People, I just came up with the most massive Ao no Exorcist theory because what else are showers for. It may be a giant “duh” to many but just in case it isn’t to some…
Right from the start, we’ve been told that Rin was raised as a weapon against Satan. Now, when we think “weapon” we think “violence”. Epic battle imminent, right? The forces of evil versus the forces of good. Classic. But today I was thinking about how the second season anime has been revealing certain plot elements of the manga. And maybe Rin isn’t intended to be the general/ ace-up-the-sleeve secret massive railgun of a giant war at all. This is gonna be long, but please ear me out.
So: second season of the anime. Kinda weird, kinda rushed, as so often when the people who produce the anime have to come up with an original ending for the show, because they caught up to the manga and are now out-running it. But, we can be certain Kato told them at least some things of what she planned to do. For instance: -A giant evil organisation working against the True Cross Order, -Yukio going darkside, -Mephisto’s abandoned laboratory for creating artificial life, -both the twin’s powers fully awakening. Things didn’t happen exactly like they do in the manga, but the core is definitely there. Now, consider: Anime!Yuri.
Anime!Yuri is a massive hippie who loves demons, and upon meeting Satan, feels sorry for him and lets him use her body as a vessel willingly. But what is particularly interesting, is that Yuri isn’t overshadowed by him. Rather, they remain two separate personalities, and can talk. Doesn’t that sound familiar?
As a result of his time with Anime!Yuri, Satan becomes less destructive. He still wields massive power and is easily agitated, but Yuri encourages him to use his powers to create a better world for humans & demons alike. In fact, she doesn’t sound entirely unlike some other character:
…Which brings me to the core of the matter. The one who holds all the strings, who steers all the characters on the play board… The manipulative but brilliant asshole who has been orchestrating everything and whom we still don’t know shit about.
Mephisto.
Along with Azazel and the Emperors, Mephisto is on “team humans”. We still don’t know why exactly Mephisto thinks humans “show merit” or why he enjoys Assiah so much (though I’ve previously theorized that because his “kin” possesses man-made objects, he wouldn’t have much to rule over without them). All we know is that “team humans” has been giving human the means to fight demons.
It is suggested that humans might have been the ones who created demons in the first place: After all, they are concepts. *Hilarious theories of how demons created religion how’s that for a paradox -dudes imagine the look on Angel’s face if that were true* …But nothing suggests that they need humans once their ego has sprouted. However, it is very clear that human belief still influences demons. With enough conviction, they can be bound as familiars:
And destroyed by words & gestures:
In the AnE verse, it is made very clear that the power of belief is everything. And nobody seems more aware of this than Mephisto. And it is quite possible that this is simply because he has been staying in Assiah longer than any other demon and observed first-hand how human choices shape the future. It has been very strongly hinted in chapter 99 that he has been
rewinding & rewriting timelines in order to get the one he wants.
For some reason, thus far every one involving telling Yukio about the whole how
& why of the twins birth and continued existence has apparently
backfired, so now he’s betting it all on Rin:
And what’s more, he has been staying in the same body for longer than any other demon. He seems very attached to it. According to chapter 86, the only one of the demon kings who can stay in
the same body for an extended period because of his powers of Time. He
can most likely put his body in some sort of stasis to keep it from
deteriorating. BUT, he is not invincible. It is suggested in chapter 94
that he will, at some point, lose or let go of his body.
Yet,
as pointed out by Lewin in chapter 84, he has a research facility with immortality elixir & cloned replicas in his basement. So why not simply replace/ enhance the one he’s using now? Because the
clones aren’t as good as the original? Unlikely, since they managed to artificially
create a body so strong it could hold Satan himself, however briefly.
Maybe all good ones were destroyed on Blue Night, and now that the
facility is in ruin and only has one mad scientist left, new one clones or elixir can’t
be made that simply? Is THAT why he’s after Lucifer, because of his
resources?
Frankly, I can’t
imagine a genius like Mephisto not having some sort of back-up plan.
especially if he can do things like copy-paste entire facilities into a
different dimension and start things over in a different timeline it seems strange he hasn’t stored away some extra bodies. Rather, it seems like he has given up the whole
artificial life & elixir research entirely (and there’s the
anime-canon again!). For whatever reason, it wasn’t feasible. Just like telling Yukio what he wanted to know didn’t work out.
To summarize: By now there probably isn’t a single entity who knows more about both human spirit and the relation between a demon and his host body than Mephisto.
Now think back to Anime!Yuri and Manga!Rin & Yukio. And consider this quote, the super-vague wtf-is-he-talking-about one.
I think Rin might actually not have to fight with his body at all. As we know, the control Rin has over his flames has everything to do with the control he has over his own mind and emotions. Perhaps the reason Mephisto abandoned the idea of creating artificial hosts, is because he found the perfect ones already: He INTENDS to give the twins to both Lucifer & Satan respectively- once they are ready and he can be sure that neither will budge to the force that tries to overtake them. Spirits not in control of, but imprisoned in a human body.
After all- he already came pretty close to creating something like that before…
midnight-in-town 