OK so this is the next chapter!
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Unto the chapter!
Yukio grimaced as he placed the back of his hand to his brother's forehead. "His fever isn't going down yet. I'd treat it, if I knew the cause." He took his hand away and looked towards his adoptive father who was gazing down solemnly at Rin. "Shiro."
"I know," Shiro sighed. "I just don't like getting involved with him, not after he let the attack happen in the first place."
"I don't like him anymore than you do." Yukio frowned, standing up. "But, he'll have more of an idea about what is going on than we do at the moment. Even if we don't like it, I don't want to wait any longer to help Rin."
Shiro nodded in agreement and turned towards the door. "I'll go get him, you keep an eye on Rin."
Yukio watched Shiro leave before looking back at his brother, whose eyes would occasionally draw in together in discomfort before Kuro would press his nose to his forehead, effectively calming him brother down for the moment. Yukio hated seeing his younger brother in such pain, and it hurt knowing that he couldn't really do anything to help him at the moment.
"You called for my help?" A voice sang from the doorway and Yukio took a deep breath to keep himself from blowing up at the other man before he turned to face him. Even if he had already seen him earlier in the day to watch as his students be promoted as exwires, that didn't mean he wanted to see Mephisto again.
"Yes." Yukio answered, looking at Mephisto as Shiro moved to stand closer to Rin. "He seems to have come down with a fever and we don't know how to help it, nor where it came from. We figured you would have some idea for it."
"I see." Mephisto hummed, his smile falling for a moment as he approached the bed Rin laid on and looked him over. "Have either of you checked the sword recently?"
They both blinked at the sudden question before Yukio answered. "No, we were busy with Rin's sudden fever why? What does the sword have to do with anything?"
Mephisto turned to him with a smirk. "If I'm right, then everything, my dear boy."
Yukio frowned. "I'll go get it."
Mephisto waved his hand. "No need." With a snap of his fingers the sword was suddenly within his grip and he hummed at the state of it while both Shiro and Yukio gasped. The seal that had covered the sword was nearly completely ashes, no longer aiding in containing the demon heart that lied within the sword.
"Just as I thought." Mephisto spoke up, bringing their attention back to the purple haired demon. "The demon blood within Rin has finally taken a chance to activate, no longer lying dormant. Because of this, it allowed him to access his abilities as well as to reach out to his demonic heart, but he's not a demon, not yet."
"What does this have to do with his fever?" Shiro asked.
Mephisto smirked. "Well, you see, just because he's not a demon, doesn't me his body doesn't want to adjust to that. Because of his sudden demon blood and powers, Rin's body is trying to adapt to it. It's worse since not only is his demon form still basically sealed, meaning it can't help him adjust and evolve, but his age is still in developing stages, so I'm sure the backlash is much worse than it would be if he had been older. An older Rin would have been able to adjust faster, especially since his age would be closer to being fully developed. As a child, not only is his form locked away with his heart, but his body, which has been unable to develop along side his demon blood, now much adjust to it while it is still locked away."
"Is there anyway to help him?" Shiro asked, his worry for his adoptive son not going away with anything the other said. He just wanted Rin to get better. It hurt to see him in such discomfort.
Mephisto hummed. "There is. The easiest option being to unsheath the sword and allow his demon heart to reconnect to his body and allow him to become part demon."
"Never!" Shiro instantly shot that idea down. He would not lose his son so easily, not when they have done so much to help him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Yukio clearly agreeing with him in this regard, not wanting to let his brother lose his humanity.
Mephisto rolled his eyes at the two of them, amused by how stubborn they were with his younger brother. "Calm down, you haven't even heard the other choices and you're already jumping to conclusions. Now, you can unsheath the sword, that being option one. Or, you can try to create another seal to try and hold his powers back. Of course, you could also just wait for his body to adjust to the current state of forever lying in between the connection of his demon blood and his human blood, but even I don't know what the effects of that would be."
He could tell the two needed to think about what their decision would be, so Mephisto said. "I'll give you time to decide what to do. You don't have a specific time limit, however when you do make your decision, I would like to be informed." With that he placed the sword on the bed beside Rin and gave the two a swift goodbye, giving one last look at Rin as he stepped through the door.
Yukio scowled. "We are not unsheathing the sword right?" He turned to Shiro who was shaking his head.
"Of course not, I would do everything I in my power before I allow him to become a demon and risk losing him." Shiro sighed. "As for the other two, the best option would be to create another seal to place on the sword, but as far as I know, the original seal was the strongest and safest one I could find, but seeing how easily it was burned away, I can't think of another seal we could use. From there, we only have the last option."
Yukio shook his head. "No, I'm not giving up just yet. We can look into books and ask Shura about any seals. I'm not giving up on my brother yet."
Shiro smiled at him and patted his shoulder. "See, this is why you're a great brother. You're always looking out for Rin. Come on, let's go look and see if there is any information on other stronger seals."
Yukio nodded in agreement and ran his hand through his brother's hair before he pulled away. Picking up the sword, he and Shiro left the room with Kuro remaining to watch over Rin.
That night, light streamed in through the window, falling on the figure in the bed. The room was surrounded in silence, no sign that there was any other person there inside the quiet room. The figure in the bed let out uneven breaths and his eyebrows were furrowed together in discomfort. A soft moan passed his lips and his head turned, only having the energy to move centimeters on the pillow beneath his head.
