Those who Favor Fire

Disclaimer: Characters and premise are the property of Kazue Kato. I'm just borrowing them for a little non-profit fun.

Chapter Three: Endless Day

In the end there was nothing to suggest their chances of finding a portal back to Assiah were better in one direction over another, so they chose to head toward the towering cliffs Karura had spotted in the distance and hope for better footing there. Down among the hot springs the ground itself was hot beneath their feet, it warred with the chill air and created rippling mirages everywhere they looked. Apparently solid ground could be nothing more than a crust over searing hot sludge. The sky overhead was an ugly grey but diffusely bright, wearing on the eyes and unchanging hour after hour.

Karura flew above them relaying the information about the terrain to those below. The three exorcists, wreathed in Rin's blue flames walked in single file. They were certain it was only a matter of time until the eyes they could feel on them tired of waiting for the landscape to kill them.

Hours passed. Rin rotely prodded the ground in front of him with a long root they'd scavenged from the debris that came through the portal with them then stepped forward. The moment his weight came down on the new patch of ground it gave way. Angel quickly swung his root around, Rin grabbed it as he plummeted into the superheated sludge and together Angel and Bon pulled Rin back onto solid ground.

Rin glowered at the steaming mess covering him to the waist.

"You may not burn, but you can still drown. An hour ago you wouldn't have made such a careless mistake," Angel stated. He glanced up at Karura. "We need to find a place to make camp."

Karura nodded and wheeled away, spiraling out from their position.

Rin grimaced distastefully and the flames around him brightened, burning the mud off his clothes. "Save your power for what's essential," Angel scolded. Then he sighed. "They may know how far we have to go to get to a gate. The reason they haven't attacked may be that they're willing to allow starvation to do their job for them."

"We've got supplies," Rin pointed out.

"A few weeks of ration bars," Angel agreed, "and with your flames to purify it I think it's safe enough to drink the water."

"That long?" Bon asked.

"If gates were common Assiah would be overrun with demons," Angel said. "In truth we're already dead, we just haven't accepted it yet. As soon as the Battalion realizes what has happened to us we will be listed as having been killed in action. Exorcists who are taken by Gehenna do not return alive. "

"Screw that," Rin snarled.

"You do change circumstances somewhat," Angel allowed. "Suguro and I can breath here."

Karura returned. "This way," the phoenix said. He lead them to a sheltered niche between several boulders. It wasn't a cave, but it kept the winds off them and put a wall at their backs if something decided now was the time to attack.

"Suguro, first watch, wake me in two hours. Okumura, you'll take the last shift. Once we've all rested we'll continue," Angel decided.

Rin took off his jacket and, using it for a pillow, curled up near the spot Bon had picked for his watch.

"We'll rotate the middle shift," Bon told Angel firmly. "You need unbroken sleep as much as Rin and I."

Angel grimaced then nodded. He leaned back against one of the boulders, Caliburn's hilt under his hand, and closed his eyes. As he slipped into sleep Angel was struck by the impression of turquoise eyes staring through him.

"I remember you."

"It's the Paladin."

Angel frowned at his classmates' awed whispers. "We're supposed to be assisting with the Exwire Exam," he reprimanded them, receiving only irritated glares in return. Still, in the end, the temptation to gawk proved too much even for Angel.

The Paladin, Shiro Fujimoto, was a tall, light-haired man with round, metal-rimmed glasses on a beaded chain. To Angel he didn't look particularly remarkable but rumor had it that Fujimoto could outshine any of the Arc Knights in their area of expertise. He was the first Doctor-adept named Paladin in over six hundred years as Doctors were primarily seen as support personnel. The previous Paladin-Doctor had been appointed as the Black Death swept across Europe, Shiro Fujimoto was simply the uncontested best that the Order of the True Cross could field.

The Paladin escorted a slight girl with long wavy hair toward the True Cross' administration buildings. Fujimoto's hand under the girl's elbow was solicitous but the general air of wariness about him made Angel think that the girl was both a prisoner and still a threat. Then she turned, for a moment her eyes caught Angel's across the square. Angel would remember the fury in her turquoise gaze long after she was led away.

