Chapter 1: Smolder

My take on this "Rin is actually Satan" idea that was popular a while back. Except, this story will focus almost entirely on Satan growing up in Rin's body and only half trying to figure out how-to-human. I chose this point in life because it's clear that Rin was very affected by how people thought of him when he was young, while Satan almost surely wouldn't care. My interpretation of Satan is based on a little bit of what is seen in the early and late anime only, and drastic liberties have been taken to mesh the two. Hopefully it'll be understood with the emotional baggage of this first chapter.

Don't expect a huge overarching plot, nor for this story to actually go anywhere significant. This is mostly a place to practice writing a little bit.

"You can't just buy or give life…but you can grow it."

Why had Satan ever wanted such a thing? Why had such a thought ever filled him with a strange little fluttering warmth? He'd created children before, but it'd always been something that simple happened as a side effect and he hadn't really cared about. Yet the thought of his and Yuri's children was…different. A unique feeling that he couldn't place but grew in time with the children (two of them, twins, he'd realized and felt nearly delirious) before bursting free when he first heard their tiny heartbeats.

The children themselves seemed like destiny and dreams brought to life. One, strong and housing the flames of the demon king in his heart, vicious nature sure to be balanced by the purity of Yuri's soul. The other was weak and squishy like most humans, but with just a tiny drop of demon in him that mad Satan excited. Neither would even fall in line with either demon or human, they would be outcasts for sure, but wasn't that all the better? They would become living impossibilities that would pave the way to Yuri's dream with their own surely immense power.

The two twins, hand in hand, would raze the very foundations of the exorcist's organization and overturn it all. No one would be able to stop them, because they were sure to be the best of both Yuri and Satan. Yuri's steel-clad kindness and understanding and ability to dream, Satan's raw power and fierce will, yes, they'd be something amazing…

Except…

The newborn was dead. Unbreathing, already cold and paling, the tiny child refused to move even as his twin wailed loudly. Not a hint of fire touched the empty shell.

Satan, formless once again, couldn't tear his eyes away from the lifeless child. Just before Yuri's labor, he'd been healthy and filled with such impossibly bright life, so why…?

"Poor little one, it fell from the nest. It's already dead."

A small herd of demons had helped Yuri through her labor, stolen blankets from the nearby lodge, and swaddled the newborns. When one had presented the dead child to him, Satan had stared, lost. A feeling of numbness had swallowed the rising bile fear for Yuri's life had brought, until the demon was unsure if he'd ever felt anything at all. Without the ability to form a thought, Satan had ordered the demon to give the corpse to Yuri, as if it could ever replace her (their?) precious child.

Yuri looked down to the crying child and let out a laugh that sent a shudder down Satan's spine at how weak it was. "Ah…Yukio, there, there…it's…alright."

Yuri turned to the dead child with unfocused eyes and slightly rustled the too-still, too-silent newborn, "You'd disturb your brother Rin." By some miracle Yukio quieted, slipping into a doze and Rin…Yuri blinked slowly, dazed and struggled to process what all the signs were telling her. But it must have resounded with her very being that something was very, very, wrong with her child, because in one moment the once unshakable woman grew very, very, afraid. "Rin?…Rin! Satan, Rin isn't…"

"He's a quite one, isn't he?" The words spilled from his mouth in a desperate tumble. Anything, anything to stop this! If he could keep Yuri happy, if he could keep her spirits high, then there was no way her soul would ever leave him, right? There was no way she, too, would… "You should enjoy the peace while it lasts. He's…He's a lot more like me than you, I can see it. He's going to be a little hellion one day! Just you wait…"

The words hurt to say. It went beyond any pain Satan had ever known, scratching angry red lines into his heart and bleeding out his sluggish soul. But the demon forced himself to talk, to comfort Yuri and assure her and even himself that all was right with the world. Yet, despite that urge, need, Satan couldn't bring himself to finish his sentence.

"You'll see what I mean someday."

Yuri's 'someday' would never exist. Satan could lie to her face about their children, but he could not lie to her about her own fate. They both knew it, dreaded it, and, while Satan raged against it and denied it, Yuri simple accept it with a gentle smile, content thinking both her children were alive.

Yuri looked towards Satan. She would never see him, and yet, every time she searched for even a moment she seemed to find his eyes. "Some would say I wasn't…the best child either. These children are...just as much mine as yours."

