Ao no Exorcist/Blue Exorcist (manga based) fanfiction, diverges from canon after Chapter 54 - "I Won't Return to the Knights".
Plot Summary: More than 16 years before the beginning of the series, at the British headquarters of the True Cross Order, Arthur Auguste Angel and Yuri Egin begin Cram School training to become exorcists. One day, Yuri and any information on her vanishes.
Main Pairing: Light "Lightning" Lewin x Yuri Egin.
Other Characters: Shura Kirigakure, Rin Okumura, Yukio Okumura, Nemu Takara, Paku Noriko, Kaoru Tsubaki, Izumo Kamiki, Tsukumo Kamiki, Renzou Shima, Mephisto Pheles, Lucifer, Amaimon, Satan...
Original Ao no Exorcist/Blue Exorcist manga artwork and storyline by Kazue Kato, published by Jump Square, edited under Shūeisha.
*****Right after the events of Chapter 41 - "Location of The Secret" and before the events of Chapter 44 - "The Mad Ravings of Mephisto"*****
Arthur Auguste Angel woke up to a sharp pain on his right leg. Unable to scream due to someone pressing a hand over his mouth, when he tried to get on a sitting position he fell on his back victim to the weight of said person sitting over his chest. He tried to reach for the hand keeping him quite but his own hands had been tied to the bed's header tightly.
"You still sleep like a dead man, Goldilocks." A mocking voice coming from the one above him commented.
He glanced over examining the figure of the speaker, barely illuminated by the light of the moon that leaked into the bedroom through the window's curtains. A woman in her thirties was looking right back at him with emerald coloured eyes. Her skin was pale, her curly brunette hair fell long to the middle of her back, a single white lock of hair hang in front of her face. She had a mole on the right of her forehead; other two, one under each of her eyes, and one more under her mouth, slightly to the right. She was dressed in black, a long sleeved t-shirt, military styled trousers and hiking boots. Behind her, the hilt of the weapon used to wake him up stood up, the katana still pinned on his leg.
He certainly knew that face. But its owner, the person who had originally given him the 'Goldilocks' nickname was long ago dead... and he had been stopped when about to execute the monster responsible for her death, and said monster was now been granted the chance to prove himself worthy of being an exorcist and proclaiming he would be the next Paladin, of all things. And it had insulted his clothing.
"With the way things are, you still keep Caliburn out of reach while you sleep. I understand she probably screams your name in her dreams or something, but if you are going to rest so relaxed that it was possible for me to tie your hands without waking you up, you should at the very least count with a proficient alarm system in case someone decides to try to break in." She casually commented rising her free hand into his visual field to show him a disconnected alarm sensor.
"I heard you and Lightning saw the Gehena Gate." The woman went on. "If I let go of your mouth, will you remain silent so we can talk like civilized adults?"
Exactly how is it a civilized conversation if you tied me up to my own bed after breaking into my house while I slept? he thought, had he not been so infuriated he would have been trembling with fear. And let's not forget you stabbed my leg as wake up call for no apparent practical reason...
He closed his eyes and gave her a resigned but affirmative nod of his head. Her right hand let got of his mouth and she rested the alarm sensor on the night table standing by the bed's header. He opened his eyes again and gave her an inquisitive look.
"Who are you?" he asked, trying to keep his voice's volume as low and calm as he could.
"You know, I'm aware it has been more than 15 years, that I gave birth to twins and almost died. But I'm kind of disappointed my old High School friend cannot recognise me."
No. His mind refused to believe the person in front of him was Yuri Egin.
"You died." he affirmed "Rin Okumura's flames burned you from the inside during childbirth."
"And who wrote down that report, Goldilocks?" Yuri asked rhetorically, frustration finding its way into her voice "I know you better than that, you might like to play idiot so people will let you be but you are quite a smart guy."
"Ok, let's say I believe you are Yuri Egin. How do you know about the Gehena Gate?" he questioned.
Her answer was to dig into the back pocket of her trousers and show him an ID card. It read Lilja Skalmǫld, and identified her as Norwegian, member of the 'Bright Future Foundation'. It featured a photo of a raven haired woman. Her hair was straight and short save for a bang of white hair held back by a hair clip, its length barely reaching the chin, save for some longer bangs here and there. She was wearing glasses and had the same eye colour as the woman holding the ID.
