A/N:
I do not own or profit from any of what Kazue Kato has created.
White hair.
White eyebrows, tilting down towards the bridge of his nose.
Pathetic beard-growth. Always.
Maroon eyes – drawing slightly downwards at the corners. Dark circles underneath.
Eyes like a demon…?
Shiro could see no demon in the features the mirror showed him. He splashed water on his face and looked at himself again, hands resting on the edges of the sink.
Orphan.
Troublemaker.
Small-time criminal.
Murderer.
Vessel of Satan.
"At least it can't get any worse from here", he thought with a wry smile at his reflection. Shiro put his glasses back on and went out for evening practice.
Closing one's heart was not a pleasant experience. That said, it wasn't unpleasant; just uncomfortable. It was like a starched uniform of the mind, stiff and creaking and restraining. It took a lot of concentration to maintain, and inside the Academy he occasionally let it slip to focus on lessons.
Outside the Academy, he held his shield up constantly. Tiring and annoying, yes, but it had to be drilled into a motor skill he could perform without even thinking. For now, however, he was glad that he had to divert his thoughts to it.
Tch, it was unpleasant. No matter what he wanted to tell himself, it was. Close off your heart? Close off emotion with it. Close it in and lock it away and walk around like some robot imitation of a human. It wasn't so much a uniform as a mental isolation cell: nothing truly got through to him, and nothing really came out of him. It was similar, in a way, to the cold detachment that let him do horrible things without blinking. If you don't feel, you don't care: you know that what you do might hurt somebody, but that's a mechanical knowledge. It doesn't really bother you.
"Brought it on myself, no use complaining about it…" he muttered as he strolled through the streets.
It was still early enough for people to be out, and late enough for some of them to be thinking of going home. Those were the decisions ordinary people concerned themselves with, worlds apart from him. Worlds so close, yet so far away: he saw all the coal tars hovering lazily in the air, and felt stronger presences awake in the dusk here and there. No one knew of those presences. No one knew of him.
He turned into an unlit alley, a shortcut to the less populated streets. A bitter smile crooked his lips: it wasn't humans he was out to meet, anyway. He was alone in the alleys between the laughing people and the desolate silence, a drifting entity between day and night. Alone between worlds.
Shiro hadn't walked more than fifteen minutes, tops, before he felt it. Now, he wiggled the unlit cigarette up and down with his tongue, pondering what to do. He knew he was being tailed, and he knew by whom. That didn't bother him: what did bother him was how he knew. He just knew. Knew the way you know where your hand or foot is.
Telling him to quit skulking about would confirm that Shiro could sense him, which in turn would confirm that the imprint… was real. He didn't want to admit that. He didn't want to admit that he had changed, and would keep changing, even if-
"Oh for crying out loud!" he snapped at himself. "As if it would matter! Admitting or no admitting; doesn't change anything, does it?" He plucked the cigarette from his mouth to yell at Mephisto to show himself, but halted. No, he knew how to address that old goat properly…
Shiro put the smoke back between his lips and fished out his lighter, acting as if nothing was amiss. Flicking the switch, and cupping his hand around the cigarette, he focused: focused on the part of him that wasn't him, but that he could still… feel.
He drew a breath of smoke, closed his lighter… and hurled it into the darkness behind a container for waste construction material.
"Nice catch", he said, casually shoving his hands into his pockets as Mephisto's immaculately white shape melted out of the shadows.
"Guten Abend to you too." The lamplight glinted off the lighter between his thumb and forefinger. "Need I really tell you that throwing things at people is very rude…?"
"It's quite rude to stalk people, too", Shiro observed in mock-polite tones.
"Stalk? Dear Shiro, a gentleman does no such thing. As your principal, I am responsible for your safety." Mephisto sauntered over to him with the hideous umbrella for walking stick. "Even more so since I have part in your current condition. I merely wanted to be sure nothing happens to you during practice."
Oh, what a load of crap.
"Really?" Shiro's smile widened into sardonic sweetness. "I thought guardian angels came from the other department. And with a little less fangs." He blew a fan of smoke at the sky, tapping ashes off the end of the cigarette while he did. "You're here to keep an eye on me, alright: I'm your new limited edition toy, and it would suck pretty hard if I got mangled by some rogue demon before you were done playing." He shifted his weight to his other foot, giving Mephisto a calculating look. "'Making use of its unknown potential', was that how you put it?" He held out his hand for his lighter. "First new trick to learn: blocking demons."
Oh, it amused him. He wouldn't let it show, but Shiro knew. There were ideas and expectations crawling in those green eyes like maggots in a cadaver. Mephisto always appreciated a bold player.
"First new trick learnt: sensing demons." Mephisto placed the lighter in his upturned palm. "And thinking like one."
Shiro tensed. Stared at that pleasant face. Realised.
