Cactus Flower
A/N: Guess who's bad at keeping promises? Sorry. Part of me wants to skip all of this to the point where Senryuu's life is in actual danger, where Senryuu is actually in love, and where Senryuu kicks Mephisto's ass at being savange, but... part of me still wants to explore this idea of me writing children.
Revisions will be up as soon as I finish them. Sorry, turns out that revising is harder than writing.
Thanks! I hope you guys are in for the long haul as much as I am!
You're going to charm every person you meet. They're going to worship you like a god."
AU: If Iblis had a daughter born fourteen years before the Okumura siblings.
Mephisto has always been great with kids.
At least, that's what he thinks.
Yukimachi Senryuu is no exception to this.
He had offered an open palm to the child, a welcoming gesture, a sign of trust, an invitation. But she walks past him and up the steps of his grand manor.
"This is where you live?" She turns to him with a look that bellied both awe and impatience. "Is this where I'm going to live too?"
If children would usually act shy or excited at the thought of living in a manor as grand as this, Senryuu acted as if she doesn't want to be there.
Well... She's his niece.
She's the daughter of a very disagreeable woman.
"Yes, Senryuu." He drops the honorific he usually tails with her name, "Why, is there something wrong?"
"No." The girl shakes her head. "It just looks like a doll's house."
And is there anything wrong with that!?
"Oh, but it is!" He replies, suddenly all cheery, "It has everything you could have ever dreamed of! It is a paradise!"
Senryuu makes a sound of disgust at his pronouncement.
"I bet it doesn't have an indoor swimming pool." She huffed.
Mephisto smirks. It's so typical of a child to want an indoor pool. But no matter, it's just a snap of his fingers.
He is, after all, the King of Time and Space.
Snap.
The sound coming from his fingers resounds around them. Senryuu turns her head to him, looking both terrified and surprised. Though he has caught this bratty niece of his off-guard, he maintains a façade of indifference.
The doors before her swing open to behold...
"An indoor pool!?"
This is first time Mephisto hears Senryuu shriek.
And she reacts just as he expected, rushing into the hall and stopping just short of the pool's edge. He watches her as she reaches a hand out to touch the water, wondering if it would be mean of him to push the little brat into the pool.
But this is his space, after all.
So when little Senryuu reaches out to touch the water, being the curious child that she is, her hand meets cold, tile floor instead.
She stumbles back, shocked and quite scared, and hears Mephisto speak from behind her.
"What you did was quite rude, Senryuu-chan." He smiles, terrifyingly sweet.
"I knew it!" She accused him with all the strength a child could muster. "It was all a trick!"
A trick?
He stares down at her scowling face, eyes promising anger and mayhem.
How amusing.
He smirks. "My, didn't your mother tell you it's rude to come in without an invitation?"
"This is where I'm going to live, too." She huffs. "And you told me–"
He snaps his fingers again, and the sound echoes in the grand hall.
The pool appears below her.
And she falls.
A grand splash comes after her and Mephisto steps back to keep himself dry.
"Oh, my." He spoke to himself. He didn't consider if she knew how to swim.
But before he moves his hand, she surfaces, sputtering out water from her mouth before standing upright.
Oh, the pool wasn't even that deep, anyway. The water reaches just past her shoulders.
"You sick–!" She screams out, angry and temperamental, pushing her hair away from her face with little regard to how neat it was combed before, "You–!"
How interesting.
She's steaming now. Literally. The water around her is slowly turning into steam, which is enveloping the area around her. But she seems oblivious to it, and continues glaring at him, breathing heavily with the promise for murder and mayhem.
She's wearing her third favorite dress, the dress her mother told her to take good care of, and he...
"I hate you!" She screams with all the anger in the world.
And the water around her comes to a boil.
How very interesting!
"Oh, Senryuu-chan." Mephisto calls her amusedly. He moves his hand in a sweeping gesture and the pool disappears, leaving a dripping and furiously seething Senryuu on the floor.
"Didn't your mother ever teach you some manners?"
She mutters something incomprehensible.
"What was that?"
"Nothing." She says, standing up and pushing the rest of her hair away from her face.
She's looking quite the pitiful sight.
"I'm sorry." She says under her breath.
So at least she knows how to apologize.
"Senryuu-chan." He steps towards her and she visibly scowls. "Your mother has entrusted me to take care of you."
"No, she didn't."
So she still has the gall to talk back to him? He could clamp his hand over this girl's mouth right now.
