A/N:

Hi everyone! On the matter of updating… I've had a few people requesting faster updates. While it puts a smile on my face to know you like the story so much, I think you need to translate my updating habits into more general ones to get a proper overview. It gets a little weird when you publish the way I do, several chapters at a time, so I've done some maths on it to show why I don't update more often than I do. It's almost a year ago since I started, so if I'm ever going to bother with statistics now would be an appropriate time.

TEotB behind the scenes!

§ There's 52 weeks in a year, and approaching the one-year anniversary of The End of the Beginning there's 89 chapters published. Take into account that I've had two writing-free months during that time, to focus on studies, and you get 89 chapters written in 44 weeks. So, on average, I produce and publish between one and two new chapters every week. I don't know any author on here that works faster than that.

§ I spend anywhere between three and nine hours writing each day. These include not only writing and editing, but the massive research I conduct to flesh out the story. For example, I'm right now going through a phone list I've compiled, to find a Catholic priest that would be willing to give an interview on the details of his education.

§ I currently have three analogue notepads and 99 computer-written pages filled with research notes, plot outlines, and drafted scenes. I haven't counted words, but, technically, I've written not 200 000 words in this time but closer to 400 000.

§ I've had to switch glasses once this past year, since apparently it's not a myth that your eyesight deteriorates if you stare at a screen as much as I do. x'D

§ There's 366 reviews to TEotB as I write this, which means I've been given about one review each day! That's awesome, folks! =D

Please don't bribe me with sweets: they make me nauseous and miserable. x') I'm very passionate about what I do, so there's no need to bribe me, really. I can't write faster than this and maintain the same standard, though, so if you want me to write any faster you'll have to steal some time-altering device from Mephisto and add more hours to my days. ;)

Best regards to Reviewer102 and others who have asked

/Dimwit (who still does not own anything Kazue Kato has made)

Unreliable bastards, words. They claim so proudly that they are instruments of communication, invented to bridge the gap between minds, to give shape to thought and enable one human being to share hers with another: yet they corrupt the signal, distort the intention, and create more misunderstandings than they resolve.

Obvious is an especially useless word. Something obvious is something that is so blatantly apparent that words are superfluous. There is no string of thought leading to an insight that is obvious, no way for you to guide someone else to it by describing the path you took to get there. It's just there. A destination without road, a chicken without egg… Why in the world is there a word like obvious, when what's obvious to you isn't necessarily obvious to someone else? When you can't explain your obvious to anyone, since the concept of obvious negates all explanation?

Shiro knew there was a difference between humans and demons: of course he knew that. But knowing… isn't the same as understanding.

"How's ya' shoulder?"

He'd been asked that all day, and each time he'd worn that confused look of someone snapping back to the surface after being submerged in the depths of thought. By the time Shizuku halted him in the corridor between lunch and history, he'd stopped trying to adjust the bandage to a comfortable position. There was no comfortable position. Despite the ice treatment, the bruised area hurt like a bitch, and would continue to do so for quite a while.

"Strained a muscle", Shiro replied. "I'm told I'm gonna have to rest it for a week and get on a rehabilitation programme."

"Huh. No sparring 'gainst Kasu, then." Shizuku hefted his satchel a little higher onto his own shoulder. "What about the rest o' yer exams?"

"I'll be taking the remaining ones orally."

"Anythin' else ya'll be taking orally…?" asked the pilgrim with an especially lewd grin. He wouldn't tell a soul about Mephisto's prank, no. Remind Shiro of it? Oh yes.

"Wanna take my fist orally?" he returned casually. "Doctors don't get practical training till the second year, but I'm pretty sure I can locate your cardia for you."

"Whateva' the cardia is, I'm sure mine's doin' fine without yer help."

Shizuku wouldn't dream of playing pranks on demons. He was a smart guy, he was: but his brain followed an entirely different track. He knew by heart what was taught at cram school about demons' elemental weaknesses and habits, and how to make use of that… but he didn't understand them. Not the way Shiro did. Be it imprint, or just spending time around Mephisto, or both; Shiro understood demons, understood how they worked and how to use that against them.

And understanding… isn't the same as knowing. Knowledge can be put in words and set in print, defined and explained from one mind to another. Understanding is like obvious: a destination without road, an insight that can't be taught or learnt, because understanding comes from within. And Shiro… understood demons.

Did it scare him? Not really. Actually…

"Not gonna lie to myself, even if that's the only one I don't lie to."

…it thrilled him. Which was far worse. Someone who is scared keeps his distance, and avoids harm in doing so: someone who is thrilled comes back for more kicks.

Little by little, he will burn you to ashes

Not to say that he was suicidal: there is a difference between daring and suicidal. He wouldn't get involved in the Tanzi affair, wouldn't step up on Mephisto's grand game board – but what if that wasn't enough? As Shiro walked on autopilot from one classroom to another, doubts softly followed his steps through the dark corridors of his mind.

