Written: May 7, 2013 1.29pm
Edit and continuation: August 5, 2013
Just Some Memories Of... [A Death]
Chapter Thirteen
— Setting: Present Time —
"Good night... Niisan."
Rin smiled as heard those words and tried to lean into the the warmth beside him. Finally, he had his younger sibling... But as he sought that familiar heat, he could only feel the coldness of the sheets. He ran his hands around to find that silkiness of fine brown hair... of the smooth pale skin he had in his arms. But that was only until the night before as he opened his eyes and found himself lying on his own white bed in Gehenna.
He was back to the place where his kind was supposed to live.
'Was that a dream...?' he asked himself. He looked into his open palm. Finding a crumpled and torn paper there, he smiled.
'I guess not...'
"Yuri~"
"...ngh?"
"Wake up, Yuri! Breakfast is ready."
"Niisan...?" Yuri's voice came out as a soft croak. She opened her eyes slowly, only to feel pink and purple confetti showering her. A sudden pop brought her forcibly to her senses.
"So you've finally decided to call me 'Niisan'?" came a tearful but joyous exclamation, followed by slight sniffing. "Finally, after eight years!"
Yuri felt herself being helped up to lean her back on the headboard of her bed. She raised her eyes, trying to pinpoint where the older man in the room. "Sir Pheles...?"
With that line, the room seemed to turn suddenly cold.
"Sir Pheles..." the man in jester's clothing repeated in a comically dark corner. "You're still calling me 'Sir Pheles'..."
"But you're the principal of this school, right?" Yuri reasoned. "I have to address you properly."
"So what about calling me 'Niisan'?" the older man said hopefully. "Or 'Papa'! Papa's good too!"
"Sir Pheles..."
The sound of sniffing got louder. "You're calling me 'Sir Pheles' again! And I thought you finally called me 'Niisan'...!"
Yuri sighed. The man who stood by her bed was persistent, just like...
The younger girl felt around searchingly, her blank albeit beautiful blue-green eyes turning from side to side. And then she felt metal on her lips. It was a spoon filled with warm flavorful soup, and she opened her mouth to eat. With his every visit, this older man called Mephisto Pheles was feeding her.
'It must have been a dream...' she thought. She felt a sigh escape her. And then, she felt disappointment bubble in her.
'Wait, I'm disappointed?' Yuri blinked before slightly shaking her head. 'He's a demon. Why should I like a demon to be my Niisan?'
She took a deep breath to calm her nerves when she noticed a strand of hair tangled to her hand. Surprised with herself, Yuri raised her hand to her face and felt for it on her cheeks. For some reason, she knew that it had a blue sheen, very much like the dark hair of the older brother of the boy in her dreams. An unconscious small smile.
'I'll be looking forward to that sashimi, then...'
Mephisto noticed the smile and grinned. "You seem to be in a good mood."
"I guess."
Indeed, Yuri was in a good mood. The best, probably. Mephisto hated to break the rare feeling but he said, "Kai-sensei wants you in the Laboratory 3 later. She said you should wear the usual."
And it was as the demon had expected: Yuri's smile was wiped off from her face and her eyes were downcasted.
"Isn't yesterday the last one?" Yuri said. She hated the thin white hospital gown that she was supposed to wear. She hated the needles. She hated being experimented on for an unknown reason. But what can a eight-year-old child like her do against the higher-ups who seem to be interested with the capacities of her weak young body?
Mephisto just smiled. He observed the slightly dark bags beneath those beautiful eyes. Even after waking, the young girl was heaving.
"I guess that wasn't the case," the older male said, feeding the child to stop any arguments.
"I don' wanna go..."
"Don't talk when your mouth is full."
Rin brought down his sword and watched as the blood drench his sword as well as the walls of that particular room. The human had given him a fearful gaze that remained on that dying face. Rin moved to the other human trying to attack his blind spot and mercilessly swung his sword. He was very far from caring for anything.
And then he thought his heart skip beat even though he thought he steeled himself when in battle.
'Niisan...!'
Someone was calling him. He didn't know from where. The voice was getting faint, and Rin could do nothing but look around searchingly as it finally disappeared.
A name came into his mind.
