A/N:
Hails: Whoo, this took longer to get up than I would have liked but here it is. For those of you who follow me on Tumblr (hms-siren), you'll know that I contributed to The Seasonally Blue Zine and got tasked with Winter as my season! I had an absolute blast writing this and if you haven't seen the zine yet, there's a link to it in my bio. It's FREE to download with 50+ contributors, including artistry, coloring pages, and fanfictions. Y'all go check it out!
I disregard any claims to the characters, setting, or plot of Blue Exorcist/青の祓魔師, which are a property of the mangaka Kazue Kato. I'm just borrowing them for a little non-profit fun.
Name: Yukio Okumura
Branch Location: Sapporo
Suspect of Disturbance: Changeling
That could have gone better, was all Yukio could think. Get in, get the demon, get out. Three things, three simple things that were always present in Yukio's exorcist career, defenestrated. You'd think spending sixteen years in the presence of his brother would give Yukio a keen sense of when to throw himself between Rin and any situation he thought merited the use of his flames. Apparently not.
List of Teammates: Rin Okumura, Shiemi Moriyama.
The Order had received a distress call from a family that believed their child had been possessed. The higher-ups had sent Yukio out with Rin and Shiemi in hopes to solve the problem with nothing but their usual equipment and a vague idea of the disruption's identity only to find that it was more than just one family's child that had been afflicted. Three of the four rescued children were scarred for life. The fourth one would be too—that is if he actually woke up.
Yukio watched quietly as True Cross paramedics carted the comatose child off on a gurney and into an ambulance. Those who remained assured a frazzled Shiemi that everything was going to be okay. He let his eyes slide shut; memories and mistakes alike flickered behind their shield like a staticky projector.
"You're all okay, good," Yukio had said to the children. Comforting people, especially as young as the victims were, wasn't his strong suit. He was as harsh and bleak as winter, as apathetic as the grey clouds in the sky.
"Are you a hero?" a little boy asked. 'Hero' wasn't the word Yukio would have used.
The children shuffled out of the shed and into the street, each one missing a piece of clothing. A scarf here, a pair of shoes there, one was completely coatless, his only blanket was misery, and Yukio felt bad enough that he ended up giving the poor kid his muffler. Though he doubted it would do much.
With the children out of the way, Yukio could get right down the exorcism of the changeling mother: a sallow, hideous mummy wrapped in a translucent cocoon and glued to the interior of the shack he had found them in. Finally, he could exorcise the demon, finish the report that lingered at his fingertips, and call it day. Preferably with a bottle of the worst brand of vending machine coffee and a hot bath.
He just had to organize his thoughts and his notes:
Mission complete. No casualties. Changeling exorcised. Four children returned to their weeping parents and siblings.
Four children that had been acting so atypically violent it amazed Yukio that anyone let it get that far. People were so willing to pretend that nothing was wrong, that they were a model of the perfect family. It sickened him. He'd shot a changeling child dead in front of the parents who'd reported the incident; a changeling that bore a striking, identical resemblance to their own child. He'd originally felt bad for terrorizing those poor parents, but upon discovering how long they'd been trying to preserve their flawless illusion, he couldn't help that little vindictive side of him that was so satisfied and pleased. He scolded himself. This hapless family wasn't like his own. They weren't consistent of Shirō Fujimoto and Mephisto Pheles and their carefully crafted facade, they didn't have demons and the devil himself hunting them twenty-four-seven, or the True Cross Order's desperation to be rid of them. Therefore, he could not take his anger out on them.
At least he could feel better knowing he'd returned that one child to its family as an apology. Though not before Rin came sprinting down the street double-time, looking for him and consequently aggravating the mother changeling until she writhed out of her cocoon and made a beeline for the two of them.
Sometimes Yukio wanted to turn his brother into the Vatican himself. After all this time, Rin still lacked the hindsight to know that starting a blue bonfire in the middle of the street was not the smartest idea. Why Yukio let himself hope anymore was beyond him.
That being said, it was all over and Rin was currently getting chewed out by his superiors across the phone. Yukio could just make out the howling voices clambering to get their fair share of yelling in somewhere in his peripherals. He thought he heard the principal congratulating Rin on not burning down the entire neighborhood, but the words were fuzzy and fighting off the other voices. Or maybe he just hated Mephisto enough to pretend he had a fuzzy voice. The Chairman had skimped on the debriefing this morning and shoved a stack of lengthy files into Yukio's arms. Nowadays Yukio had an inkling that Mephisto enjoyed making his life miserable.
"Oi, Yukio," Rin said suddenly. Yukio's shot a glance at his brother. Rin pocketed his phone and meandered over to the steps that Yukio had chosen to rest on. "We better get going, Mephisto assigned us a new job. He wants us to patrol the area over by the Sapporo Snow Festival. Apparently, there aren't any assignments over there now despite all the demons. Can you believe that?"
Yukio hummed, no immediate response available to him.
"Yo Shiemi!" Rin hollered, holding a hand up high to distract her from pestering the Order's medical officials. She wasn't really needed it seemed, based on the annoyed looks of the medics. "We're going to the festival for patrols, let's get a move on!"
