1 1: Thy king hath arrived!

Najiral.

Only child to the Redeye family and feared far and wide. His mother was long deceased and the father - a feared demon lord - was killed only a few days ago, by Najiral himself. Only three people knew him personally, or at least better than the staff of the palace that passed him by every day:

Laerke, his personal assassin. She was a master of disguise and stealth and sneak attacks. A spell bound her to her master so that she could never betray him. She was quiet and usually just stood by in some corner or shadow. She also had a rather strange complex…

Kyōsora, who was raised next to Najiral like a younger brother. They barely ever came into contact with each other, but it was no secret to the world that he was under Najiral's protection and that Najiral adored him and praised every success of the younger male's. He was also supposed to become Najiral's advisor and right hand man.

And then there was Jurij. Jurij was a prince of the succubus tribe that used to live up north. Najiral's father had overthrown them and enslaved the survivors. The Queen and crown princess had been killed, the young prince had been taken to the castle. And he was chosen by the late demon king to be married to Najiral, his very own queen without power to question him or defy any of his words. A queen only in name, really.

All these informations just suddenly appeared inside my head. One moment I didn't know any of it, the next I wasn't surer about anything in this world. And in just the blink of an eye memories started to flash before my eyes. So fast and so suddenly that I barely had time to decipher any of them and became dizzy instead. Whoa! That was one weird experience to have made. I mean, it wasn't every day that the memories of a demon lord's successor from another world flashed before your eyes.

Shaking my head, I sighed and took another look in the mirror before me. Silky white hair framed my face like a river of fluid silver. Only a single strand was of a dark red instead, the almost black color automatically drawing all attention to my right side. It was only slightly longer than the rest of my hair, nearly touching my shoulder, but that could have been because a golden ribbon of actual silk had been braided into it. A strange way to wear one's hair, I had to admit. And not exactly a common color, though it did seem to be natural.

The hair, however, was nothing compared to the eyes. Bloody red slowly blended into lilac the closer it was to the pupil of each eye. And upon a closer look it almost looked like there also was a dark shade of blue rimming the black, though it was too small to be sure. They were hypnotizing but in an eery way. Truly eyes befitting of the next demon lord, and just the way the eyes of the former demon lord had looked like. According to my memories these features were the only thing Najiral had liked on his father and therefore had actually been happy to have inherited them.

Hold up! So, then…

This Najiral…

That was…

"Me?!"

Panic started to make my heart flutter as I yelled out my newfound realisation. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! No way! That just couldn't be true, could it? But when I looked around I saw a room with marble floor and antique looking pillars. A dressing room I knew not from my own memories, but from those I had gained just a few seconds before. But… How?! And why?

Then again, I guessed that I hadn't exactly gotten the short end of the stick. Najiral was influential, powerful and rich, after all. From what I had gathered through his memories, this world had been under his family's reign for a two-digit number of generations already. Not exactly a short timespan considering that they were demons. And as expected from a world ruled by demons, the strong just walked all over the weak. So being the vicious demon lord might actually come in handy to avoid future pains in the-

What?! Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! No. No, absolutely no. Never. No way! Vicious? Me?! I mean, yeah, Najiral was selfish and had a short temper. He also wasn't one to be messed with, as he proved when killing his own father. And he was notorious for his evil nature and his either sadistic or apathetic reactions. Everyone trembled at the sight of him. But not me! I didn't want to be evil!

A knock interrupted my thoughts before I could even think about calming down. Oh, dear. My first interaction in this world and I was still full of panic and confusion. I gulped, but didn't want to be rude either. So I called "Enter!" while trying to steel myself and school my facial expression into a calm one.

Just in time, it seams, because there was no time wasted before the door was opened and a beaming young man entered. His vibrantly purple hair, just slightly longer than my own, contrasted his almost colorless skin quite a lot. And though he had a petite frame, you could tell that he wasn't fragile at all. And I could tell that he was even less fragile than he looked, as I also had my memories to rely on. So this was Kyōsora, my ever attention-seeking foster brother.

I locked eyes with him in the mirror, his purple on my red. While he beamed at me, I wasn't really sure how to react, so I just left my facial expression neutral. "Wakey, wakey, your highness!", Kyōsora giggled energetically, "You have a world to rule, corrupted aristocrats to slaughter, breakfast to eat."

"That… is an unusual order to name those things.", I noticed with a smirk, still not taking my eyes off of his reflection. He giggled again. "Well, from least important to most!" Then he skipped over to me, put one hand on my shoulder - Was he wearing nail polish? - and whispered in my ear: "But you don't want to eat any fish." This confused me, enough so to turn around and look at him directly. "Huh? Why wouldn't I want to…", I begun but stoped when I noticed he was wearing a maid uniform. Okay, getting more and more curious.

When I rose a brow in question at him, he giggled again. "Just became a man again.", he said as though that should explain everything. And once the memories kicked in, it actually did: Kyōsora was a lokiborn. That was a kind of demons whose powers quite resembled the norse god Loki from earth. They could body-shift, for one. Differently from shapeshifting, they actually changed their bodies and not just the appearance. As a result they were bound by neither gender nor having someone to base the new appearance on. In other words, Kyōsora's most treasured ability was to change into his favorite female body whenever one of his little mischief tirades arose the need to. He then called himself Kyōsami and used she/her pronouns.

Further questioning my memories lead me to the conclusion that he often times changed just because as well. Looked as though my dear foster sibling was actually gender-fluid as we would call it back on earth. Luckily for him, it wasn't something strange in this world and so everyone had come to accept it as an every day thing. Najiral even called him Kyo most of the time, which was a nickname that could be used for both names. I liked Najiral just a little bit better due to that small detail.

"I see. So? What did you do, Kyo?", I asked amused, but he only smirked, shock his index finger in front of my face and sung happily: "That's a sec-ret~" I couldn't help but smirk back at him when he did so. It was… cute. A little nerve wreaking, but also really, really cute. If memory served, the others would strongly disagree, though. Because his food-related pranks weren't exactly safe.

With a sigh and a nod I started to walk out of the dressing room. He followed close by, before stopping at the door frame. "Alright then: Acting faces, people, acting faces!" He took a deep breath and continued on with the words: "Watch out, world! Thy king hath arrived!"

If only he knew…