To warn some people, since my usual beta had one of her NoYay triggers hit by a scene that touched on this same issue in another fic:
This chapter is supposed to be creepy, not romantic (sexual yes, romantic no). I mean, think about Adam and Eve. Actually think about it, and for the SMT version include the stuff about Lilith. It's basically soul-mutilation-based mind control for the sake of creating a bond between 'two' people who are actually one person and a bit torn out of them. If you're too bothered by any of it to keep reading, than that really just means that you understand too much about consent issues to be a Twilight fan, so feel free to skip to the end or even the next chapter
'Inspiration' really is breathing in the soul/essence of a god- remember Gale's demon/atma form from Digital Devil Saga? It's a pretty good expression of the concept, although the Western form comes to us from the Greeks. One of the possibilities is that the soul enters the body with the first breath, since God breathed life into Adam.
Since the rest of the explanation includes spoilers, I'll put it the end of the chapter.
"If this is a waste of my time…"
"And why would I do that?" Loki asked the grumpy human immortal. "It's so much more thrilling when you're plotting. I'm looking forward to the War of Bel. It's in my best interests to make it interesting, hmm?"
"I'm not paying for your drinks," Cain warned him as they walked towards the bar. "Or the cover charge," he added as he saw the people lined up at the entrance. Wonderful, he'd be trapped in Loki's company for even longer before he found out if he was going to be killing him tonight or not.
Wait, was that… "Hmm."
"See someone you recognize?" Loki wondered. Already.
"That's none of your concern," Naoya told him, putting his hands in his sleeves primly. Well well well. He was aware that Yuzu was into the indie music scene, he'd run background checks on all his brother's friends, but the girl was very sensitive. If she was here willingly, that meant that whatever Loki brought him here for couldn't be demonic in origin. If she stayed in line ahead of him instead of her subconscious finding some reason for her to get out of here now that Loki had arrived, then it was more powerful than he was.
Someone with a subconscious demon radar was a lucky find indeed, just in case any of them managed to ambush his brother unexpectedly. At least she'd know which way to run. It meant that being trapped in an area crawling with demons with no way out would be hell for her, but that wasn't Naoya's concern.
Well, she wasn't leaving, so there had to be something here. Either that or she just liked the band that much. If this turned out to be a bust, Naoya would have to start looking for a replacement, because there would clearly be something wrong with her survival instincts and she was simply a tool to keep his brother alive.
Hmph, D-Va. Diva, or did the horizontal line mean the missing letter was Deva? He tried to imagine one of the Four Devas in a rock band, but it wasn't likely. Still, since the Shomonkai's plan involved assassinating one of them, this might be a good omen. Artists were more likely to have power, although most of the time performers just had some form of mind control masquerading as charisma. Possibly this club was all the people they could fascinate at once: those who could turn their songs into spells enchanting their listeners were the ones who got contracts. Aside from a few tables that seemed to be taken by fellow indie artists, Naoya doubted there were more than a handful here who would recognize real musical skill if he sat down that that keyboar-
It wouldn't have hit him so hard if he hadn't unsealed his senses, trying to get at least an hour's warning of any more of the Bel demons entering the human world after that ritual implanted Jezebel in an infant and first drew his attention to the Shomonkai. It was also handy for keeping track of his brother: he'd know that soul anywhere.
But this, this soul was his. Except new, and clean enough that this had to be its first incarnation. Her first incarnation.
Over at the bar, Gin paused. What was Aya staring at like that? He followed her gaze to one of the new regulars, a gigolo, and some cosplayer with silver hair and a custom haori. The cosplayer was staring back at Aya with something that looked like confusion mingled with… was that fear? He had a good poker face, but Gin was a bartender. The gigolo looked very amused, and after a few seconds he started waving his hand in front of his companion's face, grin getting wider and wider when that didn't make the cosplayer… Damn, that was no cosplayer. You couldn't survive as a street punk without being able to read threat levels, and if he wasn't carrying something concealed, Gin was an American beer.
So what the hell was he staring at Aya like that for?
