yogen | MISSION 1

I won't abandon you to die here. If you need to run, run.

[Lucifer isn't in the habit of splitting the party, sorry. He may be holding one scrawny mage, but this is for the scrawny mage's protection... and if Shinobu wants to play tag, well, he can back her up with spells.]

You had our backs. I'll have yours.

[ As Lucifer and Clamor put distance away from Shinobu and whatever is coming their way, they'll notice that the wind has stopped and the forest is still, silent save for the two running away from Shinobu and the one running towards.

I hope Shinobu is a "stab first ask questions later" person, because what bursts through the underbrush is

a high school boy in all black. ]

[ Of all the things Shinobu expects Lucifer to say in response, ‘I won’t abandon you’ isn’t one of them. What does he care whether she lives or dies? He’s a demon. She’s human. All he should care about is what good she does for his stomach.

Maybe Kanae was right. Maybe—

A rustling bush sends her train of thought careening off its rails. She’s been caught off-guard. If she hesitates, she risks putting the three of them in danger.

So she doesn’t. She surges forward, not once stopping to assess the threat, and plunges her blade deep into the boy’s gut. The way his flesh gives… is he human? ]

—?!

[ Who did she stab? How much is she going to regret what she’s just done? ]

[ The boy isn't anybody the three of them recognize, wearing a black hakama instead of Yogen's uniform, with wide eyes staring at nothing, perhaps too surprised to process what had just happened. When he does, a look of horror dawns on his face and his eyes snap to meet Shinobu's, mouth open and—-

before he can utter a single word, a dark shadow swoops down from the trees like a gale, passing between the two of them and Shinobu's sword suddenly feels light again: the boy's knees hit the ground as the darkness slips away, torso falling forward and intestines unraveling and spilling out onto the ground that soaks through with blood and bile and shredded organs. Everything from the ribs up is gone.

One by one the blue butterflies return, half a dozen floating down to land on the boy's remains, dipping their heads, and sucking his blood. ]

[It all goes by too quickly for Clamor to process. He sees the boy, sees Shinobu thrusting her blade forward, the shadow, the sound of a bloody torso hitting grass...

it's probably a good thing Shinobu is standing between them to block the view, that his head is throbbing too much to focus on it, and that the adrenaline is pumping enough that his thoughts are on a much more pressing topic: the thing that did that is still here]

We need to move, now! [they are not fighting that, what the fuck]

[Holy fuck alright I woke up to this so that bodes well, before Lucifer takes off running in a direction however can he see where the fuck that shadow went?]

[ It went right. Into a bunch of trees. They can't see it anymore, nor can they hear footsteps or movement, just butterflies coming to feast. ]

[Aight so

Let's not provoke attacks here. Lucifer moves cautiously to the left, looking to Shinobu like, hey let's not fuck with the thing that just ate a man. Back away slowly, you know the drill.

Is there anything else in the area that looks like it might be worth going to, or are we just flying by the seat of our pants here?]

[ There is nothing in the immediate area that would prompt one direction over another. All they know is that the boy came from further north, the butterflies were heading east, and that thing also headed east. If they linger long enough, they'll start to hear whistling again, coming from the west. ]

[ A logical voice in the back of her head—one that sounds like Clamor—tells Shinobu to run, but cold horror keeps her frozen in place. That was a human. That was a living, breathing person, and she killed them. She watched them die, too. Let it happen, even.

No matter what Clamor and Lucifer think is the right thing to do, she can’t run from this. She made a promise. She swore to protect everyone. ]

… We can’t.

[ She’s not sure she can muster the will to look at either of them. Not if it means letting them see her all glassy-eyed and guilty. She keeps her head down and her eyes on whatever’s left of the poor boy instead. ]

We can’t leave. If there are other people lost in this forest, we’d be leaving them to die, too.

[He doesn't want to activate Dad Voice on her. Lucifer should, rightfully, leave the demon-killer to die, but...

Well, she hasn't stabbed him in the back yet, and the greedier part of Lucifer thinks he should just keep Shinobu around so that she can watch their backs, and then... for the millionth time he can hear Barbatos in the back of his mind telling him he's gotten soft, since he thinks he might actually give a shit about the life of someone he should reasonably be throttling or getting into a death-battle with.

