Soo, this is another chapter!
So it's been a while...sorry...I...don't really have a good reason. Um...but here we go! Another chapter and I hope that I'll get the next part up at some point. Hope to... Yeah. Um, I did make a few edits but that's only been on the AO3 version because its a lot easier to edit chapters there than it is on here. They aren't big edits but just if you feel like spotting them you can. I might edit more in the future but I wanted to get this up.
I also have a tumblr now. So you can harass me there if you want.
My one with fanfiction is:
My one with original stuff is:
Anyway onto the chapter!
"Now, let me explain the details of this training." Yukio began, looking over his students as they stood around the campfire. "You are to light lanterns hidden around the forest. They are within a 500 meter radius of the camp. Those who can bring back a lit lantern without the fire ever going out within the next three days will receive the permission to take part in an upcoming mission."
Everyone perked up at that, a determined look crossing all of their faces in their own way. Afterall, they all wanted the opportunity to go on more missions so they could prove themselves as capable exorcists. And while they have gone on a few smaller missions, something about the way Yukio presented this said it was going to be a larger scale mission than what they typically get as esquires.
"However," Yukio's voice broke through their excitement. "There are only three lanterns. This means only three of you get permission to go on the mission."
"But that's…" Izumo trailed off, but everyone knew what she was saying. It was basically designed to make them fight against each other.
"In your packs you'll find enough rations for three days, along with flashlights, a demon repelling firework, and a compass. Now, the firework is in case you get into trouble out in the forest. While we think you can handle the minor demons of the forest perfectly well at your current level, Professor Kirigakure and I will come to your aid should you need it."
"Sir, why is there only one match?" Izumo asked as they each looked through the bags they had been handed before the debrief started.
"There is only one match because if you choose to light the firework, then you can't light the lantern. So think carefully before making any choice regarding which to light." Yukio answered smoothly, making the students frown in response.
"What, you thought this would be easy?" Shura laughed from where she sat next to Yukio, waving a beer around. "This is nothing like the exwire exam."
As they continued to check over their packs one more time and ready themselves for the task ahead, Shura came over and pulled Rin aside to talk to him privately.
"So, I think it's pretty obvious what I need to tell ya." She huffed, taking the moment to lean against a tree.
Rin glared in her direction. "Don't use my flames, it's dangerous, blah blah blah."
"Don't sass me, brat!" Rin yelped as she smacked him over the head. "But yeah, basically. Especially since we're currently in a dark forest that would definitely show any sign of your flames should you decide to use them."
"So no sword then?" Rin asked with a quirk of his eyebrow. Though he tried to look unfazed, he couldn't stop his hands from tightening around both his cane and the strap of Kurikara across his chest.
It wasn't unusually for her to keep Kurikara on her since she decided Rin did not have enough training yet to keep it on him nor did she trust he wouldn't lose it like when Amaimon stole it back at the amusement park (Which Rin argues is not a fair comparison since it was a demon king who stole it and he had kept it safe every other time something happened). It always felt weird to be away from it, skin crawling with anxiety as this important part of him was out of reach. Originally he protested, but Shura literally would beat sense into him so he eventually stopped, put at ease when she gave it back to him.
"While usually I would take it away from you for group exercises, this time you'll get to keep it." Shura replied, making Rin blink in shock. "Since you're goin' into the woods, we figured it was safer for ya to have it on ya, especially if you need to find your way around or somethin'. Obviously, this is mainly in case you need a little bit of sight, but I'm trusting you won't actually open the sword for that since we haven't even touched on suppressing your flames with it open. You'd be a fucking beacon of stupidity if you did that." She shook her head.
"Hey!"
"Essentially, I'm just reminding ya to use your head and think about if you need that extra bit of sight or not." She said. "Plus, I'm hoping you don't need us to come save your ass just 'cause you got lost in the forest. Now, go make sure everything is ready and tell Kuro that he's in charge of your ass."
Rin grumbled in response as he turned away and made his way back to where he could make out the silhouettes of his classmates and Kuro. As he got closer, he watched as all of their heads shifted upwards and, while he couldn't see their faces, knew they were worriedly looking at him as Kuro leapt onto his shoulders.
"Oh my god, please stop!" He groaned, running his free hand down his face. Even if it blocked his vision of them, it didn't do anything about the worry stabbing into his body from their eyes. "We talked about this! Stop with the hoovering! Besides, we are supposed to do this by ourselves, right? So you literally can't follow me around!"
"Yeah, I mean, every man for himself, right?" Shima laughed as he got his pack onto his back. "That even applies to Okumura."
