Briar Rose Syndrome

by TheBeingOfEverything

Someone wants to teach Samael some humility. That the form their lesson takes may just kill him is something Rin has an issue with. Roping in a reluctant Amaimon to help him track down the culprit and a cure, Rin begins his quest to wake Mephisto before his sleep becomes permanent.*A Sleeping Beauty AU*

8. Betwixt Light and Dark

Summary:

Is that dawn on the horizon? No, it's just a pillar of blue flames blowing straight through the stratosphere.

Notes:

We're in end game, baby. Hope everyone's ready~

Also wow, kinda crazy the first chapter of this monster was posted last year Feb 19 and it's almost as long as Incandescence at this point, like, it's going to overtake it by a long shot next chapter for the climax and then the epilogue, which should definitely be contained in one chapter- I said, lying to myself again (: (: (:

Song(s) of the Chapter:

Beautiful Crime by Tamer

All the King's Men by The Rigs

---

Existence wasiswillbe agony.

It knewknowswillknow this from the start.

And to know it was to crave it.

Craving became its entire existence.

But there was another deeper ache that made itself known, something missing from its core. Like it missed half of itself, even if it was whole.

Like some other aspect of itself was out there in existence.

Whatever it was missing, it needed to find, knew it with a certainty filling everything and echoing into the ether.

First though, it needed something, a way to house its being, to funnel its concept into a definable form.

A vessel, a body.

That first breath that tore from a throat raw and bloody with screaming was the sweetest thing it had ever tasted.

The second breath never came. Its form couldn't last, couldn't fit into a host so small and ill-suited.

Violent death took its first brush with life.

Back to the agony of existence, of being without and knowing it the entire time. Its ego dispersed, lost, it forgot itself for a time that stretched further than the actual passing of it should rightfully be.

Hunger for more kept it from staying lost.

The second time was more successful.

Two breaths, a kaleidoscope of sensation washing its thoughts away until it was nothing more than one giant agonized state of being. It held on for as long as it could, the desire to exist welling up in a surge of energy that halted everything in a controlled stasis.

Pressure at the seams, it cried out, a terrible screech, desperate to stay, to avoid returning to that nothingness.

Its second brush with death came and sent it back.

No!

Not again. It wouldn't suffer that again.

This time, it felt the shape of things, poking and prodding and resisting the wildness inside that drove it to take until it had what it wanted.

Vessels shivered under its passing, the sense of wrongness as repelling as it was inviting. Even those two small deaths it had experienced were ecstasy.

When it took one, it stayed right up to the moment before death would be permanent, then, in a wrenching force of will, it left.

Several more possessions of that vessel, several more eternities before instincts let it know to open its eyes.

Physicality swept it under, every fiber of its being rang with overwhelming sensations it didn't have names for, couldn't separate one from the other. Something rushed in its senses, a thrumming beat, life pulsed around it, and, like an exposed nerve, it felt it all.

With it- pre-existing it, even- was knowledge. Infinite possibility flowed alongside the information from its vessel. The two tangled together to leave it stunned.

And, the vessel still wasn't perfect. Already it could feel the energy of its being as it ate away at the cells containing it and added bright, maddening pain to the environment it slowly adjusted in.

"Ah-h," its vessel released a cracking stutter that vibrated the meat making up sections of it, the names and words for everything escaping it under the confusing sensory whirl.

While the strangeness of being on the physical plane absorbed its thoughts, that absence that hadn't left yet drove it to move the vessel. Grit scratched to it, a feeling that almost sent it back down in a shuddering heap.

Find it find it find it

Desire so powerful it washed away the world had it falling, gasping more of those vibrations until it saw it was in a new place. The scents of that place hit it seconds later and it collapsed again.

Closer, it was closer.

The thing it was missing, it had to-

Reality twisted again, reforming in another location.

Still not where it had to be.

Once more. It had arrived at a new setting full of new scents, bombarded with sensations on its vessel it couldn't comprehend.

That call to his aspect had grown, like it was on the other side of a film of energy, so close it didn't know how it wasn't within grabbing distance of what it was missing.

Another ache had developed along with the ache of its aspect in a vessel. Something warm dripped, impeding its vision. A strange, addictive flavor knocked it down, bright and sharp in its mind and whiting its senses out until it was all it focused on.

Heady, filling it from the inside as it strained to get more of the liquid.

More sounds from its vessel, then. It gouged into it, letting that warmth fall and gathering it again, sounds muffled.

But…

Black spots began to fill its vision, its desperate motions tapered off when it couldn't force its vessel to move.

It faded, awareness vanished.

Waking later tore more sounds from it as it tried to separate its mind from the sensations inundating its vessel.

That urge to rend had left, only the urge to discover what was missing remained.

Just one more time-

That barrier broke, it reappeared, jerking towards the source of that thing tugging at its very essence and, when it saw it, lurching to fall into its arms.

Space, enveloping its aspect and cradling its vessel as it did the same.

Twin stars collapsed in on each other, close as they hadn't been since they'd formed in the ether at the dawn of time.

It knew then what it had been missing.

As one, they spoke, words coming to them from the minds of the vessels they'd taken.

"We found you."

Its other half.

---

Years passed, with them came knowledge. Of themselves and the physical world, of Assiah.

Of another aspect, like them, but not. Stronger.

And they learned of the beings that populated Assiah and housed their aspects.

Those beings, amongst all others, were fascinating.

They had no aspect, their lives were drops in a cosmic bucket, still they persisted. They created.

He loved them.

Their lives played out in the timestream and prodding several of them in one way caused ripples in another.

To toy with them was something he would never tire of.

"We're bored." His other half didn't think the same.

How?

"We want to go to Gehenna."

What was there in Gehenna for them that Assiah couldn't provide? What worth, what entertainment could they find there in that stagnant place?

"We," his other half hesitated, biting his lip until he bled, "we're going to go, if we won't."

What? He snarled, confused and hating it. He tackled his other half, hissing in his face and digging claws deep into his shoulders to pin him down.

But, besides a wince of pain, his other half didn't react, staying limp beneath his body.

We can't! Why would we?

Soft fingers traced at his contorted features.

"We-" Space said, firm, unyielding, set in his path, "-I am going to Gehenna."

When his other half rose, he couldn't stop him, kneeling in his lap with his knees pressed to the ground as if he could freeze him there with just his vessel.

"It won't be forever, we- you know this," Space said, hands drifting to his jaw to tilt it so he could nose into his throat, scenting him out with a deep inhale.

He did. He did know, could see it play out. It didn't make the cleave in his chest any lesser.

Space left him, standing to stare down at where he couldn't move before ducking his chin and speaking.

"I found my name," my, I, individuated from each other, "it's Abduxuel."

He didn't have his own name yet, hadn't seen the need to when they were one.

Now, with 'we' becoming 'I', he had in turn become nameless.

His other half- Abduxuel- smiled down at him, then with a snap, he was gone.

---

"I'm bored."

He arched a brow at Abduxuel, seeing his crossed arms over his suit where he stood at the end of the couch.

Why not try the new play at the theater the humans put on? Or the new restaurant he'd tried that Abduxuel would like? The humans had just invented a new drink he'd especially enjoy called absinthe, it matched the color of his eyes.

He already knew it wasn't what Abduxuel meant.

The wry smile quirked at him said Abduxuel knew it too.

"I want to go to Gehenna," there it was, that infernal place- literally.

Abduxuel surprised him by vanishing to appear draped over his now sprawled form on the couch, smile turned teasing as he picked at the ties of his loose shirt.

"Come with me, you didn't go with the last time."

There were many reasons for that, all of which made him want to grumble and huff like a human child, though it wouldn't change Abduxuel's mind.

"We can see -, and -, too, while we're there," Abduxuel said as he propped his chin on his fist, their noses just brushing together until he went cross-eyed trying to keep him in focus.

"They're almost as inseparable as us." The nuzzle Abduxuel drew over his cheek had him closing his eyes and sniffing. Unlikely. No beings were as inseparable as they.

A long ago whisper of 'we' had him hiding a tensing of his body. Abduxuel picked up on it anyway.

"Just a few years, we'll be back before the humans can even come out with their next technological breakthrough."

They would, though the fascinating string of events leading up to those breakthroughs would be annoying to miss.

But his current plans were moving along without his interference and everything else was just fun.

Fine, if it would make Abduxuel happy, he could suffer a few years in Gehenna.

"Wonderful," Abduxuel beamed at him in a flash of fangs, "thank you, love."

This time he couldn't stop the way his body froze.

What?

Confusion spun in Abduxuel's eyes and he realized he'd let out a soft growl. Shaking himself, he covered it with a laugh, short and sharp.

Was Abduxuel trying a new human mannerism?

"Oh," Abduxuel said, expression crinkling as he grinned and stood to let him up, "yes, the humans have such cute ways of speaking to each other."

And it was so much fun to mimic the humans.

It would be entertaining to sow a little chaos amongst the others, he decided. Gehenna was so boring without them livening the place up every century or so.

"The other day I heard one of them refer to another as their 'little bumblebee'," Abduxuel said, chuckling as he raised a hand to take them from Assiah, "I think I'll try that one on - next time we run into them- it's too bad they lost their last vessel."

The words carried them away.

Consciousness drifted close behind, the memory falling apart with it as sleep took him under.

He remembered...

---

The world held its breath on the sound of a shattered sword.

Amaimon tightened his fingers on the blade, a spasm that sliced deep into his palm before the flames covering it guttered out in a superheated hiss.

Flesh knitting back together was secondary to the thoughts racing in circles through his mind.

Then he released the blade from his grasp and dove towards Samael, pulling him into his arms and bolting from the immediate vicinity.

A giggle tried to break from his clenched teeth, the wild pulse singing in his veins spurring him on as he landed on a jutting ridge on one of the peaks overlooking the ravine.

It didn't matter anymore if he used his abilities within Lucifer's territory, there wouldn't be any hiding after this.

Not with Rin…

Deep clouds of steam hid Rin from sight but not from his senses. Rin's cries still reached him on his vantage point. Should he hide Samael away? Would it make a difference?

Either way, Samael would die. By Rin's hand, Father's hand, or by the curse. In the end, he would still be dead.

Silence, the cries cut off. Only the steam wafting in aimless eddies rose from the ravine.

He stilled, listening, straining for a sign that Rin lived.

His heart pounded behind his ribs so hard he thought they would crack to release the meaty pulp of his vessel to the air, exposed and raw.

Was Rin dead? Had the poison taken him? Had he been too late?

Rin's presence grew faint, nearly indistinguishable from Gehenna.

"Rin." His voice cracked on the unbidden word, throat dry, as Rin's name shivered out to get lost in the buffeting wind. A useless gesture. What good could it-

Power welled up in a riptide, sucking the mists in the ravine into an inverted vortex until a sound like a thunder-strike shook the world and knocked him to his knees.

Fire followed soon after, filling the area and shooting straight into the stratosphere in a pillar of blue. Heat seared his skin despite the distance he'd fled to and his aspect pulsed in time with his heart, fighting to break free from the fragile confines and fling itself into the flames.

Beautiful.

Everything but the fire fell away, his body growing numb, all else meaningless in the face of that overwhelming power.

Amaimon might have made some sound, he didn't know, panting and mouth gaping on a silent scream, a laugh. This was Rin as he was meant to be, without the shackles on his power, without the illusion of humanity blunting his claws and fangs, turning those blue flames into embers instead of the wildfire that had spawned all the beings of Gehenna.

And, more important than anything else, Rin was alive. Amaimon hadn't killed him with his failure.

The blinding pillar dispersed, taking with it all the moisture in the vicinity, even the waters of the hot springs evaporated to leave Amaimon's vision clear of its haze.

Plumes of heat made it to caress his cheeks because those flames were still there.

In the center of the devastation, Rin stood, hair a shifting crown beneath blue-fire horns just above his brows and surrounded by an outpouring of his flames.

He couldn't see his eyes, Rin's face tilted to look at his hands, turning them over like he'd just discovered they existed.

At his feet, the tail that had once been an inky black was now bleached of color to match Rin's hair, a brilliant white stained blue by the flames. It slithered in slow, absent movements, the coils hypnotic.

And at his chest, floating there in absolute proof that Rin lived, was his demonic heart.

Watching it, the way it shone with the core of Rin's power, could have taken Amaimon centuries to be satisfied with. This was something he would never tire of.

Being so utterly enraptured by the sight meant it was too late that Amaimon noticed Rin's attention had shifted.

Irises of blue flame shot through with vivid, red slit-pupils gleamed up at him, highlighted by a wicked smile that bared fangs elongated to bristling wedges.

His heart stopped. That wasn't Rin behind those eyes, wearing that dangerous smile.

Between one breath and the next, Rin vanished.

Alarm sent him gripping Samael to his chest and ducking low to bolt.

Claws slid over the pounding artery in his neck, blue encroached on his vision, Rin was already there.

Too late!

"Amaimon," the syllables of his name purred out from Rin's lips in a way he would have been delighted to hear any of the other times he'd wanted to play.

"You said I might die if I used the sword," a scraping touch of Rin's clawed thumb swept along his throat, tracking the cold sweat that he'd broken into, "I feel great, like I want to let out all my flames."

As if to add to his point, the flames he released licked harder along Amaimon's shuddering frame, tugging at his hair and clothes and utterly encompassing. At any moment those flames could turn from comforting pressure to burning tomb. A pyre.

All on Rin's whim.

Fingers gripped white-knuckled into the fabric of Samael's clothes.

"Will you let me, Amaimon? It'll be fun." A whimper tried to force itself from his lips, held back by will and the knowledge of what would happen to him if he gave into the instincts screaming for him to run, to flee. He wanted to give in so badly, but he couldn't be prey.

Not if he wanted Samael to survive, if he wanted to keep his own vessel.

"Come on, I want to play," Rin crooned into his ear, his fingers a cage around Amaimon and his fangs grazing in a tantalizing slide to his skin. It was a cruel facade. An illusion. If he gave in, he would be torn apart, might still be destroyed if the fickle being at his back changed its mind.

"That's what you've wanted this whole time, right, Amaimon?" The sudden growl in Rin's tone sent his heart rate skittering in his chest. His grip tightened until Amaimon choked.

"Don't ignore me, Amaimon."

The danger broke on that last hiss of his name, turning to red violence.

He gagged around a constricted airway, impeded by the way Rin dug lethal claws into his windpipe and sent hot blood to suffocate him from inside.

Then Rin lifted his arm, taking Amaimon with it as he kicked his legs in the air, fighting for purchase when he knew he wouldn't find any but unwilling to take his arms from the hold he had on Samael.

"Say something," Rin snapped, shaking Amaimon as the tears in his jugular deepened, "why won't you play with me?"

Rin didn't wait for a reply, flinging him to the ground with only enough time for him to turn so it was his side bearing the brunt of the fall and not Samael.

