Though she made a good show of looking calm and confident, Daphne hardly ever was anymore. She was an expert at subduing her fear, hiding it under a mask of nonchalance or intimidation. By the time she and Rin and Yukio arrived at one of the many forth form manifestation sites, her heartbeat had found its way into her mouth. Part of that might have been the exercise of running there coupled with the exhaustion of allowing her aura to fuel Rin's demon form, but either way she felt like she might pass out.

Someone handed her an earpiece. Shura and some of the other first class exorcists arrived. Someone else gave them a briefing on the situation. The mu summoning lines had been finished, but no fifth form semicapers had manifested yet. Daphne's head seemed to sway. Several buildings had been destroyed already, but civilian evacuation was eighty percent complete. The edges of her vision were fuzzy, shifting like waves. Exorcists were being sent in in teams of two to different portions of the secured area.

"Miss Lux, Mr. Okumura, we'll go ahead and send you in together."

Daphne's dizziness cleared in an instant wash of dread. She only had to glance at Rin to know he felt the same. They couldn't fight together. Not yet.

"No," she said quickly, cutting off the captain before he could continue. "No, send me in with Miss Kirigakure, please. The Okumuras should be partners right now."

Yukio was quick to agree, as was Rin, loading guns and swinging a sword down respectively as they both grabbed a posting assignment and hurried into the fray. Shura gave Daphne a sideways glance, but Daphne ignored her, keeping her gaze glued on the captain until he handed her an assignment as well.

"Southwest sector inside the barrier," he said. "There's a thick concentration there."

Daphne nodded. Shura winked and clicked her tongue. Both women drew their blades from their bodies and dashed through the opening in the Aria barrier, turning left and heading for the southwest corner.

"Something happen with Rin?" Shura asked as they ran.

"Not like that," Daphne replied. A street over, a blast of flames shot into the air, accompanied by echoic semicaper shrieking. Shouts of exorcists followed, indistinguishable under the whirring of one of the demons powering up another blast. Daphne and Shura kept running.

"Like what, then?"

Shura ducked under a shop sign hanging low on only one of its wires. Daphne jumped over the remains of a scattered food cart. The next blast from the semicaper on the street next to them sounded out, visible for a moment as they crossed a junction.

"I don't know how much I can say," Daphne replied. "I'm not sure if it's confidential."

"That sounds bad."

"Well, it's not good."

Daphne didn't know what to think anymore. What a bizarre turn her life had taken. Wasn't she supposed to be in Japan teaching English? How in the hell had that turned into running through the streets with a bunch of exorcists killing semicapers? Ahead of them, a semicaper lumbered into view, both of its goat heads missing, the snake shrieking as two exorcists pursued it. Daphne and Shura dashed around it, dodging the swipes that it took at their heads and providing an opening for others to lop the snake off.

By then they'd arrived in their assigned section. High concentration was an understatement. The area was flooded with semicapers. They were on every corner, sliding out of the street still, setting buildings on fire. Among them, exorcists were making their best attempts to regroup and remove heads, but the effort was uncoordinated and sloppy. Many of the demons were wandering around with one or two heads missing already, but hadn't been fully exorcised. This wouldn't cut it when it came to fifth forms.

"Finish what you've already started, goddamn it!" Daphne yelled into the microphone attached to her earpiece. All the exorcists in the immediate range grimaced and covered their ears instinctively. "The more there are, the more will manifest. Kill the ones with missing heads now."

The effect was instantaneous, Daphne and Shura falling into the mix themselves. To their left was a semicaper missing one of its goat heads. Shura went for the snake, Daphne went for the goat, and together they rammed it through the heart. A steaming mound of asphalt fell to the ground after the flash and heat wave that accompanied the demon's disappearance. They didn't pause to examine anything, moving on to the next nearest semicaper.

Rin and Yukio were still making their way back to their assignment in the far northwest corner. The barrier was long and narrow, so they had quite a ways to run, painfully ignoring all of the other exorcists and semicapers battling around them. The back end where they were headed was the last of the evacuation area, and Rin kept reminding himself that those people—the non-exorcists—needed his help more as he passed other Knights of the True Cross struggling to manage the increased speed and strength of the demons.

