Chapter Text
How fickle are memories?
They can be clear as day and night, or they can be cloudy and unsure of events that happened in one’s past life. Those are the types of memories Todoroki Natsuo had with him. Cloudy memories, memories that his mind tells him he needs to remember in order to survive. He didn’t possess a strong enough Quirk to even pose a threat to anyone anyways. He knows that. After all, his father made sure that he knew did every time they came into contact with each other during the holidays or special family events.
His given name meant ‘summer’s life for a damn reason. Natsuo didn’t develop a strong enough Quirk from either of his parents, much to his father’s displeasure. Another failure and back to the drawing board to get a proper heir to his kingdom. His Quirk was barely anything, really: he could relate the temperature of his hands at will but only for short periods of time. Useful and considered widely helpful in the medical field, where most Quirkless people worked, but outside of the medical field? Natsuo was practically nothing.
Worthless.
Unwanted.
And unloved.
He was more or less the subject of bullying by his peers who had strong Quirks, something he related to with Shouto’s green-haired friend. But the only thing different about them was his surname; he was the eldest- second eldest son of Todoroki Enji, the Flame Hero, a Pro Hero in the Top Ten. He had a name that kept people at a distance because they knew how his father dismissed the media and his personality in general. One word and his bullies’ life would be ruined.
Or, that is what they thought.
His father didn’t give a damn about him- hell he probably had forgotten his name even though he was the one to name him the moment he was born. The Todoroki family name was also a reason he hadn’t run away like his big brother Touya or blabbed his mouth to the media. Sure, he wanted to do so, but what about his mom? And his siblings?
So Natsuo kept his mouth shut.
But he is changing now, Natsuo, he isn’t the same as he was before.
Natsuo didn’t give a damn. His father made his life like a living hell, and he can shove his self-pity party somewhere else; Natsuo didn’t want it. He didn’t care about his father finally realising what he did was fucked up and not how a decent parent should act. At least, that is what he tells himself. He does appreciate that his father keeps a respectful distance away from him, or was it just his own resolution not to come into contact with him? Then again, his dad probably didn’t realise that he still existed. Natsuo was that unimportant.
He just wanted to forget everything and move away. But that would mean leaving Fuyumi, Shouto, and his mother behind. And Natsuo wouldn’t admit it to anyone but watching the broadcasted fight between his father and the Nomu High End was horrifying. He was terrified that his father might actually die. When he was little, a sickly child who was thrown away like garbage, he prayed to any god that would listen to stay his father away from him and his little brother. Sometimes, he even wished for him to die. His father would be gone and his mother would be back and everything would be okay.
But that was a child’s fantasy.
He learned how to deal with it.
Not the best solution to a lifetime worth of problems, but it was how he coped and how he didn’t drive himself insane. Even now, his mother was better after a decade of therapy but her doctors still deemed her incapable of taking care of her children. Even with all the medication and help she had been getting, there was always the risk of her going into another meltdown and hurting someone or herself. They would have to take care of her…
Of course, Natsuo blames his father. Having to deal with a tyrant of a husband and man-made his mother this way. Hell, his father was the one who burned Shouto’s face. Natsuo didn’t know all the details but he believes it with all his heart and soul. Fuyumi argues that their father wasn’t that bad when she was a child. Congrats, his father wasn’t a piece of shit before, but that piece of shit was what Natsuo grew up with and it’s what he remembers. No, past experiences with him were not going to change his mind.
A rush of cold air blew through his room, cold enough to have him shivering in his sweater. Which was odd for three reasons; one, Natsuo ran cold like his mother, the cold never bothered him. Two, his door was closed and he had heating in his room and three, he didn’t have a window anywhere in sight.
“Do you really think you are that special, kid?”
Natsuo stood up immediately at the voice speaking to him and looked around. No one but him and his shadow was there; then again, once he looked at his shadow, he could have sworn that his shadow moved. Natsuo stared at it and then jumped at the sound of someone knocking on his door.
“Y-yeah?”
“It’s Shouto. Fuyumi wants to watch one of her dramas with us.”
“Sure! Gimme a moment!”
He looked around one more, deemed himself slowly going insane before heading out the door. Maybe some of his mother’s mental illness was bleeding into him.
