Chapter Text
The origin of the universe can only be one of two possibilities. A quiet creep of life through the darkness or a sudden explosion from the expanse of nothingness.
When Dr. Ayako Yukimachi stares at the… creature, she wonders if its beginnings are the same. She watches it snarl at her or whatever it must be seeing. Its own reflection? Something she can't see? Perhaps the others with her? Can it see them through glass? No, she chides internally, it doesn't need to see them because it can sense them. She watches it twitch and snarl and hiss, no different from all the others, and feels indifferent. She doesn't ask why it's here. There's only one reason it's here.
"Why now?"
She looks at the data she's already familiar with. She'd rather look at it than the creature boring its eyes into the glass. Numbers. Names. Dates. Locations. She wonders why it's here now, when it's already fully formed, when it would be impossible to… tame it. At least, not without some casualty or injury. Death, of course, is not out of the picture, and knowing this creature is–
"No better time for it." She hears the Director's smile through his voice. "Children rarely stay children, as you know."
She does. Children were her expertise. She was invited here because she studied them, from birth to their maturity. She'd dissected their minds, so of course, she understands them. But children are different, vastly different, from creatures like this. She's told herself this countless times, and yet–
"This one will be no different," the Director continues. "So we will treat it no differently."
He must be joking.
"We will educate it and care for it as we do all the others, but only once it learns proper etiquette."
He surely must be–
"Do you think me a jokester, Dr. Yukimachi?"
"Yes."
"Oh, you're no fun." She hears him frown. "I wouldn't joke about anything as important as this."
"But you would if it involved the King of Fire, her temper, specifically."
"Consider this a gallant act of kindness," he says with a flourish. "I wouldn't want her child of this era to be as uncouth and barbaric as those who have come before."
She thinks there must be a bet involved.
"And this is not?"
The Director turns to her then, inhuman eyes glinting.
"What do you gamble?"
She frowns and turns back to the creature behind the glass. It's still watching them, but no longer hissing or snarling. It looks curious. It looks much like any child she'd handled here. It looks almost–
She turns away. The Director laughs.
"A child is a child only until it decides it is not," he concludes. "And we, the most noble True Cross Order, have the responsibility of guiding them towards this decision."
"Does the King of Fire think the same?"
"What do you gamble?"
She doesn't answer, only turns back to leave, busy her time with other things, with actual children, and the Director only laughs harder.
"Always enjoyable working with you, Dr. Yukimachi."
She knows that is a lie.
But the truth is, unironically, the Director does enjoy working with Dr. Yukimachi.
She is good at what she does, excellent at handling children and studying them, ensuring they develop as they're meant to. She is a diligent researcher and a strict doctor, but she deals with children and that's the funniest thing. A strict doctor like her– whose signature color is the red-orange shell of a cooked lobster, whose preferred type of footwear clacks and echoes with each step, heels as pointed as her expression every time she's around him–dealing with children? Absolutely laughable.
He remembers her back then, the unassuming professor wearing her mother's and grandmother's clothes, speaking in a clipped tone about fish in the aquariums in their family restaurants. When she accepted the offer, he didn't think she would carry the fish and the aquariums with her, and create extensive metaphors about fish waiting to be eaten.
"Waiting?" He had asked her before.
To which her answer was, "They're waiting for their turn, aren't they?"
He laughed–and she frowned–because it's true. So it would be a pity–a waste, really–if Dr. Yukimachi left for whatever reason. His sister, the King of Fire, knows this as well.
"She's the doctor?"
He turns to his sister, who finally decides to show herself beside him, and tuts.
"A doctor," he emphasized. "Not your offspring's alone."
She groans, and the child beyond the glass reacts to this. He supposes it's their maternal bond. Like mother, like daughter?
He knows his sister to be similar to him, freely partaking in what humans have to offer, but Iblis is indulgent. Iblis is careless. Her children in Assiah are proof of it, but her children are no threat. Her children will never be a threat because–
"This one is different," she tells him, eyes glowing. "This one is… strange."
She frowns, and her fire flickers, as does her child's. He'd never seen this kind of connection before, and if he were to suggest–
"No." She spoke as if she'd read his mind. "Keep her this way. She'll learn how."
