A/N: I do not own or profit in any way from what Kazue Kato has created.

It had been easy to exterminate the gremlins once the nest was found. Shiro didn't even get a reprimand for neglecting his assigned duty, so maybe Kita did feel that he owed him something for saving him, despite the questioning.

The van dropped the exorcist students off at the Academy's Southern gate, and Shiro set a brisk pace for the dorms in the light rain. Saburota was only in early in the morning and late at night, at which point Shiro made sure to be either asleep or out of their shared room. He didn't know what the senpai made of his stunt the day of the attack, and he'd rather not discuss the matter. He did, however, need to write a report on the mission he had just finished.

It was the first time their class had been split up with different senpais to work on separate missions: Shiro with Kita, Shizuku with Sen, Ryuuji with-

*thud*

"You get zero points in survival test~" Midori sang and wiggled her toes into his back just to emphasise her point. "How did mission walk, Shiro-kun?"

"Go", came his muffled voice from the damp ground. He had heard something up on the arcade beams, but he'd thought it was a pigeon. "You get zero points in grammar. It went well – I had to save Kita-san from a ghost, but other than that it was okay." Feeling the weight bounce off his back, he got to his feet and dusted himself off. Midori's uniform looked like it had taken a heavy beating, but herself she shone like the sun. "And how did yours go?"

Midori brought up her lean arm and patted her bicep with a smug expression.

"Like water in mountain stream: many rocks ahead, but none could stop us~" Then, her ears sagged a little, and her expression became worried. "Ryuuji-kun should not come. His body is there, his mind not. Is good to let the dead live in you, yes", she said, patting her chest to indicate what she meant. "Not good to let death live your life. He needs to set straight." She cocked her head with a mournful look that was horrible on her features. "And you too."

No, not again…

"Yeah, I may have been a little off the last days", he said, checking the impulse to run a hand through his hair. He didn't have much hope of fooling Midori – she was more demon than human in her way of knowing you – but nervous ticks wouldn't help any. "I mean, with Agari-chan's death and all… I'm not good at dealing with such things. Sorry if I've been acting out of-"

No, he wasn't fooling her one bit. Midori sneaked up to him, staring transfixed at him as she did; one step at a time or in series of little skips, like a cat chasing an elusive speck of light.

"What did you do, Shiro-kun…? Your eyes… you had demon's eyes before, and now a heart to match… what did you do?" She touched his face gingerly, as if she were afraid he would shatter. "When you came, day after the attack, you had his smell on you. Thick, all over you. Smell of darkness, smell of sweet candy and strong tea. Shiro-kun, what did you do?"

…what do you say to that? How do you answer the plea in those eyes, where tears of desperation are dammed with the hope of your unspoken words? What do you say, when those unspoken words are lies?

Nothing. You say nothing. You stand there, gagged with unseen cloth, and watch the dams break when no false promises come to their support.

"Stupid Shiro-kun! Stupid, stupid, stupid!" Midori shrieked, voice cracking; and cracking something inside him. "Why don't you listen?! Why don't you open your eyes?!" She beat her fists against his chest, as if hammering on a door that wouldn't open. "He makes darkness grow in you! He makes heart hard and dead in you!"

"I'm sorry." He wrapped his arms around her and halted the barrage of blows: not so much for the physical pain it caused. "I'm sorry, Midori-chan. I'm sorry and I'm stupid." Just, please, don't let her end like Shizuku… "I wish I could tell you, I really do." How he would've loved to hold her like this, under different circumstances…

"Why…?" she rasped into his shoulder, arms locked between her body and his. "Fox doesn't go to wasp nest when stung. Dog doesn't go to snake when bit. Moth flies to fire, but only once", she said quietly. "Are you a moth, Shiro-kun? If I say fire burns, will you still fly into it? Or will you be fox, and listen when I say wasp stings?"

"I don't know", he murmured. Excellent reply. Would solve everything. "I think I'm just an idiot, unfortunately."

"I set you straight, Shiro-kun." There was a muffled sob when she whispered into his shirt, and Shiro felt like he would, indeed, break apart in pieces if this continued. "I set you straight! Why you go back to crooked?"

Yeah, why…? One hand tentatively moved to rest on her head. He didn't know anything about comforting people, but he honestly wanted – needed, dammit! – to do right by her, somehow, by any means…

"…it's who I am", he mumbled. Mere inches from his eyes, he watched her furry, black-tipped ears twitch, and bit back a wave of guilt. Dammit, she was such a lovely girl, so kind, so honest, so soft… and he was a genuine asshole. "I'm not a good person, Midori-chan. Really, I'm… not a guy you should go worrying for. Please, don't worry about me."

