Disclaimers Apply. I do not own Ao no Exorcist, only this story plot.

Ad Captandum

Chapter 16

Assiah

Yukio stormed into the monastery, flinching when he noticed a few patrons look up scowling at the noisy entrance. He inclined his head in apology before continuing on his hunt. He slid past the pews, altar, and into the side-door that headed towards the hallway that eventually led to their living quarters. It was simpler to just go around the entire monastery and enter the back, where the kitchen was, but Yukio found his patience running short.

Besides, Shiro's office was on the hallway. Yukio rapped his knuckles on the wooden door before stepping in regardless. Shiro looked up from the paperwork covering his desk, beads clacking with the movement. Behind his tinted glasses, Yukio could see Shiro focus momentarily on his face, sigh, and return his gaze to the papers.

Furious, Yukio stood, refusing to tap his feet and cross his arms and betray his anger as he waited. A hanging clock mocked Yukio with each moment that passed, the soft ticking accompanying the shuffle of papers and occasional clack of beads.

When Shiro finished the stack and moved to touch another, Yukio slammed his hand down on it before he could draw a sheaf. "Stop ignoring me!" Yukio demanded, ire steadily building even as he fought to maintain his calm appearance.

Shiro looked at him coolly, unfazed. "Let go," Shiro ordered, and Yukio pressed his lips together before complying, for once grateful that the sleeves of his school uniform was too long, hiding his clenched fists.

Shiro drew a sheet and Yukio fumed. "What is your problem?" Yukio asked hotly. "Why won't you let me take the exam? It's almost here and I already missed the last one because of -" he stopped himself short, not missing the way Shiro's hands stilled before resuming. "Don't tell me I'm not qualified." Yukio laughed shortly at the thought. "Even Shura agrees that I am, and her praising me is just as likely as getting her to wear a shirt that actually covers her stomach!"

His temper was always quick to come and as quick to go, explosive in its nature, though he'd gotten better at reining it in. Even as he spoke the fire that had burned in his veins cooled enough that Yukio realized something was off about Shiro. It felt strange, like he was watching a mountain that had stood for eons finally crumble bit by bit, helpless to stop it. Shiro was as expressionless as would be expected of a man of his status, and the uneasy feeling in Yukio's stomach grew.

He watched as Shiro carefully set aside his pen, fingers coming to rest on top his desk, splayed. Finally, Shiro looked up at Yukio. "What do you want me do?" Shiro asked, momentarily throwing Yukio off his stride from the blunt question.

Fumbling, Yukio said, "I want you to stop babying me. I'm ready to take the exam, and you won't let me!"

"I can't!" Shiro yelled, squeezing his eyes shut and drawing his face into his hands, the beads clacking in the sudden silence that followed. Yukio felt his heart in his throat as he watched Shiro, speechless. "You can't ask that of me! I've already lost one son, and now you want me to throw the other into the fire?"

Even as he spoke, Yukio thought his own words were too cruel to be said. "You're going to hold me back because of your feelings? This is bigger than me and you. The longer you keep me here, the longer Rin stays in Gehenna, the worse it all gets!"

As always, speaking Rin's name hurt them both. Shiro's shoulders drew up, stiff, and Yukio's previous anger returned in spades. "I don't care!" Yukio said. "I just want to bring nii-san back, and here you are holding me down because of fear!"

Shiro was still, before he let his hands drop, and no longer was he the sharp-toothed cheeky priest that had raised Rin and Yukio. The Paladin stared Yukio down, face betraying nothing. It jarred Yukio to see the sudden shift from despair to apathy. "You think you're ready? You're a fool. This is a job, an obligation. The moment you sign that contract you've sold your soul. No longer will you be allowed to be just a teenage human boy. You're immature, short-tempered, and arrogant, all qualities looked down upon for an exorcist to have. Go back to your lessons." Shiro dismissed him, ignoring the angry flush that bloomed on Yukio's face.

