A New Normal
Disclaimer: Characters and premise are the property of Kazue Kato. I'm just borrowing them for a little non-profit fun.
Chapter Twenty-Six: Reunions
Izumo tried to lean on Bon's arm as little as possible as she led him and Konekomaru to the little house tucked behind the temple which had been her home.
"Your familiars brought Renzo here?" Bon asked.
"You put me in charge of making sure that Shima's life took priority over keeping him human," Izumo replied defensively.
"What is this place?" Konekomaru asked. "It looks abandoned."
"Home," Izumo said shortly. "Apparently no one wanted to come near the place after my mother ate her lover and slaughtered over a dozen of his retainers." Izumo immediately felt guilty for saying it after Tamano had died saving her from the same insanity.
There was an awkward moment of silence.
"There used to be a key under that stone," Izumo said, pointing. Konekomaru dug around the rock to loosen the grass that had grown over it and found the key. He let them in. A few foxes were busily sweeping up five years worth of dust in the kitchen. They all stopped and stared as the three exwires came in and shut the door behind them.
"Guys?" Izumo prompted.
"Big Sis, we've been looking after Tamano-chan real good, waiting for you," one of the fox spirits said looking nervous and evasive.
Izumo gulped at the reminder that she needed to begin her mother's funeral. The fox-spirits, as close as family to them, could help but as both Tamano's daughter and her successor as Inari's miko there were somethings that she had to take care of. "How is Shima?" she asked rather than addressing the issue of her mother's funeral.
The foxes glanced at each other, after a few moments of whispering among themselves one of them was shoved forward to deliver the news. "Er, pink-hair?" the little fox stalled.
"Yes," Izumo said, frowning severely.
"Um, he was already gone when Miketsu and Uke Mochi told us to get him," the little fox admitted reluctantly.
"What!" Izumo exclaimed.
"We're looking for him!" the fox exclaimed quickly. "But we haven't found him yet. It's hard to sense anything except the corruption of the land!"
"So who really has him?" Konekomaru worried. "Shima-san was co-operating with that doctor. It doesn't make sense for the True Cross to have taken him."
Without fanfare a portal opened in the middle of Lucifer's blasted out audience chamber. Rin and Amaimon stepped out into the windy ruin. The two exorcists standing guard at the far end of the hall, where the top floor of the building was more intact, tensed warily. Mephisto followed his younger brothers through the portal and let it collapse behind him. "Sir Pheles," one of the exorcists called. Mephisto turned and stuck one of his keys into the nearest door without acknowledging the man. Rin caught a brief glimpse of the True Cross Academy's roofs, then Mephisto was gone.
"The Earth King!" the second guards exclaimed. He pointed a gun at Amaimon while the other pulled out a rosary and started muttering under his breath. The dragoon took in Rin's jacket and beckoned him over. "Exwire, report!" he ordered.
"He's helping," Rin said stepping between Amaimon and the dragoon. "Don't point guns at him. He's helping." Behind Rin, Amaimon amused himself by baring his fangs at the exorcists.
"Get away from him! Report!" the dragoon repeated. "Lucifer's status? Now!"
"Lucifer's not coming back," Rin said with a small shiver as he remembered the King of Light's fate. "Is everyone okay? Bon? Izumo? Renzo?"
"What happened? Why did Sir Pheles leave like that?"
"My guess? You're too boring to talk to," Amaimon offered. He turned to Rin, "Can't you sense Bastard-ni? Come on, if he isn't looking after Pink and your fox-girl we should skin him." He drew back his lips in a toothy smile, "I bet we could manage it together twirp."
Rin wavered, looking between Amaimon and the two exorcists. Amaimon snorted and grabbed Rin by the collar. Hauling Rin along by the scruff of the neck like a kitten, the Earth King leapt through one of the gaping holes in a wall of the once grand room. As they fell he dug the claws of his free hand into the side of the building scoring long furrows down the face of the Inari Dreamtower to control their descent. As they hit the third floor, Amaimon released Rin and kicked away from the building. The pair landed neatly in the courtyard below.
"What do you mean 'sense' Egyn?" Rin asked.
Amaimon scrunched up his nose. "He's like a screeching banshee, how can you miss him?" he demanded. Rin just looked blank. "Oh just come on," Amaimon said as a number of exorcists began converging on them.