Craggy rocks making up the cliffside stabbed into his body, the ones not battering deep internal bruises where they struck gouged furrows that stained the earth red when he finally came to a stop. But not for long, the flames still cocooned him, baking the surroundings until only the stone remained.

And Rin advanced.

Blood flecked his lips when he coughed to get it from his lungs. It burned there, turning to ash as Rin's flames balanced on the edge of true damage.

How could he stop Rin? He was just one of eight aspects that made up the power Rin wielded. Amaimon stared up into the cruel being bearing down on him in steady steps and knew his time dwindled each one closer.

Samael was limp in his arms, Rin hadn't even paid him any attention. Not when there was moving prey to keep his focus.

The flames pressed harder, like existence itself held him down, kept him from fleeing.

To attack was futile. Rin was upon him.

White blurred and Amaimon scrabbled at his throat where the coils of Rin's tail wound in a constricting noose.

He scored hits with his claws that Rin howled in pain at before the flames wreathing his tail flared and then it was Amaimon screaming.

Agony stole his mind from him along with his breath, eaten by the fire Rin enveloped his head with as it poured down his throat.

That all-consuming attack petered out, though it took him eternities to realize it, vision gone dark because the flames had melted his eyes in his skull.

Amaimon released a thin groan, Rin having loosened his tail enough that some air made it to his starving lungs. He couldn't tell if it was the lack of oxygen or healing from the searing fires that made every breath torturous.

"Why?" His hearing had returned, letting him take in the bitterness seeping from Rin's words, "you won't play with me. Why?"

Another attack like that, or if Rin had kept it up for any longer, and he would lose his vessel.

If he couldn't stop Rin now during the brief respite, it would all be over.

He wouldn't fail again.

Squinting up through healing eyes allowed Amaimon to see the frustrated expression on Rin's face, the smile that had been there changed to fangs bared in betrayal, as if Amaimon's refusal to play were hurting him in some way.

Samael had fallen from his arms, lying in a heap on the ground at their feet.

"Rin," Amaimon said, voice rasping from his abused throat and earning him a growl, a dangerous tightening of the noose. He continued despite it, hands coming up to lay over Rin's tail, feeling the short furs there through the fire licking at his fingers in a casual threat.

Meeting that furious gaze, Amaimon knew what he would say, "will you leave him there, Rin?"

"What?" Rin said, brows drawing together as he pulled away from Amaimon, "who cares-"

"Have you given up on your human displays?" Amaimon interrupted, not letting Rin hide from himself and meeting his stunned gaze with a glare.

A sharp inhale, as if he'd punched him in the gut, sent Rin reeling back, though he didn't let Amaimon free.

It was Rin's turn to look lost, making up for all the times he'd done the same to Amaimon. The blue flames of his irises flickered as if searching for something.

"If-" Amaimon gasped as Rin's tail flexed in a spasm, bruising his skin with the force of it and sending his mouth gaping to bring in air that wouldn't come. It loosened in the next moment and he forced the last thing he could think of to bring Rin back to himself out around retching coughs as his body healed the damage again, "-if Samael dies here, that's it. You wanted to save him, Rin. You-"

Another harsh gag he pushed through, black spots in his eyes. Amaimon ignored them both.

"-You told me that's why you're here," why he'd faced down both Assiah and Gehenna with Amaimon as his only ally, "remember, Rin?"

Blue eyes widened, Amaimon wondered if his gambit had paid off. He had no other options left, preparing to attack if he failed and knowing he would lose his vessel and Samael, his life, when he did. He would try anyway.

Rin gasped, jolting him from his thoughts. Amaimon watched as he stared, sightless and gaze turned inwards as if waging some internal battle. He didn't know who the victor would be.

Awareness returned like a thrown switch. Rin focused back on Amaimon with horror twisting his features, head turning down to see where Samael lay before returning to Amaimon again as he tried to speak.

"Amaimon, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I-" his eyelids shuttered over his pupils and Rin sank to his knees, his tail falling from Amaimon's neck as he went limp in sudden unconsciousness.

Amaimon dropped with him, heart thundering as the danger passed. He knew it wasn't the end, that a worse storm came for them and there would be no talking this one down.

They couldn't rest. There was no time.

He snapped and tore Rin from his sleep, putting his heart away at the same time and hearing a heaving exhale leave his lips as he gathered Samael in his arms again and rose.

"Wha-" Rin began to say, curling in on himself like a wounded animal as confusion left him panicked.

"We have to go, Rin," Amaimon snapped again to clothe him and bring him to his feet.

Taking in that wide, trusting gaze, Amaimon felt something harden in his chest. A determination.

"Father is coming."

On the horizon, hidden by the peaks, he could feel the horde descending on them.

And with them, Father's presence burned in his senses.

---

Dread filled every fiber of Rin's being, shredding the confusion and panic after what he'd done to Amaimon into a horrible confetti whirlwind in his mind.

But Amaimon didn't wait any longer, shoving him forward as he leapt for the next peak. Rin scrambled to follow, some detached part of him noting how much easier moving was, how weightless his body felt, as he pushed it harder than he'd done yet.

He'd hurt Amaimon, nearly incinerated him to ashes, would have killed him, if things had gone on any longer. He could still smell the burning hair and cooking flesh. All he'd felt then had been a fury that Amaimon wouldn't play with him, was ignoring him.

Disgust rose in his throat, stinging with acid bile.

Why had he done that?

Energy still flooded his veins with more power than he knew what to do with, a writhing thing that begged him to go faster, use more, unleash it all and keep going until he'd been drained dry.

He didn't think that well of power could ever be drained completely.

That wasn't the only part of his body that had changed, either.

Rin stared at the sky that had been dark and cloudy the entire time he'd been in Gehenna. If he didn't have fear drilling holes into his core he would have stopped and been unable to move again for a long time.

Where before purple miasma had shrouded everything, now he saw streams of energy swirling within the haze that lit the world up like it was a cloudless, midday morning in Assiah. The mountains they fled over had been illuminated until they almost blinded him to look at.

Was this how Gehenna looked to other demons?

A sharp crack sent his pulse into a wild beat. That had been from behind them, from the horde he could sense through the peaks that blocked their view.

With that horde, drawing closer despite the speed they fled at, was a presence he'd felt just once at the start of it all.

Another earth-shattering crack, like parts of the mountain were being sheared off, made Rin chance a look.

Blue flame broke the mists, shooting up into the sky in sporadic bursts.

To his side, Amaimon ran with grim determination, any signs of fear that he might have felt were covered, expression cold and utterly focused on their escape. Rin's heart dropped into his stomach, hating that his stupid inattention had led to all of their efforts crashing down around them.

"How close are we?" Rin shouted, "can we make it?"

Amaimon glanced at him from the corner of his eye, lips tugging into a hard press before he answered, "not close enough."

The lead weight in his gut hardened further, Rin swallowing but forcing himself to keep running, desperately hoping Amaimon had a plan.

If they didn't make it to Lucifer, what then?

His thoughts screeched to a halt, a wash of cold realization striking and making his limbs go numb.

They were headed to Lucifer. Lucifer, who wanted to turn him over to Satan. His breaths came in thin rasps from his mouth, every second feeling more and more like he was prey being chased into a dead end, boxed in at every exit.

There was no way Amaimon didn't know that, but what did that mean? Did Amaimon have a plan at all? The lack of telling signs from him left Rin without an answer.

Sharp whistling in the air, piercing his ears and making him flinch.

Something stabbed through Amaimon's chest from behind, just missing Mephisto and breaking through to the other side followed by an arc of vivid red.

"Gah-ack!" Amaimon choked on a cry, caught in the air midway through a leap and tumbling from the sky.

"Amaimon!" Rin shouted, reaching too late and watching Amaimon land on an ice shelf clutching the side of the mountain. He rolled, red staining the snow and somehow not losing hold of Mephisto.

Rin jerked to a sliding halt where he'd ended up ahead, body protesting the force as he tore back around to the form rising from the ground.

Another body cleared the nearest peak, dropping towards Amaimon just as Rin made it to his side and snarled at the first of the horde to arrive.

Wide bulbous eyes on the insect-looking demon snapped to him and a chittering cry went up.

Then that cry turned into a broken rasp and its body arched in writhing contortions. A viscous liquid gurgled up from its mandibles while Rin crouched in front of Amaimon with his fangs and claws bared even as his mind scrabbled to understand what was happening.

In the distance, he could hear the horde, could feel them growing closer.

He didn't have any more time to consider it as the insect stopped its movements and set its gaze on Rin. The mouth gaped in what could have passed for a grin.

It spoke.

"Found you, my son!"

The demon died in a blaze of blue flames.

Blue flames that hadn't come from Rin.

As the body fell, claws clamped around Rin's upper arm and he pulled away with a startled gasp, turning from the smoldering body in the snow to see Amaimon had recovered and urged him into a run again.

Thoughts flew in spiraling knots, tripping him up and sending his mind crashing into so much white noise. He ran without processing a thing and his nerves buzzed in frantic pulses that swept him under.

One clawed its way up above the rest, blaring with alarm until it was the only thing he was aware of.

After all this time, he'd come face to face with Satan.

What now?

Terrible screeching cries rang out, splitting the wind to burrow into his ears. They were victory cries. The horde had made it, were now dogging at their heels.

Any moment and they would be surrounded.

Rin grit his teeth, swallowing the fear and panic making his head hurt. Behind him, he could feel the fastest demons gaining on them, not slowed down by having to run when they could fly over the obstacles in their way.

They could still keep ahead of the ones on the ground. Even now, with his lungs taking in heaving gasps of the thin mountain air, he felt the power inside him that made the other demons seem like annoying gnats swarming in his face instead of the threat they had been before. If Satan hadn't been amongst them he would have delighted in getting to unleash his flames, to make them surge in an endless blue wave over the mountains until nothing but he, Amaimon, and Mephisto remained at the center.

It was the burst of blue flames that didn't belong to him, the mad, cackling laughter joining it, that drove danger deep into his bones and kept him from turning to face the horde. His gaze caught on Amaimon, saw the blood that still stained his clothes even if the damage had already healed.

On his own, Rin would have gladly turned around and either paid back Satan for taking so much from him, for taking Shiro and leaving Yukio to grow more distant every day since, or die trying.

But, he wasn't alone.

Mephisto's sleeping face where he hung limp in Amaimon's arms had Rin narrowing his eyes and forcing himself to ignore the enemies at his back. Amaimon had already risked so much to help him, something he hadn't realized in the beginning, and Mephisto depended on him to find a cure for his curse.

He wouldn't let petty revenge come between that.

So, when the next flyer to reach them entered his range, Rin snarled and flung his hand out, blue flame roaring in a long plume to turn it to ash when it couldn't escape in time as bitter victory curled in his chest.

If Amaimon thought they should keep running, then he would trust him and not make everything for nothing.

Sudden, wry humor had him laughing, bringing Amaimon to dart a startled expression towards him that had a half-hysterical grin stretching on Rin's lips as he explained.

"Just thinking," he shouted over the wind to Amaimon's bafflement, "Yukio and my old man would be so proud of me for following orders so well this whole time. That's never happened before!"

Fangs bared as Amaimon cracked a wide grin of his own, gold eyes gleaming at the smile they shared, wild with the adrenaline shooting in their veins and the almost certain death at their heels.

Ahead of them, a break in the mountains revealed a wide, snow-covered valley between the peaks and Rin knew their time for running had ended.

They touched down in the center, waiting for the horde. With what looked like a brief internal debate, Amaimon handed Mephisto to him, making a series of rapid-fire emotions flash through Rin, though he didn't argue, taking Mephisto and gripping tight.

"Rin," he glanced over at the call of his name, then stopped to see the steady look in Amaimon's eyes, earlier humor vanished, "you've done well."

Oh. Rin blinked in a flutter of lashes at the solemn praise from Amaimon, chest squeezing as he nodded with a soft thanks because he couldn't think of what else he could say. Except...

"Amaimon?" Rin said as the horde crested the peak, "I'm glad you're with me. I'm glad you chose to help."

An equally as soft sound of acknowledgement came from Amaimon.

Then, with a full-bodied shudder, Amaimon dropped his human facade, limbs stretching into their reptilian form and those green-scaled horns appearing on his head. He shook his clawed hands out in preparation while his tail lashed at his feet.

"Oh, one more thing, Rin," Amaimon said, fangs elongated and pupils slivered with the building bloodlust Rin could feel bubbling in his own body.

Amaimon grinned and it looked vicious.

"Use your flames."

He vanished, form a blur to meet the demons coming for them with a roar that shook the snow from the mountainsides, the white powder rising in rumbling flurries to fill the valley and wiping them from Rin's view.

Use his flames.

His heart skipped in a single, solid thud.

Beneath his skin, power welled up to bursting. After so long, he gave into the urge, releasing to send fire licking up his body before sinking back to embers.

Rin smiled, then he unleashed.

Like a bomb going off, like a sun bursting into existence, his fire billowed in a rapidly expanding circle, fed by the endless power of his core. It dove over the distance and met the flurries to hiss into steam seconds later.

In his arms, Mephisto stayed cocooned in the flames, ragged bangs tossed by the heated air but undamaged.

When even the steam evaporated under the torrent of his flames, Rin saw Amaimon tearing through the demons coming for him, luring the ones dumb enough or slow enough not to dodge straight into the fire where they burned up to ash.

Savage joy sent Rin from his spot to enter the fray. There was no good reason for him to be standing around when his flames worked at any angle he threw them at. The muscles in his legs bunched as he launched himself with his own roar to land in the middle of a group of demons his attack dispersed a moment later, death cries lost to all the others taking up throughout their new battlefield.

This was right, his mind sang under the surface. This was how it was meant to be- who he was meant to be.

There were no limits, couldn't be, if they wanted to survive this.

Fire poured from his body, expanding into a wider circle as demons tried to attack from every angle, filling the valley. Outside his sphere, Amaimon flung stone around like a toy, letting it take shape as fatal daggers or gaping crevasses that ate swathes of enemies whole, slamming shut to trap them in the bowels of their earthen tomb.

The cacophony of their fight, of the shattered earth, animalistic screams, flame, eating everything Rin didn't want to protect, made it hard to concentrate past the combat.

Something interrupted the din, a presence.

Satan dropped from the sky and parted his flames like a wave, the body he possessed ripping apart at the force it was under, trying to contain the entirety of Gehenna.

Rin gasped and stumbled back, raising a clawed hand in defense of where he held Mephisto as he prepared for impact.

His claws went through the body, a sick squelch of rent flesh as blood slicked his skin soon after.

A grinning face met him, Satan bringing his hands up to grip Rin's shaking forearm as he spoke around the death rattles of his current host, "so wonderful to see you, my son!"

