The Demon Lord Is An Angel-Chapter 504: Grounded

Arc braced herself as her father finished with Cory, while Sylvia examined the corpse of the beast, running her hand along the creature’s throat as she walked down-body from the stump of its neck.

Her father’s face wasn’t angry. Such moments were always a flash in the pan for him, but the weight of his disappointment felt palpable, bearing down on Arc from her father’s iridescently purple eyes.

"Tell me why it made any sense for you to come here, Arc," he said.

Arc tensed. She opened her mouth and looked away. "I just... Cory offered and I..." The urge to throw her brother into the fire came and went. He’d get his punishment from her dad and Cassiel, and lies never worked on her father anyway. "I wanted to see the Dragon Knights..."

To her surprise, he nodded. The stern look didn’t change, but he eyes projected a sincere desire to understand... But how could he?

He could fly. He could kill a kaiju without a sweat. He had magic and power, and responsibilities. Arc had... next to nothing, compared to even the youngest of her siblings. Did he even realize they’d barely spoken over the last week? Did he even know what day this was?

"You wanted to fly," he said softly. "What would you have done if you fell?"

"I can glide!" Her frustrations and doubts gathered in her eyes and throat. "No one got hurt!" He shook his head, the look on his face unreadable to her. "What would you have done if I fell?"

The gaze he fixed her with held a flash of anger at the challenge. "Everything to keep you alive. You’re my daughter. That’s why I’m here. The moment I sensed you leaving..." He schooled his expression back to something calmer. "You’re grounded."

"But-"

"You’ll take your test, and until you move to the Academy, you’re to stay in your room."

A shout from Cory cut off Arc’s protest. "Shit, uh, Second Dad, we’ve got a live one!"

Arc looked just in time to see Sylvia finish pulling a tan figure out of a large slit, some mysterious combination of ichor and flesh following him out of the kaiju’s guts.

"Just a giant," Sylvia tsked, before losing all interest as she returned to examining the kaiju.

The giant started convulsing, gasping loudly as he clawed at his throat, where black veins of corrupted tissue were forming. A symptom of exposure to mana-corrupted blood...

Suddenly, Arc’s father was all action. "Cory, get him up. We’re taking him to the hospital. Sylvia, check and see if this thing has eaten anyone else, and talk to the Knights when they arrive. Arc-"

"I can-"

"Room. Now," her father put a hand on her shoulder, and suddenly they were back at the house, outside her door, her father disappearing a moment later in utter silence and a barely perceptible wave of mana.

"Bad morning?" Arc heard her dad’s voice and turned. He was holding two cups of coffee and had a look on his face that said he knew everything that had just happened. Which, of course he did, because all of Arc’s parents were connected in the kind of magical mental network that she’d need a chart to explain. "Here," he offered her a mug of black. "Sugar only. You’ll need the energy for your test."

"I’m surprised Father remembered it at all," Arc said, taking the mug and leaning against her door.

"He owes the Chancellor now, since he needed to unseal himself to stop the attack," her dad scratched at the side of his sky-blue hair with his now-free hand.

"Don’t even know why he bothers asking," Arc scoffed. She took a sip, and tasted only bitterness, but with a smooth texture and slight thickness she didn’t normally associate with her coffee. "Are you sure there’s sugar in this?"

"Your father made it strong this morning. It’s espresso."

"Es-what?"

"Oh, you haven’t had it before. Just think of it like concentrated coffee," he sighed. "Come. Let’s take a walk, Sugar Moth."

"Father wants me in my room."

"He’ll understand. After all, I’m taking you to your test, just going the long way."

The long way meant a walk around the lake. Arc’s home was built right next to the northern shore, midway between the city and the veil and further south than the ruins of their old home, which had been destroyed when she was only a toddler.

As they left the house, Dad stored the cups in his dimensional storage once they finished their coffee, Arc found herself looking at the lake and wondering if she was just kidding herself, trying for the Academy...

As they walked, Arc’s anxiety only grew as her Dad talked about the city, some recent news that went over her head about the Council. Something about Chancellor Imogen’s negotiating with druids for some reason. The lake spirit, Nimfy, was acting up again. Also, a mimic was discovered in someone’s basement.

