Verity Arc: Please Hear For Me, And Speak My Story
The training Rin had enforced upon the severely hungover recruits was nothing short of torture, though they all understood why he did it. He was known for having developed a practical way of teaching and enforcing rules. He would never explain why it was not a good idea to do something.
He would run something- a simulation, a drill, a routine- in an effort to emphasize his point while not saying a thing.
"Damn," Weryin threw his weapon onto the pile that was slowly building by the door, "Okumura-danchou sure knows how to drive his point home. Ass."
Sayori barked in laughter before wincing at the harshness of the sound, "And he didn't even give us anything to get rid of the damn hangover."
"Well it's your own damn faults!"
The only human of the barracks had been given a temporary permission to return, and was met with a warm welcome.
"Oi! Renzou, what the hell are you saying about us?" Weryin quickly put the boy in a loose headlock and pulled him down into a wrestling match.
Chants and cheers rang out as the two fought good-naturedly; Renzou had been sufficient at wrestling after a time in training, and it was something he came to enjoy now and again. Weryin was part of that, as he usually challenged people in an easy-going, rough-and-tumble kind of fun.
As the two continued to spar, very few became aware of their superior standing behind them. Shima had glimpsed Rin passing the windows of the barracks dorm, but had payed it little mind in the heat of the fight.
"Renzou, Weryin, isn't this enough? I'm not entirely certain either of you have avoided breaking something yet."
Rin's voice stopped the fight in its tracks.
"Sir," Weryin and Shima both stood at complete attention, "We're sorry, sir. It was all in good fun."
Rin waved a hand dismissively, a smile on his face, "Shima hasn't been here in ages, I understand the urge to throw him down a couple of times."
The laughter at that comment had the entire barracks at ease. Rin wasn't often down in this area, as his work in an office- something Shima thought would have driven Rin insane by this point- kept him busy. As it was, he was the one in charge of forming alliances for the Vera Proelium, a fact that had been revealed with the arrival of Lewitra, a snipe known for her harsh tongue and unforgiving nature.
After issuing what Rin had dubbed a "completely bogus warning", he left Shima and Weryin to their own business, the fight resuming once more as the latter sent a punch to Shima's arm.
Yukio Okumura had ignored the note left by Renzou, putting it to the back of his mind while he continued with his research. It had finally begun to pay off, and he was beginning to understand his brother's scrawled and sketched notes. There were notebooks in his room, often hidden amongst regular books, filled with sketches of strange, likely demonic people, places, the strange characters filling his notes, and even students and teachers from the cram school.
One sketch was of Hamasaki-chan, another of a strange, simple yet beautiful girl. The second sketch was labeled in the language, no other labels to help Yukio find an identity. Further in the book, there were a few more sketches of her, posed in various different ways, and a second handwriting with small sketches of Rin on the back of each page.
Looking through the sketchbook had become a pastime for Yukio as he did his research, who found the drawings of demons fascinating. There were ones of all ages, genders, and even various emotions.
He had known Rin to enjoy drawing on occasion, but had never imagined something of this caliber to possibly come from his impatient, slightly neurotic older brother.
"Hey, Four-eyes!"
Shura had entered the room just as Yukio opened to a page decorated with a sketching of Shima and a strange girl wrestling against each other. The two were both smiling and seemed to be laughing, even through the printing of the image on paper.
Walking up to him, she looked over his shoulder, "Rin's sketchbook?"
"How did you know?" Yukio's face contorted to one of confusion, "Not even I knew he took up drawing for a hobby?"
"Yeah, it was open a couple of times when I came to get him for training, and when he was alone I sometimes saw him working in it. What's it to ya'?"
Yukio shrugged, turning to one of the pictures of the strange girl, "Do you know who she is? And why does he stop drawing her after about halfway through?"
Shura stilled, her eternal energy halted, "That's not someone you should worry about. She died awhile back, and Rin was badly affected by it."
Yukio looked back at the girl's picture.
She was laughing while pointing at someone whom he now assumed to be Rin, as she was pointing forward, toward the viewer.
Closing the book, Yukio turned to her.
"So, why are you here?"
Anfisa had long since resigned herself to the rare contact with Rin for the sake of this war. She knew he was safe, for now, in the village. As such, she thought nothing of the lack of contact over the past few months- especially given his recent assignment and the subsequent need to catch up on missed work.