Those flame-warped eyes that mirrored his flicked to Mephisto before the grin warped further, "and you've even brought your errant sibling home."

"A lost lamb..." he faded, voice echoing in Rin's ears, "...returned to the flock…"

The demon, now dead on his arm, burst into flames and sparks that leapt in Rin's stunned gaze. His hand twitched as if still held in Satan's clutches.

What was he-

Breaths shivered from his mouth, lost in the din, but the only thing Rin could hear was his pounding pulse, drowning everything out.

What game was Satan playing at? What did he want?

Around him, Amaimon lay waste to the horde, darting into and out of Rin's flames without any signs that he was afraid of them, afraid of Rin burning him again.

Like he trusted Rin with more than Mephisto's life. Like Amaimon trusted Rin with his, too.

Fine, Rin snarled, shedding the nerves that weakened his mind and sending a torrent of fire at the demons in the sky overhead.

Fine. It didn't matter that Satan was trying to play mind games with him, he wouldn't fail.

Amidst the most recent group of demons Rin had turned to ash, one stayed standing, its head snapping up to grin before leaping back towards him, already trailing blood in the air.

Bracing himself for contact, Rin shifted to guard Mephisto from any lucky strikes Satan might try to pull, wishing he had his sword still to give him breathing space. That hysterical feeling was back in his chest at the thought of getting breathing space away from Satan.

Bloodstained fangs bared around Satan's words when he called out over the destruction.

"And you've been bonding!" Satan said and lashed out as if to grab at the fabric of Rin's collar, like he would pull him closer into a parody of an affectionate touch, "it's so great to see siblings getting along."

"Bastard," Rin hissed, flame coming from his mouth as he spat the word and gutted Satan, raking his claws through flesh that gave way too easily, already rotted inside.

Satan laughed, head hanging limp from the host body as if he couldn't raise it anymore, as if the tendons had decayed like the rest.

"It's too bad-" Rin stopped his words with a hand around his throat, crushing it and letting it fall apart. It wouldn't do any good. Satan had already left the body. He didn't care. He'd burn every one of the demons coming for them until Satan didn't have a body to possess.

A sea of demons still poured in to fill the basin from all sides, raining down as they tried to break through his flames. Rin couldn't stay still, even protected from close combat by the barrier he'd formed, because they could still launch weapons or the environment that held up to the fire better than their bodies did.

Rin avoided a boulder the size of a car flung at his head, responding with his own fire-spout and letting a growl form when the demon darted out of range.

Vibrations in the ground made it hard to keep steady, rocking with each upheaval beneath him and fighting to stay standing.

He noticed too late the earth rumbling under his feet wasn't aftershocks from Amaimon's attacks. Ground crumbled away and claws dug into his calf muscle, tearing a cry from his mouth as he jerked to look at the source.

Satan grinned up at him from his newest skin, pulling himself from the earth and leaving strips of flesh behind. Rin fought to free himself one-handed, bombarded from the sky while Satan returned to his taunting.

"You didn't let me finish, son," Satan said, sneer on his face that said he knew Rin would rather tear off his ears than listen to him, "I was only saying how sad it was that this is all for nothing."

Red flooded Rin's vision. He didn't know if Satan was talking about Mephisto or the current battle. He didn't care.

"Fuck you," Rin hissed, then grabbed the grinning skull looking up at him and crushed it, breaking free from the decayed body and jumping to the next group, letting them ignite into cinders when they didn't get out of the way in time.

What was his goal? This whole time, Satan had wanted him brought to Gehenna, but he'd never known the reason, never really wanted to know it. Now that he'd discovered Rin actually in Gehenna, all he wanted to do was mock him? Did he even have a real purpose?

Shards of stone sliced across his face and Rin grunted at the assault, squinting his eyes and leaping at the demon who'd been the source. It and the others nearby died in shrieks lost to the all-consuming flames.

The waves of demons that had seemed so endless, so terrifyingly vast when he'd first seen them over the expanse of Iblis' kingdom now showed signs of lessening. He just had to keep going, keep the outpouring of his fire, until they were all gone and Satan couldn't use them anymore.

Without Satan in his immediate vicinity, victory hummed in his veins. When the urge hit him, Rin loosed another roar, feeling the instincts pulsing along with his power.

Amaimon took up the call from where he collapsed the side of the mountain closest to him and swallowed the screams of the demons under miles of stone and earth. This, this, was what Rin had held Amaimon back from in Iblis' territory because he'd been sealed and too weak to fight like he could now without that barrier.

His hair tossed around his head, whipping lines in his face that he barely felt with the flames buffeting him as he brought that power down on the half not fought by Amaimon.

Free. He felt free. Comfortable in his skin in a way he'd never been his entire life.

Laughter broke from his lips, visceral and harsh with the fangs he bared across the plane to the enemies challenging him, though whether they could hear him or not was up for debate.

An unhinged wildness accompanied him on his violent warpath, something that made him feel half-feral with the unending power flooding through his veins. Like he might get swept under if he stayed too long.

A flash of thought made it over the battle-song filling his head that was reminiscent of who he'd been at the start of it all. That Rin who had hesitated to punch through an obsidian pillar, had been afraid of his own power and heritage. That Rin saw the legions of demons falling to his flames and wondered if they all wanted to be there, fighting him, if they'd been forced into the conflict, if he was killing demons like Kuro.

There'd been cait sidhe amongst the horde, each one that he destroyed looked like his familiar.

The form that brought destruction down on them, a green blur that resolved itself as Amaimon when he came to a stop in the center of a now barren indent pressed into the ground, pushed aside whatever bit of the hesitant Rin that remained. Amaimon had told him he couldn't hesitate, couldn't show mercy, because Gehenna wouldn't show it to him, not if they wanted to survive.

He felt the faint heartbeat under his fingers where he clutched Mephisto to his chest, dodging in zig-zagging lines over the battlefield to leave his own destruction in his wake. His flames and the chaos taking all his focus meant he couldn't hear or feel the breaths that never got any stronger than a soft puff of air from between Mephisto's lips.

And his own snarls and cries as he fought almost drowned out that, without his flames chasing the chill away, Mephisto grew colder by the day. Rin could smell the decay eating at Mephisto's body, now. He could sense the curse, no longer a vague feeling that something was horribly wrong with Mephisto, but as a sickening parasite, latched onto his core and draining it exponentially.

It made Rin harden his expression into a dark glare at the demons in his way, the ones preventing him from getting to Lucifer and finding a cure for the damn curse killing Mephisto.

All because Satan wouldn't- couldn't- leave him the hell alone!

Rin sent his flames up the side of the nearest mountain, scorching a path through the demons along it as they tried to race towards him with a bitter satisfaction in his gut as they extinguished in his fire.

One survived. Satan had come back, was running full tilt down at him with that warped smile on his face that Rin was beginning to hate.

This time, he met him head on, sinking his claws deep into the arms attempting to reach him in a mocking embrace, Satan still maintaining the illusion that they were a family reunited, like it was some kind of game he was playing.

Snarling in his face didn't stop Satan, didn't stop the flames that felt so much like his own from mixing and stroking through the ones he wielded like an unwanted touch.

"He doesn't look so good," Satan said in a croon, bloodshot eyes pinned to Mephisto before he flicked a smirk up at Rin when he heard the grit fangs his comment brought out. "He was always a weirdo, though. I'd say his looks have improved!"

Satan was too close, then, fangs bared in Rin's face and flecks of his blood spraying when he spoke, "Wouldn't you, son?"

Rin released his claws from the deep holes he'd punched through Satan's failing vessel to wrap his hand around his mouth. A tongue swiped in a mocking slide against his palm that he ignored.

"No, I wouldn't." He squeezed and destroyed that vessel too, gaze cold despite the heat and cinders singeing bright pain to his cheeks from the corpse.

He brought his hand to Mephisto's back, gripping into the fabric of his cape as he realized his body shivered, something he only felt because Mephisto was so still except for that soft heartbeat.

When he finally turned his gaze to survey the battlefield, he noticed all but a handful had been killed. They faced off with Amaimon and Rin could sense the power in the remaining demons. They were strong, creatures that looked like they'd come right out of some mythological legend. He recognized a few as the ones that had been able to flee his attacks, staying back while their slower companions died in the fire.

Amaimon could take them, but Rin wouldn't leave him to do it alone.

As he leapt from the mountainside, he could see one of the demons writhing in blue flame, the others giving it a wide berth as it fell to Satan's possession. Rin landed with a juddering impact, rising from his crouch just as Satan did the same.

Blue-fire irises met as Rin stalked through the remainders of Satan's army. They parted in silence, watching him as he returned to Amaimon's side.

A flash of gold eyes met his when he came to a stop by Amaimon. The lizard-like features of his body had faded away, leaving him bare-footed and without the green gloves that his transformation had torn.

Grit and splashes of blood made an abstract painting on the frayed clothes draping Amaimon. More blood had begun to trickle from his eyes and nose, making the bruises under his eyes almost as deep as the ones on Mephisto. The sight struck a chord of anxiety through Rin, but the look in Amaimon's eyes, the hard flint of his expression, soothed the taut wire of Rin's nerves.

Then, as one, they turned to face Satan.

Staring up at the creatures that were probably older than Rin could comprehend would have scared him once. To see the warping grin on the demon at the forefront and know it was Satan behind that malevolent smile would have frozen him to his core. Amaimon's presence burned at his side through the flickers of his flames that he'd allowed to envelop the three of them in a protective wreath.

"Here we are," Satan said, red trailing from his lips and limbs failing to leave him standing in disjointed angles, "and isn't this much better? So much more intimate."

"What do you want?" Rin said, voice coming out frostbitten. He doubted any answer Satan gave would make sense, or that it would make him care what he actually wanted.

The vessel burnt up, Satan had already fled it, leaving it to take the next. Around him, the demons seemed more like living statues, pillars that could have been carved into shape and didn't make any sign that they cared when another in their group shook with the beginnings of Satan's possession

Rin would have been horrified if he hadn't just sent so many of the fanatically persistent demons from existence. He didn't have the luxury of horror, not anymore.

Satan moved to the front of the row, trailing drops of his blood on the ground behind him as he continued where he'd left off.

"I want what I have from the start," he said through a mouthful of jagged teeth that he trailed a long tongue over to catch the blood that trickled from there, too, "you, my dear son."

Fingers clenched in Mephisto's clothes with the spike of Rin's ire, a dangerous narrowing of his gaze he directed towards Satan.

"Too bad," Rin said in a deep growl, leaving no room for interpretation, "it's not happening."

Another body dropped, Rin let a long, heated wash of breath seep from his lips. His body shivered sporadically with adrenaline, held on edge now that he was standing still after so much constant fighting.

This time, Satan slithered forward in the form of a great dragon without legs, maw gaping around what passed for a smile and eyes burning with blue flame. Scales dropped to the scorched earth in heavy thuds when he leaned down at Rin.

"What's the matter?" rasped the words from a forked tongue, "Too busy to spend time with your daddy? I'm hurt!"

"Yeah, I am," Rin hissed back, heart beating hard to his ribs at the mocking and wanting to get this whole farce over with. But something held him back from just loosing his flames on the remaining demons. Half because something about the set-up, the way the demons stood as if on some kind of ceremony, the way Amaimon let him speak without any interference, leant weight and gravity to the proceedings.

The other half, that buried half of Rin, just wanted to know why.

Why had Shiro died? Why did Satan want him?

Fire left the dragon's body in smoldering ashes at his feet and Satan appeared in his next vessel.

"I understand," Satan said in a voice that poured saccharine sweet from the multiple fanged mouths of his newest body, "you're having fun playing with your siblings."

That burning gaze drifted in a lazy roll to Amaimon and Rin felt him stiffen at his side, moving on automatic to shift more in front of him like he could divert Satan's attention that way.

"You sure picked a boring one to play with." Dismissal, as if Amaimon were utterly unimportant to Satan. "Which child were you again?"

"Oh wait, I remember," Satan said, dropping a fist almost rotted through onto his palm like he'd had an epiphany, "you're the dirt king!"

What? Rin's eyes widened, breath cutting off in his chest as he tried to understand the words he'd just heard uttered from Satan's smirking mouth.

That son of a-

"Rin," Amaimon said, low, and when Rin snapped his head to the side to look at him, shivering with barely restrained rage, he saw placid calm staring back.

Warmth from the pads of Amaimon's fingers followed by the sensation of claws tracing to the inside of his wrist broke him of the black fury eating at him like the venom from the snakebite had earlier. It stunned him just as badly.

It had been to the arm hidden by Mephisto's legs and the rumpled cloak where Rin held him so none of the demons or Satan had seen the calming movement from Amaimon. Because that's what it had been. A movement so human Rin wouldn't have thought in a million years that Amaimon would understand it enough to use it, not when his last method of calming Rin's rage had been teeth to his throat and claws at his gut.

A flash of memory brought him back to Amaimon sending him a thumbs-up after he'd performed a move right, something Rin had been amused by when he'd seen it. It looked like Amaimon had picked up more than one unexpected human habit.

But it worked. Rin felt his rage harden, becoming sharp like a spined defense pointed outwards at Satan for thinking he could say anything with real meaning or value. Nothing he said would ever matter to Rin. Nothing.

The last body had fallen and the last remaining been possessed, Satan peered down at him from the diamond eyes of a stone titan, towering above the rest, now long burnt to charcoaled husks of the monstrous creatures they'd been.

"It doesn't matter which you play with," Satan said, his pitch like rocks breaking against each other to grate at Rin's ears to the point of pain, "once the weirdo dies, you'll have nowhere left to run and then you'll be coming home to me."

Stones fell off the vessel's body in a steady rain, the dust and shards blowing away like a time-lapse of a mountain worn down by the elements.

"Yeah," Rin said, steel beneath his words and unfaltering, "I will be coming back. And I'll be coming for you. You can count on it."

He would come for Satan. Then he would kill him. Then he would go home.

"Wonderful!" Satan jeered, body almost fully disintegrated. Still, he clung to it, determined to have the final word. "Then I'll just be waiting for a few more days and we'll have our family reunion."

"It's inevitable, you know-" Satan cut off, exiting the body. Without him forcing it together, the rock blasted into sand that stung at Rin's face before his flames cleared it away and they were finally alone.

Moments passed as Rin tried to tell his instincts that it was over and they could relax. The hairs raised on his skin wouldn't pick up the memo. He let his flames dissipate in a soft hiss, hoping that would settle his nerves. Without the constant fire, only the wind sounded in his ears and his pulse pounding right along with it.

"Amaimon are we-" Rin turned to face him, unsure about their next move.

Sudden gagging and Amaimon hunching over had Rin jerking forward, gasping when Amaimon began to bleed again as if his body were under attack.

"Amaimon what-?"

Amaimon snarled around a mouthful of blood.

"You can't have me, Father."

