Tilling Soil

By: Aviantei

Chapter Fourteen

Despite all her reluctance on the matter, Whiskey thought herself pretty decent when it came to combat. She also placed a decent amount of pride in her speed and her demonic senses, which were useful when it came to detecting incoming attacks. It was that combination that made it all the more surprising when she tumbled to the ground, colliding with enough of an impact that Behemoth's leash almost slipped out of her grasp.

Rin actually…tackled me?

Considering that she'd just headbutted him, it was probably a fair retaliation. Still, it wasn't a move she'd expected. Him trying to chase after her, sure, but knocking her down? There was enough momentum in the blow that they rolled across the grass a couple times, and it was a miracle that the two didn't end up tangled in Behemoth's leash. The hobgoblin grunted a few times in excitement, his instincts plus the training he'd received from Amaimon making the connection between "battle" and "playtime."

"What the hell are you doing?" Whiskey more shouted than asked, trying to spit the taste of dirt and grass off her tongue. Even without his blue flames out, Rin's temperature always ran warm, and she could feel the heat pressed into her back where Rin was half-heartedly trying to keep her from escaping. Whiskey knew her demonic aura was starting to boil over with her temper, but she still maintained a sense of control. Proper decorum, Vati liked to lecture, is always a must, Whiskey-chan. "If you keep this up, you're going to stop me from doing what I need to do."

"I don't care!" Rin said, sounding every bit like a child throwing a temper tantrum.

Every second was another opportunity for Amaimon to decide that Ayane was boring and to find some other way to entertain himself. Based on what Whiskey had felt earlier, his powers weren't fully sealed, just buried under enough deterrents that it would be very unpleasant for Amaimon to try. What if he hit a critical point where he determined it was worth that risk, though?

Memories from the past few months overlapped with those from the end of middle school, and Whiskey bit down hard on her tongue, preferring the thought of tasting blood over bile, even as she still struggled.

Her elbow made a hard collision with some soft spot—the throat, judging by Rin's garbled sound of pain—which, sorry not sorry—and Whiskey gained enough momentum to at least twist herself so there weren't blades of grass poking into her nostrils anymore. "I said, let me go!"

"Are you going to let me come with you?"

"Of course not!"

"Then no!" Rin kept trying to keep Whiskey's hands from landing any blows, but he wasn't fighting her with all his strength. Kurikara was still inside the kendo bag Rin totted around for cover. Whiskey could boost her own demonic aura in a few seconds and incapacitate him so he couldn't follow. "I'd get it if this was some top secret thing. But it's not, 'cause you would have said so if it was. So there's no reason I can't help you out with it. Friends help each other, dammit!"

Whiskey's heart ached. Oh, how she envied Rin. Envied his honest nature, that didn't care about outer appearances. Envied his ability to jump in to help others, even when he was in trouble. Those attributes made her jealous and made her like him even more.

If he kept going, she'd break down.

He can't get involved with this. Yes, it's his choice. But he shouldn't have to clean up after my messes. So the only way to get him to stop is—

Whiskey hated it, but she liked to think she understood Rin enough that it would make an impression. So she said fuck it, shook the limiters off of her soul, reached into the fresh sources of power she'd picked up for her Submission when she'd gone with Vati to Russia, and let her demonic abilities crackle the air with their presence. Her muscles pulsed with enough strength to throw Rin off, and he sailed through the air over Behemoth's head.

"Fine," Whiskey said in what was much more of a spit than actual words. "If you wanna play stubborn shonen protagonist, fine. You can either let me go, or I can kick your ass into letting me go. Your pick, Rin."

Part of her hoped that Rin would relent, that Rin would let the whole thing go—at least until a point when Whiskey had calmed down enough to have a rational conversation and her uncle wasn't potentially at risk for setting off an earthquake. But all Rin did was give her the unfiltered and unrelenting grin of a street punk ready to face the next poor sucker approaching to try and take his title.

"Sure," Rin said, punching one fist into the opposite hand, "let's do it."