If Natsuo had stayed a little longer, he would have realized that there was one thing that was out of place in his room. He didn’t own anything yellow, especially a neon yellow triangle which began to float to the centre of Natsuo’s room the moment he closed the door. Things were vastly different in this dimension; every mortal possessed some type of supernatural power. No Six Fingers, no Gravity Falls and no Pine twins to fuck shit up again. He was alone, with just a boy with Daddy issues that he could mould into whatever he wanted. He was extremely lucky he heard the cries of a disturbed mother just as he was being erased in Stan Pine’s mind. It was his summoning calling, meant for his ears only, and it was enough to squeeze through the gap of his erasure. It’s was really a shame he couldn’t have used her as his puppet but a deal was a deal.
He wondered if Todoroki Rei felt any remorse for throwing her second eldest child under the bus. To a demon of all things. A demon that is him. He smirked to himself and let his body morph naturally into what to be considered a human form. Appearances don’t matter to him but in order to woo this boy, he’ll need to look his best. He raised his hand to his face, watching the black hand grew large, his essence melting away in a prosthetic matter to form bone, then flesh, then skin and of course clothes. A black and golden suit with two long tail coats, black gloves and shiny, black dress shoes. With a snap of his fingers, he fashioned a black cane made of human bones.
What?
He was a demon, he was allowed to do that, but he had class. Unlike his brethren.
But he was forgetting something.
He checked himself, twisting his body in an unnatural way to look behind him. Clothes, gloves, shoes, cane, black eye...oh right!
His top hat!
It appeared at the mere thought of it, floating just above the hairs on his head as he sashayed over to the mirror. He looked good, fucking hot if he did say so himself. He looked younger than his human form in Gravity Falls, more like an older college student. A junior, maybe even a senior perhaps. A perfect disguise. After Weirdmageddon, he was bored just watching Natsuo grow up. He was strong enough now, strong enough and completely touched starved, and bitter for him to twisted into his own puppet. The kid wasn’t even bad looking.
He could eat him
Both sexually and literally.
He wondered what his flesh tasted like….
He looked at himself before grinning, sharp teeth and all. “Well, Bill my boy, let’s go and re-introduce ourselves to Todoroki Rei. We have to court our prey properly and I for one am a classy man.”
+++
Bill for the past 19 years was just asleep, residing in the bedroom of Todoroki Natsuo in the shadow of a triangle that wasn’t there. He wasn’t even in the main dimension but rather the small cavern that he created out of his feeble magic left. He just rested to regain his strength but he was always watching the family, it’s what he was ordered to do but Bill is a dream demon, much smarter than a human mother, even one that threatened to freeze him and shatter him into a thousand of pieces if he didn’t agree to the deal.
Don’t get him wrong, Bill loves making deals with humans, but that threat was just cute.
A cute attempt, but Bill isn’t the type to get scared.
Plus, in this world, despite people having Quirks, they have no idea how to deal with an actual supernatural creature, one born in the swirling abyss of chaos. If he possessed the boy, they would deem it as if his Quirk developed. Though that would be a stretch even for Bill, according to their research, Quirks develop at the age of 4 or at birth for some people, and Natsuo is very much past the age of his Quirk developing. In addition to that, he had a father who was very observant. Bill admired the training he put his son through, but he was disappointed that he realised what he has done was horrible.
Bill didn’t think so, but when has his opinion mattered in something that didn’t matter to him anyway. As he walked through the crowds, sometimes going through people, ah, the pleasure of having absolute power; he remembers the first time he came tumbling through a portal to this world. All because of the hysterical cries of a mother who had done a terrible thing.
(Who also hasn't bothered to apologize about the whole thing but that was just Bill’s opinion.)
+++
It was hot.
So very hot.
Flames never burned him before, he was born in the swirling abyss of chaos! And bathed in the fires of the Underworld! Fire was his birthright, his beautiful, beautiful friend of destruction. He was an all-powerful dream demon, and if the people of Gravity Falls knew what he was capable of, they wouldn’t dare to fight back. They would be feeble and submissive at his feet, but alas half of his power laid dominant outside of the plains of Gravity Falls. That was why he needed Six Fingers to give him the code to open the gates to the world. He longed for that piece of his power, he could feel it calling to him, the call growing stronger and stronger as he counted down the days to Weirdangerdon.
