A/N: Flonne/Laharl/Etna in this chapter. Mention of stuff from Disgaea 2 in this part. No D2.

Instability

ii: cor aut mors

heart or death / the choice between [morals, duty, loyalty] and [insignificance, disrespect, excommunication]

in medio

The Seraph intervened to stop the passing of his soul. More than that, he pulled a few strings to make sure that his confidant could remain among the living. When he came face to face with the demon, he sported a weary smile. "Welcome back," He whispered to the other man.

Krichevskoy gasped and shakily smiled back. "I'm forever in your debt."

Both of them discussed what they would do from there on out. The angel wondered if the demon would step back into the messy Netherworld and reorganize the chaos his 'death' had brought. The ex-Overlord shook his head – the chaos would only aid their plans. Instead, he would go out, present himself as the son of a long-lost noble family, and work very hard to distinguish himself as this different entity. On a separate note, now he had a way to speak to his son without putting on airs – the youth wouldn't even recognize the man when they met.

"Do you think you'll be ready on your end soon?" Krichevskoy asked the angel breathlessly. His trip to the afterlife and back had not been particularly kind on this fresh body.

"Yes," Lamington replied with a smile. "I believe that she'll be ready soon."

The next few weeks passed quickly, and they hardly had time to meet. Krichevskoy fashioned a ridiculous name and title for himself first. After that, he decided he would have fun around the Netherworld for a little while, trusting Etna to keep the promise she had made to him months before he'd gone to fight Baal. Laharl was a big boy now, and probably stronger than he was in this body. Even if worry was internally tearing him apart, he couldn't do anything to stop time from marching forward, and the plan from coming into action. The humans were getting restless. The angels had a disastrous foe within their own ranks. The Netherworld was falling apart with the absence of a king.

He and the Seraph, the orchestrators of a hefty bet, were in charge of organizing the chaos of the three worlds, and molding the tension for the better. Using the prince of the Netherworld and a sweet angel trainee from Celestia, Lamington and the newly christened 'Vyers' were going to do their best to connect inhabitants from the two worlds.

Vyers only snuck to the castle one time, months after his reincarnation, to see his son's face. He lifted the lid of the coffin and breathed a sigh of relief. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, and he returned the lid to its' proper place before flying back out of the nearest window in the castle.

Seeing Laharl gave him a fresh enthusiasm for his plan, and he didn't look back.

/

thirteen hundred and thirteen – i

When he saw Etna there, surrounded by tools designed for killing others, he immediately assumed the worst. After all, it wasn't outside of her nature to threaten him with such things. Once she'd started to tell him about his bizarre situation, he wished that had only been the case.

Two years.

He'd been asleep for two years.

Worse yet, his father had died in some stupid way before he had the chance to kill him and take his title. There were hundreds of demons that were starving for the throne, and now that he was awake, he had to get them out of the way. Anger swirled in his chest, the way it always had, and killing those demons didn't even allow him the sense of satisfaction it usually did. He deserved the throne. He was the rightful heir to it, and beyond that, he was the strongest demon in the Netherworld now that the idiot was dead. Had they forgotten?

Of course they had; he was assumed dead.

Laharl burned a lesser demon scurrying behind Etna to a crisp and his scarf curled behind him. He barked instructions at her without a drop of emotion, and she straightened her back, reasonably nervous. She was the one who had poisoned him, after all, and now she was planning on using him to break free from her brief imprisonment. It wasn't that she'd completely forgotten all those years of bickering with the kid, taking care of him and sticking around the castle – her recollection of events was hazy because there were gaps in her memory. Some of her long-term memory was entirely gone, and she needed the prince's 'help' to that back from her 'keeper'. Still, when the boy was in this kind of mood, she wondered if the memories were truly worth the trouble.

The two of them were only alone for a while, though, and neither of them were ready for the arrival of that ditzy angel. They weren't ready for the way she would ease the hostility between the pair. They weren't ready for the war of the Netherworld, or anything else, and what marked all of the forthcoming change in their lives had a name.