Whiskey almost faltered right then and there she was so thrown off by his casual attitude. "You sure look happy for someone that's about to get an ass-kicking."

"Well, yeah. That's 'cause you've been stressed. Fighting's a great way to blow off some steam." Rin rolled his shoulders, not reaching for Kurikara, but definitely tensing up enough that he was ready. "I heal pretty quick, you know. So you're gonna have to work at it if you want to take me down."

This little—

Whiskey yanked hard on Behemoth's leash, pulling the excited hobgoblin straight off the ground. "Submit!" she called, and soon the demon had tucked itself away inside her inner pocket dimension, where should call him out later. Thankfully, she'd caught Behemoth enough off guard that he hadn't been able to resist. Her tail lashed through the air, and she could see Rin's own starting to bristle with something like anticipation. "Last chance to take it back, Rin."

But Rin only grinned, and Whiskey sprung into action.

The smell of his own blood was enough to bring back less than pleasant memories from inside Mephisto's prison of nothingness, but Amaimon pushed those thoughts aside. His claws were razor sharp enough even without enhancement that his skin split into clean lines, each of them dripping red. Ayane went pale through her tan, and a terror he hadn't expected slipped onto her expression.

"Amaimon-san!" Ayane closed the distance between them, tentatively reaching for his arm before hesitating, then abandoning whatever had held her back as she took his hand in hers. Amaimon let her, trying to process exactly why she was so scared while she got a good look at the wound. Neat lines, no serration or anything, barely skin deep. It was a laughable injury for anyone in Gehenna, and especially for someone with Amaimon's power. "Are you alright? No, no, you're bleeding so you're not—You can't just go and hurt yourself like that!" Ayane finally shouted, though she sounded undecided on whether to worry about him or scold him.

"Look," Amaimon said without much inflection, and Ayane bit her lip but obeyed, almost too shocked to ask questions. Amaimon had to remind himself that she was a human, simple and fragile. No matter that she obviously had fighting experience, her idea of risk was completely different to his. It was a line that usually separated the weak from the strong.

But Ayane's not…

Amaimon's natural healing capability finally kicked in, and his skin pieced itself together without so much as a scab or a scar. There were still lines of blood on his arm, sure, but nothing too awful. Ayane's eyes widened and her mouth fell open, but she didn't say anything. For the first time, Amaimon actually wanted to know how to understand things in humans besides fear.

"You—the injury—it just—" Ayane stammered, and Amaimon frowned. Maybe he'd gone too far? But Mephisto's spells didn't play nice with him mentioning anything about Gehenna—just saying the name before had put him off his appetite. What else was he supposed to do? Ayane's fingers drew lines over Amaimon's forearm, tracing where the wound had once been. When was the last time Amaimon had felt skin to skin contact that wasn't violence? "They were there. I saw them. But they're gone."

Amaimon considered explaining demonic healing, and the same nausea from Mephisto's spells threatened to push everything he'd eaten since that morning up his throat. He thought about saying it anyway, because it was the best way to get Ayane to let loose. He wanted to see her fight, but he couldn't while she still thought he was breakable, so if she understood—

A faint sting erupted on his cheek, and the sound that belatedly registered with his ears what that of a smack.

"You asshole!"

Ayane was trying to take deep breaths to calm herself down, but the scowl and flush of anger on her face seemed to imply that wasn't working out so well. Amaimon's blood was still dabbled over her fingers, and some of it had painted fresh dampness over his cheek where she'd slapped him. Still too confused to even know where to start, Amaimon stared at Ayane and the tears welling up in the corner of her hazel eyes.

"You can't just scare me like that!" she shouted, her breaths and shoulders shaking. Still, the politeness in her voice had vanished, as if it had never been there in the first place. "Playing a trick like that isn't funny. I don't want you to joke about hurting yourself ever again, you understand me?!"

At some point or another over the centuries, Mephisto had said something about how humans' minds would fill in the holes whenever encountered with things that they couldn't understand. Amaimon hadn't understood it at all, then, not at all concerned with how humans thought, but it seemed relevant now. In Ayane's peaceful little human life, people couldn't just regenerate their injuries, so she saw it as some trick of the eye instead.

