Walk me through the Valley
Disclaimer: Characters and premise are the property of Kazue Kato. I'm just borrowing them for a little non-profit me through the Valley.
Chapter Thirty: Oath Bound
The bus rolled to a stop. Shima crouched to let Shiemi wrap her arms around his shoulders then he stood up with her on his back and joined the crowd of hikers disembarking at the Fuji Subaru Line 5th Station. More than a few people stared at the two of them in disbelief but Shima grinned cockily and got a few thumbs up from those impressed that anyone would even attempt to climb Mount Fuji while carrying someone piggy-back.
"So Amaimon's meeting us soon right?" Shima asked. "'Cause seriously if we try to climb the mountain like this I am going to collapse after about the first half hour.
"I think you'd make at least forty-five minutes," Shiemi teased. Then she ducked her head and blushed. "Thank you so much for getting me here. We don't have to go any higher, really! Komitake Shrine, dedicated to the open road, is right here."
Shima turned in the direction of the shrine. "We're traveling mystically from here on? Well, at least that'll be easier on our pocketbooks." He felt Shiemi's frame droop. "Don't go getting guilty on me!" he exclaimed. "I'm here because I want to be here remember?"
"Yes!" Shiemi nodded and Shima smiled at the quickly restored firmness in her voice.
They moved slowly toward the peak-roofed shrine, hemmed in by the crowd of tourists and students on summer break. But as they passed between the Komainu guarding the shrine's entrance Shiemi began to glow with green light and when they passed beneath the Torii the crowds and the shrine vanished.
They stood at the mouth of an endless tunnel. A path of black sand, unmarked by footprints, stretched into the distance. At every fifty paces a pair of torches bracketed the path, the more distant ones twinkled like stars in the endless dark of the tunnel. Amaimon crouched just inside the gate, using his fingers to draw patterns in the sand. "Hey," he said.
Shiemi smiled. "Hi. We're here, we came as soon as we could."
Amaimon shrugged. "It's been over a hundred years since Sister went missing, she won't notice another few days one way or another."
"So who's this sister of your anyway?" Shima asked. "Anyone we'd know?"
"Echidna," Amaimon replied, "the Mother of Monsters. I hear some bunch of Exorcists decided they needed more demons." He shrugged. "Mom's really ticked."
"I know," Shiemi said, her voice quiet and very serious.
"The High Council wants to talk to you," Bon told Rin guiltily the day after the battle. "They told me they've come to a decision about the stuff I said about you before my dad went after Mamushi."
"They better have decided to 'Thank you' for Rin saving everyone," Izumo said darkly.
Bon grimaced, "They wouldn't need a closed meeting for that," he cautioned. Then he added, "They sprang this on me at the last minute or I'd have given you more warning."
Rin gulped softly. He nodded and got up.
"Koneko and I are coming with you," Bon stated. Rin nodded again. His tail flick nervously around his knees at the thought of being judged by Bon's family.
Izumo fell in with the boys without a word.
Bon led the small group to a dining room on the upper level of the ryokan. Rin felt a small measure of relief when he saw the Myodha clan heads sitting around a large, low table rather than the imposing courtroom the Grigori liked to use when 'talking' to him. Tatsuma sat at the head of the table, Yaozo at his right hand and Hojo Uwabami at his left. Miwa Mahiro sat at Yaozo's other side and completed the ranks of the Myodha High Council.
There was an empty seat at the foot of the table but it was only a modest form of putting him on the spot in comparison to what Rin had been subjected to by the Grigori. Even so Bon glared and dragged a second cushion over to sit beside Rin. Konekomaru followed suit while Izumo simply leaned back against the door jam and glared at everyone present.
Mahiro frowned at Izumo. "Young lady, this is a closed meeting."
"Bon and I weren't asked either, Aunt Mahiro," Konekomaru challenged. The chubby woman looked surprised but approving of the firmness in Konekomaru's voice.
"I'm only your regent," she replied. "And you are sixteen now. I'm hardly going to oppose you taking a more active role in the governing of the Myodha."
"If you try to kick Izumo or I out you're going to have a fight on your hands," Bon stated crossing his arms and scowling stubbornly.
Tatsuma smiled and made a placating gesture in his son's direction. "Ryuji, this is a meeting not a brawl," he admonished with gentle amusement. "And I'm hardly in any shape for another fight this soon."
Bon looked slightly guilty but he said, "Then you'd better let us stay. If it involves Rin it involves us too." Then he shrugged and played his trump card, "I'm oath bound to protect him from humans, I didn't make any exceptions for family. And after Rin saved us all, I'd hope shame would become an issue before my oath."
