A/N: If you want an explanation for what is happening with this story, read the A/N at the end of this chapter.
Disclaimer: I don't own Blue Exorcist or any related properties. All I've got to my name is my OC's
As Hana finally pulled herself up the last step ("Jeez louis," she grunted. "Why the hell does he have to be so heavy"), she was faced with a monumental problem.
The door was locked. And her keys were in her back pocket.
She heaved a sighed, contemplating her problem before hefting the boy higher up, so that his shoulder blade was digging into her neck and his head was leaning back and resting on top of her blond hair. The position was awkward and uncomfortable, but she gripped him tighter around the middle (careful not to hurt him even more), and reached her left arm around to dig in her back pocket. She gave a brief curse, realizing that her keys were in her other back pocket. Instead of switching arms, like any normal person would have done (but she couldn't be exactly normal if she thought bringing an unconscious stranger home with her was a smart plan), she reached her arm farther around, stretching as far as she could without dropping the boy in her arms. She dug into her right pocket and stretched her fingers out, hooking her middle finger through the keyring.
When she sighed in relief, Hana made another mistake. Because of course she did. Her mouth went lax with the sigh, and the umbrella fell out of her mouth, bonking the boy in the hair spike on it's way down. The clatter it made was almost deafening in the still night. Hana twitched, wondering just how much worse her luck could get.
She really shouldn't have asked that.
"Is that you, Hana-chan?" Hana sucked in a breath, hearing the voice of her neighbor, Kobayashi-san - the nosiest old woman Hana had ever met.
Hana grit her teeth, and carefully laid the boy on his back in front of her door. Then she stood up and faced Kobayashi-san's house, giving a strained smile as she said, "Yes, it's me, Kobayashi-san."
"What are you doing out so late? It's already past midnight!"
"So sorry Kobayashi-san! I left work late because of the rain, and then I got lost in the dark. Sorry if I disturbed you," Hana rushed out then she turned away, cutting off the conversation in favor of unlocking the door as fast as humanly possible. Yeah, it was rude, but being polite wasn't exactly at the top of her list when there was a boy bleeding out on her porch.
As soon as Hana heard the lock click, she slammed open the door and flicked the porch light switch off. With the shadows hiding her form from the peering eyes of her neighbor, Hana reached down and hooked her arms through the boy's, before lifting him up and dragging him quickly into her living room. She called out a goodnight to Kobayashi-san as she shut the front door, mentally noting that she would need to clean up the bloodstains on her front porch before morning.
Hana gave a brief sigh of exhaustion, leaning her head against the front door and blindly fumbling for the light switch for the living room. She spent a few precious seconds wincing at the sudden starbursts behind her eyes, and then slapped her cheeks to wake herself up. But really, all she did was smear a sticky wetness on her face that could only be blood. She winced. "C'mon Hana, hurry up before this guy bleeds out on your floor," she mumbled aloud, forcing herself into to move towards the couch.
In actuality, it was a futon. She folded it out into a bed, and placed a clean, beige sheet she fetched from the cupboard over it. Then came the arduous task of lifting the heavy, unconscious, bleeding boy onto the futon, and arranging him so that he wasn't bent in an awkward position.
Once that was done, Hana huffed out a breath, leaning and twisting to crack her back, before heading off to the bathroom. She first filled an old ceramic bowl with the hottest water the tap could provide; she gathered towels, cotton swaps, rubbing alcohol, bandages of all shapes and sizes, and some needle and thread (just in case), and placed them on the small coffee table in from of the futon.
Then Hana ran into another problem: the boy's clothes. She needed to remove them to properly clean and bandage his wounds, but the bright red in her cheeks brought about by her modesty warned her that if she did that, she could look forward to five minutes of hyperventilation (no, she wasn't exaggerating). Hana shuffled her feet, wasting another minute suppressing the color in her cheeks as the boy slowly bled out and stained the once clean sheet. Finally, she let out a agitated groan before deciding to help him before he really did die from blood loss. Pulling his clothes off as carefully as she could, she stopped when she got to his shorts, before stripping him of those too. However, she couldn't remove his dark green, ripped leggings, and instead got a pair of kitchen scissors and cut them off well above the knee (and even that made her blush uncontrollably - she felt like a tomato).
Hana breathed deeply, cooling her blush slightly. Then she turned to the coffee table and soaked a towel in the rapidly cooling water. As she washed the dirt and grime off the boy, a headache bloomed, as fierce as the blush that had resurfaced on her face and neck.
'This is going to be a long night.'
'Ah, Amaimon. Can you hear me?'
Amaimon was back in the nothingness again. Only this time, as he waited, he didn't lift out of it like before. Instead, his brother's voice echoed around in his head. He blinked his eyes open before calling out. "Yes, Ani-ue."
'That's good.' Amaimon sat up (he didn't even realize he had been laying down) and crossed his legs into a lotus position. He looked up to see his Ani-ue sitting in an elegant, throne-like chair, his legs crossed and sipping tea. 'Do you remember what had happened?'
Amaimon cocked his head to the side and stared blankly at his Ani-ue, but Mephisto knew he was just checking his memories. When the rare look of complete rage encompassed Amaimon's entire face, Mephisto chuckled and knew that his foolish Otouto remembered the blow their younger half brother had dealt him.
"Where is younger brother? I'm going to kill him," Amaimon hissed out, some of his rage seeping into his normally monotone voice.