Instead of a small nose coming to his aid, a hand fell upon his navy locks, brushing through his hair and calming him down. Rin relaxed under the soft treatment and soon fell back into a deeper sleep, a soft sigh passing his lips.
The figure sighed, continuing to run his fingers through the boy's hair, red eyes flashing in the dark as he spoke and broke the silence. "My poor, poor brother. The humans are so cruel to you, forcing you to go through all this because they want you to. If only we had been able to get to you first, then you'd be where you belong, little prince."
A gun cocked behind him and a voice came from the now open door. "Step away from my brother."
The red-eyed man smirked and did not move away from the sleeping boy. "Oh come now, he's as much of your brother as he is mine. Though, in my opinion, he's more my brother."
Yukio gritted his teeth, "I said step away from my brother."
The man turned to look at Yukio, his hand still running through navy locks. "You're going to shoot me? With the young prince right here? While he's sleeping? That's messed up."
"Who are you?" Yukio growled, glaring at the man with white hair with gray tips. He would shoot if he had to, but at the moment, he didn't want to risk anything, even though he was confident he wouldn't hurt his brother. He had been researching seals, Shiro having left to retrieve a few books from his home, when Kuro had rushed down with a meow of urgency, so Yukio had decided to deal with it. He thought it was something with the fever only to see it was much worse.
The red-eyed man smiled even wider and gave a mock bow as he said. "My name is Astaroth, demon king of ro-AH!" He jumped away from the bullet that shot past him, hitting the wall and causing him to move away from Rin. "What the hell!?" He exclaimed before glaring at Yukio, who glared back.
"Stay away from Rin and leave. Now."
Astaroth raised an eyebrow at Yukio and hummed. "I don't think so. Look at you, silly exorcist, thinking you can take on a demon king, but you really can't do anything."
Yukio raised his gun and was about to shoot at the demon again when a soft moan made him freeze. They both looked at Rin, who had been disturbed by the gunshot, as he let out moans and his eyes fluttered as he struggled to wake up from his fevered haze. Yukio was about to step forward, to comfort his brother and coax him back to sleep, when Astaroth beat him to it.
Astaroth moved forward and returned his hand to Rin's head, letting out comforting sounds as he tried to calm Rin back to sleep.
"...N-Ni...i…-san?" Rin mumbled out, blue peeking out from beneath the fluttering eyelashes.
"Go back to sleep Rin, your Nii-san is here." Astaroth told him. Yukio expected Rin to react in some way to the new voice, but he didn't expect him to relax and fall back to sleep beneath his touch.
"See, even if you evil exorcists have kept him away from his true family, he knows who he truly belongs with." Astaroth smirked in Yukio's direction. Yukio growled. No, he refused to believe they could take his brother so easily. Rin was sick, that is the most likely reason he gave into the touches of the other.
"Astaroth, you are not welcome here." A voice came from behind Yukio and they watched at Shiro entered the room, glaring at the demon king.
"Damn Paladin, always coming around to ruin brotherly bonding moments." Astaroth growled, slowly standing up and moving away from Rin.
"I've told you before, you will not touch Rin." Shiro said.
Astaroth growled. "And I've told you that you have no right to my brother. You hold no blood relation and I'm sure my father would love the chance to kill you and take Rin away from you. I should just take him now-"
"You will do no such thing." Shiro snapped. "You will leave now before I forcefully remove you from Assiah once again."
Astaroth grimaced. "Tsk, damn exorcists. Have fun with Rin for now, but he will come home with us soon." With that, he left through the window. Yukio raced to the window, hoping to catch sight of the demon king only to come up empty, the demon long gone already.
He turned around to see Shiro replacing a cold towel on Rin's head, the towel having fallen off during Rin's moment of slight lucidness.
"How the hell did he get in here?" Yukio asked, looking at Shiro as he placed his gun on his desk.
Shiro shook his head. "I don't know. He shouldn't have been able to, not with the wards around the dorm, let alone True Cross in general. It's the reason I sent him here in the first place."
"You've encountered Astaroth before." Yukio spoke up. "Before you came here."
"Yes." Shiro replied. "He was possessing a young man at the time who was apparently related to one of the young boys that went to Rin's school. We were there for an event and it wasn't long before he started making threats about taking Rin away from me. I exorcised Astaroth when I got the chance and I quickly made the decision of sending Rin here. If demons were able to find him, I couldn't risk anything happening, so I sent him here because I figured it would be safer than a small monastery."
"But now he knows where Rin is." Yukio sighed. "But I won't let him get him, not as long as I'm here."
Shiro smiled once more. "That's my boy. I should probably make sure you know his fatal verse, incase he comes around when I'm not here, not that that will be soon. For now, let's worry about helping Rin. After that, we'll figure out what happened with Astaroth."
Yukio nodded before looking at Rin, placing his hand on his head just as Astaroth had done. He let his fingers glide through Rin's hair, trying to wash Astaroth's touch away with his own.
"I won't let him get you Rin, any of them."
So that was that! Yeah I know, it was more or less a filler chapter but it was needed. However, I did have fun writing the Astaroth part. I always like bringing in the demon kings.
Feel free to comment, ask questions, etc.
Until next time! :D