She had, therefore, not expected to see the boy- though he looked far older than the last time she had seen him, this war was aging him faster than she had thought it would- standing in Isamu's kitchen the day of the meeting, a fallen angel standing next to him.
"Anfisa!" Lucifer was oddly cheery today, something she filed away for later, "Welcome! I thought you weren't coming!"
"What business is it to you?"
Rin sighed, "Guys, we have a lot of work to get done, please save bickering for after Etsu arrives, at least."
The girl spoke up, "Why do they bicker at all?"
Rin rolled his eyes while everyone looked around awkwardly. Anfisa and Lucifer had never gotten along, simply because they didn't. Glancing around the room, Anfisa noticed Isamu lurking in the corner, per usual. It wasn't something she was going to call him out on, but she quickly made note to keep track of his whereabouts.
"Let's get started, please," Rin quickly handed a document to each of the leaders, "These are the statistics from the village. We have a lot of people ready to go to battle, and quite a few people who fought in the past wars of Gehenna."
"And what of the human wars? Human warfare is vicious-"
Rin interrupted Lucifer's question with a short look in the direction of his brother, "Human warfare may be vicious, but so is Genesian. Just in different ways. You play headgames while limiting the amount of true fighting, the humans prefer fighting to headgames. Either way, people are traumatized and people get killed. We just have to prepare for the worst and hope for the best."
Lucifer nodded, allowing the boy to move on to the next topic. Anfisa paid close attention to the document.
"What is this here, about Kastori?"
"It's become nearly a training exercise," Rin smirked and huffed a small laugh, "There are many times some of the troops will sneak their own glyphs into the deck, causing a ruckus each time they play. They limit the danger level when Renzou-san is around, but it is still dangerous. Some have taken to hiding Kastori hands in others' belongings, putting everyone on a high alert for any sort of dangerous tampering. All I can say for it is this, nearly everyone has become better at watching for traps, which is why I'm hesitant to stop the behaviour. They'll know what is and isn't too far, and Renzou-san can't really take things to that level due to his limitations as a human."
Several of the leaders had let out a laugh, as Kastori was known for being deadly if not monitored closely, and yet Rin was trusting soldiers not to kill each other and hoping to use it as training.
He truly was ingeniously naive. Overlooking that which some might call obvious danger, he had turned it around for the best.
Looking to the young man in front of her, Anfisa pulled the meeting back to attention. It lasted for several more hours, all the while covering many issues Rin had been hoping to have elaborated.
By the time it ended, there was no doubt in Anfisa's mind.
One of them was becoming very dangerous, and rather quickly. Leaving, she looked at him, monitoring his actions.
He may have been related to Rin, but there was something holding him at a distance. Putting it out of her mind, she scrawled the events on her message paper and addressed it to Etsu. She would merely have to be more observant.
Running down the streets of the village, Weryin laughed loudly. Some of the younger demons had dragged him into a game, just as they often did the other soldiers, and were now chasing him. It was simple, the game, but the entire village was accustomed to the sight of soldiers and children playing together. The soldiers knew they could not speak of the war while spending time with the children, but tensions were high in the village, and as such, the children took comfort in seeing the people they knew could die any moment playing their childish games.
Looking forward, Weryin found himself cornered. He barked in laughter once more and set down a basic glyph, one that every child knows, for escape.
Sayori laughed with him, following one of the other children up onto the makeshift playground equipment. While technically being for training, the rope-net ladders and swinging bars were just as useful to the children, thus making it usable as a playground, causing a second training ground to be created for training purposes only.
As a mother called out for one of the children, Weryin and Sayori stopped moving. The child had been injured during the constant running, jumping, and swinging, and both of them immediately jumped to help.
The mother, concerned for her daughter, moved closer to the three.
"What are you doing?"
"We are so sorry, ma'am, but please, allow us to at least administer first-aid."
The woman hesitated. She knew exactly why they felt guilty- soldiers of the Vera Proelium had a self-instilled honor code. They were to watch out for those around them. If one person got injured, it was everyone's fault. As such, a child getting injured during a game caused them to immediately feel guilty for the injuries.
"She is fine, do not worry about it," she smiled at them half-heartedly, "She simply has a scraped knee. If it weren't time for us to leave, I'm certain she would have stood up immediately to rejoin the game."
