~Third POV~
Grotesque demons continued entering Assiah via the ever-growing airborne Gehenna Gate. The sky had been painted red and black. People ran about to try and find someplace safe. Children were crying for their mommies and daddies. Beam after beam being shot from the gate's eyes felled building after building, trapping and killing many people in the process.
If Rin were to describe the picture painted before him? The final product of several year's worth of anarchy and war in a day.
As he thought this, he threw his otouto as a demon passed where his otouto's head had been, and after the demon passed, he pulled him back to his feet and continued running. He had his friends by the wrists in a vice grip. In total? He was dragging his brother, exwires, and Shura behind him, as he was a much faster runner. Literally pulling them across the landscape, in the opposite direction of the still-growing gate, towards the building where Mephisto's office was.
Not long prior, he'd joined the others and had been tasked by Mephisto to take them to the safety of the bomb shelter built deep under True Cross Town. Rin had found it awhile back on accident, only to find Mephisto in there with mangas, several large flat screen TV's all linked together to be one huge screen, and all sorts of comforts. It was their little secret, seeing how Mephisto didn't want others knowing about the bomb shelter, which Rin dubbed 'man cave'. No one else knew the shelter existed anymore. Something about a supposed cave-in several years back. The door had been enchanted to only allow access to demons who performed a certain password to open the door. Anybody could go inside once the door had been opened, though.
He floored everybody, including himself, as a large swarm of hobgoblins that'd been aiming for them passed just barely overhead, got up, pulled everybody to their feet, and continued to drag them.
"Ya could've given us a warning before throwing us on the floor!" Bon yelled through panted breaths. Everyone else was too winded from trying to keep up with Rin for 4 miles, and were trying to regain their breath as quickly as they could during the indefinite amount of time they had before he would start running again. "No time for warnings!" Was his short, curt reply, before flooring everybody yet again, behind a deserted farmer's cart as a flying ball of... fur, the size of a wrecking ball, had bunny ears, little scrawny hands and feet made of dead leaves, eyes made of emeralds, and a drooping, feathering tail barreled through the air above the cart, apparently not noticing them. With a quick glance, Rin flipped the cart onto its side and untied half of the canopy, allowing several fruits of several colors to roll out onto the street.
"In. Now." He pointed inside the cart.
"Are you crazy?!" Bon replied, flailing his arms, everyone still winded terribly.
"...Bon, this is a life or death situation. Maybe... we should just listen...?" Konekomaru was leaning on Shima for support, clutching his chest with a scrawny hand.
Ah, yes. Trust. Something they'd only started putting back in Rin as of late, after it had all been lost. Yet...
"...Okay. Let's go." He said with yet another pant, and climbed inside the cart, giving a curt nod at Rin before he went inside and sat in, pressing himself against the wall to make space for the others in the cart that was probably not big enough to hold all of them plus their personal spaces. The next to climb in was Konekomaru, then Izumo, then Shima, then Shura. Rin started intently at his otouto, who approached him and hugged his nii-san tightly.
"Don't worry. I promise we'll all make it. I've been protecting you since we were little; have some faith in your nii-san! Just leave it to me, like you used to." And he ruffled Yukio's hair in a loving older-brother way. Yukio smiled at his nii-san and climbed into the cart. After he was in, Rin tied the canopy back up, and flipped it so the canopy was facing the sky.
"Sorry!" He cried when he heard a few banging noises and a few moans, as though somebody had hit their head hard on the wood. Once he said that, though, a few 'we're okay's followed.
The Gehenna Gate was only a mile away, and headed in their direction. He had to get them to the bomb shelter before the Gate swallowed Assiah.
He quickly but carefully adjusted himself between the two pieces jutting out from the cart, gripped them, and ran like he'd never ran before. He'd never been more thankful for having demon strength, which Rin dubbed 'the strength of several farm horses'. At the same time, he didn't really want to reach the bomb shelter. After all a predecided fate lay for his friends at the bomb shelter. One they had no say in. One they didn't know of. Like Rin had.
