"LET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE! NOW! LET ME OUT, YOU BASTARDS!"
It had been about 6 hours, and Rin had been showering his captors in every bit of colourful language he knew.
"Will you shut UP! You're giving me a killer headache!"
Rin gawped at how dense this guy could be.
"That's the GODDAMN POINT!"
Immediately after the words left his mouth, a bang as loud as a shotgun rang throughout the cage. The naberius must have hit the cage with something metal, and solid. Suddenly, a point on his arm started burning. Like someone was holding a flaming torch to one tiny area. Trying to inspect the spot, he saw a droplet of water resting on his flesh. Panicking, he quickly rubbed it off. Holy water.
"That's right! Make any more trouble for us, and you'll be getting a nice shower in this stuff!"
This was followed by a burst of cruel laughter that made Rin's hair stand to attention. The cage they had stuck him in was enclosed in some kind of enchanted iron. It wasn't blessed, or it would be burning the hell out of him, but it was resistant to any attempts to melt it. Although, saying that, without Kurikara, there was no way Rin could muster up enough power to do much to anything. It didn't have bars, just solid walls, but there were holes in the top, a couple of centimetres wide. That's where he had put the Holy water.
In his frustration, Rin lashed out at the wall without really thinking, but all he got was a sore, throbbing hand. In a flash of blue, it stopped hurting, his flames must have come out to heal it, but his body must be trying to conserve what it could. For the last 3 hours, all he could do was sit there and shout profanity at whoever he could. The fear and anxiety that had consumed him, had developed into overwhelming fury and frustration.
"Hey, you know, we're now about to enter one of the towns that we control. The people there may be a bit... Unruly, towards you. Just remember who's the one keeping them from killing you."
He began to laugh, but Rin could only hear it for a second, before the first yell permeated the air.
"DAMN ASSIAH SCUM!"
Rin nearly jumped out of his skin. The anger that had been boiling inside him began to fade, and cold fear replaced it. That had been a cry of pure, guttural hate. Many more followed.
Again, he cursed his acute hearing.
All he could do was curl up into a ball and clamp his hands over his ears. The shouts of the townsfolk mixed with the shouts of the people in Assiah, when he was a child, calling him a demon, a monster. The accusations were so similar, that Rin couldn't tell whether someone was really yelling at him, or if it was in his head.
Once again, he felt like a little kid, hated by the world.
There was no warm church to go home to.
There was no younger brother smiling at him.
There was no father who could always make everything OK again.
There was only the yells of the people and demons who wanted him dead.
Warm tears pricked his eyes, streaming down his cheeks.
It wasn't fair, it just wasn't. It wasn't his fault that he was a demon. It wasn't his fault he had been born like this. All he had ever wanted was to live. To live a normal life with the people he loved. If anyone was to blame here, it was the demons, now screaming at him. They were the ones who had killed his father, taken him away to Gehenna! It was their fault, ant they were blaming HIM? It wasn't fair.
It wasn't FAIR.
IT WASN'T FAIR!
From outside the cage, someone saw a blue light begin to rise from the holes in the cage. A child tugged at it's shouting mother's sleeve.
"Mummy, what's that light?"
Dread filled the air, just before it exploded into a stream of azure fire.
Yukio was still trying to recover from his conversation with Mephisto. That sneaky demon, all he cared about was himself, and his amusement. It made Yukio sick just thinking about it. How could he do anything about it? Even if he could somehow work around Mephisto's huge influence, nothing the Order could do would stop him. He was the demon king of TIME after all. Never in his life had Yukio felt so alone. Rin had always been there, for good, or bad, but, now, he wasn't even sure if he would be Rin anymore. If he were to believe all that Mephisto said, being in Gehenna would seriously affect Rin's demonic blood. God only knows what would happen to him, coupled with other demons and humans trying to use him and force him to do things for them or their own cause. If Rin ever did come back to Assiah, there was no guarantee that he would be the same brother Yukio remembered. In fact, the stakes were highly against him being the same.
He clenched his fists. It was near impossible for him to fulfil the promise he made to Father. How could he protect Rin if they were in different dimensions?
For now, as much as he couldn't stand it, the only thing he could do was wait, and hope.
The iron walls had smashed into a thousand tiny pieces, as Rin quickly ran off what was left of it. Everywhere around him were people screaming, running away, some still shouting abuse. It was like his thoughts were clouded over, his anger leaving him almost unable to think clearly. Every instinct he had was telling him to kill them all, the ones who hated him. To protect himself, right? He barely managed to contain himself.
Run.
The lone voice was all he needed. His blue tinged claws dug at the earth and ash he stood on, as he turned and began to run as fast as he could. Behind him, he heard them coming after him. They would most likely have had Holy water, so he had to move fast.
He wasn't fast enough.
He felt a chain clamp around his arm, the burning sting of Holy water covered him. This time, the chains were blessed. The searing pain was unimaginable, except, he was experiencing it. It was real, and it was killing him. Faces surrounded him, chaining him down, covering him in Holy water until Rin could no longer stand. It felt as if he was being torn apart from the inside out, his flames were slowly dying, trying to heal all of the wounds.
Stop it.
He felt his conscious slipping away.
Stop it.
Not again! The pain was too much.
Stop it!
The entire area, the whole town, was nothing but smouldering ashes. Not even the buildings escaped unscathed. All that was left, were bits of collapsing timber, set alight with the blue fire. They wouldn't last long.
The whole scene played out in Rin's mind.
The demons were chaining him up, surrounding him, but all that happened was a shot of blue flew upwards, before expanding into a bubble of fire. Everything inside was completely obliterated. As if that wasn't enough, the ball just, exploded outwards, like a nuclear bomb, and with the sound of one too.
Nothing stirred. Outwardly, or inside him. All Rin felt was fatigue. His breath ripped out in choked rags, uneven and strained. With a grunt of effort, he pushed himself up. He had to find Kurikara. He didn't know what would happen if he didn't. Unlike the times he had drawn the Sword, his nails, or, rather, talons, hadn't returned to normal, his tail was still twice it's regular size, and he could feel how large his fangs had become. As he looked, he could see the blue tinge of his claws continued onto the tips of his fingers. That didn't use to happen, but he was so exhausted that he didn't cast it much thought. The blue flames still clung to him like an aura, as he ambled, all alone, along what once might have been a road. He had no idea where he was going, only that he had to find the Sword. Otherwise, there was going to be trouble, and what had just happened, couldn't even compare.