Amaimon's silence didn't do Ayane's mood any favors, and she pulled back her arm to deliver a punch to his diaphragm, her knuckles making the barest of indents in Amaimon's demon muscle—though not for lack of trying. "I asked you a question, Amaimon. Now answer!"

"Okay," he said before he processed what she was so worked up about. "I won't do it again." Probably a smart move, since he doubted Mephisto would let him get away with such a thing a second time. He missed Gehenna, where things were simpler, none of this mind game crap, but he also didn't want to go back just yet. Changing tactics, Amaimon pointed a finger at where Ayane's fist was still pressed up against his chest. "You were trying with that hit, right?"

Ayane bared her teeth and narrowed her eyes into a glare that most people wouldn't ever dare to level at the King of Earth. "Since it seems to be the only way to get your attention, yes." She didn't sound happy about it at all, but Amaimon felt a thrill of something like excitement stir inside him.

"Then you should get it." Underneath all the fragile human layers of politeness she put up, Ayane was a warrior. She still seemed wary, but there wasn't a complete reluctance in her like before. "You can't break me, Ayane," he said, and her eyes widened, making it clear the tears that had come beforehand weren't gone. "And anyone you could break isn't worth your time." She deserved to stand on the same field as people who could fight with her, could give her a challenge, not held back by all the silly little rules and morals that humans had pressed upon them since birth.

If you'd been born a demon, Amaimon thought, not knowing what the rest of the sentence was.

Ayane stared at Amaimon a bit longer before hurriedly looking away to scrub at her eyes. Amaimon continued to stare, because he had no idea what he was supposed to do. Normally, when humans started crying around him, there was some other type of battle to distract him. Further, some tiny part of his mind didn't like seeing her cry.

Amaimon sighed, because he didn't want to say the words, but he knew he wasn't getting what he wanted like this. "We don't have to fight today," he said with a faint huff, "but one day you're going to challenge me. And I'll still do what you want if you win."

And Ayane nodded. "I'll keep that in mind, Amaimon-san."

"My, my," Mephisto said, sprawled out face down on a reclining beach chair with a pair of pink opera glasses in his hand. "Self-restraint is a new look on you, little brother. I'm almost impressed." Then again, the outcome of that conversation was well within the range he wanted to see, so it wasn't like he was about to complain.

No, if there was anything to complain about…

Mephisto turned so that he could see a completely different drama. The forms of Rin and Whiskey reflected in the lenses of his (admittedly unnecessary, unless you counted the aesthetic value) opera glasses, the occasional flash of purple or blazing blue coming out as the demonic energy leaked out in bursts. "Now, Okumura-kun not having any sense of self control, I understand, but I know I've taught you better, Whiskey-chan, my dear. That Okumura-kun sure is turning into a bad influence, isn't he?" Despite his words, Mephisto grinned, his bat parasol mirroring the expression.

"Well, if nothing else, we can't let that get too out of hand, can we?" Mephisto snapped his fingers, erecting a separate time/space for Rin and Whiskey to inhabit while they worked out their problems. He liked True Cross Academy Town when it wasn't burnt down to the ground, thank you very much. And stopping the scuffle would only…

This time, for sure, he thought, though he didn't let himself complete that all-too optimistic wish.

If the smile slipped off Mephisto Pheles's face for a moment, there was no one around to see it.

After everything he'd been through in the past five months—not to mention all the years beforehand—Rin thought he was qualified to tell whenever a scuffle was a real fight. This, what he and Whiskey were doing, wasn't fighting so much as flailing. Sure, there were teeth and claws and snarling punches and a bit of blood, but it wasn't really anything you could call serious combat.

This was something closer to a street brawl, or even two animals challenging each other, with none of the refinement or serious force you could really consider a fight.

Okay, maybe some people would disagree, Rin thought as Whiskey landed a blow that knocked one of his teeth loose, but compared to fighting Amaimon or the Impure King, this is nothing.

