A/N: *shows up 2+ years later with hot tea in hand* sup all what's hanging?

AKA after a couple years with almost 0 inspiration to write VA, it came back. That seems to be a trend. I write for a year or two, and then the will to do so deserts me utterly and completely.

What you need to remember for this chapter!

-Takumi aka the Background Character I Gave A More Important Role To is currently helping people do simple doctory stuff and is tired. he is joined by Angelina (and Yamada aka Shura, who is not in any shape to do anything at the moment due to over-use of binder and therefore doesn't really get screen time.)

-Yukio was joined by Izumi, Shiemi, and Neko, who all saved his butt until more reinforcements could arrive. As opposed to canon, these reinforcements are Shima's brother Kinzou (rather than Juuzou) and he's brought a few extra faces.

-Bon and Rin and Kuro went up to go duke it out with the Impure King and got the pretty golden barrier set up. Rin discovered a trigger for Tsunagari's failsafe.

-I didnt remember nearly enough of this arc and of my own story and ended up having to almost entirely rewrite the last section so if you see continuity stuff tell me! I can't promise it'll be fixed and uploaded but I'll do my best to fix it!

OKAY without further ado, feast your eyes out it's 9k+ words.

**EDIT: many thanks to my sister, Oreramar, for proofreading this chapter and helping me make it stronger than the first draft 3


Chapter Twenty-Eight: Zugrunde gehend

(Decaying)

.

Takumi was really, really glad that they weren't under that golden barrier when it went up, because it just meant that he didn't have to move anymore. He was really sick of moving. Moving was a bit painful, it was exhausting, and if they had to move, then his fellow Cram School classmate might try to wander off in the confusion like she had been for the last ten minutes. He looked out of the corner of his eye from where he was preparing mobile IV bags. As expected, there she was, in the middle of standing up, watching him while trying not to look like she was. Their gazes met. She froze.

"Angelina-chan," Takumi said from behind his mask. "Are you serious. Stop it."

"You don't understand," Angelina-chan said. Her voice was a little drowned out by the chaos around them, but he was able to make out the words. "I have to go help."

"No, you don't. There are lots of people helping, and we're just Exwires," Takumi said. He looked down and continued to sort the IV bags, checking to make sure they were full of fluid, but kept an ear out for Angelina-chan. Just in case. He'd at least be able to yell at her if she ran off like Okumura and Suguro. Fucking idiots. Yeah, sure, Okumura had literal firepower, but it was useless in public unless he wanted his ass on the chopping block. Or his head. Takumi didn't know how they did executions here.

"You really don't understand," she repeated, frustration making her deep voice drop even further. "I have to go help. Okumura and Suguro went, I have to make sure that—I have to make sure."

Takumi leaned back and flailed a hand around for the duffle bag of anti-fungal solution. He sent his best disparaging look at Angelina-chan. "Look. Out of our class, two have fucked off to do stupid shit, one has literally fainted, I don't know where puppet guy is, and four have straight up vanished and they should have been here by now and you are not going to leave my healing ass by myself just because you have to make sure of whatever it is that's so important to you and literally means shit to everybody else. Fuck that."

Angelina-chan clenched her fists. The veins stood out on the backs in a way that reminded him of his Uncle Felix back in the States. Takumi pressed his lips together and turned his attention back to filling up the IVs.

"I could save people," Angelina-chan said.

"You can do that right here," Takumi said. He eyed Angelina-chan between IV bags. Her throat bobbed under the choker she wore. "Help me distribute these bags to people who need it. You can move faster than I can right now. Just because Okumura and Suguro are being all flashy about saving people doesn't mean that's the only way to do it. I mean, if you're looking for danger, this is only a little less dangerous and thank fuck for that because I am not a thrillseeker." Not anymore, at least.

Angelina-chan dug her fingers into her hair, loosening her ponytail in the process. "I understand that, I just—"

"Think you can go toe to toe with that thing?" Takumi asked. He stoppered a bag, wiped the sweat off his face with the back of his damp hand. "I have some big fucking doubts about that, but shit, even if you could, we still got bigger problems down here."

"I—"

Takumi spoke without looking up from his work. "A ton of people are working at taking out that thing, so we got less people down here taking care of hurt people. Shit, the Paladin's fucking down here instead of going after it, coz he gets it. Ton of patients and—"

"And that's why I need to be up there!" Angelina-chan snarled. Takumi was startled into paying more attention to her. Her face was red, and sweat stuck errant strands of hair to her cheeks. "More people are being infected than they should be, the Paladin is absolutely neglecting his—"

"I'm gonna stop you right there," Takumi said. He shifted so that he faced her, and dragged his gimpy leg to lay out straight ahead. "He's taking care of the people down here, that's one hundred thousand percent part of his—"

"And he could take care of them by razing that thing to the ground and destroying it like its filthy existence deserves!" Angelina-chan said. "If he's not going to step up to the plate, then someone else—"

"We've got a shitton of someone elses already up there!" Takumi slapped the ground with one palm. "We even got two idiots from our class up there, and one of them's got some sort of mumbo jumbo spell that's keeping us all safe right now so—"

"He's a child!"

"You're a child!" Takumi said, lurching to his feet. Angelina-chan's face contorted oddly at that, but Takumi didn't care if Angelina-chan was butt-hurt about being called a kid because she was. Hurt feelings didn't change the fact that they were all just a couple years into being teenagers. "We're all fucking children! Maybe you look swole for a kid, or maybe you think you're so mature, but it doesn't change the fact that you're not a fucking adult! I don't think Okumura or Suguro should be up there but what the fuck, they are and I couldn't stop them. I can stop you."

"You're the ones who ran out on the rest of us," Angelina-chan shot back. She stepped forward into his space. Takumi was reminded of just how tall she was, and his harsh inhale filled his nose with the scent of soot, smoke, and sickness even through the filtering mask. "So you saying that is hypocritical at best."

