Disclaimer: I do not own Blue Exorcist/Ao no Exorcist.
The door to the Southern Cross Boys' Monastery creaked open slowly and a dripping wet Okumura Rin stumbled through the doorway. He looked around cautiously to see if anyone was there and breathed a sigh of relief upon discovering that it was empty. Good. He checked to see if the goblet was safe.
On Rin's way back to the place he called home, the sky had suddenly turned dark and a thunderstorm broke loose. He was soaked to the skin, but for some reason, the goblet seemed to be protected by an invisible barrier of sorts (as was evident by the raindrops bouncing off of its invisible shield). Rin glared at it in envy. The golden flames waved merrily, and the blue ones seemed to laugh.
The thirteen-year-old had long since discovered that the flames had personalities to match their owners, and decided to flip the goblet of fire off before picking it up and sneaking carefully to his room upstairs. He peered inside quietly, where he saw Yukio sleeping on the top bunk of their beds.
"Turn off your light!" He hissed to the flames quietly, and they dimmed considerably. Rin quietly changed out of his soaked clothing and into his nightclothes. He picked up the goblet and climbed into bed, hiding it under his covers, and closed his eyes. Darkness consumed his vision almost instantly, and he fell into a deep slumber.
"Hey, guys?" Rin appeared in his mindscape and sat on the giant rock, where he observed Satan and God in a heated game of rock-paper-scissors (each on 'their' side of the clearing) and Yuri watching them silently. They all turned towards him, quite a comical sight, "You're all siblings, right?" He asked them. They nodded, "Then why did Satan and Yuri have sex?"
The reactions were hilarious. Yuri was a blushing mess and Satan was gasping and spluttering while God took pictures with a camera that he had procured magically, "We didn't have sex!" Yuri protested, "We did an ancient ritual when Satan was using me as his host to visit Assiah to create life from our blood!"
"So I wasn't born like a normal person?" Rin tilted his head to the side.
Satan seemed to have calmed down enough to glare daggers at God and answer Rin's question, "No, you were not."
"What about Yukio?" Rin asked.
"From what I know, Yuri made a child with Fujimoto Shirō, but the man hasn't admitted it to anyone," God explained, "So when they accused him of impregnating Yuri, they were correct in their assumptions. She was about to give birth to Yukio when she created you. That's why your half-brother didn't inherit any of Satan's flames."
"So the old fart is Yukio's dad?"
Yuri giggled, "Well, that's one way of putting it."
"Yes indeed. I wanted to possess him to find a way to visit Assiah, but he'd die too early," Satan shrugged.
"Hey, Rin?" God asked, "So, I was thinking," He sounded quite nervous.
"Well?" Rin asked, "Get on with it!"
"H-hai! Well, I was wondering, since you were made from Satan and Yuri-nee-chan's blood, and you're all three of our hosts, do you think I could add my blood to your body?"
Rin looked startled, "Well, I don't see any reason not to, but we shouldn't do it tonight. How about later on I spend the night in the forest and we do whatever ancient ritual is required there?"
"Woo! Way to maintain the equilibrium!" Yuri cheered, jumping into the air, "It's like everything we do is a pattern!"
Satan sat still, "Too many patterns. It's like someone's setting us up…" But his comment went unnoticed and Rin decided to sleep the rest of the night away.
Morning came much too quickly for Rin's liking and he woke up with a yawn and a stretch as the morning sunlight hit his eyelids. He peered under the sheets for the goblet and picked it up, 'Do I really have to carry this everywhere?'
'No, actually,' Rin jumped and almost hit his head on the top bunk of his and Yukio's beds at the sound of God's voice in his mind, 'It's invisible and will follow you around because it can float.'
"Oh. I forgot," Rin rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, "I didn't know it could be invisible."
Satan sighed, 'Don't talk out loud, dumbass. People are going to hear you. And yes, unless you want someone else to see it, it will basically be nonexistent to them. They can't hear it, feel it, see it, smell it, taste it, or sense it.'
'Taste?' Rin scrunched up his nose in distaste.
'You'd be surprised,' Satan said dryly, making no room for comment.
'Okay.'
Rin walked downstairs into the kitchens and opened the fridge to make breakfast, 'What are you, a housewife? Why in hell are you cooking?'
'Everyone else sucks at it, so I decided to be good at it,' Rin nodded sagely, and cracked an egg over the flour bowl, 'And besides, it's not like me to sit around and wait.'
'Rin-san?' Rin made a mental sound of acknowledgment (?), 'You do know that upon sensing our power within you, demons, angels, and spirits will either worship you, try to figure out what the hell is going on, or attack you, right?'
Rin frowned and poured the batter in the pan, 'I thought there were only spirits in Assiah, and the demons and angels stayed in Gehenna and Shamayim...'
'It was like that in the beginning, but all three of us have the ability to open dimensional gates, and whenever we visited another realm on a vacation, demons and angels would escape to Assiah,' God explained, 'However, angels cannot go to Gehenna, and demons cannot go to Shamayim.'
'What about the afterlife?' Rin was now flipping pancakes in the pan with practiced skill.