"It's okay! He's friendly!" Rin shouted as he dashed off after Amaimon.
Amaimon led them directly to Egyn. The Water King was stomping around the exorcist's field hospital, scowling. Amaimon stalked up to his half-brother and tilted his head back to stare challengingly at the taller demon. "All the centuries you've been going on about how much you hate Dad, but when it comes to throwing down, you chickened out. And that was just against Dad's favorite son. So where's Pink? Taking care of him was your excuse wasn't it?"
"Humans possessing demons, it's just not right." Egyn informed them. "The humans don't hear but Yamantaka of the black flames is dead, stripped of his power until there was nothing left of him. I have heard the phoenix survived being eaten, but it's a phoenix's nature to be consumed and regenerate. Perhaps it is best that the humans don't hear; being exorcised is aggravating and can wreck decades, even centuries of work, but until now it was only other demons who could kill you."
"Where are they? Where my friends?" Rin demanded.
"I'm not sure who has the Lady Shiemi's knight. Right now the True Cross only desires to make certain that they can kill Demon-eaters, that may be safest in the long run even if it would displease Lady Shiemi. If we return him to her, she would make no study of Demon-eaters but it would leave open the possibility that others may recognize him for what he is and wish to discover the process for themselves."
Rin wonder how much of Egyn's rambling was simply talking to himself out loud but he wasn't about to interrupt. If Egyn decided he wanted Renzo dead it would be good to know upfront.
"Although, truly, the knight is not the highest priority. The two of you are alive, so I shall conclude that Lucifer has been dealt with but his army remains and already possesses the ability to create Demon-Eaters. Dealing with them should take precedence over the knight and would not upset Lady Shiemi." Egyn refocused on Rin and shrugged, "If your friends took him he'll be back in Delphi soon enough. If the True Cross has him he'll be dead within the week, although that may be generous. I am trying to decide if I care while everyone else is searching for him; either because they don't have him or because they wish to look like they don't have him."
"You're completely useless," Amaimon remarked cracking his knuckles.
"No time," Rin said as he grabbed Amaimon and yanked him onward. "I can find Bon." And with that Rin stopped thinking about where he was going and just let his feet carry him onward. A few short minutes later the two of them were standing outside of a small house behind the temple grounds. Rin shrugged and knocked on the door.
Bon opened the door warily. As soon as he saw Rin he grabbed the smaller boy and gave him a hard shake, "What took you so long? Everyone's been worried sick!"
Rin grinned shakily, "Angels are terrifying," he said. Amaimon shivered at the reminder and nodded in agreement.
Bon's mouth dropped open at that, before he could recover Izumo and Konekomaru were pushing him out of the doorway. "You're okay," Izumo said, her shoulders sagging in relief once she'd looked Rin over. Then she took a determined step forward, grabbed Rin's shirt-front and dragged him down into a kiss. Amaimon hopped closer and peered at the two of them curiously. Bon and Konekomaru couldn't help the amused grins that appeared when Izumo released a rather dazed looking Rin a few moments later.
"Um, um. Wow." Rin stammered. He smiled brightly, then with his arm wrapped around Izumo's shoulders. His expression turned serious. "You guys are okay." He nodded back toward Amaimon, "We took care of Lucifer, or really Mephisto did. So um, we talked to Egyn. Did you guys rescue Renzo or did the Grigori kidnap him after we rescued him from the Illuminati?"
"We need to find him before the True Cross squirrels him away somewhere," Juuzo said as he and Kinzo stood up from the kitchen table. "Good to have you back. We're trying to figure out where they might have hidden him."
"Another hour and Shiemi can get him," Amaimon said. "If he's touching the ground she'll sense him. She might not be able to tell us exactly where to find him, but redwoods are hard to hide. I'll ask her to grow one where ever he's being kept."
"Good thought," Juuzo said, acknowledging Amaimon with a nod. "The True Cross needs to keep up a pretense of trying to help Ren. Unless I miss my guess they've probably got several layers of orders that are understood rather than explicit about collecting data from him. They'll have to keep the promise Angel's given about their non-involvement, so the Grigori will disavow anything this bunch is doing as soon as we can produce proof. But Hsu has quite a bit of leeway on what he can do, as long as Grigori doesn't 'know' what's going on."