Gin relaxed a little and took his hand off what he kept beneath the bar when he saw that Aya didn't look afraid at all, just puzzled. Was that a, "Do I know you?" look? No, more like a, "I know I've seen you before, but I can't place you." Well, the dyed hair and the haori probably explained that. If it weren't for the reading glasses attached to it and the casual clothes underneath, Gin would have gone back to his initial assessment that this guy was a cosplayer. Nah, just an eccentric who walked around in a custom haori. What was that pattern on it? Oh, that explained the eccentricity. Criminal programmers who broke into systems were called crackers. Or he was a fan of The Matrix, one or the other.
The gigolo was grinning like this had just made his day and took out a permanent marker. This time the man's hand grabbed his wrist before the guy could start drawing on his face, and Gin heard a crack.
Holy shit. Who broke someone's wrist in front of a bar full of witnesses without even thinking about it… Phew, the gigolo was just shaking out his hand, pouting a little, so the grind-crack that made Gin think of the old days and broken bones must have come from somewhere else.
Aya smothered a laugh, and while Aya was friendly to everyone, Gin had only seen that level of, 'I like you!' directed at him, Haru and her city. Haru didn't make him jealous: if anything it was as close as he was ever going to get to putting a ring on Aya's finger. With her around they were practically married with children. Another guy still worried him a bit, even though Aya had made it very clear that if he didn't complain when she brought home other women for him, he had no right to complain when it came to her bringing home men. It wasn't that he minded: it was generally kind of an ego boost, because even if he wasn't a streetfighter any more, it was pretty clear to them as soon as he took his shirt off that he could snap them like a toothpick if they were stupid enough to think they could take Aya back to their place ever. And there really was a thrill in pouncing on her after watching her with some other guy and making her forget all about him. Just the thought made him grin, but the grin faded when Aya didn't even glance at him. She was still looking at that guy.
D-Va's set was supposed to start soon, he thought as the seconds ticked on, and Aya was still leaning forward like that, as though willing the distance between them not to exist. Like she had to know who this guy was.
What was even weirder was that the guy was stuck between being helplessly drawn to her and fear of that helplessness, like if he wasn't frozen he'd be getting the hell out of here. The gigolo's grin was looking less and less friendly, more and more like he was enjoying those hints of terror, like he wanted this guy to freak out in front of the whole bar or whatever. Whatever they were, they weren't friends, not the way the gigolo clearly wanted something nasty and entertaining to happen to him.
That made up Gin's mind for him and he headed towards where the two of them were standing. "Hey, are you okay?" He didn't get any more response when he waved his hand in front of the guy's face than the gigolo had.
"This is Gin," the gigolo introduced him. "The bar's owner and her boyfriend," he said as gloatingly as though he was tossing a match into a barrel of oil.
When nothing dramatic happened, the jerk pouted. "Are you just going to stare at her all evening? Well, they'll know something's wrong when she doesn't start playing. And isn't that one of your dear brother's friends over there? I'm sure he'd hear all about it later, what a big scene you made." He leaned forward. "And then he might come down here, to try to figure out what happened. You know how inseparable the two of you are: where you are, he will be, so where she is…"
This time, Gin distinctly heard that punch break the jerk's nose, but the jerk just kept grinning. "Nothing has ever made you react like this, not except your dear brother." And then the purple-suited bastard was just… gone.
Gin blinked, because he knew damn well he hadn't had anything to drink. "So this was a setup." That was the important thing. And it looked like this guy was the victim, and if whatever was going on was hitting Aya too, that made it Gin's problem. "Anything I can do?"
Gin couldn't make out the whisper, he didn't even recognize the language, but he knew get me out of here when he saw it on someone's face. "Right." Outside wasn't an option, since the people in line wouldn't have anything to do but listen, so Gin grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into a storeroom. He didn't resist, which was a relief.
Pushing him onto one of the couches people used for breaks, Gin turned on a light and rested one knee on the couch to get a look at this guy's eyes. "Wow, how does that work?" The guy's pupils were blown, those were no contacts and he definitely wasn't an albino: their eyes only looked red because of the arteries, while this was a damn good imitation of a red iris. "Surgery or something?" he asked, disbelieving even though he knew the punk scene and he'd seen people who had done weirder stuff to their bodies because they felt like it. Gin had seen yellow (Haru had yellow), and the weird orange color that was supposed to be the yellow plus something with the pigment that was letting the vessels show through, but this was new.