"And Rin-kun is bound to protect you from demons in return, is he not?" Tatsuma replied. "Karura might have mentioned sensing the oath bond between the two of you during the battle. Before that no one had realized that Rin-kun was fully awakened as a demon." He smiled, "It seems Tsu-chan was somehow persuaded to leave that out of her reports, she must think even more highly of you than she said."
Yaozo looked at Rin sitting quietly between Bon and Konekomaru staring down at his hands in his lap. He sighed. "Okumura-san, I want you to understand that everyone is very grateful for what you've done for us. No one believes that you've done anything wrong. But the Blue Night came shortly after Kurikara was stolen from us and that night hit the Myodha particularly hard. It was widely believed that Kurikara's loss had weakened us. Now you bring us back our relic along with a victory over our ancient foe. But you also bring the knowledge that it was the True Cross that took Kurikara from us and your first allegiance appears to be theirs."
Rin looked up. "I'm loyal to my friends and my family above all else," he said with conviction. "I won't let anyone hurt them."
"A good answer," Uwabami said. "It was the oath you already share with Ryuji that offered us a solution to our dilemma. The Myodha need to know that the sword, and consequently you, are ours. Ryuji will be our head priest in a few years. As he said, with you at his side Kurikara's power is back where it belongs. If your bond with him were more formal and more widely witnessed..."
Rin blinked in surprise. "You just want me to take another vow to protect Bon? Sure, no problem," he agreed easily even as Izumo exclaimed "No!"
"A specific vow," Yaozo clarified, ignoring Izumo. He passed a formal looking document down the table to Rin.
Bon intercepted it irritably. "He wants to read it first. Don't try to pressure him into making ill-considered promises. He'll get back to you tomorrow." Under his breath he muttered, "It's supposed to be the demons trapping unsuspecting humans with this sort of crap."
Yaozo looked unsurprised, he nodded. Bon all but grabbed Rin and dragged him out of the room. Izumo held the door open for him. Konekomaru politely excused himself and followed after, catching the door before Izumo could slam it.
The four Exwires retreated to Bon's room. Bon sat Rin at his desk and put the contract in front of him then he and Izumo proceeded to read it over Rin's shoulders. It wasn't long before Bon stormed across the room and jerked the door open. Tatsuma was sitting on the top step at the end of the hall. "So you finished reading it?" he asked mildly.
"That - that thing is disgusting," Bon's voice was choked with rage. "There is no way Rin is agreeing to anything like that. He's my friend. What the hell made you think I'd let you do that to him? That I'd have any part of enslaving him?"
"Did you read it carefully?" Tatsuma asked as he steered Bon into a quiet room. "The contract would bind Rin-kun to you personally, not the Myodha."
"Like that makes it any better!" Bon snarled.
"Making the vow would have advantages for Rin as well," Tatsuma said. "It would be a built in escape clause for any unwise promise he might make in the future. It would give him a human lifetime to adjust to being a demon."
"What do you mean 'a human lifetime'?" Bon demanded, fear beginning to churn in his gut.
Tatsuma sighed. "Your friend's demon blood is fully awoken."
"I know that!" Bon snapped.
"That means he didn't almost die," Tatsuma stated. "Rin-kun's human-self did die, his demon heart revived and possessed his body."
Bon remembered Mephisto laying the sword on Rin chest, folding his hands over the hilt like a knight laid out for burial. He shook his head and violent denial.
"Ryuji, I know you don't like secrets but you cannot tell Rin this. If he remains ignorant and in close association with you and his other friends his subconscious will probably cause his body to continue aging. He'll be able have a relatively normal life... for awhile. But eventually you will all pass away and somewhere down the road he'll look into a mirror and the person he sees won't be the person he thinks of as himself. And because Rin is a demon when that happens he'll reshape his body to reflect his image of himself and then his life will go on.
"Your headmaster defected to the True Cross two hundred years ago… and if what we suspect is true his actual age is far greater than the total sum of human history. Your knight will not die of old age, not in a hundred years, not in ten thousand years. And he is still so very naive; a demon shouldn't be so innocent, it makes it uncomfortably clear how little difference there truly is between us."
Bon stared at his father in shock.
"The contract will bind him to you, which is why the clans want it. It could just have easily bound him to the Myodha," Tatsuma pointed out. "When you die, the contract will end. We have contracts with other demons that never end so long as we maintain our half of the pact. This contract will prevent any others from enthralling him. If he can trust you it can be a shield for him as much as a fetter."
