watched his best friend fall onto his back. He was hit in the shoulder.

Aiko gasped as she realized Lucifer was the one who shot the blast his way. Her brows turned downward into a scowl.

'What is he doing?!'

"Now I suppose it's Emilia's turn! Or should the King be first?! Decisions, decisions. Hmph, I'll kill both at once!" Lucifer shouted at the trio as he manifested his demon magic above his head. Blasts of purple energy came raining down, and the humans scattered about, screaming and running for their lives.

"No!" Aiko notices that her three acquaintances have run away soon after the blasts stopped...Along with Lucifer. Not knowing where they went, she bolts in the same direction as the humans.

'I can't transform. I can't do it. Not here. Not now. She told me to stay hidden, I promised her...But I have to help somehow!'

"Damn it!" Aiko finds her way to another part of the city that has medics and ambulances on stand by, caring for the civilians that got injured in the chaos.

"We're right by Sasazuka station. Why brings us somewhere so crowded?!"

'That voice.'

The young woman peers around a vehicle and sees Emi kneeling on the ground, beside a wounded Ashiya and Maou.

"Oh I get it, you came to catch an ambulance, didn't you? You big wimp!"

"Could you cut me some slack, please?!" Maou groans out as he sits up, holding his shoulder in pain.

"You can run, but you can't hide, Sire!" Aiko looks up and finds Lucifer holding an unconscious Chiho.

"Chiho!" She instinctively shouts. But luckily not loud enough to catch the demons' attention.

As she contemplates wether to run over to the trio to help, another blast of magic resounds through the streets. Aiko's eyes once again widen as she looks through a giant hole in Maou's chest, right before he collapses forward.

Her blood boils.

Clenching her fists she runs off through an alleyway. She hastily grabs a dark colored cloak from a shop's broken window display and ties it around her body. Releasing the confines she held her magic in, her wings sprouted from her back as she jumped up a building onto its roof.

Pulling the hood of the cloak over her head, she conceals her face.

"Oh, Lucifer. You have no idea what you've gotten yourself into..." She says to herself.

I'm sorry Mother...I have to.