Of course it got worse. It had to get worse. It was practically a law of the universe that if something could go wrong, it would go wrong. If Yukio had been younger and had a fouler vocabulary, he might have cursed out the universe and the law known as Murphy's Law. With the number of times he's found himself thinking about it, he really ought to just make a note of it on a post-it note and stick it to his glasses so that he'd be permanently reminded. Of course, it'd mean that he wouldn't be able to see out of one of his glasses's lens, but half his vision would honestly be worth the reminder.
So, as he stood in the darkened tunnel of MRT system firing his gun away into the shadows, how exactly had he gotten here?
Well, to put it very frankly, it was just bad, horrible luck. Plain old rotten luck. If Fortuna had decided to be just a little more benevolent that day, they'd probably still have been in the lit train being bored out of their minds and not escaping out into a dark train tunnel that was inhabited by who knows how many demons. Fortunately for him, Kuro had already collected up his students and sprinted in the opposite direction, presumably towards the nearest station. Yukio really couldn't tell. Either way, Ray was out of the way, and Kuro was protecting him and the others from harm.
He ought to give Kuro some Silver Vine Sake for his good work, but on the other hand, it was indirectly Kuro's fault that they were in this situation. Oh well. He'd settle for diluted Silver Vine as a compromise.
It hadn't been entirely clear to Yukio in the beginning, but he did quickly figure it out the situation.
It had all started after the announcement over the train's loudspeakers. Sir Caller and Ellano were chatting (although, 'bickering' would have been a more accurate term, no matter how one-sided it was on Ellano's part), Daku appeared to trying to dismantle the train from the inside- wait a minute.
Two minutes, a confiscated screwdriver, and one shameless Daku later, Yukio returned to his mental assessment of his students' statuses. Tadashi had briefly jolted up from his trip into his mindscape to look around before abruptly returning to Lala Land, Chi had taken out a Demonology 101 textbook out to doodle in the margins and finally, Ray. Ray was... well, to put it simply, he was just unaffected by everything else. Whilst his classmates seemed to fidget and squirm in their seats one way or another (even Tadashi who was very much still asleep), the teenager seemed perfectly content to sit and wait without a hint of anxiousness at being stuck in a train. If anything, he seemed a little bored.
Daku slid- no, oozed would be a better word for it- out of his seat and ended up on the floor, face down, right next to Ray's foot.
"How are you so calm?!" Daku whined, pawing at Ray's pant leg much like Kuro usually would. "We're stuck in a metal box, and we're all going to die!"
"Over dramatic much?" Ellano deadpanned from the seat across them, pausing in his endeavour to leave Sir Caller with bald patches.
"A bald declaration, sir." And there went Sir Caller's moment of reprieve before Ellano returned to his attempt to scalp his classmate with nothing but a dull pencil. He'd probably require another forty hours before he made decent progress in his attempt.
"Well, trains break down often enough around here, so it's nothing new to me. Worse case scenario, we'll just be here for about half an hour" Ray responded to Daku's question, thoughtfully scratching the back of Kuro's ears. The Cat Sidhe was practically glowing with happiness as he sat of Ray's lap. "Come to think of it, Japan's trains are probably better maintained. You guys don't get many train breakdowns, right?"
Daku rolled, turning his body so that he'd see ray's face. With wide eyes and something akin to betrayal, he whispered. "This is why I don't take any transportation that isn't driven by me. I'm going to die, and it's your fault for not warning me."
Yukio was fairly sure that after the plan ride, no one would want Daku to drive anything anyway. In fact, he wouldn't be surprised if he was banned from getting on a plane any time soon. He'd have to take a boat back, but Yukio was certain that Daku would somehow manage to turn a regular passenger boat into the equivalent of a rocket capable of flight the moment he got his hands on the ship's wheel.
Yukio had long since pondered on the very important question of why had he not turned in his teaching license and given his two weeks notice yet, before he remembered that most Exorcists were insane, and the least he could do was try and curb that insanity of the new blood before it got even more out of hand under the tutelage of someone significantly less qualified than him.
Also, somewhere between the beginning of Yukio's thoughts and the present, a face had pressed up against the window right next to Ray's head, groaning. It was a rather horrifying visage, face made completely of shadows that distorted and stretched as it pressed into the glass. The moment of realisation for Ray would have been comical, if the thing hadn't decided to rear it's head back and violently smash it against the window repeatedly, the glass cracking and spiderwebbing as the teenager yelped with terror and scrambled out of the way, dragging Daku and a very startled Chi along with him. "Gah!"