Yukio hadn't asked Rin about why he and Daphne hadn't wanted to fight together, but he was pretty good at guessing. And inferring the worst. He probably knew already, or at least had an inkling. The two of them moved quickly and efficiently, reaching the back corner before too long. Yukio entered the nearest building, calling for survivors while Rin stood guard on the street.

Things were far from quiet, the air full of that whirring sound the semicapers made, punctuated by the occasional burst of flames. Exorcists yelling orders and suggestions at each other. Yukio came barreling down the stairs, a family behind him, and together he and Rin ran them to the next exorcist who would lead them through the barrier to safety.

Yukio went into the next building. Rin took up his post at the front door.

"If you can hear me, come to the sound of my voice!" Yukio hollered, on the second floor now. "I'm an exorcist, and we'll get you to safety! If you can hear me…"

Motion on the street drew Rin's attention. He looked just in time to see a semicaper emerge from the road. A couple dozen yards away, near a group of exorcists who had just finished off their demon, this one's partner emerged as well. They went into attack mode. So did Rin.

He drew Kurikara from its scabbard having learned his lesson dealing with fourth forms before. The demon, who had been approaching him, came to a stop. Its snake head cocked to the side. Rin had never seen one do that before.

"So it is true."

The hairs on the back of Rin's neck stood up and a wave of shivers went down his spine. Kuro had spoken to him a million times, other demons, too, but the sound of the semicaper's voice in his mind unsettled him. He hadn't expected it to talk. It caught him completely off guard, so he just stared at it with his mouth hanging open.

"Such words fly round in Gehenna. Such rumors. Those of us who owe no allegiance to Satan are never certain what to believe."

The semicaper took a step toward him; Rin raised Kurikara, ready to attack. All three heads seemed to smile.

"Σε γιγνώσκων χαίρω," it said, then bowed deeply. "Greetings, False Prince of Gehenna."

Yukio bolted out the front door then, a couple civilians following behind. They screamed when they saw the semicaper, and Yukio shoved them back through the door, unclipping his gun and unloading five or six shots into the neck of one of the semicaper's goat heads immediately. The noise jolted Rin back, just in time to barely duck the arm of the demon as it swept forward, screaming. Flames erupted behind him, catching the hem of Yukio's uniform.

After taking two more shots, Yukio bent over to extinguish the flames. Rin shoved Kuirkara into the semicaper's leg to buy his brother some time. Turning, the goat head started to spill hot asphalt from its mouth onto Rin's sword and the wound in its leg. Some of the stuff landed on Kurikara, but the demon sword slipped free. Yukio straightened. He and Rin took on the semicaper together.

The thing didn't go down without a fight. Fourth forms were so much faster than Rin remembered, and he was breathing heavy, a deep scratch on his free arm by the time Yukio got the opportunity to shoot the thing through the heart. The building they'd been evacuating had been ignited in that time, pockets of hot asphalt sprayed from the goat heads littering the street as well. As the semicaper disappeared in the usual flash of heat, Rin thought maybe he could still hear its voice in his head.

Greetings False Prince of Gehenna

Greetings False Prince of Gehenna

It was seven hours before the area was clear of semicapers. In that time, twenty-four exorcists had been severely injured, twenty of them requiring immediate evacuation and hospitalization. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage had been done to the homes and businesses in the portion of True Cross Town unfortunate enough to be located under that section of the summoning lines. Thirty-two civilians had been injured, twenty-eight in critical condition, and three had died, among them a little girl whom Daphne had found under the rubble of a shop front. She carried her body out, laying her at the feet of the paramedics. She didn't even notice Rin until he was right in front of her.

"Daph! Jesus…"

He had been running, but came to a stop at the sight of her. She was a mess, covered in the white concrete dust of the building collapse, blood and sweat and dirt caked into it, running in dirty streams down her face and arms and clothing. A paramedic was bandaging a puncture wound in her upper arm while an exorcist Doctor treated the cut on her cheek from a semicaper.

Rin wasn't any better off. His coat was singed and so was his hair. A gash above his eyebrow had poured blood into his left eye, but the wound looked old and had mostly closed up. Bruises were just beginning to purple around his wrists. His right cheek was a little swollen. Doctors and paramedics started cleaning him immediately.