"Whatever." Izumo sighed with a roll of her eyes, moving to get in position around the campsite. The others were quick to follow.
With a countdown and a gunshot, the students were off.
"Aaaaand…they're off." The golden eyed demon whispered, watching from his vantage point in the thick trees as the exorcists in training took off into the woods, eyes focusing on the teen with the cat sidhe.
"Great, now we just need to wait until he's further out from the group and we'll go." The other, blue-eyed demon spoke up.
"The exorcists?"
"Spread around, but Amaimon said he could leave a few higher demons alongside ours to keep them occupied. So, hopefully they won't get involved but if they do, Amaimon should help."
Their eyes flicked up to spy the floating chair in the sky, carefully hidden over thick leaves that no one on the ground would be able to spot. However, from their hiding spot they could easily see it and the two occupants sitting upon it.
"'Should' being the key word." The golden-eyed demon huffed.
"Have faith in our brother."
"Excuse me if I don't trust that the brother that had to hesitate if father was scarier than Samael or not will go against Samael."
"Yes…well, that's why there's two of us, right? Plus, I'm hoping it won't be that difficult to talk to Rin."
He got a look.
"Oh father…"
This was getting annoying. Rin swiped angrily at the specs of blue that fluttered around his body while he clung onto Kuro's back. He had started off running but after tripping over one-to-many roots he figured it was easier to navigate the forest on the cat sidhe's back. Of course, this then made it his job to keep away the pesky minor demons that came to flutter around his head so Kuro could focus on finding any of the lanterns. There was a part of him that wanted to channel a quick burst of flames to burn the demons away, but it didn't seem worth it. Instead, he took a small knife from his pocket (the wooden sword wasn't going to do anything to the demons and there was no way they were going to risk either blessing the sword or dousing it in holy water) and was quick to cut them down. Really, the complete darkness of his vision helped with targeting things since they were the only thing that stuck out.
"See or smell anything yet, Kuro?" Rin asked as he got rid of another swarm of those demon-moth-things.
"No, not yet." The cat sidhe replied, pausing to look around the area.
Rin growled in frustration, motioning for Kuro to let him down. He was really itching to unsheathe his sword just so he could have a look around him, but he took a deep breath to center himself. Afterall, if they came across the lantern, he should be able to know right away since there would probably be either wards or higher level demons around it. Hell, the lantern itself may even be a demon. Either way, it would stick out immediately should it be outlined in blue flames. That is, assuming it isn't hidden behind a tree or something.
Taking a moment to pace around, carefully using his cane to point out any uneven ground, he took a deep breath and knelt to the ground. Placing his hand there, he tried channeling his flames into the ground and into the area around him without drawing the sword. He wanted to see if he could make the area around him light up for a moment like he had done with the candle oh-so long ago. He and Shura had worked on it a bit during their time together, and Rin was hoping it was enough to at least help him with finding his way around.
Concentrating on that ever present feel in his eyes, he pushed it out of his hand. For a moment, nothing happened, but then he could make out the ground beneath his hand. Cheering, Rin pushed a little harder, wondering if maybe he focused on finding the lantern his flames would pick it up if it was nearby, but that was shot down the minute the heat under his palm exploded and suddenly the grass was aflame with blue flames.
"Ah! Shit!" He cried, quickly moving to put it out. Once the fire was out, he slumped forward. So much for that idea.
The sound of a firework going off caught their ears and both Rin and Kuro turned to the sound.
"Someone used one already?" Rin muttered, tilting his head. Sure, it felt like they've been looking for hours, but someone already needed to set off the firework?
"Maybe they're hurt!" Kuro mewed out, crouching down so that Rin could get back on his back.
"Or maybe they found a lantern!" Rin offered as he climbed up. "Either way, we should check it out. You know which way?"
"Yes!"
"Great! Let's go!"
The wind whipped past his face as they started making their way in the direction of the firework, but they only made it a few feet before Rin caught sight of a very bright figure in the corner of his vision.
"Wha-? Woah!" He cried as Kuro came to a sudden halt, growls vibrating through his body and up to where Rin was situated on his back. "Kuro?" His eyes flickered around the darkness, looking for that glowing figure that had been on the edge of his vision. When he couldn't find it, he looked down at Kuro's silhouette and allowed his gaze to follow the direction Kuro's head was facing to see if anything stood out to him, but there wasn't anything.
"Hey, Kuro, what is it?" He asked again. Rin placed one of his hands on the strap across his chest while the other went to the knife.
"We need to get out of here!" Kuro exclaimed, suddenly turning and taking off in a different direction. It was so quick Rin was left in a dizzy confusion, hand leaving his sword strap to cling onto Kuro's fur.
