A/N: I do not own or profit from any of what Kazue Kato has created.
…and yet, that was precisely what it took to wake him. Shiro sensed it before he heard it, thought it before his mind woke up: demons.
He got his glasses in a hurry and fumbled out of the twisted sheets to open the shoji doors to the balcony. Oh, it was a postcard view, alright. The moon bled blue-white light down the valley slopes, and the cicadas sang a deafening serenade to summer: a night for love and star-gazing… if the stars had not been eaten by black wings.
"…like when Kaa-san described the war planes…"
Tengus. Hundreds.
Shiro had just enough time to get his uniform trousers on: a belt for the gun and two pockets for the spare clips of ammunition, all he needed. He shot the tengu dead the moment it tore through the balcony doors.
The spent case struck a muted clink on the tatami mats.
23
One magazine in the SIG P220 and one in each trouser pocket. Eight bullets in each. One fired.
"Let the countdown begin", he thought grimly.
Panicked humans do one of two things: hide or flee. Shiro ruled out the latter option as he ran for the stairs that led to the ground floor of the ryokan. The sky was the tengus' home ground: better stay indoors where their wings would make them clumsier.
Still, he ran downstairs to the foyer, because there is one thing panicked humans never do: think.
"Stop! They're swarming out there!"
A dishevelled mother in nightdress was dragging two bawling children towards the entrance. She cast a quick, white-faced glance at him over her shoulder, and pushed open the doors. She hadn't understood a word he had-
"Of course not, she doesn't even speak Japanese!" Oh, English, English; why was he so poor at English?
No time for speaking: he lunged after her, out in the screeching night, heart sealed shut and counting.
22, 21, 20…
Feathers rained from the sky like light, black snow.
19, 18…
He snatched one of the kids – the little girl that had chased and exorcised her brother in the foyer the day before – and hid her behind him.
17, 16: empty
He roughly pushed her and her mother back towards the ryokan, disengaged the empty clip and shoved another into the handle. The mother refused to go back, tore at his arm and screamed something he couldn't underst-
A cry that wasn't a tengu's screech wailed above, and a white, horrified bundle flickered in and out of vision among the black bodies in the sky.
Tengus reside in the mountains and typically take the shape of priests and monks to trick humans, Kohu-sensei's voice played in his head, like a tape recorder. The older, stronger daitengus are intelligent, while young tengus are more likely to behave like animals. Regardless of age and level, they are nasty creatures, known to kidnap and feed on human children.
Shiro pushed his glasses up with his left hand, raising the gun with his right.
The kid was in the line of fire between him and the tengu, swinging wildly in the wrinkly claws and increasing the distance by the second…
"Tch!" First shot hit another tengu that flew past. "Come on, come on…!" Second shot went through the wing, and demon and child pivoted for the ground. "It didn't let go of the kid, fucking-"
He sprinted ahead barefoot, ducking talons and beaks, and went down on the ground with the whole mess of feathers and blood and screaming child in his arms.
"That kid's not going anywhere!" Shiro grabbed something – no idea what, but it had feathers – and twisted. He jerked his head out of the way when a sharp beak tried to tear his face off. "He's still screaming, at least he's alive." The beak came back around, and he was forced to drop the gun and grab it with both hands. This, the tengu didn't like: wings beating wildly at the ground under its back, it let the boy go and slashed at Shiro with its claws. It got him in the thigh with a force that made him see white stars, but a foot firmly planted into its chest prevented it from getting him in any vital parts.
In the corner of his eye he saw another tengu land between the kid and his mother, hopping towards the panicked boy on its crooked, scaly hind legs.
"No – no no no! Shit…!"
The demon underneath him jerked its head sharply to the side, trying to free itse-
And in one rough twist, he snapped its neck.
More than that: under his fingers, cracks in the massive beak gave off faint tendrils of miasma when they healed back together.
"I… should not be able to do that…"
The precious seconds that bought him didn't allow for thinking: a broken neck wouldn't kill a demon, but a silver-jacket bullet in its head would. He tore the P220 from the ground and fired, right into the beak that opened as the head snapped back onto the spine. Shiro swivelled around in a tenth of a second and put a bullet in the other tengu. The kid was completely out of it with panic, but fortunately kids operated on some default setting that made him run straight through the dissolving miasma, straight to his mother.
