Hey! One more update!

And you guys :# ... THREE MORE DAYS BEFORE I TRAVEL AGAIN! Ahhhh I'm so excited! I can't wait! I'm going with a tour company and am travelling all around Australia with them! I'll be by myself, but that's okay - I'll meet plenty of people with the tour group! AND I even get to check out Uluru and scuba dive in the Great Barrier Reef... I knew that scuba license would be useful one day! :D I just have to get through my chemistry exam tomorrow... oh well, I have an HD (an A+) in the class right now, so I think that I'll be okay!

A couple days ago, I said goodbye to some really good friends that I've made here. It's strange, knowing that I won't see them for years or such, but I know that we'll see each other again. :) The world isn't that big of a place, and there's no rush! I have plenty of years left in me! :D

. . . . . . . *knock on wood*

Anyway you guys, I'm going to admit that I have no idea what I'm doing. War scenes are SOOO not my forte, but I'll try my best!

(side note ... it's bloody difficult to write from Rin's perspective!)

. . . . . .

. . . . . .

Raziele grit his teeth as he ripped the wickedly curved blade out of some demon's chest. Its blank, hollow eyes stared up at him, accusing him, condemning it. His breath came in short gasps as he turned around, the demon's eyes dancing in his vision.

You deserved it. Raziele clenched the hilt tighter and parried a blow. The collision of blades jostled his stiff wrist, but he couldn't feel the pain. Adrenaline tore through his veins like liquid fire, and yet he felt colder than ice. You deserved it, he thought again. You deserved it. You -

- and suddenly he was standing in a hallway. Moonlight, or what passed for moonlight in Gehenna, weakly streamed through the dusty windows and lit pale patched on the worn carpet. A younger Raziele stood silent, almost like a tree standing against the winter wind. So cold ...

... so distant.

Scratches ran up and down his arms, and they bled into his white cotton shirt that hung on his skeletal frame in tatters. His small hands, bloodied and dirtied, trembled as he lifted them to his head and covered his bruised eyes.

It wasn't his fault that he was a half-breed, it wasn't his fault that he was tainted.

"Mum..." he whispered, his rosy eyes filled with tears. "Mum, where ...?"

Raziele instinctively reacted to something whistling in the air, and he managed to block a blow. The edge of the blade trembled against his own sword, and he could see his reflection in the flat steel. His skin, usually pale, was dirtied. Blood was streaked against his cheek from a cut he hadn't noticed, and his hair hung on his forehead in wild tangles.

He looked past his reflection to the demon he faced. Its features were coal-black with the exception of two milky white orbs that stared at him, unblinking. Raziele locked his jaw and kicked out; his boot connected with the demon's leg, knocking him unbalance. Raziele took the opportunity to fall forward, his blade readied. The demon opened its mouth, revealing rows of white teeth, and suddenly spit.

Raziele moved his head out of the way, but not enough; some of the saliva splattered on his jaw, but he did not stop his attack. His sword slid into the demon's mouth and through the roof of its mouth. Bone crunched as the steel continued to slide through its brain and back out again. No blood fell from the wound, until Raziele flicked his wrist sideways and ripped the demon's head in half. Chunks of bloody gray brain matter flew through the air and splattered on the ground in a random pattern.

Some got in Raziele's mouth and he gagged, then promptly became sick. He fell to his knees and threw up the contents of his stomach, then promptly threw up again. The force of it shook his body and sent him shaking.

You deserved it. You deserved it. You deserved ...

... Raziele, a child, felt himself being held down by demon's much larger than him. Foul liquid lay in stale, brown pools on the ground, and he could feel the wetness soak through his clothes and his hair. He opened his mouth in a shout and tried to shake off the hands, but they were too strong, and he was too small.

"The half-breed looks hungry," one of the demon's laughed. Raziele went cold and tried to kick out, but then cried out from pain as it stepped on his ankle and snapped it at the bone. His small hands involuntarily made a fist against the pain.

"It does," sneered one of the others. "Maybe ... this ... will work."

Raziele slammed his mouth shut as he felt something being slammed against his lips, breaking the skin. He tasted blood and felt something hard smash into his mouth again, and a tooth dislodged. He felt it bounce back against his through and reflexively gagged... the demon's took that opportunity to force a rock into his mouth, and they clamped his jaw closed.

