A/N:
Sorry for the length, guys. x/ I think of it as reflecting a very long, very tiring but also very enjoyable day for Shiro and Mephisto.
Recall that Billion-dollar Question I mentioned in ch 73? Well, here we are: the Billion-dollar Question, and what I think the answer to it might be. (Don't be discouraged by the length of this chapter: much of it is footnotes/analysis.)
Many thanks to Zeitdieb for being my knight in shining armor! x)
…and a response, of sorts, to NeuroticNeko. =P
I do not own or profit from any of what Kazue Kato has created.
Quite a few students had asked him if he was locked out, and they had all received a negative response: no, Shiro's key was in his pocket, thank you very much. Some had politely inquired if Saburota had wanted some privacy with his girlfriend, and before Shiro could reply to that they had continued down the corridor, laughing. A few curious idiots had asked if he stood in the corridor because the poltergeist from White Night had come back to his room, and they had been sent away by death glares that forbade any further questions on the subject.
The idiots were half right, though. Shiro could distinctly sense Mephisto's presence behind the door, and a qualified guess was that this had something to do with scarves and horseshit.
What Mephisto had prepared in there was another question: one that Shiro felt he'd be better off not knowing the answer to. He could just walk away and come back later, that was one option; hopefully, Mephisto would find it too boring to wait, and abandon his plan. On the other hand, he could probably leave a trap behind if he so wished. And Shiro was almost out of cigarettes, and both his wallet and a new carton were inside his room… Tch, and even if he dodged the bullet this time, Mephisto wouldn't give up until proper revenge had been dealt. He would chase him down no matter how-
A self-ironic smile stretched Shiro's lips. Chase him down? Wouldn't be much of a chase, would it? He knew Mephisto was in there, and he was pretty sure Mephisto was able to tell he was standing outside. He had raced the demon down that dorm corridor once already, and he knew which one of them was the faster.
"Just take it like a man." Shiro drew in a breath, and turned the han-
*poof*
Whatever he had expected, it wasn't the shower of confetti, glitter, and serpentines bouncing off his head. Amidst it all stood Mephisto with a beaming grin and arms spread wide.
"Congratulations on passing all of your exams!" Judging from Mephisto's enthusiasm, he himself was the one who had just passed all exams.
"Thanks." When the initial shock had passed, Shiro couldn't help but pull a smile. Enthusiasm is infectious, sure, but in this specific case it was rather a matter of… Mephisto acting his looks. "You look like you enjoy it more than I do", he added, dislodging a red and yellow serpentine from his glasses frame.
"Don't be such a killjoy, Shiro!" he chirped enthusiastically. "Birthdays may lack significance in your dull view of life but surely this is an achievement sensible enough to celebrate?" He offered a courtly bow with one hand on his chest and the other behind his back. "Supper is on me~"
Mephisto paid? That meant it was either a trap, or… Uh, was there any other possibility?
"Which means 'supper' is either instant ramen or monja." Mephisto had a very peculiar diet, for a multi-millionaire - especially considering that he had a chef that could cook virtually anything. But, it's the luxury of the rich that they can be as quirky as they wish.
"For an occasion like this?" Thin eyebrows rose in theatrical astonishment. "Tsk tsk, who do you take me for, Shiro? No Esquire has ever passed exams for all classes at once, in his first try! This calls for something special."
…and with a secretive smile he left it hanging there: a grand, mysterious Pandora's box waiting to unleash dream or dread. Something special. Shiro pondered his options, nipping at the tip of his tongue as he did. Mephisto was up to something: the question was what. Curiosity killed the cat, curiosity killed the cat, curiosity ki-
"Anything that isn't a gay bar is fine."
Cats can't subdue curiosity: that's why they have nine lives.
"Gay bar? Of course not." He set his arms akimbo with a look of How Could You Even Conceive Of Such An Idea? "That would be highly inappropriate for a headmaster."
"M-hm: and letting a student get some lollipop love from a succubus isn't?" he returned, quirking an eyebrow at Mephisto as he walked past him and dropped his satchel by his bed.
"That files as extracurricular activity."
Shiro barked out a hearty laughter, the kind that blossoms from the very bottom of one's stomach and rocks the whole body with mirth. Extrecurricular activity?
"I think you just outdid yourself, my dear wordsmith!" Shiro got a hold of himself slowly, with the occasional guffawing noise bubbling out of his mouth. "Extracurricular activity - man, that they even let you run a school..."
"The word is ever mightier than the sword", the demon smirked. "While on the subject, she recommended you to cut back on the cigarettes and eat more fruit." Seeing Shiro's nonplussed expression, Mephisto was kind enough to elaborate: "To improve your taste."
…and try as it may, Shiro's brain could not fool him into thinking she had meant his taste in clothes or hairstyle. Feeling the heat rise in his cheeks, he pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes.
"Can we go to that dining place now, please?" he mumbled.
"The subject whet your appetite…?" There was a very thin coating of politeness to that question, and it did nothing to hide Mephisto's innuendos.
"No, I just hope you're well-bred enough not to talk with your mouth full. Of food." Sadly, the safeguard only served to give away what he had been thinking: and Mephisto's insinuating grin said that he, too, knew what his student had been thinking. "Oh, we're just getting started", Shiro sighed, massaging his eyelids. "You're gonna cough blood from laughing before this evening's over, I'm telling you; I'm so wasted after exams I could get up in the morning and forget my head on the pillow."
"Sounds promising~" Mephisto poofed himself into a casual lavender yukata with white stars, and summoned the ring of master keys into his hand. "I do like the prospect of enjoying your mouth all day long", he smiled, and used the dorm room door to open another door miles and miles away.
"I hear I'm gonna get plenty of help with the Freudian slips, too", Shiro chortled, ran a hand through his pink hair and followed him through.
They emerged up a short flight of stairs, onto stone-paved floor inlaid with a large compass rose. To the left opened a bustling street, with an austere, dark- wooded Shinto shrine awkwardly crammed in between bright shop windows and brazen logotypes. To the right a shopping arcade stretched into endlessness, with busy people reflecting in polished floors, and conches with artificial cherry blossom twigs on walls that met in a glass arc above. It was warmer, somehow. And it didn't look like anything in True Cross Town. Shiro was about to ask where they were when the sign above saved him from looking like an idiot: Teramachi.
"We're in Kyoto…? I didn't know the Order had affiliates in Kyoto."
"It doesn't, save a small field office mainly for monitoring." Mephisto pointed a horrible Hello Kitty-patterned fan at an assembly of signs on the wall behind them, where organisations and shops that resided in the building were listed.
Esquire Club
since 1964
"Kyoto is a city of respectable age, a stronghold of culture and tradition", he continued. "Exorcism here has always been managed by independent Japanese institutions, and quite efficiently so: the final battle against the Impure King was fought by Fukaku in the mountains here. A most spectacular showdown, that was." Mephisto twirled the fan between his fingers in remembered delight, and set a leisurely course straight ahead, to the opposite side of the shopping arcade. "The main body of exorcists in present-day Kyoto are descendants of the sect he founded – very apt at what they do, but tied as tightly to their traditions as the Vatican is to its own. Tradition is a solitary species, with profound dislike for competition; thus, no affiliates of the Order of the True Cross in Kyoto."
"But wouldn't they-" Shiro realised where they were headed, and though his English was something he'd use exclusively under death threat, he could read the name on the blue awning above the door. "I thought I'd made myself clear on the gay bars?"
"You made yourself perfectly clear, and this is an ordinary restaurant: a very hospitable such, with delicious food and reasonable prices."
Mr. Young Men had just recently opened, and, despite the name, it was indeed an ordinary restaurant. They were politely greeted by an ageing lady with a big birthmark above one eyebrow, who directed them to a vacant table by the window that faced the arcade. It was a small yet homely place, with lamps shaped like seashells on the walls, and tissue paper printed with the restaurant name on each table. A handful of other guests were already seated, engaged in conversation over steaming yakisoba, or… monja.
"Sumimasen; will you be translating the menu for your friend, or would you require help?" Shiro was asked by a frail little waitress, who wore a polite smile to go with her worried eyes.
"No need to worry, milady: I'm fluent in Japanese", Mephisto said, and did something Shiro didn't quite catch. He smiled, but not his usual smirk. And something with his eyes, too. And maybe something different with his voice. The combined effect caused the waitress' face to light up like a pink glow worm, and she hurriedly cast her eyes down, left them the menus, and scurried back to the rest of the staff behind the counter.
