Howdy. This is my first entry into the Blue Exorcist fan verse. I've grown pretty obsessed with this anime over the last few months, as well as Kyoto Saga, and it has become one of my favorites along with the manga to it. This was inspired by the first ending to each episode (the one with 'Take Off' by 2pm) so I hope you guys enjoy it. This will be divided up into three separate chapters.

Disclaimer: Blue Exorcist is the property of Viz Media and Kazue Kato. Any songs used or mentioned don't belong to me either.


Being fifteen is hard. It's the age that symbolizes being halfway between a child and an adult, starting high school, and for most, learning how to drive. On top of that, there's the raging hormones, fitting in with your peers, and trying to navigate the waters of young adulthood.

Throw in being the son of Satan and that is Rin Okumura's life in a nutshell.

Rin, on the surface, was a normal fifteen-year-old; dark blue hair, piercing blue eyes, and athletic as they come. He wasn't the best student at school; heck, one could say that he was the absolute worst. But he more than made up for that with his field smarts and athletic abilities. As the son of Satan, he was more than just an average fifteen year old; his ears were pointed like an elf's and longer canine teeth than an average person's.

A nineties dance song blared extra loud over the boom box in the small dorm room. Rin Okumura didn't need to worry about complaints because it was just him and his twin brother Yukio in the entire building at True Cross Academy. He had free reign to do whatever he liked in complete privacy.

He did a quick spin, followed by karate chops to both sides of his body. He floated gracefully across the floor, the music guiding every step as he moved fluidly from one move to the next. He loved dancing. It was something that would make him feel right whenever it seemed like the whole world was out to get him again. All that mattered was the music taking his soul to new heights.

"Got canned heat in my heels tonight, baby," he mouthed along with the words to the song. Kuro, his cat/familiar, followed along happily among his feet.

"This is so fun!" the cat meowed with a big smile on his little face.

Just as Rin was about to transition into the next move, the song cut out. He looked over at the boom box, almost worrying that something was defective about it. The answer to that question stood right next to the device.

Yukio Okumura, the youngest of the Okumura twins, looked at his older brother with a puzzled look. While Rin's hair had a blue tint to it, Yukio's was tinted brown. Glasses rested over blue eyes that were just as piercing as his brother's. Between the two of them, Yukio was very handsome with a well-chiseled face that girls fawned over. He had a mole on his chin and two on his left cheek, one just under the bottom part of his left lens.

"Rin, what are you doing?" he finally asked, sounding like a parent catching their child with a hand in the cookie jar.

Rin didn't answer as he gazed back at his brother. The two didn't say a word for several moments, leading Rin to fear that a scolding was coming on. Despite being the oldest of the two, the way he acted sometimes led people to believe that he was the younger brother; not Yukio.

Kuro could feel the uncomfortable atmosphere too and decided that now was the time to make his escape. He burst out the door and headed down the hall towards his litter box in the cafeteria of the dorm.

Rin couldn't take the tense atmosphere any longer and finally said something. "Nothing. I was just…um…I was…" he struggled to come up with an explanation, and the way Yukio glared at him didn't help.

"What does it matter?" he snapped. "I was dancing; I wasn't doing anything illegal, so don't look at me like that, damn it!"

Yukio snorted a chuckle to himself. It was best to let the matter go before he got Rin wound up enough to unleash his flames. He was still learning how to control them, so it was a game of Russian roulette that Yukio did not want to play.

"Fine," he said. "Have it your way then."

He sat down and put his briefcase on top of his desk. Much like Yukio himself, the desk was thoroughly organized and neat with books arranged alphabetically by title, genre, and author on the shelves. He took some papers out of his briefcase and grabbed his red pen to begin grading. In addition to being a student at True Cross Academy, he was also a teacher and had the unfortunate luck to have Rin in one of his classes.

"You know," said Yukio with a mischievous smile as he focused on grading. "There is a talent show coming up in two weeks. You're a pretty good dancer, so you should sign up for it if you're interested."

Rin cocked an eyebrow. "A talent show? Haven't heard about it."

"I'm surprised you haven't. There's been flyers posted around the school for weeks now."

Rin searched his memory bank for noticing any flyers around the school halls when he would walk from class to class. It finally clicked with him: He did see something talking about a talent show coming up at the end of the month.

His eyes widened in excitement as a large Cheshire cat smile rose up on his face.

"Awesome!" he cried, punching his fist into the air. He pictured himself dazzling the audience with his amazing dance moves, everyone's eyes completely on him as he delivered the greatest performance anyone had seen. And when the end came, he was announced as the winner.

