Chapter 2: The Magic Scroll's Desire
The smell wouldn’t leave him.
It followed Iruma out of the classroom, down the polished Netherworld halls, and clung to the inside of his nose—a phantom blend of ammonia, mud, and dust. He’d scrubbed his hands raw in a distant bathroom, but the skin still felt greasy, and the red imprints of Clara’s boot tread were just beginning to fade from his fingers. The rest… he’d have to burn the uniform later.
He moved through the Babylus corridors like a ghost, his senses dulled. The raucous laughter of other demon students, the flicker of magical flames in sconces, the distant roar of some beast in the menagerie—it all felt muffled, happening behind thick glass. His world had shrunk to the memory of confined darkness and the sound of a deliberate stream.
He didn’t see her for the rest of the day. It was a small, trembling mercy.
The next afternoon found him in the library, a sprawling cathedral of knowledge with shelves that stretched into shadowy heights. He wasn’t studying. He was hiding. The solidity of a large oak table, the quiet rustle of pages, the stern gaze of the librarian demon—it all felt safer, more structured. He stared at a tome on Netherworld horticulture, the words swimming meaninglessly.
A familiar, singsong voice cut through the peaceful silence, sharp as a shard of glass.
“Iruma-chi! There you are!”
His spine locked. He didn’t look up. Maybe if he didn’t look, she’d be a hallucination, a byproduct of the stress.
Her shadow fell across the page. Then her hands, palms down, slapped on the table on either side of his book. Her face lowered into his field of vision, green hair dangling, a wide, knowing grin splitting her features.
“Playing hard to get?” she chirped, not bothering to whisper. A few nearby students scowled. Clara ignored them. “Don’t worry. I brought a new friend for our game today. Well, a new toy.”
She straightened up and gestured with a flourish. Standing a few feet behind her, posture rigid and face a mask of controlled confusion, was Ameri Azazel.
Iruma’s breath caught. Ameri was an icon—tall, elegant, her long orange hair perfectly smooth, her red eyes sharp and intelligent. She wore the student council president’s armband with a tangible air of authority. Seeing her here, in Clara’s orbit, felt profoundly wrong, like watching a stained-glass window stumble into a mud pit.
“Valac, you said it was a matter of urgent council business regarding… etiquette,” Ameri said, her voice cool but with an underlying thread of suspicion. She glanced at Iruma, and for a flicker, her composure softened with concern. “Iruma? Are you alright? You look pale.”
“He’s just shy!” Clara interjected, skipping around the table to loop an arm through Ameri’s. The president stiffened at the contact. “We’re all friends here. But the business is super secret. We need a private room. I know just the place!”
Ameri allowed herself to be led, clearly motivated by duty and a desire to untangle whatever chaos Clara was weaving. Iruma had no choice. A glance from Clara, a tiny jerk of her head, was command enough. He followed, his feet heavy.
She led them not to a council chamber, but back to the same deserted wing, to a small, windowless storage closet adjacent to the now-infamous classroom. It smelled of old parchment and cleaning solutions. Brooms leaned in a corner. Clara shoved them aside with her foot.
“Perfect!” she declared, pulling a small, ornate scroll from inside her jacket. The parchment was edged in gold leaf, glowing with a soft, coercive magic. “Found this in the forbidden archives. ‘Scroll of Sincere Accord’ it’s called. Super rare! Makes people, like, super agreeable for a little while.”
Ameri’s eyes narrowed. “A compulsion scroll? That is dark magic, Valac. It’s forbidden for a reason. This is not council business.”
“It’s a game!” Clara insisted, her eyes gleaming. “And you’re it!” Before Ameri could react, Clara unfurled the scroll. A pulse of golden light, silent and thick, washed over the small room. It didn’t touch Clara. It didn’t touch Iruma, who stood frozen by the door.
It hit Ameri like a physical wave.
She gasped, a short, sharp intake of breath. Her regal posture didn’t slump, but it changed. The natural authority bled out of her stance, replaced by a strange, waiting neutrality. Her sharp red eyes glazed over, still aware, but the will behind them was now submerged, accessible only through a specific channel. Clara grinned, watching the transformation with clinical delight.
“Okay, Miss President. Rule number one of the game: you do what I say. Got it?”
Ameri’s lips parted. A war flashed in her eyes—horror, indignation, a fierce inner struggle that made the muscles in her jaw twitch. The words that emerged were flat, monotone, forced out by the magic’s inexorable geometry. “I… understand.”
Clara clapped her hands together. “Yay! First command. Lay down. Right here.” She pointed to the bare, dusty floor between the brooms and a stack of cardboard boxes.
Iruma wanted to scream. He wanted to grab Ameri and run. His body was a statue of dread.
