Art by Archillect on Twitter
Small gore warning ⚠️
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'What are those two doing?' Ki thought, his eyes barely open since he just woke up, feeling a bit better since his nap.
The sounds of chaotic laughter and several yelps stirred the demon out of his sleep. The first sight he saw was his cellmate taking punches to the stomach by his Keeper, but he was directing her to hit him. (Y/N) kept backing away and stating that she didn't want to hit him but the demon always persisted, the punches weren't really hurting him anyways. She refused and backed away once again so Akai threw her over his shoulder and threatened to drop her on her face.
Ki decided to get up and see what was going on.
When (Y/N) noticed Ki making his way over to them, she held her arm out to him for some much needed assistance from the crazy blond. "Ki! Help please!"
Akai turned around at the mention of his cellmate's name. His turn also cut (Y/N)'s view off from her help, making her huff in annoyance.
Ki tilted his head since he couldn't talk right now in his demonic form. Akai smiled and patted the woman's legs he was holding. "I'm trying to teach our little damsel in distress how to fight."
"More like torturing!"
Akai loosened his grip on her just for a second but it was enough to make her panic. "Akai!"
He was enjoying her suffering a bit too much.
(Y/N) tried pushing herself back up to feel more stable in his hold but she didn't want to put her hands on his bare back. Why did he have to take his shirt off to 'train' her? Yea it was ripped up from his fight with Ki earlier but it was providing some coverage at least.
She caught an upside down glimpse of Ki again and gave him a look that screamed 'HELP'. Ki disappointingly shook his head at Akai and suddenly, (Y/N) was out of his hold and laying on the ground shivering.
She meant to pull her off not teleport her with his below 0-degree portals.
Akai threw his arm up dramatically and groaned. "Why do you always have to ruin the fun?"
(Y/N) sat up and rubbed her arms of chills. She thanked Ki and went to grab her (f/c) hoodie that she took off earlier.
Akai threw his arm around Ki's shoulder and pointed at the Keeper. "I'm helping her for her own good! Right now, she's like a toddler when it comes to inflicting pain on others. Her hits feel like if I was to smack you with a leaf."
"I'll smack you with this chair..." she grumbled under her breath as she was putting on her hoodie.
"Do you really want to leave her like the weak link she is?" Ki could tell Akai was being dramatic. But he did have a point.
(Y/N) turned around with her hoodie on and glared at the blond demon. "Are you hearing this guy, Ki? I'm not we-"
Ki was staring at her like he was observing her stature and it made her more suspicious. "Ki?"
Akai grinned and whispered into Ki's large ear, after that, the silent demon started stalking towards her. She immediately started backing up while narrowing her eyes at them both. "Ki, what are you doing? What did you tell him, Akai?!"
"Oh nothing~. Just to rough you up a little bit."
Her (e/c) eyes widened, before she could tell Ki to stop he pounced on top of her and used his large demon hands to pin her to the floor, careful that his claws didn't scratch her and dropped the nonspiky part of his tail onto her legs. If she had her cross that she regretfully forgot in her room, it would've activated in an instant. She tried wiggling out but Ki in his demon form was far more heavier, she couldn't move a muscle. She grimaced when Akai came strutting up next to her with a mischievous smirk and bent down closer to her.
She deadpanned. "Is this some sort of joke?"
Akai shook his head and patted Ki's head proudly. Ki grunted and moved his head away, he wasn't a pet. "As a part of your training, I want you," He booped her noise, "to try and escape Ki. In the real world and not this underground village or whatever, you have to encounter things like this." He motioned towards Ki and (Y/N) rolled her eyes. "If you want to survive in this cruel world, you're gonna have to fight against the most bloodthirsty creatures imaginable! Luckily for you, Ki is like a puppy."
The insulted demon growled at him and mistakenly lifted an arm to take a swipe at Akai. The laughing demon jumped back in time before Ki's black claws could slash him. (Y/N) quickly took the opportunity to move her arm and reach for Ki's head, getting an idea from Akai's 'puppy' remark.
Ki went to place his hand back down after growling at his childish cellmate but stopped when a familiar intoxicating sensational feeling was being produced between his four horns on top of his head. He instantly drowned in the feeling and forgot about all the troubles in the world and this hellish lab. He leaned into his Keeper's touch for more and his tail lifted up to move side to side in delight, almost hitting Akai in the process.