Yukio and his former students sprang into action, rounding up the Esquires. Yukio pulled Ray behind him, as he pulled out his handgun from it's holster, as well as a grenade filled with Holy Water. If there was one good thing about this situation, it would be that they had boarded the train at a late hour, meaning that the train was almost empty save for them and a few late night travellers. At the very least, this would make evacuation all the easier. Now that demons were clearly getting violent and trying to break in, there was no way they could sit around and wait. If the demonic situation was bad enough that multiple Koks could form in the train system's tunnels, things were worse than Yukio had previously thought.
"Owens!" Ray jumped at being suddenly addressed. "Is there any way to contact the staff from the train?"
"Er- Yeah! That!" Ray pointed at a rounded, flattened cylinder, grey panel with a red button next to one of the train doors.
"Suguro, Shima, Konekomaru, go and gather up the rest of the passengers. Make sure they're safe and proceed with evacuation. On the way, contact the staff and infrom of the situation." Yukio ordered, not taking his eyes off the demon as he released the safety of his gun and prepared to fire the moment the thing broke in. "Kamiki and I will clear the way out, along with the Esquires. Esquires, get the emergency door open on my count."
"Let's go." Izumo nodded towards the students as she pulled out two pieces of summoning paper, bit her thumb and swiped her blood across the circles. "I humbly appeal to the Goddess of Inari. I entreat you not to leave my prayers unfulfilled!"
The summoning circles sparked to life, the energy surging as two of Izumo's Byakkos formed by her feet, clearly grumpy about being summoned yet again.
"Humph," One of her familiars, the one with a red scarf around it's neck, Mike if Yukio remembered correctly, huffed. "Exactly how many times are you going to call us?"
"You're not even that cute." The second one, Uke, added.
Izumo's face seemed to turn an interesting shade of red. "Would you cut that out?! You've been telling me that for years!"
Yukio coughed loudly, interrupting them. "If you are quite done, we do need to get going. That glass won't hold forever."
He gestured towards the emergency door, where Ellano and Ray were poised to get the door open. Outside the cracked window, the demon shrieked loudly and bashed its head against the window again.
Once everyone was in position, Yukio counted down from three as he pulled the pin on his grenade. the moment he hit three, Ray and Ellano got the door open just in time for Yukio to toss the grenade out before it went off, dispelling the demons that gathered outside. With a quick gesture, he led them outside, finishing off a few stragglers with couple of bullets soaked with Holy water as they made their way down the darkened tunnel. That was, also, where things began to go horribly wrong.
Once they were about twenty meters away from the train, one of the demons suddenly lunged from the darkness in front of them and before Yukio or anyone else could react, hooked a tendril around Ray's leg and pulled. With his center of balance disrupted, Ray yelped and fell backwards before it dragged him into the darkness. Kuro screeched. A surge of panic swelled up in Yukio. No, not again. He had to protect him. He had to protect Rin. He couldn't fail again, not again-!
"Rin!" Yukio shot at the shadows, dispelling them as he rushed forward, refusing to lose him again. His eyes darted around in the dark, hoping to catch a glimpse of Ray. Where was he? Where was Ray? The demon couldn't have gotten far in such a short period of time, where was he? He gritted his teeth as he quickened his pace, ignoring Izumo's shouts at him to not separate from the group you are disregarding your own advice-!
How could she understand? She couldn't understand his feelings. His whole life he was trained, but what was the point if he couldn't even do what he was supposed to do?
Further down the tunnel, he heard Ray shout, followed quickly by a thud. Sliding another magazine into his handgun, he quickly took out a few more of the demons that were in his way before he finally came across Ray. Despite the fact that Ray had been taken off guard, he had, for the most part, managed to keep himself mostly unharmed save for a few scratches that he had obtained from being roughly dragged down the tunnel, along with a gash on his arm from where a part of the rails had sliced into the flesh. Albeit a little clumsily, he had procured the Bokuto that the cram school had provided him with and swung it at the demon, keeping them mostly at bay although he was steadily losing ground.
"Ray!" Upon hearing Yukio, the boy turned to look, relief washing over his features. As soon as he spotted the gun, he immediately understood and dropped to the ground, covering his head as Yukio took aim and fired, his bullets meeting their mark as they dispersed. Yukio hurried over, kneeling down beside him. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm alright." Ray sighed in relief, perking up. "Just scratched myself up on the way down here. Nothing serious! I'll be right as rain in no time!"