Change is nearly as deceptive as words. You'll notice change in the slow fall of the sun that draws shadows longer, and in the snowflake that melts to a droplet in your upturned palm; you won't notice it on your face, when the mirror glass watches the slow, eroding river of time flowing over your skin form day to day. Rapid change, slow change – still, you'll notice them both sooner or later. But change within? Without eyes to see the shadows in your mind, how do you tell if they've faded or grown darker?

Eyes are the mirrors of the soul, yes: gaze into another's eyes and you can tell how much you've changed. When Shizuku and Ryuuji had looked at him yesternight, Shiro had realised that he had changed – into what? A demon charmer, charmed by his own imprint-enhanced vices? A human that understood demons to the point where other humans couldn't understand him? And if that change was allowed to continue, then what?

Shiro had reminded himself time and again that what the ikelos had showed him during Knight exam was his fears, not his future. …and yet, the blood had felt warm on his hands; just like it had been in Deep Keep, when the nightmare had been real.

Afternoon invited more doubts, and after another 20 minutes with an ice pack strapped to his chest he decided to go to the only person he could take such problems to. Even if said person made his skin crawl.

"Hi. I was just wondering if you had the time to… I don't know. Talk?" he told the short girl that opened when he knocked.

She didn't reply, but smiled and stepped aside to let him enter.

It was a room that looked surprisingly normal considering the two girls that lived in it. Like last time, Midori's bed linen were on the floor. On the desks and shelves was an assorted collection of peculiar treasures she had brought in, anything from yesteryear's birds' nests and lost earrings to empty cigarette cartons and heaps of dried berries. When he noticed the porcelain doll head that served as lamp screen, he began to think he had exaggerated on the "surprisingly normal" thought.

Sen closed the door behind him, and tiptoed with her mini-steps to take a seat on her zabuton. Rather than remain standing and waiting for an invite that may never come, Shiro sat down on the floor and crossed his legs.

"Uhm…" Where to begin? What to say? He wasn't good at this kind of thing to begin with, and bringing his personal issues up with Sen of all people-

"Uncle Itsuhito told me you summoned the dogs of the underworld."

Sen, who was the only person in the world that could say something like that and make it sound like she was discussing weather.

"Yeah, I did", he said once he remembered that Futotsuki-sensei's first name was Itsuhito. "Did he say anything else?" Like whether it was a good or a bad thing that his summon had become a much more aggressive one?

"He said you cleared the practical part of Tamer exams with no remarks."

"Well, that's nice to know." A brief moment to gather himself. "I need to do this." Shiro's gaze dropped from Sen's face to the pleated pink skirt that rose and dipped over her knees. "What I came to say… You're more used to handling demons than I am. Sometimes I think I'm doing it right, but sometimes I wonder if I am. I was going to ask, if there's anything I can do…"

"There might be, but what I do not know", Sen replied softly. "The Futotsuki handle demons, yes, but we aren't pursued by them like you are. Do you remember what I said last winter? To let darkness be part of you? To look it in the eye until it loses its power over you?" Shiro nodded. "Have you?"

"I… thought I did. I started to remember things I hadn't remembered for a long time, and many things I'd tried to forget. I could think of them without reacting as strongly as I used to." He didn't want to talk about this. At all. "They lost their power over me, at least a bit. I could accept it more and more."

His parents had silently agreed to play a theatre of lies: that he could accept. His father had been a selfish, spineless asshole, and his mother weak and pathetic: that he could accept. He despised them for living a lie, despised them for choosing death instead of cleaning up the stinking mess of debt, disgrace, and solitude that had been his inheritance: that, he had at long last come to accept. Barely. With embers still threatening to burst into flame at times.

But the lies that clung to his own skin, lies he didn't want to tell and secrets he didn't want to keep…

"There are still things in you that you can't accept, and recoil from." He could feel her eyes on him as she spoke. Not a glare that burns holes in one's skin, no; a soft, ghosting touch that forced the hairs on his arms up on end, despite the warmth. "My advice is the same as then: confront your darkness. There are things in all of us that we are not proud of: things done or thought that fill us with shame, disgust, fear, and hate. When you bury these emotions within, they grow darkness that feeds demons. These can never be extinct, for they are part of us; but they can be kept from growing, if you pull out the root from which they draw nourishment. When you unearth what you have buried, and acknowledge the unpleasant sides of yourself, you bring them under your control." Easy to say, so fucking easy to say – but how could he ever muster the strength to dig out every dark nook of his mind…? "No demon is more terrifying than the ones we have within", she continued in the same dreamy voice. "The Futotsuki learn to master them early, but others can fight demons for a lifetime without mustering the power to battle their own." Well, amen to that. "If you find that you can't, then what you can do is build walls around your heart, as you do now. Is not the best thing to do, but it will keep you safe."

Not the best thing to do, but that's what Mephisto had suggested.

"Of course he suggested that", he thought dryly. "He's not human, he doesn't understand a human's need for emotional contact." And Sen didn't understand that Shiro was, for all practical purposes, like a Futotsuki. He didn't wear their tattooed seals, nor had he bonded with a demon according to their rituals, but he was imprinted, and anything he could learn about the ways of the demon worshipper clan could be of help. "I'll try to do that." Slight shift in pitch, so slight you wouldn't consciously notice, but enough to know the speaker had closed the case and moved on to the next topic: "The Futotsuki learn to master it early, you say."

