Part 1: Chapter 5

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The Devil Is Still Fearsome

Yoel's heavy eyelids slowly opened as he regained consciousness. His body starts to wiggle around, stretching his stiff body. After rolling and faceplanting into the bed, Yoel crouches and sits on his knees. He extends his arms wide open and lets out a loud yawn.

He looks around his room and pauses for a second.

"Oh shit, I forgot to give the mortal control back," Lucifer said aloud.

I guess our little Yoel is still sleeping soundly inside his own mind. Your awesome narrator will now be explaining the story from 3rd person's POV. (Sorry for the inconvenient change)

Although Lucifer never intended to sleep with Yoels body, he doesn't regret doing so. It was the best rest he's ever had. He crawls out of Yoels tiny room and meets Yoels mom sitting at the dining table, eating breakfast.

Remembering last night's commotion, Lucifer halts, considering crawling back into Yoel's room.

"Yoel, why are you awake? It's still 6 AM. Go back to bed."

"Oh damn! I forgot that I only need 3-4 hours of sleep to function properly! Mortal's not 'spose to wake up this early!" he thought.

Under Lucifer's command, Yoel's eyes bounce from wall to wall, searching for an excuse. Luckily, Yoel's grumbling saves Lucifer.

"Ah, I forgot!" Yoel's mom stood up from her seat, "let me prepare you breakfast! You haven't eaten all night." She grabbed a bowl from the cupboards and filled it to the brim with rice.

She puts it on the table with chopsticks as that is the cutlery they are used to eating with. Confused, Lucifer stands in front of Yoel's bedroom doorway with a blank expression.

"What's wrong...? Are you feeling unwell?!" Yoel's mom expected the worse.

"Ah, this is my cue to sit down and eat," he thought. Lucifer helped himself to a seat and stares at the bowl of steaming rice in front of him.

She points at the plate of chicken in the middle of the table, "you can have all the chicken. I've eaten enough. I'll cook us something for tonight."

Lucifer gives a slight nod before chowing down the rice and chicken with his bare hands. "I don't get what those sticks are for, so I'll just eat with my hands," he thought.

Although odd, Yoel's mom just brushed his behavior as a teen boy doing teen boy things. She continues to eat her bowl.

Amid Lucifer's meal, Yoel's mom decided it was time to talk about last night. She puts her chopsticks down and looked at her son with dour eyes. Noticing the sudden shift of mood, Lucifer slows down his munching.

"Yoel... I know it's been hard for you ever since your dad left..." Lucifer couldn't help but choke on the curveball that has just been thrown. "I know I haven't been the greatest mother... I've been so busy with work I don't even know what's been happening to you lately... Did something bad happen last night?"

"Well, what happened was me," is what Lucifer would say if he wasn't posing as someone's son. Lucifer instead stayed silent without responding.

"You went home covered in trash and all injured... I was so scared that you might've run into deep trouble! I thought something terrible happened..."

It may be surprising, but the Devil does have a conscience. He knows sitting quietly will likely escalate the situation and making half-assed answers will only complicate matters. With a heavy heart, he gives the most thought-out answer he could give.

"I was climbing... an aichmes tree. The spikes were the reason I was injured," he said with forced confidence.

Yoel's mom tilted her head in confusion, "ek... mes...?"

Her bewildered reaction slowly turned the cogs in Lucifer's head as he realized the mortal realm doesn't have aichmes trees, a tree that grows spikes all over its bark.

"So you were climbing a tree and got injured...? Why were you climbing a tree...?" she continued to pry.

"W-well... a wild Cerberus was... chasing me."

"...Is that a breed of dog...?"

"Aha! Yes!" Lucifer pointed to the ceiling with a thrilled expression.

As a mother should, she was able to detect his 'sons' lies. She wasn't content with the answer Lucifer gave.

The conversation was put to a halt as her phone rang. Upon reading the recipient caller, she stood up and walked away. Lucifer took that opportunity to keep eating his food while listening to the faint phone conversation.

She comes running back after finishing her call and rushes to the sofa, putting her phone and some paperwork on the coffee table into a bag.

"We'll continue this conversation after I get home from work. Stay hydrated and don't skip your meals! Take a nap if you can, it helps recovery! See you later hun!"

Lucifer waves to her as she hastily wears her shoes and slams the door.

He looks back at his bowl of rice and licks it clean. "These white beans sure are tasty! I've never tasted anything like this before!" he thought. He drops the bowl to the table and gets off his seat.

Curious about the layout of Yoel's humble abode, he walks around to give himself a self-tour. At the entrance is a short hallway with a shoe rack and a coat hanger. At the end of the hallway is a drawer with random knick-knacks on top of it.

Next to it is a wooden archway that leads to the living room-kitchen amalgamation. A worn-out three-seated sofa takes up the majority of the space as well as the short coffee table in front of it. The coffee table was messy and full of work-related paperwork. The window above the sofa casts a weak light from the rising sun which dimly lights the dark room.

Right next to the sofa is an old fridge covered with magnet decorations. A striking decor was the picture of baby Yoel playing in the sand. Other than that, the corner was filled with counters, wooden cupboards on the wall, a sink with cleaning liquids and a sponge, and lastly a gas stove. The counters had cooking electronics like a rice cooker as well as bottles and jars of spices. She must cook a lot, evident from the greasy and oily tiled floor.