She would never fail to steal his heart a little more with every word she spoke. Satan wasn't to say something, to make a quip and joke and pretend he was human, but fear and pain crushed he throat, stole his voice, and devoured his words.

Yuri smiled, sweet and filled with as much love as ever even as she laid there, dying. She, beautiful perfection that she was, sighed and sunk into an uneasy sleep where her life fell away like sand. She was slipping away and taking with her all the colors of his world. He wanted to embrace her and scream, rip apart the heavens and tear her soul free and bind it to him, chain it to himself forever and ever because she couldn't leave! He'd never felt love like this before, what it meant to feel light and filled with nervous happiness as the very worlds before him seemed to open into a bright infinity. Yet her soul, still bright and free of taint after the sin they'd committed together, still beyond his grasp, and he knew he'd never be able to hold it for himself when it finally fled her body. Why did his hands destroy everything…?

No. For once in his life, it wasn't his fault.

Satan's gaze slowly fell towards the two infants in her arms, eyes sharp as an executioner's blade.

Overflowing from the deep well of his heart where new love had been once found, something black and thick tainted the spring. Light slid to shade and happiness became ugly rage he'd never known before. He'd been wronged before, by his own spawn before, but this was something beyond that. In one fell swoop, the two tiny creatures before him, one of whom was dead, had taken the single most important thing in his life.

If only those things had never existed, then Yuri wouldn't be doomed to die.

Satan reached, shapeless and formless as he was and the black hate twisted his heart and fanned the blue flames. A fire that Yuri had said warmed her very soul would soon once again only destroy when she finally drew her last breath, but that was fine. Yes, Satan was fine with that, because things would only go back to how they were, he would once again be alone like always. He was fine with that, because he could destroy the thing that had taken away his only purpose. One of them was so weak it was already dead, ha! All he had to do was touch it, and the thing would die…

"This damn brat is…"

Weak, a nuisance, a bane to his very existence, Satan had any number of words to describe the terrible creature before him who had the audacity to steal what was his from him. All he could hear was white noise and he let himself become the demon he'd always been. Yuri had been nothing but a distraction from his true nature, his true calling of destruction and death-!

Instead, the word that escaped was a tiny whisper. A mere will-o-wisp among a ranging inferno, and yet the word burned into his heart deeper than any of the brands he'd intended.

"Yukio."

Satan drew away from the child, feeling very weak.

That was right…this…creature was still Yuri's precious child, Yukio. And he'd almost…!

Satan curled in on himself, nothing more than a wraith in this world, and hated himself deeply. Yuri….Yuri was too optimistic, too perfect, because he could never be anything good no matter how many times she told him otherwise. His own rage consumed him as easily as his flames did with all of creation, until he made mistakes he could never take back. So he would deny them till the worlds rotted together and not even the ashes of those mistakes would remain. It was simple, it worked, and it made it impossible to regret.

Except this time was different.

He didn't want to forget Yuri, he didn't want to forget the strange new feelings he'd experienced when he'd first learned they would have children together. What was he going to do with all them if left all alone? They'd surely sour inside his black heart, curdle into hard chunks and feel him up with even more bile than before. No, he, with or without Yuri, wanted to know more and follow the spider's thread to its end instead of sliding back into the life he'd known. A thread that was connected to the tiny bundle clutched tightly in Yuri's arms.

Yuri shuddered and, even unconscious as she was, clutched her children closer. Satan looked over the sleeping form of Yukio and felt his soul war with itself. The newborns were the bane and boon of his life, something he wanted to crush and destroy and yet couldn't because of how hard Yuri had fought for them. Satan couldn't understand the hideous chimera that his feelings were, so he decided he'd once again trust Yuri.

Yukio was something precious, something he'd love with all of his twisted heart. It would only be a fraction of the love he knew Yuri would have shown the child, but, after all he'd endured, he refused to let all they'd had end. Fate was terrible and cruel to the point where a mere moment of inattention had nearly destroyed everything. So he'd protect Yukio always, no matter where he went because the moment he wasn't there, somehow the world would find a way to kill Yuri's precious child.

It was madness, but Satan decided how he'd go about that sometime later.

Possessing the baby's corpse was easier than he'd thought.