Flonne.

/

thirteen hundred and thirteen – ii

Among other things, he thought she was unbelievably, assuredly, completely annoying. She was always talking about things that made him want to rip his hair out, and her obsession with love with was nauseating. Every time she berated him, it felt familiar somehow, and the anger deep in his gut swirled more and more every time she opened her stupid mouth.

Over time, her rants about superheroes, love, and happiness got easier to tune out when she patched him up and smiled. She didn't believe him to be heartless, and somehow, having someone new to bicker with felt good. Etna and Flonne were always giggling about something or another behind his back, and even if he thought their words were trivial, it was okay. Etna happily shared her demonic exploits of the past two years with the blonde girl, who oohed and awed and cried over parts most demons would be dismissive of. Laharl bragged and laughed in front of the angel, and scowled at the girls' incessant teasing. Traveling together got easier and easier with time, and the boy was, even if he would never admit it, starting to listen to the blonde angel and his redheaded second-in-command.

He began to trust Etna, ironically enough, after she'd used him as a hostage. The weak humans with their messy ties grew on him, and although he bossed all of them around like a tyrant, laughing and smirking, he was gradually opening up to others.

Flonne giggled to herself when she imagined him muttering to himself about the others. Etna's just another servant; don't call us something gross like 'childhood friends'! Those heroes were too weak to stand in my way. You're so infuriating that I have to make you my vassal so I can kill you in your sleep!

He was still so scared of losing these flimsy connections that he shied away from contact. She would brush against his shoulder or reach out and touch his antennae, and he'd leap ten feet away from her, bristling. Furthermore, he couldn't even get their proper names out of his mouth. Etna had been lucky enough meet the prince at a time he was the most emotionally vulnerable (or, in her opinion, volatile). The redhead told the rest of the group that Laharl had been the worst when he was about a seven hundred or so, so back then, he'd used her name like a bad word, but it was her name nonetheless.

The angel smiled and gasped during the story, then rushed to the boy's side to ask him if he was as bad as Etna had said he was. He let out his proud, haughty laugh and folded his arms across his bare chest. "No, I was worse! Ha ha ha ha!" Flonne puffed her cheeks out and pounded her fists against his shoulders, but he hardly flinched. On top of that, when Etna came from behind the prince and laid her chin on his head, he didn't immediately push her away either.

Both of the girls thought it a bit strange, and shared giggles later that night about the incident. He was starting to accept the both of them in his personal space.

/

thirteen hundred and thirteen – iii

He remembered when they'd watched his mother pass on with a strange feeling in his chest. Weeks after it had happened, he still felt strange. This…whatever it was…was a waste of both time and energy. He decided to go get a snack to clear his mind after he got tired of looking at the red moon in the distance.

When he padded down to the kitchen from his room, he found Etna lounging on a couch in the dining hall, and Flonne sleepily watching something on the television. Laharl said nothing to them as he grabbed several things out of the fridge. He started eating at a table a few feet away from them, and the blonde starting murmuring something to him. "Your mother seemed like a kind and loving woman."

"She was sorta weird, but not all bad," Etna commented after an awkward pause fell in the room. "The king thought the world of her."

Flonne looked at the other girl before turning to Laharl again. "Do you remember her at all?"

Blood-red eyes turned to her with a mix of emotions written in them. "No," the boy answered quietly. He ate his food slowly, which was rare for him.

The angel-trainee's blue eyes filled with moisture. The redhead looked between them and felt strangely courageous, so she joined the conversation with a question she'd always wanted to ask the prince. "Did she give you that scarf?"

He seemed moderately annoyed, but no more than usual. "I don't know. I just said that I don't remember her, didn't I?" The way he posed the rhetorical question told them not to ask any more questions about his mother. Still, they both noticed that he turned towards the windows when the moon was full these days, watching the red orb in the sky with emotions circling in his irises.

/

thirteen hundred and thirteen – iv

If all of the anger he'd ever felt in his life could be confined to a large number, and then raised to the twentieth power, it still wouldn't have been a grand enough measurement for the amount of rage that poured out of his body in that moment.