Was that 15, or 14? 13? More likely 14 or 13.
He hissed curses as he limped after them back into the ryokan, trying to remember how many bullets he had spent on getting the kid back.
13-or-12, 12-or-11…
The tengus were inside the ryokan, too, now. Screams and crying and sounds of feet running for the exit... Shiro herded panicked women and children back from the entrance, shouting an accented "Go!" repeatedly as he tried to think.
The demons were there because of the exorcists, no doubt. Demons were territorial; they discovered intruders, they attacked them. The other ryokan must be under attack too, but they were many more, they would be able to fight it off, fight their way over to them…
…how fast? 12 bullets or 11, it wouldn't be enough either way.
Shiro tore a notepad and a pencil from the reception desk, scribbled warding symbols on it and pinned it between the entrance door and the notice with onsen opening hours mounted on it. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing.
Hold the ryokan until backup arrived from across the village: that was the only option. Ridiculous. Paper doors in every room, balconies and glass windows; did people ever stop to think they might build houses a little more safe? They had to barricade themselves somehow, barricade in a small space they could hold, preferably with only one entrance – a suicide strategy if the demons got through, but if they got through it wouldn't matter anyway since they had no means of-
The clawing and screeching from the other side of the door faded on his ears.
Open 09.00-19.00, free for guests staying at Kiridani Ryokan!
Guests who do not stay at Kiridani Ryokan may use its onsen at the price of ¥1000 for adults and ¥500 for children (age 12 or under)
"Salt!" he shouted when he finally remembered the English word.
A woman stumbled down the stairs screaming, a tengu hot on her heels but slowed down by the narrow, troublesome stairs.
11-or-10
"Listen to me!" he shouted at the pale, tear-streaked faces that huddled together in corners and behind lounge furniture. "I need to know how many of you there are, and I need sa- oh, for god's sake is there anyone in here that speaks Japanese?!"
"I-I do!" said a thin, bespectacled man with huge, frightened eyes. His Japanese was accented with something that could have been French or Romanian. An interpreter. Perfect.
"Good, good: who's in room number one?" Shiro demanded curtly, tearing and scribbling notes as fast as he could.
"Uh, she is", the interpreter said, pointing at a blonde woman rocking a weeping ten-something-year-old in her arms. "What can-"
"The ryokan has twelve rooms: go through them number by number and see if anyone's missing!" He pictured Shizuku's omamori in his mind, hoping adrenaline wasn't making him forget the details. "It's not bullet-proof, but these should make demons less eager to jump you." He stacked the notes on the reception desk. "I want everyone to- what are you waiting for?" he snapped, snatching the gun beside him and shooting two tengus that had found a window. "If everyone's here: take the notes, grab the kids, and get moving! We need salt from the kitchen!"
9-or-8
Gun in one hand and the other pressed against the gash in his thigh, Shiro led the whimpering bunch through the door to the area restricted to personnel. The kitchen was tidy and small, with only two stoves, two refrigerators and a pantry, and it was-
8-or – empty
"Find salt!" he commanded, slamming his last ammo clip into the gun and making short work of the scavenging demons.
7, 6, 5 – the shells of their remaining lifelines rang musically against the tiled floor.
They left the kitchen with one bag and one tin box of salt. Shiro didn't know how much longer it would take for the exorcists to fight their way through; time has a tendency to be unreliable when it spins twice as fast in your head as it does outside it. Right now, time was measured in bullets, and they were running out.
Stay calm. He was doing everything he could, he had a plan, he had-
"Ngh…!"
"Sir? Sir, are you unwell?"
He had a goddamn demon trying to take his body.
"I'm fine", he grated, supporting himself against the corridor wall with his right elbow. "I can't afford this now! I have to get them to safety, I-" Or all these people would die, women torn to shreds and children eaten before their eyes; all because he was cursed with a heart that drew demons like bees to honey. "It's probably because of me they're here: all the other exorcists are at the other ryokan. I'm the reason they-" He snapped his line of thought in half and turned his mind to the dark, fleeting presence that whispered despair to his heart. "Leave. Now." It tried again to wind convincing words around him, but even if he couldn't save these people, even if he couldn't hold Kiridani Ryokan long enough for the exorcists to reach them, he would hold his heart. "Either you leave", he said coldly, "or you stay and watch me kill your relatives till my last breath. This body's mine."