The guy shook his head. "Mark…" Then he seemed to break out of the trip a little, looking up at Gin. "You've been in contact with her: if even that's affecting me…" He put his head in his hands.
"What the hell did that guy dose you with?" Gin demanded, because for it to affect Aya? Who had managed to dose her? Aya knew better than to take drinks from strangers or leave hers unattended, and this was Gin's bar: he made her drinks. She'd been fine until she saw this guy, or he saw her.
"I wish," the man said, too despairingly to curse. "Love potions have counterspells. I can't kill her, it doesn't work like that for humans."
Gin would have grabbed the front of his shirt and asked him what the hell he was thinking, to talk about killing Aya as an option, but counterspells? Humans? Either this guy was a mental patient or whatever that guy had given him had seriously fucked with his head. Gin had met someone who had paranoia induced: it wasn't pretty.
"Look, where's your wallet?" Gin asked, trying to talk soothingly, the way he would to a freaked-out kid or an animal. "Let's see who I can call."
The man grabbed his arm. "No, you can't, he'll find out. He can't come here or this will happen to him, Loki won't left that to chance…"
"He?" Gin replayed that conversation. "Your brother?"
The man nodded.
"Alright, if you're worried your family's in danger, I promise not to call," Gin said, to get him to calm down.
Shit. Yakuza, had to be. Targeted at this guy and his family, Aya and their independent bar, or both? Well, that would explain why this guy knew streetfighting and he was carrying… Possibly a lot of stuff, with that getup and those sleeves of his.
The man relaxed a little, and let Gin pat him down for his wallet and get a look at his ID. "So, what's your name?" Gin asked the guy.
"Cain."
Damn. If he didn't know his own name? "Says Naoya here."
"That's just…" the man shrugged dismissively.
"Fake ID, huh." Gin held it up. "Looks pretty good."
Then Aya walked in, and he watched Cain pull away, back against the back of the couch, as she crouched over him. He looked like a deer in the headlights, except one bright enough to know that there was going to be a crash.
"Who are you?" she asked, half-sitting on his lap, cupping his face in her hands as he grabbed the back of the sofa as though he was clinging to it for support.
His mouth opened, as though he was desperate to say something but couldn't think of anything that would get him out of this as she leaned closer and closer to his face as though looking for something, or seeing something and just not able to figure out what she was seeing that had her so interested, forget what it meant.
Gin realized that the man was holding his breath, and said, "Hey, Aya," only to be completely ignored. Face to face, the two of them fit somehow, and the fear on the man's face bothered him even more as it started to be overpowered by longing. Longing for something that terrified him, that would kill him.
Moth to a flame, but this was Aya. She wasn't going to eat him alive.
After a moment more he lost the fight, had to draw in a breath, and the fight went out of him. Whatever caused this must have something to do with pheromones or whatever, because then Aya's lips opened and it was like they were breathing the same air, tasting each other, and somehow it was one of the most sensual things Gin had ever seen; Aya's eager hunger and even the way he trembled, because it was with need.
"This is a trap," the stranger whispered to her, and she captured those words with her lips.
"What is this?" her beautiful voice whispered in reply, low only because she didn't need to speak any louder.
"Inspiration. The soul entering the body with breath," he managed to say, but thinking about it made him lean up now, to taste more of Aya's.
"Mmm," she agreed. "Only a song could express this..." The words trailed off into another breath.
"That's not…" What it meant, but that didn't matter. "We have the same soul." Dreamily, as though to himself, he said, "Father wasn't like this, but they weren't ever apart, not for so long…"
All Gin was actually clear on about this was that it was definitely something with pheromones, the guy was still tripping out and it ought to be illegal for someone to be giving off 'save me' and 'fuck me through the mattress' vibes at the same time. He wasn't even especially into guys, and although this Cain was handsome enough, although in a weird way, he definitely didn't have the body of a girl under there, not when that was lean muscle Gin had felt. Maybe it was the way he had Aya on top of him and the way it looked like they really were feeding on each other somehow, bits of soul mingling in the breath they exchanged. As though some equilibrium was being reached, the two of them mixing together until the same person would be looking out through both green eyes and red.