'Now, now. Even if you could, Otouto, I would not allow you to.' Amaimon's lips curled back in rage at his Ani-ue's words. 'Now, onto the important matters: I have a question for you.' Mephisto waited, but Amaimon's burning anger didn't falter at his abrupt change of subject. He snarled, leaping to his feet and bending his knees as if he was prepping to launch himself at his Ani-ue. Mephisto sighed, and snapped his fingers. Suddenly, an invisible force slammed Amaimon onto his back, strapping him down to the floor made of nothingness with belts and harnesses that looked like they were stitched together from the night sky itself.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Amaimon realized this was a battle he couldn't win, and stopped struggling. His anger slowly dissipated until it was merely a small, bubbling volcano in the back of his mind, like it usually was. His flat demeanor returned and he gazed up at his Ani-ue with bored sky blue eyes.
Mephisto gave a (falsely) delighted smile and clapped his hands excitedly, like he was a young boy who had just watched his dog do a new trick. Amaimon twitched. 'Well done, Otouto! Now, onto my question: do you know where we are?' Amaimon kept his gaze flat and mouth shut as he stared up at his Ani-ue. He would elaborate eventually. 'We are in your mind,' Mephisto said dramatically, poking himself in the temple with a purple-gloved hand. 'Though I didn't think it would be this empty…' he mused, a bemused smirk on his face as he rubbed his chin and stared off into the black distance to his left.
Amaimon blinked. "Ha ha," he said dully. "That's very funny, Ani-ue."
Mephisto chortled and slapped his stocking'd knee, like he told a funny joke. 'Oh, I'm just kidding, just kidding, little Otouto.' Mephisto cleared his throat and looked into Amaimon's unamused sky blue eyes with his serious forest green, though he kept a crooked, fanged grin on his face. 'Actually Amaimon, do you know what happened after the fight?' Amaimon tilted his head to the side to signal that no, he didn't. 'You see, little Rin's blow should have destroyed your host body and sent you back to Gehenna. But I stepped in to teach you a… lesson.' The word was said so menacingly, Amaimon couldn't help but shiver. 'None of my usual methods of teaching seem to get through, however, so I'm afraid I have been forced to take alternative measures.' He gestured eccentrically, arms waving in the air lightly and belying the underlying tone of threat in his voice. 'I preserved your body, but, to say it bluntly, sealed your demon powers.'
Amaimon blinked in shock, and then he was snarling at his Ani-ue again until the starlight belts tightened around him. He pressed flat against the invisible floor beneath him, and leaned his head against it with a thunk.'Now, now. You're lucky I chose to set you on a sidewalk where some nice human found you, instead of just handing you over to Astaroth.' Amaimon's lips curled downward ever so slightly, his usually monotone face subtly expressing his not-so-subtle disgust for the Demon King of Rot.
'Anyways,' Mephisto said, 'I put you a long, long ways from the Academy. I'm giving you a test, and if you pass, I will forget about your punishment: you must come back to True Cross Academy.' Amaimon yawned, exposing his overgrown canines, and clicked his black claws against the nothingness he was laying upon. 'Oh, I also took away your Infinity Key. And without your powers, you're basically human!' Mephisto said cheerily. 'Though,' he continued on, pondering to himself, 'I couldn't get rid of your demonic features. You've had that host body for so long, your demonic attributes are pretty much permanently glued on.' Amaimon watched as his Ani-ue rambled, his rage simmering just below the skin.
Mephisto grinned, seeing how deeply he had shaken his normally emotionless (looking, that was) Otouto. Hopefully, if this experiment worked correctly, Amaimon would mature a little and have better control over his violent impulses. That way, Mephisto wouldn't have to keep covering his ass every time Amaimon decided he wanted to play with Rin Okumura.
And even if his Otouto didn't learn his lesson, it would still be great fun to watch.
'And that's not all, Otouto! A human girl picked you up off the sidewalk and treated your wounds. If it hadn't been for her (and me), your host would have died and you would probably have to possess a hamster or something.' Mephisto snorted at the thought. Amaimon simply tugged slightly against the belts that still held him down, expression blank. 'So, while it's not an order, I advise you not to kill her. I picked her because you will find her very… interesting. If you play your cards right, she could probably help you complete my experim- er, test, quicker than you could on your own. 'Mephisto shrugged lightly in response to Amaimon's blank stare, a lazy grin on his narrow face. 'Then again, it's all just a suggestion. Feel free not to follow.'
'Anyways!" Mephisto exclaimed, snapping his fingers dramatically. The belts that held him down disappeared in a poof of purple-pink smoke, and Amaimon sat up, his thumbnail immediately going in between his teeth. 'I'll be going now; lots to do, you know. Video games to beat, manga to read, school to run. Schemes to create," Mephisto said, giving a cheery grin at that last one. 'Auf weidersehen, little Otouto. Until I see you again- oh! I almost forgot,' here Mephisto's grin darkened into something sinister, something that made Amaimon's stomach inadvertently tighten with dread, 'I'll be sending all sorts of things after you, and knowing you, you'll also create a whole load of your own trouble too. Good luck, and try not to lose the game so soon!'
Amaimon stuck his tongue out immaturely, his face that same shade of bored. Mephisto chuckled, tipping his white top hat to him before lifting his hand into the air. 'Eins, zwei, drei!'
The echo of his snap and the resulting choking purple-pink smoke stayed long after his departure.
A/N: So uh... guess who's not dead. Yeah, I've been gone a while (lol, a while? More like 4 years. I'm horrible), but I'm here and I'm gonna actually start updating this story. Not regularly, cause I got college AND a job to pay attention to, but I've already written halfway through chapter five. So, I'm gonna try, because I really do like this story, and I don't want to disrespect everyone who favorited and followed this story like that. Anyways, yeah. See you all next chapter.