"I saw that – though I'm not sure what 'that' was", Shiro murmured over the table. "What did you do?"
Mephisto awarded him his usual, aggravatingly self-satisfied smile as he flipped open the menu.
"It's a noble art, to set a human heart aflutter with a single glance – too bad I can't make use of it, with the Vatican's collar around my neck. Hmm, what shall I have instead…?" His eyes scanned the menu idly, while his right hand twirled the shorter side of the fringe around its index finger. "Young men would be nice… maybe campus men…"
Mr. Young Men was a theme restaurant, which wasn't quite as bad as a gay bar but close enough. And while Shiro would have preferred yakisoba, he simply couldn't bring himself to order it after Mephisto had pondered his choices aloud in that insinuating tone. Especially not since Shiro had been thinking of ordering beef yakisoba - or, as the menu called it, Rich men. No, he ordered something else instead.
"So, in the end, we are having monja."
"It's not monjayaki: it's okonomiyaki", Mephisto corrected. Something special, huh...?
"Which is exactly the same thing", Shiro pointed out, slicing himself some onion and beef jerky pancake with a metal spatula. "It's just the tradition of the Kansai region that has a problem with the tradition of the rest of Japan and uses another name for it."
"You shouldn't speak ill of the tradition whose home you're guest in, Shiro."
"You mean you never do, Sir I-could-use-the-arcades-in-Saint-Peter's-basilica-as-walk-in-wardrobes…?"
They both had second helpings of monj- of okonomiyaki, and after they had finished those they spent a fair while just talking. One could spend weeks just talking with Mephisto. Years, probably. Not only did he know something about everything, but he had lived in times when conversation had been elevated to art. Tch, he'd been Hermes, for god's sake: the inventor of the art of speech and oration. He may have the drawing skill of a three-year-old, but his skill in wielding words was on par with Michelangelo's skill at wielding a brush. And above all, Hermes had been a trickster that used his talents for fun.
"Can you take us anywhere in True Cross Town?" Shiro asked when Mephisto paid for the meal. He'd had in Idea, of the kind that curled one's nerves into yarns of expectation, and the more he thought about it the better it seemed. "I think I know a place you'll like."
*poof*
Old memories, in every corner and vacant land lot. They were far down on the lowest levels of True Cross Town, where higher tiers of buildings kept the streets in perpetual twilight. Shiro had often gone there when he was younger – on errands, one might add for the sake of his good reputation.
Out of the mud, the lotus grows towards the light and blooms, like a mind striving for enlightenment – pretty way of putting it, no? A prime example of what Mephisto labelled "euphemism". Shiro had spent more time in the mud than on the glossy surface of True Cross Town: a town whose majestic pinnacles and arcs strove skywards on the tattered shoulders of Old True Cross Town – or Creek's End in street vernacular. Creek's End was where all trash washed up eventually; Creek's End was where walls sagged drunkenly on each other to support their weight, striped an unhealthy green-grey by neglect in daylight that was provided by street lamps.
Shiro took the lead at leisurely pace, walking through neon lit memories from signs with suggestive names such as Lips and Slave. Make no mistake, Creek's End had good and bad areas, too. This was a district that saw plenty of visitors from upper True Cross Town: like Mephisto, it presented a respectable façade by day and transformed into an amusement park of sin at night.
He took care not to bump into anyone as he walked, knowing that in this jungle he was no lion, but a meerkat that would lose its neck if he stuck it out too far. Well, maybe not with the King of Time in tow. Shiro steered them towards an entrance with a chandelier imitation that looked like a giant jellyfish, without the lights and glitter many other places advertised: the tall, muscular guard at the door didn't do lights and glitter. It was a fancy place, though. Too fancy for Shiro to have gone to, even if he was allowed in.
"You dabble in illegal gambling?"
…and apparently, Shiro wasn't the only one who knew his way around True Cross Town's decadent districts.
"Pff, as if I'd have spare money to waste on gambling, with the fees your school charges! No – but do the right favours for the right people and 'poof!'" Shiro snapped his fingers. "Doors open." He cocked an eyebrow and shot Mephisto a wolfish grin. "Magic, you know?"
He didn't miss the amused smile that tugged Mephisto's lips as he led the way over to the tattooed doorkeeper, presented his ID, and was permitted to bring his gaijin friend in.
Spaces that aren't supposed to exist in the first place develop a certain atmosphere about them. At first, they're empty: uninhabited Possibilities that stand naked, nervously waiting for a purpose to fill their vacant flats and murky basements. Then purpose moves in, and brings people with it; or is it the people that bring the purpose…? Regardless, it's the people that bring the atmosphere. It's the people that bring with them the awareness that the place is forbidden, and paint the walls with their suppressed fears of being found. Eventually, it has soaked into the structure to the point you feel it the moment you enter: a tiptoeing, static convulsion, born from the knowledge that, any minute, this outlawed nook of the world could be discovered and destroyed, and the people discovered there destroyed with it.
It wouldn't be, though. Gambling pits like this one were protected by silent agreements passed in envelopes under official desks, and among the well-dressed men around the tables were no doubt both policemen and politicians. The basement had been furnished to fit the company, with pipes and cables concealed behind lavish painted screens and mirror walls. Glamorous. Bending laws and making it glamorous: oh yes, Mephisto would like it there.
Dark, varnished gambling tables hovered in pools of light from low-hung lamps: little islands shrouded in cigarette smoke of finer brand than what Shiro was used to. Men of all ages and social status gathered together to cheer or groan at the clatter of dice, the muffled flipping of cards, or the swift-swept clicks of mahjong tiles. The noises blended in discretely with the melodies of ABBA's latest hits, which came pouring from speakers on a polished bar counter that hugged tapestries of glistening glass bottles to itself in the far corner. Breathtaking women in scant clothing filed back and forth from it with drinks, smiled their prettiest smiles and kept the gamblers company.
There was a certain atmosphere about the place, yes: a pungent blend of forbidden adventure, danger, daring, and delight.
"Come now: am I gonna have to tempt a demon to gamble?" Surprisingly, Mephisto seemed to require a bit of encouragement, and Shiro served it up with his absolute cheekiest grin. "You know what the Court at Headquarters would say of that."
"Charge you for 'inappropriate corruption of demon' you mean?" Mephisto sniggered merrily. "What a splendid role model you make, Shiro; the exorcist that tempts demons into sinning."
"Well, you know: one of my many extracurricular activites~"
Shiro could only imagine how they looked: one European rake in purple yukata, and one teenaged Japanese with bubblegum pink hair; laughing together like idiots. Heh, but looks are deceptive. Wonder what people would say, if they knew the two newcomers were the King of Time and one of the most promising exorcist students in Japan…?
Klondike was basically like playing poker, but with dice. It was a game the Americans had brought with them during the occupation, and left behind along with other souvenirs; such as a few hundred half-American bastard children. Officials and private persons alike agreed to pretend that those children didn't exist – much like they agreed to ignore the existence of gambling pits.
Klondike was played so that the banker – in their case a man with sharp eyes and teeth like a palisade of smoke-stained sotoba – rolled five dice, and the players then took turns rolling five other dice to beat the banker's combination. You could bet either 'win', which meant you aimed to roll higher than the bank, or 'lose', which meant you aimed to roll lower; or 'beat two aces', which meant you would have to pull off rolling at least two pairs.
Didn't sound that difficult, did it?
"I thought you liked games of chance?" Shiro asked, watching with fascination as Mephisto's ears dipped lower by the minute.
"This isn't Chance", he said irritably. "This is Hazard, her drunk cousin."
The bank had rolled one of the lowest possible combinations, and Mephisto had bet 'win': and for the sixth time in a row, he'd rolled the same number as the bank, which meant the bank won. The other players around the table were highly amazed – not to mention amused – by this; and any moment now, the amassed improbabilities would reach critical concentration and open up a black hole that swallowed Assiah.
"Do you know why they say one can have 'the devil's own luck'?" Mephisto muttered under his breath when the next man rolled. "Because that's what it is. Demons can't make use of luck themselves, only sell it off to humans."
He was being baited, and Mephisto wasn't even bothering to hide it. He knew what directions Shiro's mind would start ticking with those words, and Shiro knew that he knew, and knew he should make an effort not to fall for demons' temptations... And yet, the night was young and the music good, the clatter of dice and mahjong tiles drew cheers and groans into the smoky air, and Shiro was nineteen years old and invincible.