"It's one thing to do a fucking family search party," Takumi said, "it's another to fuck off and throw yourself at a shit ton of overpowered mushrooms dressed up as a building. The first one was stupid, sure, but the second is suicidal and dangerous to other people."

"No it isn't, not for me!"

Takumi couldn't speak for a moment. But, before Angelina-chan could take that as his unwitting agreement to her ass-stupid idea, he rallied and wrestled himself out of stunned silence.

"What, you think you're invincible? Holy fuck Angelina-chan. Holy fuck, I didn't expect none of this bullshit from you." Takumi dragged a hand down his face, then jabbed a finger into her shoulder. Angelina-chan's eyes widened, and then narrowed into something that sent a thrill of fear down Takumi's spine. He soldiered on anyways. "You need to sit down and shut up and help take care of the people around you. We're wasting time arguing and people are dying you flying fuck-faced—"

"Everything all right around here?"

Takumi threw up his hands and thanked whoever it was responsible for the exhausted Doctor that had come up to them. "Holy fuck a voice of reason. Sir. Ma'am. You. She's not listening to me so maybe she'll listen to the fucking authority and stay here instead of commit suicide by throwing herself at the fucking demonic entity terrorizing us all."

"I can help," Angelina-chan hissed, shoulders tensing and looming over Takumi. He didn't let it show, but the move was really effective. "I'm not a child."

Takumi opened his mouth to snipe back. The Exorcist inserted themselves between him and Angelina-chan. They put a hand on both Takumi and Angelina-chan's shoulders. "Settle down, we're all on edge. You both can help, and I promise we're taking you seriously; that's why you're out here with us."

Angelina-chan's expression twisted again. She looked between the unnamed Exorcist and Takumi a few times, jaw clenched. Takumi tensed.

Then, with all the suddenness of a bursting balloon, there was a shout from the direction of the golden shield. They all turned to look as the yelling intensified. They all watched as the shield flickered between near-solid to translucent, the hexagonal shapes blinking erratically. Takumi felt a stone grow in his stomach.

"Shit," he said. Was Suguro okay? Okumura? The spell was supposed to hold longer than this, he thought. Takumi bit his lip, felt his fingers twitch, and wished with odd intensity that he was less useless, even if that meant throwing himself at the fucking monster to die a likely painful death. He'd like it better if he could, you know, magically cure everybody here, but that was less possible so death it would have had to be.

"All right," the Doctor said, voice thin with stress but otherwise strong. "You two will need to evacuate further away. This area is clearly not as secure as we previously thought."

Right as they finished speaking, the golden shield flickered again, glowed impossibly bright, and then collapsed with the faint sound of sand against glass. Takumi started forward, accidentally placing too much pressure against his still healing leg. Pain flared just strong enough to send him stumbling.

Angelina caught him by the upper arm. Takumi looked up at her, thanks just behind his teeth, when he saw the expression on her face. The sound died in his mouth before it could even start to take shape. Her jaw clenched, she turned back to the Doctor now behind them.

"Hisoragi will need to evacuate," she said, a note of command in her voice. "He is clearly not well enough to remain on the field of battle. Should he need to or prove well enough to help, set him up on the outskirts of the medical camps doing work that does not require high levels of mobility."

"I—what? Miss, you need to—"

Angelina-chan reached up and tugged the elastic holding her hair up free. It fell down, and she carded her fingers through it to reduce the bump left by the ponytail. "I will be aiding in the efforts to bring down the demon," she said as she hiked her shirt and jacket up, hands behind her back and holy shit she was ripped. Takumi could only dream about having those abs, because with his stature and current exercise plan there was no way he was ever going to be able to get anywhere close to that. "I presume the Paladin or another person in charge is somewhere at the front, under what used to be covered by the barrier?"

"Miss, what on earth are you doing?" The Doctor hissed, their face bright red. They reached over to try to tug Angelina-chan's clothing down, but Angelina-chan stepped away.

"I hate these things," she muttered, but after a moment sighed in relief, reached a hand up the front of her shirt, and jerked harshly down and out. There was a wet, peeling sort of sound that was closely followed by the sound of metal unsnapping from metal, and then Angelina-chan was very, very flat and there was a bra with what looked like silicone boobs attached on the ground. Its metal clasps, for both the straps and the hooks at the back, were snapped.

"What." Takumi said. He stared at Angelina-chan, then at the fake-boobs-snapped-bra double knockout combo. "What."

The Doctor wasn't even capable of speech. Takumi took that as a win, though if he were asked in what contest he wouldn't know what to respond with.

"My name," Angelina-chan said, bringing half of her hair up into a ponytail while letting the rest hang free, "is Arthur Auguste Angel. I am a First-Class Knight who has been, up to this point, on an undercover mission of classified purposes. Do not question why I am here or how. Now tell me, is there somebody in charge at the front that I may talk to?"


"I can fight," Yukio said to the Exorcist standing guard over them even as Kinzou and the others moved to encircle Todou.

"No you can't," Shiemi hissed. "You're limping and burned and you were nearly strangled!"

"I've had worse," Yukio said. He wasn't sure if it was a lie or not. His head was starting to swim in the heat and in the slow absence of adrenaline in his system. His face stung with sweat, and it hurt to speak. His throat was tight, and it wasn't from the smoke or the pressure of the situation.

"Strangled? You're falling back, then," the Exorcist guarding them asked. In the distance, Todou said something witty and Kinzou drawled an unimpressed reply in return. "Can any of you summon water, or have doctor training?"

Konekomaru-kun answered. "Moriyama-san is training as a doctor but otherwise Okumura-sensei can do both. Not…that that helps," he added as an afterthought.

"Should have realized," the Exorcist grumbled, setting their stance a little lower. "Damn Doctors are all the same, with their stupid hypocritical notions of when is a good time to get treatment. Esquires, your job is to keep your dumb superior officer away from the fight."