Whiskey had proven he was capable of pulling even higher-ranked demons into his Submission. And Rin, half-human as we was, still had enough demon in him that that power might even be able to suck him in. Hell, since he was only so much as fighting on instinct rather than any active mental resistance, it might not even take that much effort for Whiskey to seal him away. But he wasn't doing that.

Instead, they were tumbling across the grass, rolling across the park as they continued to fail at each other. Rin might have worried about his uniform getting stained if it weren't for the fact that he and Whiskey had both already gotten blood over their clothes. Any wounds had already healed themselves, and the fresh ones stitched themselves back together almost as quickly as they formed. It was a blur, really, a series of exchanges that only really registered in flashes of action and the occasional pain.

Rin hadn't fought like this, just for the hell of it, since before he'd awoken to his powers. And while he'd started the whole thing for Whiskey's sake, Rin realized that he needed it, too, pieces of him relaxing that he hadn't even realized were tense until now.

Do you feel that relief, too, Whiskey? Are you feeling any better?

There wasn't an opportunity to ask, let alone get any words out. Whiskey was fierce and more than willing to take advantage of any openings that Rin left open. Sure, he doubted any of them would be fatal, but they'd still hurt a lot, and Rin wanted to last long enough for Whiskey to blow off at least some steam. So Rin struck back when he could, not bothering to hold back because he couldn't afford to. Every now and then, he'd hit the ground on his back, feel the press of Kurikara secure in its kendo bag against his spine, a reminder of how much harder this fight could go, if they both decided to take things seriously.

And then he would have to dodge so Whiskey's claws would only graze his cheek instead of take out his eye, and everything else would just sort of stop mattering after a while.

After what felt like hours but could have easily just been a fraction of one, Rin started to wonder if he was going to have the energy to even eat before he passed out. His stomach panged in hunger at the thought, and that was distraction enough for him to be far too late in realizing that Whiskey had snagged his tail with one hand while almost tearing a fresh hole in the back of his shirt with the other.

"Enough of this alreadyyy!"

Rin didn't know what the move was called or if it even had a name, but that mattered little in the face of the fact that Whiskey had hefted him up and thrown him across the park with just enough force held back that Rin didn't end up splattered into a tree. He tried to pull himself back up to attack while still trying to suck in a breath, but Whiskey had also thrown himself to the ground, leaving both of them to stare up at the motionless clouds in the sky while they lied in the grass.

"Were you serious, earlier?" Whiskey asked between breaths. "About wanting to fight because you thought it would help blow off steam?"

"Well, yeah," Rin said through a chuckle. He used a forearm to wipe the sweat from his face, then just let himself enjoy the sensation of lying on the ground. "Maybe I shouldn't brag about it, but I've been in plenty of fights before, you know. And I know that when I try to hold back, I just get frustrated, so I wanted you to have a safe place to go all out and burn off some steam."

Whiskey grunted, but it turned into a short laugh partway through. "You're a piece of work, Rin," he said, but it wasn't a serious insult by any means. Besides, it was true. "Still, I don't wanna admit it, but maybe I needed that. There's just been…" Whiskey sighed. "There's the Seven Mysteries, and then there's the mess with the True Cross that Vati took me to see."

"Whatever's going on with that senpai and Amaimon?"

Whiskey moved fast enough to make an audible rustle in the grass, and Rin only caught the tail end of Whiskey's expression when he appeared in Rin's vision. "You knew," Whiskey said at a whisper.

"Yeah," Rin answered in a croak. "Not everything, but that something was going on and that you were involved. But I—" Rin looked away, half-heartedly staring down a somehow not destroyed flowerbed nearby "—wanted you to tell me first."

"Ah." Whiskey didn't say anything for a while, and Rin couldn't figure out anything else to add. "Sorry."

"Nah, you don't gotta." Another laugh slipped out of him, and Whiskey's expression shifted into confusion. "I was just… You're supposed to be smarter than me, Whiskey. We're gonna be in trouble if this keeps up."

