A/N: And the journey continues. I'll admit this chapter is a bit long but I assure you, the real action is coming soon. Besides this is only the first two chapters so I'm trying to get the entire introduction out of the way in as little chapters as possible. Please enjoy. If I owned blue exorcist I wouldn't be writing fan fiction now would I?

Chapter 2 Into the Devil's Den

I really tried not to grin like an idiot. Even though my face was straight as an arrow, it was difficult to contain my excitement. The mere thought of finally being free…it was almost too overwhelming. I should've been more concerned with the whole daughter of Satan thing, but at the moment I was just too happy to care.

Happy. That was a feeling I hadn't experienced in a while.

"Wait here" Curly cue said and stepped off the porch.

I leaned against the window and crossed my arms. I watched intently as he strolled over to the edge of the barrier. The perimeter was only about twenty feet so it didn't take long for him to reach it.

My anticipation was palpable. I counted the steps he took, each step making my body tense more.

He stopped about a foot away and stared into the distance for a brief moment. He then made some sort of strange hand sign and began to chant some sort of mantra. I couldn't quite make out what he was saying but it sounded pretty sophisticated.

Sure enough, the barrier became visible. It was a greenish three dimensional half circle that encased the whole house and had kept me imprisoned for so many years. I tried not to scowl when I saw it and kept to narrowing my eyes. It seemed like they were going to keep their end of the deal.

After a few more moments of chanting, the barrier shattered like glass.

Curly cue turned to the rest of us and gestured for us to follow him. Red head almost seemed to teleport off the porch and walked rather hastily toward the awaiting carriage. I didn't know what his hurry was but at the time I didn't think much of it. The rest of us followed suit.

I was already ten feet away from the house and I was starting to get a bit nervous. I assumed it was the initial fear of being shocked again; from the numerous times I had tried to free myself in the past. I mentally slapped myself and took a deep breath through my nose.

"Stop being an idiot Freja" I scolded myself. "You just saw him break the barrier"

I flinched slightly when I got to twenty feet and breathed a sigh of relief through my nose again when I passed it. No one seemed to notice since everyone was walking in front of me, all except for snow white who just smiled at me. I blushed slightly but kept moving forward.

The carriage was nothing special. I guess I expected something a bit more…impressive? Fancier maybe. I mean, I wasn't any carriage connoisseur but for supposed royalty, it was rather bland. It was a standard obsidian color with crimson ridges and two people sized purple hob goblins with harnesses in front of it. It was definitely bigger than normal ones, I gave it that.

As weary as I was to go in, a deal was a deal. Everyone seemed to want me to get in first (perhaps they thought I would run away) so I stepped in after red head and stopped in the doorway to look around. The interior was similar to a train car with all the seats facing each other. There were windows on each corner and a large floor table in the center with a strange symbol engraved on it.

Red head sat on the far right side, near the window. He turned his head to glare out the window, ignoring everyone else. I sat across from him in another window seat. I wanted to make sure we were really going to the Capitol and to be honest, I wasn't too comfortable sitting between any of them.

The rest of them filed in with curly cue coming in last. Green head sat rather close to me; his right arm touching my left. I ignored him and rested my cheek on my knuckles. Out of my peripheral vision, I noticed Lucifer sit next to red head and continue to glare at me with increasing intensity.

I could feel the brotherly love already.

Horn head and snow white sat next to them while the other blue haired guy of who I hadn't given a nickname to sat next to green head and I.

Curly cue stopped in the middle of the space and sat himself on the floor table between everyone, his back to me.

"Well, now that we are all here, we can begin" He said with a cheeky grin.

"As you all are aware, we will be spending quite a bit of time together. So to lighten the mood, we're going to do a little exercise to get to know each other a little better~"

I was really trying not to make a face and the others seemed like they were trying just as hard. Except for green head who was making the same countenance. When I really thought about it, I didn't think I'd even seen him blink…at all.

"Therefore, I want you to state your name, age, and race~"

"Does he want us to clap and sing along too?" I thought to myself and pinched the bridge of my nose. Oh sweet antichrist I wanted to puke. It felt like kindergarten. Or at least what my perception of kindergarten was; I never really remembered ever going to school.

