The 9th

Demon Kings on Earth. 1

 *holds onto a chapter title for the third time*

Iblis waved Shima off and stalked toward Rin, he gazed down on his brother with emotion the humans couldn't decipher. He beckoned for Azazel to come forward. 

"Will he be alright?" 

Azazel put a clawed hand on the young demon's forehead. The brothers watched as Azazel's face morphed into a pained expression. 

"He'll...he'll live," Azazel muttered. "But, like Amaimon, he won't wake up the same."

Kamiki sent a confused look to Koneko, who flinched before dragging her to the corner of the room. "Seriously, Kamiki?" 

"What!"

Koneko sighed and cleaned his glasses. "Demon Kings can't die, you know this, but it is possible to be alive without living. His Highness means that he'll be okay."

Kamiki moved to open her mouth and ended up biting a coaltar. She saw Astaroth's tail return to its place on Rin's chest out of the corner of her eye. 

Iblis looked to Shima, who flinched at the sudden attention. "Where is Rin's room?"

Shima felt the sweat go down his back. Rin's room was in the far back near the heater, but if demons sleep better in the cold then- 

"It's this way, Your Highness," Koneko cut in. He pointed towards the top of the house. "Kamiki's familiars were going to carry his bed up there."

Astaroth turned to look at Kamiki. "You have familiars?"

"Yeah?"

Astaroth grimaced. "And who would be the unfortunate demons?"

Kamiki huffed and summoned her familiars. 

"None other than us," said a fox with a mustache. 

Astaroth grimaced even deeper. "How fitting, annoying snots for an annoying twat."

"Language!" Iblis barked at Astaroth. Slapping his little brother's head, Egyn tsked. "You are a king, little brother, act like one when you're in front of the humans."

"Your beer mouth may get off A-OK with the people of your kingdom, but the human realm is brutal." Iblis reminded him. "One wrong move and your reputation is in shatters."

Amaimon nodded his head and turned his tail to face the demon foxes. "They just let anyone have a familiar, don't they?"

Egyn held in a snort. 

Iblis sent a small glare toward Egyn before lifting Rin off of the bed. "Come, we'll head towards the top of the house." The demon siblings obeyed and followed Iblis up the stairs, all eyes filled with worry on Rin. 

Shima, who was stuck on the bottom floor with Kamiki and Koneko, ruffled his hair and sighed before patting Kamiki on the back. "He really doesn't like you, does he?"

Kamiki felt her face grow red. "Yeah, but he doesn't like you any better!"

"True, but I'm not the one who was just-"

"Shut up!" 

Koneko flinched at the loud noise and looked upstairs to see if the Demon Kings had heard Kamiki's shout. 

"Be quieter," Koneko hissed at the two. "We don't want them getting any angrier at us."

Kamiki turned her head and tsked before walking outside. "I have an assignment to take care of, you worry about our guests."

That was one thing Koneko could do without being told to. He sent a worried glance up the stairs and imagined what demonic spells the Kings could be planning on casting.

--

"Fuck!" Amaimon hissed as he crumpled to the floor. 

Astaroth helped him up and suppressed a giggle. "All you did was hit your funny bone."

The distraught younger demon scowled at his older brother and edged away from the wall corner. "I've never had a human body before! It's not my fault they're so stupidly weird." 

"Like you've never stubbed your toe on one of the statues in Rin's garden."

"That's different!" Amaimon whined. "That's universal pain, even ghouls feel it sometimes! This body is wired differently, it's veins are way too sensitive. I'm surprised they don't get cut by things like paper."

Egyn hummed. "The paper in our world is much stronger than the paper here...."

Iblis snorted and mentally swore to take a video of Amaimon and Egyn's first paper cuts. For Rin, of course.

The flame demon sent a quick glance to their Sleeping Beauty of a brother, whose sweating had lessened. 

"Egyn, can you put an ice pack on Rin's pressure points? The larger ones, at least, and make sure to have one on his forehead."

Egyn happily obliged and left the conversation to cool Rin down. 

Azazel finished his topcoat of nail polish and waved it in the air for a split second. "So...killing Samael...how are we going to do it?"

Iblis's tail swayed slightly. "Not necessarily kill."

Azazel's brow raised. "Then what?"

"We are going to execute the punishment he fears most."

"Which is?" Astaroth had never come into contact with Samael himself, and he should consider himself lucky on that account. 

Iblis pointed towards Azazel. "When the time comes, Azazel will find that out with his mind powers."

Azazel slapped Iblis's arm. "You know what they're called, you cheeky younger sibling."

Iblis shrugged his shoulders. "I've called them that since I and Egyn were children, can't exactly stop now."

Azazel snarled and let out a grin. "Then find a way, younger brother, I've let you get away because our people could not see us fighting. But here in the human realm-" Azazel waved his tail in front of Iblis's face. "None of our people can see us."

Iblis shivered at the threat. "I'll stop, I'll stop." Realizing that he no longer had his number one wall, Iblis wisely surrendered. 

Amaimon watched his two elder siblings while biting down on a sucker. Egyn had brought one of his favorites from Gehenna, a hard-to-break dragon fruit flavored one. 

With a surprised jump, Amaimon cracked the sucker. He stared at the stick that had fallen on the floor and felt a childish sadness creep into his bones. Slapping himself lightly to push the feeling down, Amimon picked up and threw the stick away, but couldn't keep the pout off of his face.

Astaroth watched his brother with knowing eyes. "How about we go and see the human world?"

Azazel huffed. "Where would we even start?" The human realm had developed so much in the last two hundred years, he was curious to see if anything big had happened.

Iblis and Egyn, frequent visitors to the human realm, also shrugged their shoulders. Everything was old to them, so they didn't know where to start."

"Here's an idea," Egyn said. "Why not get one of the demons up here to show us around?"

Azazel snapped his fingers. "Brilliant idea! And I know just who to summon~"