"That's not you, woman. Even if you put on enough make up for you to either be faking your moles right now or be covering them in that photograph, there is no way you can convincingly tuck all that curly hair under a wig... and I can tell from seeing you in front of me right now that this here is your natural hair."
"Oh... Goldilocks, I have found a better method to disguise myself than make up and wigs. You do remember all the frustration their limitations delivered me when we were teenagers sneaking into places we were not allowed to." the woman replied mockingly as she saved the ID card again. She then grabbed a lock of her hair and began to twist it in her hand.
Arthur gritted teeth and instinctively tried to free his hands from the knots, though he was painfully aware he wouldn't be able to do it. This person, whoever she was (because he refused to acknowledge that it existed even the mere possibility she was saying the truth), knew way too much about him. From a nickname he hadn't be called in 15 years to his little sneaks around back during that one year of High School when he had indulged himself to be a bit rebellious. Him and Yuri had never been caught. And he had never done it again since her family had forcefully transferred her from the British branch to the Japanese one.
As the woman seemingly played around with her hair, it began to, first, get shorter, then darker and, finally, straight; until it was just like the one in the photo she had just shown. Before Arthur could scream in horror or shout for help, her right hand was covering his mouth again. She then slid her free hand around her face, causing the moles to vanish. She also gave her nose a light touch on its tip and it became slightly sharper, and her eyes became narrower. Now she was the mirroring image of the woman in the ID photo.
"I apologise, but I'm not carrying my glasses right now." Yuri smirked "Before you get yourself any strange ideas, I'm not a demon eater nor am I on the Illuminati's side. And I'm responsible for the anonymous call that lead your Angelic Legion to the Gate. I just needed a way to know what was happening while I figured out Samael's plans for my children. The True Cross Order wasn't an option as you are aware."
She let go of Arthur's mouth slightly, her hand still lingering close to his lips in case he tried to shout.
"If you do not trust Mephisto," he pronounced the name with gritted teeth "why letting your so beloved sons under Shiro Fujimoto's care when he was working with him?"
"Because I didn't give him the babies. I was planning to hide on my own and build the best life I could with them." Yuri replied angrily "Samael stole my sons and left me to die, bleeding out on the floor of the flat I had taken refuge to give birth in."
"And how did you jump from being bleeding out to be sitting over my chest?"
Yuri answered by simply rolling up her t-shirt, showing her stomach tattooed with various seals that intertwined with each other forming a complex pattern.
It certainly looked like Yuri's handiwork. Even back when they had still been exwires, she had made of sealing an art of such level he often had wondered how came it wasn't a meister in itself.
"I knew it wouldn't be possible to suppress the baby's power forever, no matter how good the seal... and that as long as the baby carried his father's power, none, be it demon or exorcist, would leave us alone. So I decided to take the burden of the power on my body and use my demon blade to regulate it." She explained trailing a finger following the figure she had drawn on her abdomen "I failed, I wasn't aware I was carrying twins and only Yukio was affected by the seal. The channel between us two was stronger than I intended and when it broke it almost killed me. I was saved because I also absorbed increased healing abilities... they just took some moments to kick in."
She pulled her clothes back in place and removed herself from over him. Shaking her head from side to side, her appearance went back to normal. As she stood by the bed, she took the sword out of his leg causing Arthur to let out a hiss of pain.
"Do not complain." She scolded him "I didn't make it half as bad as you made it to Rin."
"How..?" he began to ask but was interrupted.
"There are Illuminati's ears among the Order's walls. I do not know how many or where yet. I will let you know the moment I find out. I made it so Lightning's familiar got in unnoticed, so it will act as my messenger. Meanwhile, be careful with who you talk to, where you talk at, when you talk and what you talk about." she explained turning around to give him her back. "The people I work for now also have had ears in the Order for a time now."
"And just WHO do you work for now?" he asked furiously, trying to unsuccessfully to free himself once more.
Yuri slightly turned her head to look at him. " 'The Knights of the Moon'. Tell Lightning, he will know who WE are." She then began to walk away.
"Hey!" Arthur complained "My hands."
"The rope is charmed, it will undo the knot itself when the sun rises. And when that happens, you will go tell Lightning about our conversation and you two will begin to procure the safety of my children. For as much as all us mothers have eyes on the back of our heads... or can see through our children eyes... that sometimes is not enough." She instructed him "As an incentive, you can tell him that if he behaves I might grant him the grace of being allowed to place his eyes on my butt like back when we were dating. You can give him visual confirmation that all the physical activity my new job demands has improved the quality of my figure."