I found it a bit strange that they didn't know each other already. I had assumed that they had all come together, but I guess not.

"I'll start~" he said and crossed his legs.

"My name is Samael. I am sixteen years of age and if you couldn't already tell by the smell, I am indeed an incubus"

I felt pretty stupid at that moment. That must've been the reason I couldn't smell them in the kitchen before; the strong pheromones he was giving off must've been covering their scent. That's the trouble with incubi; they're as easy as hell to smell, but they conceal everyone else in a half mile radius. Even worse, unlike most demons, they all have different scents so unless you know their scent personally; you can't tell who is who. However, I should have at least been able to smell Samael from that short a distance. Even inside the carriage I could barely smell him, let alone anyone else in the room.

I got annoyed at trying to wrap my head around the concept, so I left it alone and focused.

Samael turned to red head. "We'll start with you. Go on~"

Each one of them went on as Samael had, myself coming in last. To be honest I became quite nervous when my turn came around and I hesitated for a split second. As you can probably imagine, I had never been the most social butterfly and being isolated in my own house for five years hadn't helped. However I quickly pulled myself together and answered.

"The name's Freja. I'm fifteen." I answered and said nothing more.

Samael cocked an eyebrow at me. "And your race?"

I had hoped he wouldn't notice that I had skipped that detail but I had no such luck. My face flushed slightly but I went on.

"…I don't know" That was another thing my mother neglected to tell me and I regrettably never bothered to ask.

He "hmed" but went on.

"Well then, as you all know, we are currently on our way to the Capitol where we will meet with father and get acquainted with your new home" He stood up as he said this and sat next to the short blue haired man whose name had been revealed to be Egyn.

"Please try to relax until we get there" With that, he crossed his legs and picked up a magazine that had somehow gotten on the table and flipped through the pages.

Since there was nothing in particular that I could do besides stare out the window, I decided to try and recall their names.

Red head, who was staring out the window with a disgruntled expression, was Iblis. He was apparently the youngest out of all of us and a salamander; a powerful fire demon. It surprised me that he was the youngest, considering he was the bulkiest out of all of us and barely any shorter than me.

Horn head's name was Azazel and snow white was Cepheid; the latter being the younger of the two. They were both the same age as Samael, who was the oldest, but were a few months younger. Cepheid was a pazuzu who seemed a little far from home since they usually stay in the mountains; Azazel was something called a Heresol which at the time, I had never heard of.

Lucifer was the fifth youngest and refused to say what his race was. Green head's name was Amaimon; he was also an incubus. He was the third youngest, only about a few months older than no name's name, Egyn, who was a Naiad.

I concluded that I was the fourth oldest, or more specifically, the middle child. I thanked Satan (Ironically) that I was at least older than Lucifer. At any rate, if all this daughter of Satan crap turned out to be true, which I still wasn't convinced of, I wouldn't have to call him Aniue for the rest of my life.

I sighed through my nose and looked out the window. The scenery was still grassy so it was too early to be in the capitol.

I didn't really know what to do with myself so I looked around to see what everyone else was doing. Iblis was just glaring out the window as if he was having a staring contest with it. Azazel and Samael were reading; Samael with some kind of magazine and Azazel with an actual book. Egyn had gotten out of his seat and sat on the floor in front of Cepheid and was having a conversation; about what, I didn't really pay attention. Amaimon was still sitting ridiculously close to me and to make it worse, he had begun to chew his thumb nail that made a clicking noise that drove me insane. And of course, Lucifer was glaring at me as if he expected me to explode.

I probably would've said something to him but Clair interrupted. I placed her on my palm and groaned inwardly; Clair was one to ask a lot of questions and I knew the whole tsunami of questions was fast approaching.

"Freja, what's the Capitol?" she asked.

I closed my eyes and thought for a second on the best way to explain it to a twelve year old.

"It's where all the demon big shots live. It's supposed to be the richest place in Gehenna, otherwise known as the royal city" I explained and placed her on my left knee.