"How do you define 'touching ground'?" Konekomaru asked Amaimon.
Amaimon thumped his foot against the ground. "Touching ground," he said. "That's why I let Pink carry Shiemi all over South America, we had to break her connection to Mother."
"That's why they strung him up," Izumo realized.
"Would the upper stories of a building keep Shiemi from finding him?" Konekomaru asked grimly.
Amaimon nodded.
"We'd better start looking," Bon said. He nodded toward the notes scattered across the table. "Assume anything on a ground floor is eliminated and start checking everywhere else we thought of."
Renzo woke to what felt like ice being poured into his veins. He whimpered and tried to curl up for warmth but found he was so heavily restrained that he could barely lift his head. The deep cold continued spreading through his body quenching even the memory of warmth.
"The subject's demonic power continues to wane in response to the treatments. However, the physical manifestations of the demon remain unaffected. This is consistent with earlier findings," a detached voice dictated in the background, Renzo couldn't focus on it.
Uncaring hands prodding at Renzo's side. The cold didn't numb him, it only made him feel frail and breakable. "Exposure testing shows results consistent with known data for the Kin of Iblis. Overall, the subject's responses show no indication that he was completely human less than forty-eight hours ago. The transformation to a demon is apparently seamless and irreversible."
Mephisto stood on the highest parapet of the True Cross Academy staring up at the stars. "Only you could force me to empathize with our youngest brother, Ni-san," he said. "Although I've not the capability for self-delusion to claim that I've ever had your best interest in mind. Well, brothers or not, our relationship was never like theirs. I never thought of the world as frightening or dangerous until I was in much too deep to spend time worrying about how you might be suffering. Once we were back together, whatever relationship we had, there wasn't much left. All we could do was fight; about how to respond to a world that wasn't as safe as we'd grown up believing; about who had it worse: The one Father abandoned or the one he rescued. I never could make you understand what 'safe' truly looks like, but now you'll see for yourself."
"I'll imply to the Order that removing you from the game was for the greater good. It's what they already think; your reputation precedes you, brother... But if I say that's my cause," Mephisto smiled a bit wanly. "Well, it will be most amusing for me to watch them scurry around trying desperately to figure out my true motives. The truth is, between you and Father it was worth it to use my trump card to eliminate you, dearest brother."
Mephisto stood for a moment, listening to the wind. "I know," he said. "I know you only ever wanted to feel secure again, to create a world where you wouldn't have to fear being hurt… Oh Lucifer, if you had your way the world would be so terribly boring!" Mephisto exclaimed. "I know you brother. You would have populated Assiah and Gehenna exclusively with your fawning toadies and let the rest perish. Familial affection may kept you from killing me despite my perfidy but I simply cannot imagine anything less entertaining than to spend an eternity listening to your sycophants quarrel with each other to win favor with you."
"And in the end you still wouldn't have been safe, brother. That is what you have always refused to believe. You should have listened to me, your plan was flawed at it's very core. They chained us both with bonds of love but I walked away drenched in their blood. Father didn't rescue me, I broke my own chains. I know love inside and out. I know how strongly love motivates. I know love has no moral bias. I know love can be twisted into murder because I've done it. Your plan was doomed from it's inception."
Mephisto sat down on the edge of the roof and let his feet swing over the void. "And so I consigned you to the fate that I have fought for untold eons to evade. Not dead, never dead. You are and always will be, my brother, my twin. But I've removed you from the game board until the end of days, you'll have no more say in shaping the reality that is to come. You'll sleep and dream and hopefully wake up in a wondrous new paradigm and finally see that I am right."
"And now you even have me sounding like littlest Yukio," Mephisto sighed. "Perhaps that is mother's true curse, that her children always destroy one another, but you chose the wrong side. I've gambled too much on this and I will win, even against Father, even against the Eldest. Still… You force me to stand in his shoes."
A look of pain crossed Mephisto's face. "I promised Shiro I'd look after them both, but siblings have a way of ticking you off. I may have worded things to Yukio a bit strongly. Everything in balance…" He laughed. "Your last revenge I suppose. Causing me to be caught in a web of my own making. You always loathed my habit, my love, of complexity."