"Then throw some luck my way and I'll play for you", he offered, muffling his words behind his hand as he pretended to scratch nonexistent beard. "We split the money at the end of the game. What do you say?"
"I say the game is on. What will you give me in return?"
Shiro glanced up at the tall demon one extra time. Nope, he was serious. When it came to money, he was always serious.
"You get half the money: just how greedy are you?"
"Very, but that's not the point. Demons deal in countless currencies, but man-made money isn't one of them."
Shiro tilted his head to the side.
"That's weird."
"That's fair", the demon corrected in pleasant tones. "Rich or poor, every soul can afford to deal with us."
"Right…" Shiro let his gaze wander with his thoughts, as if a solution was hidden somewhere in the room. Or, somewhere in the far corner, among the glistening bottles and glasses…? "Drinks on me afterwards – is that acceptable currency?"
"You're underage, Shiro."
"And I'm in an illegal gambling pit."
"Valid point: deal."
The devil's own luck, indeed. Shiro had to discreetly ask Mephisto to give him at least a few bad rolls, for the banker's stiff sotoba-smile was becoming more and more reminiscent of a grave-marker. As good as it felt to watch yen notes build up in piles, he would like to walk out of the gambling pit with all his fingers attached.
"Kampaaaai!" They raised their saké cups again, and Shiro could swear the only reason Mephisto didn't spill his drink all over himself was that he controlled space.
As the number of emptied flasks on the polished wooden counter grew higher, so did their laughter. Mephisto proved to have a sensationally poor tolerance for liquor, and it wasn't long before the alcohol had added a fine dusting of pink to his cheeks, and dimmed his green eyes from clear absinthe to dark spruce. It also made him prone to severe fits of giggling, which infallibly set Shiro off laughing as it was the funniest thing he had ever seen.
"Really, you hold your liquor like a girl", he snickered. "Act like one, too."
At this, Mephisto pulled a sceptical face.
"Flirting with the bartender doesn't make me a girl, Shiro."
"No; that makes you promiscuous, and him discomforted. This", he mimicked Mephisto's way of adjusting a tress of hair with an overly effeminate motion, "makes you a girl."
The affronted look grew more prominent, as did the bartender's discomfort.
"I don't do that", Mephisto dismissed delicately.
"Oh yes you do."
Shiro always had his best ideas when he was tired or tipsy: at the moment he was both, and he had an absolutely brilliant idea.
He licked his finger and coiled a strand of hair on top of his head around it, straightened his back and crossed his legs – no chance in hell that hair stayed curled, but it's the effort that counts. He then softened his voice and did a, in his mind, perfect imitation of Mephisto's cadence:
"Why, how could you ever claim that I", he puffed up his chest against his splayed fingers, "would deign to do something so mundane? Clearly, you don't understand the art of flipping one's hair." He put all his heart into making his wrist-flick as faggish as it looked when Mephisto did it. "It should be quick and quaint like the flicking of a wagtail's feathers, yet smooth and soft like a pure maiden's first velvet kiss on a cream-bathed baby butt." Big, flourishing gestures; like he wasn't trying to swat away flies but rather caress their backs gently. "Performed correctly, this ancient art has the power to conquer kingdoms and enslave emperors, steal the tongues of men and elevate the user into exceptional good-lookingness! It is what separates the prince from the pauper and the snob from the salary man; and I, His Royal Foppishness, is a masehehehe a master of- of the noble art…!" Shiro couldn't keep it together any longer and surrendered himself to idiotic laughter.
That said, he wasn't the only one.
"Kyahahahahahaaaahahahhaaaa…!" His royal foppishness lay next to him, flattened over the bar counter in hiccupping convulsions with his face buried in his arm. Shiro's impersonation must've looked absolutely ridiculous – and pretty accurate. "You'll- you'll have to t-ehehehihiiihihi teach me the proper art of flipping one's hair someday…! Nhnheheheeheehe-heeh-heeh… eheh the gauntlet's thrown, then, fufufufu lend me those…"
Deft fingers plucked off Shiro's glasses and transferred them, with some difficulty between the string and the curl, to Mephisto's nose. He let his legs fall apart sloppily and slouched against the counter on one elbow - and for the final touch, he ran his fingers through his hair a couple of times to get it properly mussed up.
"Oi, what's with that face?" And that was a pitch-perfect intonation, oh god, oh god…! "Having pervy thoughts about me again, I bet. Lecherous old goat…" he muttered – and he even adjusted the glasses the way Shiro did! It was a thumb and middle finger grip around the glasses frame, which had evolved with the need to curl his index finger to hold his pencil when he studied long hours. "Quit laughing or I'll stick this up your nose", he threatened, wagging a martini toothpick between his fingers the way Shiro would've wagged a cigarette.
"That's the best thi-hihihihi best thing I've seen in- in my life…!" Shiro wheezed, wiping tears with the back of his hand. Holy crap: so wrong, so wrong – and so right! "Why don't you do impersonations more often? You're good!"
"Good? I'm outstanding!" Yes, yes, and looking perfectly mad with that huge smirk and his hair tossed by a hurricane. "I once tricked the Emperor of Constantinople into thinking I was Mohammed! Oh, that was a show, you should've seen…!" And while Mephisto returned the glasses and combed his hair back to its proper fag- fashionable style, he related in vivid detail how he had posed as the Muslim prophet in the Ottoman Emperor's hall; and how Johann, disguised as the same prophet, had subsequently had the busiest night in his life in Emperor's harem.
…and it only got better when he used the comb to demonstrate sleight-of-hand tricks that really weren't tricks. Shortly after his cravat scarf came out of the bartender's beer tap when he tried to pour a customer a glass.
"Shit, man, I don't know why you're principal at all – you should do performances, either at the Ottoman court or at kiddies' birthday parties", Shiro wheezed into his drink, sore and giddy with laughter. "Damn, if I could do the stuff you can do… I had this one trick I used to do, with a cup and some pebbles or coins." Pity he'd gotten the prize money all in notes. "Got any coins on ya?"
No, just 2000-yen notes. His reason for that? They were more "interesting" than other yen notes. The only interesting thing Shiro could see in that was that Mephisto's space-bent wallet contained enough 2000-yen notes to stuff himself a king-sized mattress – and a second unicorn plushie.
"Will these do?" Mephisto inquired, holding out-
"Wha-? You stole them off the Klondike table, you madman? What if somebody sees and thinks we cheated?"
"I borrowed them. Don't worry, Shiro: everyone's busy with their own wins and losses", Mephisto dismissed with a dainty wagging of his wrist. "And he won't look this way if he can help it~" he added and sent a suggestive wink at the bartender, who was very busy with polishing spotless martini glasses at the other end of the counter.
"Alright, so, you take this", he handed Mephisto his emptied saké cup and got the five borrowed dice in return, "and you hold it wherever you like, and I'm gonna toss the dice into it."
It was the simplest game ever invented. Simple, because anyone could do it: getting good at it, however, wasn't something just anyone did.
The red and white die clinked flawlessly into the cup in Mephisto's outstretched hand… The cup on top of his head… The cup drifting above the row of Korean soju flasks…
"You move that cup when I throw and I will shove a toothpick up your nose", Shiro informed him when he made the cup hover behind the ear of a yakuza member that had his back to them. "Sideways." He rolled the die between his fingers, feeling the weight and the angles of the smooth surface as he blinked the alcohol-fog away and focused on the ceramic cup. He could never really explain how he did it, except in vague terms of "gut feeling" and "instinct": but when he focused on a target, he hit it.
*clink*
The well-dressed yakuza member turned sharply at the sound, but the cup and die had already disappeared and reappeared in Mephisto's hand.
"No nerves missing there", Mephisto grinned and plucked out the die. "One to go, yes…?"
"Oh come on…!" Shiro flung his arms out in an eloquent gesture. As if it was physically possible to hit the cup when it was held upside down!
"What's this? You think the Great Prophet in all his glory can't perform miracles…?" the demon grinned with a hazy-eyed wink.
"A miracle like getting me into an Oriental harem overnight?" Nah, Mephisto wouldn't do that without payment – and besides, Shiro had a certain someone to be faithful to.
"That kind of miracle would cost more than drinks, little lion~" the demon smirked, and wagged a clawed finger at him. "But~ if you're willing to pay…"
"Pay? I'll just wait till you have Carmilla over again", Shiro grinned, and tried to focus on the cup.
