Chapter Text
Rin was gonna break that clown’s neck for this, he was absolutely certain of it.
“Grrrrahhhh!” Rin shouts, hands in his hair, “I’m gonna kill that stupid clown!”
“That’s rude.”
Rin whips around to find Mephisto’s reflection next to him in the mirror.
“Ay!! Stupid clown where did you send me!?”
The next moment, the clown is standing on the other side of him—
In this very tiny temple. What the hell.
Where did he send him?
“Hmmm? Well I didn’t send you here,” Mephisto says with a curious hum, looking around, “You did that all on your own, falling into my new mirror like that.”
Rin could feel his eye twitch.
“And you knocked my new mangas down too,” Mephisto says with a pout.
“Your manga!?!!” Rin yells, “You just zapped me halfway across Japan! Who cares about your manga-“
“Oh?”
“-I’m gonna be late for class and then I’ll have to hear it from that four-eyed moleface all night!”
Mephisto chuckles lowly. Rin freezes, coming up short. That was never a good sign.
“You think- oh, how adorable,” He smirks, hand coming up to stroke his goatee, “You’re most certainly farther than that.”
Rin’s hands fly to his hair in shock, “We left Japan!???!”
Mephisto—the jerk—chuckles again, “Oh no, we’re still in Japan,” he leans into Rin’s face, “Just not… your Japan.”
“Huh?” Rin stared at him, blankly.
“You’ve traveled worlds, Rin.” Mephisto replies with a deadpan.
“Hah?”
The clown sighs. “Universes. The mirror sent you to a different universe.”
“What!!?!!!!?” Rin screams, scrambling back towards the mirror, “Send me back!”
“Hmmmm,” Mephisto’s glance around the temple room is visible in the mirror’s reflection, “This could be interesting…”
“Interesting, who cares about that?! Send me back!!” Rin shouts back.
Mephisto slowly approaches, peering closer to the mirror. He reaches out, dipping one hand through the liquid surface of the reflection.
“What the..” Rin mumbles.
“Let’s see,” Mephisto pushes a hand against Rin’s head, smushing his face against the glass. And that’s exactly what it does: smushes him.
“Sgghhhh, megghistoo, whathg arhh yuu doooeng?”
Mephisto steps back, hands on his hips and an insufferable smile on his face.
“Well looks I can’t push you through myself,” He says with a put upon sigh, “We’ll have to figure out another way to get you through.”
“In the meantime-“ Mephisto snaps his fingers with a smirk, a few papers appearing in his hands, “This should keep you under the radar.”
Rin takes the offered paper- eiiii??? Its his ID??
“What do you mean under the radar? How’d you get my ID and what did you do to it!?!”
Mephisto smiles, “Oh I just edited some records, planted some details, nothing… crazy.”
Rin leans away, “Right, why though? If I’m gonna be leaving?”
Mephisto sighs again, “Well you see, you have to not be noticed until then. You can’t tell anyone of your true origins, your true universe.”
“Eii, why not? Who would I tell?”
Mephisto points to the mirror, and when Rin turns to look, the man is standing next to it, still smiling.
“Your presence here, its disrupting the mirror. The more different you are..” Mephisto taps the frame with a single sharp finger, drawing Rin’s eyes closer.
He notices for the first time, a sharp crack has glanced over the top edge of the mirror, warping the image a bit.
“If it breaks…” ice trickles down his spine, “I don’t have a way home.”
“Righty-O!” Mephisto cheers, “And what have I said about keeping that tail exposed? Naughty, naughty boy,” he says, wagging his finger.
Rin glares.
Mephisto clicks his tongue with a wink, “Bye bye now, survive!”
He gives a cocky salute and then jumps sideways into the mirror.
Rin gapes, eye twitching once more.
He grips Kurikara in the bag at his back, wishing he could beat that clown over the head with it.
Grumbling, he releases his sword and tucks the ID into his pockets, stuffing his tail under his shirt with a scowl. He hated having it tucked away, it felt cramped. But that freak never said something without a reason; even if the reason was his own entertainment.
Getting out of the temple is easy enough, since its so small, but then he encounters a whole new problem.
He’s stuck in some forest!
Rin groans as he looks around at the trees and the broken shrines around the temple. He knew it looked too old to not be abandoned! Rin pouts even as he hikes up kurikara on his back and starts the trudge through the trees. Stupid clown, stupid demon mirror, stupid manga, stupid classes, stupid broth-
A rumble echoes through the trees.
Really!? An earthquake!? Now!?
Another rumble. But it didn’t feel like an earthquake, it felt like… an explosion?
Rin starts moving faster, confusion setting in when he realizes the dark wall in front of him is not shadows but actually some kind of wall.
He slows before he smacks into it, stopping right at the edge.
It looks too smooth to be from a building… and too tall.
Rin looks up, seeing the way the surface curves upwards into a domed skyscraper.
He hums, squinting at the weird wall. Carefully, he pokes it, surprised when a ripple goes across it. Weird.
But definitely an exorcist tool then.
Rin goes from one finger to pressing his whole hand against it. There’s resistance but… its not solid.
Another rumble echoes through the ground, and this close, Rin can tell it’s coming from inside whatever this thing is. He presses his face against it to try and see inside.
Its blurry, and dark, but he can kind of make out a building, and some lumps on the ground, and- he presses harder, trying to see better. There’s-
His blurry vision goes clear with a pop and the uncomfortable sensation of falling.
Suddenly the world around him is dark, but he can see it all clearly, those lumps on the ground, they were demon corpses, and-
“Hey, it’s nighttime now!?!” Rin shouts, looking up at the sky, which is just as dark as the yard around him.
A roar breaks through his thoughts and Rin looks up to see some kind of giant demon throwing somebody to the ground from the building.
This was a fight. Rin had just stumbled into a fight between this demon and some kind of… office worker?
The office man slams against the ground on the other side of the courtyard, already standing.
He looks at Rin, blood running down the side of his face, “What are you doing here kid?! This place isn’t safe!”
The demon roars again and lunges for Rin-
Its arm is missing before he can even blink. And suddenly, office man is standing next to him, holding a blade wrapped in black and white fabric.
“Where did you even come from?!” The guy yells, breathing heavy, “There shouldn’t have been anybody here with this many curses.”
Curses? What the..?
“Huh?” Rin quirks an eyebrow and jabs a thumb over his shoulder to the weird wall, “I just came through that weird wall thingy?”
The man’s eyes widen and-
The demon attacks again; this time, the man is the only one paying attention, and rushes forward to intercept the claws.
The claws rake through the man’s side in front of him, despite office guy immediately turning and slicing through the thing’s fingers.
He lands a bit away from Rin, but it’s easy to tell he’s flagging. If only from blood loss.
He saved Rin’s life because Rin hadn’t been paying enough attention. Rin had put somebody else in danger, for him. He shouldn’t have to be saved, wasn’t worth being saved when he was-
Rin could see the image of the old man standing in front of him instead of the office worker. Rin had been responsible for that too and now it was happening again, somebody was gonna die, for him.
Rin sees the demon start to move, a healed arm rising up to slam down on the office man.
No. He wouldn’t let it happen again.
He couldn’t use kurikara, couldn’t risk that, but he could still use his flames, could still hit that thing and keep it away from the other man.
He wouldn’t let anybody else die for him!
Rin lunges at the demon, teeth bared.