Chapter 5: Snowfall

Broken up into two parts to keep the chapters at a slightly more consistent length.

In Satan's honest opinion, Assiah was nothing short of amazing, and he'd gladly admit it if asked. There was a whole lot more to do, a whole lot more to see, and he was slowly but surely developing a soft spot for the overly bright world. He didn't have as much freedom, but no one knew about him so idiots who were full of false bluster foolishly challenged him. Some people might have found the fights annoying, but it was the highlight of Satan's day, getting to beat the crap out of a few kids, shattering their hopes of grandeur at their feet as the 'little kid' utterly destroyed them. It was vicious and difficult sometimes with the bigger kids, but Satan liked the burning of his arms, the stinging of cuts and scrapes, and tangy flavor of mixed blood in his mouth. He welcomed the pain he hadn't felt in years, had forgotten existed, and would always walk away with a dopey smile feeling thoroughly satisfied with himself despite knowing how petty these fights actually were. They made him feel alive in a way that reminded him fondly of his very early days when he'd carved his way to the top, bodies his stepping stones and blood his drink. Yes, maybe Assiah wasn't that bad after all. It sure explained why his other sons kept going to such an otherwise overly flammable world.

The cold, however, could go burn in hell.

Once upon a time, he hadn't cared if it'd been scorching hot or a blizzard outside. Whatever bodies he found barely lasted long enough to be affected by the weather, and even then his power warded off the cold effortlessly. But robbed of most of his inner fire by the shitty priest, Satan had no defense except the shoddy human clothes bought for him. It made him shiver, locked his joints with ice as his blood slushed through his frosted muscles. He felt terrible whenever winter rolled around, and no amount of layers could ever seem to fix the issue. So Satan simply pretended the outside world didn't exist whenever that wretched white stuff that was nothing but glorified ice fell, and curled up in front of the space heater like a cat. And he'd be content to stay there for days at a time, except-

"Rin! Rin! Look, it's snowing! It's snowing, Rin!"

For some reason he couldn't fathom, Yukio loved the stuff.

He supposed it wasn't that bad. He could look at the dusted trees and, for just a second, pretend he were in a familiar forest. Reality would fall away and he'd pretend he was hiding in the lodge, overly grumpy and stubborn just to make Yuri work to force him out with sighs and fond grumbles. She'd have dragged him out, but her hands were busy holding and guiding their two-

Shiro's voice filtered down the hall, "Rin, hurry up or we'll start without you!"

"Don't you fucking dare!" Satan forced his other boot on and checked it was tight and secured. He hated when snow got in and sent shivers up his spine.

Satan nearly tripped down the steps when Shiro pulled on his scarf and turned him around. He wasn't even entirely sure there was a child under all the fluff, "Rin, just how many layers do you have on?"

"Not enough."

Shiro laughed and practically shoved him outside.

It turned out that Yukio was impatient and was already crouching in the light dusting of snow, rolling a tight snowball and trying to get it to pick up the white flakes around. Satan joined the boy, ignoring the stabbing cold, and flung snow onto the ball. There wasn't much snowfall in general, but the yard in surrounding the church was big and spacious and thoroughly covered. Shiro trailed after them, a faint voice offering to help push that was ignored even as the snowball grew into a boulder that nearly reach Satan's shoulder. Unbothered, he dug his heels in and pushed what had to be well over a hundred pounds of compact snow towards the entrance of the church while Yukio ran off excitedly to start the second ball. He left it closer to the road than the church, just barely kissing the barrier, and nodded at the arbitrary placement as if it meant something.

Across the street he could see a few demons drifting listless about, searching for bodies. They were nothing more than formless wraths, but he recognized a few demons that enjoyed possessing snow-structures. One of them broke from the group, falling behind as it stared vaguely at the snowball he'd just shoved into place. There was still the barrier in place, but it naturally wavered and weakened whenever Satan stood too close for too long, confused as to exactly what he was.

"Rin! Rin, we finished the body!"

