A pale hand roused me from the pain-induced sleep I was in. The hand urged me to a white cot, and the welcome difference between the soft sheet and the rough stone of the floor I had slept on stifled any resistance I had to the prodding. The hand brushed against my forehead, checking for fever, while its twin slipped off the used bandages it had helped to secure the day before.
They always moved me while I was unconscious, so I wouldn't have any concept of location. It was supposed to catch me off guard, hinder any ability to escape.
This time I had ended up in a bare room, geographical location unknown. It was little more than a prison cell, really, but I wasn't having anything stabbed into me at the moment so I guess I couldn't complain.
"Rin, how do you feel?" The owner of the hands asked me. The soft voice was laced with concern. I didn't doubt it was one hundred percent guileless.
It was honestly one of the stupidest questions I had ever heard.
"Fuckin peachy," I answered.
The other person clicked her tongue in distaste for my language. The hands infiltrated my personal space once again to nudge my arms upward and begin winding a fresh roll of bandages around the newly formed skin casing the socket of my shoulder.
"You should learn to be more careful." Her softly lilting voice reprimanded me. The hands finished the right side and moved onto the left. I lifted the arm experimentally; it seemed, even when the flames and all the powers associated with them refused to answer my call, my healing ability hadn't deserted me, though it did take considerably longer to recover. Slowly but surely, I would heal.
"The bastard should learn to be less of dick."
I let out a hiss of pain as she pulled the cloth too tight, constricting the sensitive skin.
"Why do you defy him so? He has only your best interests in mind," she pleaded. Again, nothing but absolute honesty shone through her teal eyes.
It made me sick.
"That…man…has no idea what my 'best interests' are," I refuted. This wasn't the first time we'd had this conversation. Unfortunately, I was currently too immobile to storm out like the bitchy teen I wanted to be. Furthermore, there actually wasn't anywhere to storm out to. Lava, burning pitch, rivers of blood, and roads of screaming, undead corpses didn't give me a lot of viable options to turn to. I had no idea how to even get out of the place. And, of course, the chains were still binding me from any useful movement. "And I doubt he thinks separating me from my limbs is likely to benefit me, no matter what you say."
She frowned, temporarily marring her forehead with small lines. Her face was still young; she hadn't aged a day in the last sixteen or so years. Well, of course not. She's dead.
Wavy brown hair framed her pretty face. Her disgruntled expression coupled with the familiar eye color and features was undoubtedly similar to Yukio's; in fact, it was nearly identical to his manner when heatedly lecturing me on my failing grades, and it was clear he'd gotten the moles from her. I could feel my mouth moving to mirror the frown.
"He's still your father, you know, and he –"
"My father is Shiro Fujimoto!" I slapped those hands away from my wounded body. She recoiled from my anger, falling away from me as I painfully pushed the upper half of my body vertical. "That bastard is not my father. And as far as I'm concerned, I don't have a mother, so you can take your twisted ideals and shove them –"
"Stop it!" She slapped her hands to her ears in denial, as if that would stop the truth of the words coming from my mouth. "You don't mean that!"
I refused. I was far more accepting of her bullshit when I had first met her, weeks before, but the place was unrelenting in the toll it took on my patience and my hope of getting out. Each day seemed to leave me a little more despairing than the last, and there was no promise of an end. I would never submit, but the constancy of all the shit wore me down easily.
"Stop lying to yourself, Yuri. If you were a parent of mine, why would you let him do this to me? Why would you sit back and watch as he destroys the world we both came from?"
"I trust him!" Tears threatened to leak from her eyes, the eyes that were passed to my little brother. Her eyes weren't dear to me, though. I felt no remorse in bringing pain and tears to them. "He understands me, my goals! Why can't you accept that? I thought you of all people would be eager to work with us, to help us bring demons and humans together!"
"Look, lady," I began, reaching over to grab the roll of medical gauze she had somehow attained in a place where everyone was either already dead or capable of healing faster than the need for the treatment. "If you think uniting Gehenna and Assiah is a good thing, then you're nuts! You're only helping him win domination over both worlds."