Yukio made an aborted noise of dissent even as his students nodded. There was a gleam in Shiemi's eye that made Yukio feel just the slightest bit unsettled at how almost ferocious it was.

"I can summon holy rice wine," Izumi-kun said, raising her hand a little. Her hair was windswept, a little tangled. Strands of it clung to the sides of her face. "I've already done it twice, though, and it barely hit him the second time so he might expect it."

"We'll keep that in reserve, then," a Myoda priest next to the other Exorcist said. She narrowed her eyes at the pair in the very front and frowned. "Be ready to defend yourselves if something happens."

Kinzou laughed at Todou and jangled his staff at him, his other hand on his hip. "Look at this crazy dude! One against—how many we got here? Like, ten? We got the numbers, and he's all on his lonesome."

He hit his staff on the ground three times. As if on cue, the Exorcists—Myoda priests and non-ordained alike—shifted into attack stances. Behind him, Konekomaru-kun muttered a small 'sorry' before setting his hands on Yukio's shoulders. Yukio would have stared at him if it weren't for how the atmosphere had become even more stifling.

"Yes," Todou drawled. "You, the inferior son to Juuzo, a handful of mid-range Exorcists, and a few meddling kids. I quiver where I sta—"

Kinzou's staff jangled, bright and loud, as it swung out to point at Toudou. Yukio couldn't hear what Kinzou murmured, but there were suddenly wheels of fire buzzing out at Todou, flames sharp and thin. They exploded into Todou, obscuring his figure for just a moment before the flames crackled and dissipated into smoke. Todou smiled.

"And he absorbed them," Yukio said. "Of course he did. He absorbed Karura, so why not some more fire?"

The Myoda Exorsist in front of him looked over her shoulder, sharp. "He absorbed the phoenix demon?"

"Oh, fuck," Kinzou said, both having overheard and also seen that Todou was suddenly not in front of him.

"Above you!" An older man cried, swinging his shakujou to point. In a feat of utter reflex, Kinzou deflected Todou's flame-laced kick with his staff, leaving himself wide open in the front.

Todou was quick to take advantage of it. Thankfully, the old man was quicker. "Ucchusma, grant your protection!" he said, twirling his staff in a circle. "Fire bloom shield!"

It held just long enough for Kinzou to fall back before Todou absorbed it. Yukio narrowed his eyes, mind racing. They had numbers, Kinzou was right, but what could they do with it?

"Nice try," Todou said with a small smile. "But Karura's regenerative ability still wins out. I'm the stronger, so I consume the weaker. I win."

"Minami, Shisamo, Inada, take point!" Kinzou yelled, retreating further. Their Myoda Exorcist took off, chanting as she went to join two other sect members. "Work together! Kumagi, Chigusa, Ushirogi, I need to you bolster my power. Hanta and Ushiroka, you cover the Esquires and Okumura-sensei!"

"You're just sending them in to die, you know," Todou said, right as one of the three—somebody with bleached hair and wearing a sweatshirt under his uniform, which was insane considering how hot it was—swung his fire-laced staff at Todou's face. It smashed into the cheek, the force turning him around. Their former guard stabbed in at Todou's knees.

"Kinzou-san," the old man said even as he knelt next to them. "This makes no sense, we will only make him stronger."

"Unless," Konekomaru-kun said, even as a thought occurred to Yukio, "it causes the power of the demon to overwhelm the capabilities of the vessel."

"Exactly," Yukio murmured. He tried to stand, but Shiemi very firmly grabbed his uninjured arm and tugged him back down. He grunted. Her grip was tighter than he had expected of her, and she seemed unusually forceful.

Kinzou blinked at them from a few meters away. Then, he grinned and sent them a thumbs up. "Cool! I was just going to try to be the stronger flame, but this works too."

The bald man next to the old man sighed. "Kinzou-san, really?"

There was a flash of light, a scream. A younger man with a shaved head went flying further off before colliding heavily with a tree. For a split second, there was silence and crackling fire.

"No time," Kinzou said, suddenly stern. It was an odd look on him. "Kumagi, Chigusa, Ushirogi—if you please."

As one, the three kneeling—an old man, an old woman and a bald middle-aged man—took a deep breath and began to chant, quick and even. Kinzou joined in.

Yukio tried to stand again. "Stop it," Shiemi hissed. Konekomaru-kun placed a little more weight on his shoulders. "You're staying down unless we need to run."

"It would be easier to run if I was standing up," Yukio said, dryly.

"I'm strong," said one of their baby-sitters, grinning over her shoulder. Her fellow Exorcist nodded several times. "I'll just pick you up."

"There you go, sensei," Izumi-kun drawled. "It's settled, you're staying down."

"These attacks are delicious! Like bite-sized desserts," Todou said, light and mocking even as he stopped the attacks from both of the remaining exorcists taking point. "No sting to them whatsoever, how charming."

The chanting grew in volume. Todou tsked and curled a hand around one of the Myoda priest's shakujou before ripping it from their grasp. The flames encasing it sputtered and died even as he swung it around and slammed it into its owner's bleached hair. The clang of metal on skull echoed through the small clearing. Yukio winced in sympathy.

"Shisamo!" the last priest standing cried out. She disengaged and pulled Shisamo-san, limp and with blood in his hair, away from Todou, toward the edge of the forest. It was slow going, though, and Yukio's mind raced with possibilities of how he could help, or what he would do, undercut by a current of self-disgust that he wasn't ready to handle yet.

Todou hummed. The chanting rose to a pitch, but Yukio could still hear Todou's words over the din. "This isn't too bad, actually. A conduit like this won't last forever, but…I can make do."

The staff grew brighter with flame. The rings lifted, hovering in a sea of fire, and Yukio shifted back away from the heat, raising an arm to shield his face a little. Shiemi inhaled sharp and crossed her arm in front of his body. Izumo-kun took a deep breath, and Konekomaru-kun began to incant in a quiet murmur.

