A/N: (I'm making this short. My computer hates me, and deleted all the changes I made to this before I was finished. D: )
So...not much to say. Had a lot of free time in school the past week, and therefore wrote because I needed to. I'm really lucky to get all this free time... ^^;;;
For those of you who don't remember, this is what happened last chapter: Yukio takes the test for a Middle Second Class Meister in Dragoon and Doctor, Rin plays tag with Shura and wonders about her strange, standoffish behaviour, Shura and Fujimoto talk about the boys and what her plans for the future are, the gang celebrates Christmas/the twins' birthday, Rin gets a new, sharp, pointy, specially commisioned katana and Yukio gets two guns-the wisdom of this is never discussed. At the very end of the year, Shura leaves in the middle of the night.
So! Here it is. Enjoy!
Anonymous reviews:
Deidarathebanana: ...you have too much to reply tooooo. Were I to reply to everything, you would have something about one or two pages long (sweatdrops) But I want to thank you for all the comments-it's really nice to see what parts you enjoy. And the compliments are amazing, as well as the critiques-I'll do my best to leave that out, which shouldn't be too hard seeing as they're older and not as likely to do that sort of thing...
Red Rose2: I do know that many chapters on are much shorter-however, mine are only updated monthly, and I've seen longer that are updated every two weeks. If I were to try doing that... (nearly dies from just thinking about it). Thank you for the compliments! Shiro's alive...for now. You never know, he may suddenly drop dead one chapter and you'll all be without him (cackles before regaining her composure). Anyway, thanks again!
Hegedu87: (is very flattered) I'm...I'm really happy that it was so awesome that you stayed up two nights reading this! And I have thought about being an author-actually, that was my dream job when I was in seventh/eighth grade-but I feel like I wouldn't be able to make it. A lot of writing is, the way I see it, stumbling upon an idea that readers like enough to buy a book. I'm not sure I can do that...But thank you anyways! I'd love to continue writing, if only on the side, and plan on taking creative writing classes for the rest of my schooling career!
leahisasuperhero: I hate it when that happens! I also hope you find your passwords/remember them again, because that's happened to me several times and the whole process is just annoying. Thank you for the compliments and the review!
Chapter Seven: Der Weg zur Wahrheit
(The Path to Truth)
.
It was official. It had been official for several years, but now there was something added to this Officiousness.
Rin hated paperwork, and there was nobody that was going to convince him otherwise.
It was bad enough that he suffered through years and years and years of compulsory schooling, where every other day he had a mountain of homework to work through instead of doing fun things. This became especially apparent when he entered middle school—the most hellish schooling of his life. Upon entering middle school, Rin suddenly discovered something: the difference between the strength of everybody else during years of middle school and the same strength at the end of his elementary school was staggering. For a few months, Rin began acquiring far too many bruises and scrapes than was acceptable, despite having been trained to fight since he was young. He'd put up with the ambushes until they started picking on Yukio, who, for some strange, stupid reason, didn't fight back when they did.
After that, Rin chucked homework to the wind and got back at those upstarts who thought that they could beat on his little brother. It had led to the rather unkind misnomer 'demon spawn' or something along those lines, but Rin could ignore the nasty twinges his heart gave whenever he heard it if it was for his brother.
Rin had gotten into a lot of fights since Shura left.
He looked down at his hands, especially at the palm of his right. Pale, barely recognizable marks littered it, and his gaze was unusually blank as he stared at it. He stretched it open, watched the lighter patches stretch in response, and then clenched it again. Sometimes it felt a bit funny, but that was admittedly after he'd spent a couple hours slapping the hell out of a training dummy or two.
"You're my teacher. 'Course you'd come."
He sat at his desk, hunched over a bit and staring at his suddenly tightly clenched fists. Shura wasn't his teacher anymore—she wasn't going to come again.
A year and a half ago, when she left, his old man had tried to explain it to him. He'd tried to explain why Shura left, but the story had holes and holes and holes in it. In one dark corner of his mind, Rin wasn't sure anymore if she left because of duty, because she didn't have anything more to teach him or because she'd gotten tired of him for a bit. He hadn't forgotten how she'd distanced herself the months before that December, how she'd slowly started to ease herself out of their daily lives. Looking back on it, it was clear what she was doing, but to his almost fourteen year old mind, it was only briefly confusing, and maybe a little worrying. Rin, however, trusted his teacher with all of his being.
If they ever met again…Rin wasn't sure what he'd do, but he was sure that Shura would never get that undying, unquestioning trust again.
A slight breeze fluttered through the open window, ruffling the pages of paper on his desk, and he turned his attention back to them with a scowl.
Paperwork…
With a groan, he tipped back in his chair and ruffled his hair, yawning so wide that tears squeezed out of his eyes. One rocking motion later, he let the chair slam back onto all four legs and he reached a hand out for the abandoned pen lying on the ground. He'd dropped it a while ago…In his bent-over position, Rin tilted his head to the side to read the time on wall clock.
5:47
Rin straightened in surprise, eyes a little wider than usual and blinking owlishly. He stared at the clock for a few seconds more, mind moving slower than usual. Wait a minute, wasn't his interview at quarter past six?
He was quiet for one moment, then two, as he realized a few things.
He had three pages of information to finish.
He had a suit to put on.
And he had about fifteen minutes to walk.
…Shiiiiiiit.
The fifteen-year-old boy flew into action, his pen scratching a scrawling mess across the white paper as he rushed to fill everything out. References? By now, he knew them by heart. Schools attended? Scrawled on a piece of paper tacked to the wall. Interests, hobbies and credentials for the job? It took a bit of thinking, but he could do it pretty fast.
It was on the last page that he came upon the section where he was supposed to list past jobs; what they were, how long he'd held them, and why he'd left. The problem was that, by this time in his life, Rin had held too many jobs to remember and the paperwork wasn't around.
Rin suddenly remembered that the last resume he'd filled out had taken about two hours to do because of that last section. In one slow, jerky motion, he dropped the pen on the desk and held his head in his hands, his elbows resting on the papers in an apparent display of despair.
Think, Rin, think. It's all in there somewhere, you've done this before. Rin squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated as hard as he could, but the ticking of the clock only seemed to get louder with every time it sounded. The teenager was just about at his wit's end when the door opened with a quiet creak, causing him to whirl around in his chair and blink dazedly at the person who'd entered.