"Okumura Yu—"
"Demon Prince!" another voice called, waking Rin from his reverie. "Go back to where you come from!"
It was another human charging at him while weilding a powerful demonic miasma. Rin thought that that human should have known that miasma has no effect on him. He slashed the human with his Kurikara, ears trying to catch the sound of the voice earlier. But he did not hear it call again.
He lashed out his sword, causing the blood and dirt to fall off the blade. Now, where is that leader of the organization his father wanted him to capture?
The tray holding the scalpels, scissors and forceps crashed to the ground as a young female Doctor reached for a syringe and a bottle of antidepressant.
"Status of patient?"
"Unidentified shaking, Sensei. Heart rate increasing."
A needle went under the bluish skin, introducing foreign chemicals into the young system. The spasms decreased gradually and the a collective silence surrounded the room.
Suddenly, the young body that lay on the hospital bed erupted in blue flames. That pale skin burned, filling the room with an unbearable stench of burning flesh. Bright blue eyes scanned the room, and each of the persons in there suddenly erupted in flames as well.
A curse in one of the oldest languages unknown to man issued from the young mouth as lightning-blue eyes watched one of those hands turn into ash. "I went overboard, huh?"
"You are..." a demon started saying to the other as he stepped into the room carefully.
"Samael." The older entity in a younger form acknowledged the demon. A sad smile broke out on that face. "It seems that this child has to die again. You do know that this child can suppress otherworldly flames from the inside..." The demon raised a burning hand to stare at the flesh turning into ash. "But when flames touch him from the outside, he's as vulnerable as any human. Even I have no idea why he's like that..."
The other demon in the room listened and filed the information into his mind. But he stayed silent, watching the child burn in light blue flames with a serious look on those young features.
"Despite this, you and that 'demon' have no intentions of killing this child, right?"
The demon in the room didn't answer. The child just closed those eyes that didn't belong to that body.
"Till then."
The flames began to die down as the rush of power died down. Slowly, the burnt body he possessed fell onto the ground and broke into indistinguishable ashes.
Only a small infant was left behind. The demon picked the child up, covering it with a soft cloth, and turned to leave the room through the door. But before he reached the door, it banged open and a red-haired woman rushed in.
"Yu—!" She stopped, seeing the trashed laboratory, the empty experiment table and the white infant the demon was holding.
"You're too late," the demon said. "Okumura Yuri is gone. I don't have to be that weird man and you don't have to play the older sister and caretaker anymore, Kirigakure-sensei."
"What the f—?" the woman almost cursed, before she stopped herself as she noticed the infant squirm in the arms of the demon. She frowned and then held out her arms. "Give that child to me."
The demon almost laughed. "What?"
"I said give him to me."
"Or what?" the demon said. "He's an important experimental object to the Order, a hostage against the Illuminati and 'his'—"
"I don't give a dam'!" the barely-clothed lady finally yelled. Hastily drawing her sword from her chest, she pointed the weapon at the head of the demon. "I can't have you bastards play with his life!"
"If you have something against the decision of the Organization, go to the higher-ups yourself," the demon said. "I'm just doing what they want through my own ways."
"You f'cking bastard!" the woman yelled. "I'll kill you and—"
The demon raised a hand and snapped his fingers. The sword fell from the grip of the woman as she reached up. Her own hands wrapped around her neck and started choking her.
"I don't care," the demon said. He wasn't laughing nor smiling. Rather, his eyes were dark. "Now, begone."
He sweep his arm in front of him. The woman and her sword disappeared in a puff of familiar smoke.
"This is my game. I don't need anyone ruining it," the demon said. He didn't glance by the door where he knew a certain brown-haired puppeteer was listening. "Tell that to your master. I don't need that guy busting my games."
"My master is on the run from your younger brother," the puppeteer said. There was no emotion in his voice. "You wouldn't happen to be the one who ordered the wandering demon samurai into it, would you?"
The demon raised his eyebrows at the news. With a knowing smile, he shook his head. "That's not of my concern, is it now?"
The puppeteer gave another empty stare before he left. The demon just shrugged and snapped his fingers. Only his disappearing pink miasma and the lifeless ashes remained in the room.
TBC