Demon Academia:SSS Fallen Berserker

The heavy iron door groaned shut behind them with a finality that made Daemon's chest tighten.

The guard's footsteps echoed against the stone walls of the narrow corridor, each step a hollow sound that seemed to stretch into eternity.

Daemon squinted through the dim torchlight, his poor eyesight reducing the flickering shadows to indistinct shapes that danced at the periphery of his vision.

"Where exactly are we going?" Daemon's voice cracked slightly, betraying the nervousness he was trying to suppress. "And what fresh hell awaits next?"

The guard's laughter was a harsh bark that ricocheted off the walls. "Fresh hell? Kid, you're already in it. Everything here is a pain in the ass, one way or another. Might as well get used to it."

Daemon struggled to keep pace, his legs still weak from the ordeal had brought him to that underground clinic.

He still could not even remember what happened back there. The parts after he blacked out.

The corridor seemed to stretch endlessly ahead, carved from the same dark stone that formed his cell.

Water dripped somewhere in the distance, each drop like a clock counting down to something he couldn't name.

"Are you..." Daemon hesitated, then pressed on. "Are you a demon?"

The guard's stride faltered for just a moment, and when he turned his head, his expression had shifted from casual indifference to something much colder.

"No." The word came out flat, final. "And I'd advise you not to go around asking that question too freely."

"Why not?"

"Because relationships between demons and humans down here are about as warm as a frozen corpse." The guard's voice carried a bitterness that seemed to seep into the very stones around them. "Except in a few places, the first circle, mostly. There, things are... different."

Daemon frowned, trying to process this information through the fog of his confused thoughts. "Different how?"

"Demons consider themselves the superior race," the guard explained, his tone matter-of-fact now, as if discussing the weather.

"They look at humans like we're some kind of subcreature. Insects to be stepped on or ignored. And humans?" He let out a bitter laugh.

"Well, after centuries of suffering under demon tyranny, most of us view them as nothing more than monsters wearing pretty faces."

The words hit Daemon like a physical blow. He'd expected torment, fire, perhaps eternal physical pain. But this, this systematic dehumanization, this racial hierarchy in damnation felt somehow worse. "So hell is no different from earth, then."

"Exactly." The guard's agreement was immediate and heartfelt. "That's what caused the French Revolution, you know. Same power structures, same oppression, just with different players." His voice took on a distant quality. "I fought in that revolution."

Daemon stopped walking entirely, nearly colliding with a protruding stone in the wall as his poor vision failed him again. "You fought in the French Revolution? When did you die?"

"Year after it ended. 1790." The guard didn't look back, forcing Daemon to hurry to catch up. "Caught a musket ball to the chest during one of the smaller uprisings that followed. Bled out in a Paris gutter. Not a great way to die,trust me."

The timeline staggered Daemon. Over two centuries. "The world has grown a lot bigger since then."

"So I've heard." The guard's voice carried a note of curiosity now. "Stories filter down even here. Some of them better than what we had, some of them..." He shook his head. "Some of them shocking beyond belief."

They walked in companionable silence for a while, the only sound their footsteps and that persistent dripping.

Daemon found himself studying the guard's profile in the flickering torchlight, weathered features that spoke of a hard life.

There was something almost comforting about the man's matter-of-fact acceptance of their circumstances.

The corridor finally began to widen, opening into a small chamber dominated by what could only generously be called an elevator.

The contraption was a mesh of rusted metal and dubious engineering, held together by cables that looked like they'd seen better centuries.

The guard approached it with the casual confidence of long familiarity and pressed a button that glowed with sickly yellow light.

"Last floor," he announced, as if they were in some mundane office building rather than the bowels of hell.

The elevator lurched into motion with a grinding shriek of metal against metal.

Daemon gripped the sides of the cage as it swayed and shuddered, each movement threatening to send them plummeting into whatever abyss lay below.

His poor eyesight made the swaying shadows even more disorienting, and he felt his stomach lurch with each mechanical spasm.

He needed glasses. The Sooner, the better.