She "Hmmed" and her nose twitched.

"So who's Satan?"

My eyes immediately widened and I looked at her in disbelief. You see, every demon is taught at a very young age too fear the mere name of Satan, let alone know who he is. Even my mother wasn't dumb enough to skip that kind of crucial information.

I put my hand over my eyes and sighed for the hundredth time through my nose. I didn't answer for a while and tried to comprehend why her own mother hadn't told her this.

"Satan, Lord of Gehenna who reigns over all demon kind. He is said to be the first demon to have ever existed and created Gehenna with his own two hands. The most powerful demon that has ever lived, it is said that none can best him"

She blinked her little mouse eyes at me for a moment but seemed to understand what I was saying. Then her eyes went wide and she gasped loudly.

"And, you're his daughter?!"

I turned my head slowly to the window in deep thought.

"…We don't know that yet"

The scenery outside became less rural; It seemed we were on some kind of paved over path due to the increased vibrations of the carriage. I became lost in deep thought for a few minutes and thought about the possibilities.

"They wouldn't go to this much trouble just to pull a prank or even kidnap me. If they were going to do something, they would've done it by now. Perhaps…they were telling the truth…maybe I am…the daughter of Satan…"

I shook my head of the thought immediately and tried to reassure myself. They hadn't proven anything yet and I refused to believe something as absurd as that without evidence. If push came to shove I could probably outrun them.

"Your familiar's an idiot"

I turned my head to look at Lucifer, who was smirking at me with a superior glint in his eye. I had no idea what he was going on about and I really didn't care too much. Looking back now, it probably would've been best if I had kept my mouth shut, but being me, I couldn't do that.

"Certainly takes one to know one" I said more so under my breath so he could barely hear.

His smirk immediately disappeared, which probably meant he had heard my comment, and he pouted ever so slightly.

"Stupid woman" he muttered under his breath and turned his head to face the back of Iblis'.

I turned my head back to the window and smirked ever so slightly.

"Scathing"

The next thing I knew, my face was centimeters from his and he was breathing rather hard on my cheeks. I gritted my teeth as his hold on the collar of my shirt tightened and I gripped his wrist with both hands. It didn't really hurt but since he was lifting me from an angle, it became uncomfortable pretty fast.

"Are you scared now, tomboy?" he said and squeezed my shirt tighter as if he was ringing my neck. I furrowed my eyebrows and looked him dead in the eye without missing a beat.

"I'm shaking"

I heard his knuckles crack as he balled his fists and lifted his hand and I braced myself for impact which once again never came.

"Sit down Lucifer" Azazel lifted his head from his book and glared at Lucifer with a strange mixture of anger and sternness. Everyone was looking at us now, even Samael who was glancing at us from the rim of his magazine.

"Oh dear…" Cepheid said from behind Lucifer with a concerned look.

Lucifer's eyes slackened a bit as if he was hesitating but he didn't let go of my shirt collar. He turned his head back to me and gritted his teeth.

"Lucifer" Azazel closed his book with a loud thump and furrowed his eyebrows. Lucifer then immediately shoved me back down to my seat and retreated back to his own. He crossed his arms and glared down to the ground in a pout.

I unruffled my shirt and mentally thanked Azazel for stopping him. In Gehenna, the pecking order is based either on power or age. And in that situation, I think Azazel outranked him in both.

I was grateful that I had avoided another fight but that attitude of his was getting old. However I was still outnumbered no matter how I looked at it but I mentally noted that if I were to kick any one of their asses, it would be his.

I looked back out the window to see how much progress we had made. The trees were gone and behind us and the scenery was mainly a blank field, save for a few coal tar floating around. Clair jumped over to the window and stood in the ledge to see.

"Freja, is that the Capitol?"

I turned my head to see as far as the window frame would allow and sure enough, I could see the dark silhouette of the town. Extruding high above the tall buildings, I could just make out the castle that I had only read about in my books.