Five months later he would see her again as she was led to a pyre before the assembled members of the True Cross from Pages up to the Paladin. "Yuri Egin," the old man in red robes intoned, as he stood before the Grigori's dias. "You have one last chance to repent your sins and repudiate Satan."

"You mean I've one last chance to sell out my child to save my own skin," the girl spat. "I do not consent. I will protect my child to my dying breath."

"You're defiance accomplishes nothing," Ernst Egin stated coldly staring down at his rebellious daughter. "Through the auspices of the True Cross the power of God will overcome the demonic protection your lover has granted you."

"So this is a test of your faith against mine," the girl said. She stepped toward the pyre. "Let's see whose god is willing to intervene on their behalf today."

Angel superstitiously glanced at the verse he'd copied onto an index card. His recitation scores weren't as abysmal as his pharmacology scores but they still weren't anything to brag about. He'd been working all year at bringing them up but it was only two more weeks until the Exorcist Exam would be administered again and he wasn't secure enough in his abilities to trust this single verse to memory when the Order called on him, on all of them, to act as an aria.

"Then by your own words your soul is damned," Egin spat. "Burn the witch," he ordered.

The girl was lashed firmly to the stake. As the pyre was lit Angel, along with all the other assembled exorcists began chanting. Angel tried to focus on his diction and rhythm as the flames reached the girl and she began to scream. His voice faltered and he grimaced, 'Can't even manage when the verse is printed right in front of you,' he castrated himself. 'How could you ever hope to qualify as an exorcist?'

One of the exorcists in the group nearest the pyre threw back his head and screamed. Blood poured out of his mouth and eyes then he exploded into blue flames. It was only the start of the massacre. One after another the exorcists fell before Satan's flames. Angel flinched as the man standing beside him was consumed. Then he felt an incredible pressure against his brain. "He is mine!" Caliburn shrieked. "His blood and soul were promised to me eighteen generations ago. He is mine!" And the pressure receded. Stammering Angel tried to resume the chant.

At the pyre Egin staggered through the earthly flames licking at the girl's legs as he himself was burned by Satan's blue flames. Even as he collapsed he cut the ropes binding the girl and she stumbled into the night.

An eternity later or just a few moments, Angel could never be sure, the blue flames died out leaving behind devastation.

"Damn you Mephisto! Let me go!"

Angel glanced up, trying not to give in to the urge to collapse to the ground shaking. He saw the Paladin shove away a purple haired man in an eye-searing chartreuse suit.

"I will not allow you to throw your life away for nothing Shiro," the second man said. "Even I would have been slaughtered without mercy had I gainsayed him in this. And shouldn't you be doing something? There are survivors."

The Paladin sighed and looked over the carnage with the eyes of a Doctor. He noticed Angel standing among the fallen. "Boy, start checking for anyone with a pulse," he ordered.

Angel nodded jerkily.

Then the Paladin turned to the second man. "Mephisto, will you help? There are too many, they're dying too fast."

"When have I ever refused you the Gift of Time?" the second man replied fondly.

The next thing Angel knew the strangely dressed man- no demon, was right in front of him, tapping his cheek in a 'wake-up' manner. The demon smiled broadly revealing too sharp teeth.

Across the courtyard, the Paladin was working his way along a line of patients.

"I've slowed time to a crawl for all of Rome," the demon informed Angel. "But just now I restored you to normal. Anyone you touch will also be restored so long as you remain in contact. So don't assume someone is dead because you don't see them breathing… And try not to step on anyone."

The day that followed the Blue Night was one of the most gruelling of Angel's life. The air in the courtyard stank of burnt flesh. Angel had to stack the corpses against the walls to clear room for Fujimoto to work on the living.

While Fujimoto and Angel continued triage on the hundreds of victims who'd been packed into the courtyard where Yuri Egin was to have been burned, Mephisto expanded the search to the Academy and Vatican grounds beyond. Before long there were others who'd survived the night relatively unscathed helping their less fortunate colleagues in. As additional Doctors trickled in the Paladin quickly organized them, an emergency aid station began to take shape around them.