A pair of glasses flashed in the low light of the sun coming in through the window. "You're still working on that, Rin? You have five minutes until you have to be at your interview!"
A mournful sound escaped the young man's mouth, and his head thumped back on the desk, cheek pressing against the paper covering it. "I can't remember…"
Yukio paused, and then moved up behind him with a few steps. "Remember what?"
Rin looked up at his brother over his shoulder and flushed a little in embarrassment before shifting his eyes away and replying sullenly, "I just can't remember."
There was suddenly a hand in his hair, and Yukio pulled his head up gently before sliding the papers from underneath his face away. Despite the way his brother did it, Rin still let out a yelp and instinctively pulled away, which only made things hurt more.
"Hey hey hey, what'd you do that for?"
Yukio let go of Rin's head, and it thunked heavily back onto the desktop. As his twin let out another indignant yell, the younger brother only had to glance at the paper and the instructions on it before he gave a heavy sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. Rin had just whipped around his head to glare at his brother when Yukio picked up the pen and sat down at the other half of the desk—the immaculate, organized part of the desk, in that sensible, ordinary black chair.
"Get changed, Rin," Yukio said, pushing up his glasses and starting to write the information down. "I'll get this down for you."
Rin blinked at his twin once before tears started welling in his eyes. "M-Moly Four-eyes? You're really going to do this?"
A vessel pulsed on Yukio's temple as the boy gritted out, "If you're calling me that, then absolutely not."
After giving a theatrical sniff and rubbing his eyes to get the water out of them, Rin stood up abruptly from his own chair—which had had a can of bright red spray paint taken to it a year or so ago—and dashed over to get the suit Jiborou-san had lent him. As he struggled into it, Yukio fired questions at him.
"You know the Ramen-Delivery Service? Why were you fired again?"
Rin pulled up the slacks and zipped them shut before answering nonchalantly, "'Cause I threw a delivery at some jerks who were picking on some abandoned cats. It'd been the fourth time somethin' like that—the ramen throwing—had happened, so…yeah."
The pen scratched across the paper for a while longer. "And at the supermarket?"
"Hobgoblin was terrorizing some poor girl, and when I chased after it," Rin grunted as he pulled on the white shirt that, for some reason, refused to go on properly, "It and I knocked over a bunch of stuff in the store. The boss wasn't really happy with me."
Yukio let out a noise that sounded like a snort of laughter and muttered something under his breath, but Rin didn't hear it, as engrossed as he was in trying to tie his tie. He'd just managed to prevent it from choking it and had come to the conclusion that it was either sentient or possessed by some unheard of minor demon when Yukio asked the final question. "And what about the WacDonald's job? You were flipping burgers, how did you get fired again?"
Rin tore off the necktie and flung it on the ground, his face burning. "Look, I…do I really need to answer that?"
When Yukio turned half-around in his chair and gave him that look, Rin knew what the answer was, and he mumbled out what had happened as he pulled on his jacket.
"They weren't really good, so I tried to make them better. Thing was, I kinda messed up and put something spicy on things that weren't supposed to be that way…"
This time, Yukio really did snort in amusement. "And why wasn't it dismissed as a simple mix-up?"
Rin grumbled and looked to the side, reaching over and pocketing his ID card as well as the address of the potential job as he did so. "The spice was on the other side of the cupboard from what I needed."
Yukio snickered, and then turned around and wrote something down on the paper before scanning the entire document once more and then handing it to his younger brother. "If you run, I think you'll get there in time. I'm going to be checking over the Acadamy while you're out and might not be back until later, so you might be in bed by the time I get back."
Rin stuffed the papers into a manila envelope he'd found on his bedside table and looked at Yukio quizzically. "How's that going? Aren't you going to be helping the old Fart with his medical class this year?"
"It's going," Yukio smiled a little before frowning reproachfully at his brother. "You shouldn't go calling Father that, though."
"Old Fart, Dad, whatever," Rin made a dismissive motion with his hand before walking quickly to the door and glancing at the clock.
It read 6:08.
He scrambled at the doorknob and jerked it open, calling over his shoulder to Yukio, "I'll see you later!"
"Good luck!" Yukio yelled after him, but Rin was halfway to the front door by the time he heard it. He fumbled a couple times with the doorknob before shouting, "I'm off!" and opening the door before slamming it back shut.
The fifteen-year-old glanced down at his watch and cursed before setting off at a sprint, hoping desperately that he would get to his interview on time. A couple blocks down and a right turn or two, Rin found himself next to a narrow street that he knew would lead to the busy center the job was in.
The only problem with this street was both the people and the demons that tended to lurk there. That, and it was absolutely infested with Coal Tars, which were annoying at best.
Rin slowed to a stop, the narrow alleyway on his right side. He looked down into the darkness of the street, and then back onto the way he was going to use to get to his interview.
Slowly, he glanced at the watch on his right wrist, and snarled at the time shown. More than anything, he wanted to avoid going down that alley, but…
But being an Exorcist was not a choice for him, and while he would have preferred that job, he had to pay the bills somehow.
Rin wasn't stupid. He'd figured out that he was probably some demon's kid a couple years ago, with the fire and understanding demons and all. What he couldn't understand was how Yukio didn't have any such powers. It probably had to do with Yukio's admittedly weaker body and immune system, but that could be a byproduct of not inheriting the demonic power. Rin had never read up further on the subject, because those two pages out of Yukio's textbook had given him such a headache that he wondered if the book had actually been written in some sort of ancient Japanese that was impossible to understand.
The teenager felt his time slipping by, and, bolstered by the comforting feel of the armband on his left wrist, turned right into the alleyway. At that moment, the clouds seemed to shadow the low evening sun, casting the dimness of the street into an even darker, more menacing atmosphere. Rin stiffened, but kept walking further. If he kept a relatively fast pace up for about the next five minutes, he should have been able to get to the job site on time.
Two minutes into the street, of trying to ignore the almost-silent skittering whispers of the Coal Tars as they moved from corner to dark corner and how the walls seemed to close in on the already narrow area, he ran into an obstacle.
"Okumura? Okumura Rin?"
Despite himself, Rin turned and raised an eyebrow at the voice—it was something he'd gotten from Shura, he realized before pushing the thought away, "Yeah?"
The white-haired boy looked vaguely familiar, especially the white bandage wrapped around his forehead and the vivid bruise on his cheek, but Rin's attention was taken directly to the small horns sticking out of his head and the tail whipping around behind him.