He'd gone through the first stage of grief in a flash. The denial clawed at his chest and closed his throat. Her pendant burned on his chest like a fresh coal. Etna, next to him, looked like her eyes were glossy. The heroes could not offer the demons any sort of comfort because they had departed before the three had gone to confront the Seraph. His whole body was crying out in pain, and he couldn't see anything in front of him. The world blurred together before he screamed, and his compounded rage burned him from the inside out.

Shit, shit – damn you, you shitty angel, who gave you the right?! His claws were tearing Lamington apart, and the angel was hardly resisting. Blood stained the fangs and fists of the boy, and his scarf had become a set of fiery wings. His body felt uncontrollable, and his mind was a mess. "What the hell's the matter with you?!" Laharl jabbed his sword into the angel's chest three times, and then punched the older man squarely in the jaw. "She didn't do anything wrong!" Flames ate at the angel's robes. "Hurting other angels? Hurting a human? She barely even touched them! Excuses! She trusted you!"

"Prince," Etna whispered, unable to do anything else. She wished she could do something – anything. Her head and throat hurt terribly, and her eyes were moist. She didn't know how to stop him without ending up dead herself.

"She trusted you and you killed her!" His growls were guttural and accentuated by wounds to Lamington's person. When he finally found himself needing to breathe, the sight of his carnage continued to hurt his chest. After he stood, covered in blood, he glanced back at that flower, and found that his face was damp with something completely foreign to him.

Tears.

He couldn't see her flower through them. Tossing his sword aside, he spat on the angel. Deep in his mind, his subconscious knew that he'd been wasting his time.

It hurts. Laharl thought, and the tears wouldn't stop. It hurts, you damn love-crazy angel. He'd lost his mother twice, his father was gone, and now the world had taken away someone that had shown him love and happiness so sincerely that he couldn't distrust her.

When Vyers began to explain everything, the two young demons didn't have enough mental or emotional capacity to dismiss his hopeful words. Their eyes turned to witness the familiar face reintegrate from nothing, albeit with a few noticeably different features. She was as surprised as they were to see them again, but more importantly, that he was crying. It hurt to watch more than she thought, even if he hurried to wipe those tears away. The blonde noticed her final gift to him peeking out of his scarf, a gift from another woman that had similarly sacrificed herself to save him.

The enigmatic demon disappeared before the three of them had time to regain their senses and ask him a thousand questions, which just left Lamington to be dealt with before they went to the Netherworld again. Flonne was the one who healed him and prayed that he would recover to full health. Then, she grabbed the hands of the two that had become so dear to her heart and declared that she was ready to go back to the castle. She wanted to return to Celestia one day – it was her home – but right now, she desperately wanted to share this abundance of love with every demon in hell.

Even if Laharl had let her hand go as if burned after a minute or so, or if Etna teased her by threatening to 'ruin' the fallen angel's body, she was thrilled beyond belief. They'd both felt deep happiness in being with her, and sadness in her loss – both signs of love. Beyond that, Laharl – the shy one, the bratty one, the angry, tyrannical, loud, boyish, and arrogant Overlord – had done the one thing she thought he would never, ever do.

He had said her name.

/

thirteen hundred and fourteen – i

The blonde found him first, snoring on a desk that was dusty from neglect. When she pointed this fact out to the redheaded demon, she had seemed shocked.

"I don't know what's more surprising," Etna mused quietly. "The fact that he was actually doing work for once, or the fact that he went to his father's office to do it."

"His father's?" Flonne gaped openly. "Really?"

"The one and only," She pulled at one of her pigtails absently. "The King spent most of his time in here. He was always trying to plan something or another. He was a really kind man. Kind of a strange demon, though."

"I see," The blonde nodded her head. "He really respected his father, hm?"

"No, no," Etna assured her with a confident voice, expression stern. "They never got along."

Flonne seemed confused, and her lips twisted. "What? Then why…?"