FLASHBACK
"So it's really gonna happen." Rin said with a careful, monitored sigh.
"Yes, it is." Mephisto, sitting just a few feet away from Rin and facing him, accompanied his answer with a nod.
"They're all gonna die, aren't they?"
"The humans are. As soon as they enter Gehenna, the demons will sense them and consume them." He said in a monotonous voice, but the look in his eye told Rin that he didn't really want all these people to die just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"I know that. I meant the exwires, Yukio, and Shura. They're gonna die, aren't they?" His eyes became shiny from tears building up in his eyes, but continued to stare at Mephisto.
At the moment, the exwires were helping distribute supplies among the people of True Cross Town. Yukio was currently being possessed by Satan above ground, and Shura was distributing new weapons among the remaining exorcists as they devised a plan to take down Satan and the gate.
"They could. But we can save them. We both care about them. Otouto, I have an idea." That was the first time Mephisto had called Rin otouto, and it struck a heart string. But Rin had an idea about what he wanted to do. It hurt him, but he also knew this was the only way they'd survive for the entire upcoming war. "I'm listening, nii-san." Rin answered quietly, knowing they would have to work together. With a nod, Mephisto told him all about how they would have to drive Satan out of Yukio's body first, and everything up until the Gehenna Gate took to the skies. "No matter what happens after that, you must get them to the bomb shelter. Is that understood?" Rin nodded quickly, wanting to hear whatever else would be left of it.
"After that, we will carry out the final phase of the plan. You already know what I mean." Rin's face fell. "You'll still have company, Rin. And won't you be delighted in knowing that when this is all over, you can let them live the rest of their lives without having to suffer the war?" Rin thought about it, and steeled himself. "Yeah." Mephisto leaned in and gave Rin a tight hug and staying like that for a few minutes, knowing very well he needed it. Rin sobbed quietly but didn't actually cry.
FLASHBACK END
Rin shook his head; he was giving them a better future. Besides, now was not the time for hesitation. He already missed that chanced. With that, he picked up the pace and began to sprint.
His friends had been strangely submissive. He'd just yelled at them to follow him, and they did so without so much as an 'okay' or 'why?'. They just did. Must have been Mephisto's work.
With a tired pant, he reached the building where Mephisto's office was, and hauled the wagon straight into the elevator. The entire time the elevator was going to the top floor, he couldn't stop tapping his foot in anxiety that something was about to burst through the wall and ruin the plan. Regardless of Rin's anxiety, he and the wagon made it safely to the top floor and he continued to haul it through several halls.
"What's going on out there?" They must have noticed when they stopped and went up, and Rin, judging from the sound of the voice, assumed it to be Konekomaru. "Nothing, Koneko. We're almost to safety." None of them except for Rin knew that the location was also a rendezvous point for them and Mephisto. Finally, they went into the office, and Rin parked the wagon safely away from the bookshelf to the right of Mephisto's desk. Rin went around the room, closing windows in hopes of blocking off any human scent in the thought-to-be-deserted building and closed the blinds for obvious, similar reasons. As he closed the blinds of the last window, the room became nearly black with darkness. Rin was glad for being able to see despite it being so dark. Another pro of being a demon, he supposed. With a grunt, he toppled the previously mentioned bookcase, to reveal a huge reinforced steel door (you could hardly say door, it was just a slab. If it was the same color and had the same pattern of the rest of the wall on it, it would just be another part of the wall. There were no openings or handles anywhere on the slab), that seemed unable to be opened by any amount of humans, whether pushed or pulled. He slowly dragged the topside of his nail from the top of the door, down the middle, until his nail was halfway down the door. Then, at the halfway point, he dragged his nail from the left side of the door to the right, and without lifting up his finger, dragged it from right to left.
