The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 132: On The Road Again

Chapter 132: On The Road Again

The next day, Kir awoke to aches and pains in places he didn’t know could feel sore.

Stella was sleeping on top of Amarena, so Kir took the chance to get up and slip away.

Stella had provided cleanup for all the exertions of yesterday, but Kir wanted a bath anyway, and he vaguely recalled there was a stream near the town on the north side.

He found the stream readily enough, but the part that was deep enough for him to bathe properly was unfortunately close to the bridge. Even so, he stripped and waded into the clear waters, shivering a bit from the cold and holding mostly still as his body acclimated.

Using his uniform pants - which cleaned themselves - he started to scrub all over, taking off the dead skin and other things that Stella’s magical cleaning had missed.

He was starting to feel more clean than not when he heard the sound of marching.

There was a bend in the road, and so by the time he heard the marching, the soldiers were practically on top of them.

Thinking quickly, Kir ducked under the bridge as a company of soldiers began to march across it. As be waited, he pulled his pants on, not wanting to be caught without them if that was about to happen.

He need not have worried.

From behind the soldiers, the sounds of large, padded feet signaled the arrival of someone riding a raptor, and he began shouting.

"Double-time it, soldiers! We’ve got demons to kill! Move! Move!" a bellowing voice shouted.

The soldiers began to accelerate, their steps speeding up.

Moments later Kir heard the rumble of a pair of carts pass overhead, and a second set of mounts.

With his heart hammering slightly, Kir waited five minutes before sliding out from under the bridge.

He’d started the climb back to the woods when someone called out-

"Kir?"

Kir turned to see Noir approaching him, one hand on the reigns of their strider, who was pulling Sam in the cart behind.

"I thought you were a soldier for a moment," Kir laughed in relief.

"I thought we should head out early, but they were ahead of us so I waited," Noir said. "We were going to wait for you here."

"Any idea where they’re going?" Kir asked.

Sam turned their head, looking at him for a long moment before silently looking at the bottom of the cart.

Back to being angry at me, Kir suppressed the urge to sigh.

"Kir, they’re a demon-hunting force. While we were down south, something happened. There are perditions opening all over the Lakelands. Demons are coming through and there are armies running around. We need to be careful."

Kir nodded. "I understand," he said. "Wait here while I get the others. I’ll explain to them on the way."

As everyone gathered and crossed the bridge, the mood became somewhat serious. Even Amarena’s excitement at the prospect of battle eventually faded with the realization, "The best fight I can get out of armies would be with mages or knights," she grumbled, "but then the rabble would interrupt."

"Didn’t you say your mother leads an army?" Noir asked.

"Every Leviathan in memory has led the Legions of Wrath," Amarena said. "No doubt my mother, even now, is conquering in Heaven."

"Heaven?" Kir raised an eyebrow. "Not here?"

"The Harrowing preceeds the Heavenswars," Amarena said. "Heaven invades Hell, but this time my mother plans to meet them at the gates of Perdition. To invade Heaven with an army unlike any that has existed in generations."

"Oh," Kir said.

"This is the first I’ve heard of Harrowing," Noir said.

Amarena scoffed. "Why would you? Every Heavenswar, armies and adventurers scurry about closing the portals instead of mounting a counter-invasion. Then when some Duke falls and their people come running to Ayther, Heaven sweeps in and offers salvation for tribute." She chuckled. "And of course, they hunt us."

Kir was flabbergasted. "How can you be okay with that?"

"Do not mistake humor for acceptance, Heresy-Son," Amarena scowled with annoyance. "I lack the power to change what is, but if I claim the name Leviathan, then maybe I will set my thoughts to breaking the cycle."

Kir had an ominous feeling premonition, but he asked the question anyway. "How do you do that?"

"If she lives, I must slay my mother. If not, I kill whoever has the name... and if they find me while I am weak, they will kill me." The sound in Amarena’s voice was more distant than Kir had ever heard it.

"That’s... cruel," Kir replied. "That’s completely fucked! You can’t want that."

Amarena’s eyes blazed with fury. "Don’t presume to lecture me on what I want, Heresy-Son!" she raised her voice. "If my mother survives this forsaken cycle, I will slay her with my bare hands if I have to! That is how it is! How it always has been!"