Thanks to Mephisto's gift of time the sun seemed barely able to drag itself over the horizon. Angel recognized that the slowed time was allowing them to save many lives that would have otherwise been lost but it still felt as if they'd been dropped in Hell. In the slow-moving air the smell of charred flesh didn't clear. They treated an apparently endless stream of patients and the only readily observed measure of progress was the always growing stacks of the dead along the walls.

The Paladin stood up from his latest patient and stretched. Casually he walked over to the still smoldering pyre at the center of the courtyard. He took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and to Angel's dismay, shook one out and lit it off the embers. Fujimoto noticed Angel's expression and grinned. "Want one kid?" he asked holding out the pack.

"Our bodies are supposed to be a temple," Angel informed him primly.

Fujimoto shrugged and tuck the pack back in his pocket. "It's not likely I'll live long enough for these to kill me," he said carelessly. His gaze shifted momentarily to Caliburn's hilt poking up from behind Angel's shoulder. "Though I gotta admit, your odds of getting old are worse than mine. Still, your friend there saved your bacon today. Pretty gutsy, telling Satan himself that he can get in line."

"Thank you," Caliburn purred. "I've waited so long for my sweet little Angel to accept my gifts. I won't give him up without a fight."

"Shut up you perverted piece of metal," Angel hissed glaring at Caliburn. Then he told Fujimoto, "He is NOT my friend! I didn't ask for his assistance anymore than I asked to be saddled with him. I have no intention of giving him so much as a lock of hair, let alone my life."

"Good luck with that kid," Fujimoto said as his gaze shifted to something beyond Angel. A look of relief crossed his face and Angel turned to see a ten or eleven year old girl with bright red and yellow hair hauling a much larger person into the courtyard. "Shura-chan! Good to see you in one piece," Fujimoto called.

The girl dumped her burden onto an empty pallet and skipped over to them. "Like I would have lived this long if I didn't know when to duck and cover Old Man."

The Paladin chuckled. He put out the butt of his cigarette and started back to his patients. Then he stopped and glanced back at Angel. "Good work today. I know this wasn't anything an Exwire should have been thrown into." To himself he continued. "Not that any of us were ready for it. Damn well should have been. What did we expect? Don't care who you are, no one's gonna to stand by idly if you try to burn their lover and unborn child alive. Why the hell didn't we wait? Mephisto swore that the sword'd be a clean way of dealing with the child once it was born. Why'd they have me take it if they weren't going to wait? Ah well, it's not as if nothing came of the effort. Least the Myodha got their plague cured in return for the sword, even if we're too damn impatient to get any use out of it."

Angel woke from his dream at the sound of grit crunching beneath Bon's feet as the younger exorcist walked toward him. "I'm up," Angel said feeling as if he'd gotten no rest at all. Bon nodded, he lay down with his back against Rin's and in a few moments his breathing evened out.

While he kept watch Angel glanced down at his hands and the blue flames dancing over his skin. The flames had same warm and comforting feel to them as a winter fire in a drafty house, nothing like the murderous flames from that night despite their color. Still, perhaps the similarity was enough to stir up memories of the Blue Night and the endless day that followed it. Angel glanced at Rin and thought, 'The one day in which I encounter all of your parents, biological and otherwise. I never knew quite what to make of Shiro Fujimoto. He wasn't what I thought the Paladin should be, much too irreverent. And then I became his predecessor. He'd resigned the post fifteen years earlier but it didn't matter, it was him I was compared to; the rebellious Paladin who excelled at every Meister where I am an obedient knight who managed to qualify for most of the Meisters, somehow.'

When his two hours had passed, Angel shook Rin awake. "How was your sleep?" he asked.

Rin yawned and stretched. "Nice, I kept dreaming about when I was a little kid. Good memories, about Yukio and Dad- Shiro."

Angel decided his nightmares had been just that. Or at least if they had been caused by demonic influence it didn't seem to be affecting Rin.

Note: In the anime on the Blue Night Shiro was locked in a cell because he was suspected of having gotten Yuri pregnant. In the manga after Yuri's pregnancy was known Shiro was in Kyoto 'borrowing' Kurikara from the Myo'o Dhari so I'm assuming that he was not suspected of fathering Yuri's children by the time the Blue Night occurred and wouldn't have been locked up.

Also I'm assuming Yuri has refused all medical examinations so no one knows she's carrying twins.