Ameri Azazel, the demon who commanded respect from every corner of Babylus, slowly, mechanically, lowered herself to her knees. She then lay down on her back on the cold floor, her orange hair fanning out around her head like a fallen halo. She stared at the ceiling, her chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. A single tear traced a path from the corner of her eye into her hairline.
Clara walked over and stood above Ameri’s head, looking down at her upturned face. She placed a boot on either side of Ameri’s temples, boxing her in.
“You’re so pretty and proper, Ameri-chan,” Clara mused, her tone light, conversational. “Always so clean. Smell so nice. It’s kinda boring.” She shifted her weight, hiking up her skirt. “So, I was thinking. If you’ve got nothing against it… I’m kinda itchy. Had a long day of planning. I wanna use your nose to scratch my butthole a bit. You can take your time with it. I’ll just sit down.”
The crudeness of the words hung in the dusty air, a vulgar poison. Ameri’s body gave a violent shudder, a full-body revolt suppressed by the golden magic thrumming in her veins. A choked, guttural sound escaped her throat.
“What’s that?” Clara leaned down, peering at Ameri’s face. “You gotta speak up, prez. Do you like the smell?”
The compulsion seized the question, wrung it into a command. Ameri had to answer.
Her voice was a shattered whisper, strained with unimaginable shame. “I… I do not…”
“Wrong answer!” Clara sang. “The scroll doesn’t like lies. It wants sincere accord. Try again. Do. You. Like. The. Smell?”
The magic tightened. Ameri’s breath hitched. Iruma watched, his own nails digging into his palms, as Ameri’s pride, her very sense of self, was methodically dismantled. Her lips trembled. The truth, under this magic, was whatever Clara demanded it to be.
“I…” The word was a sob. “I… like the smell.”
Clara’s manic delight was palpable. “See? That wasn’t so hard! And since you like it…” She began to lower herself slowly, positioning herself over Ameri’s face. “We can always do this anytime in the future. A little standing appointment. President’s privilege.”
Iruma couldn’t watch. He squeezed his eyes shut. But he couldn’t block out the sounds. The soft rustle of clothing. A muffled, desperate gagging sound from Ameri. Clara’s contented, humming sigh. The rhythmic, slight scraping sound.
He opened his eyes. He had to.
The sight was worse than he imagined. Clara was fully settled, her weight resting on Ameri’s face, which was turned to the side, pressed into the floor. Ameri’s body was rigid, one hand clenched into a fist so tight the knuckles were white, the other splayed on the ground as if searching for an anchor. Her eyes were open, unblinking, streaming silent tears that pooled on the dirty floor. She was utterly trapped, violated not just physically, but in the core of her dignity.
Clara shifted slightly, giggling. “You’re a natural, prez! A real nose artist!” She looked over at Iruma, her gaze catching his horrified stare. Her grin was limitless. “See, Iruma-chi? Everyone can play. Everyone has a thing they’re good at.”
After an eternity, Clara stood up, brushing off her skirt casually. She left Ameri lying there, gasping wet, ragged breaths, her face flushed and marked with pressure lines. The acrid, intimate scent now mixed with the dust and parchment.
Clara rolled up the scroll. The golden glow around Ameri faded. The awareness flooded back into her red eyes, and with it, a tsunami of raw, unfiltered horror.
She scrambled back, crab-walking until her back hit the wall of brooms. She brought her hands to her face, then jerked them away as if burned. She stared at them, then at Clara, then at Iruma. Her expression cycled through shock, revulsion, a deep, burning shame, and finally, a terrifying, silent fury.
She didn’t scream. She didn’t cry. She pushed herself to her feet, her movements jerky, and straightened her uniform with trembling hands. She couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes.
“The effects are temporary,” Clara said cheerfully, pocketing the scroll. “But the memories are forever! That’s the best part.”
Ameri’s gaze finally found Iruma’s. In her eyes, he didn’t see blame. He saw a reflection of his own hollowed-out feeling, a shared understanding of a violation that language couldn’t touch. And beneath that, a question: You knew? You live with this?
Without a word, Ameri turned and fled the closet, the door swinging shut behind her with a soft, final click.
The silence she left behind was different now. It was charged with the aftermath of a larger crime.
Clara skipped over to Iruma, peering up at his ashen face. “Your turn tomorrow,” she said, as if reminding him of a dentist appointment. “But today… today was educational, wasn’t it? I learned so much.” She patted his cheek, her hand lingering. “Now you have a friend who knows the game. Isn’t that nice?”
She left him there, standing alone in the closet that now held the ghost of a president’s shattered composure. The phantom smells intensified—cleaning solution, dust, and now, underneath it all, the lingering, shameful proof of what had happened.