…being tipsy helped, actually. Normally he wouldn't have been able to twist his brain into accepting that he was aiming to toss into an upturned cup.
*clink*
They went at it one more round, but no matter how Mephisto held the cup he didn't miss the mark.
"Such a waste of youth; didn't you have anything better to do all day than toss pebbles?" Eventually, Mephisto grew tired of the game and surrendered the saké cup to the wooden counter.
"Not really." Shiro poured himself another drink, glanced at the forest of bottles, and decided that the bill would look the same whether he counted them or not. "I mean, I did lots'a things, but of all the things did do, tossing pebbles must've ranked high on the Constructiveness list. The rest was pretty much destructive, one way or the other. Apart form cooking."
"You cook?"
"What's with that face? You of all people have no right to be surprised somebody can cook", he remarked defensively.
"Hmm~ I thought you were a feral cat, but it seems you have some domestic qualities after all." Green eyes glimmered impishly over the rim of the saké cup when he took a sip. "How cute~"
…yes, it was worse than when Kasumi said it. Much worse.
"More domestic qualities than you've got, pampered prince and all", he returned, jumping at the opportunity to switch the focus of the conversation. "What did you do when you grew up, then?"
Shiro could see the question totter sideways, double back, and run through the demon's fuzzy mind a second time.
"That was very long ago." Too long to linger in memory, seeing as he was scowling at his saké cup as if the answer was written at the bottom of it in too small print. "I recall helping to rear my brothers…" His scowl broke into sudden, hearty laughter that startled everyone within earshot of the bar. "And I remember when I was horning! Dear me, that was a pain. Had to smear my head with hydra blood to soothe the blisters."
Shiro stared blankly at him, running the words over in his head one more time.
"You remember when you were horny, and you got blisters from overdoing it…?"
Not that he doubted Mephisto had the stamina for that, but judging by how the demon cracked up that was not what he had said.
"Fueheheheheee~ What is that: a reverse Freudian slip?! Hearing what's in your subconscious instead of speaking it?!"
"I told you I was tired!" he laughed, helplessly holding out his hands before him. "My brain doesn't work properly, okay? What did you say?"
"I said horning", Mephisto wheezed, cheeks glowing pink both from alcohol and from mirth. "Izz like teething, but with horns, and a lot more annoying. It itches constantly, and it's nigh impossible to sleep if your turn your head a lot."
When Shiro had re-run that by his alcohol-fogged brain, and gotten the mail to the right address, so to speak, he took an extra close look at Mephisto.
"You've got horns…?" He had never seen that.
"Who ever heard of a prince without crown?" he declaimed with that kind of wrist-flourish Shiro wished he'd included in his impersonation. "I have horns; I just don't let them show. They tend to make the clergy rather jumpy – not to mention they limit the selection of hats remarkably."
"Admit it: that last thing was the greatest concern for you!" Shiro hiccuped before cracking up at the thought of Mephisto trying to get hats to fit over a pair of bull horns.
Mephisto himself proceeded with telling the most outrageous stories of what you could experience as the eldest of seven brothers – sweet gods, the Kings of Gehenna were something vastly different from what the cram school course literature made them out to be…!
Shiro, in turn, told a few stories from the orphanage, but more of what he'd done and heard on the streets of True Cross Town as a young teenager. …and somewhere along the way, they ended up discussing whether or not The Sound of Music would look better if a Takarazuka troupe did it. Since they couldn't stay on topic anyway, Shiro decided to see if alcohol was as good for smelting Mephisto's silver tongue as the heat of passion.
"Y'know, I couldn't help but think, since we talked about it the other day: the sects 'round here are good at what they do – is it 'cause of that artefact they inherited? Fukaku's flaming sword?"
"It's for worship nowadays, not for doing battle", Mephisto replied with a grin: he had now successfully conditioned the bartender into taking long detours around their part of the counter, and seemed to enjoy that almost as much as he would've enjoyed bending him over it.
"Isn't that one big waste of weaponry? I mean, that thing… It's gotta be among the most powerful artefacts in the world?" And wouldn't Mephisto much rather have it in his collection in Deep Keep?
But to his surprise, Mephisto's reply came with a laughing attack.
"Kukukuku – that? No one wants that old toothpick; even the Myou Dharani keeps it for sentimental reasons. It's *hic* empty."
"Empty?"
"Empty: poof~" Mephisto wiggled his fingers in front of him and tittered like a demented grade school girl. "It's a plain sword, nothing more; fine craftsmanship, certainly, but no more powerful than any other sharp pi-*hic* piece of metal. The demon that was sealed in the blade left it after the battle – but ssshhh!" he hushed, a bony finger cleaving his crescent smile in two. "The Myou Dharani would be terribly sad if they found out."
"So you're gonna let them worship an empty relic instead?" More fun for him that way, probably…
"Shiro, Shiro: humanity must be allowed to worship empty relics~ Truth holds no comfort for the lost and lonely: Faith does", he said with all the conviction three flasks of saké gives. "An' like Cordoban fighting dogs, the two can't coexschischt without one slaying the other."
True. Harsh. Truth is harsh – ooh, that sounded so sensible, even when he was intoxicated.
"I think I'd rather have truth than blind belief in empty symbols", he pondered, wiggling an unlit cigarette between his fingers. "Don't gemme wrong: I get the need for hope. I just think that hope… Hope fe' something with no possibility of becoming real isn't any good hope to hold on to. It'll crush ya completely when you realise it was just a dream. Like when you snap Midori-chan's kitsune illusions." She had been awesome during their Esquire exam, really shown the power of the mind and the power of belief – and how hard it hits the mind when belief is shattered.
"Such big words~" Mephisto anchored his hazy green eyes in Shiro's and levelled his index finger at him with a sly grin. "Lemme ask you, then, young philosopher: what is truth?"
"Not your riddles again – I'm drunk, I can't think", he huffed through a smile, and looked down in his cup instead. How many cups had that been now…? He'd feel it once he rose, for sure.
"Now that's a straight-out lie, my friend; and you just said you'd rather have truth", the demon teased. "But~ that would require you to know what truth is."
"Truth's truth", he tossed out carelessly. "And if it isn't true, it's false. One or the other. My cup's white." He raised his saké cup in a toast and drained the last drops. "That's truth."
"Is it, really?" Mephisto questioned with a swaying smirk that knew better. He may be drunk as a skunk, but in the dim lighting his eyes gave off that faint green glow as a reminder that, even when drunk, he was a demigod; and would always know better. "To me it's slightly violet, 'cause my eyes can distinguish a wider spectrum of colours than yours." He tilted his head to the side. "There are various eyes, and as a result there's various truths; and at the faaaar~ edge of that reasoning, there is no truth – and that's the only truth!" he giggled happily, spreading the conclusion wide in his arms and almost knocking down their flasks. "Splendid, innit?"
"Truth looks different to everybody… so... Truth is what we agree upon to be true. And that doesn't even need to be true", Shiro re-defined, and felt like he might be able to grasp the full meaning of the idea when he was a bit more sober. "Wow. I think my head's spinning just from trying to understand what I just said."
"Nonetheless well spoken, Shiro", the demon slurred, and toasted to it. "In vino veritas, as the Roma-*hic* the Romans said. One's subjective truth, at least", he added, and made the flask pour him a new fill when the bartender wasn't looking. "What'cha hold for true is what a majority of eyes have agreed to see, and human eyes are easily deceived – not necessarily by demons, either." Funny thing, that; with every cup downed, his speech became more prominently accented with German. Or it could be that with every cup downed, Shiro began to hear more and more like a German…? "The Vatican's hopeless in that. Loves to monopolise truth, be it about demons, humans, or angels. The state of the soul in particular – oh, they like to think they know all about that; salvation an' res'rrection an' afterlife, all part of Faith elevated to Truth by authority of men sworn to serve without question", he smirked, cadence tipping drunkenly about and sounding very amused. He looked very amused, too, for grand gestures were seriously threatening their collection of saké flasks. "And thus, when Christ makes a dead man rise again izza miracle; when a demon does the same it's hereschy. No sense pointing out the incongruity to 'em, either: the only abscholute truth in these matters is that religion has no sense of humour."
"Well, we're just humans: can't expect us to be as fair and open-minded as certain demons, can ya?"
"Do I hear you slandering my good name, Shiro…?" he chortled, and very nearly missed his mouth when he drank.