That said, she sheathed the sword in the scabbard that hanged across her back and, opening the bedroom's window, she disappeared into the night.
The relationship between Yuri and Light was something only himself and the other two had ever known about... and Yuri's father, being the one responsible for forcing the break up. For her to know that kind of things, there weren't many options. His mind refused to believe she was Yuri. Just as she had changed her looks from those of his former classmate to the ones of that stranger in the photograph, there was no warranty to which was he real appearance. There was also that she didn't have any demonic traits that signalled her as a demon-eater or a half-breed to justify the power she had shown him. So, even if she was human, how had she just done what she had just done?
Lewin Light took a sip of coffee sitting in his apartment's kitchen. Easy, letting the day start out slowly, he wasn't one to hurry to work, he had not even changed his pyjama yet.
A knock on the door interrupted the calm atmosphere. He let the cup on the table and got up from his chair.
"Who is it?" He asked warily from behind the door, not even pulling it slightly ajar to see who was on the other side. He didn't usually receive visits, less this early in the morning. Actually, not many people had his address.
"Arthur." A voice answered from the other side of the door. He sounded agitated and worried. "It's urgent."
Lightning opened the door slowly, glancing at his co-worker. The Paladin had bags under his eyes, his hair was dishevelled and, while he was wearing a white shirt with a tie and formal pants as he always did under his uniform, they were rather disarranged. He seemed to not have slept much and made his way there on a hurry.
"What's the matter? Couldn't you have told me at the Vatican?" he asked, motioning with one hand for his friend to enter the flat as he held the door open with the other.
Arthur made his way to the kitchen and took seat on the opposite end of the table where Light had been having his breakfast.
While the ropes had certainly undone themselves when the sun rose up on the sky, if Arthur wanted to catch Lightning before going to his job, he had to move quickly. Not so much because of the Arc Knight but because of himself. Lewin had no problem showing up late to work but Arthur was always punctual, any delay could start up rumours.
"You look like you saw a ghost." Lightning commented as he took his seat back and returned to drink his coffee.
"No, she looked rather solid." the other answered completely missing the meaning of the comment.
Lightning raised an eyebrow, there were very few people able to throw Arthur off like this "She, who?"
"Our friend the Bloody Lady herself. Or at least she claims to be Yuri." Arthur answered "She wields a katana and stabbed my leg while I slept, but it didn't bleed when she removed the sword, so I'm positive she had a Muramasa blade."
He rolled the fabric of the right leg of his pant over to show the wound. Lightning abandoned his coffee and approached his friend to examine it. After giving it a long close look he nodded affirmatively.
"Muramasa blade, no doubt." he confirmed and turned his gaze up to face Arthur "There aren't many people who can handle this kind of demon blade, did it really look like it was her?"
"She could look like Yuri... But she could also look as if she were a completely different person." Arthur answered "She told me she now worked for the 'The Knights of the Moon'. She said you knew who they are."
"Well..." Light sat down on the floor "It's not a secret. They are some independent exorcism organization. They don't have the reputation or the fame of the True Cross Order, but you can find them on almost any telephone guide around the world. The Order keeps an eye on them like it does with any demon-related organization, but this guys... We don't even know who their leader is. It has been systematically impossible to infiltrate them. Their members perform their missions under fake identities. Not even their clients can tell you a thing. But there is also no reason for the Grigori to dim them harmful." He gave the other an scrutinizing look "Maybe you should tell me all of what happened. In detail. Particularly the part where she can look like different people."
It was a good hour of solely Arthur speaking to account for the events of the night before. By the end of it, Lightning was sitting on the floor barely containing tears of laughter.
"I do not see the joke." Arthur complained "I could have been killed."
"She certainly didn't want you dead, since she didn't kill you... and it would be good you take her advise and start keeping Caliburn by your bed, if not under your pillow."
"I can say goodbye to my precious sleep if I do that." He replied "So, you think it was really her? Do you think Yuri is alive?" the man questioned, he himself found the idea surreal.
"You have to admit, 'an eye for an eye' justice was her style. And she did call you 'Goldilocks', when was it the last time someone called you like that?" Lightning answered "I would have to see her butt to be 100% percent sure, but it sounds like her. Particularly if you are right about the seals you saw on her body. What I would give to have been in your place..."
"The sons of Satan..." Arthur gritted his teeth "Why would she ever desire to give birth to such beings? Even least protect them."
