(A/N) This idea literally came to me in a dream, so consider this firmly AU to the aoex plot :D
Will feature demon kings that haven't been introduced yet (Beelzebub) or had their personalities fully fleshed out so I'll have to take some liberties with them :\
And an… interesting OC I think you guys are gonna like P:
Mephisto gets to be the Disney Princess he was always meant to be, Rin is his Prince Phillip, and Amaimon is the talking animal companion.
Awareness.
Where?
It was difficult to put his thoughts in order and consciousness was as tenuous as silken spider thread.
Sleep tried to pull him under again, lids shuttering as he struggled to focus his bleary vision.
He was floating in a still pool that stretched endlessly around his body until the edges of it faded into a hazy horizon against a formless sky.
The warm waters lapped at his cheek when he tilted his head to stare at gray, almost colorless surroundings with listless eyes.
How had he arrived in this place?
But the memory wouldn't come to him and the effort it took to recall why that might be important dragged at his mind until it slipped away like so many grains of sand.
Had he always been here?
And…
How would he get out?
He drifted, only the sound of his heartbeat and the faint breath from his lungs echoing in the vast silence keeping him company.
Who was he?
"Hey, Mephisto, you said you wanted to see me after the last mission to check on the Koma Sword?"
Rin had stepped into the office without knocking, figuring if Mephisto really wanted to keep him out he'd make it apparent pretty quickly.
But…
Rin narrowed his eyes, brows drawing in confusion as all that greeted him was a silent room.
A careful sniff, however, had him instantly wary for some kind of surprise attack.
Because he could still smell Mephisto somewhere in the room, the demon king's scent not faded like he'd been there and left, or like the usual scents of someone's space they regularly occupied but weren't currently in.
He scanned the room, keeping his back to the door because he would definitely not put it past the absolute bastard of a demon to not be playing a trick on him, waiting for him to drop his guard.
A scrap of familiar white fabric had him zeroing his focus to the side of Mephisto's desk, hands coming up to defend himself in-case that was the signal Mephisto was waiting for to pounce.
Nothing came at him and Rin let his lips fall back over his fangs, unbending from his tensed crouch to step closer, still not dropping his guard entirely.
As he neared, the scrap of white revealed itself to be the edge of Mephisto's cape and a shiver of apprehension went down his spine to see it so out of place.
If his cape was there, then where was Mephisto?
Rin made it and peered around the desk, unsure of what he'd find.
"Mephisto!"
He stumbled the rest of the way around, falling to his knees and turning the still body to reveal Mephisto's face slackened in unconsciousness.
No, Rin hesitated for all of a second before throwing caution straight to hell and reaching down to prod careful fingers to Mephisto's jaw, tilting his head to get a better look.
The stillness was not natural at all. Rin wasn't sure how he knew, but his instincts were screaming that something was horribly wrong with Mephisto.
His heart was pounding for some reason, Rin realized, falling back on his hands from the downed demon and darting his gaze to the rest of the room as if whatever had gotten Mephisto was still there.
A knock came from the door and Rin jerked his head up, realizing the compromising position he'd found himself in and breaking into a cold sweat.
Before he could react, the door opened and an exorcist entered, file held in his hand that he stared down at until he glanced up and noticed Rin.
"Uh," Rin gulped, still frozen on the floor to the side of the desk beside Mephisto's body, now more revealed after Rin had moved him so that he was clearly visible from the entrance.
The man stared at him, file held in a limp hand as if unsure how to react.
Rin's tail twitched in a nervous gesture, breaking the standoff.
He flinched as the exorcist dropped his file and pulled out a phone, mind going blank as he wracked his head for something to say to stop the panicked actions.
"The spawn of Satan has attacked Sir Pheles! I need back-up!" The exorcist barked into the phone, pulling a gun and training it on Rin's startled form.
"Ah! Wait, no!" Rin scrambled back until his shoulders impacted the wall behind him and he raised his hands to ward off the attack, "I just found him like this! I swear!"
When that only got the gun raised further, aiming for his head now, Rin yelped and threw himself behind the desk, pulling Mephisto along after him and having to use his demonic strength because the bastard was a stupidly tall, dead weight.