"What good name, Sammy?" he snickered in drunken delight. "So you brought someone back, then? Like, you actually returned a soul to-?"
"No, no, there's no way of returning that. Not that I know of, at leasht. A human can be brought back without soul, that's the only thing I know." Mephisto sloshed the saké around in the cup. He wasn't looking at it, no: his gaze was far away beyond the liquor cabinet. "But not the same as he was in life."
Everyone knows what a revelation is. Few get to experience what one feels like: but when they do, they know. Because for a split second you relive eternity, and watch the world fall apart and be reborn all at once.
Human eyes are easily deceived, yes. By demons and by humans, and by the world itself. They see only three dimensions of a world that has so many more. They do not see the underlying structure hiding 'neath the surface, the skeleton of interweaving strings of cause and effect that stretch through time and space in infinity; the connecting weft that binds together all the constituents of the world.
In the sleazy bar that night, Mephisto spoke words that set those strings trembling, and one pair of human eyes caught a glimpse of secrets hidden far below the surface.
"That is... That is what it is…?"
The connections, the underlying structure; he could see it. He could see the vibration that sped like lightning through the weft, connected dot to dot faster than his mind could follow and painted a pattern that had been there - had been there all the time - and he hadn't seen it, not until that one sentence bridged the gaps between islands of pointless information and bound them together with meaning. It was a breathless epiphany that carried Shiro to soaring heights, through fog and illusion and into brightness: up through the mud, to bloom in the light of clarity…
"You don't need alchemy when you've got magic."
It had puzzled him in the tower laboratory, and then he had forgotten it. He hadn't understood it back then; he hadn't seen the connections, hadn't seen the pattern.
"You wouldn't need alchemy if you could turn back time for the dead."
He saw it now: so brilliant, so clear, so-
"But you can't."
Hollow. Empty. Forlorn. …and silently… the light of epiphany shrivelled… and dimmed. Left behind was something void, something lost, something... broken.
"You can't bring them back."
Shiro stared transfixed through the demon; stared through time, through connections cut and lost…
"You can't bring him back…" Four hundred years ago, Johann Faust had died; on time, as outlined in his contract. "But you wanted to." The hollow feeling twisted in his chest. "You tried." And four hundred years ago, a man claiming the name Johann Faust had immersed himself in the hunt for a way to resurrect the dead.
"Mephisto… Did you…?"
There are some things you just don't do. There are things, very special things, that even cats as curious as Fujimoto Shiro do not pry into. Not because he didn't want to, but because… he didn't have a right to. Those lines and dots – lines and dots he was never meant to connect – had revealed a pattern that quivered softly in his consciousness, frail as a shadow in the mists of memory; a pattern that formed a seal of confidence that told him without words that this… This was not to be touched.
Shiro turned away, cast his gaze into his cup as if ashamed of what he had seen. The reflection returned the look quietly, and from the depths of the saké that squirming hollowness inside summoned up a memory long forgotten.
There's a special smell in subways. It's the smell of underground and moving metal, plastic linings, and smooth hydraulics blended expertly by the gushing breath of carts pushed through tight-fit tunnels. The people are different, too. They're always moving. Always in transit, headed for a destination. The subway is a world unto its own where nobody belongs, where nothing transpires. It's a place in between places whose sole purpose is to connect, and like the winding tunnels of an ant colony it takes workers to their work and back again. Although, for him, the politely quiet subway carts had been his place of work.
Pick-pocketing was something Shiro had taken up for the money, but also for the thrills. There was something primal to it that set his senses pleasantly on edge to focus both on his intended victim and on the surrounding passengers. Like hunting. Hunting and knowing that one wrong move would make you the hunted.
There had been that one time, once when he'd passed through the mechanical arms and shuffled down the concrete stairs on one of the town's ground-level stations. The wallet in his jacket pocket was a nondescript black one in leather, lifted off a bespectacled man that seemed so lost in thought he wouldn't have noticed if someone stole the shoes off his feet. Easy target.
Shiro had seated himself on the rain-wet swing on a forlorn playground and counted the yen notes – the guy had had enough of them to make it a long and pleasant count.
Between two crumpled 1000-yen notes his fingers had met with different texture. Paper. Pale purple letter-paper with colourful flowers and a little ladybug holding up a heart, folded together over handwriting that wanted to look its finest but didn't quite know how.
"Hi daddy! I have read all the books now. I liked 'Kimba the White Lion' best. The doctors said I should rest today. They didn't let me take a walk, so I write to you instead. I like nurse Nanase-san, she is a nice person…"
And Shiro had turned his eyes away from the letter, away from the little girl that lay in a hospital bed with leukaemia and no prospect of ever leaving it. He'd had no right to see that. He'd had no right to intrude on something so private, something so… fragile.
She had sought his eyes again, from the small photo that had fallen into the brown sand. Clear, smiling eyes, too big for her gaunt little face. He couldn't tell her age; it hid too well in the shadows cast by accented bones, but she wasn't old. Not as old as she looked. So pale, so thin…
Fragile.
He had gone through painstaking page flipping in phonebooks to find the address that fit the name on the driver's license. He'd narrowed it down using the area that subway line covered, and at long last pushed the wallet – money, letter and all – into the apartment's mailbox.
There are some things you just don't do.
"And you say I can't hold my l-*hic*-quor, spacing out like that?"…and outside Shiros' mind, the world kept to its usual tracks in its usual pace, oblivious that a revelation had touched earth and left it scorched.
"I can hold my liquor, just not my manners", he replied with ease. "Uncivilised monkey an' all that. You should be glad I'm just spacing out and not stealing your hairclips."
Fragile things break easily if the wrong eyes touch them: and for that reason, Shiro was prepared to pretend that his never had.
"…I'm not wearing any hairclips", Mephisto recalled, brow crinkled with thought.
"Well… Then I must've already stolen them, right? Who's drunk an' spacing out then, eh?" And though he probably failed, Shiro made a good effort at smugging his befuddled friend back.
Winning a battle of words against a demon should be easier if the demon in question is plastered, right?
Wrong. Alcohol did nothing to blunt Mephisto's sharp mind, just derailed it and sent it skipping from track to track without any chance of following.
"The point is… dolphins", Mephisto concluded – without any previous reasoning, sure, but nonetheless he made his point sound very convincing. "Dolphins are really smart. They went from being pigs to being dolphins *hic* because they were smart enough to know dolphins get more appreciation for their smartness than pigs. If you were as smart as you think, you'd turn into a dolphin."
"Wahahaha-hah-wh-what…?!" Shiro didn't know if he was laughing or just exhaling rapidly because his brain overheated when it tried to make sense of that. "The hell, man, are you even speaking Japanese 'cause I have no idea what you're trying to say…?"
"See?" Mephisto grinned, drunk and content and well underway to fall asleep against the bar counter. "If you were a dolph-*hic* a dolphin, you'd get it right away."
And since he wasn't, he abandoned any hope of getting Mephisto's point and went along with the madness. He found it worked out surprisingly well.
"We gotta do this again sometime", Shiro concluded firmly a while later, although the bar stool didn't feel all that firm and steady beneath him. "An' I want that entrance you did, too, back at the dorm. Especially the glittery confetti." Just the thought of it made him shake with laughter. "An' toss in the fireworks from Hyakki Yagyou too while ye're at it. Confetti and serpentines and pink goddamn clouds – hell, the only thing missing was doves flying out of your hat."
"You'd want that?" Mephisto hiccupped with a fuzzy grin.
"You can do that?"
"Of course I can."
"What'cha waiting for, then? Let's see a miracle, O Great Prophet!"
Mephisto spread his arms and nodded his head in a jester's bow: and out of the sleeves of his yukata flew dozens of white doves.
Doves really don't like people chasing them. This is truly fascinating, since people don't like being chased by doves either. One would think this should result in a relation of deep, mutual understanding, but humanity's record in that department isn't very flattering.
What else is truly fascinating is pigs: the ones that stayed on land and actually became pigs, rather than join their cousins that opted for dolphinism. One must truly contemplate what might have lain behind such a decision, and that, curiously enough, leads back to doves: doves, like dolphins, are intelligent creatures. Doves, like dolphins, have evolved from once land-bound animals. Pigs, who evidently are intelligent, are then merely the evolutionary stadium between dolphin and dove, and the pigs of today just haven't decided which they would prefer to be yet. Because apparently, pigs that had made up their minds could learn to fly: although not very well, compared to doves.
