A/N: I'm sorry this took so long...I finally got a full time job and that means working 40 hours a week on top of being a full time grad student. I'm exhausted all the time but I promise I have no intention of giving up on this story. Thank you so much guys, enjoy!

We stay in the middle of the battlefield far longer than I want to but I'm in no position complain. I stay in Suguro's lap the whole time which means I don't help the others, nor does Suguro. Even after my inconsolable melt down has turned to silent tears he doesn't move, he just stays put with his arm around me. He does call out questions and commands though, clearly taking on the role of leader in all this. I know Yukio would normally be the one to take it but he's just as indisposed as I am. He's seated with his knees pulled up, his arms wrapped tightly around them and face hidden within. He must still be a mess because Sheimi hasn't moved from his side. She's on her knees facing him with her arms wrapped tight around his shoulders, his flames bending around her just like mine are around Suguro. I can see that she's whispering things to him but her voice is too soft and they're too far away for me to hear. She's also still in just her school uniform with her sock-clad knees pushed into the scorched earth. It has to be painful with who knows what digging into her skin but she doesn't seem to care as she continues to rub Yukio's back and whisper to him.

Konekomaru moves back into my line of sight as he picks through the mess. He's clearly uncomfortable and nauseated; his skin is paler than the moon and his hands shake but he pushes on. He pulls on a black trench coat with one hand and pulls out a very bloody pistol with the other. He adds it to the other two he's found in the waistband of his jeans after he confirms that the safety is on. He doesn't look at the fresh blood on his hands, they're already covered up to his elbows.

Izumo is further away doing same but she's found one of the guns I crushed. She releases the magazine and puts the ammo in a sack she pilfered. She seems the least fazed by what's going on but I'm sure it's mostly just a mask. Izumo isn't the type of person to show anything that might be considered weakness.

I know the work is necessary and important, we need these weapons and any supplies on them but I can't bring myself to move. It's like a horrible nightmare that I can't wake up from and has completely immobilized me. Everything just keeps replaying over and over in my mind, no matter how hard I try. I remember back to when I was small the few times I had been scared or uncontrollably upset. It wasn't often, usually I used fear as a tool to fight and most of the time I got frustrated rather than upset but there are a few times I remember. A bad dream, a particularly cruel adult, once I watched a horror movie way too young. And when that happened, my dad would hold me just like Suguro is holding me now and tell me everything's ok.

That's not going to happen this time though. Everything isn't going to be ok because I've done something horrible.

I don't know what's worse now: the fact I did this, that I could turn into that monster again, or the part of me that feels relief at still being alive. The latter is a feeling that's equal parts relief and disgust because the only reason I'm alive is the others died. What makes my life more valuable than theirs? Why shouldn't I have a bullet between my eyes?

A hiccup causes me to jump and breaks my train of thought.

"I found a radio!" Shima calls out somewhere behind me.

"Awesome. Is it battery operated or chargeable?" I can feel Suguro's voice with how close I'm pressed to him. Heck, my elongated right ear is even pressed into his hair and I can hear the words move through his body. He goes back and forth with Shima discussing his find but eventually lapses back into silence.

"Keep talking." I say after only a moment of silence. My voice is completely wrecked. It's hardly even a whisper it's so soft but even worse it's gravely and I hardly understand the words I just spoke. "Please." I try again after clearing my throat. "Please, keep talking."

"About what?" He asks softly so only I can hear.

"I don't know. Something, anything. It helps." God I'm so needy right now but I don't feel any shame or embarrassment when I realize it. I'm drowning too much in other thoughts and emotions to care.

"Alright, sure." He starts reciting sutras. I'm not surprised to be honest, but I do wish it were something else he had chosen. Most of them aren't even in languages I recognize. Either way it does help. I focus on his voice, his tone, the way he talks, and it manages to keep me from thinking about what happened or what could happen again.

After a few more minutes of picking through things Konekomaru looks up at us. His brows rise from behind his glasses and he approaches.

"You've got a lot of grazes from bullets and they're all still bleeding, we should really clean them up." He's looking at my arms wrapped around Suguro's neck. Suguro stops reciting sutras and I shake my head quickly to say no. I don't want Suguro to stop reciting sutras, I don't want to move, I don't want my wounds tended to. Konekomaru sighs and his shoulders sag. "Okumura we don't know how badly you're hurt, we really should take a look." I shake my head more and hold onto Suguro a little tighter. Suguro seems to understand.

