Lost for words, the young exorcist could do nothing but gape at the man in front of him, caught up in the news he had just delivered. He couldn't hear, though Mephisto's mouth appeared to be moving. He couldn't concentrate, though the messenger had his complete attention. 'He's here? But… how…? Why…?'
"Where," he croaked, not fully aware of his surroundings. He forced his head to clear, needing to hear the answer. Mephisto furrowed his brows in worry. His lips pressed together tightly, implying that he was about to deny him a response. "Tell me where, God damn you!"
He thought he had heard a faint "Too late," but disregarded it when Mephisto gave him a wide smirk. "He isn't that hard to find, really. As far as I know, he hasn't strayed farther than the shopping district and he only goes there in the mornings. The only other place he could be would have to be his dorm." He sniggered at his disbelieving expression. "Oh, don't worry. He isn't actually attending the schools here, exorcist or otherwise." That's right, Yukio had forgotten that True Cross doubled as a High School for the rich or incredibly intelligent. He wasn't sure how, each corridor was packed with people at every waking hour, but he had.
"Which dorm," The harsh, hoarse voice didn't sound like his own.
Mephisto chuckled. "Which dorm could possibly house one of the most powerful demons in Gehenna without drawing the attention of every exorcist in a thousand mile radius?"
Yukio was out of the door before he could finish his sentence.
All too aware of the sound of footsteps behind him, he hurried down the hall at a pace that could only just be called walking. Without breaking stride, he burst through the Cram School entrance and into the light of the afternoon sun.
'That dorm is the best place to look,' he figured. 'I'll never find him in the shopping district; It's hard enough to wade through the crowd there, let alone search for someone in particular. Even if that someone happens to be a demon.'
The silence remained through the entire journey. Not one of his students, Mephisto was content to remain behind, were willing to risk becoming the subject of the wrath of their teacher's turmoil. Finally, they arrived at their destination.
The Devil's Den, as the dorm was ironically referred to as, had been abandoned nearly a decade ago because of a gas leak. The problem had been sorted out, but it had been an old building then and the school had not wasted the effort in reintroducing students into it. They had simply set it aside for travelling Vatican soldiers that were not to stay long. They didn't come by as often as they once had and, as a result, the dorm looked more like the setting of an effective horror movie; It's paint was chipped, vines were creeping up and into the walls as far as the third story, possibly the roof above it as well, and the foliage surrounding it was severely overgrown, casting shadows that could effectively hide full-grown elephants.
He halted and his students followed. The sun was setting, casting a brilliant orange light upon what used to be a magnificent building. A building that was now the temporary home of his estranged sibling.
A place in which the true heir of Satan resided within.
Too far away for the group to see, in a second story window, a curtain twitched.