waking up the devil | oikawa tooru

vii. emortuus.

OIKAWA STARED AT THE true version of himself—really looked at the demon he actually was—for the first time in over five years. He stood in the metaphysical space he shared with the demon in his mind, a replica of the flower field he had seen you in all those years ago, with tall, spear-like trees reaching and bowing towards a single point in the sky. Stars of glittering gold and smoldering flame sparkled in the sky, globules of energy and power that seeped off of his demon that singed holes in the illusion's carefully constructed walls.

Sometime after the demon had seized control during the angel dust's more powerful reactions, Oikawa had been left to dwell amongst the illusory flowers alone. He wasn't sure how long he had been asleep, as time worked differently for every demon and every inner space, but it couldn't have been long. The demon wouldn't allow him to sleep and part from [Name] for long now that she was back in his life, he knew, not that he himself would either.

She looked the same, but different—different in that she was older, had lost the rest of the baby fat she kept, wore her hair in a different style—and yet her aura was the same, unchangeable, and in it he found her a comforting presence. Even his demon, once raging for years on end, was sitting in the flowers across from him in placated silence as if he never knew the meaning of anger, fury, or destruction.

"Thou'st feelings of turmoil," the demon noted. Deep set eyes of silver and red peered out at him through a frame of pitch black feathers, each individual one different from another and shining with the colors of an oil patch. "Prithee do not soil the peace of mine own world."

"You're one to talk about 'soiling the peace of my world' with turmoil." Oikawa glared at the demon, watched as the panther-like tail swept through the flowers in amusement. A bright cloud of magic rose into the air, the flower illusion breaking just enough for him to peer through it and see the darkness lurking underneath, and found himself reaching for one out of habit. "Why are we here?"

"Thy mind has yet to waken." Another eye opened, somewhere upon a lithe wing secured to a feline spine, to observe him more closely while the original pair looked away. This eye glowed like the edge of a silver disk, interspersed with flecks of bright green and yellow throughout the iris. "It will be some time before thine blood clears the seraphim's poison from thy blood completely."

Abaddon—the true Abaddon, and not the elegant farce that was Oikawa Tooru—was a panther of gigantic proportions, although calling him a panther was ignorant of his true form. It was the closest the human mind could get to imagining him, at least in context. While the demon assumed many forms, his most favorite was that of a panther. However, twisted and turned by his dark power, anger, and divine origins as one of the original Fallen, this seemingly innocent form had been turned into something other; something more. He was no panther any longer, but a horrific mixture of wings, eyes, feathers, claws, poisonous spines, and razor sharp teeth that looked like they belonged in the mouth of a serpent rather than a semi-feline entity. The same set could be found in Oikawa's mouth if he was incensed enough, filled with a unique and deadly poison that no power in Earth, Eden, Hell or Heaven could cure, for that was one of God's many curses against him before he fell.

"The Fall," Abaddon echoed, following Oikawa's thoughts through their shared connection. "T'was eons upon eons upon eons ago the last I thought of such."

The Fall was generally a touchy subject for all of the fallen angels within Eden. Oikawa was one of the few who remained, foregoing the harsh hierarchy of Hell and Lucifer's overstayed appointment as overlord. Several others, such as Seraphiel, Uliel, and Adariel, remained with Oikawa as well—Iwaizumi, Matsukawa, and Hanamaki respectively—while several others left for Hell to secure their spots in the hierarchy. Abaddon's equal and match in every way, Azrael, had been absent for so long that Oikawa could scarcely remember a moment after the Fall that she had been present in any realm to begin with. While Oikawa and Abaddon were the same entity, Oikawa mourned her differently to his demon: he recalled her fondly, and that was all. It was likely that she was at peace with removing herself from any and all affairs, and reasoned that she would not be happy elsewhere.