A gurgle from a little further down caught their attention. With narrowed eyes, Yukio began reloading his gun, just as a smaller version of the demon crawled out of the shadows. However, this one didn't seem particularly interested in lunging for him and Ray. Instead, it made a beeline for a splatter of blood on the ground courtesy of Ray, and began slurping it up.
A chill ran up Yukio's spine, as he finally realised that he wasn't just dealing with regular Koks.
"Okumura!" Izumo and the rest of the group finally caught up with them, the female Exorcist looking a little bit more than irritated. "Don't run off on your own! You've told us that multiple times, so could you try and keep to your own advice-?!"
Izumo caught sight of the smaller demon who was just finishing up the blood and went white, falling silent as she glanced at Ray who was still bleeding.
"Oh..."
The tinier version of the demon lunged for Ray, on a collision course for the wound on Ray's arm before Yukio shot it out of the air with startling accuracy. Of course. Of course it had to be this minor subspecies of the Coal Tar, or more specifically, a newer variant of Koks that seemed to have a taste for human blood (New enough that no one had come up with an official name for them yet. Kind of. Someone had filed a name for them, and no one was quite sure if it was a joke or not. The office then banned any mention of Doctor Who on the premises). They behaved like regular Koks most of the time and preferred to hide in the darkness, becoming more like shadows than anything else. But once they got a whiff of blood, they went wild. Kuro had dug his claws into Ray's head. Ray was bleeding. Blood.
On the train, it wouldn't have mattered too much. But once it broke down...
Well, the results speak for themselves.
"Kuro," Yukio said, his voice tight as he pulled out a scalpel from his pouch. The Cat Sidhe straightened. "Take Owens and the other Esquires to the nearest station immediately. I'll distract them."
He dug the scalpel into his palm, ingnoring the bite of the metal as blood trickled down between his fingers. Almost immediately, the air seemed to shift, the demons excited by the prospect of new blood. "Kamiki, go with them. Kuro will probably need some help."
"What about you?" Izumo snapped. "Regardless of your rank, you could get easily swarmed and then what?! I am not filing your death certificate for you, you know!"
"Well, it's a good thing I came prepared." Yukio replied easily with a closed eyed smile as his students yelped in surprise, a now much larger Kuro amongst them. The Cat Sidhe picked Ray up by the collar of his jacket and tossed him onto his back. The Esquires stared, wide eyed for a moment before they remembered that they were in a tunnel infested with demons that liked the taste of blood when Yukio shot another demon out of the air. They quickly got onto Kuro after that.
Izumo, as reluctant as she was, gave in. "I swear, you better not die! I still need to have words with you!"
"I'm sure you do."
As Izumo and the other disappeared around a corner, Yukio turned back to the number of blood thirsty Koks, gun raised.
He really did have his work cut out for him.
0o0
This sucked. It really did. The only fortunate thing about this whole situation would be that at the very least, the demons present weren't kin of Beelzebub. Shima was very, very sure that if, say, a couple hundred Chuchi had suddenly decide to fly straight at him, he might have just bailed on everyone else. Never mind the fact that they were in the middle of evacuating at least ten innocent civilians, three of whom had gotten temptaints already. Just thinking about the legs, and the many, beady looking eyes...
Even the thought of them sent shivers up his spine.
But fortunately for the civilians, Konekomaru, and Bon, there were no insect demons present and he was thus able to fully contribute in this effort. Now, if only average sized Koks would get out of the way, everything would be great.
"Shima!" He jerked backwards, instinctively startled by Konekomaru's shout, narrowly avoiding a swipe to the face before Suguro exorcised it with a quick verse.
"Stop daydreaming, Shima! You aren't a Page anymore!" Suguro barked, as Shima laughed sheepishly.
"Sorry, sorry!" He apologised, swinging his K'irk at another Koks. It dispersed into their significantly less dangerous Coal Tars, now posing less of a threat. Well, for as long as they didn't reform back into Koks. They should probably deal with them soon.
Gunshots echoed through the tunnel, and by the sounds of things, Yukio was probably having a pretty tough time as well. Hell, he was probably on the verge of having a heart attack, considering who was with him. Ah, his poor, former teacher. If Shima were in his shoes, he'd probably have lost his cool ages ago, probably within the first ten or so minutes.
Behind him, one of the civilians whimpered.
He wondered if Yukio and Izumo were having a better time than he was.
