Silence fell between them, a heavy thing soaking with both disappointment and discontent. The world blurring around the pair, a mix of colors and barely perceptible shapes. Flapping of wings and of space churning. Until after a few dizziness inducing seconds, did reality finally snap into place.
"Take this." The fallen angel smiled brightly, tossing over a deep crimson glass bottle that bubbled even though it felt cold to the touch. A hand, slower than he remembered, snatched the object clean out of the air. Ikuse knew what this brew was, had seen it plenty of times and even knew the exact ingredients used to create this miracle cure. Reluctantly, he uncorked the lid and chugged down the deceptively pipping hot contents. Lava flowed down his throat, dripped like sap into his stomach before it rapidly began to spread through out his body. An almost traceable path of heat coursed through his vein, attacking the foreign energy that clung in small fragments all within his extremities and even the few lose strands trying to make their way to his more vital organs. This battle caused visible lines of stream to pour off his skin, drops of emerald liquid bubbling up to the surface before rolling to the ground with an audible hiss. "How are you feeling?"
"Awful." There wasn't much else to say in response to that, whatever that fight had been couldn't even really be called one. From start to end, it was clear he'd been toyed with. Even when he showed his 'martial might', it had only been a pity win. Like acquiescing to a white belt when you were already purple, before taking things up a level to show them exactly how far they had to go. "Why didn't you help? You saw how much I was struggling but you still decided to just sit back and watch, why?...Besides you're usual reason."
The man while possessing a brilliant mind was a bit of voyeur at the end of the day, always watching what he deemed interesting from afar with a rather disgusting smile on full display.
"First, you're welcome by the way. But to answer your question, I knew he wasn't going to kill you. And I saw this as an opportunity to gauge the two of you."
"It sure felt like he was going to kill me."
"Oh believe me," Azazel grinned grimly. "He wasn't trying to kill you, I've seen many Ancient Senjutsu Practitioners pull off that same move and completely wipe out armies. You would've gotten a serious beating but he knew you weren't innately hostile to him. He could smell it from you, you were just a mercenary in his eyes...Don't give me that look, his whole kind were a bunch of weirdos. Each of them had their lines and morale compass that the only thing they had in common was how extreme they tended to be. For instance, there was once this very famous Herb Master who solely believed in the survival of the fittest that they would go around implanting these incredibly predator and parasitic plants into people when they came to her for healing, and this plant would try to take over the patient's brain and if they could fight off the hostile take over, they would be healed of all their wounds while also getting an incredibly powerful boost. But fail...I don't think I need to explain further."
"You...you don't happen to have any of her techniques just lying around? Right?"
"Of course not, she was considered apart of the Demonic Path. Most of their techniques got erased well before we dealt with the Ancient Senjutsu as a whole."
"I'm guessing Ange De Guignes isn't included?"
"Aye, don't look at me like that! If it was my choice, I would've gotten rid of them years ago! We don't need face snatchers running around so blatantly like that but they're under the Satans watch. None of my business if they get trapped in a sacrificial ritual."
"Sure." Despite the Fallen Angel's rather grim dismissal, anyone who knew him long enough would know they were nothing but empty words. A real softy this one was, now if it was Kokabiel, Ikuse would have no doubt the war crazed madman would mean every syllabub. "But getting back to our conversation, why didn't you jump in? We could've taken him if we'd worked together, at least get him away from the inheritance long enough for the Five Principal Clans to sneak in."
"…" Now, for a split instance, the Grigori leader looked genuinely bashful. "Well, I don't know how to tell you but most of them fled when their leaders and elites were killed. From what I saw, they made a hasty retreat well before that green...bomb? Explosion? No, I feel those don't do the technique justice...maybe an orbital laser? In fact, I've never seen humans run so fast in my life. And I've for a very, very long time."
"Oh." Ikuse wished he could say he was surprised at how the rank and file reacted, but he honestly wasn't. Sure, it was frustrating to know he'd been risking his life to open a path for his allies only for them to be nowhere nearby. But that was just how the job worked sometimes. In fact, very rarely would clients stand side by side within as he solved their problem. "So I was buying time for no good reason."
"I wouldn't say no good reason, but yeah. In the midst of it, you kinda went overboard. But this experience should be very valuable to you, not many can say they faced off against the Heavenly Demon and came out of it without being terribly mangled…Something I'm sure the Sirzechs is going to be very envious of when he hears about this."
"...What do you mean?"
"Oh yeah, they're trying to keep that underwraps...but it's fine if I tell you, just don't go around telling every person you or the Devils will give me a massive headache. The Heavenly Demon fought The Strongest Queen and claimed her wings as his prize."
"He-he…"
Ikuse couldn't fully wrap his mind around what was just said, even imagining himself committing such violence hadn't ever really occurred to him. No one he hated enough to mangle to that extend.
"He tore them off," Azazel wiggled his fingers spookily, as though to emphasize his point. "With his bare hands too! Heard she's still under heavy intensive care right now, no one has any idea when she's going to be back up on her feet."
"If you knew he wasn't going to kill me...but you also knew he'd just gotten done dismembering someone, that brings more questions as to why you didn't step in sooner."
"Is it not obvious enough?" Here, the fallen angel lost his smile. Face growing grim and maybe even a bit sad. "I don't think you realized but over the last year or so, you've growing increasingly more arrogant. Not confident but arrogant as if there's nothing in this world that could ever threaten you. I think it's because you've been hanging around Vali too much, that arrogant prick...but maybe that Devil's pride got rubbed off on you. He might be too far gone, but you're not. Tobio, you need to understand something. Something integral to me living for so long. There are times in this life where you will need to bow your head, to scrap and lick the feet of those far stronger than you. People so much farther above you that even attempting to fight would be a fruitless endeavor, and when that times comes, the only way for you to survive is to become such a disgusting bootlicker that they'll have no choice but kick you to the curb. Whether it means wagging your imaginary tail, polishing your foes shoes with your own spit or throwing out so many over the top compliments that killing you would only bring them shame. Or if you want to use our friend's wordage, it'll be: Bully the Weak and bootlick the Strong! The art of being Thick-skinned."
"…."