"What is logic, truly? Who decides reason? My quest has taken me to the netherworld and back, and through all of this, I have made the most important discovery of my life. I am here tonight only because of you.

You are the only reason I am. You are all my reasons."

Prequel to Kindred. First in my 'To Hell and Back Again' series dedicated to one of my favorite OTPs, Sessrin!

Beta'd by the amazing Datenshi_no_hime over on AO3! And sadly without all of her beautiful formatting in the original word doc. Thank you for your hard work!

Things like flowers are lost on a yokai. Their existence is so fleeting, so still, that a yokai might, perhaps, notice a field of them, but never see one individually. Such simple things lived and died a thousand times over in the blink of an eye for apparitions like him.

Pointless.

Fleeting.

Unnecessary.

His life had gone on for so long, propelled forward by only anger and bitterness. There were no sunsets, no midnights, only a painted blur of struggle; an ever-growing trail of conquests that did little to fill the gaping emptiness within him. His sights set on an unattainable goal, the world had held little interest for him. He drifted; he burned, suffocating and blind from the smoke created by the carefully-smothered flame within his belly until, suddenly, everything snapped sharply into focus.

Rin.

She had appeared to him suddenly; a single flower sprouting in the middle of a path with no regard for being trampled. He hadn't trampled her, however. Somehow, the head full of messy tangles and large, liquid brown eyes had brought everything to a screeching halt. The world was finally still. She was the first thing the silver-haired demon had seen clearly in centuries; a filthy little peasant girl.

Why?

A creature like him, whose life spanned hundreds of years, who saw the rise and fall of entire civilizations, paying them little attention. Monarchies, kings, wars. Nothing had been more undeserving of his notice than the vermin that was human-kind. They were a cruel, foolish, and weak species that suffered such such painfully short-sighted lives. It was a small blessing that they were so brief and fragile, so easily destroyed by force of nature or will.

Good riddance.

He had still been young when his great and terrible father had been lured away by one of them. The greatest demon in the western lands; brought down by a worthless human princess. What had begun as indifference had quickly bloomed into disdain after his father's unnecessary demise. He wanted nothing to do with the creatures his father had died for, nor anything produced by them, so, why then had he saved her?

He told himself it had been a passing whim, a bored indulgence to satisfy his curiosity, even. He had simply felt a flash of something, perhaps it had been pity, and that flash had spurred him to save the child bleeding in the middle of the forest path.

Then, however, he'd remembered her smile. The nerve of the girl, dumping water on him. Attempting to rescue him. She had wanted nothing from him, expected nothing for her efforts, and had been grateful for the most trivial modicum of decency; if it could in fact be called that, and not morbid curiosity.

If any human deserved life, it was her.

And yet, even once revived, she stood before him, dying, little by little. Had mortal things always withered so obviously? He had never noticed.

When she followed, he did not deny her.

Morbid curiosity, perhaps.