Well, that just made his day so much better.
"Y'know who I am?"
Rin made sure to keep his face blank as he shortly scrutinized the three boys flanking the white-haired one, who had Coal Tars buzzing around his head like fruit flies around a slab of meat that had been laying in the hot sun all day long. Nobody else showed signs of possession, which was something that Rin was very thankful for. It was very, very hard for Rin to exorcise demons from humans, simply because he couldn't cut them down.
"Not really."
The possessed human's eye twitched before an unnatural grin stretched his face. "It's not that important, I guess, but y'know, you kinda beat me up a few days ago."
Blue eyes blinked before narrowing, and a nasty look crossed Rin's face for a moment. "Oh. The birds."
"Y'know," the white-haired boy said, "that was really overreacting. I'm Shiratori Reiji, by the way…can we talk for a bit"? That unsettling, unnatural grin stayed on his face, and Rin felt the horrible desire to punch it off his face for him.
"Hey, look," Rin said as casually as possible, taking a step in the direction of his goal, "I kinda don't have time today. You know, I've got to get a job and all."
Without another word, Rin turned and started to walk away; as he did so, however, Shiratori yelled after him, "Oh, that's right! You're not going to high school, are you? Dropping out with a Middle School Diploma?"
Rin ignored him.
"But your brother's goin' to True Cross Acadamy, right? That's a real expensive school; I should know. I'm going there too. But I hear he got in on scholarship! How disgusting, relying on the money of others!"
The fifteen-year-old boy stopped short, but did not turn around. Shiratori's voice took on a smug tone as he continued talking and talking and not stopping.
"Y'know, it'd really damage my upstanding reputation if word were to get around school that I'd been beat up by a kid who can't get a passing grade in Math. If y'want, I can always give you some money to help pay for your brother's tuition." Rin heard the wallet being pulled out of a pocket, and turned around.
"I don't need your money," Rin said dismissively, relieved that all Shiratori wanted was a promise to keep quiet about something trivial. "Keep it. I'll keep quiet and Yukio'll keep quiet. We're not going to tell anybody about you, 'cause it's not important."
All Rin wanted the possessed boy to do was stop going down the road he thought Shiratori was going down. Rin turned around once more and made to keep going to his interview.
"I can't be sure about that, now can I?"
Rin nearly stopped walking, but told himself firmly that it wasn't worth it. The alleyway seemed to stretch on forever ahead of him, the ash-streaked brick and cement and steel running together with soot-blackened seams.
"Y'know, my dad's got a friend on the Board of Education—he could always restrict that over-nerdy four-eyed freak of a brother from getting into the True Cross Academy."
Rin's eyes widened and he stopped short for the second time, right before a small intersection that he could further choose to navigate the area with, his shoulders tensing up a bit. "…What did you say?"
Looking over his shoulder, Rin saw Shiratori's grin stretch even wider, the boys' faces around the possessed teenager mirroring his expression.
"I said," Shiratori repeated in a louder voice, "I can stop your freaky bro from getting into True Cross and wasting the money there."
Something sparked in Rin's eye, something snapped in Rin's mind, and he very decisively let go of his self control.
The manila envelope dropped to the dirty ground.
Fujimoto's head snapped up as he heard Rin's farewell cry, and smirked a little as the door slammed shut. The smile on his face widened as Yukio yelled a little too late at his brother to 'Quit slamming doors already, would you!' In the relative silence that followed this exclamation, the cat-flap in the back door slapped against its rim, and he presumed that Kuro had gone out to follow Rin again.
To be honest, he'd seen this situation happening since Rin had started looking for part-time jobs about half a year ago. He would constantly leave things to the last minute and end up being nearly late to his appointments; when the clergy teased him about it, Rin would grow very defensive and spout out the first excuse that came to mind. Fujimoto's favorite was still "Bu-Well-I—It was trying to eat my brain!"
While Fujimoto didn't think that Rin's choice to not continue his educational career was really smart, he did understand that school was a chore—a horrendous trial, really—for the teenager. Perhaps Rin had inherited the brawn and the strength, but he definitely hadn't gotten the pure, scholarly intelligence Yukio possessed. It was for this reason that Fujimoto supported Rin's search for a job—if he didn't want to further attend school, then he needed to find a way to make a living for himself. Being an Exorcist, but not part of the Order, didn't pay bills.
Shiro rubbed the back of his head and stared at his own paperwork without really seeing it. It was a shame Rin couldn't really enter the ranks of the Exorcists—the risk that he would be discovered as Satan's son was too high to enroll Rin in the Cram School without a very, very good reason. Rin was a fair Exorcist as it was; he moved on instinct, which meant that in a fight he was quick to act and he acted correctly. He could anticipate and retaliate on a moment's notice against lower-to-mid level demons as well as humans; fortunately or unfortunately, Rin hadn't run into any high-level demons as of yet.
Fujimoto blinked and felt the indescribable urge to knock on his mahogany desk. As covered with papers as it was, he ignored the desire and instead decided to determinedly focus on the mountains of headaches stacked in front of him. Leaning forward, he slid the first paper off the stack closes to him and focused on it, reading through the Roman characters. One of the downsides to working as the Paladin meant that you had to be at least fairly knowledgeable in other languages, especially English; countries often sent in their paperwork in this language, as it was recognized world-wide and therefore there were fewer chances for mistakes to be made.
After he signed off on the second set of English-written documents, one of which was from Japan itself, he decided for the umpteenth time that he hated the language. He'd never been a quick study in this certain class in school, and hadn't expected to use it when he became an Exorcist. In the years before Paladin, it was bearable, but now…
Glowering at the paperwork, he resolved to put all the English papers off until the last minute. He'd start with the easiest first—that way, he thought slyly, it would look like he was actually getting more done.
As he started rifling through the papers in search of a Japanese, or even Chinese, document, he heard a knock on his door. Confused, but grateful for the interruption (he couldn't help it if somebody had to talk to the strongest Exorcist in the whole Order, right?), he called out, "Come in."
The door swung open, and a person he hadn't expected to see in a while was revealed leaning against the doorframe.
"Well hello, handsome," the familiar drawl was strangely comforting, as was the sly, lazy grin. "Long time no see."
Fujimoto stood up abruptly from his comfortable chair. "Shura!"