"Yeah…" I said monotonously and slowly turned my head to look at my hands. The reality that they were telling the truth was becoming all too clear and I was starting to worry a bit. But once again I reassured myself that they hadn't proven anything yet. But the closer we got to the Capitol, the more I found myself believing the soon to be truth.

I was lost in deep thought for I don't know how long until I was brought back to reality by the obsessive clicking of Amaimon's thumb nail. I glanced at him for a split second before instantly looking back at the window when I saw he was staring directly at me. I had no idea what was so interesting about my face but for the time being I tried to ignore him.

Which worked for about thirty seconds.

"If you have something to say, spit it out already" I said with a lot more coldness than was necessary. All he said was "hm" and blinked at me.

I stared back at him for a few moments, hoping in vain that he would turn his head. He didn't however and continued to stare. I held my gaze for a few moments until his stare began to unsettle me and I turned my head again and mentally admitted defeat.

The rest of the ride was uneventful. The ride lasted maybe another hour before the carriage began to vibrate stronger; signaling that we were now on the peppled road of the Capitol.

I looked out the window to take a look at the breath taking scenery. The pearlish buildings contrasted well with the red mistiness that always comes with the day time. There were people everywhere; customers near vending shops, mothers pulling their children along, and a few teenagers walking their hobgoblins.

No one seemed to pay us any mind and continued on with their day. I expected more attention for so called royalty and the lack of attention wasn't convincing me. But I supposed that since this was the royal city, a carriage was probably common place.

"Ah, we're almost there" Samael said, looking above the rim of his magazine.

The houses and buildings soon became fewer and the carriage eventually came to a halt. Samael was the first to stand and poofed his magazine away in a cloud of pink smoke, making my eye twitch. I had been trying to figure out how to do that for years but could never get it right.

I put Clair back on my shoulder and stretched as I stood up. Of course, Iblis stormed out first and I followed behind after Cepheid. I heard Clair gasp into my ear as we were standing in front of the intimidating large obsidian colored citadel.

"They…weren't joking" I thought to myself in disbelief. It was true…I was the daughter of Satan. And these freaks were really my siblings.

My stomach churned hard as I finally realized the truth.

Samael turned to us and cleared his throat. "This is your new home brothers" he said as we all began to ascend the large steps. Clair tugged on my hair and whispered, "Is this where Satan lives?"

My throat felt extremely dry and my voice cracked when I responded with "Yeah"

The others seemed to be just as awestruck as myself; their heads twisting and turning to get a better view of the substantial structure.

We reached the large white rimmed doors where two oddly dressed guards were standing at attention. They were dressed in heavy looking black armor with helmets to match. As we approached them they bowed deeply from the waist down which seemed like an excruciating task with the armor they were wearing.

The doors opened automatically by some unseen force and we stepped in. On the inside, I expected it to be just as dark and obsidian colored as the outside but it was quite the opposite. The entire inside seemed to be almost entirely made of some kind of white pearlish material; almost what you'd expect Jesus' castle to look like. Everything was rimmed with gold; the walls, the ceiling, even most of the furniture.

The foyer was so unbelievably tall; I could barely see the ceiling. There were two spiraling stair cases on the left and right side and a large room at the back of the foyer. There were two hallways past the stairwells, one of their doors open and one of them not.

There were servants everywhere; some cleaning windows, some polishing the floor, and some even ordering other servants. I found it a bit strange though, that all the servants were men. There was one in particular that caught my attention more than any others.

He was walking rather hastily up the right staircase with a white handkerchief over his arm. He wasn't anything special; His black hair was combed back with gel except for one small curl that stuck against his forehead. He had a goatee very similar to Samael's and a thin mustache that pointed at the ends. I'm not sure why I paid so much attention to him; He wasn't doing anything particularly interesting. I did mentally note however, that until I learned his name, I would call him mustache man. I could only hope that no one else in the castle had a mustache.

Everyone's head turned left and right, up and down, to get a good bearing on our new home. Our attention turned back to Samael when he turned to us and grinned.

"Now now, you will all have plenty of time to look around. Father has ordered that he see us immediately; this way~"

We all followed Samael down the right hallway with little to no words between us.