"Prepare to evacuate them," the male Exorcist in front of them said. He pulled out a summoning circle and held it between two fingers.

"Understood," his companion said, punching into her own open hand.

"Oh no you don't!" Kinzou yelled. Flame twisted around his form, bright and almost writhing. He set his feet and, in a blur of light that left pale aftermarks on Yukio's retina, reappeared an arm's length from Todou. "Ucchusma, your spirit! Fire life Samadhi!"

Kinzou swung his staff up and around and down. Todou almost got his own staff up to block, but Kinzou made contact—harsh and loud and ringing. Fire exploded from the point where they met, and Kinzou was sent flying with a curse-interlaced scream. Yukio bit back concern even as others failed to; his eyes were still on the flame obscuring Todou's form.

Kinzou hit the ground and rolled, tumbling to just in front of Yukio and his students. The smell of damp earth filled the air, laying light on Yukio's tongue.

"Shit," Kinzou groaned, even as Konekomaru-kun abandoned his post from behind Yukio and ran to Kinzou's side. The old man who'd been chanting stood and shuffled over as well. "Why didn't I hit him from further away? That was so, so stupid."

Shiemi pulled away from Yukio and reached for Kinzou, fingers curled in hesitation, arm bent at the elbow. She was lit in harsh contrast, the fire burning before them bright and hot and terrible. "Are you all right, Shima-san?"

Yukio took the opportunity to stand up. Shiemi let out a noise of outrage and stood a couple moments later, tugging lightly at his sleeve. It was sweet of her—especially because he was pretty sure that Shiemi could actually pull him down, especially in his less than stellar state—but Yukio knew that Todou was going to get up sooner or later and he wanted to be standing for that. Sure, Todou might disintegrate soon after, but there was a lot that Todou could do in a short period of time.

Kinzou laughed. "I'm—"

"You always were a rash student," Todou said. The fire that enveloped him billowed up and out into a form that Yukio could only hesitantly label a…very spherically fat phoenix wearing a kind of fire crown. "You never think before anything, do you Kinzou? You're worse than even your brother was, and he was always short-tempered."

"What can I say?" Kinzou said, sitting up despite Konekomaru-kun waving his hands and saying to 'stay horizontal a little longer, you need to take time to recover!' "I'm talented."

"You should fix that, if you live long enough." Todou's young face was eerie, light strong enough and multitudinous enough to nearly eliminate shadow, washing him out and rendering him almost two-dimensional. He lifted the staff and looked at it, consideration splayed across his features. "Not all opponents will be as willing to allow you chances as I."

Todou hummed. The fire flickered around him, dimming and then growing brighter. The smell of crisping vegetation filled the air; a quick glance at the grass below told Yukio that nothing had caught fire yet. It was, however, drying to the point of disintegration. He pointed the staff at them, and Yukio felt a thrill of fear run through him. Where were the signs of overload? Was Todou's body truly strong enough? Could his mind hold that much power?

"But alas, my patience is—"

The phoenix form around him crumpled a little, distortion ruining its perfect curves and edges. Todou stumbled, hand climbing up to his chest, face contorted. Yukio let out a sigh of relief, small and shaky. The fear had not left him, but it had abated. Shiemi's hand was fisted in his sleeve, tight enough that a distant part of him wondered if the creases would ever iron out.

"Looks like you're running out of time first," Kinzou said. He climbed to his feet, unsteady but supported on either side by Konekomaru and the old man. The other Myoda members began to congregate on either side of them, battered but (mostly) conscious. Those who weren't had been carried closer.

"What's…" Todou looked up at them with wide, startled eyes. He began to glow brighter and brighter. "What's happening?"

Yukio smiled, tight. Kinzou waved his hand and drawled, "Aw, yanno, you're just. Burning up? All that power in you has gotta go somewhere once it's stuffed too tight. Ain't that right, Neko?"

Not precisely true, Yukio thought to himself. Karura, as a phoenix-type, was the reason that Todou was disintegrating into ash. But it was true enough at its core, he supposed, so he kept his mouth shut and his eyes open.

Before them, Todou began to crumble into ash. He fell to his knees, white hot softening and flaking into collapsing grey. His face remained wide in shock, staring down at his overpowered body, too weak to do anything but unbecome.

"Oh," Todou said at last, after a long blink. He smiled, and Yukio felt some ancient thing within him freeze at the sight. "Oh. That is true, isn't it? I ate too much, and I overheated. Well done, Kinzou-kun; you taught your teacher something important about himself."

Kinzou drew himself upright but didn't respond aside from a quick hand-signal that Yukio knew to be get ready. The next one that came was wounded and retreat and Yukio bristled a little.

"We need to get out of here," the Exorcist in front of them said, extending her hand out behind her and stepping backwards. "This could get worse."

"It was already bad, and we've been here this long," Yukio murmured back, not taking any more chances with looking away from Todou. He had fallen apart up to mid-waist, embers flickering and dying in the cooling ash of the rest of his body. There wasn't even a smell, Yukio realized, which was eerily familiar and put him on edge.

"You may be a full-fledged Exorcist," the man in front of them hissed, "but your students aren't, Okumura-san. We need to leave."

If it had been Rin, or Suguro-kun, they would have sputtered and complained about being strong enough for this dammit! But—and Yukio couldn't believe he was thinking this—the unfortunate fact of the matter was that the students he had with him weren't hot-headed enough for such nonsense. Instead, the three of them murmured assent and began to slowly retreat.

"Oh," Todou said, burning bright eyes flicking over to them and pinning them in place, "Have you realized it then, Kinzou-kun? That Karura's regenerative capabilities aren't to be underestima—"

There was a noise like cracking thunder that reverberated through the ground and up into Yukio's chest, making him gasp in surprise. It rumbled and rolled and shook the trees around them. Yukio, clutching the front of his Exorcist's uniform, looked up at the sky for lighting, because it had to be a storm even though the air was clear of rain. It was only then that Yukio saw it—saw the bright globe shielding them from the outside world begin to flicker and fall.