She pushed off the frame and walked inside, the same stride as before and the same confidence rippling through every motion and movement she made. Shura nudged the door shut with her foot behind her before continuing on to one of the black-upholstered easy-chairs in his room and collapsing on it. "Aaaah," she sighed, "I missed this chair!"
"…Shura?" He repeated, this time in question. She looked at him upside-down with wide eyes, the reddish tips of her hair clashing a little with the dark red painted walls around them, but something…
There was something different about her, Fujimoto realized. Something tighter about the eyes and the mouth, something a little more wary in her movements. There was something wrong.
"…Shura. What's happened?"
The wide eyes blinked away in only a moment, and she pulled herself upright, pouting a little but with the same tenseness in her limbs. "Yer no fun, Shiro," she complained. "What, we can't spend some time chattin' it up and reminiscing about the good times?"
Fujimoto sighed. "I suppose we could, but if you need to tell me something, you should tell it to me. We can spend another time sitting in front of the fireplace, drinking a couple of beers and talking about the 'good old days' and 'those whippersnappers today'," he imitated the voice of his late uncle in the last days before his passing before returning to a more serious tone, "but if there's something that needs to be said, then I'd rather hear it now than later."
An ache lingered in his head, and he rubbed his temples for a few moments before looking back at his former pupil.
She looked at him for a long, long moment. "Yer look older, Shiro. Like, around the eyes," she gestured, "and in the hair. Are yer doin' okay?"
"Don't try to change the subject," he said, but softened. "I'm not as young as I used to be, I guess."
"And?" Shura flopped over again, but this time belly down and head right-side-up. She tucked her hands under her chin and raised her eyebrows. "What else? I'm not a fool, Shiro-chan."
Fujimoto raised his eyebrows in return. "Shiro-chan?"
She shrugged, and gestured for him to go on.
The Paladin sat back down in his chair and gazed blankly at the paperwork before him, feeling suddenly tired and more downtrodden than before. "I get the feeling," he started slowly, "That they're keeping important information from me."
Shura glanced towards Fujimoto's desk pointedly. "They're keeping information from yer? Yer sure about that?"
He nodded. "It's more than they're keeping important information—they're flooding me with meaningless squabble. Take this, for example," he pulled up a report and handed it to her. She untucked one of her hands and took the paperwork. After a moment of reading, she looked up at him in disbelief. "This is what they're sending you?"
"Yes."
Shura made a disgusted noise and untucked the other hand before massaging her head with it. "My God, they're sendin' yer reports on th' number of hobgoblins in Russia? What the hell? That's nowhere near important enough for yer! That's low-level office stuff!"
"You think I don't know this?" Fujimoto ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "Ever since two years ago, more and more of this crap comes through. They want to keep me busy and they want me to keep my nose out of important things!"
"I knew it was bad," Shura started slowly, letting the papers drop to the hardboard floor. "But not this bad."
The Paladin raised his eyebrows at his former pupil. "What do you mean?"
"They're keepin' a close eye on yer and yer church, Shiro. In fact, they're putting two undercover agents in next semester's Cram class—wanna guess who they are?"
Fujimoto shook his head, "Not really…"
Shura opened her mouth to answer, but they were interrupted by a frantic scratching on the door. Two seconds later, a cat began yowling in distress once the door wasn't opened immediately.
Rising immediately, Fujimoto navigated around the desk as quickly as he could and then stumbled over to the door, opening it swiftly. A black blur shot in, wound around his legs while meowing plaintively before darting back out. It was only a few moments before Kuro repeated this same process with the same agitation in his wide green eyes, which flitted from the bookshelves on either side of the room to the dark red shag-rug carpet on the ground and back up to Fujimoto. His two tails were lashing furiously, and Fujimoto felt something cold go down his back.
Kuro had gone after Rin.
Rin had gone to work.
This should be no problem, but Kuro had come back distressed and, as far as Fujimoto could tell, incredibly worried.
"I'm sorry, Shura," he said as he crossed the room and pulled out his shoes, "but it seems as though there's trouble again."
She blinked, looking like the picture of carelessness were it not for the tightening of her eyes and mouth. "He always does this when I'm around, doesn't he?"
"You don't know the half of it," Fujimoto joked, lacing up his combat boots as quickly as possible. "He's been absolutely horrid since you left."
He stood from his crouch and turned to stalk out the door, but paused and looked back at the cabinet, sandwiched between two floor-to-ceiling dark oak bookshelves, where Kurikara lay, folded in cloth and concealed from prying eyes. Fujimoto hesitated only a moment more before he tore himself away from the need to check and see if the flames were activated.
If he were late—one second too late—and Rin had gotten himself into a fight he couldn't handle, then he would never forgive himself.
"I'll let myself out then!" Shura yelled. "Talk to yer later, Fujis!"
But by that time, Fujimoto Shiro was out the door and running after Kuro.
Before he knew it, Rin had rushed forward, anger the only thing at the front of his mind, anger at the possessed human being who was stupid enough to threaten his absent brother. If Shiratori had known Rin, then he should have known not to do that.
Before he knew it, he'd coiled the muscles in his body and drew his arm back before snapping it forward with all the power he could muster. It was only the split second realization of 'oh shit, he's human still' that made him draw back as much as he could. Even then, his fist hit the other boy's cheek with considerable force, and Shiratori staggered back a couple steps before falling onto his butt, eyes somewhat wide in surprise.
Before he knew it, he was towering over the boy on the ground, whose lackeys were only just registering that Shiratori was on the ground, and he was shaking with fury.
"Don't you dare," Rin's voice shook as he spoke, "Don't you dare threaten my brother! Say what you want to me and about me, but never about my brother!"
One of the lackeys took a step forward, but Rin glared at him and he stopped, flinching as though the fifteen-year-old had lashed a dangerous hand out at him. Rin felt that hot hot anger rising up in him, sizzling through his veins and burning at the corners of his eyes, but he couldn't bring himself to care about it.
A growl came from beneath him, and Rin looked back down to where Shiratori Reiji lay on the dark pavement, one hand covering his eyes. "That…That hurt, you little shit!"
Caught off guard, Rin was flung back with a power that couldn't have been human in nature. He hit the ground and skidded to a stop, his back aching and his head hurting and his ears buzzing from the force of the blow. Through blurry eyes, he looked up at the crouching figure about ten meters away. The vision shook as the white-haired boy's friends bent over him, worried.
"Hey, Reiji-san, everything good?"
"Where'd the bastard hit you?"
