He had felt the shift. It felt more like a terrible snap inside him than a subtle shift. And at first he was conscious of the snap and shift of the tectonic plates inside him and at first he was worried that maybe they were right and maybe he did abuse—but then… but then… the flames felt so right. They drew him in, his conscious in and he knew everything would be okay. Comfortable like a warm blanket in the winter nights and exhilarating like a splash of ice cold water in a summer afternoon and he never felt so awake in his entire life.

His body shifted, too. He could feel his features warp and his very essence fill up every new space, finally able to stretch out in this cramped human body. His nails formed claws and his already sharp canines grew into real fangs and his ears elongated and with it all his senses… his senses could actually sense. Like he'd been walking in a haze his whole life and finally could wake up and live and it was so, so amazing.

Why did he ever think to listen to them? This is what they wanted to take away from him. They wanted to take his life away.

His hand tightened around the hilt of Kurikara so that the newly developed claws dug into the palm of his hands. The steady trickle of blood felt reassuring, the bite of the nails sent his nerves into a frenzy for action. Every pulse that sent more blood pouring also demanded to have more blood—blood that wasn't his. When he grinned his teeth grazed his chapped lips and he licked that blood away before the wounds healed fully.

The demon was strong. Very strong. For an exorcist, but he wasn't an exorcist, was he? He was much more. His shoulders tensed and adrenaline built to hazardous levels, aching to leave him in bursts of fighting and slaying and this demon would be the perfect warm up.

It didn't back down and responded to his low growl with its very own.

He didn't know why the phrase was see red. All he saw was the brilliant blue of his flames. Of his heritage and power and the due respect he deserved. This meager demon would never see the depths of Gehenna again.

The demon moved. More of a twitch than a threat, and before he could raise his sword and skewer it, it already was hollering in pain and fell injured. Not dead, but not a fun toy to play with anymore. A shame. Such a shame. But.

Two specks in its shoulder. Two shots. Exorcist shots. Exorcists.

Exorcists.

He spun around to face those exorcists that stood behind him. A demon never keeps its back to an exorcist, especially this many all at once but he didn't care. He knew he could exterminate them. He knew they were no threat to a prince. He had all but forgotten about them but now…

The one sprawled across the forest floor, the one with the smoking barrel, the one who shot those bullets, the most threatening one stared back at him. Extended arm didn't even shake as the gun poised itself. Was it a warning then? A threat? For him?

Or a challenge.

His tail flicked left and right leaving a trail of flames when it moved. It felt so good not to have to keep it curled up anymore. Another grin split his lips and revealed his teeth. He swung the sword like some plaything. He wasn't scared. They knew who he was. They knew. He didn't have to say anything. Just looking at them—his eyes flickered over all of them, flickered like a flame—they scattered about around him and stared at him with wide stupid eyes.

Stupid, stupid, exorcists. Fucking dumbasses.

They were scared. Terrified. Horrified. Finally after all this time they showed their true faces just like he showed his. This was who he was meant to be. He raised his arms up in the glory of the attention. This was it; this was his show, his debut. Finally. Fucking finally.

"Rin?"

No.

"Rin, this isn't you."

It was. It was. It was always him. He wasn't—that, whoever that was before… that he was weak, but now… he was different. Better now. He took a step forward ready to enjoy the way they'd flinch at him. They way they'd back away in fear.

"Snap out of it, Okumura!"

They… they didn't?

But they…

His grin faltered. It slipped on one side and the blood-smeared lip stuck to his fang. The tension returned between his shoulders. Not the good kind, not the ready to spring kind. The bad hesitant human kind. He growled and reverberations hurt his throat.

"Don't be an idiot."

The nails embedded still into the fleshy palm of his hand stung now. It made the hilt of the sword slippery and his hand turned whiter to keep a hold. He had to keep hold. He raised it, leveling it with the heart of the big one, the more threatening of the lot. His eyes still flickered, quicker now like a candle in the wind. His other arm raised to the one with the gun aimed for his forehead. He aimed his hand, ready to fire his flames in his direction at the first flinch for the trigger.

He would be the last one standing.

"You'll regret it, Rin. Don't do it."

He shook his head just barely. He could. He could do it. He could do anything. He was the ones with the grand flames, the royal flames. He was the one with the power. And they were nothing. They were disposable and—he could…he couldn't listen to them.