The other demon shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. Something tells me the prince wouldn't have fallen asleep in here for no reason at all. I've got a bad feeling about this."

By the time morning rolled around, the redheaded demon would be proved correct. The prince had gone into that room to find something, and had stumbled across a piece of information that would keep the three of them busy for the next few months.

He had found a particular demon that he wanted to fight.

"Tyrant Baal," Etna breathed when he smirked at she and the fallen angel at breakfast. "You're kidding me. The strongest Overlord in the universe? Are you an idiot?"

"Please," Laharl rolled his eyes, which were almost disgustingly shiny with excitement. "I'm more than strong enough to fight him and win. Or don't you think so?"

Etna's lips twitched into a smile before she pulled him into a headlock. "Hell no! We all get it – you're plenty strong, Prince. There's no need to fight Baal to prove it!"

"Etna's right!" Flonne puffed up, grabbing his thin wrists and wrapping her warm hands around his gold bangles. "His name sounds super scary, and even I've heard rumors about him in Celestia!"

He got flustered and slipped out of their grasps with the faintest dusting of red crossing his face. "Would the both of you shut up and listen to me? I think, somehow, there was a false report about my father's death." Laharl pulled an article out of a pocket in his shorts. "Some prinny tipped me off about it when they were cleaning up, so I went in there to go check out the old man's stuff. It was so boring that I fell asleep." The girls both sighed and pressed their palms to their faces as a form of reaction, but encouraged him to get on with his story. "Anyways," He harrumphed. "Check this out. There's a chance my old man could've died fighting that guy. If Baal's quiet, that means he's sealed right now. If my old man could seal him, I can definitely kill him."

Flonne pulled his arm close to her again, and wrapped both of her hands around his hand, ignoring his stammers. "But what if…" Her red eyes were watery, and he was forced to turn away from her. "Something happened to you?"

"I'm sure as hell not going with you to find him," His other companion noted calmly. She seemed nervous, too. "You feelin' suicidal, Prince?"

"You've got to be kidding. Me?" Laharl snorted, quickly shooing both of them out of his airspace. For some reason, in the moment, he seemed just a little more mature to the girls. "Of course not. Now, do you trust me?"

They shared worried expressions and blatantly told him that they didn't, thus inciting a tantrum. He stormed off, swearing that he would return in one piece, and they only watched for a minute or two before starting to move.

"So, you're following the prince to his doom, Flonne?" Etna mused, keeping a careful eye on the boy stomping his feet in front of them.

"Well," The blonde's eyebrows were furrowed, remembering that he had followed her to Celestia and risked his life to save her. "We can't just let him go by himself, can we?"

He turned around and told them to hurry it up, his eerily fantastic hearing alerting him to their presence. The redhead smiled a bit with the fallen angel.

"Yeah," Etna and Flonne quickened their pace, and caught up to him.

/

thirteen hundred and fourteen – ii

The three of them had made it back alive. They were breathless and exhausted and injured beyond belief, but they had defeated Baal.

"Aren't you happy, Prince?" Etna teased. "You got to avenge your father."

He took too long to come up with a snippy response, so the girls both saw through his façade. "Don't say disgusting things. Praise me for being the strongest Overlord in the universe."

The blonde giggled, grabbing both of their hands and falling straight down onto the floor. Blue antennae shot straight up and he tried to wiggle away, but he was floored by both of their grips on his bony hands and his overwhelming exhaustion. None of them could fight gravity right now. "You look so happy," Flonne mused to him, her free hand playing with the boy's hair. Even Etna had to smile while turning one of the bangles he wore around, feeling giddy.

"I told you that I could do it," He smirked. Neither of them saw fit to remind them that he was clutching their hands tightly, as if reminding himself why he had fought so hard to stay alive. "You two just didn't believe me."

"We kept your sorry ass alive," Etna flicked his nose with her free hand. He gnashed his teeth back at her, but failed to bite her fingers in retaliation. "I deserve a pay raise."

"Ooh, I know – you have to play heroes with me as a form of gratitude!" Flonne perked up. "Doesn't that sound fun? Oh, but you have to be the villain, though."