"Hey man, I know, it's ok." He sounds like he's talking to a little kid and I hate myself for feeling comforted. "It'll be for just a second ok? I also need someone to look at my side, kinda got shot ya know?"

I tense when the memory comes back. The blood, the sound, the smells…

"I'm fine!" Suguro quickly adds, feeling the shift in my body. "It stopped bleeding a while ago. Just wanna be careful ok?"

I still don't want to let go. I feel safe, I feel like someone still cares about me despite what I did, I feel less like the monster I know I am. I take a deep breath and nod. Suguro waits for my arms to loosen before he moves his. I slowly lean back but I keep my head down. I know I look awful. I can feel the blood that's now dried all over me. I can feel how puffy my face is from breaking down. I can feel pieces of gore stuck in my hair. On top of all that I still look like a monster. My ears are long, my fangs poke out past my lower lip, my flames are still burning. I can't look Suguro in the eye.

I don't get a choice though because I feel a hand under my chin. Suguro pushes gently and I end up looking straight into his brown eyes. His expression is closer to his norm with his brow furrowed but instead of looking annoyed he looks almost...concerned? That can't be right, why would he be concerned about me? Doesn't he see me? Doesn't he see the monster? Isn't he at least disgusted? I jerk my chin away and shift backwards off his lap.

I sit with my legs crossed and my gaze focused on the ash around me. Konekomaru is right, I can feel all the grazes from the bullets and the blood oozing out of them. They're all over, though my arms seem to be the worst off. They don't hurt like a normal cut either. No, these all burn. I remember what the nurses said back at the hospital and realize it's the residue from holy water casings. I heave a sigh and I do a quick self-check. There's a few on the outside of my right thigh, one went through the toe of my shoe and somehow didn't take a digit with it, one took a chunk out of my right shoulder, and at least seven grazed my arms. The one that hurts the most though is the one that took a piece of my left ear. I try to run a finger over it to try and get a better idea of the damage but it hurts too much. My clothes are a complete mess too but that's not surprising. My jeans managed to survive the fall into the crater with minimal damage but now they're torn at the hems, my right thigh where the bullets grazed me, and the knees pretty much threadbare. My shirt is even worse off. It ripped in several places with the fall but now the sleeve of the right shoulder is gone as well as a chunk in the right side. Of course it's also all completely saturated in blood.

I hear a sharp hiss of pain and whip around to see Suguro pulling the bloody fabric of his shirt away from the bullet wound. The blood has already dried and adhered the shirt to the damaged skin. He pulls again and manages to get the rest of it off with a loud groan. He lifts the shirt and I'm greeted with a horrifying sight. There's so much blood smeared across his stomach and side. The hole is right at the edge of his side above his hip, only a few inches between the entrance and exit wound so I know no internal organs got hit, but still. What's worse is that it's started bleeding again from the fabric ripping away the seal. The bright red liquid oozes out and blends with the darker dried blood before soaking his jeans even more.

As much as I want to look away, I can't. I need to see how hurt he is and that Konekomaru tends to all his wounds.

Shima brings the medical bag over when Konekomaru asks for it and I see that his shoulder is wrapped in a thick layer of bandages. A makeshift sling has also been made out of his button up to keep it immobilized. He offers me a half smile before walking away.

Konekomaru inspects Suguro's side a bit but he clearly doesn't know what he's doing. He sighs and just puts gauze over the holes before binding it tight with a few compression bandages. Moving on to his hands is a different story. He has to use tweezers to pull a piece of glass out of the heel of one hand and some small pieces of cement in the other. Once they're cleaned he globs antiseptic cream everywhere before binding them in a similar way he did Suguro's bullet wound.

When Konekomaru moves on to me he pauses. He watches my flames flicker and dance around for a minute, anxiety palpable. Once he summons his courage he gulps and lifts a shaky hand, slowly reaching towards the edge of the blue. Just like with Suguro, the flames bend around him. Konekomaru slowly moves his hand and the flames continue to bend around it. Seeming satisfied he won't get hurt, Konekomaru gets to work. I have no idea how the flames are doing that but I'm not about to question it too much. I never really wondered why my clothes didn't burn off anyways. Might as well leave it to Yukio to figure out later.