He blushed when an image of Shiemi Moriyama, a classmate that he had a huge crush on since the first time they met, appeared and she said that she liked him too. A shiver went down his spine at that.

Rin threw his arms around Yukio's neck, with the younger brother gasping in surprise.

"You're the best, you know that?" Rin gushed as he rubbed his cheek against his brother's head. "I'm gonna win that thing, and it's all because of you, my precious brother."

"N-No problem, Rin," Yukio's eyes bulged out of his skull, feeling uncomfortable in his brother's embrace. "Could you let go of me, please? I have papers to grade. Before you can think about signing up, first do your homework."

Rin smiled with pride. "My homework is already done," he said as he flashed a paper in Yukio's face. "Feel free to check it too."

The younger Okumura twin sighed and looked over the paper. Things seemed fine for the first line and then he frowned, releasing an exasperated groan. He turned the paper back towards Rin.

"You're giving me an ulcer, Rin. You call these scribbles homework?"

The smile on Rin's face disappeared instantly. He snatched the paper from his brother's hand and plopped his butt in his desk chair. His fantasy continued playing in his head as he re-did his homework.

'Look out, True Cross! I'm coming!'


The lunch bell rang around noon the next day and hundreds of students flocked around the school to enjoy their lunch break. Those who could afford it went to the cafeteria while others went out onto the grounds or stayed in the classroom to eat. Rin was in the latter category.

The whole morning was a blur of him not paying attention in class more than he usually did because he was too excited about signing up for the talent show. Once the bell rang, he stayed in his classroom along with Shiemi, Izumo Kamaki, and the kid with the pink rabbit puppet. His other friends, the Kyoto Trio of Ryuji Suguro, Renzo Shima, and Konekomaru Miwa, left to go somewhere else to eat. At least, that's what he thought.

After finishing his lunch, Rin walked down the hallway to sign up for the show at the entrance to the auditorium. As he passed a music room, the sound of singing caught his extra-sensitive ears. He stopped walking. Three voices were singing together in perfect harmony. Rin couldn't name the song, but it was nothing short of beautiful.

He opened the door just a bit to peek into the room. His eyes widened when he saw the Kyoto Trio were the ones singing.

"I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me. He's just a poor boy from a poor family. Spare him his life from this monstrosity. Easy come, easy go. Will you let me go? Bismillah! No, we will not let you go. Let him go!"

Suguro's smooth baritone and Konekomaru's falsetto complimented Shima's tenor voice as they filled the entire room with the sounds of their singing. Rin watched silently from the doorway, completely mesmerized by the performance.

An idea came to his mind. Rather than it being just him dancing for the talent show, maybe the four of them could join forces. They could do a boy band act and get girls screaming for them that way. A smile rose up his face. The thought of it was enough to send chills of excitement down his spine.

While he was thinking, the three of them had finished the song. They smiled softly at each other for a moment until Suguro spoke.

"That was good, but we can do better," said the burly fifteen-year-old, his eyes narrowed in his trademark scowl. "Shima, don't change your voice to match one of ours. You have to keep your concentration."

"Sorry, Bon," The pink-haired boy scratched the back of his head nervously, angry at himself for screwing up than the person who called him out. "That was my fault."

Suguro then turned to Konekomaru. He was the shortest of the three with cat-like eyes behind a pair of red glasses, and his head was completely shaved.

"Konekomaru, you were flat in the middle there. Watch it."

"Got it," Konekomaru muttered, his gaze fixed down at the floor.

Before they could begin another song, Rin picked that moment to make himself known to the three boys.

"AWESOME!"

The three of them jumped from the volume of the cry. Their eyes snapped to the doorway and saw Rin standing there with his eyes bulged in amazement. He had stepped inside the room by this point.

"O-Okumura," Konekomaru stuttered.

"What a surprise," Shima echoed with a nervous smile.

Suguro glared at the half-demon boy. "What the hell, dude?!" he exclaimed. "You shouldn't sneak up on people like that without a word of warning! What's wrong with you?"

Rin was too caught up in his daydream to acknowledge Suguro's complaint. Ever since the class got back from Kyoto, the trio had begun building a steady friendship with Rin that was still a work in progress. Rin had gained their trust by now, but he could still feel a sense of trepidation from them.

"Sorry," he finally said. "But I couldn't help but overhear you guys from the hall. You were so awesome!"

"Thanks," Konekomaru blushed.

"We've been singing together since we were little kids," Shima explained. "Back at home, they used to call us the Singing Dragons around the temple."

