"You're all wrong!"
"I'm not friends with any demon."
"He'll become a great weapon for the Association."
"A monster like you shouldn't even be alive, Rin."
"DON'T EVER PRETEND TO BE MY FATHER AGAIN!"
Concentrated rays of sunlight shine into my cerulean pupils. Covered by a blanket of rock dust, the rocky bed of pebbles underneath provides little comfort within the cave. I blink, sitting up, rubbing dust and crust out of my eyes. Kurikara clinks beside me. My True Cross Academy uniform is grimy, stiff against my chest, arms, and legs as I stand, sword in hand. I move slowly to an opening of the cave, tail dragging behind me, stumbling into one rocky side at the pain in my back and shoulders from my restless sleep. Using the rock wall as a crutch, a sharp, cold wind gnaws the raw skin on my face, beating my stiff clothes against my aching body.
On a mountainside hundreds of feet above ground, looking out across the vast terrain of the area I've escaped to calms me. I breathe out gently, the wretched memories from my sleep slipping from my mind.
It's been months since I've seen any of them – any of those from True Cross Academy. Not Yukio or Mephisto or Shiemi. Nor Bon or Renzo or Konekomaru... Not even Kuro.
They're probably searching for me right now, losing their minds, tearing their hair out over what kind of trouble Satan's son will stir up while on his own, unsupervised.
I ran away from them.
I couldn't handle Yukio's constant nagging, the other Exorcist students' mistrust in me after learning I'm the spawn of Satan, the Exorcist Associations' constant watch on me... Despite the measures they took to keep me locked in, escaping had been almost too easy. Using the power I had recently gained from fighting the Impure King in Kyoto, not even Shura could stop me. My blue flame scorched them all, left them writhing at the gates of the city...
I know, when I go back, all my worries will only increase tenfold with this act... if I go back...
I ran away because something's become clear to me. Something that the others can't seem to understand.
Demons... they aren't all the bad things humans think they are. Many demons can be quite humanlike, full of vices and ambitions of their own... Why can't the others see that?
My thoughts are drawn to Usamaro, a rabbit demon with the ability to manipulate time, make others forget the bad things in their past so they can live in pure bliss. I still remember finding him in the train shaft, slumped over and alone as tears fatter than grapes gushed out his eyes and rolled down his face, concealed by a rabbit mask. "You're all wrong!" he'd cried. Sobbing. Angry.
The others had wanted him dead for his power. Before I had realized what was happening, – that Usamaro wiped the memories of those he came in contact with, – I had seen a side of him that no one else could. When I saw him, crying there, I hadn't seen a demon with the power to destroy memories, destroying minds to keep them in a thoughtless reality. I had seen a child, frightened of the world and its terrible things, yearning for a place to call home, whose only sin was to provide the people he met and loved with a similar feeling of happiness and security in return for their kindness.
In the end, that demon gave his life for all of us, using his power so despised by many, to consume the demons that had overrun True Cross City... No one else even remembers Usamaro's sacrifice, except the Exorcist that initially sealed him away...
It's strange, really. The only people I long to see right now are Kuro and Usamaro, who aren't people at all, but some of the very demons we Exorcists are pledged to destroy.
Becoming an Exorcist is essential to defeating Satan, but... I don't want to become the type of Exorcist that Yukio is, one who pulls the trigger before all else, who views his target as nothing but a demon to be exercised. Never truly caring for the subject and their reasons...
I couldn't stay, knowing that's what I'd become, surrounded by people perfectly content with that. The clouds passing overhead, plump and white, are far more inviting than a life full of destroying demons who could carry as much potential as any human.
I observe how quickly the clouds move over the mountainous region I occupy as the cold, high winds blow in my face. My eyes widen a little. Rain's coming. "I'd better get moving," I murmur quietly.
Slinging Kurikara's red sleeve strap around my shoulders, I hop out of the cave that's been my week-long home. I never stay in one area for long, knowing Yukio and the others will surely find me. The boulders on the mountainside are my stepping stones to level ground.
Deeper into the mountains I will head, where I pray I'll be able to find another cave as welcoming as the last.