"Swallow it," they grinned. Raziele, eyes squeezed shut as he flailed, felt the rock gritty and rough against his tongue. "More," they continued, and found something else to smash against his face. Blow after blow rained down until Raziele's mouth was nothing more than bloody, pulpy skin and gum.

'They're going to kill me,' Raziele thought. The taste of metal flooded his mouth and mixed with the stones. 'They're going to - '

"What do you think you're doing?!" screamed a new voice.

"Oh shit, run!" shouted one of the demons, and the weight off of Raziele's thin chest vanished as the demon's ran off.

"Fucking kids," muttered the new voice. Raziele had a vague feeling that his eyes were open, but he couldn't see anything. It was all dark. "Hey, kid, you alive?"

Raziele tried to speak, but only a gargling sound came out.

"Good." Raziele felt himself being dragged up and thrown against something hard, yet warm ... a shoulder, maybe. "You're lucky that I was here. My name is Samael, the King of Time ... pleased to meet you, mixed-blood."

Mixed blood. Raziele would have punched him if he wasn't so tried. As it was, all he wanted to do was sleep ...

... and Raziele gasped, and the scene vanished.

"Where are you looking?!" screamed a nearby demon. Raziele flinched and turned, just barely avoiding being sliced in half.

What the hell? he thought, his mind desperately trying to catch up. What's going on? Why am I remembering all of that now?!

Suddenly the demon's eyes widened in recognition. "I know you! You're that half-breed!"

Raziele's eyes narrowed. "Shut up," he growled, and - changing his footing at the last moment - snaked his hand forward and gripped the demon's head. In a single sweep he detached the demon's head from its shoulders and let the now-lifeless head drop to the mud.

"That was a bit excessive," came a smooth voice behind him.

Raziele recognized that voice anywhere.

. . . and suddenly he was in his mother's arms. They were sitting at the lake, as they always did when it was nice out. The sun sparkled against the lake's cool waters, and a bird sang to the sky.

"See this?" his mother asked, plucking a single flower out of the ground. Her faint, rosy hair gracefully cascaded down her back, and her hands were delicate and smooth. Her eyes crinkled when she smiled, which seemed like always; she had a timeless smile, his mother. "This is a Western Wood Lily."

"It's orange," Raziele helpfully pointed out in a small, childlike voice. His large, liquid eyes lifted to his mother, who grinned down at him.

"That's right," she smiled, placing it in Raziele's hair. "Orange is a beautiful color ... the color of the rising sun. You don't see that very often."

"Yes you do!" Raziele protested, pulling the flower out of his hair. Only girl's wore flowers. "You see them every single morning!"

His mother laughed. "That's true, huh!"

Raziele frowned. "You're weird, Mum."

"You're weirder," his mom replied, ruffling his faint pink hair.

"Yeah?" Raziele was now grinning, and got on his knees so he was a little higher off the ground. His mother made room for him on her lap. "Well, you're the weirdest!"

His mother laughed ... it was pure and light, like the sound of an angel. "Is that so," she grinned. Gentle waves, little more than ripples, lapped onto the shore, and they sat silent, side by side. The sun set a little lower in the sky and color splashed against the clouds; bright reds, golden yellows, and lush oranges danced on the lake's reflection.

"Well, it's getting late," his mother finally yawned. "What do you want for dinner?"

Raziele spun, his eyes dancing. "Anything?"

"Anything!" his mother grinned.

"A - Apple pie!"

She laughed, and it was the sweetest sound in the world. "No silly, not for desert, for dinner ..."

Raziele blinked, and the scene vanished and left him feeling cold and hollow.

Beelzebub stared at him, his eyes bright. Raziele stared at his mother's killer; he could see her now, could see her pale skin and dead eyes staring at him as her flesh turned black and rotted off. She had told him to escape, to live, but this bastard dragged him here instead.

Raziele grit his teeth, and his hand clenched tighter around his blade. "I'm going to kill you," he hissed.

Beelzebub threw his head back and laughed. "We'll see about that," he grinned, and suddenly his skin turned black as the air surrounding him turned dark with disease and death ...

. . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . .

Yukio watched in horror as the ground came up too fast, too fast for him to slow down. Not that he had any way too, now that he thought about it. He contemplating throwing a grenade and hoping that the blast would be enough to slow their decent, but that was risky and might end up in their deaths anyway.

He grit his teeth. So what should I ...?!

"Ni-chan!"

Shiemi's sudden shout dragged him out of his thoughts, and suddenly the world became surrounded in shades of green as thin roots surrounded them. The next moment they all split and cracked, and everyone jolted from the sudden stop ... they must have hit the ground.

"Is everyone all right?!" Yukio shouted as the roots disappeared.

"I - I think so," Bon replied, wiping his mouth. The others looked shaken and worn, but alive. Yukio released the breath he had been holding in.

"That's good," he said, then turned his attention back to the situation at hand. They had just landed in the middle of a demon battlefield with no allies, and heavily outnumbered ...

He suddenly felt a bit sick.

"We have to find my brother!" Yukio shouted, ripping his guns out of their holsters. By some miracle, the other demon's hadn't noticed them yet ... then again, their crash landing crushed many of those surrounding them, anyway. But he didn't count on his luck for lasting very long.

Izumo had already summoned her two wine-gods, and the two foxes circled her in a ghostly sheen. Shima held his staff tight against his body and looked like he was going to pass out. Konekomaru and Shiemi looked no better, though Bon and Shura seemed to be all right. For now. Shura wielded two swords now instead of one, and had a look of murder.

"This is bad, four-eyes," she whispered to him. Yukio watched the battle field as well, at the desperate hacking and wailing, at the bloody arching in the air and pooling on the ground, and the bodies strewn haphazardly in the dust even as they became dust themselves. Shura wore a grim smile. "This is really, really bad."

"We'll make it," Yukio muttered. "We have to find Rin."

"How?" Shiemi asked, pale. Her breathing was labored under her oxygen mask, but he pretended not to notice.

Yukio's eyes hardened and he looked back towards the battlefield, his guns heavy in his hands. "We go to where the battle is the thickest," he replied, deadly serious, and began to shoot.

. . . . . . .

. . . . . . .

Rin stood on the battle field, wounded but alive. His side itched from where he had burned the skin shut, and his mouth was dry and tasted like blood and death. His lips were sticky from the residue of burning flesh, and the air surrounding him was hot and moist from the bodies that had once burned. Now they were little more than piles of ash ... and yet he could still hear their screams.

He had almost enjoyed it, their suffering. He was going to make them suffer as he had suffered ... no, more than he had suffered. He was going to make them beg for a permanent death, the kind of death that humans enjoyed, the humans that they so loathed.

Humans ...

Rin considered himself human no longer. How could he, after ripping apart Satan's army and burning demons to little more than dust and ashes, blood and bone? A vague memory came back to him ... hadn't someone told him that, one day, he was going to have to choose between a human life or a demon life? That he could not live as both?

Rin's gaze leveled and he took a step forward, further into the fray. He lifted his sword, the metal streaked with crimson rivulet's, and locked away his heart. It would no longer be necessary.

He had made his decision.

With an iron hand, Rin raised his blade into the sky where it remained for a moment before he slammed it back to the ground. The resulting shockwave knocked many demons, friend and foe, off of their feet. His lips broke into a slight smirk as he dashed forward, the pain from his wounds nothing but an annoyance, and slashed through the first demon who had been unfortunate enough to be in his way. Warmth splattered against his face, his clothes, his hair like paint thrown haphazardly against a canvass. It trickled down his collarbone as he flicked his sapphire gaze up, the sharp of his blade prepared to bite into another body...

... when he paused, suddenly face - to - face with the dark barrel of a gun.

. . . . . . .

. . . . . . .

Ugh, it is so difficult to write from Rin's perspective! It made writing this chapter so much tougher. Anyway, I have to study for chemistry some more ... T_T I really don't want to. I am literally 500% over university, but I only have one day left ... and then I'm FREEEE! :D :D :D

I am so excited. No more class, no more uni for three months. I can't wait.

Anyway, in case I don't update before I leave for my tour, wish me luck! :D