In seconds time, conditioned air hits my face and I tumble to the ground. I grunt in pain as I hit the hard floor, cursing magic gates and their power to make me lose my balance. I quickly push myself up and look around at my surroundings. We've ended up in an office, little trinkets decorate the shelves and desk. I turn around to face Amaimon and shoot him a glare, to which he only smirks and sticks another lollipop in his mouth.
"It took you two long enough," says Mephisto with a yawn. I glare at him and he smiles in amusement, irritating me further.
"She was afraid, so I had to push her," says Amaimon with a shrug.
Mephisto smiles again and laughs, "Well now, that wasn't very nice of you. But, now that we're here-" His face becomes serious. "-get out if my office."
"That isn't very nice of you," I mimic him as he pushes us through the door.
"Yes, but I'm not very nice," he says with a grin before slamming the door in our faces.
"Rude," I grumble under my breath. I turn to Amaimon in question. "What now?"
He shrugs, "I dunno. What do you wanna do?"
"I don't know what there is to do around here."
He thinks for a moment before grabbing my hand and dragging me away, twisting down hallway after hallway.
"Where are we going?" I yell, struggling to keep up with him.
"To see someone," he replies in a bored tone. I roll my eyes at his uninformative answer. He soon leads me outside of the building, stopping at a water fountain near what looks to be the main entrance. He sits down on the edge of the fountain and I sit next to him, blushing when I notice that he hasn't let go of my hand. We wait for a few minutes before a bell sounds from inside the building. Teenagers flood out of the building, heading their different ways with books in tow.
"Is this a school?" I ask in confusion.
"Yes, it's True Cross Academy. Brother runs it as well as the exorcist school," he answers. I nod in understanding as he scans the crowd for someone. He seems to find who he's looking for because he waves at someone, signaling them to join us. A boy with black hair, so black it almost has a blue tint to it, approaches us with a grin on his face. I note that he has a sword strapped to his back. Odd...
"Hey Amaimon," he says with a grin, not seeming to notice me.
"Hello Rin," replies Amaimon with a small smile.
Rin then seems to notice me and looks my way. He gives a sly smirk as he notices our entangled hands. "Who's this? Your girlfriend?"
I blush and quickly pull my hand away, "Hell no! No way would I ever go out with this guy!"
Amaimon smirks and introduces me, "This is Brie. She's a transfer student."
I look at him in confusion before I understand. He's making up a cover story for me. It's not like I can just tell people that I randomly ended up in Gehenna and that I'm here while Mephisto researches how the heck I got there. Huh, I guess Amaimon's smarter than I thought.
"Yeah, I just got here. I'm from America," I say. Which makes me wonder, what country am I in?
"Wow, you speak really good Japanese for an American," says Rin with wide eyes. Oh, so I'm in Japan. How am I speaking Japanese?
"Uh, yeah, I studied Japanese fluently before I enrolled here," I lie. He nods and then suddenly he's staring at my face. I blink in question and turn around. Nope, nobody behind me. I look back at him in confusion.
"What?"
He blinks and then says, "You're really cute."
I look at the ground, trying to hide the pink in my cheeks. Amaimon then also starts to observe my face, looking it over in detail.
"Yeah, I guess you're right Rin. She is cute," he agrees, making me blush darker.
"Aw look, she's blushing," says Rin with a laugh.
"It makes her look even cuter," says Amaimon.
"Stop it," I attempt to yell but it instead comes out as a pout.
"Haha! She's pouting now!"
"She's just the cutest."
As they continue to embarrass me, a new voice interrupts the conversation.
"Hey Okumura!"
We each turn to see three boys walking our way. One of them, who looks to be the leader, is tall and has brown hair with a blonde stripe going down the middle of his head. He has a scowl on his face, making him look a little intimidating. On one side of him is a tall boy with pink hair and a cocky posture with a cocky smile to match. On the other side of weird hair guy is a short bald kid. He has squinty eyes and is wearing glasses.
"What are you doing Okumura?" asks weird hair guy when they reach us.
"Uh, not much. Hangin' out," answers Rin plainly.
Weird hair guy's scowl deepens, "You're supposed to be studying for exams."
"But studying is so boring!" pouts Rin.
"You have to study to pass! If you don't study, you'll fail you idiot!" yells weird hair guy, causing me to jump.
"Hey, calm down Bon," says bald kid in a soothing tone.
"Yeah, if he wants to fail, let him," says the cocky pinkette with a shrug.