Arc mostly stayed in her own head, making the occasional sound to acknowledge things were being said, more than that she was listening. It wasn’t until her Dad called out a warning that she looked up.

"Stay behind me," he said.

The beaming faces of a small group approached, broad smiles and teeth showing from a variety of Myriad-folk as their leader approached them.

"Good morning, sir," their leader said. Like the people behind him, he was wearing white, but unlike them, he had a tabard with an eye over the sun depicted. "Would you be willing to spare a moment to learn the Will of Mana?" The way he emphasized the last three words slid the capital letters into place in Arc’s mind.

"No thanks. Just taking my daughter to school," Dad answered vaguely, smiling back with a smile Arc recognized as his "go away" grin.

At the sight of Arc, the leader’s face darkened a bit. "Ah, yes, well..." he cleared his throat. "I’ll ask another worthy soul then."

As Arc was led away, her ears twitched as she heard someone call her Dad something derogatory.

"Dad, who were they?" Arc asked.

"Just people looking for answers about the end of the world," her father puffed a lock of his blue hair away from his eyes.

"A cult, in other words. Are they like the weirdos who worship Father?" Arc scowled. If people like them hadn’t existed, perhaps she and her family could have lived in the city. But every month, it seemed like some cult or other showed up at the doorstep of the house, trying to speak to Father or worse, trying to get inside. A few years ago, it got bad enough that they harassed Sylvia, which was a mistake, as she wrapped up a dozen people in thorny vines.

Since then, Arc had grown immensely distrustful of anything with the word "cult" attached to it.

"I think that group is non-violent. Councilman Levi was talking about them." Arc was led up the street, which sloped upward towards the Academy. Even though there were buses available, they were still hours early for her test, and so they walked as Arc took in the sights of the city.

Since her Father’s time, the city of Norneau had grown upwards rather than outward. Something about having only a small amount of open land for farming, forestry, and ranching had made building up the logical choice, and so Norneau had towered for as long as Arc could remember.

They passed huge, block-shaped apartments made of mage-wrought stone that had been painted with murals, rising higher than the walls of Norneau’s eight Wards. On the first floors of each, storefronts and businesses of all kinds faced outward. They were passing an ice cream parlor when Dad caught Arc looking at it longingly.

"Sorry Arc, you’re still grounded."

"Yeah, I know," she said forlornly. She considered giving him puppy eyes, since ice cream was a rare treat at home, but thought better of it.

Dad still seemed to pick up on her perpetual desire for sugar though, because he said "Tell you what, once you pass I’ll treat you. But don’t tell your Father."

"Really?" Arc felt immensely better, until she realized she still had to pass her entry exam. "You mean if I pass..."

Dad gave her a light pat on the back. "None of that now. You need to show more confidence in yourself. The test is more about assessing what you know than what you can do. That’s why it’s a school... besides, your mothers had a big say in the test and-"

Arc cut him off, "I want to get in because I deserve it, not because of who my parents are!" How could he not understand this? Arc may have had things hard when it came to actually doing magic herself, but she still wanted to figure things out on her own. She didn’t just want to have everything handed to her and wind up messing up like Atikka...

Before she could stomp off, Dad caught her by the arm. "Don’t run off. People just got out of the shelters, and it’s not safe."

That was yet another reason she and her siblings didn’t visit often. After every attack, there was a little chaos in the days that followed, mostly from people taking advantage of the situation to settle grievances or cause some new ones. To hear Father speak of it, it wasn’t like they wanted for anything physically - Norneau was practically obsessed with meeting basic needs for everyone - but the majority of adults had been cooped up in the Veil and missed the outside world, while the majority of their children were just plain cooped up.

To hear her moms talk about it, every kid in Norneau was part of a gang and always getting into trouble.

"Don’t worry, you’ll be free to do what you want in a week or so," Dad continued. "But until then, remember-"

"I’m grounded," Arc answered as he said the same. Then her stomach growled.

Dad shook his head with a small smile, "Now let’s get you some breakfast before your big test, okay? The Mouse’s Share is open, and it’s on the way."

"You mean we’re meeting with Auntie Mosh?" Arc perked up all the way to her ears.

"If she’s there. It’s not like she’s ever been good at keeping a schedule," Dad waved at a Watchman, and they continued on their way.