She didn't have to see him just because he was coming back. Everything would be okay. She could do her job and he could come and do whatever the Exorcists told him to do and when this situation was handled he would go back to school and stay there just like he had for the past few months. Or at least, that's what Tsukimi kept telling herself as she did her chores. She'd begged Mrs. Suguro to let her go to the temple when she'd gotten in for the morning, knowing that the bus from Tokyo was going to be stopping at the inn first but Mrs. Suguro wasn't having it, she insisted it was safer for her to stay and help the wounded at the inn. Of course, Mrs. Suguro had no idea how unsafe Tsukimi felt now peaking around doors trying to avoid Ryuuji. Not that he'd do anything to her. He wasn't a dangerous person after all, just an annoying one.

She tugged self-consciously at the collar of her robe. Since the boys had gone away to their fancy cram school a lot had changed and she wasn't sure how it would feel to suddenly see them again. Especially at a time when things were so confusing and frightening at the temple. So many exorcists had taken ill, Juuzo and Mamushi, Ao and Nishiki, even Mr. Shima was ill now. She sighed, mixing the medicine into the freshly steeped tea the way the medic had shown her before hurrying back to the temple. Deep down she knew it was stupid to be worrying about this. She should be glad that anyone from the main office was coming to help at their little temple. She just wished it didn't include him. She looked at her reflection in the tea, breathing slowly to try and soften the expression on her face. If he knew how hard she was working just to maintain a normal expression Master Suguro would be teasing her even more than he normally did. She shouldn't be worrying about herself and her petty feelings. She should be bringing this medicine to Mr. Shima and getting him anything he needed. If she could be a good priest for once she would feel better. She breathed deeply, blowing the air out of her mouth hard.

"Ahhhh," she groaned, "I'm so bad at this…!"

"Huh?" Kinzo asked, leaning around the doorway, "Bad at what?"

She pouted, "Being a good priest."

He laughed, "Don't I know it! That gotta get to my old man? I can take it if that would help."

"No," she smiled slightly at the gesture, "Thanks but…I should do my tasks! I'm off!"

He laughed at her forced vigor before heading on his way leaving her to tread the steps up to the large room reserved for Mr. Shima. She set the tray down and kneeled, the way Ms. Suguro had taught her to months ago now.

"Mr. Shima," she called, gently sliding the door open, "I brought your medicine."

She looked up and had to press her mouth together to keep herself from frowning. Kneeling there by Mr. Shima, hands balled into fists like they almost always were, was Ryuuji.

Ryuuji could feel Koneko and Renzo's eyes on him. They'd whispered about it the whole way here. Admittedly, it had been his first thought too, even though that felt stupid and immature of him during such a crisis. He should be focused on dealing with the Impure King, on the shit with his no-good dad and that idiot son of Satan. He didn't need to distract himself with thoughts of Tsukimi and all the things he'd failed to say to her before he left Kyoto. Now she was staring at him, mouth pinched together in a way that made the scar on her face pucker. His mouth dropped slightly, leaning forward in shock at seeing her again. It hadn't even been half a year yet but somehow she looked different. She looked more stern than he remembered, tougher even. Then his eyes wandered down and took in the black robes she was wearing.

He grimaced, turning to Mr. Shima, "Why's she dressed like that?"

She scoffed, standing up at the door and bringing her tray in, "Mr. Shima, your medicine."

"Ah," Mr. Shima said, glancing between them, "Thank you, Tsukimi."

"Of course," she sat on her knees beside Renzo, politely pouring a cup for Mr. Shima without meeting Ryuuji's insistent stare.

"Tsukimi," he practically growled, "why are you wearing that."

She acted as though she didn't hear him, turning to smile at Renzo, "Did your dad like it?" she asked, playfully patting his head.

Renzo laughed, pushing her hand away affectionately as he answered, "No, he did not."

He hated it when she'd do this; go out of her way to ignore him even when he was speaking to her. Renzo glanced at him, urgently looking away when Ryuuji glared, irritated that Renzo was making it so easy for her to ignore him. He'd always been such a girl-crazy idiot that he'd never shy from talking with Tsukimi when he had the chance. Ryuuji knew Tsukimi was aware of that. That had to be why she always sought him out first.

"Tsu-" he began before she cut him off.

"I heard you," she said, finally looking him in the eye again, "Mr. Shima is trying to heal. I'm not going to argue with you here."

"I'm not arguing," he protested, "I just want to know why you're dressed like a priest because I know for damn sure you aren't one."

She scowled, swallowing hard before looking down at the teapot on the tray, "Do you need anything else, Mr. Shima?"

"N-No," Yaozo answered, glancing at her before giving Ryuuji an odd apprehensive look that he couldn't quite read.

"Then I'll go," Tsukimi said, pushing herself up and turning to walk out.