Iruma slid down the wall until he sat on the floor, in the same spot where Ameri had lain. He buried his face in his hands. The game had just expanded. The walls of his world, already so narrow, now felt like they were crushing him from all sides. And somewhere out there, Ameri Azazel was trying to piece herself back together, knowing a piece of her was forever left behind in this dusty, terrible room.
Ameri didn’t piece herself together. The pieces wouldn’t fit. The scroll’s magic had dissolved, but something else had taken root, a warped echo of its command that hummed in her blood like a corrupted tune.
She found them in the same wing an hour later. Iruma was mechanically mopping the hallway floor, a pointless task assigned by a passing teacher, his movements hollow. Clara leaned against the closed closet door, sketching bizarre creatures on a notepad, humming.
The click of Ameri’s heels on stone was precise, deliberate. She looked composed. Her hair was re-brushed, her uniform impeccable. But her eyes were wrong—glassy, dilated, the red hue looking feverish. She stopped before Clara, her gaze sliding past Iruma as if he were furniture.
“You came back!” Clara chirped, not looking up from her drawing. “Forget something, prez? Your dignity’s kinda smeared on the floor in there, but I think the cleaning imps licked it up.”
Ameri’s jaw worked. She swallowed thickly. “The scroll.”
“What about it?” Clara said, popping her gum.
“It… it didn’t fully wear off.” The confession tore from Ameri, her voice low and raspy. “It left a… a whisper. A want. It’s in my head.” Her fists clenched at her sides, nails biting into her palms. “It’s insisting.”
Iruma stopped mopping. The water in his bucket looked filthy.
Clara finally looked up, her green eyes sparkling with genuine, unholy curiosity. “Insisting on what?”
Ameri’s breath hitched. She looked at the closet door, then at Clara’s boots, then squeezed her eyes shut. “It wants the conclusion. It says the game was interrupted. It needs… completion.” A shudder wracked her tall frame. “Please.”
“Please what?” Clara’s voice was sweet poison.
“Do it again.” The words were barely audible, molten with shame. “Use the scroll. Make me… make it happen again. Properly this time.”
Clara grinned, slow and wide. She pushed off from the door and stepped right into Ameri’s space, looking up at the taller demon. “Nah. Scroll’s on cooldown. Magic’s all used up. But the want? That’s all you, prez. That’s your sincere heart talking now.”
Ameri shook her head, a frantic, tiny motion. “No. It’s the magic residue. It’s a malfunction.”
“It’s you.” Clara’s whisper was a viper’s kiss. “And if you want it, you gotta ask for it right. Specifically. None of this ‘do it again’ vague crap.” She leaned closer. “Say out loud, exactly, what you want me to do with my ass on your face.”
Iruma’s knuckles were white on the mop handle. He saw Ameri’s internal collapse in real time—the last fortress of her will crumbling under a siege she didn’t understand. Her pride fractured audibly in the quiet hall.
“I…” Ameri’s lips were bone-dry. “I want you to… to sit. On my face.”
“Nope,” Clara sing-songed. “Too clinical. Be descriptive. You read all those romance novels. Use your words.”
Ameri’s composure finally cracked. A tear escaped. “I want you to… to lower yourself onto me. To smother me with it. To make me… to make me smell you until I can’t think of anything else.” Each word was a violation, and with each one, a strange, terrible relief bled into her strained features.
Clara nodded, a mockery of approval. “Good girl. See? You know what you want.” She turned and opened the closet door. The smell from before wafted out—dust, old cleaner, and that deeper, intimate tang.
Ameri walked in, her steps automatic. She didn’t wait for a command. She simply laid down on the floor again, in the same spot, staring at the same water-stained ceiling tile. Her body was rigid with anticipation, with a need that terrified her.
Clara stood over her, hiking her skirt. “You gotta promise to be my friend after this, okay? To play whenever I want.”
“I promise,” Ameri whispered to the ceiling, another piece of her soul detaching.
“And you,” Clara said, glancing at Iruma, who stood frozen in the doorway. “Watch. Learn what a real volunteer looks like.”
Clara lowered herself. This time, there was no scroll, no golden light. Just a terrible, willing submission. Ameri’s eyes fluttered closed as the weight settled, her body going limp, then giving a single, subtle, upward shift of her head to deepen the contact. A muffled, broken sound escaped her, part sob, part sigh.
Iruma watched, the acidic taste of bile in his throat. He saw Ameri’s hand, which had been clenched, slowly open. Her fingers relaxed, splayed on the dusty floor, as if in surrender. Or acceptance.
The game had changed. The closet wasn’t just a prison of coercion anymore. It was a confessional. And Clara was the only priest.