"It's not far. Keep walking, and make sure not to lose anyone", he said aloud, pressed his palm over the wound, and limped on with a grim face. "Everyone in the water", he panted as he shouldered open the door to the onsen. "All in one pool, cram yourselves in if you must."
He sank down on a rock beside the pool and cast a quick glance at his leg – deep cut, but it had taken on the outside of the thigh and not the inside, thank god – before he drew a breath and started chanting. People pushed and shuffled into the pool, gasping at the heat but bearing with it.
Right. If he managed this, he'd done all he could. If he managed it.
"O water, creature of God, I exorcise you in the name of God the Father almighty…"
He had avoided Aria chanting until then. Goggles-sensei was a living example of the risks with Aria: start chanting, and demons will come at you in a solid wave of darkness. Arias never went on missions without backup.
Backup had better arrive soon.
"O salt, creature of God", he began when the baleful screeches soaked in through the walls. The children weren't screaming anymore: they were deathly silent, barely even breathing. Waiting for a miracle. "I exorcise you by the living God, by the true God, by the holy God, by the God who ordered you to be poured into the water by Eliseus the Prophet so that its life-giving powers might be restored." The door, plastered with their ward notes, trembled. Shiro was surreally aware how his voice bounced off the walls, like rock striking rock…
"I might die here." The corners of his lips quirked in a brief, sickly smile: "It's a miracle if I reach thirty."
…and how his right forefinger rested on the trigger, breathless and motionless like the children clinging to their mothers: waiting for a miracle. "I exorcise you so that you may become a means of salvation for believers, that you may bring health of soul and body to all who make use of you, arid that you may put to flight and drive away from the places where you are sprinkled…" The door burst, and the world flowed back in at them in a flurry of dark feathers and yellow eyes. "…every apparition…"
4, 3
"…villainy, and turn of devilish deceit…"
2, 1
"…and every unclean spirit, adjured by Him Who will come to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire."
0, and the yellow eyes were burning with hate-
"Amen!" He crossed himself, and kicked hard with his good leg at the tengu that lunged for him. The force of the impact tipped him backwards into the water, and the bag and the box of salt with him.
The heat and the salt bit into the wound in his thigh like fire, and he burst the surface in a bubble of hissing profanities.
"Hope you don't mind my mouth, God. If this doesn't work…" He brought his hand back and whipped water at the demons. "Thank you…!"
The tengus up front stumbled backwards against the flood of black with high-pitched wails of pain, and the room filled with the nauseating smell of burning flesh. Backup could take its time: this barricade they could hold as long as they needed.
People began shouting when they heard gun report from within the ryokan. Shiro didn't feel like shouting, or doing anything else for that matter. He had unfastened his belt and pulled it tight over the leg wound, but pressure and salt water combined for a thumping pain that had him gritting his teeth by the time backup arrived.
He was too tense to be moved by the tears when families reunited. He was too weary to join in the murmured choir of thankful prayer in different tongues. Too tense and hurt and detached for any of it: but when Kasumi hugged his wet body tight and told him he was an idiot, he smiled. She smelled of sweat and adrenaline and… gratitude.
Demons driven off, Doctors assembled the wounded in the foyer to methodically assess damage and administer treatment. Some villagers aside, all of the injured were exorcists and clansmen of the Futotsuki. Small wonder – they had had to brave the assaults out in open air all the way there.
Shiro was made to strip down to his underwear, and was given an anaesthetic before the Irish exorcist disinfected the wound and set to stitching it together. It looked pretty damn gross, to be honest. He vaguely wondered if he wouldn't have preferred the pain to that… that wrong feeling. He could feel the needle in the flesh, but he couldn't feel the pain, and that creeped him out. In his mind, that was what it felt like to be dead. Shiro occupied himself with watching others being treated instead.
There was a light in their faces. A light he'd never seen and couldn't name. Torn and tired, they all still smiled as if there wasn't a trouble in the world. As if they all hadn't almost died.
It's easy to forget the simple things. Simple things like life: you don't notice life until it's slipping from your fingertips. You don't notice the taste of air until it's forced out of your lungs by the swansong of dreams unfulfilled, or the beat of your heart until it strums an arrhythmic funeral march against your ribs.