"Well, she doesn't know anyone else in Tokyo, does she?"
"No. Mommy has a lot of friends here."
That's it.
"You know, I can grant you absolutely anything you ask for. Be it indoor pools, revolving closets racks, even unicorns!"
She turns to him sharply then, an insult ready on her tongue, but she remains silent.
Good.
She's witnessed what he can do, after all, and any child would know to keep quiet.
He continues, "But on one condition."
She lowers her haughty gaze.
"Just be a good, obedient little girl, okay?" He drags the last syllable.
"Okay." She replies meekly.
Mephisto feels triumphant at that and smiles widely.
He steps away from her. "In time, you'll learn how to have better control over your flames, and your temper."
He can't have this little girl going on a rampage this early now, can he? Plus, he has a lot of plans involving his one and only niece.
But first, get her dry and a little bit more warmed up to him.
"Shall we?" He holds his hand out to her.
She doesn't take his hand, but instead steps beside him.
He sighs.
Well, it's progress.
"Oh, don't worry, Yukimachi-san. Your daughter is fine."
And even through the phone, he can already imagine her seething with anger and distrust. She's just a worried mother, that's all, and a little too worried for her own good. Just five minutes after leaving Senryuu with him for the weekend, she already sent him death threats and vows to make him pay should he even think of–
As if a human woman like her could even touch him.
"Yes, yes, I'm very much aware of how you still do not trust me after all these years."
He isn't amused by this conversation, anymore. In fact, he's very much bored.
"It's like nothing has changed, right, Yukimachi-san?"
He laughs.
"Yes, I know. Have a pleasant day!"
The phone disappears in a puff of smoke.
"Was that mommy?" His niece's voice comes from behind him.
"What are you wearing?" were the first words that came out his mouth the moment he turned to look at her.
She looks so different from the well-groomed, princess-y little brat. Her hair is a mess and the shirt-and-jeans combo she's wearing looks ratty and old. But at least she's dry?
"You're just like mommy." She shrugs.
Like mommy, eh?
"Why? Doesn't mommy let you…" He trails off on purpose.
"No." She huffed.
Ah, the first crack in the armor!
"Well," he smiles widely, "you should know that you're free to wear and do as you please here!"
She blinks. "Really?"
"Of course!"
She narrowed her eyes, and already she is looking so much like her mother.
"I don't believe you."
He claps his hands together and leans down, tone sickly sweet, "Anything for my one and only niece!"
"You're kidding."
The sudden look of disgust on her face mirrors how he feels inside.
But if this is what it takes to get on her good side, then so be it.
He tried his usual trick of persuasion with her mother, and it didn't work. Ten years into their relationship, she's still as cold and as wary of him as the first day they met. But Senryuu is a different story. She's not just a mere human, she's half-demon, and–if he were to use archaic terms–a princess of Gehenna.
A single mother like Ayako could never truly provide for her. She could never fully educate her daughter on the ways of the world they live in. Senryuu would never be able to reach her full potential with that human woman.
So, in Mephisto's mind, it's only right that he be the one to do it. His younger brother is the fiery, hot-tempered King of Fire, and his daughter is no different.
Well, at least not yet.
She might be as fiery as her mother, but this is nothing close to what she could become.
"That's not what you said earlier."
Oh, she's a perceptive one.
"Then would you care to repeat it?"
She looks down, grits her teeth.
"I have to be good." She muttered.
She's so dejected right now, but he knows the best way into a child's gullible, little heart. And with a wave of his hand, they're transported to the main dining hall, a high-ceilinged, candy-colored room with a long table filled with everything a child could want to eat.
"Lunch, Senryuu-chan."
Maybe she's too astonished by the sight of chocolate fountains and ice cream castles to notice his term of endearment.
"What?" She turns to him sharply. "Is this what you eat?"
"I doubt your mother allowed you to eat chocolate before you cleaned your plate."
She nods mutely, still slack-jawed over the sight of all things sweet.
"Well, there's no one to stop you now." He conjures up a spoon and hands it to her.
She takes it from him tentatively, looks at the dreamy sight before her. But instead of digging the spoon into the cake in front of her, she clutches the spoon tightly to her chest.
"What's the matter?" He feigns concern.
"Thank you," she says under her breath, "uncle."
Uncle?
He grins.
It's a win-win situation, he gets on Senryuu's good side, he gets on Ayako's. And once that's done, he's free to set his plan to motion without any interference from any overly protective mothers.
