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i.
He meets Akira Fudo when he is a nameless, formless being.
It is obvious from those soft brown eyes that they are the same age, yet where there should be 7 years of memories he comes up blank.
Logically, he knows he had lived a whole life before he met him. But such a life held no meaning until this very moment, when he felt the foreign warmth of a hand grasp his own.
“Don’t be afraid,” The child murmurs, pulling him into an embrace. “You’re okay.”
It is in the arms of this boy that Ryo Asuka takes shape.
ii.
Ryo learns very early that he and Akira are very different.
For example, Akira was born in Shizuoka, Japan on September 8th. Ryo does not have a birthplace. Or a birthday. Or a name.
Another – Akira has two loving parents — Reijiro and Kaori Fudo, both doctors. Ryo does not have family.
While such things do not matter to Ryo in the slightest, they are wounds to Akira, something to take care of.
“You’re not alone,” He whispers into Ryo’s shoulder, “You have me.”
And so Ryo decides Akira is kind, too kind. Because Ryo is nothing if not a fast learner, so in due time he learns that difference breeds cruelty.
To the other children, Akira Fudo is a prime target – because he is weak and sensitive and he cannot stand up for himself.
They hate Ryo Asuka, because he does it for him. Because too often, Ryo will watch others torment, hurt, and steal from Akira and yet he will somehow always forgive, forgive, forgive.
“Everyone deserves to be forgiven,” Akira says, naively.
“That’s a lie,” Ryo refutes, because he’s anything but naive.
“It’s not!” Akira cries. “Everyone deserves to be happy! So even bad people can be forgiven.”
“That’s a lie. God doesn’t care. Everyone will suffer.”
Akira is sniffling now, “I don’t want that.”
Of course you don’t, Ryo thinks bitterly. Because Akira is a good person, with love etched into his heart in every single version of himself.
Ryo begs to differ, because he is not.
But between the two, he is smarter, wiser, always right and the sooner Akira learns this lesson the better.
Because Akira will one day realise that the world is relentlessly cruel and unforgiving, and Ryo wants to be there when his heart breaks.
So he vows very early that he will do whatever it takes to make Akira stronger, wiser, untouchable from all the rest.
(Ryo will think about this later, on the bloody floor of the Sabbath, as he watches a roaring beast tear flesh after demonic flesh. Soon, there will be no one left alive but them.
And Ryo will think - he is remarkable, and he is mine.)
iii.
Under the cold moonlight, Akira is his.
Every night, they sneak out because no one will notice or care. So they go, cloaked in darkness, and they lie on the cliffside.
“Look!” Akira beams, because he is starry-eyed and curious. Tonight, he is pointing at the lonely crescent moon. “Why does it look like that?”
Ryo, ever-intelligent, will answer all his questions.
”It’s called a lunar phase. Depending on the position of the moon, it will look different on Earth.”
“Can it become any shape?”
“No,” Ryo huffs, annoyed by the question. “The moon is a sphere, so it can only be a sphere. It’s appearance will change gradually, but the moon itself never changes.”
“So it’s still the same moon?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, I think I get it,” Akira grins, positively awed by Ryo.
“It’s just a cycle. We see the moon every night, Akira. It’s boring.”
“I don’t think it’s boring,” Akira says, turning to face Ryo. He is fidgeting in this timid way that tells Ryo he is nervous. “Do you think this is boring?”
No, Ryo thinks. Not when he has Akira like this, his unbridled attention and joy all to himself, all for him.
Under a blanket of stars, Ryo can pretend that the whole world is theirs.
iv.
They separate. This much is inevitable.
Her name is Jenny, a quiet woman that looks nothing like Ryo. But when she takes his hand he finds that she is just as cold as him, and he finds that he does not particularly like this fact.
The drive from the seaside village to the airport is abysmally long, but he does not complain. Instead, he watches Akira’s weeping figure become smaller and smaller until he is nothing but a speck with the horizon. And when he is gone, Ryo watches the houses go by and thinks of nothing.