"You summoned a flying pig…?!" Shiro laughed so hard he could barely breathe.
The searchlight of swinging lamp screens drove the birds into a frenzy, and flashed over a cacophony of shouting people, glass crunching under expensive shoes, cards and tiles gushing off from liquor-soaked tables, and jackets flailing in the air as people knocked each other over trying to capture the doves – and, more importantly, the winged piglet.
"Thought I might as well!" Mephisto shouted above the ruckus with an unsober giggle jumping hopscotch over his words. "It's a schpecial occasion after all!"
Special indeed: people were trampling each other to catch the impossible animal and make themselves a fortune off it – and among the elbows hid yakuza members with knives and greedy eyes.
"Oi, think we should leave?" Nobody paid them any attention right now, but once the doves and the pig were caught, someone would probably pay them attention of the wrong kind.
"Nobody suspects a devil in their midst fufufu – and neither will they miss him…!"
Whether that was consent or not, Shiro dragged Mephisto with him out of the gambling den.
The sliver of sky above the blinking neon signs had gone black, and tucked itself into all the alleyways that branched off the one they wobbled ahead on. Cars slunk in and out of streets like lantern-eyed predators, and hotels along the way tastefully advertised one price per night and one price per "rest".
Shiro was sober enough to feel a twinge of worry for what might happen if demons decided to make an attempt at possessing him under these conditions, and made an effort to sober up a bit more just in case. There were plenty of coal tars there, and not so few greater demons, either: but none seemed to take any interest in them. Of course. Just like at Hyakki Yagyou, no one dared touch Prince Samael's toy boy. Shiro wasn't that drunk, though. Sure, he was a bit unsteady on his feet, but only when the sidewalk tried to trip him. Mephisto, on the other hand, was-
"Carry meeee~"
Whiny.
"You're a grown demon, Sammy: act your age, would ya?"
"But I'm sleepy, Shiroooo~"
…he was adorable when he was drunk. Shiro couldn't help thinking it, no more than he could stop laughing at the sight of the most miserable demon he'd ever seen. Mephisto's normally so refined poise became most entertaining when it had marinated in alcohol, and when he still tried to assume his usual, confident strut he teetered into Shiro like a poorly anchored flagpole.
"I can't carry you: you're too big, an' I'm too drunk. I'd drop us both off a bridge or something." Nevertheless, he slung an arm around Mephisto's waist to steady him.
"You're too pragmatic", the demon decided, and dumped an arm over his shoulders with a hiccup that rattled the ribs under Shiro's hand. "No fun to be had in pragmatism, all focused on result. You could at least try to carry me."
"Could an' should, that's two different things, Sammy - it was you who said that, wasn't it?"
"But demons tell liiiiies, hasn't the Order taught you that?" he giggled happily.
"Hmm you're right. I really shouldn't take your advice 'n carry you, then." Shiro was, if he might say so, quite pleased with leading this game for once.
"Too pragmatic", Mephisto huffed. "Pragmatism 's by far one o' the better options, though", he soliloquized to himself. "Takes a certain type of mind to see the world for what it is and still have the imagination to craft solutions from whatever material 's available. Pragmatic's a rather- *hic* a rather good thing to be." They narrowly avoided knocking down an unusually ugly lion sculpture outside a shabby hotel lobby. "Although you can be an idiot at times."
"Why thank you, your highness. Sometimes bein' an idiot 's a good thing, though." Like when you try to get arrogant Yaonarus to spill the beans.
There was a silence in place of the amused retort he had expected. A rather peculiar silence, coming from Mephisto. A car horn bleated in the distance, and a flock of pigeons hurriedly abandoned their cable when they walked past below it: and Mephisto remained sile-
"Only an idiot would've saved Satan's son", he said. "I'm not an idiot, however, so I can't- *hic* can't follow what went through your mind when you did." Oh, but that cat was also curious, so damn curious; it took a few drinks before he caved to the urge, but he had to know. "What motivates a human to do something so incredibly *hic* schtupid?"
That…
"I haven't thought about that", he answered frankly. It lies in a pragmatic nature to find practical solutions to problems, and once a problem is solved it sees no need to dwell on theoretical analysis of how it was done. But what does motivate a human to do something like that? To put his life on the line for another, even when this other turns out to be Satan's son? "Meh, that's just a title. A real stupid one." As if lineage determined anything about you – seriously, even when he was drunk it sounded stupid. "Evil is of the heart, not of blood or breed."
Both Midori and Sen said that. They would know, wouldn't they? Tch, but to claim a Prince of Gehenna had goodness in his heart was laughable, regardless which world you looked at. And still… That piercing moment of clarity in the bar…
"It wasn't the saké getting to my head", Shiro told himself firmly. "He has Johann's body, he researched artificial life. I heard him say those words. I heard how he said them."
Could've been deception. Could've been a lure to make him see the demon in a more favourable light – wasn't that what demons did?
"He wouldn't need to lay the bait four hundred years in advance to pull something like that. He tried to bring back Johann because he wanted to."
But if it wasn't deceit, the alternative… No, that was unheard of… That must be the alcohol, surely… Demons didn't know emotion. Not the way humans did. They could put on a display of shallow imitation, sure. They were experts in reading emotion and forging it, feigning friendliness and using it to achieve their ends, but they didn't actually...
"What am I gonna trust: textbooks or my own eyes?" he snorted, blowing away a docile coal tar in the process.
He could tell what a Futotsuki must feel: the Order taught one thing, but his experience said another. The Order had thousands of years of experience and study behind its claims, and armies of exorcists that fought and taught by that knowledge: Shiro was a single teenage guy, with one year as Page and Esquire beneath his belt. He had what to back his ideas? A blinding moment of insight at the bottom of a saké flask? Fucking ridiculous, that's what it was…
"Then let it be fucking ridiculous", he snapped at his irritatingly rational thoughts. "Screw what the Order says – I saw what I saw." Yeah, an idiot. That stubborn kind of idiot that trusted his own mind and would've gotten himself stoned for heresy if he'd lived a few centuries earlier. So what? He may be less than fly shit in the Order's documents, but the things he had seen had- "Ow, what's that for?!" Mephisto flicked the cross on his glasses string again, and it struck his cheek like a very big and uncoordinated fly. "Hey!"
"Some company you make, schtaring into empty space like that." And what company did he make, whining about getting carried? "Leaving questions unanswered, too."
"Like you don't do that always", he huffed.
"Avoiding the question now? My my, couldn't be that you did it be- *hic* because you like me~?"
"Now you're just full of yourself."
"Fufufu I think I hit the ma-aark~" he sang happily, and almost missed a step in the winding stairway upwards.
"Oh for the love of- I don't know why I did it, okay?"
"Don't know, just rushed headlesschly into battle? How m'I ever gonna trust you with missions?"
"How're you gonna trust me at all, you mean?" Shiro effectively ended the discussion by rubbing his fingertips into Mephisto's side, causing the ticklish demon to giggle and jerk away. Problem and practical solution: as to be expected of a pragmatist.
An indeterminable amount of time later, Shiro was supporting himself on Mephisto as much as Mephisto was supported by Shiro. Neither could recall exactly what had brought them into that bar, but Shiro had a vague idea that they had left it because the owner didn't appreciate a knothole in his counter pouring infinite amounts of wine over his floor.
"Es ist mir egal, if I fall over a bridge; carry me einfach…" Mephisto whined.
…yeah, Shiro didn't speak German. Normally. However, with a certain amount of saké and bourbon in the system, everyone speaks German.
"Shouldn't you… Can't you just, ya know…" He snapped his fingers sloppily. "Poof us home?" He was almost carrying Mephisto already, and didn't feel confident he could do that all the way to the Academy without getting them both run over by a car. Mephisto would live through it, of course. Might get even whinier because of it, but other than that he would be fine. Shiro himself felt that his body was put through enough shit as it was.
"What a good idea – eins, zschwei, drei!"
*poof*
Oh god, oh god…!
Shiro shoved himself away from Mephisto and heaved his stomach contents out.
"Fuck, I hate travelling like that", he gurgled between spitting and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. Erh, it stank, holy hell it stank… "Shouldn't there be schome… some regulations on that…?" He tottered unsteadily as he put some distance between himself and the puke. "Like… demon laws? Don't drink an' do magic?"