"That's not true," she whimpered, finally removing the hands from her ears. Her wide, emotional eyes begged me to change my mind. It wasn't happening, obviously. "He's not that cruel…You just don't understand him yet!"
I stared incredulously. "Satan isn't some misunderstood victim here. He's the fucking king of Hell. He eats human souls as snacks. With all the shit he's done to me in just the past two months, there's no way you can't know he's fucking evil. You're deluding yourself!"
This woman was human, once. Perhaps her ideals were worthy of some merit. Demons and humans, together…
There was no escaping my demonic heritage. My eyesight was sharp, more accurate at a distance and in the dark than a human's. The pupils of my eyes alternated red and black, elongating into feline ellipses according to my emotions. The shape of my eye was what Yukio called a vesica piscis, and though I really didn't want to think about what a fish bladder had to do with my eye, I knew there was a distinct and disconcerting difference between the acute point of the corners of my eyes, then and a year before.
My teeth resembled a vampire's, and were able to bite through most anything I would want to bite through. Hell, my ears were pointed at the tips like a fucking leprechaun, and let's not forget the furry tail sticking out of my pants.
No normal human would ever look like me. I was willing to bet that no abnormal human looked like me, either.
And maybe I just spent too much time looking in the mirror, rather than, say, studying.
And yet I still felt human, still considered myself human. I saw Yukio as human, as well, though his features had sharpened to match mine. At the risk of sounding saccharine and cliché, it's what's inside that counts, right? And I had successfully lived for many months as a demon, with humans. Who was I to deny that right to any other demon?
Something like destroying the barriers between Earth and Hell was beyond me. There was no way I'd ever completely understand the theory behind it, but I wasn't about to sit back and let it happen. As far as I'd seen, whenever humans and demons got together in large quantities, people died, demons died, and a lot of shit got destroyed. Even in my case –how many exorcists had died trying to kill me, trying to save me, because of me? Too many for just one person. Way too many for me.
The only thing my biological mother would get from me was sympathy, for how much she had wasted on a naïve dream that had no realistic basis, with a man–demon–that most likely played her like a fool to get what he wanted. Perhaps pity would be more appropriate.
She shook her head passionately, violently, and I wondered if it was possible for her to strain her neck. How dead could one become, really? From what I'd seen, life generally didn't simply end. And in her case, life most likely wouldn't end at all, if what she had could be considered living.
Our argument was cut short, however, with the sound of light footsteps and the arrival of a familiar demon. Amaimon announced his presence only with the creak of a door and a suck of his lollipop. His sight fell to Yuri's, blank yet still managing to be threatening. Dominance was clear.
The woman wouldn't submit that easily, though. "I'm to stay here until Satan returns."
The demon's gaze narrowed at the challenge. It was his turn to play with the toy.
"Change of plans," was all he revealed. It was enough.
Yuri seemed powerful when backed by Satan, but usually didn't stick around long when Satan's other sons were involved. Despite being a well known exorcist in her lifetime, she apparently wasn't that tough compared to the demon royalty.
With her gone, I was left warily watching the room's other inhabitant as he made it a priority to finish his sucker before anything else. Amaimon was unpredictable. Not that any of the other demons I dealt with were predictable, really, but I never really knew what he wanted, or where he played into Satan's plans.
With the loud crunch signaling the end of the candy, Amaimon was free to acknowledge my presence by ducking into the room –failing to save the sharp green point of his hair from the door frame –and approaching me with what appeared to be a collar that he'd pulled out of, actually, I don't really want to think about where he pulled it out of…his pants were far too tight to accommodate something of that size naturally.
"H-hey, what is that?" I was already chained by my wrists and ankles, and the chance that I would be able to escape in this condition was bordering negative.