(Y/N) heaved out a breath when Ki fell on top of her with a 'thomp' and his head rested on her stomach. She continued to massage his head while questioning if Ki was actually a puppy in a demon's body.
Akai facepalmed. This wasn't what he had in mind.
Ki started purring audibly enough for (Y/N) to hear as he snuggled himself against her. She couldn't help but giggle at how weird he was acting. "If bloodthirsty creatures are weak to head scratches, then I'll be fine in your 'cruel world'." She quoted.
"Alright get up." Akai pulled Ki off of her when she stopped scratching him. When the intoxicating feeling sadly left his head, Ki regained composure and embarrassingly moved back. His white hair covered his eyes to hide his shame of becoming a slave to those dangerous fingers of hers.
(Y/N) sat up and fixed her hoodie, tiredly looking at Akai. "Are we done yet? I would like to relax now on my chair, please."
"Nuh uh." He waved his finger. "We still aren't done and I'm still feeling bored, so get up." He pulled her arm and she wearily allowed him to bring her to her feet.
The time was now 10:58 pm and (Y/N) was feeling the urge to pass out now. This was usually around the time she would head to bed and be tucked in her covers, not trying to escape a chokehold from the supposedly 'bored' demon. She managed to move his arm enough to slip through and she darted behind him to hop on his back to disorientate him. She was now the one giving a chokehold as she wrapped her arms around his neck and moved around to make him lose balance.
Ki watched from his corner, now in his humanoid form with his clothes on. After the last hour went by, (Y/N) started taking Akai's 'training' a bit seriously. He guessed she was getting more fed up with how Akai wouldn't let her rest for even a minute and the constant jabs he kept sending to her sides, her hits were now starting to have some effect on the demon. Even now as she had her arm wrapped around his neck, she was jabbing him in the shoulder with her elbow and he actually grunted from the surprise pain.
He sees that his training was actually getting somewhere.
Ki wondered about Akai's true motive in teaching their Keeper how to fight them. Either he had an idea or maybe he was bored. Ki couldn't tell with him.
The muffled sound of a piece of metal falling caught the demon's ear. He focused his hearing on the divider to his right and started to make out the sounds of the workers on the other side. He could hear drilling and clanks happening with the occasional voices of the people. Becoming curious about what's going on over there, he cupped his hands together and focused his energy on making a small portal appear. When the dark energy massed together in his hands, an image started to appear and it began showing the other half of the cell. Equipment hooked into the walls, a pile of metal tossed together in a corner, about 15 people walking around and working at the damaged areas, and two men who seemed to be arguing at a very particularly special wall.
Ki knew his other portal could be seen by the humans, so he carefully maneuvered it around and out of sight behind a crate full of burnt metal.
One of the men pointed at the wall and argued that they have to fix it too. The wall had Ki's claws marks etched deep into the metal with some wires being exposed. It needed to be replaced but for some reason, the other guy disagreed. His reason being that they needed permission from the higher ups to open the wall. This caught Ki's attention. He saw another crate closer to the two and quickly maneuvered his little portal across the room between a woman's legs, past a man on break, and behind a crate with new metal boards sticking out.
"We need permission before we can tackle this part. This area of the room is sensitive."
"Well we can't just leave it like this! Besides, the demons are on the other side of the room. We aren't risking anything with opening this up!"
The first man grumbled and started making his way out of the cell. "I'm gonna go get the right authority to open that wall. Don't touch it till I get back!"
When the man was gone, the second guy rolled his eyes and went to open it anyways. First, he took some tool to lift one side of the metal then went to a random area on the wall and did some quick tapping that Ki couldn't keep up with. After that, the wall clicked and opened up, the metal wall scraping off as this unknown door slid inside the rest of the wall.
Ki's eyes widened. This was how those Scientist bastards got in! He moved his portal once the man walked away to retrieve some pliers. The small portal zoomed into the mystery room before it could be seen.
It entered a white hallway that turned both ways, left and right. Ki's portal looked right and the hall extended far down, maybe there were other cells connected to this mystery hall like his was. The portal turned left and it was met with the same sight. Ki looked down at the floor and noticed some railway-like tracks on the floor.