"Son of a…" He felt like crumpling up his head and all it's contents like a piece of trash paper: yes, he had just proven that he knew how demons worked. By giving such an accurate account of why Mephisto was tailing him, he hd proven that well enough. "Tch, aren't you a clever one…?" he muttered as he tucked the lighter back into his pocket. Words drifted into his mind like a rancid stench you can't escape no matter where you turn your head: are ye even human? "If you're done playing, can you leave?"
"Ah – and for the longest time I hoped the imprint would have transferred some manners into you", he sighed, tilting his head to the side with a less-than-impressed look. "Seems nothing will change that, however."
"You're not done playing, then", Shiro observed bluntly. "What do you want?"
"Always the wrong questions~" There was a smile in his voice, a voice that lowered as his eyelids did. "What do you want, Shiro?"
"I want my old life back."
A life where he wasn't confined in the prison of his own heart. A life where he hadn't... done things he didn't want to think about.
Shiro didn't care if he told the plain truth to the demon: he would know anyway, just like Shiro knew he was being toyed with. The heated coals in his chest – the mark the demon had left on his heart – flickered like the gleam in Mephisto's eyes. Shiro subdued it. Wouldn't do to lose his temper, even if that bastard made it difficult not to.
"And what would you be willing to do, to have it back…?" Mephisto's voice was soft. Soft and sleek with promises that came at high cost.
Dealing with demons never brings any good. Dealing with demons always has you paying for more than you get. Dealing with demons is the last resort for the ones whose hearts have been eaten empty by fear, and whose hope has fallen apart to desperation.
…and then there are the ones whose hearts have closed to desperation and fear alike.
"Anything", he responded, seeing the wicked spark in the green eyes and coldly surrendering his fate to it.
"Excellent!" Said eyes shrunk to crescents above the wide grin, and the sleek devil became an overly enthusiastic market fair vendor. "No need for me to interfere, then~" He bid his farewell with a touch to the brim of his hat, and the white cape billowed as he turned on his heel to leave. Just like that.
"What…?" Focus broken, Shiro tumbled out of his detached heart in sheer bewilderment.
"With the will to do anything, I'm sure you can accomplish anything", he concluded in bouncy tones, winking over his shoulder. "Not quite able to follow a demon's line of thought after all, are you~?"
And before Shiro could piece together a snide reply, Mephisto had poofed away.
"Wha-? You arrogant little…!" Baiting him, baiting him and making fun of him in such an insensitive…! "Next time that holy water will be in your bathtub, Sammy!"
No response. His presence could still be felt, but nowhere close by.
"I can't believe that lame shit was the best I could come up with", he snorted at himself, reaching for his lighter to re-light the cigarette that had gone out. "What an absolute jerk he is." He groaned, feeling a nerve yank his eyebrow into a twitch. "Oi, you crap guardian angel!" he shouted at the darkening sky. "Hand my lighter back!"
No response. Shiro put the cigarette between his teeth anyway, shoved his hands into his pockets, and turned to walk back to the Academy. No demon-blocking practice when he was this wound-up. Mephisto wasn't done playing, no. Far from it.
True Cross Town – a sprawling mass of life, as it were, its steady flow of humans the life-blood that filled its streets, milling in the thousands to carry out the daily work that poured nourishment into the districts and allowed for the steady breath of activity around the clock's hours. It had grown – overnight, even, one could say – where the Academy had been built, like mycorrhiza nesting among the strong roots of a host tree. It supplied its host with nourishment, practice, goods, and students: the Academy in turn provided protection, education, and payment. A mutualistic coexistence of finest sort. But that is how things work. The creation of one thing births another, adapted to suit the needs of the first, and give rise to that intricate weft that binds together all the constituents of the world. That was merely one of the many ways in which Assiah was… fascinating.
Green eyes encompassed the town, now a city, through the century since its birth until the current size of it today. The dusk-lit lights at his feet outnumbered the stars in the sky, the sounds of combustion engines and electricity and voices rising and falling like an ocean. All the wonders humanity had amazed him with, and yet...
Yet, humans were the most fascinating things of all.
And out of all the thousands of humans in True Cross Town, Fujimoto Shiro had fallen into his hands. Fujimoto Shiro, the boy that could harbour the heart of Gehenna's third strongest. A human boy with a cunning mind and a passionate heart – indeed, what an interesting toy Lady Chance had given him.
one thing births another
That boy had potential, potential he couldn't even begin to assess…
to suit the needs of the first
So many possibilities laid out before him, outnumbering the lights in heaven and below…
and give rise to a weft
Given the right motivation, and the right guidance…
that binds together the world
A boy with his determination…
and if you can fashion the weft after your own desires
A boy with a human heart and a demon's mind…
you can shape the world
Lady Chance had given him an interesting toy indeed.