The two nodded in respect, heads turning when several of the children started calling out to them.
Life was difficult in the village, but there was a sense of bonding all of them had developed over the time it was being run by the Vera Proelium. After all, most of the populace was families, children running everywhere.
It takes a village, and everyone knew that. As such, they let things run the way they did because it was natural.
And watching all of this from the edge of the playground/training ground, Rin had to smile at that.
The classes Suguro and Konekomaru had been taking under Yukio's tutelage had taken a drastic turn. Suddenly, they were also learning a bit of the demon language. It was an interesting study, given as an extracurricular class, but had received a wonderful turnout from the student body and even some of the current exorcists.
Officially, it was set-up by Mephisto, but the students could tell differently. While Mephisto oversaw the lessons and gave instructions in some of the more confusing aspects of the language, it was clear Yukio had done a wealth of research on the subject.
"Alright, there are several phrases, none of them translated as of yet, to look out for," Yukio wrote clearly on the chalkboard, clearly taking his time to ensure each singular character was accurately drawn, "One of them would be the term Strotea. Those who have studied the language have no knowledge as to the meaning or entymology of the word, only that it commands a high level of respect and is rarely even utilized in common speech…"
And as it went on, there was something about the first term that echoed to all of the students.
[End Chapter]
Omake: Kastori (prompt from titania2811, she got the events mostly correctly)
Shima didn't know of a time since he and Rin had allied themselves with the Vera Proelium that Rin had taken some time to gamble and goof off in Kastori. Certainly, he had been assured, Rin knew how to play. Anfisa had assured him that Rin, when in the mood, could be quite good at Katori, creating his own, expert runes and using them effectively with the standard runes for some flashy and/or volatile combinations.
But, Shima hadn't expected the same of Lucifer, and as such, this little match of wits he was witnessing was too tempting not to join- both of his leaders playing against each other in a no-holds-barred tournament.
He was no fool, he knew he was out of his depth.
It was just too tempting.
Shima's own hand was mostly standard glyphs, though he had one of the deck-placed customs- one of Rin's, if he had guessed correctly by style- and was preparing his next move.
Rin laid a basic fireworks glyph, followed quickly by Lucifer's own Burning Shards glyph- a glyph which, when combined with fire-based glyphs, would cause spectacular effects, and minor burns (with a pain reducing and 'quick-to-heal' rune engraved into the back of it so as not to harm anyone too seriously throughout the course of the game) to the casters of the base and top runes.
One thing Shima enjoyed about Kastori was the unpredictability. The glyphs didn't always set each other off immediately, and occasionally, one round could yield chains of twenty or more glyphs before one was set off, causing chains of reactions that could leave an entire group of twenty or more laughing and nursing minor injuries.
As the three continued through their game, Shima found himself on the defensive. The two had lain runes with strong fire and heat natures, forcing Shima to lay runes to cancel out what he could.
Rin and Lucifer had been at each others' throats through the game. They had constantly been laying runes to set the sequence off.
Sitting through this round of runes was painful for Shima, as Rin had sat completely still for a long time, before finally setting down a crushing rune of an unclear nature. Lucifer had been just as bad, removing a linked rune- a singular rune card linked to others in a way that acted similarly to the various combinations in human gambling games- and placed it casually, a cruel pleasure on his face.
By the time Shima decided on his rune choice- a simple plant-based shield- he realized his mistake.
The crackling and loud exploding sounds caused Shima to nearly jump out of his skin. Rin and Lucifer had snickered at his fright, until they were both attacked by a number of runes that lashed in their direction.
By the chain had finished, all of them were covered in mild burns and scrapes, but the comical additions- such as a burn on Rin's forehead that would have been rather appropriate when they were in True Cross.
The three of them were laughing for quite a while after the game, quite a rare sight around Lucifer, and one that was slightly alienating for some of his followers.
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed, and the omake is, granted, kinda long, but I hope it brightens the story up a bit.
Congrats to titania2811 for getting it right,
Have a great weekend.
And Poll for the Poem is on my profile.
~endlessnotebooks.
Next Chapter: Seek Me Not
Rules: Guess an event or events in the next chapter based on the chapter title, and if you get it right, I'll PM you asking for a prompt for an omake at the end of the chapter. If more than one person gets it right, I will add multiple omakes. Have fun! Lucky Guessing!