"Hey!" Ryuuji shouted, starting to get up and go after her but Yaozo's hand fell on his stopping him as Tsukimi vanished through the doorway.

"Bon…you should know…Tsukimi is an official priest of the temple," Mr. Shima said in a low calm voice as though he was trying to soothe a savage dog, "she's not an exorcist but…we have taught her the basics. It is safer for her, all things considered. And that's the path she's on…she's…learning exorcism here."

"Who?"

"What?"

"Who decided she should become a priest? I'm sure you all were keeping her just as safe when she was just a follower. Just like when we were kids…so…who-"

"Ryuuji," his mother said softly beside him, a hand brushing over his before he pulled away and frowned at her.

"No, mom," he grit his teeth, somehow he already knew who it was, "just tell me who decided she should join."

Yaozo and his mother glanced at each other. She sighed, putting her hand over her mouth in thought as Mr. Shima finally admitted the truth Ryuuji already knew deep down, "Your father did, but Bon-"

"That old son of a bitch!" Ryuuji shouted, gripping his hands so tight he was conscious of how his nails dug into his palms, "Unbelievable."

"W-well, hey," Renzo cut in, forcing a smile onto his face, "if my dad is okay with it then-"

But Ryuuji couldn't listen to these excuses. He needed to talk to her. Get some reason back into her head before she got hurt like Yaozo was. Before his father could cost him anything else. Before she was mangled like she had been when she first came through the temple doors, soaked in blood and water and barely breathing in his father's arms. He stood up and rushed out the door, ignoring the voices that called for him and he tried to get a sense of where she was going.

She knew it wouldn't be long before Ryuuji was chasing after her. He'd always been like that. So high and mighty, convinced that whatever he thought was right and anyone that didn't follow along was stupid. She couldn't stand it. He'd spent their whole childhoods keeping her an arm's distance from the temple. If she asked his father to let her sit in on the sutras Ryuuji would complain, then he'd sneak off and listen himself. When he, Renzo, and Koneko went to play in the mountains he'd shun her saying it wasn't safe for her and encouraging the others to ignore her. But what did he know about the safety of the woods when he couldn't even see demons until he went to school? Now, during a crisis, he had the audacity to come back and try and boss her around again.

"Tsukimi!" he shouted in the hall behind her.

She sped up, trying not to run and disturb the resting sick in all the surrounding rooms but still hoping she could get outside before he caught her. Unfortunately, Ryuuji didn't seem to have the same reservations and when he rounded the corner it looked like he was all but jogging, "Hey! Don't you hear me?!"

"Of course I hear you," she grumbled, crossing her around over her chest, "everyone can hear you, you're shouting."

"I'm not-!" he began to shout and then he paused, looking briefly flustered before leaning in slightly as he whispered harshly, "What the hell had gotten into you?"

"What?" She looked down her nose at him and watched him shrink back ever so slightly, a confused expression passing over his permanently irritated face.

"Why are you running away when I'm talking to you and-"

"I left because you don't have any right to talk to me the way you were trying to-"

"Tsukimi, I'm not trying to be rude I'm just worried about your-"

"I'm fine. I know what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. It isn't your decision."

He huffed, more a growl than anything else, shoving a hand over his hair and leaning his head back as he scowled, "Then it shouldn't be my dad's either!"

"It wasn't!" she shouted, stunning him slightly, "It was my decision. Your father just had to give permission. That's all! He didn't do anything wrong!"

"Feh," Ryuuji scoffed, "yeah except for letting you."

"You are such a-" she began, taking some pride in his baffled expression before the commotion in the room beside them drew her attention away.

"Is that-"

"Juuzo and Mamushi," she sighed, glancing at him as Renzo and Koneko rounded the corner, "they keep fighting."

"It sounds like…" Renzo said, tilting his head to the side as though he could listen better, "chanting."

Then they heard the familiar jingle of the krik. Tsukimi's hand floor to the door frame barely beating Ryuuji to it. She threw the door open and he rushed in urgently cycling through the hand seals as he chanted, "On basara gini hara nenhatana sowaka."

The seal lit up in front of him just in time to banish the snake demon Mamushi had summoned. Renzo and Koneko hurried in to stand protectively on either side of Ryuuji, hands held up in prayer in case they needed to help. Tsukimi stayed in the doorway, gazing across the room at the busted screen and the frightened exorcist laying on their mats who'd been trying to rest just moments before.

"That's enough!" Ryuuji shouted.

"Bon.." Juuzo called, seeming shocked to even see him.

Behind him, Mamushi was still kneeling on the floor, her sisters on either side of her, "Master Ryuuji.."

"We got the enemy right outside our door so now's not the time to be fighting!" Ryuuji continued.

For a moment they both looked chided. Juuzo hung his head, "I-you're right…I'm sorry."