"And yet you use a sword," Kir snarled back. "Just because things have always been done one way, doesn’t make it right!"

"I owe it to her!" Amarena roared, her body shifting towards war form before she mastered herself, shrinking back to normal. "She forbade me from dying without a fight. From dying as I should have, weak and unmourned... She tolerated my heresy. I owe it to her to become strong. I owe it to myself."

"Amarena, you are anything but weak," Kir said, "There are different kinds of strength-"

"Kir. Shut up," Sam said from the cart.

Sam’s words were so surprising that Kir stammered to a stop.

He didn’t understand what he’d done wrong. Or how Amarena could go from helping him to fucking him to shouting him down in so short a time... But he suspected it was because he didn’t understand where she was coming from. What environment she’d grown up in.

After a long, awkward pause, Noir cleared his throat.

"So... I hate to interrupt, but we should probably get ready for if we happen to get stopped by soldiers or whoever."

"Let them come. You can watch as I cut down the chaff and face the warriors myself," Amarena growled.

No one seemed intent on adding to that.

After another long moment, Noir replied, his tone the flattest it had ever been. "As much as the prospect of free entertainment makes me want to vomit with joy, we’re going to want to stay alive. Or I will, at any rate. Sam too. Stella, you good for staying alive?"

"Fuck yes," she answered, seemingly unaffected by Kir and Amarena’s dragging down of the mood.

"So I’m thinking we need something to disguise Rena," Noir said. "Just enough for her to pass as a demonkin."

"Am I not pretty enough?" Amarena sneered. "I am the daughter of an incubus, and the cubi look like half the myriad."

"Can you change your appearance to look like half the myriad?" Stella prodded, to which Amarena only growled. "Uh-huh, thought not."

Kir sensed the mood start to shift, the conversation lifting everyone’s spirits. After a few more rounds of back and forth, he contributed, "Maybe I could fly with Stella to the next town; see if we can get something tailored before we reach it. It wouldn’t even have to be fancy, just a poncho or something."

"What’s a poncho?" Noir asked as Kir flinched, realizing his mistake.

"It’s like... a blanket with a hole in the middle," Kir said.

"Oh, so a manta cape," Noir rubbed his chin. "Who calls those ’poncho?’"

"That’s not important-" Kir was interrupted by Stella’s victorious cry of-

"Aha! Got it!" she held aloft the blanket the three of them had shared just last night. "Just cut a hole in the middle, right?"

"That should work, actually," Noir said. "I’ll have to burn the edge to make it look less like a blanket with a hole in the middle..."

Kir almost jumped in to stop him as Stella began to pass the blanket to him. Internally, he cringed, anticipating that the blanket was quite-

"Very clean, very nice," Noir said, with the air of one who could appreciate a good bolt of cloth.

Mischievously, Stella stuck her tongue out at Kir with a look that said she knew all too well what he’d been thinking.

With a little planning, a rough circle was cut in the cloth and Amarena let herself be draped in it, obscuring most of her form.

"This is ridiculous," Amarena said.

"Unless you can grow smooth skin and a sunny disposition, it’s the best we’ve got," Stella teased. "But hey, if we need a distraction, we can just point them at Kir... Though... you may want to cover up that glowy-chest thing."

Kir, who had been traveling with a very loose shirt in case he needed his wings, and who was presently wearing said shirt tied around his waist at the sleeves, tried to suppress a blush as he remembered that his half-naked body was indeed quite distracting by most standards. He unwrapped his shirt and started to pull it on.

Noir grinned. "Alright then. No need to mess with a solid cliche, so Kir’s on seduction duty-"

"Hey!" Stella pouted.

"-along with Stella," he added.

"Hmph," Amarena huffed, but the twist in her lips told everyone she was holding back the urge to smile.

Even Sam was smiling, just a little, though that ended as soon as Kir looked their way.

Noir, clearly seizing the moment, started to describe elaborately unlikely contingencies, and step after step the tension began to melt away from everyone.

A half-span along the road later, Kir and Noir shared a look. Noir’s eyes seemed to ask if he was okay, and Kir nodded with an appreciative smile.

He was happy to have Noir leading everyone.