Chapter 11

Greetings humans, I apologize for the late update, but here it is. For your information I will still need more OCs for the teachers, and there's not many chapters between this and true cross…I think. Also, for clarity, the sword Rin's demon heart is sealed in is called both Kurikara and the koma sword depending on the dub, so I'm using both names.

"Speech"

Thought

"Telepathy"

'Familiar bond'

Rin watched as his foster father left and closed the trapdoor, and there was a scraping sound as the pulpit was placed atop it once more. Immediately the sound from outside the room drastically dropped. He frowned, uneasy at the loss of his senses. After a tense silence for a few moments he quietly turned to his twin, "What do you think is happening up there?"

Yukio flinched at the unexpected noise, "I'd say they are doing everything they can. The dragons are loose and either defending the walls or trying to maintain a perimeter around the monastery if the demons have gotten in. Otherwise I really don't know."

Rin shifted nervously looking at the sheathed blade that supposedly held his demonic powers. What am I supposed to do? You better survive old man, we need to have a talk about how you lied to me my whole life.

After a time, perhaps minutes or perhaps hours, they heard, or rather felt, vibrations as if some massive force had slammed into the ground, and the brothers looked at each other with dread. Rin took kurikara and leaned it on a wall, pulling the last sword from the cupboard, unsheathing it. He felt a brief flash of awe at all the runes along the blade, presumably a number of enchantments. After a moment Rin slowly pushed his magic into the blade to get a feel for the strength of them. The runes glowed the same blue as his flames, unnerving Rin, but the sword held his magic incredibly well. He swung it a couple times to get the feel of its weight and balance, mindful of where his brother was.

"Yukio. They are up against a demon king. The king is after me. We have to help them." Rin said as he sheathed the blade, strapping it to the left side of his waist.

Yukio looked at his brother, "But we aren't exorcists, we don't have the training, if arc knights can only stall there really is nothing we could do. I know what you are thinking but we can't help them."

Rin gave his brother a grim smile, "Are you sure about that? They want me alive. They want to bring me to Gehenna. So he would need to be careful not to hurt me, right?"

Yukio's eyes widened as he thought about it. "...Maybe, but demons are not the same as humans, even if they don't mean to, they could accidentally paralyze or even kill you, simply due to how much stronger they are."

"But wouldn't he know that? Besides he fought me a little earlier and I'm still standing." Rin stared his brother in the eyes, willing him to understand.

Yukio sighed fondly. "Since when do you make convincing arguments?"

Rin grinned, "Yeah, I know. It's weird." He turned, and grabbed the Koma sword, slinging the strap over his shoulder and head so it went across his back from his left shoulder to his right hip. Then he walked up the steep set of stairs to the trapdoor. He planted his shoulder against it pushing. Rin blinked in surprise at its lack of movement. "Yukio, mind giving me a hand? It's stuck."

Yukio frowned as he walked over, "Yeah, he pushed the pulpit back over it." Yukio put his hands on the door and tried to help his brother push and they found themselves surprised at its continued resistance. He stepped down a step and started looking around the room.

"What are you doing?" Rin asked his brother, confused.

"He said the room was enchanted, that may mean it is enchanted to stay closed as well like that cupboard was. If we can find how it was enchanted, maybe we can break it and get out to help."

"You know enchantments aren't exactly my specialty Yukio."

"But I am great at them," Yukio frowned. "So why did Shiro resort to that method to keep us from getting out…?"

"I don't think he intended to lock you in here with me, or maybe he thought I couldn't convince you to help me escape until after the fight was over," Rin speculated. "I will keep pushing, you look for any runes that may be glowing." Rin put his hands back on the trapdoor, letting a small amount of magic enhance his strength. He stood there for a minute, pushing fruitlessly against the trap door, focused on maintaining a steady flow of magic, not too much, just enough to have opened the door if the enchantment wasn't there to hold it shut.

"Rin! I found it!"

Rin relaxes jumping from the stairs beside his brother. Yukio points at the hinges on the trap door, and the surrounding wood showing faint lines etched into it. Rin asks his brother, "So, do you know how to disable them?"

Yukio frowned, "I honestly don't know. I think I can reverse the effects or at least destabilize it causing some kind of reaction. But the reaction could be blowing up and killing us."

Rin nods. "Ok, I trust you." Yukio grabbed some chalk from one of the drawers and began drawing a circle over a large portion of the floor, a complex pattern emerging within it. Rin didn't fully understand what he'd done, but after tense silence, and Yukio pushing magic into the circle, the runes glowed brightly before they fizzled out.

Yukio stepped back, waiting for something to happen. When nothing happened, he let out a weak, "Tada."

"See, I don't get why you were so worried,"

"We could have exploded Rin."

He shrugged. "I understand, but we both have Mana Skin all but mastered, if there was some reaction we could have probably survived it with that."

Yukio sighed. "No, actually, we probably wouldn't have. We may have a lot of magic for our age, but even Dad's magic falters against demons from time to time. The monastery is situated over a ley line, that's way more magic than any demon has."