"Sounds überraschend sens'ble, coming fr-*hic* from you, Shiro." Mephisto was trying very, very hard to focus on him, and it was only going so-so. "Am I drunk…?"
Shiro cracked up laughing in the midst of spitting, and very nearly choked on his own saliva.
"You're drunk", he confirmed with a grin smeared over his whole face. "An' you're especially adorable with ya' cravat tied 'round yer… yer curly-whirly-thingy", he snickered, tracing spirals in the air with his forefinger.
Mephisto's hand went to his head, fumbled for the cravat, caught the end of it and pulled-
"Pffrrkwahahaha it's- it's wobbling! Nhnhnhnhhahahaaha like a windscreen wiper!" Shiro couldn't talk, he had enough to do with staying on his feet when he laughed.
"I tried to make a bow…" How wonderfully confused he looked, as if he wasn't quite sure he had been wearing the garment in his hand… "My schpatial thinking might be a bit… muddled."
"Yeah. Yeah, I think so", Shiro agreed sagely. "We're in a rice field." And then he couldn't hold it together any longer. He clutched the lavender yukata for support and laughed himself to tears against Mephisto's chest. "We're in a fucki-hihihihihahahahahaa we're- we're in a fucking rice field…!" And he was soaked up to his shins, and there was puke in the water, and the sun was rising at the horizon, and- and- "Just how mh-mhmhehehehehaha just how muddled is your space thinking…?!"
Mephisto broke down in giggles – unrestrained, ribcage-shaking giggles that had such a- such a girly sound to them that Shiro felt his laughs tear muscle in his abdomen. And for a while they could only stand there, laughing and swaying together in the water, and feeling utterly, perfectly silly.
"Best- best out of three…?" Mephisto wheezed under his breath, and raised his fingers.
Yeah. Yeah, fire away: best out of-
"Eins…"
Oh, that was one tempting teacup to tamper with…
"Zschwei…"
Common sense – what common sense?
"Mepphy Land", Shiro said.
"Drei!"
*poof*
Oh yes: when the smoke dissipated and his head reconnected to his body, they were standing at the cotton candy booth in Mepphy Land, and the morning sun had just kissed the highest peaks of Go To Hell with gold.
"Really can't think straight, can ya…?" Shiro slurred through a chuckle, thankful that he had already thrown up.
"*hic* Not of that disposition, m'afraid. Third time's the charm, then: eins, zwei-"
"Gingerbread", Shiro randomised.
"Drei!"
*poof*
And there went Mephisto, lost and gone in favour of the largest gingerbread house Shiro had ever seen. It was like a real house. The roof sported a colourful tiling of giant lens-shaped candies beneath a coating of powdered sugar that looked just like real snow – and look at the handiwork on those frilly icing lace curtains!
Shiro wobbled around the corner and knocked on the door. Because it seemed like the right thing to do.
"Anybody home…?" he asked with a stupid smile.
"…I dischtin'tly recall inventing hinges… Mid-Iron Age or so..." Pieces of the door smacked Shiro in the face as the massive gingerbread wall was knocked out. Mephisto reappeared, dusting crumbs from his yukata. "Next time", he swayed and blinked, "I'm gagging you. Jus'so ya know. Eins, zwei-"
"Girl's uniform!"
"Drei!"
*poof*
Girl's uniform, yes. On Mephisto, no.
"That should teach you to *hic* keep your mouth shut, Shiro-chan", he giggled as Shiro tried to forcibly make the skirt reach at least down to his knees.
"An' you should keep your fetishist fantasies to yourself, Sammy", he shot back. How on earth did girls wear these things…? "Gemme outta this now."
"Hnhnhnhn your wish is my command~"
"No, wait-"
*poof*
Given the circumstances, Shiro was relieved that he got to keep his underwear. Even if that was the extent of it.
"Any other requests…?" Mephisto offered with spread hands, looking very happy about the situation in a very unsober way. "Want me to get'cha out of those, too?"
"No. An' gag me before I say some other stupid- No, Chris'sake, don't!" He shot forward and grabbed Mephisto's fingers clumsily – fingers and hand and part of yukata – before he could snap them. "Okay, le's try this again. I want… my uniform." He held a finger up in front of the demon's face, like a lighthouse to guide his words. "No one else's. An' I want every garment in the right place. Think ye can *hic* do that?" Great, now he'd started hiccuping, too... "And keep yer hands to yesself while you're at it", he added as he became aware of a hand in his lower back that he was quite sure wasn't his own. He had one hand pointing at Mephisto, and one hand holding Mephisto's - yeah, that third one couldn't be his.
"So many demands~" the demon snickered, and successfully poofed his uniform back in place. "Now, do keep that mouth o' yours shut…" He placed a finger over Shiro's lips and leaned in so close their noses almost touched. "…or I might feel tempted to see if the taste is as sweet as the sound."
"Man, you're even worse when you're drunk." Though… when he tried to think about it a bit more soberly… "Does alcohol have the same effect on demons' restraint as it has on humans'?" And was that morning sun glinting fiery green in his eyes, or something else? "Dun' worry, I'll zip up", Shiro ensured. "Poof ahead."
"Eins, zwei, drei!"
*poof*
A/N:
Just so that it's said, Mephisto has his own opinions on religion (and politics). I try not to judge or slander, but it would be grave hypocrisy to say a human being can ever be truly objective in anything. I don't write my own opinions, however, but the opinions of fictional characters.
What really happened in the fifth year of Ansei (actually fourth to sixth year), when the Impure King was defeated, was that there was an outbreak of cholera in Japan. That was the result of Japan's opening of its harbours in 1854: Europeans brought with them both new goods and new diseases. Or maybe they brought the goods, and a certain demon brought in other demons…?
Esquire Club I have no idea what Esquire Club really is, I just saw the sign in Teramachi and thought it was wicked cool that it lay just across the street from:
Mr. Young Men which is a very nice place to dine, and it so happens that it opened in 1976. x3 The menu is authentic, too. (Yay for sightseeing and researching in combo!) The sole difference between monjayaki and okonomiyaki seems to be the texture of the batter: runny or less runny. Mephisto states in the manga that the "bacon & cheese" monja is his favourite. It's translated as "mochi" in some versions, but I sincerely believe they meant monja; and it's usually not actual bacon, but thinly sliced pork from the pig's belly. Anyhow, the Young men yakisoba is the one with pork in it. Campus men is with shrimp (that one I picked for name only x') ).
ABBA were very big in Japan in the 70's: I met a lovely Japanese man in Kyoto who sold artwork made from silkworm cocoons, and when he learnt where I was from he cracked a happy smile and spoke a few sentences of limping-but-completely-correct Swedish. It turned out he was from "the ABBA generation". =)
Corruption in Japan
There's been some heavy measures taken against yakuza activity (gambling pits, brothels, narcotics) today, but there used to be shady connections between them and lawmakers in the past. I'm basing Creek's End's description both on the structure of True Cross Town in the AnE film (thanks for that, Q ;) ), and on the gay club districts in Tokyo. In the latter I was explicitly warned to watch my step and not bump into anyone, since yakuza think that's excuse enough to rob you/beat you up/rape you/all of the mentioned. =X
The occupation of Japan
As with all occupations, there were crimes committed against the occupied population. And, as often is the case, be it caused by the pride of the occupiers or the shame of the occupied, the victims were rarely given justice.
The devil's children have the devil's luck is the idiom, but what it means is that evil people often seem to be unduly lucky – because they're in league with demons…? I decided on this mostly because it doesn't seem fair to give Mephisto every advantage imaginable. =P He needs some weaknesses to make things more interesting: and if he doesn't have Lady Luck on his side, wouldn't that prompt him to get good at planning and plotting instead?
Thank you, Gecko, for going into Shiro's role to the point that you figured out a very plausible reason why he adjusts his glasses the way he does. =D And really, thank you for going so deep into role that you condition yourself with his mannerisms months before cosplaying him! x3 It's gonna be epic, I know it.
Impersonation appears to be something Mephisto gladly does for a good laugh: his adventures as Mohammed in Constantinople are mentioned the 1587 Historia von Doktor Johann Fausten. The Emperor's wives were rather happy with Faust's visit, and testified that "Mahomet" (Mohammed) was "well fitted-out – they would fain be served in such sort every day", to put it in words that 16th century morals could abide. And if Mephisto later took over that body… Enjoy your imagination, all you lovely fangirls. ;)
Nietzsche quotes snuck into the dialogue in modified forms: ironically, quotes that more or less contradict each other. x')
"There are various eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes; and as a result there are various truths, and as a result there is no truth."