Humans are stupid that way. They are also marvellous.
When you can breathe again, you taste the air for the first time: you feel the beat of your heart in every capillary, in every cell, vibrant like the first new sprouts from fire-ravaged ground.
You feel life.
It took a while before Shiro identified the faces beyond that glow and realised what he was seeing: exorcists and Futotsuki on hastily assembled futons, side by side, disagreements burnt away by the fire to make room for new things to sprout. Friend, foe and family flocked around the sickbeds to share that precious moment of simply being alive: and though he was probably light-headed by fatigue and anaesthesia… that looked a bit like a miracle.
"Mr. Fujimotó?" The same thin, glasses-wearing guy with the French-Romanian accent. "That is your name, right? Fujimotó Shiró?"
"Yes?" It sounded so weird, pronounced like that, but he was too tired to protest.
A tall, robust man next to the interpreter bent down and shook Shiro's hand with gusto, a man with a face that- well, Shiro could only look at his nose, really. If you took a tengu beak, shortened it and broke it, it would look something like that. Truly fascinating. When the man spoke – some fast-paced, rhythmic language that sounded like it was spoken through his nose rather than his mouth – his thick eyebrows moved incessantly.
"Monsieur Deslauriers expresses his deep gratitude and earnest admiration for the courage and intelligence you have shown in keeping these people safe", the interpreter translated. "They feared the worst, when the demons attacked so suddenly and there was no way to reach Kiridani Ryokan quick enough. Rest assured, you will receive proper commendation for your performance, once-"
An even taller man came up next to Deslauriers, and his white uniform stood in stark contrast to the exorcist's black one. When it was clear that they would only be speaking whatever-Deslauriers-was-speaking – French, if Shiro would chance a guess from his name – Shiro motioned the interpreter down on his haunches and asked him to translate.
"Yes, yes, there were no casualties", Deslauriers ensured.
"What a relief!"
"Indeed – and we have this young man to thank for it. I have not heard all accounts, but my wife tells me he handled the situation with such authority she knew they were going to be safe the moment he came into the foyer. A role model indeed, Sir Pheles."
"Hai hai~ A prodigy, best in his class – and he has the youngest Yaonaru to compete with for that position. Haah, a true shame, to lose such a promising young exorcist."
"Lose? Whatever are you talking about?" Deslauriers' eyebrows made a most fascinating leap, as if determined to take cover in his thick, curly hair.
Mephisto's gloved palms turned upward, to show how much say he had in these matters.
"Alas, Fujimoto-kun's education is covered by funds from the Japanese government; with his graduation from high school this spring, he will no longer have the means to pay for further schooling." Mephisto heaved another sympathetic sigh. "If only his talent had been discovered earlier: one year is far too short a time to pass the exorcist exam, even for him."
Deslauriers' eyebrows made another attempt to jump into his hair, and he turned to Shiro when he spoke:
"Is it true that you have not been in exorcist school for more than a year, Mr. Fujimotó?" the interpreter forwarded.
"I enrolled last semester. Sir", he added, shooting a quick glance at Mephisto. Perfectly collected. Perfectly patient. Perfectly in control.
"…m sure we can find a suitable scholarship for talented students of lesser means. Even if Mr. Fujimotó is over-age, he is…" drifted past his ears and registered somewhere in the back of his head: his brain was busy with other things.
Demons either obey, or command: obey or command the single rule of demon society. Might makes right. If a mighty enough demon commands… will they obey any command?
"He went to the parade the night before."
No, there was no way he would risk the lives of-
"He wrote me in to share accommodation with the families."
But that wouldn't-
"I didn't remember packing that P220."
There was no way, no way in hell that Mephisto would go through all that trouble for the sake of a scholar-
"Not for a scholarship." Shiro looked around again, looked at the serene faces of exorcists and Futotsuki rejoined with their families; exorcists and Futotsuki that had fought side by side against a common enemy, disagreements burnt away and soil left fertile for new growth. "Miracle might not be the proper word…"
A/N: Festival, onsen, Shiro booked as Mephisto's wife – really now, do you think I write these things for fun? =_='
…yeah, I do. ;3
That said, they're not without purpose even if they are mainly comic relief. That's a good rule of thumb, if you haven't already noticed: if I put something there, I put it there for a reason.