On the opposite side of the dining table is the bathroom door. The bathroom is a bit bigger than Yoel's room and square-shaped. Every side of the wall except the ceiling is covered in baby blue tiles. Inside was a toilet, a washing machine with detergent bottles on the side, and a sole shower head. The corners of the bathroom are splattered with dark greens and browns caused by molding.

Other than Yoel's repurposed bedroom, Yoel's mom didn't have her own bedroom. Lucifer deduced she sleeps on the sofa.

Lucifer was impressed at the interior of a mortal's home. "In hell, houses were just boxes to take shelter from the scortching winds and freezing ice rains. A sack to sleep on and a pot to store meat was all I needed to sustain myself."

In a search for excitement, Lucifer runs out of the front door barefoot. The cool morning breeze lightly shuffles Yoel's hair. The soft light from the dark purple sky and the chirping of birds give a tranquil feeling.

Lucifer takes a deep breath - inhaling all the dust and leaves floating around - and exhales with his eyes closed. "Ahhh~~~!! The mortal realm is so cool~! Hell is always so hot and gross!" he mumbles aloud.

He opens his eyes to see a boy with a bowl cut and a familiar outfit passing by. The boy was wearing the same school uniform Yoel had.

His curiosity led him to climb the gates of his house and followed the boy from behind, unknowingly acting incredibly suspicious.

The boy quickly caught wind of this and was terrified at Lucifer's intentions. It was dark outside with the only light source emitting from the street lamps. The roads were silent with not a single person other than the man following him in sight.

The boy sped up his pace to get Lucifer off his tail, but he continued to follow and match his speed.

Just when all hope seemed lost, a foot went flying in Lucifer's direction. With his keen instincts, Lucifer blocks the unexpected attack with Yoel's arm.

Seeing a chance to escape, the boy breaks into a sprint and runs away. "HEY! WAIT--" Lucifer tried to chase after him, but his assailant blocks the way.

"You're not going after him, punk," she said coolly with piercing eyes, glaring into Lucifer's soul.

To his surprise, his assailant was a girl with long black pigtails wearing the same uniform. She was slightly shorter than Yoel but has the aura of a gigantic grizzly bear.

Lucifer looks down at Yoel's arm to see a dent caused by her foot. "How fierce, but you're just a kid at the end of the day!" he launches his fist toward her face.

Her small hand blocks his flying fist while the other grabs Lucifer's shoulder and kicks the back of his leg, breaking his balance. Within a second, Lucifer was slammed to the concrete ground. She fixes her legs on his waist and pins his hands to the ground, immobilizing him.

"Get over yourself. Your injuries don't make you look tough, punk," she provoked.

Although Lucifer seems to be cornered, don't let it distract you from the fact that he is still the Devil himself. Lucifer's original body had muscles that had muscles of their own!

With Lucifer's hidden might, he grips the ground with Yoel's toes and slowly rose from the ground. The ground beneath him was cracking from the sheer strength and pressure Lucifer put out.

The absurdity of the situation shook the girl's guard down as she falls into her back. Seeing her shocked face made Lucifer break a massive demonic grin on Yoel's face before laughing like a maniac.

"Get over myself, you say?! HOW ABOUT YOU KNOW YOUR PLACE!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!!"

As the realization of how deranged and dangerous Lucifer was starts to set in the girl's mind, she attempted to flee. Alas, her ankles were already at the mercy of Lucifer's gorilla grip. She couldn't escape from his grasp as he picked her up with ease - just as if she was a piece of cloth.

Without any hesitance or holding back, he slams her hanging body to the wall beside him. Luckily, she was able to protect her skull beforehand, but the impact still left her debilitated on the ground. She was too weak to keep on fighting.

Lucifer bent down to continue mocking and laughing at her face until he saw blood pouring under his feet.

"Did-- did she attack me without me realizing?!" was Lucifer's first thought before bowing his head down to check his stomach. What he saw wasn't a stab wound or any sort of fresh injury on his stomach, it was on his feet.

He sat down and raised his feet to find Yoel's wounds have reopened as well as new additional fresh cuts. The reopened wound didn't bleed too much as it was in the process of completely healing, but the fresh cuts were a different case.

He pauses for a second, realizing it was caused by the amount of strength he used on Yoel's weak mortal body.

"...am I breaking this body?" an alarming thought flew across his mind.

If Lucifer were to push Yoel's body to its limit, he would be hospitalized; meaning he wouldn't be able to roam free. Worst-case scenario, if whatever chasing after him comes across him in such a defeated state, he would be at a massive disadvantage.

"And If mortal dies then the grim reaper will come to pick his soul up. The reaper will surely snitch on me and give away my location to that damned puppet!!!"

Deciding it wasn't worth picking on pigtails any further, he stood up and head toward Yoel's home. "You're lucky, kid. I'm giving you a second chance," Lucifer said cockily.

Although in a terrible state, the girl still stuck her tongue out and cursed him with her middle finger.

The fight ends without a true winner as Lucifer went back home to clean his wounds.

xxx TO BE CONTINUED xxx