"I'm serious! There's something really wrong with him!" Rin called out, finding he'd hugged Mephisto to his chest in his scrabble for cover, sitting beneath the space under the desk with the demon's long legs thrown to the side over his lap and his ridiculous white cape a tangled bundle to the other side.
Stomping feet down the hall had Rin cowering over Mephisto and tightening his arms around him in an instinctive move as he darted his panicked gaze around, unable to come up with anything to diffuse the situation.
His nose and ears told him the room had become crowded, more exorcists filing in, each, he imagined, carrying plenty of weapons all aimed at him and every one of them on a hair-pin trigger.
"Step aside!"
Rin ducked further at the shouted command from a new presence, his head now tucked over Mephisto's shoulder where he froze, heart thudding in his chest and waiting for the exorcists to make their next move.
"Stand down."
The room quieted, the sound of weapons being shifted reaching Rin's ears, though his tension failed to ease.
"What's the situation?"
Rin listened as the first exorcist on the scene explained, fighting to keep from bursting out to correct him when he claimed Rin had felled Mephisto, like that was even possible!
"I see. Exwire Rin Okumura, will you explain yourself?"
Rin felt his breath stutter out of his lungs, relieved that the situation hadn't devolved into violence. Yet. "I was told to come here after my last mission by Mephisto. When I got here, I found him like this and then that guy came in and called everyone else. I didn't do anything!"
Silence met his words and Rin's hands twitched where they'd clenched, white-knuckled, into the suit over Mephisto's arm and at his back.
"Acceptable, come out, Okumura, we need to find out what happened to Sir Pheles."
It sounded… too good to be true, that there was someone amongst the exorcists- who he didn't already know, at least, who wasn't of the shoot first at the Satan spawn, ask questions later.
But Rin had no choice at this point. Unless he wanted to jump head-first out of Mephisto's window behind the desk and plummet to his death. There was always that option.
He settled Mephisto to the ground, trying to be gentle because seeing the usually so animated demon so still had him flat-footed and unsure how to handle him. His hand left the back of Mephisto's head against the carpet, the long purple bangs hanging limp and looking somehow less vibrant across his face in mussed strands.
Rin forced himself to stand, raising his hands up first over the top of the desk in surrender and hoping they didn't decide to open fire anyway.
A group of thirteen exorcists stood at the other side of the room by the door, put to order by the man who'd arrived to command them, but Rin could sense the tension vibrating in the air, an angry hornets nest waiting for an excuse to swarm.
"Good."
And the room became a hive of activity anyway, Rin standing to the side in awkward silence as Mephisto was brought into the open and stretched out until medical and research personal could be brought in, nobody wanting to move him before they could be sure it was safe to do so, since he appeared stable for the moment.
Rin couldn't seem to take his eyes off Mephisto, the sea of black uniforms moving in and out of his vision becoming a blur around the white figure laying in the center.
He was startled out of his daze when two people in lab coats entered, walking up to Mephisto as the room fell still to let them closer.
"Who was the one who discovered him like this?" The woman asked, glancing around the room with narrowed eyes.
Rin was indicated, feeling his heart skip a beat at suddenly having the attention back on him as he was called over to where they stood above Mephisto.
"And you say he was already unconscious when you arrived?" The man asked, crouching to study Mephisto closer, shining a light into the demon's unfocused green eyes.
"Uh," Rin coughed, voice scratchy, "yeah, uh, I walked in and saw him over behind the desk."
When that just prompted a low hum from the man, Rin hesitated, but figured he couldn't get in any more trouble than he already was and blurted out, "um, I don't know how to describe this, but something feels wrong with him. Really wrong."
That got a sharp look from the two researchers before they shared another with each other, the woman speaking finally, "and you're Rin Okumura, spawn of Satan. A demon."
Er, what? Rin nodded, not sure why that was any more relevant than it had ever been.
"There's really nothing else I can think of that could fell a demon king, they certainly don't get sick like we do," the man muttered, gaze narrowing again as he brought a hand to his chin in thought.
"You're right, especially if he can sense it," the woman said, then sighed, and Rin felt anxiety press at his chest. Because that sigh sounded defeated, like over a failed project or a doctor whose patient had just died on the table.
"It's the King Killer."
Rin's heart dropped into his stomach at the foreboding name and he darted a quick look to the others in the room to see if they knew what it was either, though many seemed as confused as he did. "What's that, is he gonna be okay?"
