Chapter 27: Projects

After spending way too long thinking way too hard about this story, I realized I was taking this far, far, too seriously. This is fanfiction, I should just write and worry about if it makes sense after the fact. I don't write for the reviews (my personal passion project gets like 1/10th the attention of this crack story, but I've already written more for that than this) but I won't lie and say that seeing them isn't a nice bit of motivation and helped me remember myself.

So I've had a couple of people ask about the other "Rin is Satan" fics I was referring to. First and foremost is Revelations Paradise Acquired by Shinigami of the Elder Gods, which is, unfortunately, the only one I can still find. It was by far my biggest inspiration, though sadly it is also very much dead, and right when things looked like they would pick up. There was also ef07's Blue Fire (who now goes by MightyGoat), but that's been deleted and I've only ever managed to scrounge up a couple of chapters to confirm it once existed through some archive shenanigans, and even those have some serious gaps in them. Those are the only other two I know of, but if anyone has any others, feel free to share them.

It began as many things do- with an inconsequential offer to help tutor Shiemi. An offer that Yukio was taken up on by the end of week as the girl realized just how behind she was. An offer that he very much did not remember extending to anyone else, but was now somehow the host of group study sessions with over half the class. Apparently, Shima was doing especially poor in certain classes while Konekomaru simply wished his grades matched Bon's near perfect scores. And because he was already helping Shiemi, that somehow translated to him being the tutor of the class. Even Paku dropped by on occasion, dragging Izumo with her. Neither Bon nor Izumo actually needed any real help, but both of them were fairly…poor teachers. They were borderline geniuses, either through natural talent or sheer hard work, and so they couldn't quite understand why their classmates found certain things difficult.

Obviously helping so many people took its toll on Yukio's free time, and so Rin was finally forced to attend if he wanted any help. Honestly, if Rin was willing to put in any effort at all into school, Yukio had little doubt that he would be the top of the class. He could identify most demons and their traits with just a glance, knew a shocking amount about medical plants despite Yukio being sure he had never even cracked open that textbook, and had memorized plenty of arias despite disliking reciting them. He just simply lacked the motivation to do anything more than the bare minimum for school.

In fact, he seemed to lack the motivation to do more than the bare minimum in most aspects of his life. Despite his attitude, despite his energy, Rin never seemed to want anything for himself in life. Oh sure, he would devour plenty of good food and soak in hot baths, but he held no aspirations for himself. Everything in Rin's life circled back around to Yukio.

Yukio resisted sighing at the thought, knowing that Shiemi would think that she had done something wrong. And a small part of him did want to sigh at just how far behind she was. Not just in Exorcist classes, but her general education was severally lacking as well. Even now after everyone else had moved on to another assignment, Shiemi was still struggling with her medial herb homework. She had made good progress in remembering the actual names for the plants, but the math, as basic as it was, was a struggle for her. So, Yukio had decided to switch gears and help her with her math homework first. Well, he was trying to-

"And I say that your idea for the paper is fucking stupid. Who the hell wants to talk about the origins of region-specific arias for fifteen pages?"

"Yeah, well I don't hear any ideas coming from you!"

"Because this entire project is stupid! Making it a group project doesn't make up for how ridiculously long it has to be!"

-but it seemed that his beloved brother was about to get into another fight. He was thankful that Paku and Izumo hadn't decided to attend today. It was funny in a sad way, as he seriously doubted that anyone would disagree with Rin, but his rather…colorful way of stating things tended to rub people the wrong way. Because the schedule had been compressed, several papers that should have been scattered throughout the year had been combined into one super-paper. They were allowed to freely collaborate and form groups of whatever size they wanted and choose any topic within the guidelines, but that hardly helped.

Yukio coughed very pointedly before things could continue to escalate. The picnic table they had spread their things probably couldn't handle Rin if he got…angry. "I believed that Bon suggested that topic because of how easy it would be to use quotes and pad the paper to reach the requirement. Virtually the entire aria could be quoted, along with different variants. Am I correct?"

The surprised look on Bon's face clearly said that he very much had not thought of that idea, but the teen nodded furiously anyway, "Y-Yeah! Exactly that. And if you weren't so quick to be an asshole, I would have had time to explain that!"

The shorter boy scoffed, "Don't try and cover his ass, Yukio. But I guess that that'll work to fill out this shitty paper. So, Yukio, where do we start?"

An eraser pinged off Rin's head, but by the time he whipped his head around to glare, the very teen in question had started to collect his things. "I'll be sure to help later, but right now I've got to help Shiemi with the rest of her homework, as that's due tomorrow. But I'm sure that you, Bon, and everyone else can at least get some ideas down, right?"