'Heaven and Hell are connected directly to Assiah,' Satan said boredly, 'If you have more Yin energies in you, you will go to Hell and be reincarnated as a demon in Gehenna. If you have more Yang energies in you, you will go to Heaven and be reincarnated as an angel in Shamayim. If you have an equal amount of each, you will be reincarnated as a spirit in Assiah. When you die as demon, angel, or spirit, you will become a human again.'
'Why humans, though?' Rin took the pancakes off of the pan and put them on plates, 'Are we, like, special or something?'
'Yep!' Yuri chirped, 'Humans are the only creatures that have the potential to use any sort of kihaku!'
'Why are you taking turns talking to me?'
'Hmm… Good question.'
Rin had finished preparing a breakfast of pancakes, bacon, eggs, and orange juice when his half-brother, Okumura Yukio, came down. Yukio looked almost nothing like him (something not entirely surprising), with teal blue eyes, light brown hair, and several small moles on his face. He looked down at Rin, surprised that he was actually awake at nine o'clock in the morning.
"Ohayō, Yukio-nii!" Rin grinned cheerfully, waving at his younger brother.
"Ohayō, Rin-nii!" Yukio greeted, also in a cheerful mood.
"Oi! OLD FART! Get down here!" Rin called as he dealt out the plates.
"Coffee!" Fujimoto Shirō gasped, "Need coffee."
"Here's your coffee, tou-san," Yukio sighed, handing a cup of prepared coffee to him. He drank it down eagerly.
"Ack! It burns! Water!" He cried. He was promptly splashed in the face with a bucket of ice-cold water, "Not like that, baka!"
"But you asked for water!" Rin sang, and sat down in his seat to consume his food faster than humanly possible.
"Wow, Rin, you must be really hungry!" Maruta noted as he walked into the room to eat.
"Eh, not really, I just have some stuff to do," Rin was already finished when Naoya and the other priests arrived, "Gotta go now, bye!" All he left behind was a cloud of dust.
Shirō waited for several seconds before speaking, "Is he gone?" He received a round of nods, "Good. I need to talk to you all," He said in a grim voice.
"About what, tou-san?" Seishirō asked.
"The Koma Sword," He heard a chorus of gasps, "It's been leaking."
"Oh, lord," Said Izumi, "Has Rin shown any signs of demonic influence?"
"Not yet, but that's not even the most peculiar thing about this," The priests frowned at Fujimoto's words.
He pulled out Kurikara from behind him, "Where did you pull that from, tou-san?" Yukio asked.
Shirō looked surprised, "Ya'know, I'm not entirely sure," He shrugged, "Anyway, look at the color of the flames."
The priests and Yukio gasped when they saw the myriad of blue and gold swirling together mysteriously, "But aren't golden flames supposedly the flames of God?"
"Yes, and this sword was not meant to seal away not only demonic powers but all supernatural energies," Shirō sighed, "I believe that somehow, in some way, the spawn of Satan has been blessed by God."
There had been a lot of gasping that day, "W-whatever do you mean, tou-san?" Yukio stammered, "Why would God choose Satan's son?"
"I have no clue," Fujimoto shrugged cluelessly, "Go spy on him and tell me if you find something out."
"Hai!"
Rin threw open the doors to the monastery, and his jaw cracked the ground when he looked outside. All around flew little black demons, tiny white angels, and random animal spirits.
'What the hell? Why are there so many?!' Rin cried mentally.
'I already told you, baka,' God snorted, 'It's because the gates opened, and there are demons and angels everywhere.'
'But there are so many!'
'Go to the woods and talk to one!' Yuri suggested helpfully, 'You could learn stuff!'
'Okay.'
Yukio took a note of his brother's (he didn't know that Fujimoto was his biological father) shock in the notepad be had brought along and followed him to the woods.
"Hey!" Rin called to a passing demon. It was about the size of his palm and was pitch black with a spherical body. It had a zig-zagged tail with a tip shaped like an arrowhead, and it had two spikes on its head that looked like cat ears. To top that, it had bright green eyes, tiny fangs, and four little spikes on its underside that looked like they might, in fact, be legs, "I need to ask you a question!"
"Young Prince?" The tiny demon looked startled, "Why do you hold King's power?"
"He's inside me," Rin explained, "Long story. What are your species called?"
"We are the Coal Tar," The tiny demon said, "At your service, King."
"King? I thought I was Prince," Rin looked thoughtful.
"You have King's power, and therefore, you are King," The Coal Tar bowed as best it could with its tiny body, "We are kin of Astaroth-sama, the King of Rot."
"I thought there was only one 'King,'" Rin frowned.
"There are eight demon kings, of Earth, Rot, Time, Fire, Insects, Water, Spirits, and Light," It yawned, as noon was growing near, "I must leave, young King. I will surely perish in the sunlight."
It floated off without another word, "Hmm…"
Rin yawned and decided that he had gotten up far too early for his liking, "I'm gonna take a nap," He slurred tiredly and leaned against a tree, falling asleep easily.
Yukio, who was not close enough to hear what Rin and the small Coal Tar were talking about, but it was clear that Rin could see it, and was clearly communicating with it. He frowned and noted that he had noticed the Coal Tar's genuine respect and attempted bow. He would have to report this to Fujimoto.
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