The teen waffled for a second, torn between arguing his case and seeing the inevitably of it. Shiro would not change his mind, and Yukio was above fighting a hopeless cause. Scowling fiercely, Yukio bowed in a mockery of respect and left, fighting the urge to slam the door behind him.

Yukio was tempted to storm into his room, pack his things, and take the exam with or without Shiro's permission, but respect was deeply ingrained into Yukio, and so he dropped onto Rin's bed and covered his face with his hands, yanking his glasses away and uncaring if they broke.

Shiro just didn't understand. Yukio needed to do this. He needed to move on, to pass the exam - which he knew he'd do, he'd trained for years - and work towards his goal. Saving Rin. Every moment wasted was one Rin had to spend in hell, under the thumb of Satan, life precariously in danger. Yukio understood- no, that wasn't the right word. Yukio could see where Shiro was coming from, he wasn't absolutely heartless after all, but he could not understand how Shiro could just hold Yukio back from reaching his potential because of something as fickle as fear.

His watch beeped by his ear, and Yukio sighed resignedly. It was time for his exorcist training. Dragging himself up, Yukio changed from his school uniform into something not so different (Rin would tease him, he knew, but he honestly didn't care for fashion) and left the monastery without meeting anyone, taking the back door and then winding through alleys until he made it to the gun range the True Cross had claimed.

It was a dingy affair accessible only through a hole-in-the-wall's basement door and two floors down. The first two were used for training in close-combat, and typically were occupied by Knights and Tamers seeking to practice their skills. The third was the gun range, and the fourth and final floor was reserved for storage of supplies.

He was a few minutes late. It was rare for him to be late at all, but Shura had made it a habit to appear only ten to twenty minutes after their lesson had supposedly started, so Yukio had hope she'd be none the wiser.

The moment he set foot on the floor and spotted her fiery hair and equally excited, stretched shit-eating grin, Yukio groaned and closed his eyes for a moment. "Of course the one day I'm late, you're on time," he complained, already irritated by the look on her face.

Shura threw her head back and laughed, long tendrils of red hair bouncing with her joy. "Nyahaha! It's not my fault yew can't read a clock, moley four-eyes! Now, what to punish yew with, hm?' Shura asked, sitting cross-legged on the table supporting the tennis ball machine. She patted the side of the machine contemplatively and grinned. "Ah know."

She reached around the machine to the tub holding the balls and upended it. Yukio watched in mounting disbelief as the green balls bounced harmlessly across the hall and as Shura tugged the drawstring of a bag beside her.

The brown bag was bulging and huge, resting on the floor but long enough to reach the top of the table. Yukio's eyes widened when Shura's blood-red nails withdrew something dark green and round, marred by irregular patterns. His breath caught when she laughed, tossing the ball up with one hand. As it came back down, it turned round and Yukio realized it was a hobgoblin. The bag was filled with hobgoblins!

They were quiet, large eyes closed into slits that spread across their faces and wings tucked in. Shura laughed delightedly as she bounced one up and down before tossing it into the bin, where it rolled restlessly around. Two, three, four more were thrown in, until it was a veritable mountain of demons resting in the bin.

"Alright, there yew go. Go stand over there and get ready." Shura said absentmindedly as she leaned over with a felt-tipped marker. Shura began to draw on the top of the barrel, and Yukio hurriedly stood on the far end of the hall, facing the machine and watching with squinted eyes as he made out a sigil from her doodles. The moment he realized what it was for, Shura was already cackling and powering the machine up. It hummed and whirred for a few moments and Yukio hurriedly released the clasps on his guns, tugging them out and loading them in the few seconds he had before the machine began spitting hobgoblins out at him.

Swallowing the sudden rise of fear, Yukio calmly clicked the safety back and aimed steadily as the machine, set on high, began shooting out demon after demon, awakened from their forced slumber by the sigil and snarling at the sudden force from being ejected from the machine.