Cold gutted him, allowing fear inside soon after as Rin recognized what Amaimon bleeding meant.

Satan was trying to possess him next, more persistently than Rin had ever seen, as Amaimon dug claws into his arms as if to ground himself in his own body.

What could he do? Rin reached out for Amaimon, finding his hand wreathed in flames like his subconscious tried to protect itself from the threat he just now realized had never left. His hand hovered over Amaimon's shoulder, the edges of his flames licking at the torn fabric to the skin beneath.

A full-body quake sent Amaimon trembling like he would fall any second, his eyes that had been shot wide open now shuttered over glazed pupils and his breath came too fast, too shallow.

One of the ripples of unsteadiness had Amaimon swaying the rest of the way towards Rin. The moment Rin's hand came into contact with him a hiss escaped his mouth and he arched his spine like he'd been lightning-struck.

Rin's hesitation left him, hand gripping tight and lowering Amaimon to the ground while his mind raced, trying to understand what was happening as Amaimon groaned. His body lay taut and Rin was forced to set Mephisto aside as he rolled Amaimon against his knees and searched for a sign that he was aware at all.

"Come on, Amaimon, don't let him win. You're stronger than this," Rin whispered frantically, more to himself because he didn't know if Amaimon could even hear him from the war he fought in his own head.

He brushed his hands over Amaimon, feeling the trembling that hadn't let up and the ragged choking that told of liquid in his lungs. It was just like before, after they'd fled from Iblis and Amaimon had pushed his vessel too far, except this wasn't something he could heal from to shake it off.

Sweat plastered his hair to his forehead, his skin pallid beneath the bright flush and blood staining it red. Rin pressed his palm there, then froze.

His mind left the battlefield, taken by the physical sensation moving along the energy flowing through his body to his flames and meeting Amaimon's core where it struggled to stay afloat.

That overwhelming presence that made up Satan concentrated on drowning Amaimon's aspect under a torrent of blue flame. Rin wouldn't let him, letting his instincts guide his own flames.

Blue flared over him, flowing down to envelope Amaimon as Rin growled where he'd bowed over him, the command coming out around bared fangs straight into his ear, "Amaimon. Fight."

Satan flared his flames against Rin's, a tide with a sinking undercurrent that tore at his fire like it would consume him too.

"No, you can't have me, either," Rin said in a hiss that crackled with his fire.

Amaimon heaved a whooshing breath, eyes flying open again and pupils blown. His claws came to grip at Rin's shirt and he stilled, contorted in Rin's lap where he held him until, with a last, bone-deep shudder, Satan left his body.

Slumping back down, Amaimon panted, sightless and shaking but free from any energy that wasn't his own or Rin's.

But Rin didn't need the claws moving to grab his wrist and the wild look that came with the returning awareness in Amaimon's eyes to know the danger wasn't over yet.

Where would he strike next? Rin still hunched over Amaimon, gaze turned to the environment as if he could see Satan that way. It was impossible, with Satan comprising the entirety of Gehenna, to pick him out amongst the energy in the air.

Fire flared behind him and Rin scrabbled to turn around, heart dropping like a lead weight. He knew where Satan had struck.

Mephisto lay, body covered by Satan's flames and blood coming from his nose, from his closed eyes and parted lips. His body didn't move, didn't shudder like Amaimon's had.

"He's gonna drown," Rin said in a hushed realization, letting Amaimon get his hands under him and crawling to Mephisto.

"Amaimon!" Rin shouted, voice raw in his chest with his panic and desperation. "He's gonna drown! How do we get the blood out? What do we do?"

Amaimon arrived at his side in the next second, snapped out of his recovery by the urgency.

"I'll get his lungs clear." Despite the hurried movements, Amaimon's voice stayed steady, helping Rin climb down from the ledge he'd teetered on.

Rin nodded, lips pressed in a harsh line.

"And," Amaimon said as he stared up at Rin from beneath his stained bangs, "you have to use your flames like you did for me."

Did for him? Rin tried to remember the instincts he'd followed earlier, chest squeezed tight by the sight of Amaimon growing and then stabbing a thin, hollow plant of some sort straight into Mephisto as blood poured from the other end out of his lungs.

Right. He couldn't sit around, Mephisto would die.

Flames once more spilling from him, Rin brushed the bangs from Mephisto's cold forehead and closed his eyes, searching for the parasite that was Satan hidden beneath the curse. The foreign flames fought him, he could feel them like a living creature where they writhed.

And, beneath it all, deeper than Rin had gone with Amaimon, until the outside world faded, Rin found a spark.

Muffled silence filled his ears. His heartbeat slowed, calmed from the rapid pace it had fled at with his concentration.

The spark felt like Mephisto.

It flickered in his mind's eye, drawing him closer as if he could cradle it in his hands.

Something pierced his concentration, an unsubtle intrusion like a battering ram to his skull.

Satan cackled, the sound rattling in a discordant echo that had Rin flaring his flames higher where he'd gathered them over Mephisto.

"Looks like he's not doing too well, son," Satan spoke, carrying with it the sensation of a predator poking and digging for weaknesses in a defense.

"Leave already, dammit," Rin growled back. "You're not getting him or Amaimon."

More prowling around the edges in the dark. Rin sent a flicker of power to lash out, another growl rising when Satan's presence danced back and out of the way. Like a rabid hyena laughing as it darted in random lunges to snap at him, waiting for him to slip up and show his weak spots.

"Don't you know? Can't you feel it?" Satan said, continuing as if Rin hadn't responded at all. "He dies. It's inevitable. You're going to fail."

Like hell he was.

"No, it's not. He's not. And we're not going to fail," Rin snarled, pouring strength into his words and his flames until the black lit in a blue sea, tearing away any place for Satan to hide.

"He's not gonna die because I'm going to save him." Rin sent his flames blasting outwards, hearing the cry from Satan that only encouraged him to push more, throwing everything he had into his attack as it raged around them. "Then we're all going back to Assiah and he's going to go back to playing his games and eating his cheap instant noodles and messing around in my life like he always does."

That wisp of flame that made up Mephisto's core fluttered against Rin, a brush to his fires where they ringed him in a protective circle.

Rin felt it, let a small bit of his fire out to reach back, then refocused on Satan.

"He's going to live." Certainty matched the weakening, but still furious snarls coming from Satan.

He roared his last command into the inferno, loud enough to shake the world.

"Now get out of his head!"

A wash of white tore Rin from that space, feeling Satan tossed from Mephisto and grinning in a savage baring of fangs when he opened his eyes to the physical world despite the ringing in his head from the sudden eviction.

With a final, shrieking howl, Satan faded from his mind, leaving an echoing silence in his wake.

Rin huffed panting breaths, body finally catching up to the fact that the danger had passed for the time being.

Amaimon just looked grim beside him when he glanced over, claws flexing in absent movements at his sides. He'd pulled the hollow tubes from Mephisto and they lay forgotten in the bloodstained dirt.

That wasn't important.

"We did it!" Rin crowed, laughing as he pulled Amaimon into a hug on impulse while the after-battle euphoria sang through his veins and sent his laughter trailing into half-hysteric giggles.

"Hah!" Rin tightened his arms in a squeeze before letting go to slump back on his hands with his eyes closed, still shaking. "That bastard got booted so hard he's going to be feeling it for weeks!"

"Amaimon," Rin said, bright with joy that seeped into his bones and out through his smile, "he's alive in there, he's still fighting."

The remembered flicker of Mephisto's flame to his made him sigh with the relief he felt.

"I felt Mephisto. He reached out to me!" He opened his eyes, then blinked to see the thunderstruck expression set on him from Amaimon.

"Er, Amaimon?" Oh, wait, Rin knew what the problem was. "Ah, sorry about that, the hug. I kinda got carried away. Are you okay? Is he okay?"

Just because Satan had been tossed out on his ass didn't mean Mephisto hadn't suffered injuries that Rin wasn't sure his body could heal anymore.

Lips twitching on Amaimon's face made Rin cock his head to the side with a sound of confusion. It cut off when sharp laughter cracked out from the wide smile now shot at him, Amaimon falling back to mirror his position and head dropping so he stared at the sky instead.

"Yes," Amaimon finally said, a wry cast to his smile when he brought his head back up, "Samael and I are okay."

Good. That was good.

"Awesome," he said, then looked around them, "so, now what?"

His answer was Amaimon rising from the ground with a final shake of his limbs and a snap to fix the mess that had been made of their clothes.

Not that Rin's clothes had suffered much, being protected by his flames that he'd directed to burn anything that wasn't the three of them, but he appreciated it anyway. At least his hair didn't look like it had come out of a wind-tunnel anymore, he was sure.

Rin reached up to his forehead to brush his bangs back only for an obstruction to send him yelping when his claws ran into it and he jerked his hand away.

"What the hell?" Rin prodded at his skull, careful not to touch whatever the hell that had been. "What's on my head?"

A snort reached him and he glared at Amaimon, crossing his arms to see humor dancing in Amaimon's eyes while his face remained almost suspiciously blank. "Alright, seriously, what's on my head?"

Instead of responding, Amaimon snapped and brought a bright pink phone out, handing it to Rin a moment later.

Suspicious, definitely suspicious. Rin gave a final narrowed look to Amaimon before flipping the phone open and bringing up the front-facing camera.

"What the-" Rin gaped, "-Amaimon, do I have horns? Why do I have horns? Is my hair white?"

"Wait." He jerked his head to see his tail, the one he'd barely gotten used to having in the first place, had undergone the same transformation as his hair, now bleached of color and twitching in agitated flicks on the ground.

"It's your true form," Amaimon said with a shrug and a glint in his eyes. "You were unsealed when I broke the sword."

"Oh god, why?" Rin whimpered, hand coming back to his hair and forgetting for a brief, fatal second about the surprises now sprouting from his skull. "Ow! Shit…"

Rin trailed off, fighting the urge to keep poking at his horns and the pout that wanted to form at the teasing he could sense on the horizon.

"Can we please get out of here now?" Anything to get away from the now barren warzone they'd turned the valley into and somewhere that felt less open.

Amaimon let his lips curl into a smirk but nodded and picked up Mephisto to lead them from the area.

It felt weird that just moments ago Rin had been in a fight for their lives with Satan and now they were back to their routine, falling into the new, faster pace Rin could now run at as if nothing had changed. Well, he glanced to his side, darting his gaze back to the front before Amaimon could notice. There was one difference. He didn't need to keep Amaimon in sight to know where he was, could feel the now familiar energy that made up his core as if it were a beacon in the night.

Where before it had been like clouds covered his senses, now things were clear in a way they'd never been and in ways he didn't think he could begin to explain to his friends- to any human, really.

He didn't know what to think or feel about the changes in his body, so he focused on keeping pace with Amaimon over the rapidly inclining route into the clouds. Amaimon didn't follow the same trend he had been up until then, staying low and avoiding the peaks. Now, he took them straight up in a steep climb.

The snow returned, too, and Rin's breath came out in white puffs that vanished behind him, lost in the icy clouds stinging at his cheeks.

That was definitely the weirdest part, Rin decided. Because despite knowing it was probably below freezing and even having grown used to not being bothered by the cold much anymore, the total lack of feeling he now experienced went against everything his eyes and memories of being human was telling him he should be feeling.

If he lay in the snow, would he even know it was cold at all? Or would it just feel like a lukewarm bath, devoid of anything except a vague sensation of wetness.

Rin shuddered at the thought, the only way his body could feel chilled at all, it seemed.

And…

Could he feel heat, even?

It wasn't something he wanted to think about. It sounded like some sort of hell, to not be able to feel anything above the same even, body-temperature for the rest of his life.

So he didn't think about it, shoving the disturbing thoughts about his future aside to keep running.

They practically flew over the distance, miles passing in a gleaming blur with the energy he could now see reflecting off the snow.

At some point that energy seemed to ebb, something Rin didn't notice at first until he blinked and it was as if a shroud had fallen. He brought his hand up to rub at one of his eyes, wondering if he was seeing things, even going so far as to let his irises warp into flames to see if that would do anything.

Nope. Shadow still seemed to cover the land.

"Hey, what's wrong with the sky?" Rin called to Amaimon, getting drawn brows in confusion at his question. "Why'd it get dark all of a sudden?"

More slow blinking, as if Amaimon couldn't process what he was saying. Rin made to try again, because, seriously, there was no way Amaimon hadn't noticed the lack of blinding light on the mountains.

A wide, toothy grin stretched a slow path over Amaimon's face and Rin hid a sigh, knowing he'd stumbled on another obvious thing to demons that he just hadn't picked up on this whole time.

"You can see it now," Amaimon called back, a strange satisfaction in his voice that soothed Rin's ruffled feathers a bit. "It's just the cycle Gehenna goes through. It mirrors the day-night cycle on Assiah."

That was so weird, especially that he hadn't been able to see it before then, but also kinda cool that a whole new part of Gehenna had opened itself to him after his change.

With that question answered, Rin allowed himself to sink into the surroundings, enjoying the enhanced vision even beyond what he'd been able to shift his eyes to see before. Scents came to him on the wind that he couldn't place but were so much more vivid. What would Assiah seem like to him when he made it home? How would things have changed?

He didn't know when it happened, but eventually hunger had begun to grow in an insistent ache in his stomach and the insanity of the day caught up with his body.

Where would they even stay for the night this time anyway? Rin wondered as he signaled Amaimon to stop and got the usual nod without comment.

Though whatever it was, Rin didn't expect for Amaimon to stop where they next landed and punch a hole in the side of the snow-covered mountain ledge. Rin stood, clinging to a frozen section of ice jutting out that he really hoped lasted long enough for Amaimon to finish making his newest den-thing for them before it melted in his hands.

One last scooping motion from Amaimon and he was satisfied, ducking inside with Mephisto as Rin followed behind, glad to release the ice that had begun to let melt-water trickle down his arm.

Flaring his flames left him dry again and Rin shivered with contentedness at not being forced to repress them anymore.

Amaimon still shivered, though, even after closing the entrance to a thin hole to let air in. Rin scrunched his brows at the light tremors he could see as Amaimon settled against the far wall next to Mephisto.

"Hey, are you-" Rin licked at his wind-chapped lips, not knowing how well received his question would be, "-you gotta be cold, right?"

For a second it looked like Amaimon would deny it, would cover it up. But, after a long breath where he didn't blink, he sighed and nodded.

"It's ok," Rin said as he took a seat on the other side of Mephisto, "I can just use my flames, right?"

Another nod, Amaimon watching while he happily rearranged Mephisto so that he had his head in Rin's lap and his cloak draped over the three of them as Rin let his flames out in a steady burn.

Blue light filled the cave with heat Rin didn't quite feel, eliciting a soft exhale out of Amaimon as his body untensed now that he wasn't fighting sub-zero temperatures.