"Wait, Aya," he said, grabbing her arm. "Look at him. That bastard slipped him something. You can't…" Grind down on him like that: he wasn't in his right mind, even if at least Gin had gotten him away from the bastard in the purple. He knew that pimps tried to get the street girls and boys addicted to all kinds of nasty shit to control them, but this was new. "We need to get him to the hospital."
"Mmm," she said, clearly ignoring his words but not ignoring him: she pulled him down by his coat.
"He's not a part of us," the man told her, but still covered Gin's lips with his own for a moment as Gin sputtered, although it seemed more like he was judging something than trying to make out. "He's… your boyfriend?" Was that what the gigolo had said?
"Um," Aya agreed, nodding, kissing Gin next as though to taste Cain's lips, an indirect kiss. "My lover," she said with possessive pride and then pushed the stunned Gin towards Cain, as though to show him off by making them kiss.
"You can't," Cain said, turning his mouth away. "You have someone that isn't us. I, I never have. You've found happiness with someone, you can't throw your own choices away for what you were made for." He sounded almost desperate.
"Who said anything about giving him up?" she wondered, recapturing Cain's lips with a breath even though their lips had never quite touched, as though the air between them was a tangible thing and they were tasting it to taste the core of each other.
"If you love her," Cain managed to whisper, "Get her out of here." Then his eyes snapped fully open and met Aya's, who froze.
"What… She's not breathing!"
Cain almost screamed at him, "Get her out of here before it wears off!" You idiot!
"I'll…" Gin tipped Aya down onto the couch, grabbed Cain and dragged him into the next room, or rather supply closet.
He sighed with relief. "That works too."
"What the hell did you do to her?" Gin demanded, shaking him.
"Paralysis. It will wear off fast." When Gin let him go Cain started breathing hard. "No, it wasn't physical breath, that won't work." This time he was the idiot, he clearly thought, shaking his head. "Damn Loki, and damn you Remiel."
"What the hell is going on?" Gin growled.
"I don't know! I've only seen one case of this before, my parents, and they didn't act like this," Cain snarled right back at him. "That bastard took part of my soul when I was a child, and somehow it ended up in her." He pointed at the door. "Then Loki noticed her somehow and brought me here to see what would happen. And if my other half is here, then Remiel will make sure my brother's is too, even if she isn't drawn to my other half on her own!" He looked about ready to tear his hair out. "I need to keep them apart, if this happens to him too…"
Gin sighed. "Damn it, you're still out of it."
"I wish."
"Come on, talking about souls?"
Cain looked at him, clearly debating with himself whether to give up on Gin being any help at all and just leave him ignorant, or slap him in the face with Cain's version of reality so he stopped jabbering about how this wasn't possible and started contributing. "If part of me didn't think you were worth keeping around," he said, sighed, and pulled.
"This is relatively easy," Cain lectured him as though this was some kind of class as Gin flailed. "Untrained humans do it to themselves all the time: it's called an out of body experience. The obvious danger is that something else can move in while you're gone. Now, you're probably going to say that you might have gotten exposed to something too at this point," he mused as he pulled Gin even further out of his body.
That was when the door broke down – this used to be a bathroom before the remodeling, so it could still be locked from the inside – and Aya demanded, "Put him back!"
"You could feel that?" Hmm. "Alright, I was just trying to prove a point," he said annoyed, and let go. Gin snapped back into his body. "If you're able to threaten me for his sake…" That was a relief.
"What kind of summoner are you, and what is this?" she demanded, narrowed green eyes now hard as jade meeting red.
"Summoner? You know the term?"
"My music can summon the demon world, so I had to learn a little."
He grinned with violent delight, suddenly so different from the man he'd seemed to be on that couch. "Your first incarnation, and you're already reaching for the power of the demon world: you really do have my soul."
"Your soul?"
"Eve was made from Adam's rib. Their first two children also had a part of them taken away, but I killed Abel before either of the parts that were taken were made into humans."
As Gin and Aya were trying to figure out whether or not they could seriously believe that Cain/Naoya continued. "The only reason you would be incarnated now is that Remiel wants you to distract me from making sure my brother wins the War of Bel, and then there's an ordeal to prevent or humanity will drop back to before the Stone Age, if it survives without the ability to communicate. And if you're here, somewhere out there is my brother's other half, a landmine waiting for him to step on…" During the lecture, Cain stepped closer and closer to Aya, trying to intimidate her, and once again Gin could see the point where desperate need overwhelmed whatever he'd been feeling at the time and he reached for her shoulders like a man possessed.
