So I've been noticing that the line breaks I've been putting in each chapter hasn't been coming through at all, so I'm trying something new. Hopefully it'll work!
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Mephisto wasn't sure what he had been thinking when he took Yukio towards that bloody sky. He didn't know what he had been expecting when Yukio brought Kurikara to Rin, or when Satan glanced towards Yukio with such loathing, or when Rin's blood rained down to the parched ground below. Yes, he had been expecting people to die. This was war, after all.
He just hadn't been expecting that it had been Rin.
Rin, dead.
It was such a strange thought, such an inconceivable notion, that his immortal mind had trouble processing it. Perhaps Mephisto had been expecting that Rin would become a concept like the other Kings of Gehenna at his death. He had inherited Satan's flames, after all.
Yet he had also inherited the blood of Yuri. The blood of a human.
Gehenna was no place for a human, no matter what percentage.
Mephisto bit his tongue hard enough to pierce the skin as something ... unfamiliar ... welled up within him. It was all he could do to continue to hold Yukio and Rin's body aloft. What else could he do? There was nothing, nothing ...
His eyes snapped open. Of course, he thought, a mere whisper of conscious, and stretched out his hand. Power blossomed at his fingertips, a familiar warmth that reminded him of human blessings: the feeling of summer sunshine kissing the skin, listening to waves lapping against white sands, the soft melody of harps and violins weaving with the stars. Mephisto listened to that faint melody, listened and then froze it solid.
Time stuttered, stilled, and grew quiet. The faint rising and falling of Rin's chest stopped entirely, and as Yukio began to panic and cry his brother's name, Mephisto's gaze rose to Satan. The King of Gehenna's lips were a thin, faint line. Fury, pure and true, rippled in his sapphire gaze.
Mephisto felt his hands tremble against the wrath, but he only lifted his chin and smirked. Satan may be the King of Gehenna, but Mephisto was a King himself. He bowed to no one and nothing. He never had. He never would.
"Explain, Samael," Satan hissed.
Mephisto only shrugged, a slow, painful gesture. "What is there to explain?" he said. "The war is over, and the enemy," Mephisto added, tilting his head in Rin's direction, "is dead."
Lies, lies, lies. Satan knew it, too, but he was also a conceited, insufferable bastard who enjoyed taking his time. In fact, the only time Mephisto knew Satan to be in a hurry was during the Blue Night fifteen or so years ago, and that was only because he had been in a mortal body. As an immortal living in his favorite realm, the King of Gehenna had no true sense of time. Not anymore.
But Mephisto, who had lived with the humans long enough, did. Not just how to yield it, but also the importance of buying time for others. Others, such as Yukio, who's eyes were flickering between turquoise and royal blue.
Mephisto forced his smile to widen, forced his violet eyes to glimmer with mirth. "What a shame," he continued with an elaborate sweep of his arms. "I had been enjoying this war. Assaih has been boring, you see."
"I see?" Satan echoed. His voice was little more than a hiss. "Tell me, Samael ... what do I see, exactly?"
Various curses in multiple languages rang about in Mephisto's skull, but he only tilted his head back in arrogance. "You see the rot of this world," he whispered as he flipped through his memories and blew the dust off of the various images they stored. "Every day is the same; demons kiss your ass, the broken beg for mercy, and you are trapped here for an eternity. It has been terribly boring, hasn't it? Which is why," Mephisto continued, his voice dropping an octave, "you arranged to have your son dragged to this place. Why you used me to bring him here. In fact," he added, "you had been hoping for a war all along."
The longer Mephisto spoke, the less furious Satan had seemed. In fact, by the end of Mephisto's little speech, Satan had looked almost ... happy. Happy, but in a twisted sort of sense, the kind of happy that is found in laughing at the broken, at torturing the innocent, at yielding a power that no one could hope to compare.
"Well," Satan murmured, "someone has done their homework."
If Mephisto was surprised at being correct, he refused to show it. "Then why," he asked instead. "Why orchestrate a war? Why bother to unite -"
And, just like that, blue flames arched across the sky. Mephisto, cut off halfway through his question, took a shaky step back, startled as the sapphire fire raged through the air and blotted out the earth below.
Yet it did not burn, and with sharp realization Mephisto realized that it had not been Satan who had suddenly erupted. It had been Yukio.
And he wanted blood.
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Sorry for the short chapter! Writing these takes a lot of time and I spent part of the day catching up with the Ao No Exorcist manga, just to remember what the characters sounded like, their mannerisms, etc. Satan's freaking hard. So is Mephisto, and I'm not 100% confident that I accurately conveyed his persona ... oh well! At least there's an update? :P
Anyway, see you guys next weekend! Good luck with school/ work/ life in general :)
-Random
PS: my recently published novel (the reason I've been MIA for the past couple of years) is available on Amazon! The eBook is 99c; if you purchase it, send me a PM with proof of purchase, and I'll write you a one-shot - including one-shots that aren't of Ao no Exorcist :) Feel free to PM me for details!