Luuka: this story is finished, thank you so much for the support! My work here is over, but you can favourite or review to show that you liked it/tell me how I did.

Thank-you for reading!

Time had passed since a fragment of God's spirit had entered Haru and his body had changed.

As a human, Haru had never experienced a 'normal' life, because other humans had taken that away. He'd been born into a religious convent stationed atop a mountain in Japan, told constantly that his purpose was to become a vessel for a part of God's soul on his seventeenth birthday. To do so, he had to become a 'pure' human.

There was no such thing as a 'pure' human. But they'd tried to make him into one.

They'd taken away all of his senses and damaged his body in ways so that he wouldn't feel any form of desire, lust or pride, because those encouraged sinful thoughts which would make him unworthy. He'd lived blind, deaf and paralysed, locked in a room where he knew only darkness. Then came the ritual.

The first real thing Haru ever felt in his entire life was pain, as the fragment of God's soul-which was powerful and strong-was forced to merge with his own-which was frail and weak-but Haru had been happy to change; he loved the ocean. It was kinder than humanity.

Yet in its own way, it was still cruel.

Thousands of years passed which he spent alone in the vast vacuum of blue, in an endless, repeated cycle of loneliness and boredom as the water's God. Haru swum, wondering where he was going, with no real way of knowing the answer-he watched humans cross the water from distances, followed some and wondered why they were always in groups. Several times, he'd attempted to talk to some of the humans, but they'd always tried to leave or hurt him so he'd ended up drowning them.

Then he'd met Rin.

And he'd wanted to swim for another person.

He liked Rin, because Rin was emotional. Sometimes, Haru didn't understand why Rin got so worked up over small things-why Rin blushed and lost the ability to look him in the eye whenever they were close sometimes, why he snapped at Haru's teasing, yet Haru wanted to understand-he wanted to stay with Rin and study him, to try and distinguish if there was any of his own humanity left, or if he really was just a vessel. When he saw Rin's smile and felt something reverberate in his chest, he knew he had the answer: he wasn't empty. It was possible that he'd swum almost every inch of the ocean in the thousands of years that he'd lived, but now, the sea had turned itself inside out and Haru could see the other side of the dull, desolate stretch of blue; he could see the colours of the marine life, the vibrant shades that both the sky and the sea made when they became one at sunset, and the whole palette of blues that the water portrayed.

It all looked better, with Rin.

When the demon had entered Rin's body, Haru had watched Rin scream and bleed. He'd moaned and squeezed Haru hard enough to tear the skin whilst crying and begging Haru to get it out but Haru had turned away-he didn't like how Rin's pain made him cold. Haru had done the ritual-he knew how much it hurt. After the ritual finished, Rin had fallen unconscious. Haru had stayed with him, and he noticed the changes Rin went through: during the first few days, scales grew over Rin's legs from his hips to his toes, each one solid and hardened like iron. But during the second week a flesh coating had grown over them which felt rubbery like shark's skin but firm from the scales underneath, with two fins growing at end. When the fins were formed fully, Haru took Rin to a part of the rock where it was slanted and he could lay Rin down so that his tail dipped in the water, but his body stayed dry on the rock.

Rin's tail was heavier than Haru's own and striped with thick, red triangles on the side in a pattern, the skin containing a hint of roughness that Haru found it felt good to rub against, his own sensitive tail tingling at the friction as water sloshed between their bodies. He ground his hips into Rin's several times, repeating his name to try and wake him up. When he didn't, Haru frowned and lay down beside him.

'Rin,' he whispered, after a while. '...Pregnant.'

'That only works when we do it, Haru...' was the murmured response and with a deep sigh Rin's eyes opened, the red in his pupils the smouldering colour of blood and fire.

At his core Rin was still the same, but the change after the demon's soul had merged with his own was evident.

Whereas sharks and whales swum beside Haru peacefully, they all fled when Rin was close. His maroon hair appeared red when it was wet, black nails sharp enough to rip fish apart and a necklace of shark's teeth hung around his neck, but none of those cast the same impression as the black aura he emitted. Everything in the ocean feared him.

Well, almost everything.

The demon part of Rin lusted for souls so occasionally he crashed ships, went to the sites and toyed with the dying: Haru didn't care about that. It didn't make any difference to him who had to die to satisfy Rin or how much Rin wanted to play with the humans to amuse himself. It hurt when he remembered that as a human, Rin had gotten angry when he'd heard about the way demons cast their curses, and Haru knew that the human Rin would hate what he'd become, but he told himself that Rin felt the same so it was only his nature that had changed, and not him. He loved Rin.

And Rin loved him wildly in return.

Intimately, Rin was rougher, often covering Haru in marks. Rin's hands would grip Haru's arms as they had sex underwater, Rin burying his nose in Haru's shoulder and biting his neck until Haru moaned and waves went through the ocean that only the two of them could hear-that none of the humans would be able to hear. Rin's limbs weren't smooth and delicate like Haru's, but firm, his six abdomen muscles hard and defined; Rin would take Haru's hand and press it against his stomach, so that Haru's fingers could run over the little lines between the bumps. He would drag the hand upwards so that Haru could feel his heartbeat-warm and strong- then dip the fingers between the seam of his mouth and graze the tips with his sharp teeth, grinning.