At least that would be one problem taken care of.
He could always deal with those angels later.
But sometimes, no matter how carefully and how meticulously he plans, there are just some external variables that makes him reconsider everything.
External variables, meaning these literally-holier-than-thou prophets of the Heralds of Zion.
At least they didn't send the angel Tzadkiel.
Instead, they sent him the prophetess Thea, a descendant from a line of soothsayers from Greece. Red-haired and brown-eyed, she stalks into the room, eyes blindfolded to mimic the prophet Tiresias, a hood over her head, and a lantern–of all things–in her hand.
She's looking quite like those who had played Tiresias in those Greek plays so long ago.
"What a surprise to see you, prophet." He mumbles.
She hisses, turns towards him like a snake, whispers something under her breath.
It sounds like a curse.
The fire in her lantern flickers.
Her mouth opens, but no words come out.
Mephisto feels a certain energy in the room, and suddenly a blast of wind comes bursting through the doors. It is a gale, a strong and powerful force that scatters everything in the room, sending them into a whirlwind around the both of them.
Of all rooms, she chose to appear here?!
Her mouth closes and the winds stop, sending everything crashing back down. Papers scatter, vases break, ink spills.
His very expensive Idol Mariko signed poster is torn.
How dare she–
But before he could send her out through the window–because he can so easily do something like that, right?–she speaks with the voice of a loud and booming crowd.
"Poison of God, Defiler of Man, King of Many Names,"
It is the voice of the Oracle.
It's been so long.
"You who bends space and traverses through time, befallen kind, dirtied hand, think us prophets so lowly."
The fire flickers brightly.
"You who casts illusions and threads lies, I come as messenger of divine will, as prophet of things to come, as destiny inescapable."
He wishes she would get to the point already.
"You think to have caught a phoenix, but instead it is a moth on fire."
Oh, how poetic.
"You think it is Amaterasu of the dawn, Sekhmet of the sun, Agni of the flames. You think is it the phoenix of death and rebirth, of ashes and flames…"
And she turns to him, so quick and so hauntingly that he could feel her heavy gaze through the blindfold.
"But it is Kagustuchi who burned its mother. It is Moloch demanding sacrifice. It is Ifrit dressed in flames, destroyer, devourer."
Is that so?
"Tread carefully on the path you have made, Samael, for paved brick and solid wood burn easily at the instance of its fury."
The fire in the lantern flares up.
"It is Icarus falling from the sun, a fiery blaze burning ambition to dust. It is a moth flying through the field, setting fire to all around it. A phoenix wakes not in its ashes. There is nothing, there is nothing."
And then she falls silent.
"Well, I thank you for–"
"You will do your best to ensure it does not happen," the prophetess spoke in her own voice, though cracked and quiet, "else we will have to interfere."
Oh, he does not like that.
"Really?"
He hates that.
"I thought we had an agreement."
They're not one to go back on their word, are they?
"Then you should best remember that the safety of these creatures had always come first."
Of course. Angels. They're soft for these humans. These weak, inferior creatures.
"Very well." He hides his irritation under a very agreeable tone, "I shall do my best."
A summoning circle, very bright and very angelic, appears beneath Thea, and he thinks it the best time to ask:
"What do you mean by interfere?"
But she disappears without answering.
How rude.
But he isn't one to take the Oracle's words lightly. If anything, it's a warning of things to come, a signal for him to set his plans into motion quicker, to make sure that there are absolutely no holes in it.
Although, this wasn't the first time the Heralds of Zion had sent one of their own to act as a messenger of divine will. In fact, this could be considered redundant, as they have spoken to him years and years before about the birth of a harbinger.
"A child shall come to forge a crown. It is the fire-breather, destroyer of time, devourer of all things. It shall come to claim its own. It shall come to be crowned."
Well, if anything, Ayako had spoilt Senryuu a little too much.
"It will burn. It will seek worship. It will seek adoration. It is a hungry child, and it will seek to be like a god."
Yes, he's already so aware of that.
"But it will burn, it will burn and it will burn, its flames ascending to the sky."
But that last statement, he doesn't understand.
Does that mean…
"Would it hurt them to speak in layman's terms?" He muttered to himself.
A/N: So basically nothing happened? Don't worry. I've got big plans for the next chapter. It involves more demons and (finally!) more people.
Feedback is always appreciated. Thanks for reading!