"Rin," it sounded hesitant. Shaky. "I know you won't." Not from fear. He hated the sound of it and his pulse flopped at the sound of it. It hurt. Both of his hands shook and after the silence that word—name? Word.—was repeated again and again and again and he had to raise his hands and with curled fingers into fists tried to cover his ears. His damn enlongated ears and sensitive hearing and their lips weren't moving, were they?

Rin. Rin. Rin.

Were they?

A girl stepped up. He wanted to point his sword at her, he tried and it was sloppy and shaking but he was stronger than that. He knew he was stronger. Stronger than them. All of them. Than the flames that consumed him.

His chest hurt. It throbbed and it ached and his hand stung and his mouth was dry and the flames weren't comfortable. He felt hot. He was burning. He wanted to grab his chest. He couldn't grab his chest. He couldn't uncover his other ear and he couldn't let go of the sword. That'd be bad. Or good? Bad. It'd be bad. The sword and the flames and it would make everything he felt now feel better wouldn't it?

He was going to die.

His routine of watching the gun and the timid-not-timid exorcists was disrupted by this foolish girl who continued to get closer. Closer. Closer. She'd be his example. Then they'd feel his power, see he was real. Not to mess with. He was him and not who they thought.

"Rin?" Her voice was small and timid but not the kind he wanted. It was small and timid and full of… full of something else.

He stepped forward and didn't know why. He didn't know why he heard a loud bang when none of the exorcists moved in front of him or why his leg hurt or why he was screaming. Two more bangs and a gurgled wail of a demon behind him. The air was filled with screaming and not just his screams, not just the screams of demons either.

And he felt the shift. It was a definite snap this time rather than a mere shift. But it was a shift nonetheless.

Kurikara dropped and the intense heat died down and he wasn't a dead, fried corpse. His first thought, his first sane, human thought was I should be. And his vision wasn't bright blue, but scorched with the imprint of the flame's tendrils like looking out the window for too long. He saw it behind his closed eyes and the tears stung his eyes and stung his lips.

His hands were slippery with warm, wet blood and he didn't want any more blood anywhere. He never wanted blood. His stomach churned and he dry heaved and tried not to cry anymore and tried not to scream despite the screaming pain in his leg. He was shot. By—by—he screwed up his eyes and focused on the physical pain because he was shot and that's all that mattered. He was shot and they would kill him now because he just proved he was an absolute monster that couldn't be trusted and he was injured and vulnerable and that's all that mattered.

He felt other hands on him. They were gentle, not rough, like they actually cared about him. They too were warm and wet with blood and he hoped it was just his blood and only his blood because if he had actually drawn some of theirs….

His thoughts still came through a filtered haze of who he was and what he had briefly become His head hurt and swam and he still felt huge but hollow huge inside despite his body being so much more confined and his power confined and he could hear that word again on repeat—no, no a name for sure. That mattered too.

Rin.

He took a deep breath. A couple more and didn't want to open his eyes as his name filled him. He told himself keeping his eyes closed would decrease the pain and maybe he got hurt some other way then. Wasn't shot by that exo—his… well, his brother. But he knew why he wanted to stay in the dark. If he kept them closed then he wouldn't have to face the fear in what used to be his friends' eyes. Because they had to be afraid. Because he fucked up and… and… it was all Rin's fault. He hadn't listened. He hadn't listened to them and their concerns and now he scared them off and would be carted off himself and oh... Oh God. What did he do? What did he do?

"Rin!"

The hands—there were more of them now—turned him over gently and they pushed his hands away from his leg. "Can you open your eyes?"

The last thing he saw was the girl, no, no, no. She had a name and she mattered. Shiemi. The last thing he saw was Shiemi running towards him before he closed his eyes in everything that happened.

He wanted to shake his head no and say no, he couldn't and he never would again and that he wished Yukio wouldn't have pitied him and just shot him gone and then he wouldn't have to deal with facing them now because he was a damn threat to them and then they wouldn't have to be the ones to put him down like some animal. A monster. Didn't they understand that? Why did they crowd him? Why did they-!

His eyes cracked open and through the afterimage of flames, he saw their obscured faces looking down on him. All of them—Bon, Koneko, Shima, Izumo, Shiemi, and Yukio standing above them, a bit farther off from the cluster. His eyes trained on each of them and their strained expressions with wide eyes and parted lips and… and they weren't afraid.

They looked worried.