'You're stuck with me forever,' Rin had hummed. 'I hope you understand that, Ha-ru-ka.'

It was a hazy morning when the two of them were swimming in the ocean around Iwatobi, and Rin had pulled his head out of the water by a ship. Haru recognised the voices on the deck.

'I guess Mikoshiba found a new ship, huh...' Rin muttered, and when Haru grabbed his arm to hold him back, added: 'hey... I'm not gonna do anything. Haru, I just want a look.'

'Recognise you.'

'No, I just want to watch. Haru, I'm not gonna let them see me. Promise,' he kissed Haru's neck and murmured in his ear: 'don't you trust me?'

'Not to do with that,' Haru protested.

'Do you think I miss them?'

Rin laughed, but he'd been the one who'd suggested it: a pulling pain filled Haru's chest suddenly and as his vision blacked, he saw a small mound of earth floating in the sea. Then his body returned to normal and he saw Rin staring at him.

'...Haru?'

'Others,' Haru muttered. 'Want to see me.'

'What, you can communicate with them without talking?'

He, Makoto, Nagisa and Rei all contained part of the same soul, so Haru didn't know why Rin found that surprising.

'Go alone,' Haru explained.

'Why can't I come with you?'

Rin didn't like the idea of being left out-Haru could see it, hear it in Rin's tone. He didn't have a problem with giving Haru space, but after being implicitly told he couldn't come with Haru, Rin was suspicious.

'Talk about elements,' Haru explained. 'Others don't like demons.'

'Oh...'

Rin's expression darkened and he frowned down at the water. Haru tiled his chin back up.

'Go alone,' Haru repeated. 'Back soon.'

'Yeah, well... how soon is 'soon?'

'Rin patient.'

'You haven't learned very much about me if you think that...' Rin muttered. Haru gave him a trying look.

'Rin wait.'

'It's not like I have a choice here,' Rin sighed. 'Just be back before nightime-I don't wanna sleep alone.'

'Scary demon.'

'Shuddup.'

He kissed Rin softly on the lips, feeling the water pool around his hips as Rin's arms circled his waist, pulling Haru closer. Rin's teeth nipped at Haru's lower lip, his breath soft on his face.

'Back before night,' Haru vowed.

'Yeah, yeah,' Rin laughed. '...Just go.'

There was a small patch of land in the middle of the sea, where no sailor had travelled. From it's grass, branches coiled upwards and assumed the shape of Makoto. There was a flicker of flames beside him and Nagisa appeared, his blond hair seeming ablaze, then Rei swooped down from the sky and landed, his wings folding as he crossed his arms. Haru floated in the ocean around them; Rin didn't need to know where he was. He'd probably followed Mikoshiba's new ship-Haru couldn't stop him.

A shrill sirens call echoed in the distance.

'I-I thought you were getting rid of the sirens, Haru-chan...' Nagisa shivered. 'They're scary. We're meant to fight demons-'

'Rin likes them.'

The women who'd turned into sirens had wanted Rin's family to be cursed, so Rin had decided that it was their job to live with the effects. When the demons abilities had been embedded within his own soul, Rin had gained the power to set them all free but he didn't want to-why should he? The sirens took souls and did Rin's work for him. Besides... they hadn't cared if Rin's soul had gone to Hell, so Rin didn't care about theirs.

Makoto sighed.

'Haru... I did everything you asked. When you came to visit me, I pretended not to know about the demon and went along with the exorcism like you wanted... Rin doesn't know that conversation that took place between us was staged for him, does he? ...He doesn't know that I lied, because you asked me to?'

Haru didn't reply.

'I'm not going to tell him,' Makoto continued, tiredly. 'That was part of the deal, too. I had to pretend that the curse on Rin's soul couldn't be removed so he'd think the only way to save himself would be to go through that ritual with a demon... and after that, you said you'd make sure that my rainforests always had enough water. Well, I'm not unhappy with the deal. It's just...'

'I understand the sentiment,' imputed Rei, gravely. 'Haruka-san, you've lied: that isn't befitting of a God. I told you clearly when I came to visit you that night on the beach that the curse on Rin-san's soul would be removed if you just killed the demon, but you refused: you merged it with Rin because you wanted him to live in the ocean with you.'

'Rin would choose me.'

'T-then why didn't you give him that choice?' Nagisa murmured. 'H-Haru-chan, this life... we never got the option because we were born and raised to live forever controlling the elements, b-but for you to force it onto someone else...' he looked up, determinedly. 'I just don't think it's fair you took away his chance at being a human-you made him into a demon.'

'Told Rin he would be sacrificed to the water in the beginning,' Haru said. 'He gave the demon consent.'

'Perhaps, but you didn't explain it properly-you left things out and told him at different periods to build up his trust. He didn't know that he could have lived normally. Haru,' Makoto appeared troubled. 'Whether you love him or not doesn't change the fact that you've manipulated him-'

'Doesn't matter,' Haru replied. 'Rin with me forever. ...all I care about.'

'You really are a male siren...' sighed Rei.

Haru nodded.

'...Yeah.'