Chapter 39: Failure

A family tears itself apart.

Yukio was a coward.

He might seem brave to anyone else, but really all they were seeing was the him that clung to Rin's overwhelming strength. His brother was simply so strong that anyone who was able to stand near him had to be brave to endure his chaotic personality. It was the only answer that made sense, right?

Yukio, running through the hallway, vision blurred by the tears streaming down his face, would disagree.

Instead, the reason he could stand by Rin was because he was a coward. He was afraid of what the world held, and Rin had promised to protect him from it all, even if it ripped his very being apart. If something ever went wrong, Rin would be there to save Yukio from his foolishness. It didn't matter if it was bullies or fairies or even Demon Kings. It was simply a rule of the world, no different from fire being hot.

Yukio was a fool to have internalized such a lie.

Yukio never once really thought Rin was capable of being defeated. It was foolish since Rin was only (mostly) human, and so of course plenty of things could take him out. Cars, knives, guns, diseases, a simple bad fall…all of those things were very real dangers to Rin. He should have expected this to happen one day, should have been ready for it, but, in the end, he couldn't be the support his twin had needed.

And so, Yukio ran away like the coward he was. It didn't matter that Izumo had gone to such length to give him a chance to escape, he should have stood his ground and figured out a plan (Rin wouldn't have abandoned Yukio) or, better yet, never have let things reach that point. He should have been more proactive, aggressive, and taken out their attackers directly.

He shouldn't have relied on Rin to solve everything himself.

"Kuro! Kuro, I need you!" Yukio howled the moment he shoved his shaking body through the doors and outside. The Cat Sídhe looked up, the remains of a Black Dog slipping between kitchen knife sized fangs like oil. The demon let out a rumbling purr at the teen's reappearance and dropped fading corpse like a prize, happily cooing.

It was then that Kuro must have noticed his expressions with the way he shrank back in surprise and meowed…something. It might have been a question or just distress, but Yukio didn't care. Rin wasn't available to translate. He wasn't there at all.

"Kuro, we need to leave. Right now, we need to run!" The words spilled from Yukio's lips even as he dragged himself on the Cat Sídhe with no grace, just a scrambling of limbs to pull himself up.

Kuro didn't move, and looked back at the door, expecting someone who would not come.

"Rin's not coming, Kuro!" Yukio shrieked, voice cracking painfully mid-word.

Distantly, he realized he was crying.

"Commander, are you sure it's fine to just let him get away? We could probably still catch him."

Izumo, pinned to the floor by a massive hand that dug into her scalp and twisted her hair, tensed as the words registered. No, she wouldn't let them have Yukio, not after everything that had happened! She didn't care that the giant of a man himself was restraining her, she would figure something out. Even if she had to bite her own tongue and draw the circle with her saliva and blood, she wouldn't let these people drag yet another sibling into this tragedy.

"No. That boy might not be the demon, but he's still human. With how scared he is, if we push him, he will shoot one of us even if he doesn't mean to. I have no interest in losing anyone when he was always a secondary target." The woman, the commander, replied coolly and slug the tranquilizer gun back over her shoulder. She looked over to where Izumo was being kept restrained. She frowned and, after a moment, gave another order, "William, be more careful with her. We specifically need her as undamaged as possible."

William nodded and, with surprising gentleness, untangled his hand from Izumo's hair. He guided her to her feet as if she were made of glass and even caught her when dizziness very nearly sent her back to the ground. A part of Izumo contemplated throwing a fit and purposely injuring herself just to spite them, but she was suddenly so very tired. It made sense: she had forcefully re-summoned one of her familiars even when they had been dispelled and had been beaten and bruised without taking a single second to stop. She had fought her very hardest and even if it wasn't enough to save herself, a part of her felt satisfied with the results.

Her eyes drifted to where Paku was slumped, knocked out by the blast. She really was just a normal girl that had been dragged along by Izumo's own selfish whims, but that was fine. Things weren't perfect, there were still a lot of things left unsaid between them, but they had reconciled.

If she was going to be honest for once, it was time for her to reconcile with her first broken bond. And if Izumo couldn't do that, then maybe she could at least put it to rest.