"Rin!" And now he recognized what he couldn't place before. The tone of voice hadn't been scared when she approached—it'd been worry and maybe a bit of hope. Shiemi would be the one to hope to cure him out of anyone.

And more tears sprung to Rin's eyes because after all that they weren't even scared. Or if they were then they were great damn actor. He tried to lift his arm to run his sleeve along his nose and eyes.

"Are you okay?" It was Shiemi's voice again but she no longer looked at him as she went back to work on his injury that he'd survive from. He already knew Yukio was cultivating the lies about what happened during the mission, how to explain anything out of the ordinary and it would be his way of apologizing to Rin for shooting him. And Rin already knew that he'd accept the apology and apologize with food and with words and with actions right back because Rin knew he deserved the bullet to the knee. He deserved one to the heart, really, and wished deep down that the others had been scared off from him.

"I'm sorry."

"That doesn't answer her question, Okumura," Bon said a bit too gruff for his usual voice, but it wasn't his irritated you're-an-idiot-Okumura voice either. "Answer it."

Rin closed his eyes and flexed his fingers, wiggled his tail as much as he could with his body pinning it to the ground. He took into account everything about himself with the pressure of their concerned stares. He took a deep breath and answered on the exhale. "I'm fine. I'm… I should've listened to you guys." Maybe he did abuse his powers. He relied too heavily on them and on the sword and he didn't realize how gone he had been until he was too far gone. He didn't realize the draw of potential trapped inside the sword.

Bon helped him sit up when Shiemi gave him the go ahead. Bon on one side and Izumo on the other. "We're going to carry you back to camp. Don't complain," Bon said sternly, challenging Rin to argue like he normally would but Rin felt too exhausted to do so and slurred an "I won't" together in an unmanageable mess.

They sat there though in the scorched darkness until Rin readjusted to himself more. This body still felt so foreign. It was the right one, he knew that for sure.

It was silent, not even wildlife to snap a branch or call out into the night after his little episode to scare them away for good.

"We uh, we uh know you didn't mean to. Do that, I mean. You were… you're still Rin," Konekomaru said and even though it was just a whisper, it filled the entire forest and it filled a little of the void that was Rin's psyche and soul. Rin glanced over at the boy and saw he held Kurikara and Rin flinched at the sight of the sword even with it all wrapped up in scabbard and shoulder bag and would not burst into flame and burst him into flames at any moment. It was just… he'd never gone that far before and he was… scared of himself.

All he had wanted to do was protect them. That was why he found his exposed back to all of them. His anger already boiled from their impromptu pre-mission intervention on his reliance on his flames and how they weren't a crutch for him to use and get out of studying and hard work. He laughed it off and got angry at them. And Yukio had been thrown to the ground and they were being over powered and he only used his flames when in a tight situation and it was all for the good. It was all supposed to be fine. He meant to save them because his flame and sword were the only option in his tunnel vision of the fight lest they die.

Rin nodded and tried to sit up further. His tongue ran over the ridges of his teeth to test their size and sharpness before he even dared open them into a hesitant, tired smile. "Thanks."

Konekomaru smiled right back and stood up as the others helped Rin to his feet.

"I promise," he paused and winced putting too much pressure on his injured leg. "I promise it won't happen again."

Bon and Izumo strung their arms underneath Rin's and supported his back so they were his crutches.

"Yeah, yeah," Shima waved his staff flippantly like it was a casual conversation and Rin only said something stupid and sarcastic and didn't almost kill them and definitely threatened them. And then Shima grinned as well.

They were his crutches. Not his flames. And Rin didn't deserve either.

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Sorry, this semester has been stressful and busy with classwork. But I'm glad I put this piece off to post. The first version came off too robotic and so I scrapped it completely and hammered this out instead. The idea was conceived by listening to and heavily inspired by The Draw by Bastille hence the title.

But yeah, got an extra-long one-shot to make up for the time lapse of no updates. It's grittier but it was also real fun to write so I hope you enjoyed it. And I hope Rin temporarily losing it comes off as a plausible thing that could happen?

Also, to conclude this abnormally long author's note: I have another chapter all written up that I'm tweaking and will probably let sit for a bit. If any of you have any kind of ideas for this series, you are welcome to suggest them. And at some point I'll have a separate one-shot coming out that user: A Chance to Fly gave me an idea for, so if you want, keep your eyes peeled for that.

Thank you, and until next time.