He doesn't ask because he's witnessed this with her previous children. He'd even taught some of them. Iblis often has little to no patience for slow learners, but she raises her offspring for them, herself and all their siblings, to benefit them, to strengthen them.
In the long and distant past, they would eat their young.
So this one is lucky.
Mephisto Pheles looks at the child beyond the glass, the daughter of the King of Fire, his sister Iblis, and supposes she knows it too.
But the truth is, she doesn't. She's just– She doesn't know how to feel, being alive–how is it to be alive, anyway?–in this plane of existence. Assiah, she knows it's called. This is where human beings and other weaker creatures lived, she knew. But she doesn't think it's any better than Gehenna.
The colors are different of course, and the lights. The first thing she noticed was the lights; everything here in Assiah is bright, it's almost blinding. She doesn't like being blinded. She doesn't like having this much light. She's almost staring into the sun, but she has been on the sun, at least the part of Gehenna like it. The King of Fire's domain. Her… mother's.
The word itself sounds strange–it always has–because she doesn't understand it. The King of Fire created her, that much she knew, but was it like all the others that have come from her? Her mother hasn't said anything about it, only that–"You're my offspring. Mine."–she is her mother's.
And because she is her mother's offspring, child, daughter, and whatever else they call her, she has been brought here to learn and be… useful. That's what her mother told her, in the bright landscape of her domain filled with glittering and fiery things, flowers and gold and jewels and gems–her first encounter with these material things are in Gehenna–that she is here to learn.
"Learn what?"
"How to become like me."
She didn't wonder then what her mother meant. Like her, a King? Like her, a mother? She hadn't asked back then, and she still hasn't asked. What's there in Assiah that isn't in Gehenna, anyway? In her mother's domain of beautiful, shiny, and glittering things–her first encounter with beauty was with her mother–there is nothing more to want.
"There's everything to want in Assiah, you'll see."
But ever since she'd arrived, she hadn't seen anything worth noting. She has seen humans, or what she thinks are humans, clad in white and carrying boards of some kind, writing in their script, speaking in their words. She has seen how they look, sensed how they felt.
She understands them to be afraid–her first encounter with fear was, again, with her mother. She understands them to be angry–this, as well, was with her mother. She doesn't know why exactly, but she sees how they look at her mother too.
Humans are both afraid of and angered by their presence, and that was her first encounter with some entity bearing more than one feeling at a time. In Gehenna, it was either one or the other. Fear or anger? Sadness or elation? Was this one of the things to want in Assiah? Was this what makes human beings interesting?
Here in Assiah, she encounters the limits of her anger for the first time, when those humans–doctors, she heard them be called–doused her with… holy water. In Gehenna, she'd never heard water be called that, and she'd never experienced such pain before, not even when her mother would scold her, dangle her like one of Cerberus' playthings then throw her into Tartarus as punishment–
She'd never heard herself be so loud before–when they doused her with holy water, was this how it felt like to scream?–nor has she felt her flames against her own skin–when they doused her with holy water, was this how it felt to burn?–but she takes her mother's words to heart, so she will learn. Did her mother scream too? Did she understand burning like this too?
When she looks at the reflective surface before her–they called it a one-way looking glass–she wonders what made it one-way when she can see right through it. Well, not with her eyes, but she can sense them. She can sense them the same way she can sense her kind from Gehenna. What are they doing behind it? The only reason she knows is if they are hiding from her. Why? Was it because she screamed? Burned? Because she looks the way she does now? Hunched and on all her limbs, like Cerberus when it's angry?
"Heel, Cerberus!"
Is that what they're going to say? But they don't even know her name–
They douse her again with water, and she thinks about destroying the source above her. She thinks about burning it, wondering if she can burn through the looking glass and make them answer a question. That's how it's done in Gehenna, anyway. That's how she's been taught to do things. By force. By right. She is the offspring of the King of Fire, after all.
But… strange. The water doesn't burn. Was this a different kind of water? It feels… cold, but not uncomfortable. It feels… nice.
"Calm down." She hears her mother speak. "You scared the doctor off."
"Why?" She asks. "Why is there a… doctor?"
She'd never heard of that word before.
"That doctor will teach you, and so will your uncle, and you'll listen."
"Why?"