Shima frowned, "Wait, are you really going to abandon us to this paper? That's a bit-"

Very suddenly the air was fridged. Nothing in Yukio's demeanor had really changed, but they were all very suddenly paying attention to his next words, "I've taken hours out of my own schedule to help all of you when the only person I promised I'd help was Shiemi. I didn't have to help any of you, but I decided to anyway. Now that I've done that, I'm sure that you all can get along and think of some things to write about while I stick to my actual promise, alright? Oh, and play nice, Rin." The smile he gave them as he ushered a flustered Shiemi to a different table was so pure and sincere that everyone was sure butter wouldn't melt in that mouth. No one tried to stop him from leaving.

Bon blinked as Rin practically collapsed onto the table, grumbling all the while. Shima blinked as the teen's arms suddenly entered his personal space, sprawled out across the table and all over his books. Trying to prod his hands away got him a sharp kick to the shin.

Covertly crossing his legs to prevent higher shots, Shima smiled as if he couldn't feet a bruise forming, "What's wrong all of a sudden?"

"Oh right, you idiots wouldn't get it." Rin grumbled from where he had buried his face in his open textbook, "Yukio's been trying to get me to 'make friends' for a while now, so I bet he left to try and force us to 'bond' or some shit…And if I don't try and 'play nice' with you idiots, Yukio will get mad at me…"

Bon stared into the sky and prayed to whatever god was listening for strength to deal with the brother-complex freak in front of him. He didn't like the idea of working with Rin at all, but he and Yukio were kind of a package deal and he needed all the help he could find to fill out fifteen pages. "Oi, stop being such a drama queen. I don't want to be friends with a punk like you anyway, so you don't have to worry about that."

"Of course, you don't- you're barely worth being my underling."

Bon made a valent attempt to hit Rin with a book from across the table, but the teen's hand shot up and caught the paperback with eerie accuracy without ever looking up. Shima whistled lowly at that.

Konekomaru gently took the book out of Rin's hand before he could do something like chuck it into the trash. The teen sat up to glare at him, but it was so half-hearted that even he didn't feel threatened by it, "Guys, shouldn't we at least get started on the paper?"

Bon felt his brow twitch as Rin yawned loudly and looked ready to sleep as a method to ignore them, "Are you going to take this serious or not?!"

Rin blinked and looked across the table to where Bon sat. He stared at him for a moment with his eerily too-blue eyes before nodding once.

Good, at least they were all on the same page for once-

"I am completely serious about that vow of eternal servitude."

So, Shiemi, what exactly made you want to become an Exorcist all of a sudden?" Yukio said, ignoring the rising voices from across the lawn students often used to study at. It was better that they aired their grievances here instead of in the middle of an actual mission, or so he would keep telling himself.

It was strange that he had forgotten to ask, but Yukio justified that he had been busy dealing with Rin being, well, himself to new people. Which meant that he was stuck playing damage control to try and make Rin at least seem human. So, he hadn't thought too hard about such an obviously shy girl suddenly decided to fight demons.

"I'm surprised that Mr. Fujimoto didn't tell you." Shiemi said with a slight tilt of her head as she thought about it a bit more, "Ah, I guess he has better things to do, so he probably doesn't even remember with how busy he must be…"

"Well, he was coming by to pick up a big bulk-order of supplies along with a few of his friends, but when he heard about how I wasn't able to walk anymore, he dropped everything he was doing to investigate! He realized what was wrong really fast and declared the entire garden a lost cause, so he started salting the entire place! He even, ah…" Shiemi paused, suddenly looking a bit sheepish, going as far as to look away from Yukio shyly.

"He even what?"

"He even said that your brother would, um…" Shiemi flushed, and Yukio smiled a little at how shy she still was at times, "…would like to help him burn everything…?"

That startled a laugh out of Yukio. Of course, his father would be unabashedly blunt when it came to Rin. Well, at least her embarrassment made sense now, "I'm not offended, Shiemi. How can I be when it's true?"

"Oh, so Rin really is like that…"

"Don't worry, he has it mostly in check nowadays." 'Mostly' actually meant the controlled burning of his old homework and garbage every couple of weeks, but no one needed to know that. Just like how they didn't need to know exactly how many knives Rin had squirreled away on his person at any given moment, "But, please continue."

"Right! Well, the garden was my grandmother's before she died…" And here Shiemi grimaced a bit, "…so I tried to stop him, but he wouldn't listen. Suddenly the demon jumped out of the ground and tried to take me as a hostage, but Mr. Fujimoto pulled me out of the way and Exorcised it in seconds! And it turns out the salt was really just sugar, so he didn't even plan to hurt the garden in the first place! He found the perfect solution where everything worked out perfectly, and I guess I was inspired!"

