For the longest time, Rin could not understand why people were so upset when he played with them. In in youth and inexperience, he never considered that he was different than other people. When he was bruised or bleeding, he healed up before he ever even got home. It confused him when his brother or friends were hurt and they would still be discolored for days after. Did they choose to keep the wounds? Did that not hurt?
In hindsight, that is probably the reason he played so rough with the other children. It was not until others started to avoid him and call him demon child that he realized the other children and even adults did not know he was playing with them. He tried to explain himself to father but Shiro did not seem to understand no matter how much he tried. Shiro thought Rin was making up excuses to fight and had a short temper. Truth be told, the child was more likely to hurt one of his friends than enemies.
As he got in middle school and learned to fight with his not friends and enemies, it became clearer to him that other people were not like him. Some of the ones he more played with than fought gave his pointers on how to grapple and hold with hurting intentionally. Others that were mean and hateful, Rin tried not to hurt too badly but sometimes sent them to the hospital.
He would call an ambulance before running but that was usually all he afforded evil people. He could not understand why he knew who was bad and who wasn't but he could always tell. Most people were sort of gray. It made some sort of sense to Rin when he learned about yin and yang. He tried to be understanding after that but still hurt people often. Most fights he was able to hide from his twin brother, Yukio, and Shiro.
It was easy to hide when the split lip and black eye were all but gone before he made his way home. When the other side brought more dangerous weapons into the fights, it became more difficult to hide but still doable. He would wrap up stab wound and bullet wounds and the others would think it was noting more than muscle soreness. Of course when his body was focusing on the major wounds, the bruises stayed for longer and he would be forced to confess to fighting.
The other party usually would not step up though, so no one could ever see the severity of either. It helped that Rin did attempt not to hurt people. He had a very strong sense of justice and before his first year of middle school was up, others had already known to stay clear of him. Rumors would fly about the type of people he fought and he was branded a trouble maker from the start.
Being a little bit of an idiot himself, Rin never took the time to watch the news. He would get depressed because everyone was afraid of him but did not notice that the crime rate around his school and home dropped drastically compared to the cities around them. His reputation kept the bad things away from those he cared about and he started seeing less of the evil people around him.
That is not to say, when he did see them around, they were only the worst of the worst. People that were more demon than even him. They would hurt others for their own amusement and would come seeking Rin out. Rin was known as a trouble maker to most but the underworld of the cities knew better. Anyone under the boys protection was off limits unless they went through him first.
Rin had a very strong sense of what was right and wrong, so that made things difficult to explain to his family. Yukio never could understand why Rin could not leave other people alone. He could not see the same way his brother did. This strong desire seemed obvious to Rin and he did not feel the need to explain his actions to others either. Why explain yourself to people that would not understand. So he took the worried looks of his family and carried them with him when he fought.
Apparently that poor excuse of a human was not lying, he did manage to get into true cross academy. Shiratori was his name if Rin remembered correctly. It would be difficult not too with how often they fought. It never took him long to sniff Rin out when he knew he was close by and it took even less time than that to alienate him from the entire class. The silver haired spoiled brat only had to mention a couple of Rin's more unsavory fights and all the hard work he had put into making a fresh start went right down the drain.
At the very least, Shiratori was not stupid. His cronies did not go to the school and because of Rin's restrictions, he did not leave the grounds very often. This alone made fighting very difficult and the other boy would not risk getting kicked out of the school over a nobody like Rin. So long as Rin ignored the rumors going on around him and did not antagonize, he was perfectly happy. He did not particularly care about the day classes anyhow and as long as the rumors did not mention his brother, he would continue to ignore them.
The old sayings about ignoring a bully were not true at all. They did not get bored and go away like some school special. They tended to up the ante until they got the response they were looking for. When the rumors did nothing, the other boy attempted to get Rin in trouble for other things. Every other week, Rin was being called to Mephisto's, his older half brother and principle's, office for some made up slight.
It got to the point where Mephisto questioned Rin on why he did not burn the spoiled brat to a crisp just to get him to stop talking. Since Shiratori was lying more often then not, Rin was never in any trouble and the two usually just talked about demon stuff and school life. Mephisto was very interested in what someone who had been raised as a human thought of the two worlds and Rin was honest to a fault. Some days, neither demons were sure the place was worth saving.
The good news was, Rin was learning new things about himself all the time. He had learned long ago that he could not be rough with his human friends or they would break very easily. He still wanted to throw Bon around the room when he put him in a headlock but he reframed and was proud of himself for it. Mephisto explained to him that the roughhousing was most definitely a demon quality.
"Demon's live pretty much forever" Mephisto explained "even if you kill one here in the material world, they will just go home". It was no wonder they caused so much destruction, they did not even know what death was. "What about me" Rin questioned a little childishly. "No telling" Rin did not like how nonchalant Mephisto was. "It depends on what you got from both of your parents but if it helps think of it this way. If you are more demon than human, you will go to our world when you die and probably never return here".
Because every Christian child wants to be told they get an automatic ticket to hell. That week, Rin did not sleep at all. It took a while to come to the conclusion that he would not be going to hell when he died. He was baptized when he was younger, though not he questioned if it was holy water that was used. So he just had to have faith in his god that he could be forgiven as well. Even Satan, his biological father, was once an angel.