"Sometimes I really hate you," Bon said quietly. "I know this is wrong, but I agree it's the lesser evil. So I'm not going to say anything when you ask Rin if he trusts me. And I know he's going to go along with it, because he's going to think if he doesn't he won't just lose me, he'll lose Koneko and Shima as well. Rin can't survive losing more people, he's lost too much already. So he'll agree and I'll go through with it. But Dad? The lesser evil is still evil."
"I wanted you to follow in your mother's footsteps," Tatsuma replied with a look of sympathy. "Sometimes I think the job is more likely to take your soul than a demon. Still we all do what we have to."
When they rejoined the others Konekomaru and Izumo had their heads together, bent over the contract. Rin looked up and smiled, "You know, this is sort of like someone fixed up your idea about adopting me."
"It's not," Bon said quietly. Rin eager willingness making him question his earlier decision.
"Well, with the stuff about me agreeing to this to make up for Dad stealing your sword it is," Rin disagreed. "If the Grigori tries to execute me after I agree to this it'll be like stealing the sword all over again, I mean from some of the stuff Angel and Mephisto have said I think the sword would have to be broken to kill me…" He frowned as he puzzled over some of the comments that he'd heard. "Or it would break if I died, maybe?"
"You agree to serve me, the contract doesn't put any limits on what that means," Bon told Rin seriously. "Because it's so broad it'll give me the power to get you out of any other deals you might make, but you have to trust me absolutely because there's nothing in there that protects you from me."
Rin shrugged. "What's the big deal then? You're not going to hurt me."
"You don't know that!" Bon exclaimed.
"I'll just leave you to discuss things," Tatsuma excused himself.
"I don't see how this is different than what I already promised," Rin said. He turned to Bon, "Do you think I wouldn't have come after you without that oath? It didn't make me do anything I didn't already want to, but without it maybe I wouldn't have found you in time. Maybe I would have just stayed drugged up until you and Koneko were both dead."
Konekomaru looked guilty and and Bon muttered, "Pretty sure you couldn't have put your fire in my bullets without it."
"What they're asking," Konekomaru said slowly, hesitantly. "At it's heart it's a fealty oath. The one Shima and I will offer Bon in the next few years isn't so different."
"It is different!" Izumo exclaimed. "You and Shima can chose to walk away from your oaths, Rin can't. Uke and Mike were bound to my bloodline by Inari a thousand years ago, they can serve me willingly or grudgingly but as long as I retain my strength of will they have to serve."
"It's not so different," Konekomaru corrected Izumo gently. He shrugged, "We are Exorcists, our oaths and the one Bon will take as Head Priest are taken before Ucchusma. I can chose to break my oath but then Ucchusma would be entitled to kill me and devour my soul. I'm sure your oaths to Inari are also severely penalized if broken?"
"You don't understand at all," Izumo protested. "To you it's all or nothing: unless the oath is broken you feel nothing, it's just words. For Rin it's a physical limitation. If he thinks about burning himself with holy water he can't walk through the door of church because arms reach of the holy water basin might as well be wall." She turned to Bon, "If you hurt him, even if he comes to hate you, he'll still be compelled to serve you. That's what I did to Uke and Mike. I never broke my oaths but I made the bonds I hold ugly and hurtful. Rin, you don't mind your oath to him now, but bonds can change. When things don't go the way he wants or expects he'll get angry and lash out. You already know that. You know how he reacted to finding out about your demon blood, how he blamed me when we thought you'd died." She glared at Bon. "It will happen again and you'll get hurt, again."
Bon's shoulders slumped. "She's right. This isn't going to work."
"No!" Rin exclaimed, an edge of worry in his voice.
"Look, we'll figure out something different," Bon said. "Nothing will change if you don't do this."
Konekomaru stared at Rin. "It's not just that you don't mind this," he said. "You want it."
Rin flushed.
"Why?" Bon asked in confusion. "After what Izumo said, why the hell would you want a thing like that?"
Rin squirmed uncomfortably. The other three just stared at him. For a few moments Rin shut his eyes trying to pin down and make sense of what he was feeling.
Finally he said. "I never belong."
"But the Monastery, the people there cared about you," Konekomaru protested.
For a moment Rin's expression twisted with grief, anger and guilt. "There most of all," he said. "They loved me but they never told me anything. They were all part of something, even Yukio, and I was left out. I was nothing but a burden. Even if they accepted that burden willingly, I wasn't one of them. That night, when Satan came for me, they were willing to die to keep me safe but they weren't willing to let me fight beside them.