0o0
The moment the lights of the station came into view, Ray heaved a sigh of relief. He couldn't wait to get out of this infested tunnel. He did feel worried about his teacher clearing the path on his own, but he was confident his teacher could handle it if Kamiki left him by himself.
He hoped. Maybe he should go back and help...
"Don't even think about it." Ray made a guilty 'eep!' and froze like a deer in the glare of headlights under Kamiki's stare. "I know that look, and every time I've seen it-"
She paused, taking a moment to command her familars to get a demon out of Kuro's way.
"-someone ends doing something stupid. I'm not going to deal with that now. So, don't you dare."
"Ooo, someone's in troubleee..." Daku snickered, tilting his head to avoid a Coal Tar's collision with his forehead as Ray's ears turned red, flushing with slight embarrassment. He was only saved as Kuro skidded to a stop right outside the station, the glass barriers currently the only thing between them and safety.
"Alright, I knew my bazooka would come in handy here." Somehow, without anyone noticing, Sir Caller had procured a meter long bazooka from his tiny backpack, hefting it over his shoulder as he prepared to fire at the barrier.
"What the- No! Are you crazy?!" Kamiki just about shrieked, eyes bugging out at the sudden appearance of the weapon. "Put that thing away before you get us all killed!"
"Yes, Sir." As Sir Caller glumly shoved the bazooka back into his grapefruit-sized backpack, Chi spotted their salvation.
"There!" She pointed at an employee's only door that led out of the tunnel and into the station, and Kuro didn't need telling twice. With two powerful leaps, Kuro reached the door and everyone scrambled off him as he poofed back into the size of a regular house cat. Ellano reached door first, grasping the handle tightly as he pulled, only to make a face as the door refused to budge.
"It's STUCK!" He exclaimed, tugging at the door furiously. "Of ALL the-!"
He quickly dissolved into a flurry of angry sounding German words involving someone's mother, which Ray could only assume were curse words judging by the tone and the fact that Sir Caller had lit up like a Christmas tree and was nodding with approval. While it would have been entertaining on a normal day to listen, they were unfortunately in a bit of a dire situation at the current moment.
"Let me try!" Tadashi elbowed Ellano out of the way, bending down to get a closer look. "Oh, wow. That is definitely locked. Maybe I can try and lock pick it..."
"Yeah, you might want to hurry up with that," Ray cringed as he looked down the tunnel that led in a direction opposite to where they had just come from. There were a lot of them. Kuro leapt in front of him, fur bristling as he hissed at the approaching demons.
"Wow, no pressure." Tadashi got to work, jiggling the lock with with the help of a thin metal rod and a straightened clip from Daku. As he did his thing, The other Esquires did their best to assist Kamiki, despite still being a bit too untrained for real combat. Either way, they did manage to keep the demons mostly at bay, until at last, they heard the clicking sound of a lock turning.
"Got it!" Tadashi crowed, as everyone rushed into the station, spilling out onto the floor in an exhausted heap. Kamiki finished one last chant, having her familiars create a small barrier that covered the doorway before she too rushed in and closed the door behind her. Just in time too, as not a moment later, there was a loud thud from behind the shut door.
She breathed a sigh of relief. That was a little too close for comfort. Then, once she had caught her breath, her eyes fell squarely on Ray.
"Get away from the door, you being so close will make them a little too enthusiastic!" Ray hurriedly made his way to the furthest point in the room away from the tunnels. After that, he was definitely not willing to have to deal with them again, especially so soon after having reached a safe space. However, before he could get there, Ray ran right into someone, nearly barrelling them over.
"Woah there, kiddo," The man remarked, putting a hand on Ray's shoulder to steady him. "You should be more careful."
Ray's eyes flitted upwards, and the first thing he saw was a rather familiar looking pin pinned on a dark jacket. Without really meaning to, he couldn't help but blurt out, "You're an Exorcist!"
Somewhat surprised, the Exorcist laughed as he gaze travelled across the room, taking in the faces of everyone as well as their uniforms. "And all of you must be part of our back up from Japan, am I right? I'm Dennis Ong, Upper Second Class."
Kamiki stepped up. "That's right."
She fished out her ID from her purse and held it out fro the Exorcist to see. "I'm Kamiki Izumo, Upper Second Class, and these are students of my colleague, Upper First Class Okumura Yukio. I was travelling with him and three others when the train was attacked. The others are still on the tracks, evacuating some civilians."
The man nodded seriously. "I see. I'll send some backup for them. If the situation has gotten bad enough that a train's been attacked, we'll probably have to flood the tunnels with concentrated Holy Water."
