Eyes clenched shut. Cuts decorating the skin. Heavy breathing, when the child wasn't screaming.
It was all so alluring. To the demon, anyway. The cult members exploiting the child for their own uses were completely apathetic about what they were doing. Which was trying to summon a demon. Little did they know, they already had.
The demon commonly refereed to as Yokai (he never really understood why--yokais were spirits from Japan, and they weren't like demons at all), sat in the beams that supported the underground chamber, enjoying the show until the time came for him to show himself.
Yokai was a wolf demon, from the third layer of hell. He was strong compared to the other inhabitants of the level, but to anyone in a lower level, he was impossibly weak. But these humans didn't need to know that.
When the child was reaching the end of his life, Yokai swooped down, looking like a humanoid mass of wriggling shadows. He quickly leaned down and stole the soul from the almost dead child, then turned to face the shocked cult members. A lopsided crescent appeared where one would expect his mouth to be as he smirked widely at them. The two burning magenta circles that shone through the shadows, zoomed over the cult, eyes focused as only a predator's could be.
Suddenly, the room burst into shouts, everyone in the chamber demanding for their wishes to be granted. Yokai's smirk turned to a sneer. None of these swines deserved the things they were asking for. And even if he had the power to grant their wishes, there were no souls here that he found tasteful. The child's had been different, full of hope and a little bitterness, like a sweet and sour candy. Eating it, despite it not being to his tastes, was no problem. But these men... all their souls were marred by greed, gluttony, envy, even sloth. None of which he would eat.
Scoffing, Yokai jumped, ready to open a portal (a special skill of his) and get back to his home in hell. But instead of going up toward the roof, he collided with a barrier crackling with energy. It forced him to turn into his human appearance and flung him back to the ground. The cult's shouts had stopped. Yokai, snarling, climbed to his feet. A few of the people in the chamber gasped.
He now looked like a pale 16 year old boy with messy black hair and sharp ruby red eyes. He was wearing a loose, black long sleeve v-neck shirt, black pants with numerous pockets, and he was barefoot. There were a pair of black wolf ears atop his head; one of them had a golden ring through the tip. A wolves' tail hung from under his shirt, black with blood red on the tip.
"Just as I thought." One man murmured, staring at Yokai. He had on a black robe, whereas the rest had on white ones. Yokai guessed he was the leader of this cult. "A weaker demon. He can't break the seal."
Yokai glanced down at the floor, and snarled again. There was a devil's trap painted on the floor. A strong one.
He had been trapped by a group of humans. How troublesome.
___.___
Three months. That's how long he'd been stuck in this stupid place, stuck in a cage marked with thousands of devil's traps, wrists encircled by. He was pulled out everyday to be used as the sacrifice. The idiots thought if they used a weaker demon they could summon a stronger one. If they had actually thought about, they'd have seen the stupidity of that plan. Yokai didn't have a soul. The only reason a demon of a higher caliber would deal with someone of his rank was if they wanted a servant, and they could always go to the third level for that. There was no need to come to the human world for one.
So, Yokai would have to find a way out himself. Which wouldn't have been a problem if these damn symbols didn't keep him in his human form and in whatever container they put him in. He supposed he would have to escape like a human, on foot. It wasn't a very well-developed plan, and he didn't have any backups, but Yokai was tired of being abused by these humans. Just because he healed didn't mean he couldn't feel pain, something these idiots didn't seem to get.