The man huffed out a wry laugh, "it's a curse, also known as Briar Rose Syndrome for the way its effects work. It sends the afflicted into a coma-like sleep until their bodies are consumed by the energy eating away at them. A demon king usually jumps bodies when their host becomes too degraded, but the curse prevents this until they die with their host."
"It's happened once before."
Rin jerked his eyes up at that. Another demon king? "So you can fix it?"
He flinched when the man shook his head in the negative, "unfortunately there's never been a cure reported. Actually, the only reason the Order even knows about the fallen king is because the others created records of them, since after their passing all knowledge disappeared from the collective minds of humanity."
Through the whole explanation Rin couldn't turn away from the man speaking, the way he so casually implied certain death for Mephisto like it was an unfortunate turn of the weather, and not the terrifying realization it actually was.
"Actually, this is a fascinating opportunity for us," The woman said, drawing Rin's horrified attention, blood draining from his face as he watched a keen look form on hers, "we've never been able to record the effects of something of this nature and we may never get the chance to again."
Rin didn't have any particularly close bond with Mephisto, the elder demon tending to enjoy teasing him every chance he got and generally being an absent caretaker and kind of a frightening, eccentric entity at the best of times.
But that didn't mean Rin wanted him to die.
"Then are we to believe Sir Pheles is lost to the Order? Shall I report this to the Grigori so we can get someone to fill his position as head of the Japan Branch?" The exorcist spoke up, staring with a cool gaze down at Mephisto before bringing his attention back to the researchers.
Rin turned frantic, wide eyes on the humans in the room, unable to believe that everyone seemed so calm and business as usual, talking about replacing Mephisto like he was already dead.
"It's a pity," the woman responded, shrugging, "I'm sure the Grigori will want to investigate how he was afflicted as this is most certainly an act of aggression against the Order. But at the very least we'll have another king to study before his body gives out."
Was that a smile on her face? Was she excited about the situation?
"We should be able to get some interesting results from him that we haven't had the opportunity to yet, since we needed him alive and couldn't damage the host body too much before he would have been forced to exit it to find a new one."
What…
Rin felt a growing fury buzzing in his head, a sickness eating at his insides. His fangs had extended in his mouth without him noticing and he licked his suddenly tapered tongue against them, a surreal stillness taking hold over his body.
"We can start taking samples as soon as the Grigori sign off on it, though I doubt it will be too long since there's no known cure for this and they won't want to waste time getting what we can from him."
The man stood, rubbing a hand at his lab coat idly before waving it at the nearest exorcists, "if you'll gather the body, we need to transport it to the lower labs. There's nothing more to do here. Lock up this room and set guards so whatever information regarding the Order inside remains untouched until they send his replacement."
"Like hell you are."
The room fell silent at Rin's dangerous hiss, the two exorcists who'd been lifting Mephisto dropping him back the carpet with a thud as a primal fear from the rising growl coming from Rin registered to their human senses.
"I," the man stuttered, fumbling the light he'd been about to put away, "I'm sorry?"
Rin's hands clenched, the claws he'd formed there biting into his palms until blood welled up and dripped to the cream carpet beneath his feet.
"I'm not gonna let you do that to him."
The man gulped, sweat breaking on his skin and pulse fluttering in his neck when Rin's gaze slid to meet his, "ah, I'm not sure what you mean? He's already dead, there's nothing more to do here."
The exorcist moved, then, approaching Rin with a wary gait and raising a hand as if to touch his shoulder, "you'd best return to your dorm, Okumura, we'll have a confidentiality contract- and likely a Morinath Contract done up for you as well about the situation, so be on the lookout for that. Please speak of this to no one in the meantime."
The hand touched his shoulder.
Rin exploded.
Screams met his ears as blue flames erupted around him and he shoved the exorcist aside, the man falling with a grunt, to reach Mephisto. He was pulling the demon up into his arms and leaping to his desk, bringing Kurikara up to smash through the window in a swath of flames that preceded him as he followed them to the outside.
Shouts trailed behind him alongside the rain of glass as Rin fell to the roof beneath, tile cracking like a gun-shot when he landed in a ball of blue flames.