"Coming!"
With a sigh, Yukio heaved himself off the steps and followed his brother's moderate trot from one end of the yard to the other. Whether it was by instinct that Rin put his arm around Shiemi's shoulder or just the fact that they had gotten closer in his absence, Yukio didn't know, and he was going to try not to care either. The duo waited for him to pass, then continued walking behind him whilst chatting merrily and squawking like a pair of paradise birds when a light snow began to fall. A paranoid bit pounded at the back door of his mind.
'They're keeping a close eye on you again,' It hissed scornfully. 'They're watching you, you caught them. They think they're soooo sneaky. They're scared of you.'
"Hey, Yukio~" Rin sang. Yukio stiffened at his brother's tone of voice. He hadn't even noticed that he and Shiemi had quit talking in favor of making conversation with him instead. Oh, the joys of semi-human interaction. "What was all that about back there? You totally freaked out that family."
"I apologize, I didn't mean to keep that changeling from mauling your face off," Yukio retorted.
"Jeez, would it kill you to be nicer?"
With everything Yukio had been through? Yes, it actually might.
When he didn't answer right away, Rin figured he must have pushed another wrong button. He swore that every day went like this, trying to get Yukio to lighten up and only pushing him deeper—the exact opposite of what Rin wanted to do. He let out a sigh and by some small miracle, let the words come to Shiemi instead.
"I think what Rin means, Yuki," She said hesitantly, waiting for some reaction, anything. A sign that Yukio was listening and not hiding his emotions again. "Is that you need to be more gentle." She paused again, thinking momentarily. "You know, like snow."
"Snow?" Yukio asked. Shiemi almost let out a sigh of relief. He was talking at least. One step at a time, she figured. "Shiemi, snow is cold. Snow is… unforgiving. And you've been hit by a snowball before, I assure you, it's anything but gentle."
"That's not entirely true!" Shiemi piped. She pointed at the sky. "Like right now, for example. It's snowing… but gently, see? I think rather than acting like a blizzard, you need to be more like this. Think of the people underneath your sky."
Yukio didn't know what to make of this. He didn't know when Shiemi had gotten so poetic or creative. However, he had his suspicions of where this idea for comparison came from, particularly that it was rooted somewhere in the Order's higher-ups. He wouldn't bug it, for now, he didn't want to be such a nark on Shiemi's good mood.
"That doesn't stop the snow from being cold," He opted to say.
"No, but it's still gentle, still nice to look at," Shiemi said. " And it's not windy, not everywhere. Not so... in your face! You know?"
"Hey, she makes a good point. Besides, there are a lot of good things about snow. Like snow angels and… snowmen!"
"Yeah!" Shiemi chirped. "And even snowmen can be warm!" She leaped forward and before Yukio could decide to move out of the way, she tackled him into a great bear hug. All the breath whooshed out of his lungs as he stumbled forward. The last thing he wanted to do was fall face first onto the snowy sidewalk. Awkwardly, Yukio placed a rough, calloused hand on the arms wrapped around his midriff. Shiemi slipped out from behind him and walked in front, shooting him one last smile.
The festival grounds weren't far from the neighborhood at all. Exorcists had a tendency to walk quickly with square shoulders and straight backs and military strides. A habit, Yukio just now noticed, that has rubbed off onto both his twin and his best friend. Before long, the three of them were monitoring the perimeter of the Sapporo Snow Festival, each of them flashing a license to step inside.
Rin and Shiemi immediately started gawking, staring at monuments made of glittering ice and snow. A partnered set of pagodas made up two sides of a walkway. Lined up and down the way, there were glorious statues towering above the crowds of people—a colossus Lucky Cat smiled down at everyone from the top of a pedestal, world landmarks were placed strategically throughout the area, personas from a plethora of popular manga smiling or in battle stance, and a pair of characters Yukio recognized from a video game he was too young to play—the first personage was austere and frigid, brandishing a katana, not unlike Rin's own. The other stood tall and proud, flaunting a wieldy claymore that was probably too big to actually be a claymore.
Yukio's eyes glided along the features and accessories of each sculpture, of the unique shine each one of them had in the fading sunset. During the day they were illustrious, but at night, lights would flicker on and illuminate many of the sculptures in chromatic, iridescent displays that stole away every bated breath, every heartbeat. As he stared, Yukio supposed Shiemi was right. Right about snow and right about him. He chanced a glimpse at his teammates, a smile pulling at his lips. Rin posed enthusiastically in front of a life-sized R2D2, a zealous grin spread across his face and hands made into peace signs while Shiemi tried to take a picture. Their raucous laughter rose above the snow and warmth bloomed across Yukio's chest. He took a step forward to join them-
RRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR!
The ground rattled underfoot and a nearby sculpture exploded as a monstrous demon plowed into the open. Yukio knew the blood red eyes and pristine fur of the demon immediately: A Yeti. He let out an exhausted sigh. This is what happened when someone forgot to assign more exorcists to the area.
Already his twin pistols were in his hand, Rin was swearing like a sailor, and Nii's vines sprouted defensively around Shiemi.
Well, the moment was nice while it lasted.