"That suits me just fine!" The young demon assured her. "And you have to steal your own things! Nothing's coming out of my allowance."

"Stingy," His vassal blearily responded, already beginning to fall asleep. The fallen angel wasn't doing much better, as she let out a yawn.

The three of them didn't speak of the floor-sleeping incident again, but it had brought a storm of something foreign to the blue-haired boy's gut. He didn't dare look further at himself to discover what it could mean.

/

thirteen hundred and sixteen – i

It was business as usual in the castle. Laharl beat the council into submission if they were thinking of changing the laws in some way that didn't suit his desires. Etna was still scaring prinnies within inches of their unfortunately lengthy lives and exploiting their labor. Flonne was trying to get demons to understand love and kindness, and failing. The three of them had gotten closer since the events of three years ago, but things were strange between the redhead and the boy lately.

Laharl had been suspiciously on edge around her, and Etna was using her so-called sex appeal on the boy for no good reason, but at the end of the day, their games ended good-naturedly. Flonne could feel a disaster brewing on the surface, and encouraged both of them to talk things out before they blew up, but they both ignored her warnings. Several weeks after her continued suggestions, the inevitable had happened, and she paused her hero show to find out where the source of a loud shout had come from. The fallen angel grimaced when she hurried in on the shouting match.

"Yeah, so what if I stole your pudding? Go steal another one! I know you took three from my stash last week!" The young demon was yelling, his blue antennae standing straight up. "Besides, what's your deal? This is the millionth time we've stolen this worthless stuff from each other!"

"It's not about the pudding, Prince!" Etna losing her temper was rare, and Flonne panicked. Laharl yelling was the norm, but her? Oh no. This is really bad, the blonde thought. "Could you stop treating me like a moron? Stop bossing me around like one of the prinnies! I have a hundred things I could be doing instead of babysitting your lousy ass!"

He gaped and bristled. "Babysitting?! Lousy? Where do you get off, talking to your overlord like that?!"

"I am a hundred and sixty years older than you!" The redhead was matching the Netherworld's new ruler in volume, and the fallen angel was desperately trying to stop them in gentle tones, but they couldn't hear her.

"Try a hundred and fifty-seven!" The boy snarled, readying his fist to hit her and stopping short.

She snorted derisively and wore a smile that did not reach her darkened eyes. "What, afraid? You think I'm so much weaker than you that I can't stand a punch?"

"So you want me to punch you, then?" He flared up, scarf raising and curling at the tempo of his hastened breath.

"No!" Flonne interrupted breathlessly, throwing her arms out between the two of them. "Stop this, both of you. It isn't right for childhood friends to fight!"

"Friends?" The Prince spat. "With who? This would-be assassin?"

Etna smirked back. "I take that as a compliment." Flonne puffed out her cheeks and continued to stand between them.

"Can't you both just get along?" She was practically begging, but Laharl had already left, and Etna was starting to walk away. Being ignored hurt, even if she knew they were just being dishonest because it was easier than facing their feelings. When she and Laharl found out from a lesser demon around the castle that Etna had snuck out in the middle of the night, they were both frozen in shock.

Laharl looked furious. When he wasn't smirking or laughing (30-90% of his daily routine), he was scowling, sure, but his expression was so intense that Flonne didn't really know what to think. "Somebody get me prinny to track her down."

"There aren't any, Prince," A quiet warrior told him. "She took all of the castle prinnies with her."

He balled his fists, drawing in a deep breath before shouting at no one in particular. "Damn you, Etna! I'll find you myself, and I'll make you pay for leaving without my permission!"

Ah, the fallen angel thought, a smile full of strange emotions on her lips. He's got a crush on her.