He chose to go down the left hallway and made sure that no one was around. Hopefully, he was able to explore enough before his distance limit wore out.
As the portal traveled down the hall, Ki's idea of other cells being connected was true. He passed by other doors that led to cells with labels painted on the walls. T4, H7, Y12, and so on. As he passed a few, he could even hear some sounds of the demons who occupied those cells.
He saw a door on the right wall come up and pushed his portal towards it. That's when the burning sensation in his hands started to happen, he was close to his limit.
Ignoring the pain, Ki moved the portal to the window on the door and saw something he never would have thought to see. A large room with giant metal-like contraptions that lined up in rows with wires and some sort of cold steam emitting from them. Those Scientists he remembered being tortured by were walking around with clipboards and observing whatever was inside those giant box things. There were guards who wore more advanced armor than the two guards Angel and Davis and even masks that had some sort of filter on, similar to the Scientists. Ki watched as one Scientist tapped one of the boxes and wrote down something on their clipboard before doing the same to the next. What were they doing?
A loud noise behind him made the demon jump. He turned his portal to face down the hall and saw a group of Scientists walking out from one of the cells.
He quickly found a vent in the wall behind him and hurried over to slip his portal inside. He waited for them to pass by and debated if he should just cancel the portal, he's seen enough to tell Akai about. Maybe he found a new way out.
The sound of wheels grinding on metal was heard then the sound of low growls. It got closer and closer until Ki could hear the Scientists speak through their speakers in their suits. He caught sight of wheels in those tracks on the floor and moved his portal enough to see a platform with a demon chained down to it. They stopped in front of the door and one of the Scientists went to mess with a touchscreen lock on the side. Ki was able to observe the demon long enough to tell that it was under heavy sedation. The demon was fully animal-like with large claws, a huge snout, multiple eyes that oozed some sort of phlegm, and greenish grey skin with some splats of black blood around his claws and mouth.
The door finally opened and the platform turned to enter. The platform rolled into the room and the Scientists followed close behind with some guards. When the door closed, Ki checked to see if the coast was clear and moved his portal back to the window.
What he saw was... horrifying.
About five guards stepped back from the platform and allowed the Scientists to take samples of the demon. Pieces of its skin, blood, the phlegm, an eyeball, everything they could get their creepy hands on. They placed all the samples into small vacuum sealed bags and went to put them in a container on a table. One of the Scientists waved a hand at the guards and they all lined up in a row with their guns raised.
Ki's heart stopped as he watched them open fire on the unconscious demon, never stopping for a second. The bullets ripped into the demon's flesh and tore deep into his body to the point where there was no coming back from. Ki almost canceled his portal on accident from how shocked he was.
The guards stopped shooting when the Scientists told them to stop. They lowered their guns and allowed the Scientists to take control of the demon once again. They pulled the platform over to a container that was luckily in Ki's sight. One of them went to a panel and must've pressed a button that made a door to a container open up. They positioned the platform to face the container and pushed one end up so the deceased demon went tumbling inside, its black blood smeared across the metal being the only remnant of what happened. It fell hard into the container with a sort of splash, clear liquid flying up from its impact. The Scientists then resealed the container and walked away while one remained at the panel to read whatever was showing up on it. After confirming something, the guards from before proceeded to wheel the container deeper into the room and out of sight. The portal backed away slowly from the window as Ki kept his eyes on the Scientists. His eyes looked up and he mistakenly caught a glimpse of two words etched into the wall in glowing red lights.
'The Hold.'
Ki canceled his portal. He's seen enough.
He stared into his now empty hands as he tried to comprehend what he had just witnessed. They killed that demon and put it into some metal box filled with a strange liquid then too if off somewhere. He remembered the week (Y/N) started working here and that she had mentioned someplace called 'The Hold'. He didn't think much of it because it just sounded like a timeout place for when demons got in trouble. But seeing it with his own eyes, he thought entirely different now.
'But they killed it. What were those containers filled with liquid for?' He brainstormed but he couldn't think of any good explanation. He couldn't ask (Y/N), she'll know that he snooped into areas he wasn't supposed to be in.
This was gonna be on his mind for a while...