Dr. Hsu stopped the elevator up one floor short of the top. He glanced up and down the hallway then unlocked the door to the room directly beneath the one Renzo had disappeared from. The light from the hallway spilled into the darkened room, illuminating a head of pink hair. Hsu started into the room then he felt a knife blade pressed against the small of his back.
"The kids were too genuinely worried, the Water King wouldn't have bothered sticking around afterwards and Renzo's arms were immobilized, he couldn't have opened the door on his own," Yaozo said as he took the key from Hsu's hand. "So that left you. Why would you take Renzo? I was going to let you go ahead with the treatment."
"You would have only allowed me to treat him," Hsu said. "The only Demon-eater we have access to and all I'd have been allowed to do was create a single treatment plan. What a ridiculous waste of resources. It was hard enough working around his exwire friends to gather data, with your doctor half the experiments I needed to do would have been shut down before they were even started."
Yaozo shoved Hsu toward the corner of the room and set out a quick text to summon the Myo'o Dhari doctor. Then he flipped on the light switch. Heavy leather bands held Renzo flat on his back. He was shirtless, his chest a patchwork of blisters and discolored flesh where Hsu had been testing his reactions to various substances. An IV full of a dark red liquid was dripping slowly into Renzo's arm and he was shivering violently. At the sudden influx of light Renzo whimpered and tried to twist away, his eyes met Yaozo's across the room. In the black, inhuman depths of Renzo's new eyes Yaozo recognized the child he'd raised. "Son," the older exorcist sighed with relief.
"So cold," Renzo breathed miserably.
With a warning glare at Hsu to stay put, Yaozo hurried across the room and started loosening Renzo's restraints. "You're doing great, Ren. You're fighting back," Yaozo told him. He smiled reassuringly and forced himself not to flinch at the chilled, corpse-like feel of Renzo's flesh. As soon as the restraints were gone, Renzo clumsily curled in on himself. Yaozo sat on the edge of the bed and pulled Renzo close, he tilted Renzo's face up and felt another wave of relief as their eyes met. Renzo's eyes were full of grief, pain and fear, and Yaozo had no doubt at all that it was Renzo and not a demon that inhabited the body. "I know it hurts, but you're going to be okay," Yaozo promised grabbing a blanket off the bed and rubbing his hands up and down Renzo's back trying to work some warmth into his skin. "I won't lose you to Yamantaka like I lost Take."
Renzo tried to pulled his knees up to his chest but couldn't manage it. He slumped against Yaozo, unable to support himself. His teeth chattered and his body jerked spastically.
"You're you, you're still you, it's going to be okay," Yaozo repeated as he gathered Renzo closer.
Renzo's shaking deepened into convulsions. By the time the Myo'o Dhari doctor arrived he was gasping, his breath coming in short, cut-off pants. The doctor quickly clamped off the IV and removed it from Renzo's arm, but the symptoms didn't abate. Yaozo watched helplessly as Renzo's lips turned blue. "What's happening to him?" he asked as the exwires and Amaimon piled into the room.
"It's doing exactly what it was intended to do," Hsu said from the corner he'd been banished to. "Killing the demon. Can't you see? There's nothing human left."
"Get him to the ground," Amaimon snarled. Suiting action to words, the Earth King kicked out the window and leapt out, leaving an impact crater when he landed in the courtyard five stories below. "Shiemi! We found him!" Around Amaimon vines sprung up, reaching upward searchingly.
Rin didn't hesitate, he picked up Renzo and followed Amaimon out the window. Shiemi's vines wrapped around the two of them as they fell, drawing them into a cocoon. The vines twined tightly around Renzo feeding him her strength, filling the air with a floral scent the eased his breathing. Suckers attached to his skin, forming loops that drew his blood through the plants' filtering membranes to remove the toxins Hsu and Gedoin had poured into him before returning it to Renzo. Amaimon called the earth to rise up around the cocoon of greenery to form a hard, protective shell around it, putting his powers at Shiemi's disposal. Within the cocoon, Rin wrapped the pink-haired boy in his flames, commanding them to burn anything that wasn't Renzo. Deep in Renzo's core, something sparked in response, the flames closest to his skin darkened to black. Gradually he stopped shaking and fell into a healing sleep.