"You're all right?" Daphne asked. Her voice sounded dusty and distant and she coughed at the end of the sentence.

Rin nodded. "You?"

"Yeah…"

This was just the beginning. They were lucky the casualties had been so low. The first time she'd encountered Morpheus, they'd been in the desert. No sign of human civilization for miles and miles. They'd been able to keep it contained, keep the damage done within the military, losing only soldiers and harming only sand. Now to be in such a densely populated area, with so many homes and so many innocent bystanders…the feeling of the lightness of that little girl's body in her arms. Daphne put her face in her hands.

Rin sat down next to her, placed his arm around her waist. Someone draped an emergency blanket over their shoulders. A few tears cut clean trails down the dirt on Daphne's face.

"After this I don't think it will be hard to convince people to evacuate," Rin said softly.

"We don't know when the fifth form semicapers will manifest," Daphne replied. "Or when Morpheus will arrive after that. If it takes too long, even if people leave, they'll start to come back thinking it was a false alarm."

"We can only do our best."

Sniffing, Daphne nodded. She wiped her face and Rin pulled her closer. They sat without speaking for a long time, until the emergency responders urged them to go home. Daphne went with Rin and Yukio back to their apartment where Shiemi was waiting with tea and about to start dinner. She fussed over the three of them, and Shura, too, once she arrived. Thankfully they gave Daphne first dibs on the shower.

She turned on the water and let it run, waiting for it to get hot and leaning against the sink in the meantime. Her eyes stared blankly at the floor. That morning, in the practice gym with Rin, she'd watched as Rin's flames had exploded in size, as horns had grown out of his head, as every last one of his teeth had become pointed, as the very life energy in her veins was sucked out as fuel. She'd blacked out for a second after he'd sheathed Kurikara, but she could still remember the sight of him so vividly. So much blue.

A knock on the door startled Daphne back and she found the room was filled with thick steam. She almost couldn't see the mirror anymore.

"It's me," Rin said from the other side and Daphne pictured his mouth moving now filled with all those sharp teeth. "I brought you a towel. The ones in there are used."

"Thanks," Daphne replied somewhat blankly.

"I'll just leave it by the door."

She listened to him walk away, back down the hall. Once she was certain he'd gone, opened the door, reached out, and pulled the towel inside. She couldn't spend forever in the shower. Dinner would be ready soon.

Rin stirred the noodles in the pot so they wouldn't boil over. He wanted them to cook quickly since everybody was starving otherwise he would have just turned the heat down. Yukio came in, changed out of his uniform now. Daphne was still in the bathroom, though the shower was off. Yukio leaned against the counter next to the stove.

"Earlier," he said, "when you hesitated…was that semicaper bowing to you?"

Rin nodded. "He called me the false prince of Gehenna."

"What on earth does that mean?"

"Hell if I know," Rin replied with a shrug. "None of the others have ever spoken before."

"Everything is ready, Rin," Shiemi said, poking her head into the kitchen. "We're just waiting on those noodles."

Rin gave her a thumbs up. Shiemi's eyes flicked to Yukio.

"Will you help me set the table, Yuki?"

Yukio gave his brother a passing look, one that said they'd talk later, and he left, but Rin was not long by himself, Daphne coming in toweling off her hair, wearing some of his sweatpants and a t-shirt. She stopped behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her chin on his shoulder.

"With the attack we didn't get the chance to talk about what happened," she said.

"In the practice gym?"

"Mm-hm."

Truth be told, Rin didn't really want to talk about it. He wanted to pretend like the whole thing had never happened, but he knew that wasn't an option. Things with the semicapers were only going to get worse. And he and Daphne couldn't spend the rest of time fighting on opposite sides of the field.

"We don't have to talk now," she said. "I just think that we should."

Rin nodded. "Me too."

Kissing his cheek, Daphne slipped away, heading into the other room and getting drawn into setting the table. Rin watched the noodles as they swirled around and around in the boiling water. A fuller demon transformation and a fourth form semicaper attack in the same day. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to experience whatever was coming next.