Without him asking, Amaimon snapped and brought out more random assortments of food and snacks that they divvied up between them in silence.

He didn't want to break it, using the task of eating to extend the muffled echoes caused by the flickers of his fire and their movements in the enclosed space.

He didn't want to break it because…

The last of his portion vanished too soon, leaving him down his only method of drawing things out.

Rin couldn't put it off anymore, the thing that had been bothering him that he'd been able to push aside to deal with the immediate danger they'd faced. Flicking the empty container away drew Amaimon's attention and Rin could see him staring from the corner of his eye where he'd rested his chin to his knees.

"Amaimon," Rin hesitated, shifting to mirror Amaimon's pose and staring into the colors of his own flame when he spoke, "I'm sorry, for what I did when you broke the sword."

A shuddering breath left his lips, guilt making him tremble, "I just- I don't know why I did that, but I'm sorry."

Amaimon reached over and flicked him in the forehead.

"Wha-" Rin startled with a gasp, drawing back with wide eyes and rubbing his head where it stung.

"Don't be dumb," Amaimon said, though it was so exasperated Rin didn't get a chance to be offended as he continued, "you were just reborn after nearly dying and you stopped yourself despite the instincts in your body."

Oh.

"Ri-right," Rin said, unable to think of another response to the simple way Amaimon worded it, something he should have expected by now.

They fell into silence again, Rin trying to calm his body and convince it to rest despite the energy still making that difficult. Thoughts swirled like his flames and prevented him from sleep, though, and he blurted them out before they could needle him further.

"I still don't understand, what did he want from us, from me?" He searched Amaimon's eyes for an answer. What answer could he give him, anyway? Did it even matter, in the end, what Satan wanted from him? All those demons had spent days chasing he and Amaimon across Gehenna only to die, had let themselves stand there and be possessed by Satan just so he could use their bodies to talk to Rin.

"Father," Amaimon began, slowly, as if picking his words one by one to lay them out for Rin, "is very young."

At this point Rin was used to Amaimon's tendency towards answering questions in ways he didn't understand at first, then explaining so that he did in some twisty string of logic. So he gave him time to finish instead of butting in like he would have at the start.

Amaimon chewed at the tip of a claw, letting it out from under the fabric of Mephisto's cloak as he worried it between his teeth. "He's only in his first century after gaining an ego."

Satan being young clashed with the image Rin had of him in his head, but, now that he thought about it, all his actions gained a childish light, like a kid who hadn't learned to share or what the word "no" meant yet.

"When he formed, Samael and Lucifer were already embroiled in their conflict."

Something about that sentence had Rin watching Amaimon closer, hearing an edge to his words that hinted at an inner turmoil. A buried bitterness.

"Father didn't have the same freedom to experience existence in the way that we did." Rin tried to imagine what the world looked like when Amaimon and the other kings first formed. When had that been? What would it have been like to have been born so long ago and face the problems of those times, instead of the ones they faced today?

And, another comparison forced itself into his thoughts, something that left a sour taste in his mouth but, now that he'd thought it, couldn't put it away again.

"It sounds," Rin trailed off, grimacing at what he was about to say to Amaimon's steady gaze, "it sounds like me, kinda."

His statement got him a cocked head from Amaimon, so he sighed and started scratching at the edges of the cloak where he'd tucked it around Mephisto as he elaborated.

"I found out in one night that there was this whole other world in a war I never knew existed, but suddenly I'm a part of it and there's no going back." And everyone wanted a piece of him, wanted his power or wanted him dead so the other side couldn't get it for themselves.

"Yes, you understand," Amaimon nodded, seemingly pleased that Rin had been able to wrap his head around the concept.

"What Father wants," he said, giving way to a blank expression, turned down at Mephisto so that Rin couldn't see his eyes under his bangs, "doesn't really matter, in the end."

Didn't matter? Rin frowned, trying to reconcile Amaimon's words with the things he knew, or thought he knew.

Peering up at him from beneath dark lashes, Amaimon matched his frown. "Samael and Lucifer will have their way. Father is just another piece in their game."

His words made Rin's breath hitch, eyes widening as he processed them before speaking, "that's crazy, and he doesn't care?"

Amaimon shook his head, scowl deepening. "Father is too young to worry about the future yet. Everything in his world is what's immediate, the present, what he wants now, not what he'll want thousands of years from now."

"Like a kid," Rin said with the realization. Exactly like a kid. There wasn't any real logic to his actions, just instant gratification of whatever desire happened to catch his attention for more than a second.

"Okay." Then really…

"It's not what he wants, but what they want, right?" Rin felt the edges of reality, the broad scope of it defined with the new knowledge and looking to Amaimon for confirmation.

"Yes." Hard, the word pulled from Amaimon had Rin's brows drawing to see the worsening mood.

"And," Rin darted his tongue to his lips, wondering if he was pushing too hard, if he should let it go while he was ahead, "what do you want?"

The beginnings of a growl rumbled from Amaimon, still soft, but the small den made it seem like it came directly into Rin's ear.

"I don't want to be a pawn," Amaimon snarled, sudden rage highlighting his features in the blue flames as he spat his words at an unaware Mephisto.

His claws tore holes where they clenched in the cloak, body tensed like he wanted to attack but didn't have an outlet and Rin's pulse raced at the sight.

Gold flashed when that reptilian gaze jerked to his on a warping face. Rare emotion that seemed to have come from nowhere now overtook Amaimon and Rin knew he'd pressed too far.

"I will not be another player in their war!" His shout made Rin startle, staring from wide eyes and frozen against the stone at his back.

"He-" Amaimon shot another glare into Mephisto's unaware face, "-and Lucifer won't rest until we're all killing each other for their game, until they're the only two left and there's no one to challenge them."

Where had this come from? Rin couldn't think of what to say to calm Amaimon and the storm of his fury.

How long had Amaimon been holding that emotion for?

And…

He felt the words tumble from his mouth, unable to stop himself from speaking.

"You're still helping him."

Amaimon stopped, growls cut off and pupils dilating in his eyes like he'd been stunned.

All that anger twisting up inside Amaimon, and he still helped, still fought to save Mephisto. Why?

He could have left Mephisto and Rin in that alley and been done with it. Rin would have fought and eventually been brought down, his attempts failed before they'd begun. Was it because if either side, Mephisto or Lucifer, fell, he would be automatically forced into a decision?

Rin had to know. He spoke again before Amaimon recovered, pinning him in place with an unwavering look and wondering if he'd get an answer.

"Why did you decide to help me, really, Amaimon?"

It was Amaimon's turn to flinch back, shoulders hitting the wall and blinking, thrown from the whirlwind of his emotions, left adrift in their wake.

Would he answer Rin? He'd only just revealed why he owed Mephisto. That- Rin knew what he asked for was more than that.

Fangs, no longer extended to brutal wedges, worried at Amaimon's lip until blood dripped down his chin. Rin had to stop himself from letting his flames burn it from his skin.

Another long minute passed. Amaimon came to a decision.

"Because you're honest," he said, and Rin sucked in a sharp breath, realizing Amaimon was going to answer him after all. "You wanted to save Samael without any ulterior motive."

His mind drew back to all the times Amaimon had seemed surprised by him, but specifically the first time when Yukio had demanded to know what he'd been thinking, taking Mephisto from the Order.

And Amaimon deciding then and there to help.

"None of the others would be able to say that," Amaimon said, not noticing the revelation Rin had just had. "No one on Assiah or Gehenna could say that."

"Except...you?" Rin hesitated in saying, sensing the delicate nature of the subject he'd just brought up.

Amaimon stared at him in silence for a long while until Rin thought he should change the subject.

"No," Amaimon dropped his gaze, something like guilt putting lines in the corners of his eyes, and his next words came out soft, almost bitter, "no, just you."

Rin didn't know what to do with that information or Amaimon's own honesty, was shocked that he even displayed something so human-like in the first place that he didn't know how to react at all.

"So you," he paused again, chewing at his lips as he tried to wrap his head around it, "you're helping Mephisto because I decided to help him, but not because I'm on his side?"

Shrugging and Amaimon turning his head to look at something he seemed to find interesting on the far wall had Rin wondering if he'd gotten it right after all.

"You weren't choosing a side," Amaimon said, shoulders slumping as he turned back to face Rin with a blank expression like he hid a turbulence underneath. "You weren't playing his or Lucifer's game."

He hadn't chosen a side, remembered yelling it for everyone to hear at his trial, that he wasn't some weapon for the Order or a demon king. He was Rin Okumura and he would make his own path.

"You chose your own side." The words froze Rin's breath again, mirroring the memories that had started playing in his head. His heart had begun thudding at his ribs as he listened to Amaimon speak like he was imparting a secret he'd told no one else.

"And," low, but firm, with no room for doubt, "it's why I chose to side with you."

What? Rin's eyes widened, searching for hidden meaning and unable to find any in the eyes staring back at him through the flames without flinching.

"What do you-" Rin stumbled over his sentence, lips gone numb as he sat, stunned, against the wall while his mind raced to process what he'd just heard.

Amaimon didn't let him get time to recover, steamrolling over his confusion to lay out what he meant so that Rin understood him in no uncertain terms. "In this war, I'm going to fight on your side, whichever path you take."

That was- it was huge. A level of trust Rin couldn't begin to know what to do with, feeling heavy with the weight of the world and a responsibility Rin was afraid he'd fail to live up to.

"Amaimon you- I wouldn't ever ask you to do that, you don't need to," he tried to say, clutching his hands in the cloak over Mephisto's chest and rushing through the words like he could get Amaimon to take his back.

Instead, Amaimon seemed to shrink in on himself, gaze locked on Mephisto where Rin gripped him and voice quieting. "That's why. You offer freedom."

It hit Rin, then, as he watched Amaimon bite into his lip again and hunch his body until it looked painful. Reality and his role in things meant he couldn't run anymore. It wasn't just his own life and freedom hinging on his decisions, so he had to stop hiding.

His shivers calmed with his determination just as Amaimon's began, body releasing intermittent trembles the longer Rin's silence continued.

Rin reached out and pulled Amaimon's shuddering frame into his hold.

The shivers stopped and a hissed breath escaped Amaimon as he stilled in Rin's arms.

"What are you doing?"

Yeah what was he doing? A flush rose to Rin's cheeks at the question but he didn't let go, happy that Amaimon couldn't see his face, at least.

"Sorry, you looked like you needed it."

"Needed?" Amaimon parroted back, hands coming up to grip over Rin's shoulders.

"I'm not going to fail you- or him," Rin said, ducking his chin to the crook of Amaimon's neck and inhaling there as he spoke the words of his promise, "if I have to go through everyone in Gehenna and Assiah, if I have to fight Lucifer and Satan and the Order to do it, I will."

A muffled sound escaped Amaimon from where he hid his face, ears twitching and fingers flexing into Rin's shirt while he processed.

That was probably enough for the crazy day they'd had.

"Hey," he murmured, pulling back to see the dilated pupils that showed Amaimon still hadn't quite recovered, "you should sleep first, I've still got too much energy right now but I'll be good to try by the time you wake up, I think."

Three hours for Amaimon to sleep and three for him would be more than enough for them to prepare for the upcoming conflict, possibly the final conflict, with Lucifer.

Amaimon gave a short nod, and Rin wondered when he'd decide to speak again, fighting the smile that wanted to form.

Then Amaimon vanished in a poof of smoke, making Rin blink as he tried to figure out where he'd gone.

Light scratching at his wrist brought his gaze down to see a round, green hamster with Amaimon's odd headspike jutting from between his little ears.

Cautious sniffing and the energy he could sense in the small body confirmed it.

"You can use less of your flames if I stay in this form," the high-pitched voice was still Amaimon's too, and Rin shook his head, flames dropping to just enough to cover Mephisto as Amaimon scurried up to hide in his collar.

Claws scraped in a series of light tickling sensations on his skin that Rin resisted laughing at.

"I didn't know you could transform like Mephisto," he said, bringing a finger up to run down the soft fur of Amaimon's spine.

He could feel the heartbeat flutter in the delicate ribcage and tried not to let it affect his view of Amaimon's power he could also feel compressed into that small form.

Cute. Amaimon was really cute. Rin tucked that thought away, smiling as Amaimon nestled further into his spot.

"We all can," Amaimon said in answer. Then a sudden touch of a wet tongue to Rin's skin made his pulse skip before remembering it was considered some kind of reward-thing for demons to do, not making a big thing about the unspoken thanks.

Some instinct in him had what sounded like purrs vibrating in his chest, which, if he could sprout fangs and claws, why not purring?

Rin accepted the newest demonic feature about himself and settled in for his watch.

In his lap, Mephisto's slow, even breaths continued like a metronome.

---

He remembered.

Not the one thing he needed. Not his name.

But he'd remembered Abduxuel beyond his concept, had seen the memories they shared, and though it hadn't given him his name, he could guess things about himself that helped define his own concept.

The things he knew now were this: he was most certainly a demon, not that the possibility of his being human had been very high to begin with, but he hadn't wanted to eliminate it outright until he knew for sure. He was also very old, having been around for uncounted generations of humans alongside his other half. He'd enjoyed toying with human lives, been fascinated by them, something he could have said even without the memories confirming it. And he'd been powerful, but not more so than two others, his twin aspect and another whose name he couldn't recall but who he suspected was related to that blinding being he'd seen in the memory of Abduxuel's death.

Despite the wealth of information he'd gleaned in his memories with Abduxuel, his name remained frustratingly hidden.

And he needed his name.

It felt like he had one half of the equation, but without the other half, it was meaningless.

His only option would be to keep trying to uncover the memories he may or may not have shared with Amaimon, which, if the trend continued, he would gain next. There still existed the chance that their only connection was through Abduxuel, not having anything like the claim between them to indicate they'd known each other.

Never mind that the second voice hadn't known Abduxuel at all, needing to be told by Amaimon who he was, so he still had no idea what their connection could be, if any.

Impatience for his two voices had him wishing he could move to fidget, but at this point the frustration was an old wound, scar tissue that itched at him instead of actively bleeding out. If he ignored the itch, the incessant need to scratch at it faded to the background of his mind.

The world rippled around him as if in answer. Harsher than the others before it, like a large object had been hurled into his prison.

"Agh!"

A scream. Pained. The second voice?

Cracking split through the haze in a sound of shattering, superheated metal that threw the reliefs of his voices up before his eyes in the next moment.

Amaimon, distress lining his every feature, gold irises eclipsing the pupil that had slivered until it nearly disappeared, and staring at…

There, shuddering on the ground in stricken agony, was the second voice. Every second he weakened until glazed eyes stared up at him and only faint breaths shivered from his parted lips.

Black veins shot through from puncture wounds, spreading even while he watched, straight towards the second voice's heart. His body wasn't fighting it off. He looked like he was dying. The power at his core grew dim.