Homare Todo was the definition of a strong woman. She was strict, blunt, and what most ignorant people would call cold-hearted. It wasn't her fault that she didn't wear her heart on her sleeve, nor that she didn't give her loyalty as cheaply as others seemed to. It was easy to see how the Kamiki girl was steeling her resolve and sharpening her preverbal claws- she didn't do much of anything to hide it.

Homare did not care what delusions of revenge or a grand escape the girl filled her head with so long as she was obedient for the moment. Realistically, they were running out of time to complete their operation. Iblis and Egyn didn't stand a chance against Mephisto on his own, otherwise, they would have teamed up and killed him long ago. No, they would stall for as long as possible, which could be anywhere from ten minutes to two hours. But the moment they lost control they would cut their losses and flee. It was Homare's job to ensure that she and her team were out by then, whenever it was, otherwise there would be no escape.

Homare Todo was a strong woman, but even she took a moment to subtly steady her shaking hands. If Rin Okumura wasn't needed, she would have killed him on the spot. He was too strong, inhumanly so, even with his true power sealed. She believed in the Commander, but he had…changed recently. His light had dimmed, no, it had grown sickly even as his body had healed. He was stronger than ever, and yet he seemed distorted as his goals had shifted, like light refracting through water. It was something even grander than true equality- and Homare believed he could do it- but it lacked the sharp-edged focus that his precise focus had held.

Rin was nothing but a knife's blade wielded by a single-minded demon with no qualms with killing. With the power of Satan backing him, well, who was to say who was actually stronger?

No, she wouldn't think such traitorous thoughts. Rin was strong, stronger than her, and could kill her, she wasn't nearly arrogant to think otherwise. But Lucifer was practically a god incarnated and held millennia of experience. What could a mere child flailing blindly with an unrefined power do against him?

Besides, if all went according to plan then soon Commander Lucifer would return to his old self. Even if Satan was really dead, surely this would help him achieve the closure he so obviously needed.

Hands steadied, Homare looked over her team one last time. No one was too injured to move, though Robert, their Tamer, was so out of it he had to be led around like a drunk. Yua could barely hold her scythe and hadn't removed the knife from her hand, instead choosing to bear with the pain with only silent tears and quiet whimpers here or there. She would probably be off duty for weeks at least. William was well enough to carry Rin's limp body, though the wound on his leg hadn't stopped seeping blood just yet. Homare herself had taken charge of Izumo personally, though the girl was clearly well and truly defeated this time.

Their one bright spot was that Rin had brought the sealing sword with him, something Renzo had warned was rare. The pink-haired teen had decided to carry it himself, clearly eyeing the absolutely ludicrous layering of seals.

Yua took a step away from Renzo when he got closer to her, but she didn't even glance at his hurt expression. Instead, she eyed the patchwork of seals around the handle of the sword with obvious distrust, "Is a seal like that even going to hold?"

Renzo shrugged, "I think?" He said, unable to really make heads or tails of the overlapping, degraded, and then repaired seals that had been carved into the sheath.

"As long as he's sedated, he won't be a threat." Homare confidently declared while privately she could only hope she was right. She didn't have any reason to assume that the tranquilizer would work as long as they had been told. Six hours could be as little as ten minutes with the level of demonic healing she was seeing: Rin wasn't even bleeding from the gunshot wound he'd received only minutes ago. "We're leaving now."

"What about the other kids?"

In theory, more hostages could be useful, but the only way to ensure their own safety was now speed. So, "Leave them. They aren't useful to us right now."

Egyn was not a fighter but instead a thinker. Of course, in that way, Mephisto was still his superior in every conceivable way: He was smarter, braver, and had just enough whimsical madness sprinkled in to keep him from becoming predictable. He knew it, Iblis knew it, hell, virtually the whole of Gehenna knew it. But the most important thing was that Mephisto knew exactly how powerful he was.

It wasn't ideal, it wasn't what he wanted, but in the end, Mephisto did have a point. If Egyn couldn't stand to look at everyone else, if he anthropophobia kept crippling him, then it really was best to get rid of the problem. It was the older brother's job to help care for their younger siblings, right? Right!?

Egyn knew his thoughts were drifting, delirious from the pain. Only a single fact kept him grounded as Mephisto dug his claw into the paste that was once Egyn's left eye: human eyes were almost entirely water.