"No," he whispered. "No."

Todou blinked, then laughed. "I can't see what that was, but I'm going to guess that something has gone gloriously right. Is the Impure King—"

"Shit," Kinzou hissed. "Shit, fuck, we gotta—"

Yukio grit his teeth, lowered his face to stare Todou in the eye, and then—a raindrop, perfect and miraculous, landed on the curve of his cheek and crawled down it. Then, another, and another after that, and Yukio would have smiled if it weren't for the fact that something with Rin and Suguro-kun had gone terribly wrong.

"Oh no," Todou-said, voice somewhat perturbed. "Oh, no, it's raining."

Which would not only hold the spores of the Impure King back, Yukio thought, but also prevent Todou from regenerating quickly. Konekomaru-kun gasped and said as much of the second part out loud, voice a little subdued with worry.

"You do have another smart one, don't you?" Todou said, glow dimming quickly in the face of steadily falling rain. "So young, but so talented…I guess you do win…"

The glow winked out. Todou went entirely gray, entirely still, and for a second it were as though he was made of stone. Then he collapsed, ash crumbling wet under the light rain overhead, and there was silence.

"…Wait," Kamiki-san said. "So, like, this stops him from regenerating completely?"

"No," Yukio said, after a beat. He tore his eyes away from Todou's remains. "It just buys us some time. If we don't separate and confine his remains, he will reform, unfortunately."

"Right," Kinzou said, sagging a little to the sudden backdrop of startled cries of concern. "That means we need, like, containers, right? Like to confine him and all? Which means we need backup?"

"On it, sir," the female exorcist in front of them said, pulling out a flip-phone and hitting a single button. "Should we request somebody from medical corps to get our unconscious?"

As the older Exorcists discussed the particulars of extraction and containment, Yukio turned to Shiemi, who still had a stranglehold on his sleeve. She was staring up at the sky, face white, blurred where raindrops gathered on his glasses. "It's fine, Shiemi," Yukio said. "You can let go."

She glanced at him, then back up. "Rin is—"

"They'll be fine," Yukio said, lie slipping over his tongue and past his teeth easily. "It was probably just a hiccup, everything will be okay."

It happened quickly. Yukio felt the hair on the back of his neck rise, then Shiemi was gasping and pulling him back. He stumbled, hand moving for his gun and causing pain to splinter up his shoulder and into his neck, his ribs aching with the sudden inhale he took at the pain. To his left he was aware of the blurry impression of Todou, glowing a dim but fierce orange, reaching out at them, ever-reforming face smiling in a benign façade.

Kamiki-san yelled an incantation, near-breathless, and as Todou's hand began to close around Shiemi's terrified face, holy wine poured over them, warm and final and cleansing. Todou screamed, then was swept further away into muddied ash, clumped in sad piles everywhere.

"Well," one of the younger Myoda priests said, voice shaky, "That was terrifying, wasn't it?"

"And hurry the fuck up," the Exorcist on the phone said, voice harsh and angry as she snapped the phone shut decisively. "We're getting the wounded and the students out of here post-haste before that freak can get his body anywhere close to reassembled."

The moment she finished speaking, though, there was another resounding boom, and the world lit up bright on the skyline. Yukio saw it. His breath hitched, and he closed his eyes.

"Holy shit," Kinzou said, fear lancing through his voice. "It never fucking ends, does it?"


"These! Things! Just! Don't! Stop!"

Rin was in good physical condition. He knew he was, he knew he had been for basically his entire life. But now, his arms were aching, chest heaving with exertion, and he grunted against the overused-burn in his upper arms as he lifted and slashed Tsunagari down across a blooming fungal growth. Below him, Kuro's flanks quivered. He yowled and batted at another expanding membrane. It popped, reeking of stagnant decay, and Rin sneezed.

"Oh gross," Rin said, "I can basically taste it."

The fungus untouched by his attack blurbled as if in reply, and began to send out feelers to regain the lost ground. Behind him, further up on the boulder they'd chosen to make their last stand, Suguro yelled back, "Stop tasting it then!"

"All right," Rin said, choosing to ignore Suguro's digging in favor of eyeing the growth creeping in. It would be nice to have more breathing space, he thought, even though they'd have to work harder to maintain their territory. "Guys, flashbang in three! Close your eyes!"

Kuro yowled plaintively. Rin grinned and tightened his grip around Tsunagari's hilt, warm and familiar to the touch. It calmed the slight shaking in his hands.

"You're setting that thing off again?"

"We're sitting ducks, with you having to keep your finger on the ground to keep that barrier up!" Rin called out, still staring out into the expanse of supernatural fungal growth below. It was a veritable city, if cities could be made of deadly and dangerous substances that weren't at all inhabitable. So, maybe. "Three," he said, glancing from side to side at the steadily encroaching fungus.

There was a poof of smoke, and Rin felt a small body press up against the backs of his legs. "Two—sorry Kuro, that's not going to save you—One, and," it was easy to imagine the imminent danger they were all in, and as Rin closed his eyes he felt Tsunagari go hot in his hands, saw what he knew was blinding light reduced to pale red as it was filtered through the skin of his eyelids.

When he opened them again, he saw the clear ground, grass pale with burned-out disease, stretching out several meters around the boulder. Rin grinned, wide enough that his cheeks hurt, and laughed aloud. Residual heat from the failsafe-blast pulsed against the center of his palms, a slow heartbeat against his own racing pulse.

"See, Kuro?" he crowed into the open space around them. When he took a deep breath, it felt cleaner, safer than it had before. It was like he'd been breathing in smog and suddenly had been transported to the vast countryside. "It was fine!"

It took maybe two seconds for him to regret that statement.