Mamushi's eyes wandered to Tsukimi and Tsukimi found herself shaking her head which seemed to push Mamushi past her threshold for being chided, especially by people younger than her, "Humph," she pouted, turning her head away, "if you feel that strongly about it, Ryuuji, go tell that to your father the so-called master. Instead of behaving like a High Priest should he's a drunk and the butt of everyone's jokes."

"Hey!" Tsukimi shouted, stepping forward into the room.

Juuzo turned back toward Mamushi, leaning in as he shouted, "Watch your damn mouth, Mamushi."

"No," Ryuuji spoke, suddenly much calmer, he glanced at her quickly with such an odd look in his eye that Tsukimi stopped, "Mamushi's right."

"Bon…" Renzo muttered softly.

"Whatever," Ryuuji scowled, turning around toward the door, "just stop fighting." He glanced at her then, a lingering look of near-shame as he stared into her eyes before his eyes cast down to her robes, and his scowl returned. He scoffed, shaking his head and he turned away and stalked out of the door leaving the room behind him eerily silent.

'Open the door!' His father shouted from outside, the heavy thump of his sandaled foot slammed against the frame echoing through the temple hall.

Juuzo barely had the door open to a shoulders width before he was shoved out of the way as his father barreled into the room. Ryuuji stumbled back, mouth hanging open in shock at the sight of the limp body in his father's arm.

The girl was in an elementary school uniform, the colors of the school up the street from his own, the rich kid school, as Renzo called it. The thin summer uniform was suctioned to her skin by water that dripped to the floor and formed a puddle around his father's feet as soon as he stopped. Her black hair was matted over her face. He blinked, finally noticing that the puddle around his father's feet wasn't just from her uniform but from his father's robes. They were both drenched. And then he watched as the puddle began to turn red. He stumbled back, 'D-Dad?'

'Ryuuji,' his father's voice was harsh and urgent, 'get out of here now.'

But Ryuuji couldn't move and his father was too pressed for time to argue. He hurried into the foyer, laying the girl down on the floor as people began to rush around them, bumping into Ryuuji without seeming to notice as they hurried to her side.

'Master Suguro..is she?' Juuzo asked, kneeling beside the girl.

'She's alive,' his father insisted, gently brushing her hair back into place revealing the side of her facing and making Ryuuji sick to his stomach.

He felt cold and he crossed his arms around his body to try and keep himself from throwing up. Her hair wasn't stuck to her face by water, it was blood. The entire right side of her face was torn open, shredded in numerous places across her temple and cheek making her teeth visible even though her mouth was closed. She was so still and even though she couldn't be much younger than him she looked incredibly small laying on the floor.

'You're going to be okay,' his father muttered, holding her hand, 'be strong.'

Some of the healers began to chant, others applied things to the side of her face and the side of her torso where blood was leaking from her lower back and staining the wooden floor. For a few long moments, nothing seemed to happen but their chanting and the dripping of the water from his father's robes as he held the girl's hand against his forehead and prayed so softly Ryuuji couldn't hear.

Then she gasped, head pressing back into the floor as her neck craned and her violet eyes snapped open and stared straight into his own.

"Bon?"

Ryuuji blinked, turning to look into Renzo's face, "Wh…What?"

Renzo laughed nervously, "Hey, you were freaking me out, man. You've been hammering the same spot for like four minutes."

Ryuuji looked down at the wood in front of him, covered in dents from the hammer, the head of the nail starting to shine from the beating, "...Oh."

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah…just…thinking."

"...Alright."

Ryuuji sighed. He hadn't thought about that night in a long time. As a boy, it had haunted him. He would wake up in a cold sweat crying and confused afraid that Tsukimi had died in his father's arms instead of being saved. Even when his mind didn't trick him that badly the sight of her limp and pale on the temple floor was enough to turn his stomach and wake him from the deepest sleep. But as time had passed he had grown past it. His dreams had changed from nightmares of her death to visions of her smiling face, though he never omitted the scar that now crackled across her face drooping the side of her mouth slightly and distorting the shape of her ear underneath her thick black hair. He'd never known her without the scar. He'd never even seen many photos of what she looked like before, she'd been so young when it happened after all. Not that he needed to. The deep reddish mark was just part of her. Like the scar on Yaozo's face, it was a sign that she'd survived something terrible. A reminder to him to never let it happen again.

He sighed, leaning back and wiping the sweat from his brow. He didn't understand why she was so insistent on joining the temple. She'd been through enough, she'd already cut it too close. Why couldn't she understand that she should let them protect her? What did she think she needed to prove? Sometimes he felt like if he could just become a real exorcist she would trust him to keep her safe. Then he could ensure her a happy carefree life, one that didn't leave dark red stains on the temple floor that no one had been able to scrub away in ten years since they met that terrible day.