At the end of the day, it's his pride that gets in the way. She's protected them; it would go against Lucifer's rigid principles to not return the favour. But he's not about to stand here and let them all perish, either.]

Shinobu. [He frowns. Shakes his head.] What's to say that those people aren't already dead? We could be trapped in an illusion. Remember, it was nighttime when we left the school. We blink, and it's daytime — I don't believe for a moment that this is truly how this realm operates.

[Actually, he doesn't know what to think, but for now he'll say that.]

Perhaps this isn't what you want to hear, but I'll say it regardless: There are people waiting on our safe return. You have to choose who to save. Are you going to save Amami, Gundham, Meng Yao, and Clamor? [Notably, he doesn't name himself; maybe because Lucifer thinks he doesn't need saving, or because he's trying to get a point across.] Or are you going to save unknown students who may or may not even be real? More importantly — will you live with the guilt of being unable to save unnamed students, or will you live with the guilt of being unable to save your friends?

Unfortunately, life is unkind, as I'm sure you've learnt. No matter what choice you make, [it's foolish to try and save those unknown students, Shinobu, please don't—] there will be consequences you must live with, sins you must weigh, and regret that suffocates you.

[he's trying really hard to stay calm and quiet and not panic, and this is all very touching and inspirational, but also

guys,] Can we maybe talk about this after we get away from here?!

[but since he's still being carried right now and doesn't feel any more comfortable walking, he's going to start thumbing quickly through his spellbook—none of his wards are going to do shit about an attack like that. he needs a plan B.

also: paying very close attention to that whistling now, because it can't be a coincidence that it stopped right before the last attack.]

[ The whistling is the same song, but clearly by a different person: they keep stopping and starting again, not hitting all the notes quite right, and frankly is a very bad whistler. The whistling gets louder, closer—-

snuffed out completely with nary a scream.

...

The trees rustle gently all around them, a persistent feeling of being watching needling under their skin. Clamor's headache starts to pulse, pressure behind the eyes. ]

[Lucifer may or may not be cocooning Clamor with his wings in the meantime while he's letting Shinobu think over his words, it's fine. He knows Clamor is feeling icky and it's not at all because Lavvy told me on discord I could have him acknowledge this.

Lets keep the Clamor out of harms way using big black bird wings, surely it'll work, right.]

[ Loath as she is to admit it, Lucifer’s right; at the end of the day, she doesn’t know how real the people here are. She doesn’t know if it’s worth risking all of their lives—lives she knows have meaning and are, most importantly, real—when it might already be too late to save whoever is trapped here with them.

Shinobu straightens up, squares her shoulders, and slides her sword back into its sheath. Come what may, she’s choosing to throw in her lot with Lucifer, Clamor, and everybody else. If there are consequences that come with that decision, she’s prepared to deal with them. ]

Where do you suppose we run? We don’t know where we are.

[ If only one of them... could get a bird's eye view... ]

[You know I honestly did consider having him fly but I was like hmm, but you know what, yeah. Lucifer doesn't want to fly Clamor into the sun though so he gently sets Clamor down at Shinobu's feet like, guard this real quick.]

I'm going up. Keep your guard up.

[A few powerful beats of his wings later, Lucifer is Up. What do his ~~bird~~ demon eyes see?]

[ He sees trees, stretching on for miles and miles and miles all around him, the land sloping up as if they stand at the bottom of a bowl, the center of which isn't too far away on foot, where there seems to be a clearing.

There he can see the roof of a small building, a little pond nearby, a plot of tilled land that may be a garden, a tree no larger than a sapling. ]

[Interesting. Lucifer commits the terrain to memory before he gently flies back down to the ground, gesturing with a flat palm to the direction they need to walk.]

There's a small building ahead next to a pond and a small tree, from what I could see from the air. [Picks Clamor back up, re-shields with wings,] We should be able to make the journey on foot, but letting our guards down would be deadly. Let's go.

[Clamor is trying his best not to let his growing discomfort show, but yeah... not having a great time over here. He's kinda just anxiously letting things happen around him and hoping for the best, he's the magitech guy he didn't exactly prepare for this kind of situation.

he does settle on a page in his spellbook, though, sticking a finger between the pages to mark it. if that thing appears again... he can try making a distraction. but that's about as far as his plan goes, so maybe let's try to avoid it altogether.

as long as Lucifer's suggestion is away from the whistling, he's not going to argue.]