Another growl filled the air and shook it. Even the Mashou-less teenagers felt it, unease flickering across their faces. Shiratori's body started to shake, and Rin remembered the possession of an old, mourning woman that had happened a few months ago.
"Shit," he breathed, chest aching and heart banging.
The barely noticeable horns on Shiratori's head grew out into something like a ram's, his ears elongated and the cartilage at the end changed from rounded to pointed, and his fingernails lengthened, blackened, became claw-like. A thrumming sound resounded in Rin's ears and chest and head even as Shiratori's lackeys hesitated and stepped back, somehow sensing that something had changed.
"…Reiji-kun?"
A heartbeat later, the pressure suddenly lifted as the transformation was complete, and Rin's head pounded in rhythm with his heart. This was bad. If the demon had completely taken over Shiratori Reiji, he wasn't going to be able to do it on his own without harming the human, and without revealing his flames. A little after Shura had left, Fujimoto had lifted the restrictions on his necklace, saying things like "I believe you can handle it" and "Just keep it in, okay? Flames are good to use on the lesser, less intelligent demons, but once you hear one able to talk coherently, it's better to not use them."
The problem with this was that the better they spoke, the harder they were to kill. Rin's flames were powerful—he knew that much, even if he didn't know where they came from. Apparently, though, they were something that would get them to talk to other demons and suddenly he wouldn't be able to sleep. That's why he was so worried about this exorcism; when a demon possesses a human, they're generally strong, and that much harder to hit with the butt of his sword hilt.
Plus, the alleyway was narrow, so narrow that it would be impossible to wield his sword with as much ease as he was used to—almost impossible to use it at all.
His cell phone hung heavily in his pants pocket as he staggered to his feet, breathing a little harder than usual. He could call his father, have him take care of this mess, have him help him get out of—
Rin's eyes narrowed. No. He was not going to rely on his father, he wasn't going to let something like a higher-level demon stop him from getting the job done.
Even if it wasn't official, even if he earned nothing but scars and pain and tears from it, Rin considered himself an Exorcist. And an Exorcist did his job.
Shiratori's eyes narrowed at Rin, an unholy grin on his face. "Well, you shitty little bastard, you ready?"
Rin blinked, shaken out of his reverie. "Wha—?"
He felt his knees get kicked out from under him, and twisted automatically to try to regain control, but was unable to quite absorb the force of the fall with his arms before they were also wrenched out from underneath him and held down. Rin quickly turned his head to the side and squinted his eyes shut before his cheek made contact with the ground hard and a short flash of pain burst across his face. Something sticky spread slowly across the ground underneath him, and he winced as the rough ground pressed into his raw skin.
"We've got him, Reiji-san!" Dreadlocks cried from where he was sitting on Rin, his knee digging into Rin's back. "We've got the demon spawn!"
Rin looked up at Shiratori, who had a speculative look cross his face before it returned to a sneering, angry, expression. Something cold and dark fell in his stomach, and Rin suddenly became desperate to escape the situation.
He jerked his right arm out of one boy's grasp and twisted, ignoring the pain that flared in his back in favor of reaching for the armband exposed from underneath the scuffed and dirty sleeve of the suit.
His fist held over the insignia, he closed his eyes and thought as furiously as he could, I need Tsunagari.
There was a soft, brief flash of light, a tugging at his wrist, and suddenly the hilt of a katana was held in his hand. With one wide motion, he pulled the blade out of the other dimension and hit the boy on his back with the back of the blade. A crack sounded and Rin dimly felt the ribs bend and break under the pressure of his blow. Dreadlocks fell over with several loud cries of pain that retreated into a low sobbing. The boy still holding Rin's left arm let go of it abruptly and took a step away from him, eyes fearful. With a fierce expression on his face, Rin stood and placed his back against the sooty cement wall, eyes flicking from Shiratori to the boy on the ground to the two still standing and then all over again.
"My ribs!"
"He…He has a sword!"
"Where the hell did he get it from?"
The other boys backed away slowly before running away as fast as they could, ignoring Dreadlock's cries.
"Take me with you! Don't leave me here, help!"
Shiratori took two decisive steps forward, an ugly expression on his face, and kicked Dreadlocks in the side, snarling, "Shut up!" as he did so. Rin's eyes narrowed, and he pushed himself off the wall as Dreadlocks retched, turning slowly over to his stomach as he did so.
"Oi! Leave him alone."
The white-haired teen looked at him with disgust curling his lip. "You don't tell me what to do, you cocky little bastard. Oh, wait," he took in the katana Rin held in his right hand, surveyed the symbols that ran up and down its length, and snarled out, "you're one of those little fuckers, aren't you? Those Exorcists." He spat out the word 'Exorcists' as if it dirtied his mouth to say it. The Coal Tars flew agitatedly around his head at the sight of the sword, and tended to migrate more behind the possessed teenager than in front of.
A grin suddenly flitted across his face, and his expression turned from disgust to mocking superiority. "So, if I do something like this," He raised a foot and positioned it over Dreadlock's extended right leg, "You'll get real fucking mad, right?"
"Wait, don—" Rin's eyes widened and he took a step forward, but wasn't able to do anything as Shiratori's foot came down onto Dreadlock's jean-clad leg. The skin broke and blood spurted out of the wound as the force of the blow cracked Dreadlock's femur in two.
Only a split second of silence preceded the horrible, horrible screaming the human boy let out, his eyes wide with pain, his tears spilling onto the ground just as fast as his blood.
Rin's pupils dilated, and he launched himself at Shiratori, the end of his hilt aimed at the boy's head—before he hurt the host, he had to get the demon out of there. He was angry, so angry, and the fury from earlier bubbled up and over and stung with every movement he made. Reiji deflected the hilt with one powerful blow and in doing so pushed Rin off balance. A kick to the gut later, and Rin went flying diagonally into the wall. He slammed against it and pain flared and writhed in his left shoulder the moment it hit it. Rin grunted back a scream and fell to the ground.
Shit. Shit, it's dislocated, he realized dimly as he pushed himself up with his right arm. There goes half of my strike power right there.
"Re—Reiji?" A scared, raw voice trembled, and it was only then that Rin noticed that the screaming had stopped. He looked at Dreadlocks on the ground under Shiratori's foot, who was looking down at the other boy with a bored expression on his face. As Rin followed the injured, normal human's gaze, he paled a shade.
Dreadlock's eye were riveted on the horns growing out of Shiratori Reiji's head.