She slapped him to make him wake the hell up.
Jumping back (out of range) with trained reflex, he touched his hand to his cheek. "Thank you. At least you're resisting it. I was right: this is your first lifetime and it's hitting me this hard because… That means the other one will be able to think much more clearly than my brother, and he doesn't remember his other lives." So he wouldn't know why he should resist, or have the discipline to.
"I need to stay away from you," Naoya said, and Gin could see him ruthlessly suppress the flicker of longing in his eyes when he looked at her to evaluate her. "Him. I can explain what you need to know to him instead of you, he can try to identify the other one and I'll make sure Yuzu doesn't drag my brother here." Cain grimaced.
Wait, Gin knew that name. "Yuzu? High school girl?"
"She's my brother's friend and clearly a fan of your band."
Aya folded her arms. "Maybe that's the trap. Do you really think you can stay away without thinking about me and having to resist coming here every second?"
"…No," he admitted after a long pause, looking at her. "But don't you get it? Eve, you, the otherone: of you were created as babysitters, and then for a breeding program! I won't let part of myself be reduced to that! Not by him!"
"You mean God?" Aya asked, taking a step forward, and Gin could see both the kind of concern she had for him and Haru sometimes and a hint of that force that pulled them together. "If… your parents," Adam and Eve, and this was crazy, "Were okay, and you think the difference is that you were alone for…" How long?
"I'm not going to make you cheat on your lover to, to…"
"Who said anything about cheating?" Aya wondered.
Cain grumbled. "I am counting on him to keep you away from me because I can't say no! Whatever happened to good, old-fashioned jealousy?" he complained, tilting his head a little toward Gin since he could quite turn away from Aya. "Cain? Evil? Contaminating her?"
"Are you?" Gin asked him. "From where I'm standing, it looks like she's got more control than you do." Convincing Gin he was evil wasn't going to work, since if he was, wouldn't it be better if Aya had a leash on him? Gin knew what she'd done to turn him around.
There were those 'save me' eyes again, but this time Gin realized that what half of him was begging for was an excuse to give in.
"You're not having sex tonight," Gin told Aya firmly. "I'm still not convinced that bastard in the purple didn't slip him something. But you can do… Whatever you were doing, and if you're still like this in the morning…" Then Gin was going to have to figure out whether he actually believed this and what he was going to do about it, because breeding program? His Aya? Exactly what the hell was going on and whose face was he going to have to rearrange with his fists for putting that look in the eyes of someone who wasn't his Aya. Still, the more he saw them standing like this, next to each other, the more right it seemed. If they really were one person, then the Aya half loved him, right? So the rest of it… He didn't know what he was going to do, but maybe he'd be able to get some actual answers in the morning.
After he managed to let the band know that Aya wasn't feeling well (fortunately, there were a lot of other Indie musicians in the audience and from the sound upstairs they managed to find one of Aya's friends who knew the songs well enough to plug the gap) it was pretty tough to keep enforcing the no sex rule with the two of them practically making out over him, finally going to sleep pressed against either side of him to be as close as possible to each other.
At the root of it, the creation of Eve was an attempt to override humanity's free will in a very blatant way to begin with. Not just Eve's free will, after Lilith decided she didn't actually love Adam, but Adam's as well, because why would he favor someone he'd just met above the adoring sentient animals he could talk to that had been with him for as long as he existed?
As I point out in another fic, it's really self-love and the need for completion, and Gin is quite right to be putting it in terms of pheromones/date rape drugs, even though it's using metaphysics instead of biochemistry to induce sex/attraction even if people otherwise wouldn't want it. He's definitely making the right call to see if this wears off, or if sating the need to connect their soul will remove the urge to connect via sex, because at the moment Aya isn't informed and Naoya is not consenting.
Naoya is very lucky Gin was there, otherwise it would have been rape because he definitely Did Not Want but he would not have been able to make himself stop her, and that would have caused his feelings about Aya to get mixed up with the hatred he has for himself and then he would have killed her, Gin would have tried to kill him, Haru might have ended up getting used for the summoning program and then disposed of before the game to prevent her from doing the same to his little brother...