/

thirteen hundred and sixteen – ii

Rozalin and her little boy toy were a great source of teasing and entertainment for the redhead. Veldime suited her just fine. She was powerful enough to be an Overlord there, a fact she relished with great pride. All that's left is to defeat Zenon, Etna thought to herself. Once I beat him and steal his title, I'll go back. Then I'll treat that brat to the ass-kicking of the century! She giggled to herself about her plans. Once she'd screwed up her levels with her prank, she found herself spending more and more time with those guys, but something wasn't right. Even if she giggled and played nice, they were all so…happy. Adell and Rozalin had each other, and Adell's ragtag family of human-demons. Their flirting was cute and funny, if not a little annoying, but all of them treated her a hundred times better than the boy-king of her universe.

She hated herself for wondering how he was doing. Somehow, she rationalized things by telling herself that she hoped Flonne was doing well, and not him. He could rot in that castle, lost without anyone to wipe his ass for him and willingly subject themselves to his verbal abuse, day in and day out.

In a dark part of her mind, she thought about strange things. They're probably getting along happily without me. Maybe the Prince'll make a move on her while I'm gone. Her subconscious had a sense of humor, at least.

When he found her, they were as snippy and nonchalant to each other as always, even if he was 'ordering' her to come back, and she was moaning about his faults. Still, she'd known him a long time, and when he was caught off-guard by whatever that was Rozalin was holding inside of her, she'd held her breath in nervous anticipation. He shirked back to their world relatively unharmed, which told her that he wasn't angry enough or energetic enough to pick a fight nearly to the death. She'd sighed in relief after he'd disappeared. While she traveled with Adell and his bunch, she couldn't help turning her thoughts back to the Prince.

He looked for me personally, she giggled to herself from far behind them.

/

fourteen hundred and sixty – i

Flonne had grown accustomed to observing the Prince, watching him balance his childish selfishness and rare bursts of maturity with a careful expression. She knew now that demons could feel love, of course, but she wondered how he truly felt about Etna. Back when they were fighting, over a hundred years ago, she had been so sure that there was something between them. It would have explained why he had acted so strange towards her, but they had gone back to normal when the redhead had come back. Sometimes, when she was watching him from afar, she felt horribly guilty for a particular thought.

But I'll have to go back one day. She used to think about Celestia with the happiest expression, longing for the day she could become an angel again, but she remembered that she wouldn't be able to be in the Netherworld all of the time. She wouldn't be able to see those rare, genuine smiles from the two demons that were her constant companions. When she spoke to Etna about her feelings one evening, the other girl was deadpan.

"Aren't you the one who's always going on and on about love? Doesn't that just mean you ended up liking us more than you thought?" The redhead used her tail to poke the fallen angel, smirking. "What's this? Your crush on the Prince finally hitting you like a ton of bricks?"

Flonne turned red almost immediately. "There is no such thing! Sure, he's cute, but he's…he's…" Her mind supplied an image of the Prince lounging on his throne, laughing that villainous laugh. "Him."

"Who're you telling, sister?" The younger demon snorted. "But sometimes, y'know…" She thought about his shy reactions, how he would sometimes blatantly refuse to do anything or go anywhere unless the two of them went with him, and she smiled happily. "He's not so bad."

Flonne remembered that he'd wrapped his scarf around her once while they were watching shows, and the tips of her pointed ears colored. "Yeah."

Etna laughed, leaning on the fallen angel's shoulder. Her ears had turned red too, remembering similar occurrences between herself and the boy-king. "We're kinda hopeless."

Her friend sighed warmly before giggling. "Yeah."

/

sixteen hundred and ninety-three

Vyers had been complacent, quietly enjoying retirement for the past two and a half centuries. He ran into the unruly trio that occupied the castle every once in a while, but for the most part, those three tried their best not to run into him. It came as a pleasant surprise when his son (not that the youth knew that, or if he did, he never said so) ran into his flashy mansion looking worn out. "Hey, Mid-Boss," His blue hair was frazzled, and the young demon male had gotten taller since he'd last seen him. "Hide me for a while. Don't ask questions."

He was about go on a rant about beauty with all of his usual dramatic flare, but Laharl had sensed that, and glared at him with enough fury to quiet a storm, so he shut up. When his gatekeeper told him that there were two women outside, the boy made himself invisible awfully quickly, and Vyers caught on. Ah.