What was happening? Had they been attacked? And how had whatever it was slipped through Amaimon's guard?

His mind flew back to the last remembered scene, trying to understand and only able to conclude that somehow, between the memory of Abduxuel and the second voice on death's door, they had been attacked by some venomous creature.

Before he could try to glean more, the scene fell away, Amaimon dropping what looked like a broken sword by the second voice and leaping to a distant vantage point. Why was he leaving the second voice there?

Confusion and alarm had his heart racing, eyes flicking in his skull as he tried to understand and couldn't.

Far above, the second voice burst into blue flame that dug at something in his memory he couldn't place.

And he burned, skin blackening to ash and screams cutting off until only a charcoaled corpse remained, his brilliant power reduced to nothing.

He can't- he couldn't be-

Horror stopped his panicked heart, followed by cold, desperate fear as he gasped shallow breaths, unable to do anything to display how seeing the still body of the second voice above him sent sick dread in the same tendrils that had attacked the second voice's heart.

What was happening?

Help remained unforthcoming from his only other source. Amaimon sat, looking as shaken as he felt, a helplessness in his gaze and searching as if sightless, like he couldn't see the second voice. Why wasn't he doing something? Or was there nothing he could do?

No. There was always a way, another route, a path that just needed to be uncovered if one was persistent enough or clever enough to see it. He wouldn't accept otherwise. He refused.

Amaimon's mouth parted on a face warped by wretched dismay, breaking his usual apathetic expression with raw emotion.

And then...

A whisper across the waters, ragged, like it had been pulled from a torn throat.

R i n

Blue fire exploded upwards from the second voice's body and broke his mind.

PowerincarnateagodamortalasublimemixturebetweenAssiahandGehennaRin.

Rin. Rin! The deluge cast out the fear from inside, washing his mind on a tidal wave of power and the blue flames of Gehenna.

This was the second voice? The one he'd thought of as a naive nephilim for the entire journey?

Every assumption he'd built over the course of watching his two voices began and ended with the blue pillar currently enveloping the second voice- Rin.

How was such a creature possible? It was no wonder Rin had an execution order out for his head, was important enough to warrant one. He comprised the entirety of Gehenna and all the creatures spawned from it, and he'd gone so long suppressing that power for reasons he still couldn't understand. Where had it been while they ran from hordes of pursuants? When he faced off with the voice that crackled like fire?

The exhaustion that tried to well up in him got ruthlessly shoved aside. As if he would give in to his body's demands when he saw Amaimon's unease hadn't lessened, only hardened, despite Rin having just fought off near death.

Awe replaced the panic on Amaimon, even if fear still pinched his eyes, while the flames dwindled around Rin, though that just meant they flared in a ball of pure power, concentrated around a body reborn.

Ash that had coated his skin had blown away in the fire, leaving Rin unharmed and standing at the epicenter of the explosion. If his tail had seemed beautiful before, now, with inky black replaced by a white that glowed under the light of his power, he had become ethereal, a true demon.

But that was nothing compared to the demonic heart floating above his chest between the clawed hands Rin held in inspection. He didn't think he'd breathed since the pillar had gone up. His pulse drowned out every other sound where it pounded in his ears as he drank in the sight of the core of Rin's power.

He could have stared for an eternity.

He didn't have an eternity.

Glowing irises warped into the same fire that surrounded Rin and now looked straight up at him as a smile like a knife cut across elongated fangs.

Alarm blared through his senses despite knowing the attention turned towards him was to Amaimon. Even were he there, the creature behind those eyes would have no interest in unmoving prey.

Not when it had its sights set on a more interesting target.

Amaimon was in danger.

Move. He's coming for you!

Too late. He saw Amaimon duck to run, but already claws traced to the vulnerable artery in his throat where he could see a thrumming pulse flutter with terror.

A true demon toyed with the prey caught between his claws like some cat that had found a particularly entertaining mouse. It wasn't a question of if the mouse would get eaten, only when.

And Amaimon knew how precarious his situation was, frozen under the power now surrounding him in a constant outpouring of blue flame. Rin's fire licked over the limbs he could see trembling despite the effort Amaimon must have been making to suppress the prey signals.

There would be no surviving when the monster at Amaimon's back chose to attack.

"Amaimon," Rin said in a dark voice he'd never heard from him before, calling to mind when he'd threatened the other nameless voice but this time backed up with that power he just now saw in full.

When the two had faced off in that previous scene, he'd thought the fight would be a balanced thing, the tension implying an even match. Now he could see how wrong he'd been.

"You said I might die if I used the sword," so they'd known breaking the sword he'd seen Amaimon toss aside would have this outcome, "I feel great, like I want to let out all my flames."

If that happened, he didn't need Amaimon's obvious terror to calculate his chances of survival.

Energy flared in the fires around Amaimon on Rin's command and buried his aspect in the heart of it, threatening to consume him in the inferno.

"Will you let me, Amaimon? It'll be fun." The dire situation didn't seem to have a solution, something he could see Amaimon knew the longer he didn't respond, as if his silence would convince Rin to lose interest with an unwilling plaything.

"Come on, I want to play."

The danger crested on the enticing illusion spun in the croon of Rin's voice, a wave swelling to monstrous heights. When it broke, there wouldn't be anything remaining in the aftermath.

"That's what you've wanted this whole time, right, Amaimon?" Shivers tried to run through his body on that growl, unable to do anything but watch as Amaimon choked in Rin's tightening hold. All the times Amaimon had tried to initiate some form of play flashed across his memory and he realized Rin hadn't been as indifferent to those advances as they'd thought, and this creature he'd become remembered each one.

"Don't ignore me, Amaimon."

Gagging and kicking in Rin's grip wouldn't save Amaimon from the claws piercing holes in his jugular, held up in a vicious demand for attention as blood slid over the cruel fingers stealing his breath in a threatening creak of his windpipe.

"Say something. Why won't you play with me?" A careless movement sent Amaimon flying.

At this point, Amaimon giving in to those demands wouldn't change the outcome any, and he had no idea whether the fickle creature doing the demanding could be swayed from his current path.

They'd passed the point of no return, but he didn't know what options Amaimon had to turn the tides.

And, he didn't think Rin would handle the inevitable conclusion well.

What blood had come from Amaimon after his brutal path over jagged stone was eaten in the flames still surrounding him where he'd landed in a heap.

Flee now! Why wasn't he taking advantage of the distance, minute as it was? Frustration at Amaimon's lack of action flared hot in his lungs, a seething anger that Amaimon just curled around his middle like he hadn't already shown his belly to the more powerful demon advancing.

Instead, he had to watch as Rin wrapped his tail around Amaimon's throat and squeezed, until, like a wild animal, Amaimon retaliated, clawing at the noose cutting off his air to send blood to stain the white fur.

Rin didn't tolerate the retaliation. He watched those blue flames envelope Amaimon as howls and screams rose in a horrible cacophony, invading every corner of his prison and his mind.

This was it, he could see the end. All of Amaimon's possibilities dwindled with every moment those flames melted more of his flesh from his bones and stopped his screams in his cooking lungs.

Something changed in Rin, his features falling from the shallow mask they'd been in to an exaggerated expression of anguish, like he was the one burned by the flames. They dwindled, releasing Amaimon from the inferno to reveal his ruined face.

But he recovered, enough to breathe, at least, while Rin panted with his confused rage.

"Why?" Had Amaimon's hearing returned enough to hear the question? Would Rin even give him the opportunity to answer? "You won't play with me. Why?"

Skin reformed over exposed muscle and tendon, an angry red that faded as Amaimon opened his eyelids to reveal gold irises, watery with tears his vessel would have produced automatically in response to the assault.

"Rin," Amaimon said in a pained rasp. It appeared he'd heard after-all. He held his breath, knowing this would be Amaimon's last chance to survive. "Will you leave him there, Rin?"

Who? Leave him?

Rin echoed his confusion, pulling away.

"Have you given up on your human displays?" Amaimon said, glaring as he prevented Rin from escaping his words. Whatever he spoke of, it sent Rin reeling and brought less understanding to him as he struggled through previous scenes to place what Amaimon was talking about.

"If-if - dies here, that's it. You wanted to save him, Rin. You-"

Again, a reference to someone they wanted to save, the reason behind their journey. Was this being they spoke of, the one his racing mind recalled from a previous scene, enough to bring Rin back? How much worth did they carry, and would it save Amaimon?

Challenge pierced into Rin, though Amaimon hung limp from the coils of his tail, fighting through another gagging gasp when his defiance brought a spasm to tighten the noose and showed just how affected Rin was.

"-You told me that's why you're here," this was it. His lungs ached and he remembered to breathe, "remember, Rin?"

Flame-warped eyes widened.

A gasp, an internal battle behind those blue eyes containing Gehenna that lasted an eternity.

Eternity stretched on a breath. Two.

Rin came back.

The flames in his eyes faded to the vibrant blue irises and slit red pupils he'd know anywhere now.

He was back.

"Amaimon, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I-" eyelids shuttered, Rin collapsed and Amaimon dropped with him, released from his hold.

If he could have groaned out loud, he would have, stunned by the relief that somehow total catastrophe had been averted. He closed his own eyes and sucked in a long breath through his nose, letting his heart calm.

Snapping, sharp after the silence with the dispersal of Rin's fire, shattered the peace and he dragged his lids open, not realizing he'd almost let the damned sleep take him under in his inattention.

"Wha-" Rin shared his confusion, with hurt added to the mix as he tried to hide from Amaimon like he'd be attacked for his actions.

"We have to go, Rin." Another snap to re-clothe Rin and bring him from the ground. The light of his demonic heart swirled away, taking the rest of the blue fire with it.

Why?

"- is coming."

Meaningless. Who was coming? Why did it have both his voices jolting into immediate action and launching themselves from the mountainside like they were already under attack? Was it that blinding voice? Another powerful being? He couldn't imagine what equal there could be to Rin's strength, what rival there could be to Gehenna.

Surely, now that Rin was no longer hindered by what he'd just realized must have been a seal on his demonic heart somehow contained within the now broken sword, there wasn't anything to fear.

The grim expressions on their faces told otherwise.

A sudden loud crack through the air stuttered his pulse in surprise. Tension pulled his voices' features taut.

At the second crack, Rin looked back.

Whatever he saw put panic on his face and more energy into his leaps, mirrored by Amaimon at his side.

"How close are we?" Rin shouted, "can we make it?"

Close to where? It was infuriating that he missed such important context.

The answer that came from Amaimon didn't clarify things. "Not close enough."

Could it be the massive horde chasing them from a few scenes ago?

Sharp whistling, and something speared through Amaimon's chest from behind and through to the other side with an outpouring of arterial blood.

In the back of his mind he registered that the object must have cut the aorta of Amaimon's vessel as he tumbled from the sky with a sharp cry.

Rin wrenched his body around to go back for Amaimon, landing and guarding him while he healed.

Snarls from Rin almost covered the sounds of another, the high-pitched screech going out to what had to be the rest of their pursuers.

Something else answered the cry.

If he'd thought the waters of his prison had been still before, they went dead with the arrival of the new presence on the edges of his senses.

What is this?

Then his prison shook and blue flames erupted before Rin, reflected in his eyes and washing the haze of his prison in vivid color.

They were not Rin's flames.

Hissing tried to push itself from his chest, eyelids clenching shut on the light of that fire so close and leading to him missing the build-up to what followed.

"Found you, my son!"

That presence vanished, blue flames swallowed by his prison again as his eyes shot open on those words.

His...son?

They already ran from the area, and now he could hear the horde behind them, having caught up while Amaimon recovered. Some of the quicker demons must have made it into range because Rin lashed out with a plume of fire that split the horizon of the prison to incinerate them mid-cry.

None of that mattered right then. He couldn't move past the information thrown out from that vast presence neither Rin nor Amaimon had acted to indicate was a surprise at all.

Was this what had been keeping them on the move at such a frantic pace the entire time? Another one of the names he couldn't hear in previous scenes but a looming threat nonetheless?

Because that presence had screamed with the same otherworldly call of Gehenna that Rin carried.

Laughter, bright and half-hysteric forced his mind back to the present, seeing Amaimon just as startled by Rin's apparent humor as he had been.

"Just thinking. - and my old man would be so proud of me for following orders so well this whole time. That's never happened before!"

Unbelievable. He wanted to laugh right along with Rin. The feral grin Amaimon fell into shook the rest of his rapid-fire thoughts free and allowed him to untangle the strings of his web. This scene was a scene for surprises and revelations, it seemed. The momentary scare he'd taken had been overcome.

Just in time for his two voices to touch down, coming to a stop after their frantic dash.

This would be their chosen battlefield, then, where they would face the hordes of enemies and the other aspect comprising Gehenna.

"Rin," the earlier humor had faded from Amaimon, leaving behind a solemn gaze, "you've done well."

Would their strength be enough? Could they last? Without knowing what the other side had at their disposal, it was impossible to say what would happen. He could guess, but the data to complete the calculation was missing and anything could happen to change the outcome of their fight.

"Amaimon?" The sounds of the horde signaled their nearing proximity, but didn't cover Rin's voice, "I'm glad you're with me. I'm glad you chose to help."

Their exchange quieted his thoughts, everything falling beneath the surface as he realized they'd come down to the wire. If they died here, if they survived, only time would tell. He just had to wait.

Amaimon dropped his human facade, scales rippling over his limbs and growing to cover the vicious reptilian claws he now sported. All that was missing was that vivid red heart he'd seen him with when he'd remembered his name to complete the picture.

"Oh, one more thing, Rin," Amaimon said, and the bloodlust he could see in his glowing eyes had his heart rate picking up again in anticipation.

"Use your flames."

Amaimon vanished and the fight began.

Use your flames. He wanted to watch Amaimon, could see him far above attacking with brutal efficiency when he met the horde, but his focus couldn't be pulled off Rin.

A slow smile stole across Rin's face, as if he luxuriated in the blue embers rising from the surface of his skin and highlighting the way his irises once again warped to match. The flames sank down.

Power exploded out like creation itself, like the universe at its inception, setting his blood to sing in his veins and his mind to vanish beneath a blue wave.

Screams made it through his rushing pulse from where the flames must have already met Rin's enemies. He couldn't see, still adrift in a blinding firestorm.

He lost time, sure that his eyes were open but unable to absorb anything beyond the energy tearing over the horizon of his prison. His mouth gaped and he imagined those flames must be pouring in and filling him to the brim until he thought he would disappear, eaten down to the core.

Blue parted in a discordant burst across his senses and that other aspect of Gehenna dove towards Rin.

Rin gasped as he saw the incoming attack and raised a claw in defense.

How was he expecting to attack the being that called itself his father? Did it have some physical vessel he just couldn't see past its core? Rin's hand shoving straight into the energy stopped its momentum and brought him into contact, the blue fire clashing with Rin's.

