First meetings

Chapter 6: Childhood friends

-A little while before Lucifer meets the Hell Dorm-

Well, this isn't suspicious at all. Nope, not even a little bit. Mao thought, trying to reassure himself as he was being led into a large castle by someone that had introduced themselves as Barbatos while carrying a half awake Ritsu on his back.

"Mmmmm... Stop moving so much, Maa~kun." Ritsu mumbled groggily as he shifted slightly on Mao's back.

"Sorry Ricchan, but it's really difficult to, especially if you keep squirming on my back." Mao replies.

"We have almost arrived." Barbatos says.

Mao looked up from the floor to look around to see that they were surrounded by a beautiful garden. "Woah." Directly in front of them stood a grand, gothic castle. Barbatos magically opens the huge, heavy looking doors and steps inside. Mao follows and is greeted by a loud bang from a party popper.

"Welcome to the Devildom!!" A very tall man, with gold eyes and maroon hair. "My name is Diavolo, and I'm the prince of this realm!" If he were to be honest, Diavolo reminded Mao of a golden retriever. "May I know your names?"

"I'm Mao and this is Ritsu." He replies, pointing behind him at Ritsu who was softly snoring on his back. "Well, welcome, Mao. I see that your friend is asleep, you can bring him to one of the many guest rooms we have if you're getting tired."

"No thanks," Mao refuses politely, shaking his head. "Um, I don't want to be rude," he starts. " But can you send us back? We have some important work to do back where we're from." He hopes Diavolo won't take it as impolite.

Diavolo gives a questioning look to Barbatos, who shakes his head. Diavolo sighs and turns back to Mao.

"I am afraid we haven't been able to figure out a way to your world yet. You see, we also have a few friends that have gone missing and we're assuming they went to your world. We have also gotten a few people from your world. Do you happen to know Leo and Madara?"

Ah, so they aren't strangers, that's good. "Yes, I know them. We went to the same school."

"That's great!" Diavolo grins.

"What's great?" Ritsu yawns.

"Those two won't be alone when they go to the academy!"

Huh?

Diavolo explains the premise of how their stay was going to work. Halfway through, they were interrupted by Barbatos appearing with 6 other people. Mao recognized them as the sweets fan club. Mayoi looked downright terrified, claiming "No one as pristine as you should be close to a disgusting creature like me!!". Kohaku, Himeru and Tsukasa were just looking around (Kohaku more wary than the others).

"My lord, there should be 13 people left." Barbatos says bowing to Diavolo.

13?!! Mao and Ritsu both wore shocked expressions. That was about half the population of idols in ES!

What the hell have they gotten into? First they appear randomly in a bedroom with two absolute strangers that Kohaku would have attempted to stab if they got too close (One of them did, Tsukasa held him back though). Next some random dude appears grabbing all of them and muttering something which sent them to now.

Now, they were in a ballroom(?) with two more people he recognized from ES (too confused to remember names now) and a super cheery and royal (and really tall) man who introduced himself as Diavolo and the random dude as Barbatos. He also introduced the two roomies as Beelzebub (Beel) and Belphegor (Belphie) who were twins? They don't look too similar, you can only tell if ya look at their eyes, He thinks.

Diavolo explains how they were in a completely different universe and until they were able to find a way to bring them back, they would have to attend their school. While Diavolo explained things, Barbatos, with extreme speed, was getting everyone's measurements (Kohaku was having trouble understanding how he could move so fast and memorize their sizes so quickly)

A while later, the idols were led to a large room that gave Kohaku shivers for some reason. He was pretty sure there were a few paintings staring at them during their walk.

"This is where you'll be staying! Each room can fit up to four people, one of the rooms already has two residents. If you need anything, just let me or Barbatos know!" The prince waves and exits the room with his butler leaving the 6 alone to their thoughts and room choices.

"So," Mao starts, breaking the silence. "Does anyone want to explore the rooms with me and Ritsu?"

"Himeru will." "I-I can, if you don't mind.." Both Himeru and Mayoi raise their hands. The group split off to look into one of the rooms.

That left Kohaku with his cousin, Tsukasa. "Hey Kohakun, do you want to take a look at one of the rooms?"

"...Sure Bon."

They walk to the nearest door and try the handle. The door swings right open revealing Leo and Madara. Leo was writing a new song directly on the wall with a large pile of compositions surrounding him. Madara was on his phone and was the first one to notice Kohaku and Tsukasa.

"Oh! Hey Kohaku-san! Tsukasa-san!" Madara greets them both, waving.

"Hey Madara-han. What're ya doin?" He walks over to look at Madara's phone which shows the chat he and Madara shared. Tsukasa ran over to his leader to pry him off the wall.

"I've been trying to message you but it seems our phones don't work here."

Kohaku pulls out his own phone and directs it to his chat with his boyfriends, Aira and Hiiro, and tries to send them a message, instantly getting a notification saying it wasn't sent.

He hopes they aren't too worried.