"These all look like grazes, how on earth did you do that? I heard the guns go off so many times!"

I shrug because honestly, I've been wondering the same thing. That proves to be a bad idea though because it pulls at the gouge in my shoulder. Konekomaru gets to work bandaging me after that. It's clear he's not going to have enough compression bandages for all my wounds though so he ends having to tape most of them. My shoulder needs more attention than basic first-aid but we don't bother Yukio, we just silently agree to deal with it later. In the end I look ridiculous. Most of me is covered in white bandages which is a stark contrast to the mix of gray ash and red blood I'm covered in. Looking down at my arms I'm reminded of cheap toilet paper mummies kids dressed up as.

Once he's done, Konekomaru grabs the bag and walks over to Yukio. He seems to be about the same shape as me with tons of grazes. Wonder how that'll go.

I jerk my gaze the other way when I hear some debris shift and see Kuro making his way towards me. His black and white coat is covered in gray and his paws have bits of blood on them. I can tell they're not his though, it's just transfer from moving around here. I'm so happy to see him and see that he's ok, I was wondering what happened to him.

"Kuro, where did you run off to?"

I didn't know how to help with the fight, sorry. He bows his head a bit and looks away. I wanted to, I really did like the other day, but… He trails off and his ears go back. He doesn't need to say anything else, I understand.

I reach over and scratch his favorite spot. "Hey no worries, I was just curious. Started to worry about you."

Kuro pushes against my hand and looks up at me.

That blond girl's familiar was here the whole time. They put up a wall of vines that seemed to keep your flames and the bullets away. Kuro catches sight of Shima with his bandaged shoulder and sling. Most of them at least. I crawled out and saw that doctor man running away with a few people. I tried to follow them but they got away in a weird looking car.

"Doctor Thompson got away?!"

Things were quiet before but now I have everyone's stunned attention. I look around and sure enough, there's a white coat missing from the sea of black trenches.

How?!

My heart starts pounding faster, louder and my breath quickens as I frantically continue to look around for him. Kuro has to be wrong! If he's still alive he can turn me back into that monster, I can't go through that again! Black, red, grey, no white. I can feel my shoulders start to rise and fall in rapid succession with my panicked breathing. No, no, no! He'll find us again, he'll use that poison again! I can't, I can't! What if next time I hurt my friends? I just started attacking people, I didn't care who. It was just a blind rage and urge to cause pain. What if one of my friends tries to help or doesn't get away in time and they end up with my claws in their gut? I picture Sheimi looking up at me with her big blue eyes, mouth open in a silent scream with my hand wrist deep into her stomach. Her warm blood oozing out and running along my arm…

I feel nausea bubble up from my gut.

Hey! I feel a sharp pain in my finger and yank it away. Kuro is looking at me with wide eyes and slowly closes his mouth. The jerk bit me! I glare down at him but a second later I realize he successfully pulled me from my near hysterics. He returns my glare.

Stop that! I found someone to help!

"Wait, what?"

Kuro rolls his eyes, clearly getting fed up with me. He gets up and takes a few steps back. Come on! We have to go to him.

"Who?"

Just come on already! He turns around and takes a few more steps, threatening to leave without me. We're making him wait a long time already since I had to come back and fetch you!

"Will you at least tell me who it is?!" I'm starting to get frustrated with him.

No, because you might not accept his help.

"Oh gee, that really makes me want to go meet him." I yell sarcastically since he's now at the edge of the battlefield.

The cat still ignores me.

I groan, roll my eyes, but eventually give in because we really don't have any options at this point. I push myself up and it's more of an effort than I'd like to admit. I can only use one arm with my injured shoulder and the burning sensation from the grazes erupts to a near blinding level, forcing a few curses from my lips. I manage to get to my feet though and take a few steps to follow Kuro.

"Rin! Hold up!" I jerk my head but mostly out of surprise. Yukio hasn't said or really done anything this whole time, I hadn't expected him to pay attention to what Kuro was saying. He's pushing himself up though Konekomaru and Sheimi are clearly protesting. Konekomaru is still holding the medical tape too so I assume he wasn't finished.