He missed that part of himself, it reminded him of home. It was a part of his home, the piece that he consumes as he watched his own dimension burned. Forget what he said to Pine Tree and Six Fingers about how he burned down his own dimension himself. That wasn’t true, that was beyond true. As sociopathic he was, he loved his home, he would never set his home aflame, watching as his brethren burned. But he couldn’t, he was a demon of fire.
How ironic for him to die in the flames.
Especially the flames of his own, the bright blue flames that warmed the insides of him. He looked down at himself, frantic as his body became to melt. He couldn’t die! Not here in this dimension, not by the humans of this pathetic piece of land!
No!
He couldn’t die!
He had so much to do, he needed the piece of his power back, he wanted his home back…
At the thought of death at an earlier time, he would scoff at the thought. He was immortal, lived thousand years and consume the souls and flesh of millions of humans. Being threatened with death was not only tedious but just sad.
And cute.
But now, he was frantically shifting, watching in horror as Stan Pines watch him burn with a smile on his face. How dare he, HOW DARE HE SMILE WHILE HE WAS BURNING!
But what could he do…
Until...he heard his summoning call, it was faint and the human seemed to be crying but it was there.
And it was enough.
Enough for him to invoke the words that he gained during his adventures throughout different dimensions. It gave him enough strength to continue to shift his form, all of his forms.
“A X O L O T L! My time has come to burn! I invoke the ancient power that I may return.”
When Stan went to punch him, he managed to dodge it, just barely, opening a portal with the strength he could muster. A portal towards the summoning, the chanting and the crying. As he tumbled through space and time, he wondered how badly did someone fuck up to call for his help. He would have bothered to make himself presentable but he was too weak, only just barely survive his own erasure. But he was grateful to that mortal who decided to try to summon him just at that moment. In another dimension…
No, in another future, the Pines family would have succeeded in erasing him. But that future wasn’t his future. Not today and not never.
The first thing he saw was white walls, a white bed and a woman with white hair, kneeling near the edge of the summoning circle, it wasn't the Cipher circle that was typically used to summon him. A common summoning circle for any kind of spirit that just so happened to hear was scratched into the floor with something. Bill could see a puddle of water behind her….
What world did he tumble into?
“Cipher?”
He bowed his head, just realizing he shifted into his human form. He tilted his head looking at her features. A frail woman, with tired, frantic eyes. They were grey...a beautiful colour with white as snow hair. Bill glanced around the room, he was in a hospital room but judging by the look of it.
A mental hospital.
“That is me, Bill Cipher, your saviour. I should thank you really, you pretty much saved me from a horrible demise but I digress,” he said sitting crossed legs in the air looking down at her. At the look of confusion on her face, he simply shrugged,
“But no matter, what seemed to be the problem, my dear…”
“....I hurt him…”
Oh! A backstory, he loved those!
Though it depends on the story, sometimes backstories and trauma as just too cliche.
As the woman told him of her married life, a husband that was a Pro Hero that obsessed over the title of the Number One Hero (Bill could relate), a child that ran away and her youngest which through a psychotic lapse of judgement, she poured boiling water on his face, scarring him for life. That honestly was the most interesting thing about this entire thing. Bill didn’t have the normal human notion that abuse wasn’t okay, but he didn’t really care, nor did he have plans to.
“So...Rei, may I call you Rei? Why did you tell me this? For me to forgive you of your sins?” Bill snickered before holding up a hand to silence her. She instantly froze in place. Wow, how bad are things in that household? If anything she was the definition of the stereotype of a meek, submissive Japanese woman. Only made to pop out babies and agree to whatever her husband told her.
Speaking of…
“Question, if your husband hurt you and your family...then why did he put you in a mental hospital?”
“I...I don’t know…”
Bill stretched his arms and stood up, his feet finally touching the ground, “I still don’t know why I am here, I’m not a demon psychologist and though I am grateful for you helping me escape my damnation, there isn’t a need for me-”
“I want to make a deal, with you. To protect my children”
Oh?
Alright, he’ll grant this wish.
He leaned on his cane, Rei slowly standing up to face him. Her mind was set, judging by the look on her face. Bill loved making deals and he had a feeling that this one would be interesting.
