Cult

Daemon manages to lose the ninth Cloud Guardian by cloaking himself and sending out several other Mist constructs of men who look only vaguely like him.

"I didn't know adults could have an Incendiary Defence," Kyouya says conversationally, his words partly muffled in the man's back.

Daemon tenses and then immediately drops the brat from his shoulder onto the floor of the alleyway he's currently waiting in. The boy lands neatly on his feet and stares up at Daemon with narrowed eyes, calm like he's just taking a stroll through the park instead of facing up against a literal zombie.

"How long were you awake?" Daemon demands.

"When did I go to sleep?" Kyouya corrects and then swiftly continues. "Congratulations, Kcl, you've proven yourself worthy to be one of my pets. I'm going to take you home now. It would be easier if you didn't struggle."

Daemon takes a calming breath. "I don't know what your parents have been feeding you-"

"I have too many reds," Kyouya interrupts, probably not even realising he's cutting over the man. The little boy starts toddling off, out of the alleyway and down the road without a care, expecting Daemon to follow without protest. "How do I change a few of them to purple?"

Daemon stalks after the child only because Alaude promised him a body. "What do you mean by 'change'?"

"I have a high concentration of reds," Kyouya reiterates. "But only one -now two- purples."

"Indigo," Daemon corrects again. "You have to specify indigo, because there's a violet as well."

"What does the violet do?" Kyouya demands.

Daemon is a little bit incredulous, because not only has this supposed civilian child discovered Incendiary – Dying Will flames, but he's also realised the additional abilities that each one has. Before Daemon realises, he's been sucked into an argument on flame properties.

He decides (somewhere between the discussion on which ones are more useful in torture, compared to which ones are more suited to being nightlights) that he's going to stay around the child solely because it'll be funny when Kyouya takes over the world.

"Stay here," Kyouya orders after he guides Daemon into a hotel lobby. "I need to check something."

Daemon immediately dismisses the order out of hand and follows the child up to the reception desk. Kyouya is too small to see over it so Daemon lifts the boy and drops him onto the bench.

"Herbivore," Kyouya greets the receptionist. "Is there a message for me?"

The lady blinks and then picks up a post-it note stuck to her computer, passing it over. Kyouya reads through it and huffs before balling the paper up and stuffing it into his pocket.

"Let's go," Kyouya says and cambers onto Daemon's shoulders like the man is a faithful steed, grabbing two handfuls of the hair puff so he doesn't fall off.

Daemon makes a deal with himself: if he passes a body of water deep enough, he gets to drown the skylark.

.

Daemon comes to an abrupt stop as children stream out of the door to Kyouya's address and pour into a mass around Daemon's legs, none of them reaching higher than his abdomen. They cling to his legs and then stop, staring up at him without blinking.

Daemon is not okay right now. He has no idea what's happening but if these God-forsaken, demon possessed children don't get away from him then he's going to kill them all.

One with a short pompadour like a unicorn horn raises his arms at Daemon and stays like that, as if trying to pull the soul from the man's chest. Daemon has not killed nearly enough people to deserve this.

Kyouya leans forward with arms braced on the man's head, and Daemon remember that yes; he has a child on his shoulders. So he promptly grabs the boy by the waist and pulls the child off, passing Kyouya down to the unicorn boy. Screw this freak show, Daemon will gladly sacrifice tiny Alaude to the kiddie cult.

The mass of children swallows Kyouya and then moves as one back into the house. Daemon is left standing there, blinking at the door. He then turns on a heel and leaves, because there's no way he's going into that house. At least not while there's an army of (probably bloodsucking) toddlers inside it.

...

Omake – first impressions

"Why do you have a flamethrower?" Asari asks.

Lampo frowns down at the weapon in his hands. "The exorcism didn't work."

Asari pats the other man on the back comfortingly. "Finally met the tenth generation, huh?"