For one brief moment, a flicker of pride ignited Daphne's heart at having taken Mephisto Pheles, the grand puppetmaster, the arbiter of every chessboard, completely by surprise.
Mephisto stared at her, his eyes wide, his hand limp on her shoulder. His mouth hung open slightly. His face turned gaunt. The wet, drooping hair only added to the effect. In spite of everything, the expression made Daphne want to laugh through her tears. Laugh so hard she'd cry again.
"Oh," Mephisto said, and blinked. His back straightened and he cleared his throat. He even removed his hand from her shoulder, then reached back and patted it. "Felicitations."
Neither of them knew what to say to each other after that, so Mephisto cleared his throat again. Then he looked at Rin and said, "May I speak with you in the hallway, Mr. Okumura?"
Rin glanced Daphne's way, but answered, "Sure?" and trailed Mephisto out of the room.
Daphne released her breath and it trembled through her lips. Her arms were shaking. Her legs were shaking. Whether that was from exhaustion or fear or having been soaked straight through, she couldn't have said, but it was like every ounce of warmth and energy had been sucked out of her. Whatever Mephisto had done had fixed the lights and the pipes, but there was still water all over the room, dripping from the ceiling and pooling on the floor. She wiped her nose and glanced over her shoulder at Akiyama who was busy attaching electrodes to the cube that apparently contained their spirit.
"How long was that supposed to hold her?" Daphne asked.
Without looking up from her work, Akiyama replied, "We were uncertain, but had the binding been complete, I would have been able to establish an estimate. A decay rate, if you will."
Daphne's throat cinched. At the back of her mind, she knew it wasn't her fault that the binding had failed. She'd done her best, and they hadn't anticipated how strong the spirit would be. And goddamn was it strong. Trying to hold her own against it had been like standing outside unprotected in a category five hurricane. Daphne had never come in direct contact with a demon that overwhelming before—aside from Rin and Mephisto, but neither of them had ever unleashed the full force of their power on her. And she'd thought having Rin burn her aura was bad…
"Major Okumura."
From her seat on the edge of the tub, Daphne turned again to look at Akiyama. The woman held her eye.
"Even this much would not have been possible without you."
Another shaky breath left Daphne's lips and she found herself smiling painfully. "Never quite enough, though, is it?"
Akiyama returned the smile with a grim one of her own, then broke eye contact and went back to work. "The battle between humans and demons is an eternal one," she replied. "Neither side has ever overcome the other. I'm of the belief that our time would be better spent working to understand each other, perhaps live symbiotically. Like you've done."
Daphne frowned. "What do you mean?"
Akiyama laughed, short and barking. "You're married to a half-demon. A demon who is half Satan. On some level, you're essentially the princess of Gehenna. On top of that, you not only carry three demon blades, but have bonded their spirits to yours. You've even bonded a blade that doesn't belong to you." Akiyama looked up. "You could not live more symbiotically with demons unless you had demon blood yourself."
Daphne blinked at her. She had never thought about it that way. All the time she was focused on the bad in demons, what they had taken away from her, she hadn't ever considered everything they had given. Her hand drifted to her abdomen and Akiyama followed the motion with her eyes, then smiled.
"And you'll raise children in the sire line of Satan. Impressive, don't you think?"
A little blank, Daphne nodded. "I guess…yeah."
"Congratulations, by the way."
Daphne smiled at her feet, at her soaking socks and shoes and the pentagram on the basin beneath them. That nauseating energy, the power that had formerly permeated the room was gone, condensed into that cube behind her. The demon was contained for now, and that was something to be grateful for. She turned her smile toward Akiyama.
"Thank you."
Rin followed Mephisto into the hallway. The demon king closed the door to the girls' locker room softly behind him, opened his mouth to speak, then reconsidered and led Rin a short distance down the hall. It took Mephisto a second to figure out what he wanted to say.
"This…news…Miss Lux has just delivered. It is the truth?"
The look in his eyes was so serious, a pit of worry began to bubble in Rin's stomach as he nodded.
"Yeah. Yeah, she's really pregnant."
Mephisto drew in a long breath and dropped his gaze to the floor, his hand coming up to cover his mouth. He was silent for a long moment before looking at Rin.
"I'm certain it isn't necessary for me to remind you of the circumstances of your birth, brother," he said, "but, the purpose of your existence was to provide a vessel for the king of demons to manifest himself in Assiah. Nothing more. You can be certain an additional vessel in his sire line will not go unnoticed."
"Vessels," Rin corrected. "We're having twins."
A feather could have knocked Mephisto over. Rin had never seen him in such a state. It wasn't every day Mephisto was caught off-guard, much less twice in a matter of minutes. He just stared at Rin, then his gaze shifted slowly to the middle distance over Rin's shoulder. Another moment of silence, then he started to laugh—small at first, just little chuckles that he tried to stifle, but in a matter of seconds, he was absolutely bawling with laughter. He doubled over, holding his stomach, tears running down his cheeks, and he laughed until he had to gasp to breathe. Rin was too startled to do anything other than stand there.
"Twins," Mephisto said, gaining enough control over himself to speak again. "Ah, dear brother, you will never cease to amaze and amuse me." He clapped Rin on the shoulder and shook his head.
"It's true," Rin replied, a little ruffled.
"I have no doubt of that," Mephisto chuckled. "The truth is stranger than fiction. One could not invent something so poetic."
Rin just scowled, but the revelation had returned a little of Mephisto's mirth if nothing else. The demon king drew in a deep breath and released it with a pleasant sigh.
"You can be certain Satan will take interest in these new grandchildren of his," he said. "And with this demon-possessing spirit in the mix as well, your family in particular will need to watch their backs." He patted Rin's shoulder, but it wasn't exactly comforting. "Had you selected anyone other than Miss Lux for a mate, I might have called you an imbecile, but truly, brother, marrying that woman is the most intelligent thing you've ever done."
That was a backhanded compliment if ever there was one, but Rin had to admit that he agreed with the sentiment behind it.
"If there is a woman in Assiah today capable of delivering and rearing children with both your genes and Satan's, Daphne Lux is it."
"You don't have to be such an ass about it," Rin grumbled in response.
Laughing again, Mephisto grinned. "Be sure to keep me up-to-date on my godchildren," he said, patting Rin's cheek and then walking away.
"What? Who said you could be their godfather?!"
Mephisto just raised his fingers to twiddle a wave without turning around. "Tootles~!" he said and disappeared in a puff of pink smoke.
Daphne had begun helping Akiyama dry off her equipment with some towels from a locker that had escaped getting soaked when Rin came back into the room scowling and Mephisto-less. He held that scowl all the way over to the equipment table, and for whatever reason, it made Daphne laugh.
"What did he want to talk about?" she asked.
"The babies," Rin grumbled. "Wanted to remind me that Satan will probably be interested in them. He also decided to name himself their godfather."
Daphne snorted. "That is not happening."
"I know!" Rin threw his hands up and grabbed a towel and dry stuff off as well. "I tried to tell him, but he just poofed away."
Akiyama chuckled. When Daphne looked her way, the woman offered a smile.
"I think I'm beginning to understand why Lord Pheles lets the two of you work together," she said.