While weird hair guy, Bon, continues to lecture Rin, I hide behind Amaimon in fear. This guy is scary. Amaimon seems to notice my distress and elbows Rin. Rin glances at me and then turns back to Bon.
"Look! You're scaring her!" he yells, gesturing to me. Bon looks at me and makes a look of surprise. He, apparently, hadn't noticed me.
"Oh, sorry about that," he mumbles as he rubs the back of his head in embarrassment. "Who are you anyway?"
"I'm Brie. I'm, uh, new here," I say, stepping out from behind Amaimon.
"Oh, a newbie huh? I'm Suguro Ryuji, most people just call me Bon though," he says with a small smile. "These are my friends."
The bald kid speaks up first, "Miwa Konekomura. You can call me Koneko. Nice to meet you Brie."
"Renzo Shima. You can just call me Shima," he says with a wink. I blush a bit and nod at all of them.
"So you're new here, huh? Where ya from?" asks Bon.
"America. I'm a transfer student," I reply, easily going with the cover story. "These two were just about to show me around."
"A foreign girl, huh? Interesting," says Shima with a flirtatious grin, causing me to blush again.
Bon looks back to Rin, scowl in place again but a little softer. "I'll let you off the hook today since you're showing her around, but you better at least have your homework done or I'm gonna pound you," he says with a small growl at the end. Rin nods quickly, eyes wide in fear.
"Alright, see you later guys. Bye Brie," he says and they all turn to leave, Koneko waving a goodbye and Shima blowing me a kiss.
"So, what now?" I ask.
"Well, we could show you around. Or..." he trails off with a mischievous grin.
"Or?"
"Come on, follow me," he says and walks off. We follow him and he leads us to a large field, stopping in the middle. Amaimon seems to understand what's going on and grins.
"Alright. Brie, you might want to back away a bit," says Rin. I do as he says and back away until I'm near what would be considered the sidelines. Rin and Amaimon back away from each other, stopping when about teen feet away, and face one another.
"Brie, count down from three okay?" Rin yells to me. I nod and begin the countdown.
"Uh, three. Two. One...go-?" As soon as the word 'go' escapes my mouth, they run at each other. Rin unsheathes his sword in one swift movement and bursts into flames. Amaimon also bursts into flames, though his are green. Engulfed in their flames they lunge at each other and dodge with superhuman speed and agility. Watching them suddenly triggers something in my head and I grasp my head in pain.
I'm walking down a street bathed in afternoon sunlight. I continue to walk, until it suddenly starts to get dark. As I walk it gets darker and darker until it's pitch black. I walk through the darkness, confused as to what's happening. I suddenly see a light up ahead. As I get closer I see flames. Some of the flames are green, and some are blue. They dance around each other in what looks like a battle for...dominance. The blue flames will grow and almost consume the green ones, but then the green ones will grow and the battle begins again. Each time one almost wins, the other will make a comeback. The vision soon fades away and I'm left in the dark.
I open my eyes and find two pairs of eyes looking back at me. I bolt upright and end up hitting my head on two others. We all give out a simultaneous grunt of pain and hold our heads.
"What the Hell was that for?" grumbles Rin.
"You guys were the ones who scared me," I reply while rubbing my head.
"We didn't mean to," defends Amaimon. "We were just worried."
"Huh?"
"When we were done fighting-"
"When you were done losing," interrupts Amaimon.
"-we looked over and you were unconscious on the ground," finishes Rin, ignoring Amaimon's comment.
"Oh," I whisper.
"Are you alright?" asks Amaimon with worried eyes. Rin looks at me with a matching expression. I nod and put on a smile, hoping they'll drop it. It seems to work because they don't say anything more on the subject. Amaimon looks up at the sky, about to speak when his phone goes off.
"Hello. Yes brother? Now? I'm with Rin and Brie. Okay. Do you want me to bring Brie? Okay. I'll be there in a couple minutes." He hangs up and looks at us. "That was Mephisto, he said he needs me. Brie, he says you can stay with Rin for now because he needs me to run errands for him. Later." And with that he runs off and jumps up onto a rooftop, disappearing fro. sight.
Rin looks at me again. "You sure you're okay?"
"Yeah, I feel fine now. I'm probably just hungry," I say, realizing that I haven't eaten all day. As if on cue, my stomach growls rather loudly.
Rin looks at me in question. "When's the last time you ate?"
"Yesterday...." His eyes widen and he grabs my hand, dragging me away from the field.
"Where are we going now?" I ask, slightly irritated by the fact that this is the second time I've been dragged off today.
"To get some food into you!" he yells over his shoulder.