"Yeah, you little shit?"
"Wha—What the hell is that?" Dreadlocks let out a shriek of horror as Shiratori's tail swiped from behind him. The possessed teenager looked a little surprised for a moment, before understanding crossed his features.
"I guess that is technically a Mashou…" Shiratori smirked, and then placed more pressure on Dreadlock's leg. The boy let out an agonized scream, and Rin's eyes narrowed even as his blood ran hotter and hotter. "Do you wanna know who I am, you weak son of a bitch? Huh?" The demon leaned down, his eyes wide and mocking even as a smirk twisted his face into something less human. "My name's Astaroth. You know, the demon."
The pressure increased, Dreadlock's screams rose in pitch and intensity, and Rin dimly heard the sound of approaching people.
He was angry—so angry, and he needed to get this demon away from people and somewhere he could fight them. The problem was that Rin wasn't sure that if he ran, Astaroth would follow—after all, Rin was an 'exorcist' and couldn't leave innocents at the hand of a demon. He could have sworn he'd heard the name before, but couldn't place it for the life of him.
Sirens rang in the distance, and Rin staggered to his feet, remembering something dangerous, something that had consequences he didn't know the specifics of.
"Some people will be really scared of you when you do that."
Eyes stern, he gritted his teeth and popped his shoulder back into place before biting back a scream of pain. He let out a slow, shaky breath and did his best to ignore the throbbing before he stepped forward.
"Hey, bastard," Rin growled loudly, catching Shiratori's attention for a moment. "How about you get your stinking foot off of his leg?"
"Others may get really mad and try to hurt you."
Shiratori's tail swept through the air once, then twice, in an amused motion. "Why should I, Exorcist? What the hell're you gonna do to make me?"
Rin grinned dangerously, expression all sharp angles and burning intensity. "I'm going to do this."
With only one last thought about how he was so glad the pendant he still wore had been stripped of real 'magic', he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then let the burning feeling override his senses.
When he opened his eyes, he looked straight into the surprised, shocked eyes of Shiratori, whose pressure on Dreadlock's leg had lessened. Rin grin grew wider, sharper, and he said in a low tone, "Catch me if you can, you stupid demon."
Without another word, he dashed away back up the street and then to the left, a goal in mind and remembering all the while the last part of what Fujimoto had told him nine years ago.
Behind him, he heard Shiratori breath something and then take up pursuit.
"Others, the weird-looking ones, will try to take you away somewhere."
That's the part he was counting on the most.
Jiborou was so going to kill him when he returned this suit, Rin knew it. He simply knew it. It had been joking at the time, but when the clergyman had lent it to Rin, he told him that if he found one thread out of place, Jiborou would make Rin pay.
The scuff marks on the back of the jacket and the tears down the knees weren't making Rin very confident of his survival once Jiborou got a hold of him…
"Where are you, Exorcist?" a roar came from behind him, a mix of glee and hatred and, oddly enough, reverence. "Where are you, young lord? I'm going to take you back!"
Panting, Rin ripped off his jacket and flung it to the side as he turned the corner, running into the large, out-of-the-way area that he enjoyed practicing in—lots of junk and boxes and crates to make an obstacle course out of, or to beat the hell out of, or just to use as part of the environment. The ceiling, which was really only a maze of pipes and metal gridwork and steel beams, stretched high above him. The biggest downfall to this area was that there was only one escape—through the large, metal-fence gates now behind him.
Rin flung himself behind some crates in the left corner of the room nearest to the exit, tightly gripping his weapon and trying to slow his breath down. The possessed delinquent was freakin' fast, and it had taken a lot out of Rin to just keep ahead of the stupid guy.
He did not have a good feeling about this fight.
With a deep, shaky breath, he concentrated and pulled on the flames, pulled them back into himself and extinguished their light from the human world.
The pounding footsteps suddenly slowed and lightened, before evening out to a dangerous prowl right outside the gates.
"My young lord," The demon called, voice deceptively quiet. Underneath the tone there, however, Rin heard something slithering and unnerving and dangerous, and remained where he was.
Besides, all this use of 'My young lord' and stuff was creeping Rin out. In fact, the whole hate-love-whatever thing going on with this demon was really creeping Rin out.
"My young lord, they have tainted you, haven't they? They've whispered lies and offered hopes and dreams to you, haven't they?" 'Hopes' and 'dreams' were pronounced in a half-mocking, half-disgusted tone.
What the hell is he talking about? Rin thought, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. What's this about lies, and why is he calling me his 'young lord'?
He paled. Oh, please don't let him be gay and have some sort of obsession with feudalistic terms of address… only three months ago, when he was on an exorcising trip with Yukio, they'd run into a demon similar. The big difference was that this demon had an obsession with crossdressing its partners before sucking the life out of them, and Yukio had fallen victim to the first half before they could blink. Rin's only regret was that he hadn't managed to take blackmail pictures.
No, make that one of two regrets—he wished he could have closed his eyes before the demon had managed to wrestle Yukio into a lip lock two split seconds before the aforementioned teenager had furiously shot the demon's chest three times with his special demon-targeting bullets. He'd then continued to waste about two rounds worth of bullets on the human's exorcised body in his anger. Rin had, at that moment, reminded himself that to mess with Yukio was a very, very dangerous thing to do.
As a possessed Shiratori Reiji cautiously entered the practice area, Rin almost wished Yukio was with him…
The footsteps stopped in the middle of the 'clearing', and with his limited vision through the crack of two crates, Rin saw Asta-what's-his-name raise his arms to the sky.
"Those damned Exorcists!" He screamed, and Rin winced from the intensity of it. "They have turned you against us, turned you against your people! Young Lord," Shiratori spun around slowly, critically examining every single part of the area they were in, "if you allow me, I will teach you the truth! I will show you the way to it! I will lead you down the road you were always meant to take!"
Rin was quiet, his brow furrowed and his mind racing. What the hell was this guy going on about? Rin may have been part demon, but he surely wasn't that important to demonkind. He'd have to be the kid of one of those big baddies, and while their children were powerful—from what he remembered—they weren't particularly revered because they were the offspring of such important demonic figures. They were revered because if a lower demon didn't show the proper respect, they'd get themselves killed. The Demon World, from what Rin understood, was based off of power and strength more than anything else.
"I will tell you the truth!"