"You say stupid things. His smile-"

"Is a dagger, ready to stab me in the back – I know." He glanced up at the arced stone beams, and the pale grey sky they supported. "And yet I keep thinking it's the only smile I'll see until this settles… If it does settle." Shiro drew a breath, and the scent of flowers and fighting reached him from Midori's hair. "You're worried I will get hurt, and I really don't deserve your concern… I appreciate it, but…" Oh come on, he could do better than that! Why make it sound like he was about to die, or embark on a journey with no return? Seriously… "Will you trust me if I say I flew into the fire, and it didn't burn me?"

Midori untangled herself gingerly to look at him. It's very rare that people actually look at you. That they search for the soul in your eyes and read the fine print of your life in the scars and creases: that they endeavour to see the person behind the face. It's a frightful thing, to be scrutinised like that. It's also a rare privilege, and one that Shiro didn't quite feel he deserved.

"You didn't burn…" Her gaze wandered from feature to feature, trying to find the reason for the hesitation in her voice. "…but you didn't come through unscathed. Maybe you don't notice… because you don't see…" She removed his glasses and leaned into his face, making sure he could see her eyes without them. Big, worried eyes with gold still melting shimmering droplets into the lower lashes. "Every time you go through fire, you burn. Little by little, Shiro-kun. Is the most dangerous kind of damage: turns mountain to sand, bone to dust, river to ravine. Without anybody notice." She put his glasses back, gently, and Shiro was awkwardly reminded of how people lay flowers on coffins. "Little by little, he will burn you to ashes."

She was probably right – hell, she always was – but the moth flies to the flame still. Shiro was a moth, more so than he was a fox or dog; always drawn to the flickering temptation of danger, of the half-crazy stunts and thrilling fun it promised. And Samael… Mephisto… was a flame he knew he wouldn't be able to resist.

"Look, Midori-chan… You're a lovely girl, and a wonderful friend, and I hope you'll still… still be my friend, even if I'm an idiot. Just… whatever happens, don't worry about me. My choices, my consequences: it has nothing to do with you, and there's no need for you to-ouch!"

Midori looked very cute when she impersonated an angry puffer fish, but that flick on his nose reminded him that with demons, appearance counted for nothing.

"Shiro-kun is still stupid. And I still worry." He expression relaxed and became something that hurt infinitely more than the flick. "But if Shiro-kun wants to pretend is fine, I will pretend it is."

Shiro had no idea what he replied after that. He couldn't remember if he had thanked her, or snarled at her, or… or simply left. What he did know was that something had broken inside him.

He had no idea where he went. He walked in circles, walked anywhere: anywhere that would lead away from himself, and the path he'd sworn he would never tread rushed by under his feet. Circles, infinite circles. That you have a crap dad doesn't mean you're crap, too…? Then why was Midori putting on a mask with painted smile, like his mother had done for this father?

Water. Water between his fingers. Every drop and every purpose he tried to hold onto slipped his grasp, poured out of his hands and into a vortex under his feet. That was the only word for it: vortex. A steady maelstrom of misfortunes sucking him towards the bottom of the ocean: no matter what direction he turned, he kept going downward.

"How the hell did this happen…?"

Humankind is the only creature capable of producing a venom that transmits without being injected or inhaled, without touch or thought or intention. Like acid, secrets gauge chasms and fill them with silence – while just as silently eating away at the minds they separate. Shiro had too many secrets for one mind, and they were dragging him into the vortex.

"Stupid fucking way of losing friends…!" And whose fault was that? Who chose the secrets? Who chose to kill humans for the sake of a demon…? "A monkey that everyone around will be deaf and blind to: speaks evil it shouldn't speak, and can't speak the evil it should." Shiro hissed the cigarette smoke out between his teeth, covering city streets he didn't see anyway."Why are you always right, Midori…?"

Samael and his schemes…

Yaonaru and their schemes…

…and his own blasted talent for screwing up with people…

…and six bodies in burial urns.

Shiro paced the streets of True Cross Town in a haze of smoke. Sometimes his footfalls drowned out the echo of the questions and the tense voices, and sometimes they drifted through. Sometimes he managed to leave the worried glances behind, and sometimes they caught up with him.

Sometimes he saw Susumu's calm eyes before the trigger was pulled…

…and the vortex dragged him deeper down.

He had no idea where he was. Not where he was in True Cross Town, or where he was. He could always get back to the Academy by sticking his cram school key in any door; but to get his friends back… to get back from wherever he was going…

"If they would all just stop worrying about my well-being, everything would be fine."

A smile that wasn't a smile tugged Shiro's lips. Yeah, if they could stop caring about him he would be fine: wasn't that just a lovely thing to think of the few people who tried to be his friends? Not that it would be fine anyway. Even if they stopped asking questions, he would be stuck with the answers.