Not because of anything he did, no, but because it was only moments later that a great groaning filled the air, then a hiss that seemed to echo even though there was no place for it to do so. Rin tensed, eyes darting around the suddenly still surroundings. Kuro let out a hiss of his own; smoke filled the air, and the Nekomata was larger behind Rin.

"Shit, Rin—"

Rin! Kuro said. Rin turned to look at Suguro, found black fur rippling in front of him, and opened his mouth to yell when he found himself effectively smothered by giant two-tailed cat. For several long moments, Rin's world was dark and smelled like catnip and raw (if quality) fish. It did nothing to muffle the sound of Suguro proclaiming something about the Impure King's heart before cutting abruptly into rapid coughing.

"Suguro!" Rin yelled into Kuro's fur, limbs flailing as Kuro pulled him closer into his stomach. He got a mouthful of fur for his troubles, and damn that was gross, he was going to be spitting fur out for days. Kuro! He thought, really hard and as much as a yell as he could. Of course, nothing happened because Rin was more human than not, and it wasn't an auspicious night or anything like Samhain had been.

"Karura!" Suguro yelled, voice raspy. "Protect me!"

In his heavy, copper-bell tones, Karura said, "You know the cost, Ryuuji."

"Yes, please!"

Rin fisted his free hand in Kuro's fur and felt Kuro press him into the ground, a rumble echoing through his chest and into Rin. Rin tried to kick out, but he couldn't. He could hardly move. The stray thought occurred to him that he could use fire, use the failsafe, and then Kuro would be off him—then he thought of what it would do to Kuro, and he couldn't. Rin yelled into Kuro's fur again, but to no avail.

"Very well." There was a pause, and the sound of billowing flames easing into relative silence, and then—"Nekomata, let your charge up. His inner fire will protect him well enough, for now."

Kuro stood, Rin rolled into a crouch and immediately started spitting out stray black fur, pawing at his own tongue to try to get more off. When he looked up at Suguro, he was—tired-looking, but also looking as though he wanted to laugh, the bastard.

"Cat got your tongue?" Suguro said at last, sweat dripping down his face in a way that wasn't entirely warranted by the humidity. Rin glared, and Kuro rumbled behind him.

"The price, Nekomata," Karura said, booming quieter than before, "is power, and time. Ryuuji holds a double position—which requires double the strength."

Rin finally spit enough fur out to ask, "So how much time do we have?"

Suguro coughed. Both his fingers touched the boulder now, and once Rin looked closer through the pillar of light surrounding his friend, he could see the boils slowly forming on his face. His arms trembled. Rin already knew it was going to be bad when Suguro said, "Maybe fifteen minutes at most."

Rin gripped Tsunagari, still hot with energy. "…Okay," he said, at last. He turned. The masses of fungus were even closer than before. He pressed his lips. "Fifteen minutes, right? I'll clear some more space."

"Space won't help," Karura said. "Look up at the heart of the Impure King."

Rin looked up. Haloed by the gold of the shield containing the worst of the damage was a giant construct, shape vaguely resembling a torso, a head, and several arms. The longer he looked, the more defined it became, the louder the sounds emanating from it became.

It was huge.

Rin grit his teeth and tried to think. "…Yeah, that's a problem," he said, "but you sit tight, princess; I'll get us some space to think, at least." Then he lifted Tsunagari into the air, pointed towards the Impure King and imagined the faces of all their friends. Yukio. Dad. The runes on the flame-channeling sword lit up bright, and Rin shut his eyes. The smell of burned something filled the air around them. Rin could see major veins running through his eyelids, dark and dense roots against the bright shining through skin. Tsunagari ran hot, hot, hot.

It actually hurt. He let out a shaky breath and tried to control the trembling in his arm. Maybe he shouldn't use Tsunagari like that for a bit, maybe it was a failsafe for a reason. When he opened his eyes, the space around them had widened, the Impure King or his soul or heart or whatever was leaning back as if in slow motion, and a low moaning began to keen from all around them.

"…Perhaps you should do that more often," Karura admitted, glowing dim above Suguro's head.

Kuro trilled a note of reproach. Rin winced. "Sorry, I think I'm pretty much through shots on Tsunagari's power move for a while." He switched Tsunagari to his left hand and hissed a little at how hot it still was, even through the wrapping on the hilt. He shook out his right hand and looked at the blade critically. It didn't seem to do anything, but when he tried to push a normal amount of flame through it, it flared up bright and he dialed it down to the bare minimum. It remained coated in flames, thin and blue. Rin didn't know exactly what that meant for Tsunagari, but he didn't have to be Yukio to know that using it beyond this was probably a bad idea.

Suguro, hunched over on the ground, closed his eyes and let out a ragged breath. "I don't know if I can make it to five minutes, let alone fifteen," he said.

Rin stepped forward, kneeled in front of him. "Dude, you can."

"I think I know myself better than you do, asshole," Suguro said, but there wasn't any bite to the words. Blorbling and popping overhead, Rin pressed his lips together and tried to think of what would work to convince Suguro otherwise. Maybe, like, the promise of tomorrow, like sightseeing—but no, he remembered, they'd already done that. They'd already seen Kyoto tower and a bunch of other cool stuff and even gone to Fushimi Inari because Shiemi had insisted on it.

"You're right," Rin said finally. Suguro's eyes opened, and he met them. "I don't know you better than you do. But you know what?"

Suguro blinked, heavy and tired. There were already stress-marks under his eyes. "What?"

Behind Rin, Kuro meowed. Rin ignored him for the moment, ignored the pain in his right hand and the heat of Tsunagari in his left. "That doesn't matter. You're going to make it to fifteen minutes because you have to. We have to see everybody down there again, remember? Konekomaru'd kick your ass if you went and died on them."

Suguro was quiet. He looked away from Rin. "You have to get them out," he said, finally.

Rin swallowed back hasty, optimistic words. "I'll try to, if it comes to that," he said. He chewed at his bottom lip. "But it won't, because you're going to make sure it doesn't, and I'm going to make sure nothing touches you."