As Kuro ran, swerving between tree branches and bushes, a slim figure suddenly shot out of nowhere and tackled the cat sidhe, the suddenly flailing throwing Rin off of the cat sidhe's back. Rin cursed as he tumbled to the ground, and as he came to a stop he looked back up at Kuro's form as it fought what could have been a large lizard.
"Shit, Kuro!" Rin cried out as he stumbled to his feet, only to duck as another lizard-like form lept into view just as Kuro pushed the other away. His hands began to fumble with the two straps across his chest, focusing on pulling off the pack so he could get to the firework. Before he could slip it from over his shoulders, something suddenly gripped him by the back of his shirt and pulled him forcefully away from where the cat sidhe was battling the lizards and sending him into complete darkness.
Kuro, hearing Rin cry out as he was pulled away, turned and watched as he vanished further into the forest. "Rin!"
Rin struggled against whatever was holding him, first trying to break the grip with his own strength but it was getting him nowhere. With a growl from deep in his throat, Rin allowed his flames to flare around him which worked in getting whatever was dragging him along to let go and send him to a forceful stop across the forest floor.
Pushing himself up, he was quick to pull his sword off of his back and into his hands, giving up on trying to get a hold of the flare. If it was needed, his flames should be enough of a flare for Yukio to know something was wrong. Just as his hands moved to unwrap the blade from its case, a very bright silhouette entered his vision, making Rin blink against the sudden light in the endless darkness that had been his sight a few minutes ago.
"Who the hell are you?!" He growled with a glare.
"Ah, ah, no need to get the sword out." The silhouette said, hands held up to show they meant no harm.
"We just want to talk." Rin jumped at the sound of another voice, turning away from the first silhouette to see another flaring just as brightly to the left.
"Yeah right." Rin scoffed.
"Ok, yes, that was not exactly a peaceful way of meeting you, we know and I'm sorry for that." The second spoke and Rin was a bit stumped because whoever it was actually sounded apologetic. "It's just, we wanted to talk and we didn't want the cat sidhe in the way because we probably would have gotten attacked and we didn't exactly want to go into battle as the first impression but it seemed unavoidable, or at least that's what Iblis said anyway, so we thought it would be best to get you away from the cat sidhe and then we could maybe talk with you because I don't really want things to go badly in any way especially since we aren't currently possessing anyone so we shouldn't go crazy but it's always hard to say. Either way we just really want to actually talk to you rather than let things go very wrong like the last two times it happened, even though we weren't there for that, and it's not like we can just walk up to you especially since you are always being followed by exorcists so really it's really hard to just have a conversation without there being some kind of attack or plan put in place just so we don't have to fight. But again, we are very sorry for that."
"Uh…" Rin lost all train of thought. "What?"
"Oh, sorry." The second laughed nervously.
"He rambles. You just have to accept it." The first silhouette sighed.
"I don't even know who you are!" Rin shot back.
"Oh, right, we should introduce ourselves." The second gave a slight bow. "I am Egyn, Demon King of Water, and next to me is Iblis, Demon King of Fire. We're your brothers."
Mephisto frowned as he looked down on the forest. It had been a while now and it looked like some of the students had already found one of the lanterns and were working together to bring it back to the campsite. Sadly, it did not look like Rin was part of that group, though he couldn't fault him for that. Afterall, he did need to adapt to the woods differently than his classmates. That doesn't mean Mephisto wasn't hoping for anything more interesting.
He had, for a brief second, seen the spark of blue in the middle of the forest quite far from the campsite, but it was only a small flare before it was gone. Mephisto assumed his brother got overheated and used his flames despite his teachers warning him otherwise. Not that Mephisto had an issue with that. He was quite curious to see how Rin navigated the forest with or without use of his flames. It would certainly bring an insight into the half-demon's abilities.
But he has been so far disappointed since that one short flare of fire was all that was going to be shown of his brother's abilities. He thought there would be more, especially since it happened after that one firework went off, but alas it was not so. And he knows he wasn't caught by any of the exorcists hidden throughout the woods because that would have been quite the fight if it had been the case. No, instead he's just been sitting up in the sky bored as a group of the students made their way to the camp with one of the peg lanterns.
"I think we need a bit more entertainment, don't you think?" Mephisto asked, directing his question to the green-haired demon next to him.
Amaimon hummed in response.
Rolling his eyes at the tone, Mephisto spoke again. "Perhaps you should start a little early. I'm sure our dear brother is on his way back to the camp so as soon as he sees you messing with his friends, I'm sure you'll get quite the fight."