When he went to answer his guests, he made sure to be extra annoying, feeling like he could hide his son, just this once, instead of forcing the boy to face the two objects of his affections. The two of them looked angry and tired just listening to him, so they didn't stay long. He overheard the red-haired one speaking to the blonde one on her way out. "I knew it was a long shot. Let's go see if he's raiding another moron's castle." After they were out of sight, he spoke to the 'empty' room.

"The coast is clear." Laharl swept out of the closet he'd gone into, face clammy and brow furrowed, and the man stuck out his arm theatrically. "So, what have you come to the Dark Adonis for, hm? Advice about love? Ha, ha, my boy, you've come to the right place!"

As a form of late greeting, a fist knocked the wind out of the older demon. "I said not to ask questions."

The nobleman with long hair pretended to cry and was a little hurt when the adolescent turned away from him without cracking a joke about that. He's at a difficult age, the man thought. With a start, he corrected himself mentally. He's always at a difficult age. "Want something to eat?"

Blood-red eyes flicked to him expectantly. "Yes." The boy's head was level with his chest now…how strange. Nostalgia almost knocked the man over as he hurried to the kitchen. It had been getting easier to remove himself from the boy's life in the past two centuries, but he still missed him dearly. Besides, when Laharl was a child, still bitter over the loss of his mother, they never would have been able to do something as simple as have lunch together while he ran away from his girlfriends. The youth impatiently barked out orders for what he wanted, and he offered no words of thanks when the food arrived, but he ate without complaining. Vyers figured, for him, that was thanks enough. The boy was picky, after all.

When they were almost finished with the food, the noble spoke again. "So," He toyed with his fork, pointing it at the boy with a sly expression. "What did you do this time?"

A dark eyebrow twitched, and he stuffed his mouth again. "What the hell makes you think I did something?"

"I daresay those maidens were rather…upset," Vyers mused happily, noting that the boy grumbled and stuck his nose further in his plate instead of answering, thus proving his point. "It'd probably be easier for you if you just apologized, even if you don't mean it."

Laharl snorted. "You're an idiot," He spat a bone in the older demon's face, smirking as the man held in his anger.

"So," Mid-Boss threw a fork at the boy, who used his scarf to deflect it back to the man. He didn't dodge it in time, and winced in pain before continuing. "Why are you here, then?"

"It's my Netherworld," The young man replied haughtily. "I can do anything to my subjects that I please, including impose on them."

"So, you ran away from home," Vyers offered, and promptly got himself burned. Just like the good old days, he thought with a scowl. "My! No need to get short with me because of your sexual frustration."

The boy was positively speechless, and he ground out his words one by one. "I. Have. No. Such. Thing!" His faint blush said otherwise. "Those two are just – they're my vassals, and nothing more!"

His disguised father had to stop himself from bursting out laughing, feeling incredibly awkward, but carrying on anyways. "Did you have a reaction?"

"I'm leaving!" Laharl screeched at an octave three levels above his typical vocal range.

Just before the youth made it out of earshot, the man spoke again. "You'd better get used to that! You'll never be able to satisfy girls if you don't accept your body's natural reactions!"

"When I clean this rotten Netherworld up again, I swear your head is the first I'm going to take!" The youth promised him, face red with embarrassment.

Vyers chuckled to himself when the boy was gone. He's growing up.

/

eighteen hundred and one

He knew he was becoming strange, even if he spat that nothing had changed. Centuries ago, he never would have let anyone touch him, but he had allowed them to. His hair was absolutely not to be tousled, even affectionately – he hated the patronizing feeling that came with taller people doing that. Now, he openly let the two taller women do so with minor complaints. After that, he started allowing the handholding. He let them drape themselves on him from time to time. All of those leaps had taken place relatively close together, from his thirteen and fourteen hundreds, but for the four centuries following, he had downright run from going any further.