"Shut up." Since I couldn't actually go anywhere, my attempts to scramble away from his approaching figure were most likely pitiful to him, as it got me about two feet away from my original position and still very well within arm's distance from him. So I couldn't escape the metal collar as he snapped it shut around my neck, securing it with a key he'd also pulled out of God knows where.
The collar was studded with protruding spikes, the metal ones forming a neat row around the middle of the contraption. These were complemented by horns created in a more natural manner, rough shards of yellowing bone that seemed to have been pulled from live or once-live animals, or demons, and stuck on in any bare space on the surface of the collar. They looked as though they were pasted on with blood, and effectively prevented me from weaseling my way out of the thing.
While I was distracted with the collar, Amaimon shoved his hand into my face, covering my mouth with his palm. I could feel two of his fingers forcing their way into my mouth, the unhygienic green-tinted nails scraping my upper lip as they did so. The fingers left a small orb in my mouth that strangely tasted of strawberries.
The hand covering my mouth moved to my chin, preventing me from moving my jaw, and his free hand rose to pinch my nose, restricting my breathing.
"Swallow," he commanded. His voice was low and disinterested but I knew he could snap at any moment.
The chains were free enough that I could grapple with his arms, but his grip was like steel. I lasted all of about two minutes before giving in. The candy made its way down my throat, and I could only hope it wouldn't actually kill me. The hands constricting me desisted enough for me to break free. Why couldn't the ability to live without breathing be part of my demon abilities? That would be a little more useful than a sensitive demon tail.
Amaimon surprised me then by taking out another key, using it to release the locks of the chains binding my wrists and ankles. Was I that little of a threat to him?
"Get up and follow me," he directed, rising from the crouch he had fallen into to force the item down my throat and starting towards the entrance.
I cautiously tried to get my legs under me and vertical, and found that I could with no pain and little stiffness. The joints the woman had wrapped earlier felt a lot better, too. Whatever was in that piece of candy, it seemed to have sped up my healing abilities….Just what was this guy thinking?
He led me out of the room, out of what looked like a modern military compound. Well, from what I'd seen in movies, at least. It's not like I'd seen one in real life. It was all thick steel walls and doors, and pass codes, and 'top secret' labels on everything. Like…Stargate, or something. Without the space ships and aliens.
It didn't look abandoned. There was stuff everywhere, folders and papers, and it wasn't dusty, but there was no one there. It was like everyone decided to go on a lunch break at the same time.
It turned out to be underground, the stairs leading down to the entrance disguised by a couple rocks. Outside was empty desert. Area 51?
"Where are we going?" I finally asked. Usually I was dragged against my will whenever I was to be submitted to one of the 'lessons' my half-brothers came up with. I wasn't shown where I was, and there was always more than one watching me. This made me uncomfortable.
The demon ignored my question, instead holding out a bare arm to me. "Hold on," he said.
I scoffed in response. "Not likely." He was going to regret giving me this much freedom.
I turned away from him with the intent to run, but fell to my knees less than a step later. The scream that tore itself from my throat was raw and cracking, a testament to the abuse my voice had been through.
It felt like an electric current, the agony pulsing through my body for what seemed like days. I grappled with the collar, sure that the studded piece was the cause, but the spiked metal and bone kept me from gaining anything more than bloodied fingers.
When the current subsided, I found myself on my hands and knees, my breath coming out in little more than wheezes. Amaimon stood before me and reached his arm out again, eyes narrowing, as if he thought I would be stupid enough to try that again.
"Yeah, yeah, I get it." My voice was rough and I wondered why my throat didn't heal as well as fast as the rest of my body. It must not be serious enough, but I had no clue about the medical side of the healing properties of demons. Maybe Yukio would know, and I wouldn't have to spend the rest of my life with a sore throat.
I took hold of his arm, the sickly pale of his skin barely contrasting with mine, and then we were off. Amaimon, the Earth King, with the power to move over the earth at his will. Or maybe he was just fucking fast. Hopefully this time I would make it through in less than five pieces, but maybe that was too much to hope for.