The sigil that Egyn had painstakingly carved into the back of his retina burned as it was disturbed. Mephisto, finger buried to the knuckle in the jelly of the eye, simply couldn't react fast enough. Not when he was in direct contact with the spell, not when he had trapped a part of himself in Egyn's absolute domain: the waters of his own vessel. Simply put, even the King of Time couldn't react faster than something that was instantaneous.

Egyn turned his pain outward and the water in Mephisto's hand violently evaporated. Steam expanded, cell walls caved, blood turned to mist, and muscle and sinew shredded itself in an instant. Even when contact was broken, the damage was already done, all that was left were the results. And in that instant Egyn screamed, felt his Heart tear itself free, and he pulled everything he could feel rushing under him up.

The pain was gone, and Mephisto was halfway across the field before the ground exploded in a geyser of water as the school's irrigation system erupted. Water flowed like a reversed waterfall, a roaring a sea serpent that had been freed from the pipes so forcefully it cut through steel and air alike.

Egyn never stood a chance against Mephisto, and Mephisto had known it. So, instead of fighting a futile battle, it had been best to pretend to be prey, pretend that all his tricks had been thwarted and to let himself be humiliated, defiled, and then snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Mephisto was creative, yes, but Egyn also knew him well enough and knew he had a twisted sense of humor.

Distantly, Egyn could feel that his body had become something other. With horns of coral and the glassy eyes of a shark, with scales and fins and hair that was more seaweed than strands, he was the cold, uncaring, abyss. Those that had crawled free from his depths would be dragged down, sink into black and-

With a deep breath, Egyn hid his Heart once more. His body shuddered as it shed its excess attributes and the water cocooning him become just a bit less defined, a bit harder to grasp in its sheer magnitude. His eyes, a pair once more, closed as the waves parted a bit and he felt the sold ground once more. It was practically raining and Egyn could feel the moisture on Mephisto's clothes, could feel his injured arms and the way they hung limp and borderline useless, and knew just how little difference such a thing would make.

But, still, "That makes two, Mephisto."

The moment was a long, stretching silence broken up only by the rush of water that circled Egyn slowly draining to something just a bit more manageable. Finally, Mephisto laughed, full of cruelty and cursed promises.

"I see, I see! I can't say I expected you to carve a sigil into your own eye, and just for me, too! Honestly, truly, I do feel flattered that you would go to such lengths! I do have to wonder exactly how much it hurt? You must have been stabbing at it this whole time from the inside out so that your precious Elixir wouldn't heal it, no?" Mephisto's lips pulled back over teeth that slotted together like jagged blades, and it certainly wasn't a smile, "No matter, this time I'll simply..ah."

Casually, Mephisto leapt away a mere moment before Amiamon's body cratered the ground where he had been moments ago. The King of Time drifted back to the ground as slow as a feather, gravity's grip hardly affecting him. In contrast, Amiamon sputtered as he flopped gracelessly over so he was no longer buried face first in the dirt and didn't do much more than twitch as he took stock of his burns and broken bones. Iblis landed between them and Egyn, beaten but the clear victor. Not that Mephisto had ever doubted her, but sometimes Amiamon could be surprising. Today just wasn't one of those times, sadly.

"I was wondering when you'd show back up, Iblis. Did you two have fun playing?" Mephisto asked, grin sharp as he already began plotting how to whip the Order into a frenzy over the attack.

Iblis, however, wasn't in the mood for games, not when she was tired and struggling to hold her concentration, "You're going to let us go, Mephisto. Otherwise…"

Iblis didn't snap her fingers or do anything equally dramatic because she didn't need too. Not when her power was her will itself and would obey her without fail. The explosion was some distance away, some mostly harmless roof corner that suddenly alit into flames and smoke. The damage would be easy enough to repair, but the threat was easy enough to understand.

Mephisto didn't flinch even as unnatural force and warmth washed over him. Instead, he turned to Amaimon's collapsed form, "You let her carve sigils around my school?"

"Sorry, I didn't notice…" The demon muttered, doing his best to drag himself up so he could at least sit, "She's probably cheating some way."

"Fire does make it easy to brand things, yes." And then, to Iblis, Mephisto cocked a brow, "And why, pray tell, should I just not kill you and eliminate the threat?"

"Because I've set them up like a dead man's switch. But you already figured that, or you would have tried to take me out." Iblis explained with a grin.

"There would be no "try", little sister. And that's hardly reason enough."