Whiskey spluttered out a laugh, too, though it was somewhat watery. "We're both already in trouble, silly." He sighed and adjusted so he was sitting cross legged. Rin sat up himself so they could easily see eye to eye. Whiskey's smile was strained. "Something big's coming, Rin. Something the True Cross is even worried about. And I don't think it's going to stay away from us, either." Whiskey paused once more. "If you already know, I guess there's no point in hiding it, though."

"Uh, yeah?" Rin said, who'd been more focused on giving a listening ear than participating in the conversation. All the politics mumbo jumbo wasn't his strength at all. But Whiskey just seemed more at ease than before.

"Yeah," he said, "I'll let you know about what's going on with Amaimon and Fukui-senpai."

When the day ran out and Amaimon returned to the spot where he was supposed to meet up with Mephisto's kid, he didn't find any trace of the brat around. He did, however, sense Mephisto's presence, and that was more than enough to convince Amaimon to stay put instead of running off to his own devices. Then again, so long as he was in Ayane's presence, his activity would probably just be finding something else to snack on, but even that didn't sound so bad.

Especially when in comparison to—

Amaimon bit down on his thumbnail hard enough to make it creak, and Ayane gave him a concerned look. "Is everything alright?"

"She's late," Amaimon said, not feeling like dwelling on it more, and he shook off Ayane's apparent confusion. "Don't worry about it." He somewhat expected Ayane to run off back home or whatever she needed to do, but she stayed standing by him. "You're not going to leave?" Whiskey had been insistent on getting Ayane back to the school by some curfew or whatever, so Amaimon had figured it was a big deal.

Amaimon's ears had no problem picking up the jump in Ayane's heart rate, and her cheeks seemed to tint pinker than the light from the sunset would allow. "Ah, well, that's—" She caught herself from stammering before starting over. "You… I appreciated what you said before. So I figured that I could at least wait with you a bit longer. Well, if that's okay, Amaimon-san."

"It's not okay." Ayane looked stunned before Amaimon continued, "I don't want to hear you calling me '-san' anymore."

"Huh? But, uh, like, Amaimon-kun, then?"

"No." The color on Ayane's face flushed even darker than before in a way that would have been much more fitting if she'd been exerting herself in a fight than just having a conversation. Amaimon hunched over a bit so he could get a better look at Ayane. "Earlier. You just called me by my name without anything else. Do that again."

Ayane waved her hands. "A-are you sure? I mean, uh, I guess other languages don't all do that sort of thing, but if I took off any honorifics from your name, then…" Ayane trailed off, and Amaimon waited for the explanation to follow. Sure, he could understand what the things meant, but adding all sorts of tags just seemed like a waste of time to him. "That would mean you and I are…close."

Amaimon tilted his head. "Aren't we?"

"Not enough for that!" Ayane's fist hit Amaimon's shoulder, but it was much more of a gentle bump than her earlier blow. Still not understanding, Amaimon frowned. He called her by just her name, and she hadn't made any objections, so what was the difference? Recognizing his expression, Ayane let out a groan. "Sheesh, you're not going to let this go, are you? Fine then! But you don't get to go and take it back, got it?" Not even thinking such a thing, Amaimon nodded his agreement. "Alright. I'll be sure to call you that next time, A—Amaimon!"

A vial of tension that Amaimon hadn't even realized he'd been holding on to slipped straight down and out of his spine. "Ayane."

Ayane had somehow worked herself to a point of near hyperventilation—and the sound of a ringtone from her pocket quickly snatched her attention, and she got into a rapid-fire discussion with whoever was on the other end. The conversation was done in the span of a few minutes, and Ayane spun back around to dip her head.

"Sorry," she said, "my roommate was worrying about me since I've been out a while. I wanted to stay with you, but I should…"

Amaimon shrugged. "Go ahead." Normally, he would want to extend this moment as long as possible, extend his freedom, but Mephisto was still nearby, and it didn't do good to keep Aniue waiting. "Another time," Amaimon said, hoping there would be another time, that whatever game Mephisto was playing wasn't already over.