Hours pass without my notice. The sky grows ever darker with the oncoming rain. The trees below the mountains are tall and shielding, however, and will provide me good cover. I know I won't find shelter by the time the storm catches me, which is all the same. The rain will impend any Exorcists searching for me while I keep forward. They've probably been on my tail for a while, but searching for demons out in the wild is not a forte of modern-day Exorcists, I'm sure.
The first couple raindrops are quiet, bouncing from leaf to leaf until they finally hit the ground. Though the clouds remain thick and grey up above, only a shallow sprinkle reaches the ground underneath the cavernous trees.
Forward, I march, hearing the occasional rustles and chirps of animals in the branches above me. Sometimes, they pause to take a look at the strange being in their forest – a being they've only known to live amongst many others of its kind, in grand complexes that spew foul air and produce odious light. I know I'm in foreign land here in my own country, though somehow I feel more welcome around creatures I can't even communicate with than those of my own kin.
Abruptly, I halt, turning my head upward to a squirrel on the branch above me. It watches me intently, head and tail twitching back and forth as I spot it. Almost inaudible, it squeaks at me, stepping closer to the trunk of the tree.
My eyes soften. "Are you afraid of me too?" I whisper. In reply, the squirrel stays in place, still intent in its stare. I look back to the wet leaves of green that have fallen to the ground. A few strands of black hair drift into my line of sight. "You wouldn't be the first."
I continue forward.
The sun is blotted out by clouds, but I can sense nighttime by the restlessness of the animals in the trees, the presence of predators emerging from their daytime lodgings. Any predators around these parts are of no threat to a human, – or in my case, half human, half demon, – but if provoked, a demon will attack.
I should find someplace to rest soon, but I've wandered so far from the mountains that scaling one to find a cave will take quite a lot of energy – energy I'm in no mood to exert. The next time I come by a river, I stop.
On the riverbank, outside of the cover of the trees, the rain isn't nearly as severe as I'd anticipated. There are only drops here and there. As I cup my hands into a bowl to get a drink, I notice a few cranes across the river being wary of my every movement. Seeing them, my stomach growls hungrily but I ignore it. I only eat when I have to, killing whatever I can and eating it raw. I don't even make eye contact with the cranes as I get my drink, making them realize I'm no threat. They go back to fishing for insects, walking all up and down the river as they step delicately through the reeds.
Pants muddy from crouching by the riverbank, I sit back, lifting my face the grey and darkened sky. What am I doing...? I ask myself. Then I gasp, realizing I've asked myself this question before. Back when I was still a punk – well, more of a punk, – beating up people I saw as unruly and unfair... how long has it been...?
A thumping from across the river brings me aback, and I jump to my feet, ready to dart back into the forest, until I remember I'm by far the scariest thing out here. It's so dark now that I have to squint in order to distinguish the shoreline from the trees. Across the river, within the forest, I see a light, faint, blue and small, floating in the air.
Like an insect, I'm drawn to it, wading through murky, stagnant waters up to my shoulders to get to the other side, holding Kurikara above my head. As I step onto the shore, – the cranes long gone upriver, – the blue light begins to move, bobbing as it goes deeper into the forest.
"H-hey!" I call out, still wringing out my shirt. "W-wait up!" I trip over foliage as I dash after the eerie blue light in the forest, which moves faster and faster as if it knows I'm chasing it.
I'm probably chasing a demon, aren't I? I think to myself. Brilliant. Maybe I really have gone mad, being stuck out here all by myself as long as I have. Still, my legs do not hesitate to carry me through the forest, arms brushing aside low-hanging leaves. I keep going until all I can see is the blue light and the branches draping down around it, vying for a chance to take a piece of me as I hurry past.
I follow the light for hours, which vanishes as swiftly as it appeared – as though my lifeline while I travel beneath the surface of the sea has been severed. My breath cuts short, my pupils dilate, and I spin around, trembling and sweating as Kurikara taps against my wet, grimy back. Left alone in the darkness, this time without a guide, the silence of the forest amplifies. The drip-drops of the rain barely sound, like a hellish cacophony of danger, giving me the sense that something or many somethings watch me from the dark, waiting to for the chance to pounce.