+++
Rei was just where he last saw her years ago, except she was a lot more stable than she was a while back. Which was an extreme improvement but Bill didn’t give a damn about her mental state. He wanted to remind her about her end of their deal and he was excited about it. Dressing up as a doctor and smooth-talking his way into getting full access to the hospital was a piece of cake. He couldn’t stop grinning underneath the paper mask as he followed the nurse towards Rei’s room. Most likely, she doesn’t remember making the deal in the first case.
But no matter, he’ll remind her.
“Todoroki Rei?”
“Yes…”
The nurse nodded at him and patted his shoulder, “I will be downstairs in the lobby, you know where the phones are.”
“Of course, my dear.”
The human swooned as he opened the door, closing it with a click. Rei sat near the window now, looking at the hospital garden below. Oh, how sweet, she has no idea who is coming to visit her. When she finally looked up, her eyes widen with horror.
“You.”
Bill chuckled and ripped off the mask giving her a toothy grin, “Surprise! I haven’t seen you all these years, how have you been, Rei?”
The temperature in the room dropped but Bill wasn't bothered, the cold never bothered him anyway.
Ouch, Frozen reference.
“What do you want?”
Bill shrugged and moved to sit on her bed, cross his legs together, “It depends on your definition of want, though I see you are anxious for me to leave you alone in your room so I’ll make it quick. The deal you made years ago is still active.” She blinked, confused before realisation hit her like a freight train. Or since he was in Japan, a bullet train.
“No...you can’t.”
Bill showed her a toothy grin, “I can and I will. You made the deal and don’t you blame it on your mental state, you were still in control of your actions.” He stood up and bowed towards her,
“But don’t worry, I will take good care of your son, Natsuo.”
“I’ll tell him about you.”
He sneered and loomed over her, lifting her chin to look up at him, “Sweet, sweet Rei. What are you going to tell him? That you made a deal with a demon to save your sickly middle child exchange for me to have him? What do you think he is going to say, is he going to be delighted in the fact his mother handed him off to a demon? Me of all people, Todoroki Rei. You fucked up big time.” He smiled at the tears in her eyes before patting her cheek in a mock gesture
“But I will promise you this, I won’t let anyone hurt him. He is pretty cute.”
+++
Mom has been acting weird around him.
More than usual and Natsuo didn’t really know what was on her mind. His mom didn’t really say much to him and instead turned her attention on his siblings, especially Shouto. Natsuo couldn’t help feeling a little jealous and disappointed by it. Sure, his little brother had been through a lot because of their father but so as the rest of them. Was his suffering not as valid as his little brother?
“You look like her tormentor, my dear.”
Natsuo flinched, hearing a voice inside his head. Expect it seemed as if someone was standing right behind him, a male, based on the sound and tone, wasn’t that much older than him. But no one but his mother, Fuyumi and Shouto were there. Natsuo crossed his arms, suddenly uncomfortable in this setting. Normally he and Fuyumi visit their mom on the weekdays and Shouto comes on the weekends, or at least once a month now. Natsuo didn’t really know why Shouto only visited their mom now after a decade. The one thing he was grateful for from his father that he didn’t bar them from visiting her, even Shouto. Though the reasons she didn’t let them see her was really her decision, not his father’s.
“And she has made other decisions during her stay here, and some of them involve you, my dear. I really need to start calling you something else than my dear.”
“Natsu?”
The soft concern in his mom’s voice sent a flash of anger through him. So now she wanted to have his attention? He gets it, he looked too much like their father and his mom didn’t really want a reminder of him, which was partly the reason he kept dying the red spots in his hair but it wasn’t just that. If someone puts them side by side, one can automatically tell he was Endeavor’s son versus his father and Shouto. Shouto was the one that looked so much like their mother.
“I’m fine.” He gave a brief smile before heading towards the door. “I got to leave earlier, studying for an exam.”
“Oh.”” His mom looked unhappy that he was leaving but nodded her head. “Alright, be safe, Natsu.”
He shrugged. “Aren’t I always.”
Natsuo gave a brief wave before closing the door and walking down the hallway, hands in his pockets. He knew that his mom was still uncomfortable with seeing Shouto, specifically his right side. He didn’t know why though, it wasn’t like she had anything to do with it. Their father was the cause of all their suffering. Natsuo was so wrapped up in his thoughts, he didn’t notice two doctors coming across his path. He ended up crashing into one of them. Natsuo stumbled, tripping on his own feet and falling backwards.