Saving Kuro, the black cat familiar, was the greatest thing Rin thinks he had ever done. Now he had someone on his level to play with. Yeah, he was a cat and a demon but he was always willing to play and train with Rin. Rin's fighting also became a lot better as he played at night with the cat. There were no noticeable changes to his day classes but the night classes could tell how much Rin calmed down, though they weren't sure why.
Cooking meals again was both and blessing and a curse for Rin. His brother went with him the first couple of times to the store for ingredients but apparently got bored quickly. "I don't know much about preparing food and you have plenty of time to do it yourself, brother" he would say with a false apology. Rin would grumble but still do it. Providing for his brother did give him immense joy, but now he would regularly have to go off of the school grounds and into the town. Shiratori's goons did not make the cut for the school but apparently still went to school in that area.
They swooped down on him like vultures after about two months of shopping. The pent up frustration was easy to spot with how vicious they ripped into Rin. It was easier to hurt the brunett because he really did not want to fight them. He only blocked and dodged. He would never run away but he knew he could easily kill them if he lost his temper. They usually found him on his way to the store, so the groceries were one thing Rin did not have to worry about. Rin also learned if he let them hit him a few times, they would go away faster and not bother him as much in class.
Guess that was the reaction they wanted from him and it created less of a fuss. A few times they broke bones but with training with Shura and Kuro, muscle soreness was expected and he always healed up eventually. He even let his brother bandage his wounds when he could write them off from training. It was just like old times in Rin's eyes. He never questioned if it was right or wrong and just went on living his life with no one the wiser. That was, naturally, when things had to get weird.
Rin was happily getting ready to go shopping for the weeks groceries and was unaware of the conversation going on right as he was leaving. "Have any of you noticed how beat up Rin gets from shopping" Bon mentioned. Usually he was not observant but it did not take long to put together a pattern. "Maybe he's secretly hunting demons on his own" Shima put in his theory. Kamiki cut it "or he's fighting because he's an idiot. I wouldn't be surprised with what I've heard". "W-What?" Shiemi questioned.
When Kamiki looked up, she saw all eyes were on her. "Seriously, do none of you pay attention to the rumors. Rin is always going around picking fights with people that annoy him" she stated as if a fact. "That can't be right" Koneko stammered out. "Of course not" Kamiki continued "it's just rumors". "That idiot better not be getting into fights" Bon exclaimed and started following Rin out the door. "We'll just follow him and find out" Shima reasoned as the others followed along as well.
They had never felt more stupid when they came up to some kid hitting their friend. Rin had bruising all over his face and his arms were being held by a couple of older kids. "What's going on here" Bon screeched. The two boys let go and the group of three started running away laughing "try talking your way out of this one" one threw over their shoulder as they escaped. Rin simply sat on the ground looking between the two groups.
He was not exactly concerned about being caught by the others off of school ground and could probably talk them into not telling Yukio. He shrugged it off and stood up with a wince. His wrist was twisted at a bad angle where they were holding him and his nose felt broken. Both would heal in no time flat. Pain was routine by now as well so he was not worried about that either. He took a final look at the fussing group, opened his mouth as if to say something, decided he would deal with it later, and just turned toward the store.
Knowing what he was doing and furious about it, Bon followed after him immediately questioning him "Who were they and what the hell were they doing to you". With a shrug, Rin answered "just some guys I knew from back home". Shima jumped in with his own questions "Do all your friends wail on you like that", the sarcasm was not hard to find in his voice. "Not really but they really like fighting and it's not worth it to make a problem out of it". Kamiki got a striking realization "That's the guy that started the rumors about you fighting in school. He looked like he was fighting more than you" she was angry but Rin had not decided who she was angry at.
Shiemi was just fussing over his wrist. Knowing that they already knew he was Satan's spawn, Rin was not offended when she stopped in the middle of the sidewalk in shock. Knowing he could not go in the store yet, Rin guided the others to the side and let her watch the skin begin to heal over in fascination. Looking at him, the others noticed his face healing as well. "Is this why you did not say anything" Now Bon was angry to and it was giving Rin a headache.
Maybe Shiratori hit him harder than he thought, no matter though. His demonic healing would take care of it. The whole process took about 20 minutes and Rin was completely healed up. Another realization hit the group that no one dared comment on. If that's all it took to heal, how badly did he have to be hurt to show bruising the next day at class. The thought was sickening in itself.
Unanimously it was decided that someone would go with Rin shopping from then on. He was still an idiot so he never noticed someone always had something they had to take care of that direction. Most of the cram students were at the top of their day classes and Shiratori knew it. He could not attack Rin while he shopped anymore. The others being with him also had a more direct benefit than they did not realize until after the fact.
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They did not know how alone Rin was until he started talking about how other students started to approach him again. When Yukio found out, he was angry but never mentioned he knew to his brother. A private talk with Mephisto got the problem taken care of discretely and Rin started talking more in his classes. After a time, nobody could even remember why they were afraid of this ball of energy. He still did a lot of weird things but it was all harmless. There was no way he was capable of hurting another person.