It spoke, "so wonderful to see you, my son!"

What did it want? It wasn't attacking? Was only- "and you've even brought your errant sibling home."

"A lost lamb..." the voice faded, "...returned to the flock…"

-Mocking. The voice was only mocking. He noted Rin, could see him shivering as if an attack had made it through to stun him and a small part wanted to join him, shaken by something he couldn't place.

Did it mean Amaimon? A quick glance across the horizon showed him darting through Rin's flames, his power gleaming over the distance as he continued the massacre. Surely if it meant Amaimon, it would be focusing at least a portion of its attention that way.

Snarling from Rin and a billowing fire-spout into the air wrenched his gaze back as Rin recovered to return to his half of the horde.

Around him, chaos reigned, a cacophony of battle cries and death rattles and always Rin's flames or the sounds of the earth moving. But without a visual he could only rely on those sounds as indication of the tide of the fight.

The latest plume of Rin's attack dissipated to reveal the opposing Gehenna had shown again.

"And you've been bonding!" once more, the foreign flames got in Rin's space, as if they were trying to wrap themselves around his core to snuff it out, "it's so great to see siblings getting along."

"Bastard," Rin hissed, and he wanted to hiss right along with him, beginning to understand the shape of what that other Gehenna was attempting to do.

Cackling laughter accompanied the words, "It's too bad-"

Vindication curled through him when Rin put a stop to the grating voice. Though he had to force a long inhale to calm himself a moment later when the feeling registered. He shouldn't be allowing something like his emotions to become so overpowering when he needed all the information he could get, whether from Rin and Amaimon or any of the other voices they interacted with in these scenes.

Becoming emotional wouldn't help him recover his name, neither would it change the outcome of this battle. He still had no idea whether the events were happening as he watched them or were past events, already decided.

Either way, he wouldn't be affecting the course of events.

That fact wasn't a surprise at this point of his imprisonment so he didn't know why it made his mood sour. He took in the way Rin lashed out with more fire, his own frustration painting his features as if he hadn't met his target.

Rumbling started, closer than what he heard from Amaimon, and the other aspect of Gehenna returned as Rin cried out, jerking his gaze down with bared fangs to the invasive flames crawling up his leg from below.

"You didn't let me finish, son," the other Gehenna said, his flames prodding over Rin as if searching for an exploitable weakness, "I was only saying how sad it was that this is all for nothing."

"Fuck you," came the hissed rejoinder, ineloquent, but those flames cut off with Rin's attack and hadn't found a chink in his armor so it didn't matter. He understood the situation then.

When Rin sent up one of those breath-stealing roars, getting one from Amaimon in turn that had his eyes shuttering for a brief moment, he took another to hope that at least Amaimon would know the danger Rin was in the longer the other Gehenna besieged him.

From what he could tell, the horde had lessened, unable to last against the combined power Rin and Amaimon wielded. Victory seemed on the horizon, if Rin's wild laughter and savage delight was any indication.

Sparks from Rin's fire threw his face in sharp relief and made his eyes fever-bright while a following wave washed up into the haze, another chorus of screams rising with it.

And left behind the other Gehenna. Rin didn't hesitate, looking to have shucked the confusion from the previous altercations. Good. That would protect him from the other Gehenna's advances.

"He doesn't look so good," again, those flames licked at the ones surrounding Rin. His eyes narrowed at the sight and an ache started in his chest where he wanted to growl. "He was always a weirdo, though. I'd say his looks have improved!"

"Wouldn't you, son?"

Wait. His urge whisked away as the taunt pulled him back to the fight. Who was the other Gehenna talking about? There wasn't anyone else besides Amaimon on the field that Rin would have a vested interest in. So who?

But Rin didn't offer anything that would give him a hint to the identity of the person.

"No, I wouldn't." The other Gehenna vanished before Rin's cold gaze and even colder words.

Someone they wanted to save.

And.

He doesn't look so good.

Both of those individual pieces of information on their own added to the narrative he'd been building after every new scene he witnessed. He just needed a final piece to the puzzle and he could unlock a keystone to the entire story, a linchpin to the web.

Possibly a clue to his identity.

Rin's fire died until it covered his body, shrinking from the inferno it had been to a glowing shroud. Further away, a twin flame sprouted back into existence near Amaimon. Silence reigned in his prison, only disturbed by the shift of shoes against gravel as Rin leapt to touch down before that flame.

He was allowed to join Amaimon without a move being made against them, the two sharing a look before facing the last of their enemies. Even with the signs of strain on Amaimon's vessel from overuse, he still radiated the same raw power as Rin, their stances firm and unbroken and ready for the final storm.

Any concern that the foreign flames would present a danger to Amaimon soothed when Rin let his reach out to envelope him too in an added defense.

"Here we are," the other Gehenna spoke, continuing the narrative it had been building the entire confrontation, "and isn't this much better? So much more intimate."

"What do you want?" Rin said, though he didn't think the other Gehenna would have anything to say that he would find useful and by Rin's glacial tone he was well aware of that likelihood.

That flame vanished again before it could answer, reappearing a moment later a few feet to the side. The setting clicked in his head as he realized it must have been possessing the remaining demons from the horde to use as living mouthpieces. Sacrifices.

"I want what I have from the start. You, my dear son."

Exactly as he'd thought. Though while the answer didn't offer Rin any closure, it gave him more of a picture into what made the other Gehenna tick. And what had been happening the entire fight. How much of what the other Gehenna was attempting did Amaimon know about? The rest of the voices they'd spoken with all seemed to understand more about Gehenna and possibly this being than Rin did.

"Too bad," Rin said in a deep growl that shook him from his thoughts, "it's not happening."

The words left Rin from a shivering chest, and he could see the tension running whipcord up his spine. At his side, Amaimon stood with deceptive calm, though violence lurked beneath that placid facade.

"What's the matter?" rasped the words from the hungry flames where they consumed the next host, "Too busy to spend time with your daddy? I'm hurt!"

Those mocking words all but confirmed his suspicions.

"Yeah, I am," came Rin's hiss, clearly losing patience with the farce of a conversation.

"I understand," another body had been taken, "you're having fun playing with your siblings."

Siblings. Plural. Another reference to a third person. Unless it was talking about the other voices Rin had interacted with? The possibilities narrowed further, options cutting away bits of the loose threads to reveal the few strongest.

"You sure picked a boring one to play with. Which child were you again?" It was talking about Amaimon, the sneering tone deadening Amaimon's expression further. But Rin froze.

Of course. To a being comprising all of Gehenna, the concept of Earth wouldn't seem anything noteworthy, a drop in a cosmic bucket to the flames that it had originated from. He watched the burgeoning fury bloom in Rin's eyes at the insult anyway and knew that to Rin, half-human as he was, a single aspect was more important than the whole. Amaimon held more importance.

"Oh wait, I remember. You're the dirt king!"

That did it. Rin's eyes flared at the childish stab, a step away from lashing out and breaking the stand-still. Another chink in the armor.

"Rin," Amaimon said, a simple call of his name without inflection but it got Rin's immediate attention.

His gaze drew to the sudden movement from Amaimon and he felt his breath catch. Rin's did too, anger fading out the moment claws pressed in a soft touch to his inner wrist. Such a strange thing to see from a demon, from Amaimon, whose obliviousness to human social norms rivaled Rin's about the demonic.

How human.

"It doesn't matter which you play with," had the other Gehenna not seen the touch? Something so vulnerable would have given it a clear opening past Rin's defenses to take advantage of, the obvious weakness like blood in the water.

Instead, "once the weirdo dies, you'll have nowhere left to run and then you'll be coming home to me."

Who? His heart skipped a beat.

"Yeah, I will be coming back. And I'll be coming for you. You can count on it." Threat painted every word from Rin's mouth, a dire promise he barely comprehended because his mind couldn't leave the newest piece of information.

"Wonderful!" Then I'll just be waiting for a few more days and we'll have our family reunion."

He strained to catch more, a building need in his gut for that last unspoken information he could feel on the other side of their conversation. Just a little more.

"It's inevitable, you know-" The words cut off with the dissipating blue flames and a scream built in his chest at the newest stolen opportunity.

So close. He'd been so close to something important.

The final demon from the horde must have died with the other Gehenna because it didn't return and Rin allowed his flames to absorb back into his body.

It didn't feel safe yet.

"Amaimon are we-" Rin turned just as Amaimon began to choke on his blood.

Tension snapped through him at the sight of Amaimon bowing over and bleeding from internal damage that spoke of an attack on his host.

There were still two bodies available for possession. Of course that other Gehenna wouldn't have left yet. The final stages of its plan had just begun. He'd been right in his suspicions

"Amaimon what-?"

Amaimon confirmed them further with his snarl, digging claws into his arms to ground himself in his own vessel.

"You can't have me, -."

Yes. Amaimon would know how to fend off such an attack. The only question would be if he had the strength to do it, and how determined the other Gehenna was to push Amaimon out.

Already, Amaimon trembled, his eyes taking on a hazy sheen and focused inward as he fought the parasite tearing at his hold on his host

At least Rin was safe, surrounded by his own flames as he was, most likely an automatic defense his subconscious had thrown up. Would he realize in time that he could use them to defend Amaimon too?

One movement too far sent Amaimon falling, no longer able to support himself as he toppled down. But he'd been lucky, he saw, as Amaimon fell into Rin's outheld, flame-wreath hand and hissed at the shock of those flames to his skin.

Good! Rin just had to recognize the effect and act on it!

Then they would be rid of the threat besieging them for the time being.

"Come on, Amaimon, don't let him win. You're stronger than this," came the taut whisper from Rin. He'd lowered Amaimon to rest against him, face a mixture of fury and concern and helplessness.

Whoever had been responsible for raising Rin had utterly failed, leaving him so unaware of the power he wielded, the potential he carried, what he could do with the flames making up his core and what he was.

And it might well lead to Amaimon's loss of a vessel, the loss of whatever their quest was, if Rin couldn't figure it out.

Rin brushed his hand over Amaimon's fever-flushed skin, the flames chasing some of that unhealthy pallor away until he settled his palm to his forehead and released a short breath, eyes widening before narrowing in a glare.

"Amaimon. Fight."

That burning stare seemed to look beyond the physical world. Had Rin discovered his abilities?

"No, you can't have me, either," Rin's voice snapped like sparks from a bonfire and he knew that he had, eyes shuttering in a heavy relief. There'd been no hesitation in Rin, no weakness for that other Gehenna to exploit. He wouldn't be taking Rin or Amaimon's bodies.

Convulsions began in Amaimon, gasping a ragged breath that sprayed blood from his lungs but, in a final shudder, he slumped, panting and exhausted but no longer surrounded by the parasitic energy of the other Gehenna.

Safe, they were safe.

He closed his eyes, finally, knowing he could relax and debating on whether he could give into his own exhaustion that he'd been fighting ever since Rin had awoken.

Something sent prickles along his skin, a sense of danger looming that told him the threat may have lessened, but not left.

What-

Blue flared in a blinding glow around his prison, whiting his vision out even when his eyelids slammed shut against the intrusive light.

A scream pushed at his ribs, agony ripping at every cell of his being like he would be torn apart and confusion whirling in a riptide that tried to pull him under a merciless undertow.

Where had the attack come from? Pain like he hadn't experienced since those ancient memories of formation left him floundering.

It hurts it hurts it hurts

Existence funneled into one point drilling into his psyche, a maddening fire from all angles, inescapable no matter which way his mind tried to flee.

Black spots danced amongst the blue light, his lungs ached until he realized with alarming clarity that he'd started suffocating, the waters he drifted in rising up to cover his nose and mouth.

Then he went completely under.

Red drifted in the swirling waters, the kaleidoscope of color leaving him blindsided and overwhelmed in an animal panic.

The blue reached his core and he shook on a toppling axis.

GehennathealphatheomegacreationfirethatspawnedatthebeginningofeverythingSatanFather

Everything made sense for one, vividly clear moment.

Father. Gehenna. Satan

He was being shoved out of his vessel. A forced possession tearing at the bindings of the chains holding him there within his prison.

And, he couldn't ignore the exhaustion dragging him down this time, not after the second consecutive name he'd remembered.

Too much, it was too much!

He couldn't hold on anymore. Air bubbled up from his lungs, gone numb after so long beneath the water.

One silent thought made it through the encroaching darkness. If he died here, he'd never get to see the end of Rin and Amaimon's story, and if they would succeed in saving that unnamed being.

He wanted to finish this story.

He wanted...

Fire pierced the darkness and struck him like a lightning bolt, ripping him from the abyss and back to the surface in a single, sharp jerk.

Water bled from his damaged lungs while he strained to heave like he wanted to, eyes shot open but unseeing as life poured into him and burned the weakness from his core.

Around him, the inferno spun, an ocean of blue without definable ends and he, an infinitely small being in comparison.

But, something massive broke the uniformity, a shadow lurking on the edges. It slipped beyond the sky with a flick of its form as if it tested for cracks in the barrier like some great behemoth of a creature- like the human stories of the Nidhoggr eating at the world tree

A scent of otherworldly fire reached him, soothing, despite the danger those flames could bring. Then, as if drawn by the scent- or even the source of it- another leviathan breached outside the flames.

The leviathan overtook the entire horizon, curling to block his view of the other being.

Like it protected him.

He knew, suddenly, the strands of the web coming together, weaving everything into a finished picture but for one, final point in the center.

The last missing puzzle piece was-

"Looks like he's not doing too well, son," Father spoke in a mocking voice, not covering that he still looked for an opening to exploit.

Buoyed by Rin's strength, he wouldn't be offering one.

"Leave already, dammit," Rin's voice, an echoing growl through the flames from the circling leviathan, the one who'd pulled him free of the suffocating depths, whose scent it was filling his senses. "You're not getting him or Amaimon."

The one whose quest was to save him.

"Don't you know? Can't you feel it?" Father said, lashing out in testing strikes that Rin parried at every turn. "He dies. It's inevitable. You're going to fail."

Ice slid along his veins, constricted his throat as he tried to work out whether Father meant his attempts to possess his vessel would result in his death or something more.

And Rin...

"No, it's not. He's not. And we're not going to fail."

Power flooded his prison on the wave of Rin's snarl, roaring out over the expanse with his determination that he would live.

"He's not gonna die because I'm going to save him."

Those protective flames spilled from Rin, forcing a cry from Father when they finally hit and filling every corner of his prison.

"Then we're all going back to Assiah and he's going to go back to playing his games and eating his cheap instant noodles and messing around in my life like he always does."

He could feel that fire, the core of what Rin was, wanted to reach out, to let him know.

It caressed along his face and he just noticed the chill where it had settled because the simple touch burned like a brand. He latched onto it anyway, straining for even one more second of contact that let him know he was alive.