Only to be grabbed last minute before he hit the ground.
“Damn, you gotta watch where you are going, kid.”
Natsuo scowled at being called a kid and was about to say so but the words fell from his mouth when he looked up. The man he bumped into wasn’t Japanese as far as he could tell. Tan skin, and piercing yellow eyes, almost glowing in the light. He had literal golden hair with an undercut of black.
He was…
Gorgeous.
“So… are we going to be in a dance position the entire time in the middle of the hallway? Not that I mind it of course.” That statement brought Natsuo the real world, his face turning a bright red at his position. His body was bent downwards in a female dance position, with the man’s face gazing down at him. Their faces were close...very close.
“I…”
The man chuckled and helped him stand on his feet, Natsuo looking down at the grounds, his hands immediately jamming into his pockets. When he decided to look up again he got a better look at the man’s face. He didn’t look like an older gentleman, he looked about Natsuo’s age, maybe an older college student. His mind was plagued with questions with few little answers, did they go to the same college? Natsuo knew most of the students in his field, but he never saw this person before in the college campus.
“I’m a transfer student here. Name’s Bill, Bill Cipher.” Natsuo was guided to a discreet area, unseen by the people who walked up and down the halls. He had to constantly look up when he was talking to Bill. Natsuo himself was considered average height but Bill was almost just as taller as his father, perhaps even eye-level.
He got to know more about Bill; besides going to classes at the same college that Natsuo attended, he worked at the mental hospital. But that is all he got to know about him, the other man wanted to know about him, paying almost focused attention to Natsuo as he talked. He liked it, no one has ever paid that much attention to him and his interests. Even in his friend group, he was the one that got talked over.
“You’re a fine piece of work, Natsuo.”
“Natsu...you can call me Natsu.”
Bill grinned, taking Natsuo’s hand and bringing it to his lips, “Alright, Natsu.” He smirked at the blush on Natsuo’s face, relishing in the embarrassment. “Aw, you’re cute when you do that, but I have to go, I’m almost done with my break.”
Natsuo nodded, understanding that completely since he volunteered at the hospital nearby, “Okay….will I see you in class.”
“You can see me whatever you like, sunshine.” Bill kissed his fingers before leaning forward to give a brief kiss to his temple. He brought his finger to his lips and winked before walking away, leaving Natsuo standing there in awe. No one...has done this to him before. Or acting like this towards him.
But you two just met.
Natsuo just stood there until his brother and sister found him, then getting scolded about lying about having to study. He wasn’t lying, he just lost track of time….
And he was lying about having to study. He really did have an exam the next day.
“So who had you standing there like a lovesick girl?”
Fuyumi tapped Shouto’s head sternly. “Shouto!”
His little brother only shrugs, “I’m just telling what I saw. None of the girls or guys you have dated has made you act this before.”
Natsuo crossed his arms and said nothing, looking out of the car window. He could hear Fuyumi stating that if Natsuo wanted to tell them, then he would but until then they should say anything. He almost outright laughed at that. His family was infamous for learning everything about his girlfriends or boyfriends and potentially scaring them off, which has happened many times before.
Fuyumi can be one scary woman when she wanted to be.
Then again, they are like that. Cool, level-headed people with explosive tempers. Natsuo made a mental note to finally look up if you can get explosive tempers genetically or that was just something that they all developed under his father’s household. His mind drew back to Bill, the boy was simply...alluring, mysterious. In a way, they were similar to each other, Natsuo having to go around in public pretending like his home life wasn’t shit. That his mom wasn’t absent from his life only merely stuck in a mental hospital.
Despite only talking to Bill for 20 minutes, he felt like he could talk to him about anything.
Though there was the issue with the eyepatch.
Wow, he had fallen hard.
+++
Bill Cipher wasn’t stupid, he had been living longer than the Earth itself. Three trillion years of chaos and destruction, it’s almost laughable that he would have been defeated by two mortal twins who were 12 years old. But, he was going to be careful this time, resting inside of Todoroki Natsuo’s room, deep into his pocket of the Mindscape had him looking back at what went wrong. The first couple of years, he had scoffed, he was Bill Cipher, master of the mind, he didn’t make mistakes.
But now.
He knew.
His own ego.