He didn't waste any time, some remainder of his mind knowing it was only a matter of seconds before the shooting started and he had to be out of range.
The rest was focused on not tearing every human in that room apart for the way they'd all went along with what amounted to murder. To torture.
A snarl tore its way from his throat, even though there was no one around to hear him besides Mephisto, having leapt to the next nearest roof to escape from the Academy.
How could-
Those, those disgusting-
Absolute monsters!
And no one had even said anything!
Rin wanted to spit flames- could feel them flaring from between his fangs anyways, at the cruelty of it all.
Mephisto was a dead weight in his arms as he forced himself to calm, beating back the flames to keep from becoming a beacon for every exorcist in the area since he was sure they'd be alerted soon.
If they hadn't been already.
The wind whipped around his body but all he could feel were the faint breaths coming from Mephisto where he held his head to his neck.
He'd made it into the lower levels of the tiered city, hoping the maze of small alleys and mobs of humans would help hide their presence.
Not, Rin grimaced, looking down at the purple hair, pink striped leggings, weird poofy white shorts, and lanky figure of the demon king in his arms, that it would make much difference.
They were too loud, stood out from the crowd- especially since Mephisto was unconscious in his arms and he had a now sheathed sword in his hand.
What could he do?
Rin stared with glazed eyes at the narrow walls of the alley he'd hid themselves in and over the still form of Mephisto, his grip tightening and loosening in his indecision.
Yukio.
Rin snapped his gaze up. Yukio would know what to do.
He cursed the shitty luck that had made him leave his phone with Yukio, though it had been dead anyway. He had to make it back to his dorm somehow, Yukio having parted from him after the mission to shower and get ready for classes the next day.
Path decided, Rin didn't spend more time thinking about it, very aware of the noose closing in around him with every second wasted.
After strapping Kurikara back into place, he hefted Mephisto more securely in his arms, summoning his energy to begin the trek and hoping he could make it without drawing any more attention.
Rin launched himself between the lower buildings in the city, trying to stay out of view of any main roads and sticking to the narrower passages as much as he could. Especially when he'd caught sight of the familiar black uniforms of the exorcists in the distance.
He needed another way to transport Mephisto, Rin was becoming aware. Because if he needed to fight in a hurry, he'd have to drop Mephisto to get to his sword and that would take too long, leaving him open to attack.
What he needed was another demon to help him, which, Rin bit at his lip, glancing down to where Mephisto's hair lashed at his face on the next jump, where was he even gonna be able to find one of those?
Really, the only two demons he regularly associated with, besides Mephisto, were Ukobach and…
"That's it!" Rin breathed a sigh of relief.
Kuro. His cait sidhe familiar was the only one who could possibly help him both as another defender and as transport to… wherever he ended up fleeing to. He'd worry about a location later.
That was when a massive force impacted into him and slammed him down to the ground, stealing Mephisto from his arms while he gagged in the crater made by his body.
"What did you do to him."
It was worded like a question, but it sounded like a threat, Rin vaguely registered, chest heaving in empty breaths as his cracked ribs healed by painful inches.
He coughed once, blood flecking his lips, and he could breathe again, taking in gasps of air into his deprived lungs.
That demon- what was his name again? Who'd attacked him at the amusement park and in the forest was standing across from him, Mephisto leaning against a green-tight clad leg, only held up by a black clawed hand at his collar and head tilted to rest at an uncomfortable looking angle.
"I," Rin coughed again, voice coming out rough as he pushed himself to unsteady feet, "didn't do that to him."
Gold, slit-pupiled eyes narrowed at him as the demon cocked his head, the move making Rin's hackles raise because it brought to mind striking snakes and the calm before the storm.
"Then who did." Came the hissed question, once again said as a statement.
"I don't know!" Rin burst out, feeling his flames roil under his skin as he had to answer the same question for what felt like the millionth time and already prepared to not be believed. "I just found him like that! And they were going to just let him die- they were going to torture him for some stupid experiments or something! I had to get him out of there."
That got a slight widening of the demon's eyes, quickly turned down to look at Mephisto before coming back up to meet Rin's
"Who. Were."
Rin took a shuddering breath, seeing the demon's patience running out and knowing he had to talk fast or risk his ire, "the exorcists at the Academy. And the researchers there. They said he was cursed, something called the, er, King Killer? Briar Rose something? I can't remember but they said it would kill him and there's no way to cure it."