Flutters of Rin's flames to him, a comforting warmth, now that they'd chased the frost from his skin and the ache from his bones, allowed him to steady his mind.

Rin knew him, knew he enjoyed games of any kind, something that, once said, he also knew to be true. He knew what foods he liked, had been someone he spent time with because he would have enjoyed poking around in his life, and Rin still fought to save him when he had seen all others in previous scenes relegate him to death.

With such certainty in Rin's voice, in the way that he surged his power against Father's, he ripped the last of the weakness from his mind.

"He's going to live."

Roaring shook the walls of his prison, pounded at his ribs where he could have been calling out right alongside Rin as he shoved the invaders from inside.

"Now get out of his head!"

Get out. Get out!

Blood rushed in a drowning beat with his pulse, blue flame sucked out like it had been drawn into the vacuum of space.

For the next few moments he could only lay, panting and dazed, near blind, once the brilliant light of Rin's core vanished.

Water burned at his superheated skin, the first real sensation he'd felt since he'd awoken besides exhaustion, and he savored the sting even as his mind began to shut down.

"We did it!" Rin's brilliant cheer cracked his eyes open just in time to see Amaimon pulled into a tight hug that put such complete bafflement onto him that humor curled a fist in his chest. How sweet. The tables had turned, it seemed. Wry laughter tried to escape at the irony of Amaimon being caught flat-footed by Rin's expression of human joy.

"Hah!" He settled into the haze dragging him under, Rin and Amaimon more faint outlines that he watched through slit lids. "That bastard got booted so hard he's going to be feeling it for weeks!"

"Amaimon," only the glow of their eyes made it through, "he's alive in there, he's still fighting."

He drifted on Rin's sigh of happiness, the sound carrying him, along with the knowledge that, when Rin spoke, it was about him, and he wanted to respond, to tell him he was still fighting.

And he wanted to touch that fire again.

"I felt -. He reached out to me!" He could no longer see their outlines, but at this point he almost didn't need to, to imagine the way Amaimon would be looking at Rin.

And he'd heard-

"Er, Amaimon?" Yes, he could see it now, the wheels turning behind Amaimon's eyes as he tried to process Rin's humanity. "Ah, sorry about that, the hug. I kinda got carried away. Are you okay? Is he okay?"

"Yes," Amaimon said, finally recovering from the natural phenomena that was Rin, "- and I are okay."

He faded away on the sound of Amaimon's laugh, knowing he'd been saying his name, that Rin had said his name, though he couldn't hear it yet.

And awoke to the sound of stone cracking.

Blinking didn't help to clear the wavering tiredness from his eyes where they rested. Heavy weights seemed to drag his lids down. How long had he been asleep for? How much time had passed since Rin and Amaimon had fought off Father?

The questions and need to answer them forced his eyes open, focusing until the first scrawls impressed themselves on the sky.

Amaimon, shivering and not appearing in any capacity to control the involuntary movements.

Rin could see it too, when his outline formed next, a frown painting his features.

"Hey, are you- you gotta be cold, right?" Worry, poorly hidden, joined the frown on Rin, and he wondered how Amaimon would take such obvious concern for a weakness.

Would he cover it up or-?

But a shallow nod in response to Rin's question showed that particular barrier had fallen. It spoke of trust.

"It's ok," Rin said as he took a seat next to Amaimon, close, but not touching, "I can just use my flames, right?"

Silence but for another nod and the sky lit with Rin's flames burning in a steady aura around their bodies.

As Amaimon untensed from the tight huddled he'd been in to conserve heat, he wondered where he was.

Was he with them now?

The thought consumed him as Amaimon summoned food for he and Rin, again, neither speaking so that only the sounds of them eating and Rin's flames reached his ears.

Where was he, in what form? What did he even look like? The question hit him in its suddenness, realizing he'd spent so long wanting his name, he'd never stopped to consider his appearance.

Did they have him beside them, or someplace else? He tried to picture, given what he knew about his two voices now, where his vessel would have been kept.

"Amaimon," Rin said, finished eating, though not finished with whatever it was that bothered him, "I'm sorry, for what I did when you broke the sword."

Ah. Yes. That violent awakening seemed so long ago, with so many revelations in between. Rin hadn't put it aside so easily yet, by the clear guilt sending words shuddering from his lips. "I just- I don't know why I did that, but I'm sorry."

Amaimon reaching to flick his claw to Rin's forehead had an internal grumble of approval running in his head. It was ridiculous to be upset about something like that.

"Wha-" Amaimon cut Rin's startled gasp off with his next words.

"Don't be dumb," he said, his exasperation coming through as he dealt with Rin, "you were just reborn after nearly dying and you stopped yourself despite the instincts in your body."

At least that calmed some of Rin's guilt before they lapsed into silence again. But he didn't think Rin was through with everything he wanted to say to Amaimon, waiting for what might be revealed in their conversation.

"I still don't understand, what did he want from us, from me?" There it was, the other part of what bothered Rin. That it also happened to be information he needed was the metaphorical cherry on top.

"Father," he latched onto Amaimon's careful words, "is very young."

Young?

"He's only in his first century after gaining an ego."

Fascinating. So their Father was a newly formed ego with all the immaturities of a human infant coupled with the power of creation. It was no wonder the showdown had gone the way it had. He understood now. The question was, would Rin?

"When he formed, - and - were already embroiled in their conflict." Another hint into some divide. One was most likely the blinding being, the other, a mystery, still. And Rin, caught in the middle.

"Father didn't have the same freedom to experience existence in the way that we did." Interesting to see that Amaimon had seemed to have spent some time considering this, enough to explain it to Rin so that he also understood.

"It sounds," Rin said, looking contemplative and not enjoying the conclusion he'd arrived at, by the grimace on his face, "it sounds like me, kinda."

He found himself drawn further into the scene.

"I found out in one night that there was this whole other world in a war I never knew existed, but suddenly I'm a part of it and there's no going back." How Rin had gone undiscovered so long was another mystery he didn't know if he would get an answer to, but he would have to think about the possible avenues such a path suggested later.

"Yes, you understand," Amaimon nodded, pleased with Rin's deduction and moving on.

"What Father wants," his expression shifted to something more somber, staring down with a new distance in his eyes, "doesn't really matter, in the end."

"- and - will have their way. Father is just another piece in their game."

Rin's hitched breath and shock matched the traces of his own that faded with the interweaving threads, "that's crazy, and he doesn't care?"

Not so, not if what he suspected was the case.

A deeper scowl appeared on Amaimon as he explained, and, now that he saw it, his instincts perked up at the odd displays of emotion. There was a part of this particular conversation that was making Amaimon volatile. Did Rin realize it yet? He put the curiosity about Amaimon's mood aside, though he kept a cautious eye on it because he didn't think it would vanish on its own.

"Father is too young to worry about the future yet. Everything in his world is what's immediate, the present, what he wants now, not what he'll want thousands of years from now."

It made sense. A being that new would never be able to plan beyond the newest impulse or current obsession. Father was easily manipulatable by the two other more experienced beings, for all the power he possessed.

"Like a kid," Rin said, on the cusp of full understanding, something that would only be helpful to his surviving the dangerous reality he'd found himself in. "Okay."

"It's not what he wants, but what they want, right?" Yes, he'd reached the crux of the matter. But Rin didn't look finished.

"Yes." Amaimon spoke the word harder than Rin's answer should have necessitated. What could possibly be the source of that buried anger? He itched to dig until he'd clawed it free.

"And," Rin said, the hesitation in his voice and movements implying he'd also sensed Amaimon's strange mood but still chose to continue, "what do you want?"

He hadn't thought to ask such a question, assuming Amaimon's wants to be the same as the other voices they'd come across, or, because of his demonic mindset, to be taken in by his current fixation on Rin and uncaring beyond that.

Growling from deep in Amaimon's chest and the flickers of his power shining through his eyes betrayed the immanent explosion.

"I don't want to be a pawn," a snarl warped Amaimon's features and gold flashed in a warning that had come too late for Rin. There would be no backtracking, Rin would have to ride out the storm of Amaimon's rage.

And, once again, he understood Amaimon. The thought of being a pawn in anyone's game, of being at a greater power's mercy, rankled at his nerves and made his own snarl fight behind his lips.

"I will not be another player in their war!" the shout from Amaimon startled Rin, freezing him in place with indecision.

"He-"Amaimon glared sulphurous venom, though it didn't seem to be towards Rin, a fact he grabbed at, even if he didn't quite know why yet, "-and - won't rest until we're all killing each other for their game, until they're the only two left and there's no one to challenge them."

"You're still helping him."

Amaimon stopped, stunned right along with him at Rin's sudden statement. Still helping him? There was only one he was aware Amaimon currently fought for alongside Rin.

"Why did you decide to help me, really, Amaimon?" He watched, a feeble helplessness invading his mind as he held the threads of their implications together.

Amaimon flinched back from Rin, the wind of his storm blown out with those two sentences and looking just as shell-shocked as he felt.

Would he answer? He needed an answer, needed to bind the last few threads he hadn't even known were connected but, now that he had them, seemed so obvious.

"Because you're honest," Amaimon began, slowly, to Rin's short gasp and his own hunger for answers. "You wanted to save - without any ulterior motive."

Of course, he should have expected it the moment Amaimon had mentioned a conflict between two beings that even Father was a chess piece of.

There were precisely three that were stronger than him, something he'd learned in his memories of his other half. And, once Abduxuel had died, only Father and one other remained. If Father was too new to act as anything but a pawn, then logic dictated the other being Amaimon refused to yield to was...

"None of the others would be able to say that," Amaimon said, anger vanished to leave him looking like a home hollowed out after a hurricane. "No one on Assiah or Gehenna could say that."

"Except...you?" Rin, still digging to the source with Amaimon's defenses gone.

Silence persisted, drawn taut across the small distance.

"No. No, just you." Amaimon said in concession, bowing to Rin's steadfast gaze.

"So you," still, Rin wouldn't let up, a dog with a bone and each time he bit down, more of Amaimon crumbled, "you're helping - because I decided to help him, but not because I'm on his side?"

That widened his eyes, pupils flicking to see how Amaimon would respond to the statement. Incredible, to see such astuteness from Rin, seeing him weave threads of his own that Amaimon hadn't anticipated- that he hadn't anticipated- cast yet another new light to the phenomena that was Rin.

"You weren't choosing a side," Amaimon said, shoulders slumping as he turned back to face Rin with a blank expression like he hid a turbulence underneath. "You weren't playing his or -'s game."

"You chose your own side." Everything was coming to a head with each new piece Rin pulled from Amaimon, an avalanche he didn't think Amaimon could stop at this point.

"And, it's why I chose to side with you." It didn't look like Amaimon wanted to stop himself, stop the words pouring like a stream from his mouth.

Incredible.

"What do you-" Rin said, trying to slow the inevitable conclusion of Amaimon's words and the responsibility they would chain him with.

"In this war, I'm going to fight on your side, whichever path you take."

The chain locked in place, a shackle around Rin's neck to weigh him with the weight of not just his own life, but Amaimon's, and his. What would he do with that added weight?

"Amaimon you- I wouldn't ever ask you to do that, you don't need to." Rin's attempts to make the chains vanish made amusement bubble in his lungs, a sigh at the panic he could see gripping Rin blowing out in a long exhale from his nose. Cute, it was cute how Rin thought something like Amaimon's decision could be taken back once given.

"That's why. You offer freedom." And equally as cute was Amaimon's decision to aid Rin in the war between gods based on something like freedom. Still...

He wanted to shake his two voices all over again, watching the way Amaimon began to shiver the longer Rin didn't answer his offer of allegiance.

Rin's panic subsided while Amaimon's grew. Then, as if in slow-motion, Rin leaned the last small distance to Amaimon to give his answer in the form of a hug. It was utterly human of him, but, with the two surrounded by the otherworldly Gehenna flame that made up Rin's core, he couldn't find it in him to think it with the same trivialization he would have otherwise.

Amaimon's hiss of shock where he'd been trapped in Rin's arms and his blown pupils showed he'd been just as thrown, despite all the revelations he'd dropped on Rin that had led to his current situation.

"What are you doing?" Amaimon snapped out even as he made no move to disengage. The irony of it all just deepened his amusement, further still when he saw the flush rise to Rin's cheeks. He could practically hear his pulse racing at his own nerve.

"Sorry, you looked like you needed it." Rin said, only making him close his eyes. After so long viewing his voices, he shouldn't be surprised at their tiring dance. And yet, every time, their two steps forward, one step back managed to get his hopes up.

"Needed?" Yes, he could imagine the confusion bleeding through Amaimon now.

"I'm not going to fail you- or him." At Rin's declaration his eyes jolted open, just in time to catch Rin scenting Amaimon out and Amaimon short-circuiting in his embrace. "If I have to go through everyone in Gehenna and Assiah, if I have to fight - and Satan and the Order to do it, I will."

Oh.

The amusement dropped away to be replaced by an emotion he didn't understand but which he thought Amaimon might share, if his muffled sound into Rin's shoulder meant anything. His heart thudded once to his ribs, mind brought back to the words of Rin's own promise to him, that he would live.

And that Rin would see it happen, would make it happen, even if the entirety of existence seemed to be set against their success.

"Hey," Rin just kept on, taking his humanity and his promises and letting them show through a soft smile when he pulled away from Amaimon, "you should sleep first, I've still got too much energy right now but I'll be good to try by the time you wake up, I think."

He might have also been unable to give much more than the short nod Amaimon managed in the wake of the quiet storm Rin had unleashed. He might also have made the executive decision to flee by shapeshifting the way Amaimon did in the following instance, the cloud of smoke covering what his minor form would be.

A green hamster already pawed at Rin's wrist for attention as the smoke dissipated.

"You can use less of your flames if I stay in this form," Amaimon said, scurrying up to tuck himself into the crook of Rin's throat. It was an excellent excuse to hide curled up directly on Rin. Though he couldn't tell if he was proud of Amaimon for taking the opportunity, or disappointed he couldn't seem to manage it in his normal vessel.

Something to think about later, when he awoke next.

"I didn't know you could transform like -." His eyes slid to bare slits as Rin stroked a soft touch to Amaimon. He found himself wishing he could feel the burning heat again. His body had returned to that lukewarm nothingness without Rin's flames.

"We all can," Amaimon said and he barely heard it, eyes drifting closed.

The scent of otherworldly flames had joined that of the petrichor, Rin's and Amaimon's mingled in his prison.

Soft purrs followed him down into sleep.

---

End Notes:

I promise, no more cliffhangers until at least...next chapter whoops!

And I hope this was long enough to make up for the month it took to write lmao

(It came out to 69 pages in the doc ayyyyyy XD)

Also I thought I'd give some shout outs to the reviewers who have left guest comments here on ffnet, thanks for reading and enjoying and letting me know you liked the fic so far :D