Of course, being an immortal being, one would have to have a big ego, unlike his parallel counterpart William. Though, now that he is taking the time to think about his counterpart, he was sure that they had finally stopped pretending to be meek and act like the demon they were. Who knows, he might be seeing him around the Mindscape soon. That wouldn’t really be that much of a problem if William didn’t interfere with his prey. Bill’s prey was his prey and he didn’t like to share it.
But he was getting off-topic.
Todoroki Natsuo.
He only spoke to the kid once and god, the number of unresolved issues of parental neglect and emotional confusion. And this was the kid that Todoroki Enji didn’t force into training?
God, Natsuo had more issues than his brother.
Bill sat back in his chair, surrounded by white walls. God, he hated the colour white, why did humans make the hospital colours white? Does white stand for hope or something? Or repentance? Bill rubbed his face, suddenly annoyed with the colour. He could just burn the place down with everyone in it but that would complicate things. You can’t seduce a mourning human apparently, they’ll take that you don’t care.
And really Bill doesn’t give a damn. But he can’t hurt Natsuo’s mother, no matter how annoying the woman can be, always watching him speak to the other residents of the mental hospital, the ones that were levels beyond her. The ones that couldn’t be saved.
But he plagued her with constant nightmares so he was even.
But how would he do this?
Research.
Wow, he sounded just like Pine Tree and Six Fingers. Bill hummed as he opened the laptop, and with a click of his fingers got what he wanted. He should probably learn how to use a computer as a normal human being but he was currently in his office in the middle of the night, most of the nurses and doctors had gone home for the night with a few taking the night shifts with him as well. Oh yeah, he should probably register himself as a student so he didn’t seem off-putting. Bill snorted while conjuring up another laptop to work on that. Of course, he would have to fake what his Quirk was, which would be a hard thing to do. His powers were considered normal probably advanced like his parents.
But in this dimension, his abilities were god-like. If he revealed that, then there would be a problem, namely people wondering why he wanted to be a nurse.
“Gods and I thought this world was less complicated than Pine Tree and Shooting Star’s.”
But he continued anyway, planning to register before he looks at Natsuo’s school files and medical files.
“Entering the Mindscape, no; possession...ha! Definitely not, who would trust someone who can possess people.”
“Oh! Shapeshifting! It’s common, and I can simply explain that mine is more powerful! Perfect.”
Once that was finished he leaned back away and focused his attention on Natsuo’s files. “Now, snowflake, what type of person are you? Besides having abandonment issues.”
Natsuo was a straight A student, with many clubs and activities under his belt. Impressive, probably an excuse to not be in the house all the time. All this work and activities it’s a wonder how the kid managed to have free time for himself. Or he was the typical top student who doesn’t know the basic concept of fun. One older sister and one younger brother. Adding in another sibling who had apparently run away from home too and you have a family who is broken into pieces, each family member is trying to repair it in their own way. Well, that wasn’t going to work.
And throwing in Bill into the mix too.
Excellent brew for chaos.
“Anyways….what is your medical history, I want to see what I am working with.”
He wasn’t going to make the same mistake again, underestimating the human body. Though in his defence, Pine Tree was a horrible excuse for a human being really. The kid at the age of 12 was almost any adult human Bill had come across, sleep deprived, bitter, generally suspicious of everything and everyone around them.
Or that could just be a Pine family thing. Bill didn’t know or gave a damn.
“Okay, snowflake, impress me.”
Bill was disappointed in an instant. Despite coming from two parents with extremely powerful Quirks, his was a scratch of the surface. Hell, even his sister had a stronger Quirk than him, granted it wasn’t like their little brother but it was average. Todoroki Natsuo could be considered Quirkless if anything else. It wasn’t a mystery why the kid wanted to go into the medical field. Bill didn’t have a problem with that, he could handle dealing with a vessel that barely didn’t have power. It was a lot easier for his own powers to shine through.
One problem.
The kid is heat sensitive.
Which isn’t just a problem, it’s a huge problem for Bill. He wields fire like it was nothing; sure he could force Natsuo to use his power but he didn’t know the damage it could cause. You can’t work with a damaged vessel.
But there was an upside, Bill could train him. Todoroki Natsuo was still Todoroki Enji’s son, he has to have some of that Hellfire running through his veins. He just needed a spark, a trigger to make it happen. If Bill could get him to handle the heat of his blue flames, then he was fine. Obviously, Bill wanted to use his white flames but that part of his power was locked away somewhere. But it was close.