On the plane ride to America, he talks to no one, looks at no one, and refuses to eat.
In the end it’s alright, because Jenny is perceptive in a way unlike any human Ryo has ever met. She understands what he wants before he even voices it.
“You should rest,” She whispers to him three hours into the flight, watching as he stares out the plane window. “You will have all the time in the world to see him again.”
If Jenny notices the way he shivers, she says nothing of it. Just lets him turn away to watch the clouds pass by.
v.
To Ryo, time is fluid - like a rocking wave that washes through him.
He skips grades and reads book after book with relative ease, the intelligence mechanical to him. And when he is a little older, he takes accolades and degrees like he is collecting bottle caps and soon enough, he becomes Professor Asuka - child prodigy and world-renowned expert in 3 fields of sciences.
“Don’t forget me when you’re famous, Ryo-chan!,” Akira writes in all his letters.
And Ryo will laugh when he writes back, because his face is already plastered on all kinds of television programs and his name etched into libraries.
He is a busy and brilliant man, and the world loves him.
(Later, Satan will laugh at this.
Love does not exist, he spits.
He is looking up when he says this, feeling all the eyes of Heaven mocking him.)
vi.
Ryo does not love - anything, anyone. As a result, very few things in life scare him.
This is one of them - the smell of gasoline and charred flesh burning behind him as he glides through the jungle. Fikira’s body, contorted in a way a human body should never be.
It is not the first time he has felt fear, but it is the first time it gets his blood pumping violently.
All his life, Ryo has never needed anyone – not friends, not colleagues, not even Jenny and her unwavering loyalty. Never in the frantic way his mind falls upon one name now; so desperately, instinctively – a name so committed to memory, it feels like coming home when Ryo calls for him at the pier.
Akira follows him, as he always does.
(Another fear - he holds Akira in his arms and finds that for once, he is the warmer one.)
vii.
In his lifetime, Ryo has made many mistakes, but none of them have ever really reached him. Because what is a mistake, if not a lesson to learn from?
But there is nothing left for Ryo to learn from this world that he hasn’t already acquired from his years of studying.
So naturally he is the one to guide Akira, the Devilman. There is simply nothing that Ryo would not get for him – no amount of money, no luxury goods, no expensive gifts are out of reach. With him, Akira will never go hungry, never go home unsafe.
"I will protect you at any cost," He tells Akira, and he means it like a promise.
And under the keen eye of his camera, Akira is his champion, his muse in all his ichor-slicked glory, and he will never need anyone else as long as Ryo is here.
All the crooks of the Earth, all the demons and all the wretched humans.
They are nothing to Akira, not if Ryo shoots first.
(In the end, it doesn’t matter, because Akira dies. Akira always dies, and he suffers long before he is dead.
Because the thing about mistakes is, you always realise when it’s too late.)
viii.
When he becomes Satan, it’s too late. They are on the cliffside, and Akira does not follow him.
“I would cry for you, but all my tears have dried.”
Akira holds the Makimura girl’s severed head closer to his chest. He does not look up from her, and Satan feels contempt and bewilderment all at once.
“You will die.”
“I don’t care,” Akira grins, baring all his pointed teeth. “I will drag you with me.”
He watches the Devilman’s huddled form walk away until he is nothing but a speck with the horizon.
Satan knows this is not the last time they will meet.
(“We’ll always be together,” Akira tells him before he leaves Japan, and it feels like a promise.)
ix.
Under the cold moonlight, Akira is his.
They are the only ones left on Earth when Satan thinks, What about me? Would you ever forgive me?
Akira is long gone before the question is ever asked. His hand is cold as ice when Satan grasps it between his own.
It doesn’t matter. Satan already knows his answer.
i.
He wakes up a nameless, formless being.
There is a boy with warm brown eyes. A hand reaches for him and he takes it – a familiar feeling.
In the arms of this boy, Ryo Asuka takes shape.