A quick glance back and Satan saw Yukio happily leading the priest, who was pushing a lumpy snowball only a bit smaller than the one in front of Satan, towards him. He felt the other minor demon draw closer and, without a second thought, snapped towards it and snarled. The demon recoiled and, like the weakling it was, fled. The ruler of Gehenna nodded, quickly scanned for any other curious demons unearthed by the snow, and, satisfied, turned back towards the approaching duo.

But there was yet another problem, "That's too big, it won't fit on top." Also Satan couldn't deadlift that much weight just yet and like hell the shitty priest was going to be the one to make the snowman.

"It got bigger on the way here…" Yukio muttered with wide eyes, as if he'd just seen something impossible and not simple physics, "very bigger." He held his arms wide for emphasis.

"Much bigger." Satan and Shiro corrected in unison without a thought. He ignored the annoyance he felt, and turned on the priest, "Should have carried it."

Shiro blankly looked down at the compact snow at his feet, "Do you have any idea how much this thing weighs?"

"Less than a hundred; you should've been fine." Sure, humans were pretty weak, but this was the Paladin. He brushed off the shitty priest's comment of "try two hundred", because the principle was still the same, "Unless you're letting yourself go. Come on, Yukio!"

Without any ceremony, Satan violently kicked the snowball and cackled at the explosion of white. Shiro stumbled as the mass rocked enough to nearly topple him, and he gave Satan a rather pathetic stink-eye. Yukio sputtered as some of the impromptu snow shower hit him, but shook the powder out of his hair and, after a moment where in which Satan had to encourage him, kicked the snowball with all of his seven year old might. The boy gasped when he foot skidded off, and stumbled, slipped, then fell. Or would have, if Satan hadn't seen the result of such a disastrous stance a mile away and was already behind Yukio, supporting him.

"Careful! I'm glad you're so enthusiastic, but you can't just kick without bracing for recoil!"

Slowly, Satan went over the steps to what he deemed a proper kick, making sure to spell out in excruciating detail the importance of ever little body movement. His natural grace, however, outstripped a human's on his worst days and Yukio, sadly, already had a terrible habit of overextending. It was adorable the way Yukio stumbled and grew frustrated with himself, unable to pull his leg up properly or figure out how to 'snap' his foot forward, cheeks even redder than they had been when the cold nipped at them. Comforting him only made it worse, and Satan was too busy fawning over his child to notice the bizarre look Shiro was giving him.

"Rin, where did you learn that?"

Oh right, the shitty priest was here, and Satan supposed it was really weird to see a child who knew so much about the technicalities of actual fighting. Whatever he'd seen in the past had just been Satan beating a few fools who he didn't actually need to try against, even if they were older kids. And while his prefer style was an all-out offense with claws and teeth, at some point or another he'd had to refine things to at least some extent.

"Practice." Shiro looked unconvinced, so Satan decided he'd humor him at least a bit, "I fight a lot cause it's fun. Someone's shitty older brother offered to teach me a little bit."

A blatant he hadn't thought about in the least, but already, as naturally as breathing, the threads spun free, "He didn't like that his younger brother was such a goddamn baby, so he's taught me a bit."

Shiro nodded, accepting the explanation and crouching to pile up the snow Yukio was enthusiastically kicking away into a third ball. But the look in his eyes set Satan instantly on guard. It was doubt, not of his story, but of the person who didn't exist. "Alright, well, I'd like to meet him sometime then."

"Can't. I see why his little brother doesn't like him. He was an ass who didn't like it when I actually won. Which was all the time, by the way." Satan explained, discarding his imaginary teacher at even the slightest hint that a flaw could be found. As if he were so dumb as to let such a small lie go on for too long.

"Language. And that's a shame, but," And here Shiro raised his voice a little, making sure Yukio heard, "if someone ever makes you feel really uncomfortable or, lord forbid, unsafe, then you shouldn't hesitate to get away from them and come to me."