"I'm coming too." He manages with a pant.

"Wait now hold up!" Izumo chimes in. She puts her hands on her hips and fixes us with a glare. "Care to explain to the non-demon folks here?!"

I really need to stop forgetting that fact.

"Kuro found help." Yukio says simply before taking a few steps. How he's moving at all is beyond me, four-eyes is blind as a bat without his glasses.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, then I'm coming too." Shima exclaims.

"No way am I staying here!" Konekomaru chucks the tape into the bag before scrambling to his feet.

"We'll all go." Suguro's tone leaves no room for argument behind me. I spare a glance over at Kuro to make sure he's still waiting before jumping down into the crater to grab our backpacks. Whatever, it'll probably make things a lot easier if we all go with our stuff. It also means we can finally get out of this place and never come back, I can finally push these memories into a deep dark part of my mind and try to forget about it.

It takes a few minutes but we do manage to finally get out of there.

Everyone is absolutely filthy. We're all caked in blood, though most of us it's our own. Sheimi's knees are bloodied from kneeling, which leaves Konekomaru and Izumo being the only ones without major injuries. It would be hard to tell at first look though. Both of them have blood caked up to their knees and elbows as well as random streaks from picking through everything. As if the blood isn't enough the ash coats everything else. Our faces, our clothes, even as we march on more of it grabs ahold of us to add another layer. On top of the filth it seems like the adrenaline has worn off leaving everyone absolutely exhausted. When was the last time we even slept?

The pace we keep is slow due to a number of factors. Kuro is leading but in his smaller form which makes it difficult to move around, especially the larger bits of debris forcing him to go around them. That isn't really a problem because exhaustion is slowing the rest of us down. Feet are dragging, slipping, and stumbling which brings out an occasional string of curses. It's still relatively dark too but it seems like the battle drove away any demons in the area, we haven't seen or heard a single one in the darkness. Still, everyone is tense and keeping as much of their weary senses open to finding threats as they can.

Sheimi is struggling with her injured knees. She tried to keep how hurt she was from Yukio but I think he still got a good idea, even without his vision. She just picked out what debris she could before grabbing her bag to head out. Yukio has the medical bag slung over his backpack. It must be considerably lighter now that so many of us have had to use it. I doubt the others expected to use it for stuff like this when they told Yukio to fill it, it was probably supposed to be just for my injuries at the time. Izumo has the small pack she snagged over her front. I didn't realize how much stuff she grabbed until we started moving. The thing is practically bursting at the seams. Konekomaru shoved the guns he found into his pack as well as a few other things. Shima doesn't have his pack due to his shoulder injury so I'm carrying it over mine. I tried to take Suguro's due to his side injury but he just pushed me away and slung it over his shoulders. He tried to hide the wince of pain but I saw it. Stubborn jerk.

He's also carrying the broad sword.

He tried to get me to take it originally. He had picked it up and basically shoved it at me but I nearly puked on him. I remember exactly what I did to the man who held it. His blood covers the once beautiful sword, hiding the engraved sutras and elaborate designs in the hilt. Suguro pulled it away when my stomach clenched forcing a dry heave. It took me a second to breath before I was able to point to the eviscerated man five feet away saying it was his. Suguro looked over at him but I didn't see his reaction, my head was still bowed in case my stomach decided to empty. He put his hand on my uninjured shoulder after a minute and muttered how I needed a sword but he'll hold onto it for now. He didn't give me a chance to respond before moving away.

We trudge along for nearly half an hour before we reach our goal. Kuro must have really been booking it earlier. Either way it's clear who is here to help us when we reach a block of shops. Sitting on top of what was a raised garden bed is a little white dog with a large pink bow. He's lounging with his eyes closed but he twitches an ear when he hears us coming and perks up. He takes his sweet time stretching and yawning as we approach.

"Well, looks like you've seen better days." His high pitched voice greets us.

Yukio is probably just now realizing there's something living on the stone because he jumps at that which knocks me out of my shock.

"Mephisto?! You're the one here to help us?!" I sputter.

"Mephisto?!" Comes a collection of shocked voices.

Oh god I do not want to be the one to explain this.