Original Sin

"All humans are born into the world with sinful natures, due to the sin of Adam. To be born with the sins of those before them, means that even the most innocent of babies are not truly pure. That is the nature of Original Sin. And that is the proof that all of humanity is set up to fail at maintaining any semblance of purity."

Reborn's brow wrinkled in annoyance as he looked down at the figure in the circle. Why Reborn made a bet with Verde he would never know. Meanwhile golden eyes stared brightly back up at him, white teeth flashing as the demon yawned. But Reborn could only bring himself to let out a sigh and move to grab his now cool espresso.

See, it all had started when Verde went looking for a subject to help him with an experiment. This experiment had to do with demons. Yes, the supernatural kind. Yes, the kind from hell. Why? Well a handful of years ago demon summoning decided to spring up out of the underground societies and become a common occurrence. It all started when someone learned how to summon and contract demons without the typical selling your soul clause. This new revolutionary method became widespread and demons themselves were now common sights working behind the scenes in many aspects of life.

Now Verde had wanted to get his hands on one for a while, but the other Arcobaleno managed to keep him busy enough to avoid it. After all, their group contracting a demon would bring them into an unwanted line of question. His leader on the other hand had little problems with it. Her idea of mutual understanding and compassion tended to lead to such wishful thoughts. The others though… not so much.

But, after getting his hands on a scroll to summon a powerful one, well Verde couldn't help himself. That is where the guinea pig came in. See, he could very well accurately study the mechanics of the summoning and contracting process if he was busy doing it, could he? And so this was where the bet came in.

The bet was simple and almost childish in complexity. What it was about? Well… it particularly involved a speed shooting contest between Reborn and one of Verde's robots. And Reborn went drinking the night before (Reborn was an arrogant sort after all)… And well one could guess what happened. Trying to out shoot a custom build robot all the while sporting a hangover wasn't on the list of Reborn's best moments.

So now here he was staring at the so called "powerful" demon in the form of a 14 year old. His hair was a burnt chocolate color, eyes a bright golden honey, and clinging to his features was the smallest amount of baby fat. The only things about him that marked him as indeed being a demon was the unnatural vivid shade of his eyes and the small horns that curled just barely visible over his ears.

And to make matters worse, Reborn was acutely aware of the camera pointed toward the two, the annoying scientist on the other side of it surely taking down note after note with keen interest. Reborn, among arrogant and manipulative, was also a proud man. For a proud man such as he to have summoned such a weak-looking child as a demon it was naturally said pride was a little hurt.

"Sooo what do you want? Money? Fame? Sex? Immortality? I've heard it all," the demon spoke, blocking a yawn with a raised fist. Reborn merely stared, his tired brain slowly processing what he should tell the demon among the prominent haze of his growing ire. Said ire only spiked further upon the creature's next words.

"Against common belief, demons do actually sleep. So if you are just going to sit there staring at me, I'd rather you just dismiss me," The demon broke the silence, its eyes gaining an orange tint as it glared at the hitman with slight annoyance touching its face.

"I don't want anything in particular. The real question is, what do you want?"

"What do I want?" Suddenly the cold angered expression snapped off its face, leaving behind a distant, almost innocent curiosity. That was until it was engulf a split second later by a deep boredom. "Well right now I want to sleep,"

"You know what I mean," the hitman clinched his hands into his pockets, resisting the urge to blow up on the demon who simply sat there blinking up at Reborn as if Reborn wasn't the man in charge here, or the one with the weapon.

"Oooh that. I don't know,"

A vein popped on Reborn's forehead and he couldn't help himself anymore. With zero effort, he rose his gun and took aim, emptying his clip into the demon.

"So yeah, he kept on shooting, getting even angrier that his bullets weren't killing me. After he finished, we settled on an agreement. In exchange for me serving him, he will…"

The demon tilted his head cutely as amusement flashed in his eyes. Around him sat his guardians, each hanging onto every word that fell from his lips. Of course there were some unsure about what the demon said, what with the fact that he had no reason to take the contract. Of course that was remedied by a few words. Yet before the conversation could reach another peek, the faint mark of a contract in the making on his collarbone silenced everyone around him.

"Well that's my cue. I'll finish my story next time I get to come back. Who knows though, maybe this will be really fun," the boy said with a childish smile on his face as he began to vanish to various calls of goodbye, the loudest being a 'Come back safe, Juudiame!'

Reborn was going to have his hands full. Not only did he contract just any demon, but rather he contracted the Tenth Heir to hell, Mercy.

Reborn's life would never be the same again.

Author's Note!:

I preformed some edits to the first chapter. Going through it, I decided to blend some and change some details that I threw in before hand without thinking that may end up being contradicted further on in the story. Those were the product of a degree of carelessness and have further been disputed.

Also I have a little treat for you all. Since I am too lazy to try and describe the seal, I just took an hour and quickly designed it.

(See cover art)

Just a little heads up. I feed on reviews. The more you review, the faster this will be updated. I plan on getting back into the swing of writing my stories, so the reviews I get will factor into that which I update first.

Also another heads up. While I personally consider the content to be teen, some may disagree. So for those who are a little shaky I will tell you here that the worst of the content will simply be coarse and colorful language. This is from Reborn's point of view and I highly doubt he has a child friendly mind, let alone tongue. You've been warned.