"You're right."

This time, Iblis really did snap, but that was, of course, a lie. Before she had even finished speaking, before she even began to snap, the swell of power could be felt. Egyn could feel Mephisto's rise in response, sluggish but forceful and strong, and the Demon King was simply gone. A half-moment later, the sky erupted.

Explosions were much, much, faster than most people realized. Expanding at several times the speed of sound at least, they were a pain for even Mephisto to handle. When one added in the fact that he had no idea how many bombs Iblis had laid and that they had already begun to detonate, well…He had a very messy situation.

It wasn't exactly easy accelerating his own time several hundred times over in a couple hundred picoseconds, but it also wasn't even close to impossible for someone of his caliber. It helped that he was always a fan of the motto "work smarter, not harder" and found it far more effective to cast the same spell again and again and again, having more time with each repetition. All said and done, and the world was at a stand-still for him. It was an eternity, hours captured in only a single second.

He only had a quarter of that to stop any real damages. Even less if he wanted to prevent damages to himself.

Normally, sigils could be easily neutralized by simply destroying them. But in this case, destruction was the goal, and doing so would just accelerate the process. And so, when faced with the first tiny brand burned into a brick, Mephisto simply pulled the brick free, careful to avoid the shining heat. He might not be able to properly feel the heat- thermal transmission still required time to pass, after all- but that didn't mean that he needed to do any more damage to his once beautiful hands. Any more and even he would struggle to heal without creating so much degradation that it looped right back to damage.

Iblis had been sloppy with her application, otherwise, she would have chosen better targets, keystones that Mephisto couldn't simply pluck free and gather up in a whimsical train of attempted arson that followed him to and fro. The real question was what he was supposed to do with the bombs. He had plenty of methods to hide away such unsightly things, but the strain of multi-tasking like that was…unwise. It wouldn't do to lose his concentration and fail.

With the light from the unfolding explosions growing incrementally stronger with every few "minutes" that passed for him, he knew he was simply going to have to make do. So, he settled for simply sending the bombs high, high, into the sky, as high as he could manage currently, so far up that even their collective strength would be dispersed well before it could reach the group and the fragile humans below. It might become a bit windier and a lot brighter for a few moments, but that was acceptable. He needed the rest of his strength to change his outfit from the rather rumpled (tattered, ripped, destroyed and bloody) mess that it was into something a bit more presentable.

He approached Shiro's frozen form, caught mid-order and decided on his more formal attire. The double-breasted coat, the lack of his whimsical cape and ridiculous hat made for a honestly stuffy ensembles, but it would be enough to signal to Shiro that things were a bit more serious. Serious enough that even Mephisto had decided to sit up straight for once. He would shut up and follow Mephisto's lead.

Shiro had had a sinking feeling that things were going to get worse the moment that that strange creature had appeared. It was something that had hurt Rin, something that's mere existence had clearly upset Mephisto, and he had no idea what it was. Shiro had refused to leave the True Cross campus for anything that wasn't absolutely necessary, not when he simply knew that something was brewing. It hadn't been very hard when he had personally headed the investigation, but as things settled and their leads continued to be dead ends, the pressure was starting to mount for him to give the job to someone else.

He wasn't sure if he was glad that things had spun out of control before he had to really fight to stay.

No, he was very glad that he was here to oversee the response team personally when Mephisto had sent out the alert before charging in himself. Some gun-ho idiots had wanted to get in the middle of a brawl between no less than three Demon Kings, probably more, as if they would do anything other than become paste! They were so ready to prove themselves or fight demons for the sake of it, and yet they forgot, no, they didn't even consider the completely innocent civilian children all around them. He knew that he wasn't exactly one to talk considering how he used to be, but you would think that it would be easier to remember when there were a dozen teenagers screaming their heads off after the ground started to shake.

Evacuations were important if only to limit possible hostages and to limit outside scrutiny. And frankly, Shiro just didn't like his chances against some very angry Demon Kings when he was so ill-prepared. There simply wasn't a reason to run headfirst into danger when he knew damn well Mephisto would jealously guard the school. And maybe he wanted to take the chance to find Rin and Yukio before they got dragged into a fight and Rin would have to-

Anyway, he knew that Yukio would be by Rin's side, making sure he didn't run around on what should have been a completely destroyed ankle where just anyone could see. And Yukio would have the common sense to run, and Rin wouldn't fight running away simply because that boy worried so much about his brother it frankly wasn't healthy. He would trust that they would keep each other safe, safer than the panicked students who had no idea what was happening. They at least knew what they were running away from.