To be honest, I was becoming quite anxious. I was about to meet Satan, Gehenna's most fear God and ruler and my real father. The only way I could describe my feeling…well it felt like I was going to my own execution.

I felt even more nervous, considering I was about to meet Satan in jeans and a tank top. But then again, I wasn't dressed much differently than Lucifer or Iblis who were also in jeans and tee shirts.

At the end of the hallway I spotted a colossal obsidian (okay seriously what is with this place and obsidian?) door, very similar to the castle gates. The small red pentagram above the door did nothing to ease the edgy feeling that was forming in my gut.

Samael stopped and turned to us again. "This is where our father resides" he said as the doors began to slowly open.

"Prepare yourselves"

I did just that and steeled myself for what was to come.

"Poker face Freja, poker face" I coached myself. That was what I used to tell myself whenever my mother would yell at me. Not to say she would yell often, but whenever she did I didn't want to seem like I cared.

I saw at least half of them swallow hard as the doors fully opened and we stepped inside. The room was pitch dark; the only light present was the light coming through the bottom crack of the doors that had closed automatically behind us. I could barely see my hands in front of my face and found it hard to believe that someone, even Satan, could reside in there. Luckily Cepheid's hair was very apparent in the darkness so it wasn't too hard to navigate through.

We walked a few more feet before stopping. I stood behind Cepheid and looked over what I believed to be his shoulder to see why we had stopped.

There was nothing but silence for a few moments before Samael spoke up.

"We have returned father"

I squinted my eyes with the back of my hand as the room suddenly lit up with an explosion of bluish glow. Everyone else shielded their eyes too, all except for Samael and Amaimon. The entire room became very bright and I could see all its features that I surprisingly didn't see before.

The room seemed more like a treasury than a throne room. Gold and silver coins piled up on the floor along with chests and armors and even a few misplaced skulls. It wasn't precisely what I expected Satan's throne room to look like but it came awfully close.

When the light died down, I looked ahead to see where the source of the glare had come from. I stepped from behind Cepheid and froze in place beside him and Lucifer.

He had his chin in his palm and half of his white hair, which was very similar to Cepheid's, fell over one of his eyes and the other half tucked behind his shoulder. His ears were irregularly large, at least for ones primary form. He couldn't have been much older than his early 3,000's; he looked so young. He was a lot handsomer than I thought he would be anyway.

His face was just as blank as Amaimon's, especially since his eyes were closed and his face relaxed. His mouth was slightly parted as he breathed steadily, his chest rising up and down in a certain rhythm.

He was also on fire. Blue fire I might add.

We all stood side by side from youngest to oldest, Samael coming to stand beside me. I didn't know why he was next to me since he was the oldest but I didn't complain.

We stood there for a few minutes, no one moved or spoke. I assumed we were waiting for him to wake up or something and really, I savored every minute he was asleep.

My chest felt so tight I had to keep checking if I was breathing or not. I was standing in front of Satan himself, alongside seven other men who I had learned were my siblings. Somehow, even if he was asleep, he creeped me out.

I had my hands behind my back in almost a military like position, and I tried to make the straightest face I could, perhaps try to mimic Amaimon's. "Poker face…poker face" my mantra seemed to work a bit since I felt my face relax ever so slightly.

However my relaxation was short lived as I saw him crack an eye open. We all visibly flinched as his face twisted into an abnormally wide leer and he lifted his chin from his palm.

"Ah so you have" he murmured in probably the strangest voice I'd ever heard. Somehow it was high and deep at the same time, almost as if there were multiple people talking at once in a cave.

I kept my "poker face" in place but I felt like throwing up. I gritted my teeth behind my lips and breathed deeply through my nose in a futile effort to calm myself. Something about him put me on edge, perhaps because I knew he could kill me in an instant, heart or no heart.

He stood up and crossed his arms. "Oh how I've waited for this moment, to finally see all my children face to face. Even if they are dressed like shit"

He went to the far left of the line, where Iblis was, and began to inspect each one of us. He would stare at each of them for less than five seconds but no matter how little the time was, each one of them looked like they were going to piss their pants. He would tug a hair here and pinch a nose there but stopped entirely when he got to me.