He could the humming of his power more than ever before.
“Well, Todoroki Natsuo,” Bill said to himself with a sly grin on his face. “I hope you don’t mind being the playtoy of a demon, granted it probably wouldn’t end well for you.”
+++
College was boring and Bill hated it.
He was only 30 minutes into his very first class and he wanted to scratch his good eye out. And to make matters worse, there really wasn’t a point because Natsuo wasn’t in this class. This was psychology, working around the human mind. This was child’s play to Bill, he was the master of the mind. Though there were a few things that he himself didn’t know about that mind, and that piqued his interest. Hey, humans were not so worthless after all, but still.
The arrogance of the professor…
Gods.
Bill was arrogant himself but it was earned through years and years of messing with human beings and being all powerful. But this, come on, so this professor gains like six PhDs that doesn’t mean he is better than the students sitting there listening to his rambling around his inferior classmates in his youth. Some of these kids’ answers are actually intelligent and thought out but alas the professor shut them down in an effort to make himself seem better. Bill snorted at the discussion of sexuality and if it’s due to trauma or other outside influences.
Please, human beings are the only species in any world that would give a damn about this.
Which is a weird thing to discuss since this world is a lot more open to the LGBT community than the United States back in Gravity Falls? Then again Bill was comparing two vastly different years, he was in Gravity Falls in 2012-2016 verses this world, which was well into the future. Plus, it wasn’t like Japan bother to hide how they feel about the LGBT community of its citizens, the majority of people were welcome versus some of the older generations. Then again, those were wasting away in Bill’s opinion, one snap of his fingers and they were dust.
“Cipher, are you listening?”
Bill grinned and tilted his head in a symbol of innocence, something he wasn’t in the slightest. “Yes, I am, however, I am confused with the context that someone who isn’t apart of this community gets to have a say in what they are and who they are. Sure, trauma can diffuse someone from a particular gender however in the most likely sense, it’s just how the human person is and one shouldn’t spend their time and energy trying to figure out why.”
Bill snorted as the professor was shell-shocked, stunned even before collecting himself and coughing. “Very good, Cipher…”
Good.
Shut the fuck up you stupid bag of blood.
As a demon, gender, sexuality was pretty much void to him. Sure, he called himself male and had a male form but he could be whatever he liked, a man, a woman, a fucking tree. He rubbed his forehead and mentally counting down the time he doesn’t have to deal with this professor.
Bill might just kill him for the hell of it.
Actually, not for the hell of it, he needed to stop having so many impulsive reactions to things that annoy him that result in someone’s or something’s death. No matter how annoying those things can get. Bill learned this lesson back in Gravity Falls, he will not fall into the same habits again. Different world, a different way of acting and thinking. He was incredible at thinking on the fly but this world was truly going to test him and he needed to be ready for that. As far as he looked, no one in Japan had really looked into the true supernatural after the discovery of Quirks.
Then again, Gravity Falls, Oregon was a special case and Bill didn’t recall stepping foot in Japan at all. No one knew who he was or what he is truly capable of and honestly, Bill wants to keep it that way. Even Rei didn’t know what he was capable of, he wasn’t a typical demon after all.
He had class.
And less of an appetite for possessing children and making them slaughter their families in cold blood. Again, he had class and it’s almost so easy to seduce a child. Bill needed a challenge. And it looks like he was going to get one out of Natsuo.
So Bill begrudgingly pushed the thoughts of slaughtering that professor to the backburner and only half-listened. He would need some general information about human emotions so he would able to copy a few and make it seem believable. Being sarcastic, cheeky and sometimes annoying wasn’t much of an emotion.
But everything is an illusion.
Ah, the joys of being a trillion-year-old demon. One didn’t have to care about what others said and one can travel life without much of a fear of dying.
Or that’s how Bill used to think. He used to think that he was invincible, that humans were nothing compared to him.
That really wasn’t the case.
As shown in Gravity Falls, you mess with human beings and have their world crashing down on them, they’ll always find a way to make things right again. A touching and almost childish philosophy, but it had worked. Bill suddenly frowned at his fingers.
Had he changed?
Based on the new topic brought onto them by this professor, traumatic experiences can bring on changes in people. Which is almost laughable since Bill was a demon of all things and not a resident of this world. But it did make some lick of sense.