Shiro scanned the crowd once more for the twins but couldn't see them. Well, he would just have to assume that no news was good news and push on.

"We need to-"

Suddenly he was looking straight down at the ground, a hand in his hair firmly keeping him from instinctively jerking away. He might have fought more if there hadn't been a sudden feeling of wrongness, and suddenly the world was far too bright.

Explosion, Shiro realized. But he was pretty sure that it was above them…?

He already knew who had decided to suddenly manhandle him, and he jerked away from Mephisto's grasp. The questions he had died in his throat as he saw the demon's attire, made all the more striking by the ball of fire high above and behind him. A warm wind washed over them, and there was no cape to dramatically sway, no hat to keep his hair in place, nothing but a long coat.

"Mephisto…?" Shiro questioned, throat dry as he did his best to not worry about the frankly horrifying implications of the fading fireball in the sky.

"I see you're having fun, Shiro," Mephisto said and threw an arm over Shiro's shoulders, pulling him uncomfortably close.

Shiro very nearly fell over when the friendly arm turned into nearly all of Mephisto's weight as the demon used him as a human crutch as much as he could without actually slumping. In fact, he was using their height difference as a reason to lean over just a little bit, to hide weakness behind friendship as if it were a shield.

How typical.

"I'm sure you're wondering about what that noise was all about?" Mephisto began, loud enough that the Exorcists rubbing spots from their eyes could hear, but not so loud that it would seem intentional, "Dear Iblis decided to leave us several parting gifts scattered around the school for us to find. Don't worry, I made sure to clean all of them up as part of my duties as headmaster!"

Even if he was an Honorary Knight within the order, that didn't mean Mephisto was well liked. He was valuable, yes, but there was a difference between being valuable- being a resource- and being a proper ally. Weakness wasn't an option for someone like him, so he would pretend to be fine, remind them all of his usefulness, and then hide himself away and lick his wounds. Shiro understood well enough that he didn't complain to being a living crutch and instead squared his shoulders to bear it. Things with Iblis must have gone much worse than expected, but he could get proper answers later.

"You call that shit a 'parting gift'!?" An angry brunet man screeched, angrily pointing slightly to the left of where Mephisto stood and rubbing at his eyes, "What the hell, that was like a damn nuclear bomb!"

"I believe you're drastically underestimating the strength of a nuclear bomb, good sir." Mephisto replied steadily and like he was address an idiotic but cute child. "But there is much to do now that Iblis is gone! An attack on a prestigious institution like this is unforgivable, and we can't take this lying down, can we-"

"DAD!"

At the sound of Yukio's panicked voice, Shiro turned so fast he felt Mephisto get thrown from his shoulder. He ignored the shouting and ran forward, screaming at his own men as they raised their arms against the rapidly approaching Cat Sídhe. A rational part of him knew that they were all already spooked so their reaction only made sense, but the larger, angry, part of him only knew that his child was screaming and scared, and oh, was Yukio crying?

"Dad! Dad, I'm sorry!" Yukio babbled as he slid off Kuro's back, shaking so badly his legs nearly failed him. When Shiro was close enough, Yukio practically threw himself into his arms, sobbing, "I'm sorry, I'm so, so, so, sorry!"

"Yukio, Yukio, calm down, I need you to breath." Shiro soothed, ignoring the incredulous looks he was getting. All that mattered was that Yukio wasn't ok, that something had spooked him so badly he couldn't stop shaking.

The lack of Rin was telling, but Shiro needed to know for sure.

"That's it, breathe in, then out." Shiro guided as steadily as he could. Even if these breathing exercises were originally meant for a certain someone's anger (someone who wasn't here, he was-) they were easy enough to adapt to panic. Yukio very much wasn't calm, but he only trembled the slightest bit now and not the full body shakes that looked like they would break him to pieces.

Shiro had to know.

"Now, what happened?"

Yukio took a breath. And then another, shakier than the last, but it seemed to ground him for just a moment.

"Some people took Rin! They shot him and took him, and I couldn't stop it!"

I have no excuses, but happy pandemic everyone!