"Yuri had that side of her that was screaming 'future mama bear' when we were kids. I can see it." Lightning answered, finally getting a hold of himself "She wouldn't care who the father is. Also, the name she chose..."
"What's with it?" the Paladin asked.
"Lilja means 'lily' in Faroese... and you know how much Yuri loved her name, and her father was of Norwegian ascendency. And Skalmǫld is the name of a Valkyrie. It fits her." he was massaging his forehead by now "Damn your butt, Yuri. I knew Mephisto had probably lied about your death the moment Rin was found out to be alive, but it never crossed my mind he would be so stupid to underestimate you that way. Like hell you would just bleed to death while something precious is being stolen from you like that." he muttered, more thinking out loud than actually addressing Arthur.
"Slow down." Arthur snapped "What about her ability to change her looks? If she is truly Yuri, she should be completely human, and a human cannot do what she did. She would have to, at the very least, be a demon-eater."
"Actually, humans can do that... and much more." Lightning smirked "It's just that the Order forbid it. And hunted down everyone who knew the secret behind those abilities until there was none left. Or so they think." When Arthur simply gave him a blank confused stare Lighting went on "They are called sorcerers and they are normal people... Just that they somehow posses demonic abilities as if they were demons themselves. The Order never figured out how they did it. And, until today, they were supposed to have been extinguished centuries ago."
There was a minute of silence while Arthur tried to assimilate the information Lightning was giving him.
"You know, if this is a joke, it is not funny." he finally sentenced.
"But I'm not joking you!" Lightning protested "And if you are thinking 'How comes an Arc Knight knows and not me the Paladin?' it's because who are allowed to know about this has nothing to do with ranks, but with bloodline. Actually, in a normal situation, someone like me wouldn't have been informed but the Grigori judged someone with my 'interests' was more dangerous left uninformed. You, on the other hand, have them so convinced that you are a complete idiot they left you out of that small circle that decides the politics of the whole True Cross behind closed doors."
"What do you mean by 'bloodline'? You are not taking about that nonsense Yuri's father threw at you of 'never allowing his daughter to marry a person with demon blood', are you? At least a quarter of the exorcists in the Order must have some amount of demon blood in them!"
Lightning laughed loudly before answering "Yes, I'm talking exactly about that. Demon blood only became normal within the True Cross Order after it began to accept exorcists from other religious traditions different from Catholic. In those exorcism traditions, taming was normal and contracts with demons came from intermarriage between them and humans." he got up from the floor and sat back on his place at the other end of the table "But there is still this small, private circle, close to the Grigori who would rather not have demon blood in their family. The Egin family is one of them. You should have seen Yuri's parents' face when they learned Mephisto convinced the Grigori to give the kid a chance." he made a pensive pause as he took a sip from the cup "Actually, I don't think he has a chance. They just didn't want to get on Mephisto's bad side."
"And you are suggesting this 'Knights of the Moon' are actually a group of surviving sorcerers..." He covered his face with both hands, resting his elbows on the table "I... I must inform the Vatican, if their policy is to forbid sorcery and this is going on right under their noses, they will find out eventually and I will be screwed per association."
"I suggest you keep you mouth shut. Or 'you will be screwed per association' when they don't believe you how you learned that sorcerers exist." Lightning answered nonchalantly. "Besides, one of the reasons finding real sorcerers used to be so hard is that they never give each other away. If they sent someone to contact us, that person will never give us away."
"Are we really going to believe her that she is Yuri? You really intend to help her?"
"For a start, I will wait to see what my familiar reports to me. And keeping an eye on the human child might be a good idea..." Lightning answered "Besides, wasn't your only real problem with Okumura Rin that he had 'killed' Yuri at birth?"
Arthur let go of his head and leaned against the chair's back, a sight of resignation escaped his lips "I just hope the human twin has a more bearable personality."
Author's Note:
About Yuri's name and the fic's title.
- Yuri, written ユリ is a traditional Japanese feminine name meaning "lily". (Source)
- Egin (katakana エギン), using World Family Names I tracked it down to different parts of Europe, one of them being the South of Norway. Trying to decide for a name for the fic, I looked up its meaning on the Nordic Names Wiki.
Basically, depending on if the root was "AGI" or "EGG" it could mean either "terror" or "sword".
Then, thinking about what fake name she could take, I decided it should be a Norwegian variation of her real name.
Using the Nordic Names Wiki I found Lilja.
Then, looking up a surname I found Skalmǫld .