That day, Hajime gained a newfound respect for the loopy lady down the street from his aunt’s house. She always knew what colours looked good with what and which flowers looked good with which. She knew that all in less than a second, all from the top of her head.
__
Actually, anomaly would’ve worked for this too, because in my head, the story started with DemonHeir!Oiks wanting a friend to play with, but everyone was too scared of him (humans and demons alike), except for Hajime, who at first didn’t know Oiks was who he was and just treated him normally (and continued to do so, bc during their first meeting, he realized Oikawa wasn’t scary, he was just freaking annoying). In Hajime’s perspective, he ran into Oikawa while playing an imagined Hero vs Demon King scenario by himself. He saw that he was a demon, but he didn’t seem like the evil type, so he made him the Demon King’s son that becomes his friend and together with him, ends his father’s corrupted rule. Somehow flowers got evolved and Oikawa looks very pretty with flowers and so this happened.
So this is the prologue chapter to a long complicated vaguely Crimson Peak-inspired fantasy Haikyuu AU I’ve been bouncing around (generally known on twitter as the Sad Ghosty Demony Witchy AU)- thought I’d throw it out there for everyone to enjoy! If you’d be interested in the rest of the story, please do let me know.
The old witch stood in the pouring rain, and stared down at the dying demon lying in the roots of the willow tree.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” the demon said. Fragments of a shattered sword littered the ground around him, tiny constellations sinking into the black mud.
“You called,” the old woman replied, impassively. In the tall trees all around them, shadows watched. Standing behind his mistress, holding their boat as rising river water sucked at his feet and soaked his fine blue cloak, the witch’s apprentice watched back.
“You offered me a pact once,” the dying demon said. “A pact to leave the gemstone mines to my people, when you’re gone.”
“You turned it down,” the old woman said, her stony face unmoved.
“I did.” The demon closed his eyes, head falling back against the tree holding him up. “I’d like to reconsider.”
“You’re dying,” the old woman stated.
“So are you.” The demon sighed through a tired smile. “So really, what’ve either of us got to lose?”
For the first time, the old witch’s face softened. She knelt in the mud beside the demon, sword shards tearing at her skirts.
“You? Not so much.” She glanced into the forest, towards the shadow hiding in the dark. “But them?” she shook her head. “You leave a lot to faith, my lord.” A behind them, a part of the riverbank caved into the rising water, and the little boat bobbed, its rope tied tight to an overhanging branch.
“I’m not your lord,” they demon snapped, and coughed, pain lining his handsome face. Blood was beginning to pool in the rents through his ruined armor, faster than the rain could wash it away. “I’m not anyone’s lord now,” he whispered. Just for a moment, the witch looked away.
“Life isn’t meant to be extended,” she said softly. The demon reached out, and the old witch gently clasped his shaking hand. “It won’t be the rest you deserve. Death would be kinder.”
“No!” the demon coughed, shaking his head. “No. You owe me, old woman. You owe me a boon.”
“You demons,” the witch sighed. “Perhaps someday one of you will learn...all things mustn’t come with a price attached.”
“You owe me,” said the dying demon, clutching at her hand, and for the first time there was fear under the pain in his eyes. “Give me one day. One day a year…”
The witch cupped his hand in both of hers. “One day a year,” she echoed.
“And the boon,” the demon gasped. “I’m still a demon, this is still a demon deal. There must always be a boon. Always a way to end it.”
“Very well,” the witch intoned. “This is my pact with you, King of Demons. But one day a year, you will sleep beneath my tree, never living, never dying, and as long as you sleep, my lands and the gemstone mines beneath shall belong to your people. This is my bond with you.”
“My bond with you,” replied the demon king. “The boon…”
The witch was silent for a long, long time, as the rain hammered down around them.”
“A day may come when our bond is ended,” she whispered. “When you will be released from your slumber, returned to your full power, and your unending life as the Demon’s true king. And on that day…” she paused a moment, staring into the demon’s clouding eyes. “On that day, a mortal man shall cry for a demon.”
The dying demon laughed, flecking his lips with blood. “You have a cruel sense of humor, my Lady Azumane.”
The old witch snorted. “I’ve certainly never been anyone’s lady.”
“No?” the demon cocked his head, smiling faintly. “Not even for a single night?”
“Well,” the old witch smiled herself, eyes far distant for a moment. “Maybe just a night.”
The demon king laughed again. “A mortal man cry for a demon...how can I say no?”
She held his hand a moment longer, and then she stood and stepped away as the earth beneath the dying king began to move.