Not exactly a bad lesson to try and teach, but Satan, fundamentally, couldn't let the man have anything, "My fatass teacher makes me feel uncomfortable with how dumb she is. Can I stop going to class now?"

"That's not what I meant, Rin, and you know it. Also-"

"Language, I fucking get it. And also don't oversimplify things." Or people like him would pick his words apart and throw them right back with sharper edges that cut away plans, "That's enough, Yukio."

"Oh, ok."

It was simple to pick up the snowball now that it'd been halved in size. Yukio 'helped', desperately pushing as Satan bore the weight, cheeks puffed out as he gave it his all. He let just enough weight bear down on the little boy to make him feel useful and slowly guided the ball on top with a solid thump. It rocked shakily and almost immediately Yukio was shoving snow in the seam to try and steady it. They spent a few minutes smoothing the two lumps into something vaguely resembling a torso, Satan more or less guided by Yukio's whims to make the "most perfect snowman ever", brushing a little bit of snow off here only to add it back a couple of inches over, standing on the tips of his toes to pat down the top.

When Shiro finished his own personal project and lugged what hat to be the head over, Satan intercepted him and snatched the ball out of his hands with a flat glare. Instead of being annoyed, however, the shitty priest only looked smug and shrugged, "Go ahead, Rin."

Satan was suspicious until he turned around…and realized the snowman was a good deal taller than him. Tall enough, in fact, that he couldn't properly reach the very top even when he stretched as far as he could.

Yukio watched, wide-eyed and worried his twin would topple the whole thing over, "Be careful!"

"I…am! Son of a…!"

Shiro, still looking amused, coughed loudly to cover the curse (as if it made a difference), and asked, "Do you want me to…?"

"I've got this." Probably. If he stood on the tips of his toes and stretched, then he'd be just tall enough to place the head.

Probably.

He'd beaten worse 'probablies' before.

Probably.

And so Satan, trapped in the body barely past its toddler years, stretched with all his might. He felt the snowball rest against the torso and tried to push it forward. But the slope was still pretty sharp, and he very nearly lost it several times, snow threatening to slip free from his fingers. But he was so close, almost there, and-

He fell face first into the snow.

The snowball fell on top of him and exploded.

Shiro snickered, even as Yukio shrieked with worry and desperately set out to 'unearth' his brother.

Satan just groaned.

A resolution was reached between devil and priest, and Yukio, sitting on Satan's shoulders, placed the newly constructed snowman head on top, guided carefully by Shiro. By that point Satan had started to feel quite cold and miserable and simple grit his teeth to stop the chattering as he helped Yukio dress up the snowman. When they were done, scarf, sticks, and stones in place, Satan sighed happily, readily to head to the warm indoors.

Or at least he was, until Yukio suddenly seemed to be struck by an idea and ran away. A moment later he was on his knees, gathering and patting down snow once again, "Rin! Rin, let's make another!"

"But Yukio…there isn't enough snow to make another." Really, there was, but Satan just wanted to go inside already.

"Um…We'll make a lot of littler ones then! A…A snowman army!"

Either the shitty priest was also getting cold or had noticed the now shivering boy's distress, and loudly clapped his hands to get Yukio's attention.

"Alright, who wants hot chocolate?"

Yukio perked up, snowman army goal suddenly forgotten, "Marshmallows?"

Because that was all the boy really cared about, since Shiro only ever used the grossly oversized ones that Yukio happily picked out at the store. Satan found it adorable how Yukio would play with them as he slipped the boy his own balls of puffy sugar and then sipped his (marshmallow free) hot chocolate.

"Of course! You can even make a marshmallow snowman." Which was sure to be messy, Shiro rationalized the sticky hands would be cleaned with a hot bath.

Satan smile, deciding that, while he still very much hated the cold, he could tolerate it once in a while for Yukio's sake. Especially with the promise of hots drinks and a warm space heater to camp near. Maybe he'd figure out a way to coax Yukio into making an even bigger mess than normal just to give that shitty priest some more work. Yes, that'd make the day even better.

But of course the power had to have gone out at some point while they were outside.