Suguro now stood in front of Rin. The smaller teenager had to look up in order to make eye contact with the taller male. He was so close that the smell of Axe and musk overpowered Rin's nose.

"What do you want, Okumura?" Suguro asked, sounding more curious than annoyed.

Rin smiled. "What I want is you guys. Have you heard about the talent show coming up soon?"

Suguro and Shima shrugged their shoulders indifferently. Konekomaru's face became slightly pale; no one would have noticed because of his natural pale complexion.

"Yeah, so?" said Shima.

"What I was thinking…" Rin continued, pausing for dramatic effect. "…was you guys join forces with me to form an act. I was going to sign up just for myself, but I think doing something as a group would be way better. We'd do it all: choreography, harmonies, and dozens of girls screaming for us. What do you think?"

Suguro and Konekomaru stared blankly at him like he had lost his mind. Shima, on the other hand, drooled over the prospect of girls fawning all over him; Izumo most of all. It was safe to say that he had a bit of a crush on her, despite her telling him to get lost every time he tried to make a move with her.

He did not need to think about it any further.

"Well," said Suguro. "Maybe we should-"

"We'll do it!" Shima cried.

"HUH?!" his friends gasped in surprise. Konekomaru looked like he was going to be sick at this point, while Suguro was completely beside himself with shock.

"Shima, are you out of your mind?!" he exclaimed.

"No, Bon, I am completely sane."

"Why do we have to be involved too?!" Konekomaru whined, hoping and praying that he could find a way out of this.

"Because we're a package deal," the pink-haired boy said matter-of-factly. "I won't sing with anyone else unless you guys are there with me."

The two boys now felt torn. Shima did have a point: the three of them had done everything together since they were very young. This was definitely out of their comfort zone; they had only sung together in private, never in public, so it would be a first for them.

Rin stepped in to try knocking them off of the fence and onto his side.

"Come on, Suguro," he teased, nudging him playfully in the side with an elbow. "What have you got to lose?"

The rooster-haired teenager finally sighed. He couldn't believe he was being coerced into this, but he didn't see what harm would come from it. Konekomaru looked at him with pleading eyes, begging him not to agree to it.

"Can you sing?" he asked Rin.

"Watch," the blue-haired boy smiled before erupting into song. "Oh Mandy. When you came and you gave without taking. But I sent you away, oh Mandy. When you kissed me and stopped me from shaking. But I need you today, oh Mandy."

"Okay, you're good." Suguro had to admit he was impressed. Rin had a good tenor voice that would easily compliment Shima's if they sang together.

"So are you guys in?"

After another second, Suguro shrugged. "Ah, what the hell," he said. "We'll do it."

"YES!" Rin punched a fist into the air, a joyous grin plastered on his face. While he celebrated, the feline-faced boy rushed up to Suguro.

"B-B-Bon, are you sure about this?" he asked.

"Don't be such a chicken, Konekomaru," Suguro teased with a smirk. "This will be nothing for us. Remember when we sang during dinners at the temple?"

Konekomaru's pupils dilated. He didn't have too many good memories of singing in front of others. "Yeah, but-" he began to say.

"But we never got to perform outside of it because of someone's stage fright," Shima interrupted, glaring right at him.

An embarrassed blush erupted on Konekomaru's face. "I do not get stage fright!"

"Then what do you call puking in the backroom and running away when the choir concert was about to begin?" Suguro smirked.

Even though his two friends had him cornered, Konekomaru was not going to be browbeaten into submission.

"That was one time!" he said.

"Actually, that happened every time," Shima struggled to control his giggles.

"SHIMA!"

Rin threw an arm around him and pulled him into his side, giving the boy a bright smile as the two other boys were pulled in too.

"No need to worry, Konekomaru," he said. "This is going to be awesome. Come on, guys. Let's go sign up!"

'Mother, Father, help me get out of this!' Konekomaru thought as Rin escorted them down to the office to sign up. He honestly felt like throwing up right now.


Poor Koneko XD We'll see where this goes. Hope you guys enjoyed it and are excited for what's next. Again, the lasting image of them doing boy band moves at the end left an impression on me, as well as most of you, that I had to use that in a story idea. May update sporadically, but it will never be too long. I promise.

Be sure to leave a review and tell me what you think. I'll respond to them with each new chapter. See you guys next time ;-)

Song credits are 'Canned Heat' by Jamiroquai (famously from Napoleon Dynamite), the operatic section of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' by Queen, and 'Mandy' by Barry Manilow.