“Will it take long?”
“No, not long at all.”
“Good.” He shivered and closed his eyes against the rain. “I’m so tired…” the demon king let his head rock to the side, and pointed a finger into the darkness. “You can come out, you know,” he murmured. “No point in hiding anymore.” From the roiling mud below the tree, a thick white root emerged and curled itself around his leg.
After a moment of stillness, as the rain pounded and the trees tossed and the flooding river roared, a second demon emerged from under the trees. Rain and half dried blood glued his brown hair to his head, and turned his purple robes black and sticky.
“You got your wish,” the dying demon said with a weary smile. “You’re king now, Oikawa.”
Oikawa shook his head, tears mingling with the rain on his cheeks. “Not like this,” he whispered. “I didn’t want it like this.” The king reached out, opening fading eyes, and Oikawa took his hand, lacing their fingers together as he sank to his knees, shoulders shaking. “It wasn’t supposed to go this way…”
The dying demon’s eyes softened. “I know, Tooru.” he lifted his arm with an effort of will, and pressed his trembling palm to Oikawa’s cheek. “That’s why you had to learn.” More roots were moving now, breaking free of the muddy soil and crawling over his legs and chest, sliding through the slashes in his armor.
“Don’t go,” Oikawa whispered his tears trickling over the dying king’s fingers. “Don’t go...I can’t do this alone...I was wrong, I was wrong I don’t want the crown I don’t want...I just want you--” his voice cracked, wavering and childlike, words breaking around his sobs. “Don’t go...don’t leave me here alone...Iwa-chan…”
Iwaizumi Hajime, first and last king of the demons, brushed Oikawa’s hair away from his eyes and pressed a lingering kiss to his forehead. His cold lips left a bloody smear on Oikawa’s pale skin.
“You have to lead them now, Tooru. We have to change…” a thick white taproot curled around Iwaizumi’s chest, and sent clinging tendrils spiraling up his arms. “There’s so little left for us...the bastard children of chaos and creation, the world doesn’t want us anymore. We have...to change…”
“That’s why we need you!” Oikawa cried. The crawling roots knocked his hands away, pulling Iwaizumi’s arms to his sides. “I don’t know what to do, Iwa--Iwa!”
The broad buttress roots under Iwaizumi’s back began to shift with an earthquake rumble. The dying king gritted his teeth, and tore an arm free of the roots just long enough to seize Oikawa’s hand.
“Live,” he whispered.
Pale tendrils crept across his closing eyes, and Iwaizumi’s head fell back, limp fingers slipping from Oikawa’s. Oikawa sobbed, crying his name over and over as the roots of the great old willow dragged Iwaizumi down into the earth.
“Until a mortal man cries for a demon,” the old witch murmured to herself. She watched impassively as the new lord of the demons sobbed on his knees, fingers buried deep in the black earth that had claimed his king.
“You could end it all right now,” her apprentice said, wrestling the floodwaters for possession of their boat. Rain plastered his hair and his thin shirt to his body. The old witch snorted loudly.
“Will you hark at the child!” she shook her head, climbing regally into the bobbing boat. “No demon is worth a mortal man’s tears.”
“Even that one?”
The old witch shot him a sharp look. “That tongue of yours will be your doom one day, Akaashi Keiji.” She took in his bare shoulders and dripping hair. “Waste of a good raincoat,” she muttered, pulling her own heavy hood down over her eyes.
Akaashi shrugged. “I’ll get it back. You know how they are about paying debts.”
“Hmph.” the old witch cast a last glance at the demon on his knees beneath the willow tree. “I suppose I do at that.” she sighed deeply, hunching her shoulders inside her cloak. “This will all be yours to deal with, one day soon...and I’m sorry for that, my boy.”
Akaashi only shrugged again, shaking his dripping hair out of his eyes as he stepped into the boat. The moment his toes touched the planks, the raging water around them quieted. “Perhaps I’ve already made a start,” he answered cooly.
“Your doom,” his mistress grumbled.
Akaashi pulled his paddle free from the bank, and hesitated a moment. Bracing the boat against the current, he turned and called up into the trees.
“You should take that mask off, you know. It doesn’t suit you at all.”
He whistled a few notes of a tune that smoothed a calm, still path down the reach of the rushing river, and shoved off into the current.
High up on a branch above the water, bloody talons clutching Akaashi’s blue cloak around his shoulders, another demon watched them go.
Should probably wait to post this until Halloween but tumblr wont let me schedule it that far ahead and I’ll forget about it if I don’t do it now so... here you go, months in advance.
