Chapter One:
Green Eyed Girl
"You mind repeating that please?" Mephisto gave a dramatic sigh at the young man in front of him before handing a file over to Yukio with a flourish. Yukio sent the head of True Cross Academy a stern look as he began to flip through the sealed document.
'Congratulations Yukio you, and a team of your choosing, have been selected for an elite mission.' Yukio snorted tossing the documents back on the table, the pages flipped open to an attached snap shot, an eight year old girl, with ginger hair, hugging a patch rabbit, grinned up at them.
"I wouldn't exactly call baby-sitting a little girl an elite mission." Mephisto's shit-eating grin made an involuntary shiver run down Yukio's spin, he had no idea where this was going but he didn't like it one bit.
'But she's a very special little girl, her primary handlers after all are the Horsemen…you have heard of the Horsemen correct?' Yukio nodded, of course he had. The Horsemen were an elite team from the American Branch, a band of four Arc Knights, they answered directly to the Vatican.
"Anywho, her two primary handlers got into a little bit of a 'situation,' and HQ lost contact with them while in Brazil. So they needed a team to go down to America and secure the girl until the other Horseman could get back from Malian."
'Why us?' Yukio crossed his arms sending Mephisto a suspicious look, there must have been other teams in America that could have handled the girl, so why them?
"I volunteered you."
'Why?' The look Mephisto gave him next was calculating, carefully judging Yukio's reaction to his next bit of news.
"Satan seems to have taken a great interest in her. I haven't seen this much movement in Hell since, well, Rin.' Yukio gulped, his knuckles tightening around his arms until they turned white. Mephisto shrugged placing a gate key in front of him, the symbol the same logo worn by those of the American Branch.
'You said you where still interested in looking for Rin so I thought,' Mephisto gently tapped the picture of the grinning girl.
"Gabrielle Carter was a good place to start, you have twelve-hours to make a decision."
Yukio signed staring once again at the phone sitting on the desk before him, mocking him. Mephisto had left hours ago, leaving the key atop the documents of Gabrielle Carter. Yukio bashed his head into the desk in frustration, just when he finally began to accept that Rin would probably never come back, now this happens. Tiredly staring at his hand, Yukio made a fist. He could still feel it, even to this day, the feel of Rin's flesh against his hand, the shocked and pain filled expression that crossed his face before he shut it down falling back on his smiling mask. Yes, he had always known that the smiling Rin was nothing more than a façade, that his brother was never as cheerful and strong as he pretended to be, so why? Why did it take losing him to realize his biggest mistake? Yukio closed his eyes and leaned back resting his head on the back of the leather chairs listening to the soft patter of rain against the window pain. It had been raining back then too, a cold and rainy night for the day that Rin ran away.
Yukio had known that he was miserable, had watched as their friends began to pull away, and had just stood by and watched as the abuse was inflected. He had still blamed him back then for their father's death, he had thought Rin deserved it, it wouldn't be until year later that they realized just how much damage their words and actions had inflected on him.
They where supposed to have a training camp but the Vatican hadn't trusted Rin enough to let him leave campus, so they decided to host it in the abandoned dorms again. It had happened right after Rin's secret of being Satan's son had been revealed and he was being ostracized, the other's still too angry or scared to be really be around him. The training camp had been tiring both mentally and physically or everyone, and Rin, well Rin's head really wasn't in the game, and he kept making mistakes so Yukio had taken him aside. They got into another fight, yelling at the top of their lungs, things were said that should have never been uttered, and Yukio had slapped him. Rin had left, locking himself in the kitchen to cool off and Yukio had hoped that would be the end of it, but he was wrong. He hadn't been there for the second part but had heard enough to get the jest, Bon had picked the fight and it ended with the stew Rin had prepared for dinner all over the kitchen floor. The look on Rin's face in that moment, it was the closest to crying he had come since their father's funeral. Yukio should have ended it right then and there but instead he egged it on, he suggested that they eat out instead and left Rin alone, in a kitchen carefully set for eight with the meal he had so diligently prepared all over the floor. Bon's finale parting jab still lingered in the back of Yukio's mind even to this day,
'Disgusting!'
Rin or his prized cooking, the one thing he truly prided himself on? Yukio never had the chance to ask how his brother had taken it because by the time they finally came back Rin was gone.
Yukio signed pulling his wallet out of his back pocket and stared down at the picture with two smiling five year old boys grinning back at the camera. Back before they even knew what demons had been, back to when they had been a semi-happy family. They had spent weeks searching for Rin before the Vatican finally shut them down, and even though they still searched for him in secret Rin was slowly pushed to the back of their minds as school and their training took precedence. This was the best clue they had had in years, Yukio starred into the forest green eyes of Gabrielle Carter, if it meant finding Rin then he was willing to do anything. Yukio held his breath and pressed speed dial counting the rings until the other end was picked up, after a moment the sleep induced grumbling was silenced by three little words spoken by Yukio.
'It's about Rin.'
~Somewhere in Brazil~
Four laid pinned down somewhere on the canopy floor, the maniacal laughter of a demon not too far off from his hiding place, hunting them. With a bullet wound to his stomach and acid burns to his legs he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.
"Well he sounds like a deranged bear on crack," Four sent a glare to his partner curled up at his side reloading her glock. Three returned his glare with a cheeky grin, sticking out her tongue in reply. The next five words Four spat at his partner before they prepared to split up were laced with poison.
"This is all your fault!"