And now, suddenly, his blood boiled. He felt disgusting for the practically violent urges that had filled his head for the past hundred and twenty years or so. The young man desperately wanted to sink his fangs into the redhead's tan skin. He wanted to dig his claws into the blonde's arms and she if she bled love, or rather her blood was as thick and viscous as his own. The two of them certainly hadn't been helping those urges, either. They were always trying to press their lips to his skin. One of them was tender and light, always a little tentative, and soft. The other was harsh and crude and rough, and he wanted both of them.

Shit, he thought to himself, biting his claws.

/

eighteen hundred and two

"But he likes it when you play with those stupid tiny wings," the redhead said, encouraging the blonde. "Or his tail."

"Ah, but he likes it more when you kiss him and bite, or if you pull his hair. I think he's kind of a masochist," The fallen angel – sort of – was being awfully lewd, for someone who had just returned from a trip to Celestia.

"Tell you what. How about we switch? Betcha he'll be so flustered, he might actually shut up." Etna offered.

Flonne flushed and pumped her fist. "Deal."

/

a priori – ii

"What if other demons don't accept and love him because of his human side?" The soon-to-be mother worried, smoothing the folds of her dress over her swollen abdomen.

Her husband quietly smiled, shaking his head. "We don't take that sort of thing into consideration. Every once in a while, demons have children with humans. Even a drop of demon blood makes him a demon, by our standards. Never mind the fact that it's my blood – he'll be considered one of the strongest demons in the Netherworld; a royal." His wine-red eyes searched her hazel irises. "What brought that concern on?"

"Well," she spoke to her pregnant stomach. "I was just wondering if he'd find someone special." Her eyes glistened as she smiled at him. "I don't want our boy to be alone because of something I did."

Krichevskoy wrapped his arms around his wife. "He'll find someone; don't worry yourself to death. Even if demons don't believe that they can love, I know differently. Who knows? Maybe one day, maybe demons, humans, and angels will see eye to eye. He could marry any of them."

The woman giggled. "You sure do like to dream big."

He puffed out his chest. "Life's not worth living unless you give yourself big goals." After he calmed down, he touched her tenderly. "I'll never be able to thank you enough for loving me."

The queen smiled and teased him. "What's not to love?"

/

eighteen hundred and three

Every time the blonde left, he felt sort of empty. Etna helped, of course, but it just wasn't the same. Likewise, when he and the redhead fought, and the half-baked angel was around and his other companion was away, he didn't feel right. He would storm the Netherworld, the cosmos, or Celestia to bring them back, and they found themselves back at the winding, messy castle all over again.

Flonne said that he'd finally learned to love deeply, and she was proud. Etna argued that he was just being possessive. Either way, they stuck by him, through thick and thin. They watched him grow into a man, albeit a relatively short one, and beyond that, a competent ruler. He was every bit as selfish, short-tempered, loud, and obnoxious as he had been when he was thirteen hundred and thirteen, but he was more open-minded, and understanding.

When they saw him trying his best, through the grumbles, and the long nights with the council, they smiled. They watched him talk to demons that had complaints year after year, yelling at them, but he almost never refused to help, even if it was under his own false pretenses.

"Are you ever going to tell him that you're in love with him?" Flonne asked, wondering for her own reasons.

"Hmm," Etna thought about it for a moment, and then smirked. "Maybe if he begs me to."

The blonde waved her hand dismissively. "That's never going to happen."

"What about you?" The younger demon returned the question. "You sure it's okay for a fallen angel slash archangel to be shacking it up with the Overlord?"

"Love is justice," Flonne confidently bluffed. "Besides, the Seraph hasn't said anything about it, so it's probably fine!"

Etna burst out laughing. "Right, right. I get it."

"What're the two of you laughing about?" The prince walked in, looking surly, as per usual. "Let's go. Somebody's challenging me for the throne in the Sea of Gehenna."

"Okay," They both answered, each of them grabbing one of his hands. He barked and bickered with them before turning his scarf into a cape and flying off with them. They flapped their wings restlessly, and the formidable trio teased each other the whole way to the 'duel'.

It was another normal day in the Netherworld.