The demon blinked at his answer before ignoring Rin to look more closely at Mephisto with curious eyes on his otherwise blank face.
Maybe there was a cure? Rin held his breath as he waited to see if the demon knew more about Mephisto's condition than the exorcists had, hope fluttering in his chest that he'd be able to leave Mephisto in the other's hands and forget the crazy last hour of his life.
A fang-filled smirk sliced across the demon's face.
"Hah!"
Rin's heart skipped a beat.
"Getting caught in a curse, Samael?" The demon sneered, shaking the limp body in his grip and laughing again, "such a stupid way to go. How the mighty have fallen."
Rin was on him in a second, fist cracking across his smirking face and knocking him into his own crater at the far end of the alleyway wall.
"You bastard!" Rin snarled at the groaning form from where he kneeled over Mephisto, one clawed hand pressing him to his chest while he held the other in defense over his back.
He was too furious to even be scared by the way the demon rose in silence, any signs of his previous humor wiped from his expression. Only the faint sounds of the city and the slight tap of the blood running down his face to drip to the ground reaching Rin's ears.
A long, tapered tongue came out to lick one of the red trails, only serving to smear it in a macabre stain on his skin.
The demon leveled a considering look at him and Rin felt a growl start to build when he made to come close again.
Shifting, like boots over gravel, reached Rin's ears a second before the sound of a cocking gun did and he froze, eyes widening in fear and heart beat stuttering when he realized it was from directly behind him at the entrance to the alley.
"Step away from him, Amaimon, or I'll start shooting."
Well, he had a name for the demon, now.
Relief swept through Rin's chest, gasp leaving his mouth, and he almost turned to the person who'd spoken if not for the instincts telling him to keep his eyes on Amaimon at all times or risk an attack.
Amaimon blinked, a slow move over gold eyes reminiscent of a predator sizing up prey as he watched the newcomer.
A toothy smile lit on his face and Rin felt his heart drop. "No, you won't."
Why wouldn't he-? Rin turned, then, the need to see what reaction Amaimon's words had garnered overcoming his instincts.
Yukio stood behind him, arms raised to sight his weapons on Amaimon, expression betraying nothing and aim steady.
Movement came from by his feet and Rin felt another bit of the tension stringing along his spine ease.
Kuro smiled at him before turning to level a glare at Amaimon with all the fierceness available to his little cat body.
The stalemate continued, Rin caught in the middle, still stuck crouched over Mephisto and watching to see who would break first. He twitched as Yukio tightened his fingers on the twin triggers, waiting for deafening shots to sound, but Yukio was gritting his teeth and lowering his guns a moment later.
"Yukio?" Rin breathed, question in his voice, and he could see Kuro staring in surprise too.
He glanced back to Amaimon and saw him watching with not so subtle triumph on his face.
"He's right," Yukio said, not looking happy at all about the admission, "there's patrols all over the city, I had to sneak into one once I heard the orders go out to the exorcists. I can't let them know I found you."
Rin bit at his lip, the sounds from outside the alley suddenly taking an ominous tone to them as if they'd be discovered any second.
"What were you thinking, Rin?"
Rin flinched at the anger now in Yukio's voice, knowing it had been coming. "I didn't have a choice, Yukio, they were gonna just- kill him! Take him apart like some kinda lab experiment, and they wanted me to be quiet about it!"
He was getting angry about it again, snarl forming on his face at the insanity of who were supposed to be the good guys. Though, given what they'd been about to do to him during his own trial, he shouldn't have been so surprised.
"I couldn't let them, Yukio," Rin said, then sighed, staring down at Mephisto as a weariness settled in his bones, "they probably removed that suspension on my execution order, huh."
It was Yukio's turn to flinch, dropping his gaze, and answering, "yeah, you've got kill on sight orders out for all top-level exorcists and flee and report for all others."
Up until then, Amaimon had remained quiet, though it was impossible for Rin to forget his presence, and he'd kept him in sight out of the corner of his eye. Not that the blank expression revealed anything of what the demon was making of their conversation or the revealed information anyway.
Still, Rin was immediately paying full attention as Amaimon spoke.
"I'll help."