"Perfect for everyone but the demon." Yukio almost said but held his tongue at the last second. Most demons weren't inherently hostile, but this one had taken a young woman's freedom and tried to use her as a human shield- it deserved everything it got. If it was let go, then there was a high chance it would repeat its actions and possibly even get someone killed one day. It was a mad dog to be put down after it had bitten one too many people.

(A part of him wondered how many people would one day say the same thing about Rin.)

Yukio nodded, "I see. Well, father does tend to have that effect on people, no matter what Rin says."

"Is that effect disgust? Because I'll agree to that."

Shiemi let out a little shriek and jumped at the sudden voice, while Yukio made for his weapon a moment before his common sense kicked in. Instead, he leveled a glare at the end of the table where Rin stood, peering at them with a critical and clearly judging eye. Very slowly, a smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth.

"So, how goes the date?"

Shiemi's face was tomato red in a matter of seconds and Yukio cursed himself as he felt his own face grow a bit warm. Rin's smirk was so shit-eating that Yukio very nearly punched him, and the urge only skyrocketed when Shiemi whimpered and tried to hide in her hands as Bon and the others ran over.

Yukio breathed in deeply, calmed himself, and slowly stood, "Rin, what are you doing over here? I thought you were working on the paper."

"Tried, failed, bored now."

Bon's angry shout from across the lawn turned plenty of heads their way, "Bullshit, you were just a jackass and left!"

Yukio closed his eyes, breathed in deeply, and tried to calm himself. It didn't work as well this time, certainly not helped by Bon storming over and looking ready to punch Rin through a wall. At least Shiemi looked only slightly flustered, probably from the liberal amount of swears and slurs being thrown around. He took her hand and started to guide her away, "Come on, Shiemi. We clearly won't get any work done out here, and we still have plenty to do."

Shima, having finally caught up, grinned cheekily at them and their connected hands, "Ooh, trying to get some alone time, are you?"

And because Rin was somehow eerily always aware of anything and everything to do with Yukio, he stopped mid-swear and glared at the pink-haired boy from atop his perch. At some point, he had ended up crouched on a table, clearly ready to literally pounce on Bon. "Hey, only I get to tease Yukio! That's my right!"

"The brother-complex sure is strong in this one…"

"What did you just say, cherry-boy?"

"I'll have you know that I have made many beautiful women happy!"

To the side, Bon, suddenly ignored, watched as Rin and Shima argued and Yukio discretely led Shiemi away from the chaos. Several other students had abandoned their own work to partially surround their group, watching them as if they were strange animals. And really, compared to these rich brats, they probably were considering the way Rin abruptly tackled Shima to the ground, "…We're not going to get anything done without Yukio here to keep them under control, are we?"

Konekomaru huffed, plucking abandoned papers from the ground, "You're just now figuring this out?" Maybe he and Bon could form their own group, they didn't need Yukio that badly, did they?

"They're all idiots." Izumo stated, watching the chaos from a safe distance, lest she catch the stupid that seemed to become an absolute pandemic whenever Rin was around. She and Paku had finished plotting the general ideas they wanted in their paper and had decided that a little fresh air and a snack was a good idea. Honestly, she was quite happy with the topic: an extensive look into the entwined history of arias and summoning, and how the two had split from the same common study. It was a complicated but interesting topic, and she was confident that, if anything, they would struggle to stay under the twenty-page maximum.

So, of course, her good mood had to be ruined by seeing her fellow classmates make fools of themselves in full-view of twenty-some normal students. At least Yukio had the common sense to leave, even if he decided to drag that dead-weight Shiemi with him.

Izumo watched as Rin choked Shima with a rather brutal headlock, only to be dragged off by the school's security a few seconds later. For some reason, Konekomaru decided to try and defend Rin's utterly idiotic behavior, clearly talking down the officers even if she couldn't hear the words.

"Absolute idiots." She grumbled.

"Maybe," Paku said with a tiny laugh and Izumo nodded. At least her friend had some common sense, "but they all look like they're becoming good friends, right?"

Security had somehow been convinced to leave, and, Izumo witnessed what had to be a rare sight: Rin obviously embarrassed and, if she was reading the other's smug faces right, thanking them for not letting him be rather rightfully dragged off and locked up like the borderline lunatic he was. She might have considered it progress if Bon didn't say something that immediately sparked another round of arguing.

It was disgusting to watch them squabble like children and get worked up over such petty problems. Yes, it had to be disgust that twisted her insides as she watched them bicker, argue, and yet for some reason, continue to willingly interact.

"How in the world do they look like friends to you?"

This chapter doesn't at all accomplish what I set out for it, but I just kind of needed to push past this 'hump'. I couldn't ignore things like this anyway, as bonding is incredibly important for when the thing that everyone is waiting to happen, happens.

On a side note, I've broken 50k views, which is, well kind of insane when you think about how modestly sized the Blue Exorcist fandom is. Hopefully this story will continue long enough to double that.