Sen nodded: a very small motion, but enough to make the combs in her hair catch the sunlight through the window.

"To prepare for bonding with our familiars", she clarified.

"About that… I read a book on the subject, but it didn't really explain why the Futotsuki have this tradition. It said it had to do with knowledge, and that bonding with a demon would grant hidden knowledge…?"

Unreliable bastards, words. They claim they have a set meaning, one that will make it easy for humans to communicate, but the truth is that each human interprets the world according to her own unique set of references. That two humans use the same word doesn't mean they interpret that word the same way, or mean the same thing.

Shiro hadn't been imprinted on a demon when he read that book, and neither had the author that wrote it: "hidden knowledge", the way he had interpreted it, meant some secret that only demons knew of. Now that he had begun to realise the effects of an imprint, he suspected that "hidden knowledge" might be the knowledge of demons themselves; the understanding that set him apart from his classmates.

"Bold inquiries", the Futotsuki girl smiled softly, looking straight through him and into distant worlds. "You must first understand, the Vatican way is not the Futotsuki way." No shit. Shiro nodded politely, adjusting his legs for a more comfortable position as he prepared to take in every word. "They teach that light and darkness are combatants, and that light will eventually vanquish darkness; the Futotsuki believe light and darkness are counterparts. For light there must be darkness, for life there must be death: like yin and yang, the two always exist together, in balance." Gracefully, she raised one small hand, palm facing upwards. "The divine half is yin: consciousness, enlightenment, control." She held up her other hand, like the two bowls of a scale: "The demonic half is yang: impulse, desire, chaos. Together, they form a whole: a human." She brought her hands together, fingers intertwined as if in Catholic prayer. "For a human to be in balance, she must embrace both yin and yang within herself. Yin is docile, and will embrace you back; yang is a wild animal, and must be tamed. When a Futotsuki has come of age, he or she bonds with a demon as the final step in embracing yang, and becomes whole." Sen returned her hands to her thighs with a gentle smile, as if thinking back on cherished memories. "Demons embody our desires, our buried emotions, our darkness: our yang. Bonding with a demon teaches you to be the master of your own nature. If you can do that, you will achieve great insight, and power; if you can not, your desires will devour you."

It's a mere millimetre thin, the dividing line between sanity and madness; perhaps even less. That single millimetre Sen's smile widened froze Shiro from the inside and out.

"They literally devour you if you're a Futotsuki, don't they?" He vividly recalled Shizuku saying that a fifth of the children that undertook the clan's rite of passage didn't make it through. "It's fucking sick…" But not an opinion he would share with Sen, not if he wanted her to tell him more. Bringing his face under control, he asked: "How is that bonding done?"

"The Futotsuki rites belong with the Futotsuki." She tittered like a songbird, covering her teeth with her hand as a lady would. "Comparing it to marriage is the easiest thing, I think. Futotsuki marry twice: first to our demon partner, second to our human partner. It sounds strange to an outsider, I know", she smiled, seeing his face.

"You don't marry a demon in the same sense you marry a human, I'm guessing?" Bonding with Mephisto seemed more and more awkward the more he learnt about the custom. Accidentally marrying a demon – what kind of world-class screw-up did you have to be to accidentally marry a demon?

"No." Well, thank god. "When you marry a human you agree to share life, love, dreams; when you bond with a demon, you share heart. No human can ever be that close to you."

"So many wrong pictures." Shiro groaned inwardly. "I wish I could turn my brain off. Like a TV."

But they kept coming, unbidden pictures that had pushed at their constraints ever since Sen urged him to face the demon within: his own stinking mess, a foul blend of death, regret, and guilt boxed in and hidden away in Deep Keep with the rest of Mephisto's precious collection. Unearth what he had buried? He had buried six bodies in a tomb of lies and secrets, six hundred metres into the cold silence of the earth, and there was no way he could look upon them without breaking. He knew, because their transparent echoes sometimes woke him at night, coated in sweat without duvet or pajamas to blame for it. Humankind is blessed and cursed in that way: whatever dies lives on in memory, for better or for worse.

"I can show you how the Futotsuki meditate when we prepare for bonding", Sen continued, sitting still like a doll and speaking almost like one, too. "If it doesn't help you make peace with your demons, it can at least help you focus when you shield."

Sen guided him through a number of steps on how to sit, how to align his vertebrae for maximum support with minimal effort, how to breathe and how to centre his self on a single point of existence. It was surprisingly difficult, especially the last part. Shiro was a restless nature, with a restless mind, and not well suited for meditation.

"Be the master of your own nature", he repeated to himself, inhaling and exhaling on Sen's count. "Or be devoured by it."

A/N:

Cardia is the first part of the stomach after the oesophagus. (I figure Shiro must've studied anatomy to become Doctor.)