After what sounded like several marbles dropping, the door slowly creaked open. Rin went back over to the cart and pulled it down into the newly-revealed spiral staircase. With every stair, the cart went bump, and was accompanied with 'oof's and 'umph's. But there was no time to bother with that. There were at least another couple hundred steps until the very bottom, where the entrance to the bomb shelter was. Despite the office being one of the most elevated places in True Cross Town, the bomb shelter was actually a lot lower than the bottom level of the town. Mephisto had told him that it was about -500 yard elevation. As he continued down the stairs, he heard the door creak shut and the clopping, hollow noises of the bookcase righting itself. It was set on a machine attached to the bottom of it and to the door, so when the door closed, the bookcase would prop itself or pull itself flat against the wall.
This was going to be a long ride.
After about half an hour (Rin had rushed down the stairs, and via manipulating his balance to nearly its full extent he didn't fall) he reached the bottom door, and mirrored the previously done actions to open the other door, so it opened up. Rin normally would have laughed at the strange array of items and colors, but now was no time for laughing.
As he continued to haul the cart through the bomb shelter, the other door shut. He continued through the bomb shelter, going through the only other door in this room, and continued moving through the bomb shelter. Each room was different themed. Like, one was a living room, one was a kitchen, and so on. He continued through all of these rooms, until he reached an empty one, where Mephisto was standing, looking at Rin, as though he'd been waiting for a long time.
"Are you ready, Rin?" He asked quietly, not wanting to rub him the wrong way with such a personal matter. "Yeah, I'm ready to get it over with." Rin flipped the cart onto it's side and ripped the canopy clean off, allowing everybody to roll out of it.
"Where are we?" Konekomaru whispered, looking around the room.
"The bomb shelter." Rin answered monotonously, standing so they could only see his side, looking at the ground, glancing at them occasionally out of the corner of his eye.
"Nii-san? Is something wrong?" Yukio was about to stand up, but he stumbled down, as though some unseen pressure was keeping him down.
"Just... hurry up and do it, Mephisto." Rin crossed his arms and turned his back on his friends, as Mephisto cracked his knuckles and approached everybody.
"What're you doin' ya damn clown?" Shura stared at Mephisto, getting a little more scared with every step he took.
"Saving your future." Rin answered her quietly, as they slowly turned black and white, and froze. Not like stopped-moving froze. Froze like their time had been paused. Each with a different look on their face. Some of surprise, some of confusion, some of anger, some of fear. Rin turned to look at them all again.
"So, now we just wait for Assiah to be swallowed?" He turned his attention to Mephisto as hoisted Shura and Yukio over his shoulders, and wrapped his tail around Bon and carefully pulled him across the floor with his tail. Mephisto carried Shima and Konekomaru over one shoulder and Shiemi over the other, as they walked out of the room towards the room full of bunk beds. "Yes. If we wage war now, we'll be wiped out immediately. And besides, we, as a general side of the war, have many more allies in Gehenna than we do in Assiah. We need to wait till' after we're inside Gehenna." Mephisto explained simply as they rested each one of them on a different bed.
"Right. How long would you say this would last?" Rin looked up at Mephisto as they left the room, turned off the lights, and closed the door. "As the Demon King of Space and Time..." Mephisto proclaimed himself, apparently thinking. "This will take so long that we probably won't remember what peace feels like by the time its finished. But we, as demons, will be the survivors, we will have to rebuild Assiah. So we have to at least remember Assiah before the war." He cast a glance at Rin. "I should probably go make preparations. Go and get yourself settled." And with that, he left the room and went about taking care of the preparations. Rin moved into another room, except this one only had 1 bed, and the room was customized. With a groan, he flopped on the bed and quietly cried.
Like I said before, I'm just getting all the stories I'm currently working on out there, at least just the first part, so that I actually remembered to do it. Sorry if you're waiting for another one of my stories to come out . It'll probably take awhile... but I promise I won't drop any of them! YOU WILL SEE THE END OF THEM ALL! If you choose to read them and/or wait until I finish them. But otherwise? YOU WILL SEE THE END OF THEM ALL!