The guard noticed his white-knuckled grip and chuckled. "Nervous?"

"Nervous about a lot of things lately," Daemon muttered through gritted teeth.

The ascent seemed to take forever, punctuated by alarming creaks and the occasional spark from the cables overhead.

Just when Daemon was certain the whole contraption would collapse, it shuddered to a halt with a final, protesting groan.

The doors, if they could be called that scraped open to reveal another corridor, but this one was different.

Colder.

The temperature hit him immediately, a bone-deep chill that made his breath visible in small puffs. Ice formed delicate patterns on the walls, and Daemon could feel the cold seeping through whatever clothing he wore.

They emerged from the building into something that defied every expectation Daemon had harbored about hell.

He found himself standing in what looked like a Scandinavian marketplace frozen in time.

The buildings around them rose in tiers of dark wood and stone, their rooflines heavy with ice that never seemed to melt.

Market stalls lined the streets, their wooden frames weathered but sturdy, selling goods that seemed both familiar and alien.

The biting cold hit him like a physical force, and Daemon pulled his arms tighter around himself.

His breath came in sharp puffs, and he could feel his fingers already beginning to numb. The guard seemed unaffected, as if this eternal winter was simply another fact of existence to be endured.

People moved through the marketplace with the resigned efficiency of those accustomed to hardship.

They wore heavy furs and thick woolens, their faces weathered by cold and something deeper, a weariness that spoke of endless winter and endless waiting.

They were staring at him.

Daemon became acutely aware of the attention they were drawing.

Conversations paused as they passed, and he caught fragments of what sounded like whispered observations.

One man leaned close to his companion and spoke a single word that Daemon couldn't understand but felt was significant.

"Nýr," the man whispered.

"What did he say?" Daemon asked the guard.

"'New,'" the guard translated without breaking stride. "People here are always curious about newcomers to the ninth circle. Suspicious, too. Can't blame them, change usually means trouble."

Daemon made a mental note to avoid mingling with the others. Sometimes, being a lone wolf pays.

"You would be assigned to either the human-prevalent cities like this one," the guard continued, gesturing around them, "or if lucky, one of the demon-prevalent cities. Better in some ways, worse in others."

" Assigned to do what exactly?", Daemon asked curiously.

The guard shrugged. " In the human cities; basically what you are good at. In the demon cities though, anything to survive,I guess?"

Daemon was about to ask whatever the hell he meant when a commotion erupted from one of the nearby stalls.

Heads snapped to the noise.

A man's voice rose above the general murmur of the marketplace, sharp with anger and alarm.

"Þjófur! Thief!"

Time seemed to slow as a small figure darted between the market stalls, moving with the fluid grace of someone who had made an art of not being caught.

The child, despite the harsh environment flashed past Daemon's side, close enough that he could feel the displacement of air.

For just a moment, emerald green eyes met his own.

The child couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen, with sharp features that spoke of intelligence and mischief in equal measure.

A small burlap bag bounced against his hip as he ran, fruit spilling from its opening; apples that gleamed impossibly red in the gray light of the frozen market.

The boy smiled. A quick, mischievous grin that transformed his entire face, and then he was gone, disappearing around a corner with the practiced ease of someone who knew every hiding place in this frozen maze.

The merchant's shouts continued for a moment longer before fading into resigned grumbling.

The crowd that had briefly gathered began to disperse, returning to their daily Business. They seemed a bit kind of disappointed, like they were braced for a spectacle.

Daemon stood transfixed, staring at the corner where the boy had vanished.

There had been something in those green eyes, not just mischief, but life. Real, vibrant life in a place that seemed designed to crush such things.

"Come on," the guard said, not unkindly. "We have a long way to go."

All of a sudden, there was a loud crash. Screamings and running followed as Daemon smelled something burning.

He and the guard ran towards the source of the commotion. They fought to dodge the people trying to get away from the scene.

"Fucking demons," a man groaned as he nearly stumbled.

What they saw shocked them to their core. The thieving boy,there he was. Only this time,he was lying on the floor,fried to a crisp that was beyond recognition.