Rin jerked his head up, eyes widening at that declaration and blurting out, "what? Why?"
Amaimon shoved his hands in his pockets, gaze flicking down to Mephisto before he answered, "I owe him. And I'll be damned twice over if I let a bunch of humans get their hands on him for their worthless experiments."
"Owe him?"
They didn't get a chance to talk about it further.
A shot cracked out, bullet impacting the brick right past Amaimon's face, the chips shattered and stinging past his face to leave red lines down his cheek as he snarled at the attack.
They'd been discovered.
A group of exorcists had rounded the alley, and Rin could already hear them calling for back-up even as he hunched over Mephisto, trying to make them a smaller target.
Kuro was on them in an instant, breaking their numbers up as he transformed into his larger form to distract them from firing at Rin.
And Yukio was tugging him up, forcing Rin to heave Mephisto into his arms as his twin pulled him towards Amaimon, "I can't protect you here, Rin, they have me on watch, I barely made it here to tell you. You can't come home, not without him awake."
Rin stared, bewildered, at Yukio's words, just reaching him over the cacophony around them.
He was shoved at Amaimon, Yukio giving the demon a fierce glare, but a pained cry from Kuro had him continuing in a rush, indicating Mephisto with a nod, "he's the only one who can call them off now. I hate to say this, but it looks like Amaimon is your best bet."
Yukio had a hand in his hair and was bringing their foreheads together to deliver his final words, quiet, so that only Rin could hear, "be careful, don't trust him. He's still a demon."
There were plenty of reasons not to trust Amaimon, Rin knew, but, "so am I, Yukio."
An object was pushed into his hand and Rin took it from Yukio to shove into his pocket, recognizing the feel of a phone as he pulled back.
"This is a burner phone, they can track your cell so I couldn't get you that."
Mephisto was grabbed out of Rin's arms, Amaimon having lost patience. "We don't have time for this!"
Adrenaline pounded through Rin's body, seeing Kuro losing ground as more and more exorcists made it to their position.
"Go, Rin, they won't do anything to me and I need to stay behind to watch the situation from this side, we'll hold them off until you can get out of here!"
And Yukio was gone, ducking behind the limited cover in the alley and going to help Kuro.
He didn't have time to say anything else. A hand gripped around his waist and jerked him back and suddenly they were airborne, Amaimon hauling them into the sky above the fighting below.
Rin had one last look at his twin and his familiar and the black swarm of exorcists converging on them before a snap came and they were gone entirely.
Then it was just Rin, Amaimon, and a comatose Mephisto alone in some random forest meadow where the demon had teleported them in the time it took Rin to blink.
The arm around him let go without preamble and Rin stumbled to the ground, dizzy after the end to the action as he tried to adjust, finding his breaths were coming too fast in his lungs.
Reality had just hit him as what he'd done fell over his head like ice.
He fell to his knees, finding his fingers had claws on them as he dug them into the dirt, shivering and staring at the thin blades of sun-yellowed grass with glassy eyes. "What did I just do?"
"Having regrets already? It's too late for that," came the unsympathetic voice from over his shoulder.
For some reason, Amaimon's callous statement calmed Rin's panic and he was able to take a steadying breath, leaning back on his feet in a crouch to look up at their surroundings.
Still unfamiliar.
Rin stood and brushed the dirt from his hands, trying to cover the remainders of the tremors running through them.
"Where are we?"
Amaimon just shrugged, having dropped Mephisto next to his feet in a heap. "Away from the city, we're safe to talk here."
Wincing at the uncomfortable position Mephisto had ended up in, Rin had to resist the urge to go adjust him because he would prefer not getting in Amaimon's personal space any more than he had to.
Now that the adrenaline had worn off, the sense of wrongness that seemed to hover in a miasma from Mephisto's body had Rin chewing his lip in worry.
"So, you don't know what's wrong with him, either?" He forced himself to look back up at Amaimon. "I was hoping another demon would know something about it that they- I mean, the humans, didn't."
Amaimon crossed his arms, staring down at Mephisto, mouth tugging into a frown as he studied him. "I recognize the name of the curse. Briar Rose Syndrome."
Rin felt his heart jolt, though his hopes were crushed at the demon's next words.
"Samael mentioned it to me. Once. And he refused to talk about it after that time."