"I- I think when we came to the Academy and it was just Yukio trying to protect me by himself- I think that's why he went crazy: Because taking care of me was too much of a burden for just one person no matter how much he loved me. Yukio would have put me in a cage and thrown away the key long before he would ever to let me be responsible for myself." Rin felt tears welling up in his eyes and angrily dashed them away.
"The True Cross? The Grigori?" Rin shook his head and laughed bitterly. "Maybe I can win over one or two people, but as a group they want me dead." Then he pointed at the scroll Yaozo had given him. "But that? That feels like belonging." He turned to Konekomaru. "You said the oath you'll take is pretty much the same. Are you worried that Bon's ever gonna do something so terrible that you won't want to keep your promise?"
Konekomaru shook his head, "Of course not!" he exclaimed.
Rin grinned. "So what's the big deal?" he demanded.
Konekomaru watched Bon slip out of the room and wished he'd thought of a tactical retreat first.
They'd been going around and around on the same points at increasing volumes for hours. Although actually, it had been quite awhile since Bon had said anything and, personally, Konekomaru had been convinced that Rin knew what he was doing and that his reasons for wanting the oath were sound but the lack of support hadn't swayed Izumo in the slightest.
"Stop treating me like I'm some stupid little kid!" Rin exclaimed.
"Then stop acting like one!" Izumo hissed back. "Caring so much about whether or not people like you is childish."
Konekomaru suspected that Rin was just waiting for the right moment to ask him and Izumo to accept some sort of promise to protect them as well. With Shima and Shiemi missing it was hard to deny the appeal. If Rin had bound himself to one of them like he was bound to Bon they'd know if the missing pair were in trouble and possibly be able to find them if they were. 'Of course the trick would be wording the oath so it wouldn't do more than provide a mystical panic button and tracer,' Konekomaru thought. He focused on that problem and tuned out the shouting.
"People will let you down! You can only count on yourself!" Izumo declared leaning into Rin's space and glaring furiously at him. "People change, they're selfish and stupid and scared. They'll hurt you. That oath won't go away when he's not the person you made it with anymore."
"So if I asked you to marry me you'd say no because I'm a demon," Rin accused.
"You're impossible!" Izumo exclaimed throwing up her hands. She turned and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
Bon wandered downstairs. He'd been planning to go outside and get some air but when he saw the light on beneath the door to his mother's office he changed his mind. He knocked, "Mom, you got a little time?"
Torako set aside the ryokan's account books. Bon spun the chair across from her around and straddled it. His mother frowned at the lack of decorum but let it pass.
"You hear about what Dad's up to?" Bon asked then proceeded to rehash the whole evening for his mother.
"Could I read the contract?" Torako asked.
"If I go upstairs I'd just get dragged back into fighting about it," Bon said. Then he recited it.
"That's exact?" Torako asked.
Bon gave her a crooked smile, "Aria remember?"
"Of course it's exact," Torako chuckled. "What was I thinking?" She thought for a moment. "Oaths themselves aren't so bad, even demon oaths; a promise should be meant to be kept afterall. You'll take one yourself when you succeed your father… Although I would imagine that you'll find it a bit less burdensome with the Impure King destroyed. Not that I actually know what the oath entails: It's a secret, as your father would say, one you'll also be obligated to keep."
Then she pursed her lips. "The worst thing about this oath is the inequality. As a business woman I can't help but notice that what Rin promises is explicitly spelled out while your duties are only implied. From my perspective it would be a better contract if it were more symmetrical. Although I'm sure your father feels that there are advantages for Rin, even if they're hidden."
Bon rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Dad explained why he thinks I shouldn't be disgusted by it and once Rin pointed it out, I have to admit he's right about it protecting him from the Grigori… But what Rin really wants out of it," Bon shook his head. "I don't think that's in there."
Torako smiled. "Well then, that's your answer. Officially the reason for asking Rin for this oath is to give the Myodha peace of mind about Kurikara. Knowing your father there are probably a half-dozen other things it accomplishes on the sly besides sheltering Rin from the Grigori's machinations. But at the end of the day? It is between you and Rin, no one else. As long as you make sure that it meets Rin's needs then there's nothing inherently wrong with it." Torako leaned over her desk and whispered conspiratorially, "And if you go off script during your acceptance of the oath who can stop you?"
Bon's jaw dropped then he grinned. "Thanks Mom."