He stepped closer to me and cupped my chin with his right hand to lift my face and look at him.

Poker face Freja

"It seems Asura gave me a little girl" he said in a mocking tone. My eye twitched slightly at the sound of my mother's name…and that he called me little.

Poker face

"Hm, but you're not so little are you? You're almost as tall as Samael" I had noticed that I was taller than most of them, save for Samael and Azazel, who were maybe a half an inch taller.

He squeezed my jaw rather tightly for a moment and his face twisted into a frown.

"That lying whore said you were all boys…" he spat bitterly. I didn't know whether he was talking about my mother, at which I would've wholeheartedly agreed with him, or someone else I hadn't known about.

He grinned again and leaned his face a bit closer to mine. "Not that I'm complaining"

Poker…face…

A few moments after saying that he let go of my face and stood straight again. He checked over everyone else, poking at Azazel's horns when he got to him as if they were a dead animal.

He stood in front of us and spread his arms.

"Now then, let me make one thing perfectly clear…"he chided. "You all belong to me. You are nothing without me" he pointed to himself with his thumb. "Understand?"

We all bowed in unison, almost by instinct, and replied, "Yes father" After he was done he sat down on his throne again and resumed his original position.

"Show them to their rooms Samael" he said in a bored inflection. "I will deal with them in the morning"

We all bowed from the waist down and began to file out with Samael in the lead. The doors closed automatically and I let out a breath, through my mouth this time, which I hadn't noticed I was holding. I felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders and my shoulders slumped.

"To our rooms then" Samael grinned and began to walk.

We were in the foyer again and this time we went to the left, up the spiraling staircase. At the end was a long hallway with eight doors on the right side of the wall which I could only guess were our rooms.

Samael told us that the rooms went in order from youngest to oldest and we were free to explore the vicinity as long as we didn't leave the castle grounds.

I calculated which room was mine which was in the middle, and opened the door. The room wasn't what I would call fancy but it was definitely bigger than my old room. I could have done without the pink walls but with a huge ass room like that, I couldn't complain.

"It's…so pretty!" Clair exclaimed and jumped off my shoulder, poofing back into her original form. She ran over to the bed that was leaning on one side of the room and hopped on, making the mattress bounce.

I tried really hard not to face palm at her childishness; she was only twelve after all. Here I was finding out that my whole life has been a lie, and she's worried about the atmosphere of my sleeping quarters.

"Come on, get in bed" I said commandingly and pulled the covers up. I was exhausted and I wanted to be ready for whatever father had meant by, 'deal with us'.

She pouted and grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest.

"Freja?"

I went over to the light switch and paused when I got to it.

"What?"

"Does this mean I can go home soon?" she asked softly.

I didn't answer right away. I had completely forgotten about that, and really, I had no idea where to start. I told myself though, that someone around here must know something about "Assiah" and I could start in the morning.

"Yeah" I said simply and turned off the light. I crawled into bed, my back to her, and pulled the covers over my shoulders. I unraveled my tail from under my shirt and let it lay loose behind me.

"I…always forget you have that" she said almost solemnly and leaned her face on my back.

It always annoyed me when she would cling to me whenever we slept together, but it didn't bother me enough for me to say anything. I then realized that Clair hadn't changed her clothes, which she always made a priority whenever she went to bed.

"If you don't, your clothes will be stinky in the morning"

It also reminded me of the time when I had first noticed she didn't have a tail. When I had questioned her, she said in Assiah, they don't have tails. I had never heard of any demons without tails but I took her word for it.

I tried to relax my body as best I could and drift off into a peaceful sleep, or at least as peaceful as it could be due to the day I'd been having.

"I hate you moth-Asura" I cursed before falling asleep. "I hate you"

A/N: Btw, the Lucifer in this story is NOT the one in the manga. I realize that could be confusing but I made up this character before that chapter came out so my apologies if anyone thought otherwise. Anyways, please comment and review. See ya next chapter!