She'd heard of her uncles, sure, their names and their presences, but not all of them were in Gehenna. Two of them, both her mother's older siblings, were in Assiah–which made her wonder what in Assiah would keep them there–and she was going to help them, learn from them, become like them.
"Why?"
"Because it's more fun."
Now, she thinks she's starting to understand.
"Because we don't want to stay in Gehenna forever." Her mother answers, and she tries not to ask why. "Because it's more fun to be in Assiah, you'll see."
She frowns. "I… don't really see anything."
Then she hears a laugh, nothing like she's ever heard before, and a humored voice.
"Oh, she is your daughter!"
Mocking. Teasing. Was this the one her mother called the infuriating clown? The one she should burn the tail off of?
"Shut it!"
Her mother is angry, but not too much. Just… enough.
"Six years old and already such a chatterbox! We're going to have so much fun here!"
"Here"? With the bright, bright lights and the white walls and nothing else, she doubts it. Gehenna had much more going on. She doubts Assiah will ever match it. Not the inhabitants. Not the locations. Not the… fun. She misses Cerberus, but she is here to learn. Her mother brought her here to learn, and so she will.
She looks at her reflection in the glass, at the extinguished fire, at her eyes, her hair, her hands and feet, and wonders if this is how she will appear to everyone here. She feels… strange. Weak. She doesn't often see herself like this, and doesn't think it suits her either. She'd rather have the flames crowning her head, adorning her tail, and floating around her like in Gehenna. Proof of her most royal, most fearsome lineage as the offspring of the King of Fire.
Even if she is only half.
When Iblis thinks about it, this is a perfect conclusion. This is not her first halfling offspring, but this one is different. She could feel it since before it came to be. This one was different, the same way each child of hers is different. This one is half-human, the same way the earlier few were. This one won't survive in Gehenna like this, unless it learns, unless it becomes stronger. The way of Gehenna is might over right, and even if the child is hers, it's going to get eaten up and swallowed at some point.
But better by them than by some other entity. She won't strengthen her child only to be devoured by those lesser entities. If anything, at least, let the child liven up Assiah a little before the time comes.
So Iblis looks at her child, the half-human thing crawling on the floor, frowning to herself for allowing it to spend more time with Cerberus than anyone else because it dislikes Asmodeus' presence and Amon thinks it a bothersome fly. She thought to train it like Cerberus then, punishment and reward, sheer might over birthright, but it only growled back. The child first learned the language of the beasts of Gehenna rather than their own language. The child first learned to command the respect of the beasts than their own kin, and Iblis laughed at it.
"Go be a real monster, then!"
The child learned to fight with claws and fangs, hands and feet and teeth, brutal and violent. Exactly like a beast, but that wouldn't do. No offspring of hers would be so uncouth and brash and… ugly. The child needs to learn. The child needs to be beautiful, even if it will only be devoured in time, when it's aged just right. Like a fine, fine wine. Smoked meat. Fruit preserves.
When Iblis looked at her child in Gehenna, the small, roaring creature, she wondered if its taste would be different from the last.
"We're going on a trip," was what she told it.
"Where?" It asked.
It always asked. Its first word in their language was a question, "Why?" And Iblis answered. She always answered. Her offspring was half-human, after all. Humans always, always, always asked why, and of course, Iblis answered. She was worshiped because of that, after all, as the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-granting, ever-merciful Djiin.
So she answered her child, "Somewhere better for you."
And the child's expression is always a questioning one, even after its question had been answered. Almost like it doesn't believe anything it hears unless it sees it for itself. Much like Cerberus. Cerberus wanted to see the inside of things. It wanted to see what it was going to eat, the entirety of it, and Iblis realizes her child is the same. It might wreak havoc in Assiah, demanding to see the inside of things, taking them apart, piece by piece, before biting into them.
She should teach her child some manners, then, but she decided it would be more fun if a certain clown-faced brother of hers would do it instead.
So when she looks at Mephisto, his grinning face at her child's questioning expression, she knows she's going to have more fun watching him struggle from some high perch.
"Don't make too much of a mess here," she tells her child through the glass and watches its tail swing. "Tartarus is far from here, but there's somewhere dark like it."
The child nods, obediently, just like Cerberus.
She waves at it and decides she's getting bored of this place.
"I'll see you when you're stronger, dearest!"