Shizaya - Fairytale AU. Once upon a time, a demon rose from hell, shedding his skin and taking on the form of a man. He found his drug in those beautiful human lives; and they never did notice those bloody red eyes that watched them oh so hungrily. Shizuo Heiwajima did, but he went with the demon anyway.

Okay~ I now have a beta reader, so hopefully this story will be better than ever before! And I apologise sincerely for the lack of chapters - I promise, I promise that the next one will be coming ouy soon!

『さあさあ 今宵も無礼講

獄卒衆すら巻き込んで

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived a risen demon. He was no Demon Prince, fleeing from merciless persecution from his kin and kith due to a spark of compassion in his soul. Oh no, this demon was rotten, right down to his depraved core. He had tortured and murdered and laughed at it all.

He had risen from his Hell, bored with the monotony of his half-life, wishing to get closer to those humans when they were living and breathing, before they became boring, shrieking souls, entreating for redemption and absolution. Meaningless trivial words. How dull they were!

He kept his own blood-stained, gore-splattered skin long enough, before shedding it amongst the lifeless carcasses. He was not stupid – he knew that the days of terrifying superstitious villagers into fear-induced folly and rampages were numbered. (Oh, how he loved it when those exquisite humans turned on one of their own! He would stand and watch in broad daylight, giggling at the horror and hilarity of the situation; he could never, ever get enough.) After all, humans were stronger and better now (though to the demon, all that really meant was that men had spawned more monsters of men who played with lives and devastating weapons that massacred thousands).

So he changed his form into something humans could trust, and that made it all the more delightful when their hopes were broken and crushed into the dust, beneath his heels, as they wailed at him, cursing and condemning him to Hell, not knowing that Hell was his home. It was so beautiful, so captivating in its irony. He delighted in it.

Oh, who was he fooling? He didn't just dip in the sadistic pleasure of devastating human lives, he wallowed in it – existed for it.

He loved it so; he loved it, he loved humans, he loved death. Humans were so interesting, so beautiful; how could he not love them? How couldn't anyone?

宴の瀬にて成り下がるは

純真無垢故質の悪い

悪虐非道に御座います』

Once upon a time, in a faraway land not too far from the land where the demon lived, a little boy lived with his older brother. The little boy was a prince by name and nature, loved by all in the land, but it was the older brother who caught the demon's eye.

The two brothers were like night and day – the younger was quiet, reserved, beautiful in his frozen, icy demeanour; the elder was fiery, irascible, beautiful in his passionate, spontaneous disposition. Oh, he could be quite the calm one when he wanted to – but Shizuo Heiwajima had a short fuse, and Izaya Orihara was always the one who struck the splint.

Izaya Orihara was the demon's name – not his real one, of course, for in fairy tales names have power. Besides, he had no need for a name when he subsisted in Hell. Another reason why he took his fate in his own hands (more like tore his destiny from the hands of the Fates, trampling down on their withered hands in the process) and rose up to the Mortal Realms; in Hell, he was one amongst thousands in a dog-eat-dog world (Izaya was rather delighted by the irony when he was privileged enough to witness dog-demons tearing away at each other – of course, he had orchestrated the whole thing, and that just made it all so much better) – here, on Earth, he was unique.

Of course, not unique in a good way, but Izaya Orihara couldn't care less.

He had first met the two brothers as they stumbled, starving and choking, into his territory (of course, there were no visible boundaries, no swollen corpses strung up on trees, but everyone knew to keep out of this neck of the woods and the plains beyond; sometimes, just for the fun of it, Izaya would temporarily enlarge his territory into farmland, and watch gleefully as the residents starved to death.)

He could hear the way the elder kept talking, as if to keep their spirits up and ward away the demons (shame that the demons were right there beside them, listening and laughing in the splintered light.)

"C'mon, Kasuka, just a little further – there's nothing wrong with this part of the woods, the adults are just doing it to scare us, you know how they are…" His voice trailed off into nothing as the forest grew eerily silent.

Izaya Orihara cackled at this. He found it so, so amusing that the adults ignored the stories children told them (about the Boogie Monster, the devils in the shadows, the crocodile under the bed), and, in return, the children ignored the stories adults told them (about mysterious strangers, hands in the shadows, demons in the woods). Neither knew that both were telling the truth, and neither bothered to find out.

Overloud, the older boy's voice echoed amongst the trees. "Anyway, if there is a demon, he'll probably be more scared of us than we are of him, right? Kasuka?"

They were young, and foolish. Izaya had been on Earth for millennia, now. Scared of mere mortals? As if.

He loved them. Loved watching them dance, and jerk, and fall.

That's what made him do what he always did. He thought he knew the pattern. Get close to them, make them like you, trust you, love you, and then smash their hopes into the ground, over and over and over again.

But do you know something? Humans are infinitely more complicated than any god (or demon) can comprehend.

They aren't predictable, they aren't mundane; humans are monsters, they are total, utter monsters, and Izaya – well, he is going to have to learn that, isn't he? He is going to have to learn that over and over again, and he is going to have to open his eyes to the monsters of men.

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