The smile that blossomed on Ayane's expression was so unrestrained that Amaimon thought he could almost feel one forming on his own face. "Yeah! Just let me know when you're free again, okay? I'll go ahead and keep my schedule open. Alright—talk to you later, Amaimon!"

And with a wave and a happy laugh, Ayane sprinted off. She'd barely slipped out of sight before Mephisto's presence drew closer, and then he was there, white suit and flamboyant gestures and all. "I'm impressed," Mephisto said, barely constraining a grin. "You seemed to be having rather a lot of fun right there, weren't you?"

Amaimon let out a noncommittal sound. Ayane was enjoyable. Normally, Amaimon didn't think much beyond that. But there was a nub of curiosity starting to take root inside of him, and that was something that could only grow if you gave it the time. Did he want to bother, to pursue something else with what little he could manage? Could it possibly be a different cure to boredom than he would normally consider?

"I want," he said instead of an answer to Mephisto's question, "to learn more about humans."

Mini Bonus:

"It's…a wall?"

Rin cocked his head at the invisible obstacle in their way, and Whiskey grit her teeth beside him as she focused her demonic senses on figuring out what the hell was the problem. She'd agreed to make up for their missed dinner opportunity by chipping in for a meal that evening, but they'd run into an issue: namely that they couldn't get out of the park that they'd ended up fighting in.

"Kind of," Whiskey said after a moment. "This smells like Vati's work, so it's probably some kind of trap box? Like a pocket dimension." The implication that he'd noticed enough of their scuffle to actually block it off was mortifying, and Whiskey didn't want to think of the scolding she'd get later. No, sooner. Because I definitely don't have the power to get out of this on my own. "I'm going to have to call him. Sorry about this…"

"No, no, you're not to blame. Your old man's the one that did this." Rin gave a reassuring smile, and Whiskey did her best to return it. "Do what you gotta do, Whiskey. I'll wait."

With a quick affirmative, Whiskey dug her phone from her pocket and dialed Vati's number—only to get the disappointing response of his voicemail box. She tried a few more times, to similar results, and her increasing frequency of curse words gave Whiskey a hint as to how her progress was going. Too worn out to even try to get her composure back, Whiskey heaved a sign and dropped her forehead on Rin's shoulder with an animalistic groan. "Sorry."

"It's okay! We'll figure something out," Rin said, doing a decent job at sounding reassuring. "Like, hey, we're two half-demons with really strong powers. We can figure this out. Here! Let me go ahead and try to see if I can cut it open—"

They ended up waiting for Vati to bail them out.

[Author's Notes]

Welcome back to the conclusion of the second date arc! All sorts of things happening here. I hope the read was enjoyable.

Thanks to Lady Skynet and Dragon Lord Draco for the reviews! You're both champs, and I adore seeing comments, so I hope this chapter is worthy of your thoughts as well!

To answer a quick question in regards to Whiskey's gender, nonbinary can mean a lot of different things for different people, but it can have different connotations than gender fluid. In Whiskey's particular case, she's comfy being seen as a girl, boy, or otherwise, so all the main pronouns apply. Hence, some characters will see her as female, others as male, others as neutral, and they're all correct! It's not necessarily a big piece of this story, but it does impact the narration, so that's definitely a thing. Enby rep for the win!

That aside, this chapter was a slight struggle to write at times, but still fun. Looking forward to seeing your reactions to this and to what's to come!

Next chapter will go live in two weeks; please look forward to it!

-Avi

[09.23.2020]

Next Time:

"Oh, you're already awake, Miyamoto-chan?"

"And it's not that Ayane-san can't take care of herself, but I just don't want her to get hurt."

"Exactly! So how in the world does she still wanna go out with him?!"

"Does that mean you have her number? I'm so jealous, Whiskey-chan."

"But if you spend all your time practicin', that boyfriend of yours is gonna end up getting lonely."

"Since when the hell did you become a self-care guru, Michiko-chan?"

"Don't worry about it. I can talk."

"So I would like it if you could come and watch, at least for a little bit. So you can see the new way I've learned how to fight."