But how much of him has changed?
“I won’t hurt your son.”
Yeah….that.
Old Bill would have probably twisted Todoroki Natsuo from an early age, make him his puppet and brought chaos on that whole family. Why did he wait so long to do anything?
Great, he didn’t even know what he was doing anymore.
That was a problem.
What was the purpose of him being here? If he were to start Weirdmageddon all over again, that would be a massive problem. This world had Heroes, people that could stop him in his tracks.
This was starting to get even more complicated than he wanted. Why couldn’t anything just be simple, clean cut, and dry?
Bill needed a goal, something...anything that could keep him distracted. Something that could keep him from wallowing in the guilt and loss of losing his home and losing his power. The piece that made him whole.
He missed home.
Screw what he said to Ford, he didn’t burn his home, that was someone else. Or what it really him who caused the fire? Bill couldn’t remember and he didn’t want to. But the memories kept coming back. Why? Bill hated this, he needed an outlet.
“Class dismissed.”
The demon didn’t bother to hear what the lesson was, nor did he care. He wanted to get out of there, out of his own head. He was the first one out of the door, his pace fast and shoving students who got into his way with a growl low in his throat. He didn’t have time for this.
“Bill?”
He turned, seeing a familiar head of white hair in the crowd of bustling students before a hand grabbed him and pulled him into a somewhat empty area. Bill immediately put on a grin before facing the shorter male, looking down at him.
“Hello, snowflake.”
He relished in the brief blush of red on Natsuo’s face. This boy hadn’t had anyone really compliment him if he constantly acts like this. The kid looked like the typical college student or a student in general, books in hands with a satchel hanging from his shoulders, stuffed with additional books and papers filling it to the brim. Dressed like a nerd too, a button up with a light blue sweater over it, the only difference being that he wore a varsity jacket too. Probably just came inside from a different building.
Bill cleared his throat, “You just came from another building?”
“Yeah, I have a class here.”
Well, here goes nothing. Bill leaned over, getting into Natsuo’s personal space with ease, and offering a gloved hand to him. “Mind if I walk you to class, starlight?”
That nickname earned him a bit of a shove. “Are you ever going to use my actual name.”
“Not going to happen snowflake, I’ll ask again. Mind if I walk you to class?”
His outstretched itched to burst into his classic blue flames, but he forced down that instinct. Don’t want to scare off his prey after all, especially since flames are typically not very welcoming to Natsuo. He hesitated for a moment before breaking into a smile and taking Bill’s hand. As they walked to class, Bill could hear whispered from the other students, primarily the girls.
He chuckled, amused, “You seem to be quite popular here, snowflake.”
Natsuo had shrugged, “My...father is currently the Number One Hero for starters.”
“Hm, and it’s not because you are holding the hand of another male?”
“No, no one really cares that much.”
“Interesting.”
As they walked, hand in hand, Natsuo started to open up to him. Soon with a few jokes he had learned over the years, he had the kid laughing within 15 minutes. Bill liked his laugh, he didn’t know why but it was the first time he valued a human being’s laugh.
Hm, was he getting soft?
Natsuo pulled his hand making them both stop in a door, “We’re here.”
Bill looked at his own schedule, “Hm, it appears that we will not have classes together until tomorrow. Am I allow to see you again, my dear?”
“It depends on if you are going to continue to flirt with me, Cipher.”
Bill straightened, with a grin on his face, “Oh? Do you like my flirting.”
“It’s adequate.”
“I smell a challenge, Todoroki.”
Natsuo snorted at him with a gleam in his eyes, “See you around, Cipher.” Bill watched him go with an interest in his golden eyes. Natsuo wasn’t the boy that he observed the past couple of years, he clearly had a backbone. Which is essential for standing up to his father in the first place as Bill had seen. Bill had been wallowing in self-pity about his purpose in this world. He didn’t know it yet, and he was starting not to care.
He wanted the missing piece of him, and he will do everything in his power to get it back. But as for now.
He wanted to break Todoroki Natsuo. Break him to the point that he was emotionally and physically dependent on Bill and Bill only.
Bill walked away with a wicked smile on his face. He had a plan, a very good plan and will go well if no one got in his way.
“Todoroki Natsuo, would you shake a poor sinner’s hand?”