Before that can happen, I shrug off Kurikara, tear off the red sleeve, and free the katana from its sheath, blue flames along with it. I clutch the handle with sweaty palms, waving it before my face to illuminate the surfaces of the leaves around me with blue light. The blue fire dances and churns rhythmically to my heartbeat, ready to defend when need be, but I see nothing. Only the trees, only darkness.
I jerk my body toward where I heard a clank, twisting all the way around, directing the blade of my sword. Nothing. Darkness. Leaves.
A rattle, this time to the left. I turn toward that too. Still only darkness.
Silence.
Then there's another, behind me. And another as I'm turning, one behind me again. Then three of them, all at once, encircling me, and I see them: more and more blue lights that appear, and I see that they're lanterns, lanterns with holes on the top that act as eyes, blue flames seeping out. I've heard legends of these lantern demons who lure people into remote places and devour their souls, driving them insane.
The rattles of these demons, no less than a hundred of them now, beside me, behind me, all above me, morph into a singular, harmonious rattle of clanks overlaid like loud laughter, cackling, horrible sounds.
My shocked trembling changes into childlike cowering, riveted on the hundreds of blue lighted demons above me, their lantern doors rattling open and shut, open and shut, and open and shut with their horrible, horrible laughter. I close my eyes and cover my ears so I won't have to hear them any longer, mocking me with their laughter, taunting me with things only a demon could understand. My ears ring from their laughter, their incessant laughter that plunges me into the inescapable void of the demon in my mind.
Images of my friends and family flash through my mind, and of them giggles, "Oh please, be friends with you? Like that would actually happen."
"You're only a demon, after all!" says another shrilly. "Just like us!"
"It's not like demons have real feelings."
"Little demon boy!"
"Why don't you join us? We could treat you the way a prince of Gehenna is supposed to be treated!"
"Just come with us!"
"SHUT UP!" I shriek, slicing the air haphazardly. The blue lanterns dodge easily and continue their ravenous pursuit into my mind, whispering all kinds of enticing offers into my eyes.
My vision becomes clouded with malevolent agony, devoured by the demons closing in on me. Kurikara falls from my hands, through the hole in the bed of foliage on the ground, and I fall through it too, gobbled up by the blue lights.
"Stay away, stay away, stay away! I don't want to see any of you! I don't want any of you here! You don't really care for me anyway. Anyone who truly cared for me is gone! Dad, you're gone! You're gone and you're not coming back!"
I put out my arms to block them out, their hands grabbing at me, pulling on me, driving me into the darkness.
"Rin, I'll never forget you."
"Usamaro... why are you here...?" I whimper. "Why did you have to..." I trail off.
"I'm not dead, Rin," he says.
"Then how are you here?!"
"I'll live as long as you remember me. So, Rin... please don't run away from True Cross Academy, the place I sacrificed myself to protect... My shrine will be torn down without you protecting it... I know that for sure..."
"Usamaro..."
"The others need you, Rin... Maybe they don't know it yet... maybe you don't even know it, but they do... without you, they'll die, and my sacrifice will have been for nothing..."
I wake up in darkness again. It's still raining, and light drops fall onto my cheeks, streaking down my face pointed at the sky.
"That dream," I mumble, motionless. "The demons... Usamaro!"
I bolt upright, scanning the area. I see Kurikara, gleaming with a coat of water. "No... it was just..."
A dream. It was all a dream. But my blue flames and the demons are all gone, yet somehow Kurikara remains out of its sheath... Those demons were closing in on me, about to devour my soul...
The grey clouds continue to cry from up above, but a red dawn shines on the clear horizon, onto Kurikara's blade.
"Don't tell me... Usamaro did it?" I inquire of myself. But he's... As I sit here in the forest, there is the faintest rattle behind me. When I spin around and look, I see the outline of a rabbit bounding through the bushes, disappearing into the trees.
Why did I finally decide to write a second chapter, you ask?
...No particular reason.
I wish they'd remake the anime with the rest of the scenes from the manga, dang it! (Even though I haven't been reading lately... whoops...)