The teenager snorted in disbelief, and then cursed mentally as Astaroth's head swiveled towards him, a strange expression on his face. "Young Lord," he said quietly, and extended his hand out towards the stack of crates where Rin hid, "let us go to your father."
Knowing his cover was blown, Rin stood from his crouched position but stayed behind his barrier. "Sorry," he said, "but I've got no idea what the hell you're talking about. So, can we just, I dunno, get you out of that body, say 'bye and all that?"
The sweat on the palm of his hand made the grip of his katana slick. He hid his nervousness, his knowledge that he was up against an opponent he couldn't hope to beat unless he kept fighting and fighting against people like Astaroth and he kept surviving by some strange twist of fate. He hid it and instead grinned a little, projecting as much bravado as he could.
"…You don't know who you are, young lord, do you?" The crazily swearing demon of before was gone, replaced with this quieter, stranger version. In fact, this version was almost scarier—because it was so atypical, from what Rin had seen so far.
Rin completely did not understand demons, especially this one. In fact, he kind of regretted pulling out the flames—if it made all inhabitants of Gehenna this bipolar, then Fujimoto was most definitely right to keep Rin from practicing without him when everything changed nine years ago.
Astaroth snarled over Rin's shoulder, and though Rin then had the urge to check his back, he knew that the only thing behind him was the wired mesh fence. However, Rin shuffled out from behind the crates, which stacked one on top of the other in a rickety mess—it was rather tight, stuck between the fence and the pile, and Rin wanted to be able to move just in case things went wrong.
After all, this demon was being bipolar, and Rin knew enough from the girls in his class that bipolar meant unpredictability.
"Those damned Exorcists didn't tell you what your lineage was!" In a few quick, purposeful strides, Astaroth tried the distance between him and Rin, forcing Rin to scramble up the mountain of crates and leap over the possessed boy. As he dodged the crates knocked over in Rin's rush to escape, Shiratori's clawed hand reached up but barely missed the hem of Rin's dress pants. Even as the demon turned and lunged, Rin hit the ground and rolled to the side, causing Shiratori to miss him.
"You're being lied to!"
Rin grunted and rose swiftly to his feet before quickly swinging his left foot behind him and shifting his body sideways, avoiding the heavy punch the possessed teenager sent him. He ducked as Shiratori followed up with a kick, and then lashed out with his sword, barely cutting the other boy's lower shin before the demon leapt away, snarling in anger.
"You are blinded by their lies!"
The fifteen-year-old stood again and settled into a balanced stance, his katana low and ready to slice at the demon if there were any aggressive moves made. Rin made note of all the junk on the ground, just in case he could use any of it without putting himself in a bad spot—even though flipping a metal bar into his opponent's face looked cool in his head, it wouldn't if it didn't work and the demon managed to get to him because of him being unbalanced.
Shiratori's deformed face kept flickering between ruthless anger and sly joy, his fingers kept twitching and his tail kept jerking through the air as though uncertain of how to correctly act. "All they want to do is use you as a weapon. The Exorcists don't really want you in their ranks—they just want to use you against your own KIND!"
Rin twitched, suddenly a little angry. "I'm sorry," the words flew out of his mouth coldly, "but I don't really have a license."
His inability to be an Exorcist irked him, and was a rather sore point when it was pointed out—directly or indirectly.
"Then why? Why do you not listen to me?" Shiratori lunged at him, drool flying out of his mouth and baring his sharpened fangs at Rin, who ducked around the demon's move and hit him in the back with his hilt. The demon screamed, but was not expelled—and Rin became very very worried.
On Tsunagari's hilt, there was a rune or symbol or something weird that basically forced the demon out of a body and back into Gehenna (Rin hadn't listened to his old man's explanation very closely). He didn't like using it much, mostly because it hurt the host as well as the demon, but if it got the demon out then it was the lesser evil. Every time Rin had used it so far, it had worked—simply because, as far as he understood it, his power at the time was stronger than those he exorcised.
…Every time before, he was stronger.
…Oh, shit.
As fast as he could, Rin retreated upon stumbling upon this revelation, determined to keep at least a sword's length between him and his opponent. However, despite the apparent difference between their strengths…
Rin would not run.
If Rin ran, how many more would be hurt? How much chaos would this demon spread? Besides, after revealing his power, there was no going back; Rin got the feeling that now that this demon knew what he could do, the demon wouldn't stop at trying to catch Rin until the demon himself was forced back into Gehenna.
Astaroth growl at Rin, a crazed expression in his eyes and a distorted snarl creasing his face. "That fucking HURT!"
Faster than before, the demon slammed into Rin, pushing him to the ground with such force that the liquid from his stomach was forced up and out of his body and his ears rang and vision swam.
Tsunagari was kicked out of his grip, the trusty katana sliding and scraping about two meters before it finally stopped. Rin choked and tried to reach out to it, but his hand was forced down.
"Don't even try it, you motherfucker," Astaroth snarled, "don't you even dare. You may be his son, but I'm the King of Rot!"
As Rin's eyes widened in recognition, Astaroth breathed in his ear, "And you'd do fucking well to remember it, you son of a bitch."
Rin's only thought was that he had to get out of there, he had to get away from him and get Tsunagiri back. He started hyperventilating, his eyes widened and his pupils contracted in a fear he hadn't felt ever before.
Without his permission, the flames roared to life around him and Astaroth jerked back, hissing as the flames burned him and burned him. The mass of Coal Tars flocking around his face were immediately reduced to a third of their original size, and the flames, fed by the sheer amount of fuel, roared higher and stronger than before. Startled, Rin struggled to regain control, but the fire was more wild, held more emotion than it had even when he was six and scared and confused. He gritted his teeth and pulled at his power, reining it in as best as he could before it was reduced to dancing agitatedly over his arms and hair and fingers.
He returned his attention to his opponent to see the demon looking at him as though in awe, which quickly changed to bewilderment. "How do you not know?" the demon wondered.
"Know what?" Rin asked warily, his gut and throat burning, his wrist sore as he slowly climbed into a crouch. His eyes flicked to Tsunagari and back, trying to calculate how long he would need until he could retrieve his weapon. Or if he could retrieve it.
He could feel his chances of getting out dwindling by the second.
"Your father! His deed of fifteen and a half years ago, his wonderful purge of the humans in Assiah! Lord Satan!"
Rin blinked. "Hah?"
Out of the corner of his eye, something long and black flickered in and out of the shadows, but he didn't take his attention off the greater danger in front of him.