Their eyes met again. Suguro swallowed, coughed and broke eye contact. "I—"

Rin!

Movement caught the corner of Rin's eye. He stood from his crouch, lunged, and stabbed the mass encroaching within arm's reach of Suguro. It deflated with a sad hiss, and Suguro's voice trailed off into a hurk of surprise. The fungus had crept over the exposed grass and over the edges of the boulder, which spelled nothing good for them. It seemed faster than before, which was also not optimal. The hurk was still funny.

"Concentrate," Karura murmured, then returned to silence in order to power the shield and Bon's immune system.

"Keep going, princess!" Rin said, twirling Tsunagari in his hand. He took a quick moment to mentally check his control on the flames—iron clad, a trickle at most. It needed to stay that way. "We gotta make sure this bubble stays up as long as possible! You told me fifteen minutes, you're going to give me fifteen minutes!"

If it hadn't been in full view of a bunch of Exorcists, Rin might have lit entire swathes of this thing on fire. As it was, with the failsafe out of commission, Tsunagari and just its thin sheath of flames would have to do.

"Shut up," Suguro said, all prissy. Rin laughed at the expression on his face, but didn't stoop to further teasing. The situation was tense enough as it was, and Suguro's face was starting to look even worse than usual—not that Rin could spare thought to worry too much, not when there was the Impure King closing in around them.

Rin stepped more solidly in front of Suguro and slashed out with his sword, cutting into pale off-white and sick yellow. It disintegrated into flaky ash, and he took another step forward to cut the ring of containment back even further. He saw a quirk of movement, and took the risk of sending a brief burst of flame at one moving opponent to multi-task and take another more stationary but still creeping column out. Hopefully, the golden barrier would help disguise the bloom of blue and white. That, and the giant creepy body of the Impure King rising up above them.

It was easy to fall into the near-mindless, near-meditative state of slashing and cutting. The extensions of the Impure King had stopped attacking quickly and had started being stealthier and slower in their approach, which meant that the offense was all Rin's. He slid Tsunagari into thick, sludgy masses, tore it out and across the thin membrane separating putrid gas from less putrid air. Movement; he stepped right, leaped literally over Suguro and pierced a rising column deep, ripping the sword up and back over to point into the center of the circle even as Kuro took his spot on the opposite side. Suguro's voice swelled and hummed from the center of his throat, low, consistent, thrumming with power. Tsunagari still throbbing hot under his palms, Rin reached deeper, pushed himself harder. He slid from point to point along the irregular circle's edge, keeping the Impure King at bay from their hard-won sanctuary in the middle of the fungus. When Rin glanced outwards, all he could see was off-whites and pale greens, sick yellows, rimmed in by slowly pulsing liquid gold doming out from above them. Beyond was all their friends, the other Exorcists, their families. Rin narrowed his eyes and destroyed another fungal growth. A thought occurred to him, and he frowned. Yukio better not be doing stupid shit.

Knowing Yukio though, he was. Rin twitched with the urge to just throw flames all over the place to get this whole thing over and done with so he could make sure his little brother wasn't getting into too much trouble. Instead, he contained it to a brief, low flare and cleared more space at the base of their little rock. Turning in a tight circle, he noted the encroach happening in front of Suguro and returned to that spot.

Suguro slumped, his fingers still on the ground. His jaw was clenched, and he let out a quiet moan.

Rin slashed and turned and stepped to Suguro in three smooth motions. "Suguro, what's…"

He blinked up at Rin, pressed his lips together and pushed himself up straighter. His entire body was shaking with the effort; his hair was limp, and his face looked just a little thinner, a little more fragile than before. Rin whirled on Karura, a question on his lips before the demon pre-empted him and spoke.

"I have no energy to spare," Karura said, softer than earlier. "My summoner is running out himself. His body's defenses are lowered with stress and previous exposure, and the Impure King is slow but unrelenting."

"Shit," Rin said, quiet. He looked down at Tsunagari. It still ran hot. "Fuck, I—"

"Don't stop." The next words came out with a hint of snarl around the edges. Rin looked back up to meet Suguro's narrowed, exhausted eyes.

"What?" Rin asked.

"Don't…stop, but don't…" Suguro breathed in harsh. "Don't be stupid."

Rin scrunched up his face. "I don't quite—"

"Don't do stuff you'll get killed for," Suguro managed. He bared his teeth in a grimace. "Don't die."

Oh. His—he hadn't even thought about that, Rin realized. He hadn't thought about throwing caution to the wind and seriously using his fire, just his fire, to clean up this mess. Sure, he'd thought about it off-handedly, but he hadn't even considered it. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed a reasonable (if risky) idea.

Apparently Suguro knew what he was thinking. "Don't do it, stupid."

Rin looked away, watched Kuro bat aside a couple outgrowths. Did he follow Suguro's order and just carry on? Did he disregard it and use the flames more judiciously?

"I," Rin said, focusing back on Suguro.

Suguro took a deep breath in his nose and jerked his head back urgently. Kuro bounded by behind them and yowled, kicking out with his back legs. His tails lashed.

"Go," Karura said. "We will fight on for as long as you can buy us time."

"I…" Rin said. He looked up at the golden veil above them, and had a sudden idea—if he used his flames, he might be able to like, purify Suguro, right? Fire was cleansing, and Rin had good control, had fought for it over nine long years. It would save Suguro energy, without needing Karura to support him.

But what if it didn't work? It wasn't worth it. "Okay," Rin said, and he turned back to the unrelenting assault from the Impure King.

There was a sudden burst of motion from the masses of white-green-yellow headed straight for him. Rin flinched back, Tsunagari instinctively up to guard and his fire rushing through it. He internally cursed himself for forgetting that while the Impure King hadn't been on the attack, that didn't mean it couldn't. The moment he had the thought, though, several things happened fast enough that Rin would only retain the memory as a blur of sudden fear and pain and loss.