Something about the way Amaimon said it and the way his face closed off had Rin swallowing around a dry throat in uneasiness, not liking the implications.
"Why?"
Those gold eyes watched him and it was like the façade of humanity fell away to reveal an ancient and tired being beneath.
"You mentioned the other name of the curse. King Killer."
Rin's breath stopped in his lungs as Amaimon grit his fangs together, head turning down to look at Mephisto with a strange bitterness on his features. "The humans don't remember, but we used to be nine."
This was, Rin realized, more insight into demons than he'd ever received in cram classes and he didn't know what to do with it all.
The look on Amaimon's face was wiped off as he shook himself out of what Rin thought might be memories.
"Who was the other?" Rin managed to ask, not knowing if he even wanted to hear the answer but something in him making him anyway, a morbid curiosity bringing the words to his mouth.
Instead of answering, Amaimon glanced up at the sky, shoulders sloping as he shoved his hands back in the pockets of his tattered coat. "Did you know, Space and Time came into being in almost the same instance?"
The non-sequitur threw Rin and he blinked in confusion, "space and time?"
Amaimon cocked a crooked smile at him, "Samael used to be third in the order of power, before Abduxuel was taken by the curse and he moved up a rank by default."
A touchy subject, then, Rin winced, not knowing how he should feel about the death of a faceless demon king of space. But the information just had his mood worsening and he averted his eyes from the still body on the ground. "So there really isn't a way to help him. We're just supposed to watch him fade away?"
"I don't know."
That had Rin bringing his eyes back up in shock. "You mean there might be a cure?"
His question got a strange look from Amaimon, an obscure emotion flashing through his eyes as he seemed to consider Rin, though he had no idea why.
"I wasn't around for those years when Abduxuel was cursed and died. I only heard about it after it happened."
"So, someone else might know? One of the other kings?" Rin breathed, hope bringing a smile to his face. "Let's go, then!"
And was disappointed as Amaimon shook his head in the negative, bringing a clawed thumb up to chew at his long black nail. Rin wanted to press him to explain further but it looked like he was mulling something over and Rin was very aware that any chance of him succeeding in waking Mephisto and getting to go back home now depended solely on Amaimon.
Amaimon sighed, staring skyward and speaking more to himself than Rin, "can't take you to Lucifer, not with Samael so vulnerable, he wouldn't be able to resist the weakness. Maybe…"
What?
Rin frowned, "what are you talking about?"
Amaimon let out an irritated mutter, "politics."
Er, Rin tried to imagine Amaimon involved in human politics and every scenario ended in a pool of blood and screaming people fleeing an angry demon king.
"We'll go to Beelzebub first," Amaimon said, nodding to himself at the decision, though the name meant nothing to Rin.
"Who's Beelzebub?" Rin asked as Amaimon reached to pick Mephisto off the ground, the movement more careful than any Rin had seen him use yet and he wondered why he was being gentle now, though he doubted he'd get an answer.
His question only earned him a disbelieving frown from Amaimon. "You really don't know anything do you."
"Hey!" Rin said, scowl forming at the insult. "It's not my fault everyone thinks I already know stuff about demons, like I didn't just find out they even existed this summer."
The long sigh that drew out of Amaimon only made Rin scowl harder, not knowing why he should be any more exasperated by Rin's lack of knowledge than Rin himself was.
"And he probably thought it was funny, watching you bump your way around in the dark," Amaimon grumbled down at Mephisto's unresponsive face as if cursing the trouble he'd brought them.
Yeah, Rin would definitely say that Mephisto got a kick out of teasing him, not that he didn't give as good as he got right back, which he was pretty proud of, actually.
Amaimon was already looking impatient so Rin hurried to his side, though he didn't think he needed to be close to the demon for him to teleport them, he also had no idea how the ability worked. Better safe than left behind.
"So," he said, hesitant, "where are we going?"
"To get a gift."
"Huh?"
Amaimon snapped his fingers and they vanished from the meadow.
A ripple disturbed the still waters around him, the first thing that had happened since he'd awoken.
He became even more alert when muffled shouting reached his ears as if from miles away, disturbing him further from the peace he'd settled into.
"…how the mighty have fallen."
"You bastard!"
His brows twitched.
He felt…
Irritated.