The demon looked at him as though he couldn't believe Rin's reaction. Astaroth opened his mouth to speak, but a powerful, booming voice echoed around Rin's makeshift battleground.
"Evil dwells within this heart. Let each be judged according to his deeds."
Rin's head swiveled around, and there he was—his old man in all of his glory, showing up to save the day for the umpteenth time in his life. Part of him was glad to see Fujimoto Shiro, but another part was childishly disappointed—he wanted to prove that he was strong, he wanted to be the one to show up just on time and save the day.
When Fujimoto's eyes landed upon Rin, though, Rin felt horribly horribly ashamed and guilty for these latter thoughts, because he saw the fear and worry in those brown eyes and how his left hand shook subtly, how it twitched towards Fujimoto's waist for a weapon that was not there.
Rin! An overjoyed voice called, and suddenly Rin had a Nekotama on his lap. Rin, you're alive!
"Of course I'm alive," Rin said quietly, still keeping a wary eye on the showdown happening in front of him. "Did you have that little faith in me?"
"You're an Exorcist!" cried Astaroth, focusing completely on the new threat. "You're the one who fed the young lord lies!"
As Kuro bristled, Rin saw something flicker across Fujimoto's eyes, before they went cold and Fujimoto continued chanting.
"Let sinful conduct beget retribution. Let each pay for that which he has taken. Bring down thy justice upon him."
Understanding the danger before him, Astaroth leapt at the older man, snarling and cursing as he nimbly avoided all the tripping hazards around him. "I'll shut that shitty cursing mouth of yours!"
The Paladin dodged and blocked with an ease and grace that were at odds with his aging appearance but proved why he had been chosen as the strongest Exorcist.
"Smite them that they shall never rise again; Blessed be the lord. My prayer has been answered; the lord is my helper, and he is my shield."
Astaroth made a mistake—he extended one clawed hand too far too fast, and Fujimoto pounced upon the opportunity immediately. He lashed out and held fast onto the possessed teenager's arm before using the momentum to throw the demon off balance. He threw the boy over his knee and delivered a powerful, but still restrained blow aimed only to stun. The demon fell to the earth, coughing and sputtering.
Fujimoto paused in his recitation of verse, and looked down at the demon with an unreadable expression on his face.
"And you," he started—had Rin not known him better, he wouldn't have been able to detect the slight tremble in his voice— "you tried to take my child away from me."
Astaroth rolled to his stomach in a weak attempt to start getting up. "He's not yours," he rasped out.
Kuro snarled more audibly, but kept himself firmly seated in Rin's lap—automatically, Rin ran a soothing hand down the cat demon's back, trying his best to calm his friend down. At the same time, he pulled his wilder-than-normal flames in one by one with as much concentration as he could spare—even if his old man was the 'strongest of the Exorcists', that didn't mean mistakes couldn't be made, and Astaroth was the King of Rot…
Fujimoto's eyes narrowed and the lines around his mouth grew harder for only a moment before he took in a deep breath, then let it out. "Demon," he said as calmly as possible. "Perish where you stand."
The boy went suddenly, deathly still, and then after only a heartbeat he arched his back and opened his mouth wide. Something dark and disgusting flew out of his mouth even as the ram's horns started to crumble away, the tail withered and disintegrated and the pointed claws darkened even further before falling off to leave the human nails underneath completely intact. The Coal Tars, which had constantly orbited around him, drifted away slowly even as the mass of black that had emerged from Shiratori's mouth thinned out until it were no longer there.
Shiratori stayed that way for one, two more moments, before finally seeming to lose all energy. He collapsed onto the cement heavily, unconscious before he hit the floor.
Fujimoto knelt by the formerly possessed boy and swatted away a few remaining Coal Tars. He grasped Shiratori by the shoulders and gently turned him over before checking his temperature and frowning a little.
"He's a little warm…that's common after such possessions, but just to be safe…" the Paladin pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number. "Hello? Is this medical? I've got a boy who's unconscious here…it's a little out of the way from Southern Cross Street in True Cross Campus Town. It's a small construction area near the Niyashimi Supermarket. You'll be here soon? Good. I'll be here until he's on the way to the hospital. Thank you." Fujimoto ended the call and pocketed the phone again.
Rin remained on the ground, holding Kuro in his lap and concentrating fully on pulling the remaining flames back in. He didn't want to look at the man who had cared for him his entire life, didn't want to see the disappointment or guilt.
On the other hand, he wanted answers.
"Old man," he started to ask in a quiet, low voice, "what the hell was that demon talking about?"
Fujimoto stilled suddenly. "What do you mean?"
His hand still stroking Kuro's back, Rin continued, "That thing about my 'father'. And about turning me against my people, and why the hell," he suddenly rose his voice, "did he keep calling me his 'young lord'?"
Kuro pressed his head against Rin's stomach in distress, and Rin took in a deep breath. He let it out, then looked up at Fujimoto, whose eyes were shadowed by the tilt of his head.
"What have you been keeping from me?" Rin asked, and even though he tried his best not to, his voice cracked and seemed to scream betrayal.
The Paladin looked at him immediately, and started forward before hesitating. Seeing this, Rin gritted his teeth and looked down.
There was a long silence before Fujimoto started speaking.
"I wanted to protect you. I wanted to give you as normal a life as possible. I—"
"I'd already figured out I was the son of some sort of demon," Rin interjected hotly. "I'm not as smart as Yukio, but I'm not retarded. Blue fire isn't exactly Exorcist-ish."
Fujimoto let out a deep breath and rubbed the back of his head. "I'm guessing you looked at one of Yukio's books."
Rin couldn't quite hide the wince as he remembered the experience, and the older man chuckled a little before falling silent again.
"I'm sorry, Rin." Fujimoto said quietly, as though those three words would solve everything. "I-I don't want to tell you the details now, just because there will be so many people around. But once you hear the first truth, you'll want to hear the rest."
His hand clenched briefly in Kuro's fur. "Try me."
In the distance, they heard the sound of sirens wailing, coming ever closer and closer, and Rin had the sudden thought that they were warning him against the truth. A chill went down his spine.
Fujimoto took in a deep breath, and his face became suddenly old and somewhat weary as he opened his mouth.
"Rin…you're Satan's son."
A/N: And the truth is revealed!
One note: Students in Japan only technically have to go to school until High School-that's optional. Advised and often done, yes, but optional.