Distorted

Creature standing high

After crossing the castle borders, the enormous hallways stretched for minutes on as Rin wandered around. The atmosphere was awfully quite and sent an uneasy feeling down Rin's guts.

The corridors were all lit by the cold azure flames that were all too familiar for Rin.
While striving beneath the the grand barely illuminated ceilings, the young demon wasn't even sure if he had gotten lost at this point or if he walked in the right direction.

His concerns yet vanished as the demon was met with a giant gateway that was wildly decorated with some silvery dark metal and depicted all kinds of curves, plants, tendrils and even something that looked like some oversized eyeball staring up ahead in the distance. It kind of reminded him of the Gehenna Gate. If that wasn't the way to the throne room that he wasn't sure what were.

Surprisingly though, different than at the outer gates, on this one weren't any guards positioned.
The only movement came from the hovering flickering of the cerulean flames that lit the hallway.

It didn't take more then a moment as the door simultaneously opened, before Rin could even get the chance to hesitate before opening them himself.

As he stepped through the gateway, he was met with an astonishing view. The ceiling reached up more than what Rin assumed around 30 meters. The gigantic room was patterned in different, black, dark purple, dark blue and other cold shades. In front of him stretched a wide darkred carpet that at some point met the bottom stairs of a heightened rostrum and continued upwards the stairs. On top of the rostrum was a dark grey, almost black throne that appeared blueish in the light of the hovering flames that illuminated the area. Beautiful patterns were carved into the metal of the seat similar to the appearance of the Gehenna Gate and the entrance gateway.

Upon the named throne sat an almost regal appearing being with the posture it had. While long hair splattered around it's shoulders met with the deep dark blue of a rope that covered the body. Pale bare clawed feet touched the cold stone floor and a relaxed hand laid upon the armrest of the majestic seat. Sharp nails scratched along the metal making a faint sharp sound. The other hand was raised and against it rested the creatures head. Cerulean eyes narrowed and analysed the young demon entering the hall. The iris of each eye was sharpened at three ends into a rectangular shape, forming the signature feature of the demon god himself. Red glowing slit pupils eyed the boy from head to toe as he made his way towards the staircase. The crackling sound of the blue flames that engulfed the higher being was prominent in the silence that filled the room.

"I welcome you, my son. You have finally arrived."

"Satan. What do you want from me? Why did you bring me here?"

Rin tried to keep his calm but quickly noticed that it wouldn't turn out as easy as he had hoped.

"I think I already informed you about that. But to make it short, I took the best opportunity to take you home. You belong here, by my side. You were destined to be. And to possibly leave you willingly to those mortals, it is already a farce for them to treat you like they did. I would've burned them to death by now if I had the chance, but I think they will come to good use one day."

Satan stated with a satisfied smile and a low chuckle leaving his lips.

"You know what happened-?!"

"I have my eyes and ears everywhere. I know all that had happened from how they treated you to that disgraceful failure of a brother of yours shooting you to your own periodical downfalls. How did you think I knew when the old Fujimoto had a second of weakness in his mental blockades and used the opportunity for myself."

Rin exactly knew what Satan meant with 'his own periodical downfalls' and he felt more exposed than ever. Never had he told anyone about his habits because of what would await him at the end of the road if he did. Sometimes he could hear the insults, laugher and whispers of fear and discuss ever so clearly in his mind. But now, he heard nothing. No disappointment, no contempt, no laugher, not even the slightest bit of judgement towards himself. All he heard was a surprisingly rather calm voice that explained to him what he asked. For someone finally not judging him when meeting him or finding out something unwanted about him was surprising and at the same time strangely pleasant, as it came from the personification of evil himself. Or so he was told. Rin prayed he wouldn't get a backlash for his gullibility. He just hoped that maybe all words directed towards him weren't just fake and would turn their backs on him sooner or later.

"Your potential was wasted the moment your heart was sealed away, we will change that. You will learn how to handle your flames correctly as well as your emotions. Humans always brag about how intelligent they and their methods are but have no idea how the psych of different beings work. Compared to demons who always seek the pleasure in denial,  the moderate ways of humans are easy to corrupt. That is why they murder each other without anything in mind and still call it a glorious war while their own people suffer and succumb on their own selfish actions. It is why they haven't and will never understand the creation they named demon. That they couldn't even teach you correctly about yourself and your emotions is bare evidence."

One could clearly hear the anger and displeasure while voicing his thoughts on the habitants of Assiah.

"The servants will lead you to your room, tomorrow you will start being educated about our world and culture and afterwards you will be trained by me personally about how to control your flames correctly. We got a lot to fix there. One of the butlers will explain everything in detail once you arrive in your future chambers. If you need anything let them know. You may go now."

It took Rin a few moments to snap out of his trance and to turn around and take his leave towards the giant door he first arrived through. He was rather shocked at what Satan just told him. Not only his logical view on humans Rin never heard in his life before, but also the mere fact that he was given a room and would receive some form of education in the future.

'How strange...' ,he thought as he wandered on the cold stone floor.

It slightly terrified and disturbed him on how well he understood Satans argumentation on how shitty humans supposedly were. It was true that his life was kinda shit in the last weeks especially, but he also thought that there are people in Assiah who didn't fall into the pattern Satan named. Of course he had Shiro in his mind, as he was the only one who probably cared the most about Rin.

He missed him already. Once he heard Mephisto mentioning the flow of time in Gehenna was different than in Assiah, meaning that time went by faster here then in the human world. Satan said that his sword must've broken the moment his heart was released off the blade, which means that it must've already been some time here in Gehenna compared to the Assiahn time.
Maybe he was mixing up some stuff but was quite sure that the time in both universes went in the same time units but compared the flow of time in Gehenna went by faster. So if a demon lived a certain amount of time in Gehenna and returned after let's say four years back to Assiah, for him it must've been over hundreds of years while in Assiah only four years went by.

At the back of his mind, he noted to ask the 'butler' how Satan called them, how the time here in Gehenna works. Or how this world and the creatures within it work.

——————————

The evening he was lead into his room, he fell asleep almost immediately, with all the stress having build up on his shoulders. To that he decided to ask the demon who showed him his room to ask him about the stuff he wanted to know the next day. Or maybe he'll get told all the important stuff once his training and education here starts.

Rin was still quite staggered at how strange and deranged all this seemed to him as he took in all the information he received the last hours. And it was a bit of an understatement to say he was quite suspicious and terrified of what where to come the next days and weeks. Because he knew all to well that he had no way to escape, especially with Satan spying on him 24/7.

Okay, Rin wasn't sure if he did that, but surely had no nerve to try it out. Especially if he didn't desire to end up as a coaled barbecue for real this time.