[ Shinobu nods her agreement, not so much trusting of Lucifer’s judgment so much as she is resigned to the fact she has no other option than to go along with what he’s suggested. She’ll reassume her position at the group’s rear and play nice until they’ve guaranteed everybody else’s safety; after that, all bets are off. ]

[ The way forward is quiet, whistling in the wind at times but always on the outskirts, like unseen birdsong carried by the breeze. A trodden path cuts through thick bramble and around trees, both footprints and pawprints and claw marks visible in the dirt, and it's quiet.

A blue butterfly and then another float by them, drawn down the same path towards that building as if guiding them, before they drop out of the sky onto the ground. The three probably smell the reason much sooner before they see: a student in all black lies on the ground with a hole punched out through her chest, blood soaked grass poking out at the center of skin and fat that's the only thing keeping her upper and lower halves together, no spine or ribs to give her body shape. The blood is fresh, her eyes still bright as they stare up into the sky.

Not too far from her lies another student, the muscle over his stomach and thighs stripped clean off the bone that lays bare from sternum to ankle, parts of the femur crunched through and sucked dry of marrow.

Near him is another student, bright red lips parted in surprise beneath a pointed nose and a cavity that once held a brain and eyes.

Another with missing arms and shoulders, left with a leg and a half.

Another with mangled flesh, lower body chewed up and spat out and left to rot.

A pile of shredded clothes that once covered a person, nothing else of them which exists.

Another and another and another pile up in the outskirts of this building the closer they get to it, hidden in the shadows of the canopy. ]

[Lucifer... doesn't look unsettled, because he's a demon, and this is just... standard, you know — he's seen Beelzebub take a bite out of a human skull before, he's seen Satan rip the intestines out of humans who he's strung up in the basement, he's seen Belphegor kill someone dear to him and he's watched that person bleed out in his arms. It happens. When you're a demon, it happens, and there's no denying it.

The only reason this school has ever phased Lucifer before is because he personally can't escape from it, and maybe because some of his favoured people have disappeared or died otherwise. Which is to say... his only reactions to the dead are to close his eyes and shake his head, nose crinkling against the scent.

He's no angel. That phase was over two thousand years ago. The dead are just dead. Humans die. Humans will always die, whether by natural causes or their own hands or something ostensibly worse, it's a reality he's known. But still, even he can grasp the horror of the situation, even he can't help but feel disgusted by the piles of half-mangled corpses.

There's nothing to be done about it, though, and he presses on. Forgive him if his pace is a little more brisk than before.]

[He's forgiven, because at least one person here is not accustomed to this kind of carnage, the scent of blood and death growing thicker with each body they pass. The sight of it isn't nearly as bad to Clamor, not that he's allowing his eyes to linger on the mangled corpses for very long, but the smell... there's bile in his throat, his stomach is doing all kinds of unpleasant things in reaction to this godawful smell, he wants so very desperately to be anywhere else right now

but adrenaline says he needs to stay attentive, needs to be ready to react if something else goes wrong, so... all he can do is clamp a hand over his nose and mouth, try not to show how badly he's taking all of this in addition to the persistent pounding in his skull. just focus on the sounds, the whistling and the wind, footsteps, anything but the rest of what his senses are telling him...

don't let this be them. don't let whatever's in these woods get the jump on them.]

[ Shinobu’s no stranger to death, but she’s no less uncomfortable with the number of bodies strewn about their path than if she had been. The sight, the smells wear like sandpaper down on what little sanity she has left. This is beyond cruel. How much longer does Lucifer expect her to be able to ignore this? How much longer do they want her to wade through this sea of death and shrug it off like it’s nothing?

All they have to do is make it out alive, she tells herself. ‘All,’ like it’s just a matter of making the right turn or finding the right door. Like they’re not just as likely to end up a tally and join the other corpses on the ground. ]

How much further do we have to go?

[ For all the urgency in her voice, she’s not trying to come off as impatient. She’s more worried about how vulnerable they are out here, rather than under the cover of a roof and four walls. ]

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cw death death death

cw more gross death mentions, also ch 16 obey me spoilers?!

cw emeto mentions, still thinking about corpses, so much fun happening in the murder woods rn

cw mentions of death just in case(?)