One, Tsunagari's failsafe kicked in for the fourth time while fighting the Impure King. Singing in a high-pitched screech, the runes along the blade lit up a brilliant white blue. There was a terribly bright flash that Rin didn't quite close his eyes in time for, and he screamed as the light burned them for a split second before he was able to squeeze them shut.

Second, though he didn't see it, and neither did Suguro or Karura or even Kuro, the light burned away the growth several meters in front of and to the sides of them. The Impure King moaned, low and bone-deep and more like the echo of a moan than an actual moan itself. The air around them even burst into momentary flames, there and gone in less than the blink of an eye.

Third, as Rin blinked, vision white and dark and spotty, Tsunagari's song turned into a shriek, climbing higher and higher. On some instinct, on some alarmed recollection that something was happening that he didn't want to, he tried to cut the power going into the blade. It was pulled out of him anyways. Rin collapsed to his knees, the blade falling from his hands as the sound rose unbearably high. He held them over his ears, eyes wide and unseeing, ears useless in the onslaught of the sound. Somehow, in a show of unbelievable willpower, Suguro kept his hands folded in their incantation positions, fingers pressed against the solid rock below.

Fourth, Tsunagari finally reached a breaking point. It shattered, bursting in all directions. The shrapnel drove through one of Suguro's hands, sliced though the side of one of his ears and barely missed his neck. It hit and passed through Rin's shoulder, his arm, sheared across his face and left leg and rendered one hand unusable, unrepairable for anybody other than a demon hybrid. As it was, it was agony.

The shrapnel also cut through some of the surrounding spores and fungus, widening their terrain. Kuro escaped unscathed through sheer force of reflexes making him small and pinning him to the ground.

Fifth—because Suguro had been hit, he very understandably pulled his injured hand off the ground with a scream. The golden veil flared, then began to disintegrate. Karura disappeared, flashing once before suddenly not being there, as if he never had been in the first place. Rin, dazed by pain and by the sudden light, the vicious sound, didn't notice. He couldn't begin to notice. He didn't even realize that he had fallen onto his side, cheek against rough stone, pain like hot red fire emanating out from several points across his body.

The first thing he was aware of, after Tsunagari exploded and the barrier began to fall, was the head-swimming sensation of the world shifting around him. Then there was fur against his face, and a panicked voice in his head saying words he couldn't understand.

Then there were words outside of his head, a hand on his unburning shoulder. "Rin," a voice said, quiet above the ringing in his ears. Rin blinked, sluggish, and couldn't place the hoarse voice. "Rin. Rin!"

He groaned. "What…" He squinted at the blurry figure in front of him. "Who?"

"Suguro, dumbass," Suguro said. He should have realized, what with the fuzzy shock of yellow, dimmed as it was by lack of light.

"Oh." Rin closed his eyes. The ringing started to abate. "What…"

"Your sword blew up," Suguro said, dark under his eyes, "and the barrier is down. Karura's gone."

It took several long moments for the implications of those statements to sink in. When they did, Rin opened his eyes and tried to push up. Fire blazed, wrong and hurting, in his arm and shoulder when he did, and he fell down with a cry at the unexpected pain of it.

"We're fucked," Suguro said, soft. Rin could barely hear it over the noise thrumming in his ear. "The fungus is starting to come back, and it's expanding further down below."

Rin swallowed and began to breathe through the pain, shallow. He wished he could see better. He wished he still had Tsunagari. He wished the ringing would stop, and the pain would stop, and he wished the Impure King would go away.

But none of those things happened. Rin breathed, he blinked, and things only slowly started to fall back into place.

"Yeah," he said, biting his lips to try to keep the tears at bay. They burned, hot, behind his eyes. "Yeah, we're. We're fucked."

Above them, the main body of the Impure King popped and groaned and blurbled—inching closer and closer, regaining the ground that had been lost so suddenly and with such sacrifice. Rin didn't want to see it anymore, so—he didn't.

Then, stinging against the raw skin on his face, Rin felt it begin to rain.

Suguro sighed. "Well, there's something," he said, voice rough. Rin cracked his eyes open. He didn't see Suguro.

"What's something?" he asked instead. His entire body ached.

"Rain," Suguro said, voice falling quieter. "Might stop the spores from spreading."

"Oh." Rin closed his eyes, head still a little spinny. "Good."

Underneath him, Kuro let out a whine that Rin couldn't hear the words to. Rin tried to ignore it, but then Kuro shifted like he was stamping his feet. It kind of actually hurt, so Rin—with a whine—opened his eyes again and slurred out, "Kuro, what the—"

Rin then registered that the spore-masses were much closer than before. He looked down, urgency giving him the energy to be quick, and saw that Suguro was unconscious, face bubbling out with infested boils and pockmarked with disease.

"Shit," Rin said, and flailed his way off of Kuro. The fall hurt, and he only just managed to avoid landing on Suguro. The area grew dark, the spores cutting off access to most of the ambient light they had. Head spinning, Rin reached for Suguro and dragged him close, even though he was exposing himself to infection that he knew he wasn't immune to. Sure enough, he could feel a tickle develop in his throat, could feel his body temperature start to rise in a bad way and his mind began to swim even more.

"Shit," he croaked out. He shut his eyes and tried to think, but it was harder than scooping sand with a sieve, harder than it had been at first to make the fire do what he wanted it to. Then, after several moments—long, stupid moments where he couldn't make things connect, where it started to hurt to breathe, he had his realization.

Fire cleansed. Rin took a deep breath that stung, heard Kuro yowl in despair behind him, and made up his mind. Fire cleansed, but it wouldn't if he was dead because then it just wouldn't exist and—

I don't want anybody to die, he thought. In a smaller, more frightened part of him, he admitted, I don't want to die.

Rin opened his eyes, the fungus just centimeters from his face, and burned bright, bright blue.


A/N: does it help if i say i have the next chapter started?