Rin smiled sheepishly as he scratched the back of his neck, "Oh… right."

Yukio sighs. "It's too late now. Let's go save our family." Yukio loaded his pistol and unsheathed his sword in his off hand.

Rin nodded climbing the stairs, and with a push on the trapdoor upends the pulpit. As soon as the door opened he felt magic thick in the air, the tang of copper on his tongue, and the scent of smoke. There's a pulse of magic and he is filled with a sense of despair not his own, and hears a voice in his head calling in agony, "Killed-mine-killed-him-kill-you-kill-me!"

Rin's eyes widened taking in the destruction of the monastery, the rubble of the front wall, and Izumi's still form not far away.

"Rin, we need to go!" Yukio shouted over the sounds of battle, pointing outside where Nautilus' corpse collapsed with a loud thud. Rin turned and he snarled and charged, pointing his sword at the white haired demon boy running from the corpse for Father Fujimoto, and let his magic flow like he never had intentionally before. Allowing his flames to burn consciously for the first time in years.

Astaroth screamed as he was ignited by the blue flames. All the exorcists turned to look at Rin in horror.

"RIN OKUMURA" Shiro called, "IF WE SURVIVE TODAY YOU ARE GROUNDED FOR LIFE!"

Then he heard the telltale sound of Yukio's guns and added, "YOU TOO YUKIO!"

Rin kept running for the Demon King. "If that's the price to keep you alive I'll take it. He wants me alive, so he will need to be careful to avoid killing me. He can't use his magic on me." Rin slashes at the demon's head only for it to backpedal. "I will distract it, you use his fatal verse!"

Astaroth growled, catching the sword in his hand, the blade barely cutting through the skin, but then Rin's knee crashed into his face. Rin heard a gunshot behind him and a bullet struck Astaroth's ankle, further destabilizing the demon's stance, and Rin pushed his magic through his feet, allowing twin jets of azure flame propel him forward, driving the king to his back.

"Brother, I am trying to help you, get off of me, we can play later." Astaroth grabbed Rin's ankle and threw him up in the air. Sylvia's claws wrapped gently around him about 30 feet up.

Rin looks to Sylvia, "get me back down there."

She growls at him, "You have no clue what you're dealing with here, we are being torn apart, there's nothing you can do to stop him!"

"All the more reason for me to be down there!. You need all the help you can get right now, he won't kill me on purpose unlike all of you, that makes me the perfect distraction."

"I don't care! We wouldn't be able to live with ourselves if you got hurt!"

Rin pushed on her talons, attempting to force her to drop him. "How do you think I feel? Astaroth is here for me, and he's going to kill all of you to get to me! And you are all going to die because of me!"

Sylvia's shock at the raw emotion in Rin's voice caused her grip to slacken, allowing his superhuman strength to push her talons open enough for him to slip out and fall towards the ground.

Rin watched as Astaroth leaped for him, ignoring the fire dragon attacking him from behind in his bid to catch Rin before he hit the ground. Rin swung his sword, aiming to take the king's head from his shoulders, but Astaroth simply grabbed Rin's wrist, and pulled him close as Astaroth landed on the ground hard, taking all the impact.

Rin started punching Astaroth in the face as hard as he could, even allowing the magic to spill out from his skin, igniting his fist in blue, however Astaroth hardly even noticed the punches, as he danced back away from Maruta's flames.

As a gunshot rang out Astaroth screamed in pain as he stumbled back dropping Rin. Not missing a beat, Rin slashed at the back of Astaroth's knees, and although the blade failed to cut through the king was driven off balance. In anger he pointed at the paladin, and a blast of magic hit his arm, which began to rapidly decay, only for Pyro to dive forward, biting the disintegrating arm off and letting a small puff of flame cauterize the wound. Pyro turned back to the battle, the smell of ash, rot, and burnt flesh in the air.

Rin stabbed at the king, using all his strength, practically tackling the king, even though the blade was the only thing that hit, and the tip drew a drop of blood from his shoulder, before a torrent of fire traveled across the blade and against the demon.

Astaroth grimaced and grabbed the blade, and with a pulse of magic it rusted to dust. Rin ignored the flash of fear that his magic and the enchanted blade was overpowered so easily, and headbutted the demon, who reeled back from the unexpected blow.

"Enough, little brother." Astaroth grabbed Rin's head and slammed it into the ground, dazing him.

When the world stopped spinning, he saw Astaroth holding up Father Fujimoto by the throat. The next second proceeded so slowly, and yet, so quickly. As Rin's mind raced to figure out how to stop Astaroth, and he started scrambling forward he watched, as if in slow motion, yet helpless to do anything, as Astaroth threw the limp Paladin at the church, and he fell, still-so-still, to the ground. Unconscious-not-dead and Sylvia screams, and everyone but Rin and her freezes, too-scared-can't-stop-won't-stop, and he draws Kurikara, and somehow, in his mind more than in reality, he hears paper tearing, then all he sees was blue.

Review response

ShadowWolf223: thank you, I try, but I apparently don't try very hard to void cliffhangers. oops.