"Alright," Amaimon agreed, shooting a quick glance at Mephisto before he leapt down from the chair and into the woods below.
Mephisto turned his own gaze back to the trees below him, trying to spy any sight of Rin through the thick foliage. "Where are you, little brother?"
"Good job." Shura praised as she watched Suguro, Konekomaru, Shiemi, and Shima pull into the camp with the last peg lantern. Takara and Izumo were already there, and she had to frown a bit when she realized Rin wasn't with them.
"Huh? How'd you get here by yourself?" Shima asked when he saw Izumo calmly sitting next to the fire.
"I had my familiars pull it." She replied before gesturing to Takara. "But he was even faster."
"Okumura wasn't with you?" Shura asked, looking over the group.
"Er…no he wasn't." Konekomaru answered with a frown.
"Do you think he's ok?" Shiemi asked, a hand held up to her chest in worry. "Maybe he needs help."
"The kid can handle himself just fine." Shura replied as she crossed her arms.
"But didn't a firework go off?" Shima pointed out. "What if that was him?"
"If it was, Yukio had headed out a while ago to go check on it." Even as she said this, Shura couldn't stop the wrong feeling going through her.
"I doubt that was him." Suguro spoke up as if he could read her mind. "That monkey's too stubborn to light the firework if he was in trouble."
"But if it wasn't him, who was it?" Konekomaru asked. "Because right now, he is the only one not here. It makes sense for it to be him."
"He would only do it if it was a life or death situation, and even then I doubt it." Suguro shot back. "I don't like this."
Shura was about to speak up again when suddenly a green form dropped out of the sky onto the ground right outside of the circle alongside a hobgoblin. Before them, Amaimon stared at them with bored eyes before taking the harness off of the hobgoblin with him.
"Go Behemoth!" He ordered and the hobgoblin began charging at the camp.
"I've been waiting for ya." Shura spoke before whistling. At the campfire, a snake formed, scaring Izumo who was right next to it before the fire spread out from its form to light the circle around the camp. With a bright flash, the hobgoblin and the demon king were thrown away from the blast.
"A total barrier?!" Suguro exclaimed, staring at Shura in shock as the flames around them died down.
"Yeah," She replied. "It protects everyone inside the barrier and keeps anything outside of it out. Works pretty well against high levels like him."
"Who, exactly, was that? Is this part of the test?" Konekomaru asked, sweat beading at his forehead.
Shura shook her head as she tied her ponytail tighter against her head. "Nope, this is a bit too high level for you kids. Test's over, because that was Amaimon."
Shima gasped. "Amaimon?"
"As in the Demon King?" Izumo asked for clarification.
"That's the one." Shura said, turning back to their camp supplies and pulling out a large container. "Circle around kids, got some holy water for ya for extra protection."
"Wait, but why does-eh!" Izumo sputtered as she was suddenly doused in holy water, spitting out what had gotten in her mouth. "What does a Demon King want with us?!"
"Who knows." Shura shrugged as she continued to go around and soak them with the water. When she reached Suguro, the two of them made eye contact as a secret message passed between them. Suguro silently asked if this had to do with Rin and Shura was quick to confirm it before going on. "They like chaos, doesn't really matter who it targets."
"But a Demon King?!" Konekomaru exclaimed.
"I mean, it seems a little excessive!" Shima nervously laughed, looking at the forest lining.
"Wait, what about Rin?!" Shiemi suddenly shouted with worry coating her voice. "He's still out in the woods!"
"I wouldn't worry about him right now!" Izumo replied. They watched as more demons surrounded their campsite, growling and clawing at the dirt outside of the barrier.
Amaimon hummed from his spot in the tree. Outside of being blown away by the barrier, this waiting was very boring. Of course, he had to play his cards right since he couldn't kill anyone according to Mephisto, but he also knew Rin would not be coming unless he got away from his other siblings. In particular, he wanted to fight that woman who set up the barrier. Not only had it hurt his Behemoth (he wanted to kill her for that) but she had stopped him from messing with Rin before as well. Really, she might be the only person here that could stem his boredom. But he would need the barrier gone for that.
Launching down from the tree, he sent a tremor through the earth to the barrier, aiming to break the circle. He could see the way the exorcist's eyes widened in horror when they realized what he was doing, but just as he was about to send another shockwave through the ground, a bullet shot past his face, Amaimon just avoiding it with a jerk backwards. Looking in the direction of the bullet, he found the paladin, Shiro Fujimoto standing there, gun trained in his direction.
Maybe this won't be as boring as he thought.
So that was that!
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Until next time! :D