"They're right to worry about me", he thought. "Even if I didn't have the contract to think about, I could never tell them what I did. I'm seriously fucked up…" And darkness rose up from the vortex to swallow him. "Not again…"

If you have reached the point where your first reaction to possession is "not again", you know you have a problem.

"You're too kind on yourself, Fujimoto Shiro. Murdering children merits a bit more than 'fucked up'."

"Shut up and get out of my body", he snarled at it, trying to rein in darkness that was, like every other aspect of his life, slipping through his fingers.

"And you are afraid you might do it again."

…slipping… through his fingers…

"It was easier than you thought, was it not? Didn't think you had it in you, but once faced with the decision you didn't hesitate. Not once, not twice: six times, and you didn't hesitate~"

"I had to! I…!"

Could have backed down.

Could have let them explain.

Could have let them go on, once he learnt who Mephisto really was.

"I…"

Had made a choice. A good choice, or a bad one…?

"Free will is a waste if you don't make use of it, no~? You have made good use of yours, boy. So much suffering caused by you – makes one wonder: are ye even human?" it said, borrowing Shizuku's voice from his memories. "Are you even human", it whispered in seductive tones, "when you fall to demons so easily…?"

"'course I'm human!" he snarled, clinging to the sensation of a wall against his left shoulder. "And way better than you!"

"Are you?" Their faces came back to him, a rapid succession of flashes tearing like poison arrows through his mind. Agari's eyes going empty and dead as he- as he- "You chose demons over humans, did you not~?" Katsu's blood pouring out of his belly, pouring out dark and hot over his hands and god no stop "Of all the girls at school, the half-demons were the ones that captured your interest; when questions were raised, you defended your demon principal – killed for your demon principal." Susumu's... head... "Say those words again, little murderer~ Say you're human, if you truly believe you are."

"I…"

Six lives for one.

Six humans for a demon.

Six dead, butchered, murdered humans for...

"I..."

Did it in cold blood, perfectly aware of what he was doing, shedding lives like withered flower petals.

You don't need to be born a demon to be like one.

"I..." He couldn't; no matter how he tried to force the words out, he couldn't... "I saved my friend", he ground out.

The demon roared with laughter in his head, and Shiro regretted his thoughts. He heard how naïve it sounded. How far-fetched, laughable, impossible; for a demon to have a human friend…

…he slipped…

"Your friend, you say? And are you his friend…? Or merely a pastime puppet to serve his purposes?" The wall he had leaned on disappeared from his shoulder, unconsciousness caved in on him- "No demon would ever consider a human his equal."

"Bloody arrogant twat..."

Like a certain someone he knew... and knew well...

Shiro closed his ears, closed his heart to the gnawing doubts, and felt for the fragmented outlines of his self. Drowning, yes: drowning in his own darkness, but definitely human. A poor fucking excuse for a human, but a human still.

A human with a good understanding of demons.

"Damn right I chose demons over humans", he said, feeling his own will creep into the darkness, like the roots of an invasive weed bury into a host. "It ain't fun if it's no challenge." He rose above the sticky unconsciousness, bit by bit crawling out of the black bog inside. "And to a hell-raiser like me", he smiled as vision slowly returned to his eyes, "there's no challenge more fun than raising hell for arrogant bastards like you and that finicky prince."

No demon ever considers a human his equal. Demons have the power of magic and regeneration, strength and stamina; humans have imagination. That is the one quality they have that enables them to fight demons on equal terms, countering claws with swords, magic with chants, minions with familiars, regeneration with medicine. That is what exorcists teach their students; that, and to never listen to a demon's words. A demon's words are the only weapon humans can never counter, because it turns their imagination against them. For that very reason, demons never expect a human to try. They never expect a human to challenge them on their own ground. They never expect a human to act as if he were truly their equal.

Shiro didn't care for titles, human or demon ones: he challenged anyone who sat on horses too high for his taste. He made poor choices at times, of course he did: that, if anything, was the essence of human nature. Humans try and fail, do bad and good... and in that, he was perfectly human.

The fight raged evenly after that. It was a rot demon, and judging from the effort he had to put into keeping awareness of his body, a mid-level one. He would never forget the verses for those.

When he had stayed awake long enough to chant the fatal verses to completion, he was exhausted. The demon was gone, and his arms, hands and knees scraped bloody from when his body had flung itself this-way-and-that at the half-conscious will of its respective owners.

"Finally…" The dark shadows of his doubts drew back, settling around the burning coals in his chest like chilled travellers around a fire: invisible to the human eye, but a welcoming beacon for any demon around. "Right…" He picked some gravel out of a particularly unpleasant wound on his elbow. "Time to pay that old goat a visit."