"Faith: not wanting to know what is true."
The Cordoba fighting dog went extinct long ago, simply because males and females would rather bite each other to death than mate.
Dolphins did seriously evolve "backwards": water-living animals got up on land, evolved there for a few million years to the ancestors of hoofed animals (pigs, camels, llamas, hippopotamuses, deer, sheep, goats – you name it), and then went back into water and evolved to become whales and dolphins. Crazy, yet awesome. Thanks again, Gecko! …and if you don't know why I had a drunk demon ramble about dolphins and The Sound of Music, there's a book you really need to read. =.=
Doves do fly out of Mephisto's hat when he announces they've been promoted to Esquire, and when Shura has caught him spying in ch 46, so what the hell… x'D The flying pig is there because NeuroticNeko prophesized that Samael would create one, and since this chapter drifted towards crack and tomfoolery anyway I just went with the impulse.
The Mad Ravings of Dimwit: the Billion-dollar Question
I don't expect you to agree with me on this one. As usual, I can't prove anything: just connect dots with lines and say what I see in the pattern that emerges. I'll point out some facts for you, and the lines I drew between them, and then… Well, then I leave you to your own devices. ;)
Mephisto isn't omnipotent, but he sure can do many cool things. Stop time, bend space, jump across dimensions, summon everything (?) he wants with a snap of his fingers… But one thing that he can't do, apparently, is to resurrect the dead.
In the anime, we're told that Mephisto experimented with artificial life research, which is what leads me to think he can't do it with his magic (he doesn't seem like the type to go through the trouble of doing things the manual way if he can just snap his fingers). But then, the topic was dropped without touching upon the real question: the Billion-dollar Question.
Why does Mephisto want to bring dead humans back to life?
Just think about it for a moment. Accustom your brain to it. A demon wants to bring humans back to life: why?
There's not exactly a shortage of humans, and we all have more or less the same basic set of functions and abilities. We're mass-produced toys for demons. It shouldn't really matter to them if one dies since there are so many spares. What does set one human apart from another is foremost personality. But do demons care about that?
If any demon would develop an interest in human personalities, I think that would be Mephisto. I believe he can and does distinguish between personalities; and that tiny detail is the only thing I can think of to explain why he would want to resurrect the dead. If a human was just a human, he wouldn't care if one died; he'd just go find another to play with. But if humans are individuals to him, each with a unique personality, then one that dies can never be replaced by another.
The key thing here would be that he perceives humans as individuals: individuals are all different, and there will by conscquence be some individuals that you like more and some that you like less (like different tastes on candy). The question then is: is it possible that there were individuals Mephisto liked so much he would try to bring them back after they died?
Exactly what Mephisto thinks of humans is, as the wise say, anyone's guess. He says he loves them and the things they create but at the end of the day he's a demon and holds a PhD in lying. I don't think he would love in the human sense of the word: I think of it rather as "attachment/fascination/fondness" - "possessiveness" could also work. He won't regard it as emotional attachment to a person, I'm sure; more of… a favourite toy that he wanted to play some more with. Because he happened to like that toy more than his others.
Of course, it could be that he researched artificial life merely to spite the church: that was my initial thesis, when I thought I was just imagining these traits in him. Besides, artificial life research was only mentioned in the anime, which I view as secondary to the manga in terms of canonical content. But then chapter 44 of the manga was released, and blew my mind. Go back and look at the flashback scene where Yukio pressures Mephisto for the truth:
"What exactly are you scheming!?"
"Come now, stop trying to pressure me. The excitement is best saved for later."
Rather conceited, isn't he? Now skip to the scene where we get to see Amaimon impaled on clock arms:
"Who cares, humans die so soon anyway. I just can't understand why you try so hard to handle those bubble-like creatures carefully so as not to break them."
"...you'll be staying there for a while until you manage to cool off your murderous intent towards Okumura Rin."
There is an immense difference in how Mephisto handles these two situations. Yukio he dismisses with an almost amused air, even if he's the one that could put a gun to his head; but Amaimon, who is immobilised and at his mercy, makes him hesitate… Because he hit a sensitive spot? ô.ò Amaimon is the proper demon in that scene, I think. Humans to him are toys, all alike: who cares if they die, when they're going to die sooner or later anyway? But Mephisto… is not of the same opinion. How often do you see him hesitate as he does here? How often do you see him back down like this in a conversation, rather than rule it as he does against Yukio? As he does against Shura after the Impure King arc, when she literally holds a knife to his throat for answers? As he does with Rin when he reveals his true identity in ch 39? Mephisto is always in control of the situation, except this one time in ch 44 when he won't even touch the subject. If you look at that frame, you'll notice Mephisto has his back to Amaimon and is walking away, pointedly avoiding a topic he doesn't want to discuss: that humans are fragile, and live only for a short time. Because it pains him to be reminded that he will lose his favourite "toys"? Because they mean something to him?
So, my guess at the answer to the Billion-dollar Question: Mephisto is more human than he lets on. He likes humans more than he lets on – whether that is because he's spent so much time in Assiah, or there could be other reasons… I'll get back to that. ;P But there were, I believe, humans that Mephisto was especially attached to. They couldn't be replaced by others, and he couldn't bring them back to life with magic: so he tried to find other ways to do it, and immersed himself in science. And here, I'd like to point out some rather interesting facts concerning the relation between Mephisto and Johann Faust.
§ In the anime, we are told that Mephisto was involved in this research 500 years ago (from ~2009): that puts us in the 1500s. I wrote it as 400 years ago here, since I'm at 1976, to get the same century. More precisely, he says: "It happened 500 years ago. I, Johann Faust, was immersed in /-/ artificial life research." Note that he specifically throws in his fake alias here, as if it's important to point out that this research is done in the name of Johann Faust. (I doubt it could have been done by Johann Faust, when Mephisto uses "I" and "my students" when he speaks of it.)
§ The earliest preserved version of Historia von Doktor Johann Fausten was published in 1587.
§ There were at least two real, historical men contributing to the tales of Johann Faust's life: both of which died in the 1500s.
§ Mephisto Pheles isn't Samael's real name, and neither is Johann Faust: but both names allude to the same legend. Samael has very much in common with the Mephistopheles in Faust; as stated before, I think that he was that very Mephistopheles as one of his many aliases alongside Loke, Raven, and Trickster. Furthermore, Samael is so fond of the name Johann Faust that he's kept it for "five generations", and is down to Johann Faust V.
§ My personal guess, that isn't fact-based as the other things listed above, is that Mephisto's body is the one that originally belonged to (the fictional) Johann Faust. I'll high-five Zeitdieb on this one. ;) Add to this assumption that one of the fundamental requirements for reanimation of a dead person is that the body is still intact (Neuhaus keeps his dead wife in some sort of stasis tank). There were no stasis tanks 500 years ago, and even Mephisto can't stop time forever. Wearing Johann's body as his own was the only way he could preserve it long enough to find a way to resurrect him.
§ …look at him in the anime, in the final scene where he reminisces about Faust. =w=' I doubt the Mephisto in the manga would actually act that sappy, but I'm not ruling out the possibility that there is a grain of manga-canonical sentimentality in that scene (if we take into account what's gleaned in ch 44).
Mephisto was fascinated by Faust, I believe. An unusual and rare toy? Yes. The question is: does this possessiveness-of-a-toy-explanation justify Mephisto's unseemly retreat, when Amaimon tosses out the question about his caring for humans? Does it justify attempts at reviving the dead? Does it justify five centuries of maintaining the lineage of a name that died with his contractor? How much effort are you willing to put into retrieving a toy? And how much are you willing to put into retrieving someone who mattered to you?
If this were just a demon's cruel, emotionless possessiveness over a toy, Mephisto would have said so: "Unbroken toys one can play with longer, Amaimon", or something along those lines. Emotionless possessiveness is nothing a demon would be ashamed of or hide; it's greed, basically. But Mephisto does hide it, he does avoid it… because it wasn't emotionless possessiveness? Because what he feels towards (certain?) humans isn't something a demon is supposed to feel at all? An attachment of that kind, to individuals of the human race, would be a weakness I doubt he'd admit aloud - not to his brother; perhaps not even to himself.
…guesses, guesses. ^_^' It's a rather controversial idea within the series' frames, this, so I'd be happy to hear your thoughts on the matter.