"Oh, cool." Daku piped up, before promptly passing out.
0o0
Three hours later, a lot of screeching demons, and a lot of Holy Water later, Yukio found himself filling in the local Exorcists in on the current situation whilst covered in soot and God knows what else. Izumo really didn't envy him as she watched him slink over to a bench to sit down to rest. She gave him about fifteen minutes, before she strode over to him with purpose.
"Hey, Okumura." Yukio looked up from where he sat on the bench, his tired eyes meeting Izumo's. Anyone could tell he was a little more than exhausted by the day's events (and talk with the local Exorcists), enough so that he'd probably pass out the moment his head hit a pillow. Izumo almost felt guilty for picking now to have a 'chat' with her former instructor, but things needed to be said. "I want to talk to you."
"Yes, Kamiki?" He raised an eyebrow at her. "What do you need to talk to me about?"
She huffed, sitting down on the bench right next to Yukio, arms crossed and brows drawn tight on her face. She was silent for a moment, before she spoke again, her voice low so as to not draw attention from the others. Especially from the main subject of her conversation. "Back in the tunnel, I heard you."
Yukio didn't respond, letting the silence between them drag out for a moment longer than necessary before he spoke, his face blank. "Oh? And what did you hear?"
Izumo made a frustrated sound that was like a cross between a growl and hiss in the back of her throat, inching closer to him. Of all the-! "You know what I'm talking about."
She narrowed her eyes at him, almost accusing. "You called him 'Rin'."
He didn't't reply , but he did slowly clench his fists against his pant leg, the fabric rumpling from the action. Izumo nonetheless pressed onwards. Her words may be cruel, but Yukio needed to hear it. "You know he isn't your brother, right? After all, Rin-"
"Kamiki," Yukio didn't look at her, his posture stiff and words short, as though he was restraining himself from doing something he probably shouldn't, at least, not in public. Which was one of the reasons why Izumo chose to have this conversation with Yukio in full view of his class and fellow Exorcists. She was willing to bet Yukio that wouldn't just shoot her immediately. "Don't."
"Owens is not your brother." Undeterred, she reiterated her words from before. If the others didn't want to say anything about how Yukio was obviously projecting onto a kid, Izumo certainly was going to. Regardless of the fact maybe, just maybe, Rin's soul had crawled out of the afterlife and slipped into the wheel of reincarnation. Did Yukio not understand how reincarnation worked even if it were the case here? Owens was a new person entirely, albeit with the same face. "You can't-"
"I think this conversation is over." Yukio cut in curtly, standing up abruptly without so much as a warning. "Please gather up the others. We should get going soon."
As Izumo watched him leave, she could only pity him.
[A/N I'm really on a roll, aren't I? Two chapters in less than a month? Well, I can't guarantee my update schedule to be like this all the time. Well, anyway, would anyone be opposed to me going back and rewriting some of the chapters? I've read through them to try and remember what I was doing, and personally, I don't really like some of them. These days I prefer more slow burn type stories, and my old pacing is honestly too fast for my liking. I'm thinking about adding a bit more inbetween the part about Ray discovering that Demons are actually real and not just a figment of his imagination, to him actually deciding to become an exorcist. And his first encounter with a demon attack was a bit too abrupt for my liking.
Also, I'm cross-posting the prequel to this onto ao3, edited to my current standards.
Well, I'm going to take a nap now. I'm posting this at 1AM, so I might come back later to change some things around. Also, any new OCs that appear in this aren't going to take up my writing as much as the Cram School students have. They are solely there to act as props fo the story.
Till next time!
- Gwntan12]
OMAKE
(Well, actually, it was a deleted scene that my brother suggested. I may be snorting crack all willy nilly as I write this, but even I sometimes like a semblence of sense in my stories.)
"SIR CALLER, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"
"...Is that a trick question or something? I'm obviously killing this innocent passerby."
"WHY?!"
"Bait, sir."
*Twenty hours and an arrested Sir Caller later*
"Didn't you get arrested?"
"Why yes, yes I did, sir. I seduced my way out, and now I'm a free man with no charges against me."
"... What the actual crap-"
":D"
"How the hell did you convey an emoji into real words- What the shit- You know what? I give up. There is no sense, no logic, I am giving up, quitting as an exorcist, and I'm moving to Ireland where I can live out the rest of my life as a sheep, away from this madness."
"Since (A censored bleep) Caller has gotten himself out of prison, he can now serve detention instead."
":("