They're from the kingdom of Earth, but they're low-level so simple holy water-coated bullets will work. With that thought Yukio aimed and shot, piercing each hobgoblin between its enraged eyes to ensure its exorcism. The more demons he destroyed, the more bursts of dusts fogged the air, making it harder to aim accurately. Yukio prevailed, angrily sighting each demon down and killing it mercilessly.

When the last one came snarling at him, Yukio found he was out of bullets. Thinking quickly, he yanked out a knife from a side-pocket and tossed it, nailing it in the forehead and deep enough to have the tip of the blade peeking out the other end. With a screech the goblin flew off course and landed to the left of Yuko, who chanted its final verse. It disappeared into a poof of air.

When he looked up he found Shura still sitting cross-legged, eyeing him warily. "What?" He demanded, holstering his guns and patting his sleeves down of demonic dust as he walked towards her, though he knew that it always dissipated.

She gestured up towards her eyes with two fingers. "Yew got a scary look going on there. What's going on?"

Her gaze was serious and focused, and Yukio resented the sudden care when all she'd done was try to aggravate him in the first place. Brushing past her, he said shortly, "It's none of your business."

"So cold!" She cried, laughing. "Yew'll never gunna get a gurlfriend being that way!"

"I don't have time for girls anyways!" Yukio shouted back, incensed. Shaking his head, he let go of his anger. "It's nothing, Shura. I was just frustrated by something. I'll see you next week," he added, hoping the dismissal would let him get away.

"Hmm," Shura said, singing the tune and still watching him. "Next week it is, four-eyes."

_-/-_

Yukio tapped the end of his pencil against the desk rhythmically, focusing only enough to follow the teacher's lecture. He knew all of it already, having reviewed the material the day before. He caught the glare of one of his classmates and firmly set his pencil down. Moments later his knee bounced under his desk, expelling the pent up energy.

It was the last class of the day, but it seemed to be dragging. He sighed, the sound muffled by the palm of his hand as he bent into his arm. Even though he and Rin had stopped being in the same class once middle school started, he'd only gotten used to going to school without Rin recently. He nibbled on his lip contemplatively.

The bell rung, and the teacher wrapped up his lesson before writing out the day's homework that Yukio diligently noted in his planner, the small notebook always present.

"Man, that took forever, eh Okumura-kun?" His classmate, Tadashi, groaned, sitting sideways in his chair and tilting back so that it hit Yukio's. It jarred his pen, drawing an erratic line and Tadashi hissed apologetically. "Sorry, man."

"Don't worry about it," Yukio said, smiling politely and capping his pen. He shuffled his things into his bag, mildly ignoring his chatting neighbor.

"And so we - that is Tsukasa, Ryuuji, and me - we were thinking of going to that new karaoke place. You know which one we're talking about? The one on the corner of 5th and 1st!"

"I'm sorry Tadashi-kun, but I have to go meet my uncle. My dad insists." Yukio pushed back from his desk and stood, grip tightening on his bag.

"Oh, the one who took in your brother? Guess you can't help it, then. Maybe next time, okay?"

"Yes, next time for sure," Yukio lied, turning away. The rest of the class had already filed out, and he slid the door open.

"Okumura-kun!"

Yukio turned back. Tadashi was still sitting sideways, face turned towards him and away from the windows, features shadowed by the sun at his back. Yukio could barely make out the hesitant grin he wore. "Don't be a stranger, okay? We're...we're worried about you."

Sure you are, Yukio thought bitterly, but smiled all the same, eyes crinkling with the gesture. "There's nothing to worry about, lighten up!" He huffed a soft laugh to break the building tension, and Tadashi lit up.

"Yea, you're right. Yea, yea, you know how we get. Overthinking and stuff. See you later, then?"

"See you later," Yukio agreed, waving and then leaving.

The school was mostly empty then, aside from the odd student rushing to get to their clubs. Yukio got a pass to be exempt from the mandatory club activities, but only because Shiro had gone to explain the nature of their business. His training was considered educational activity enough so that the school relented, though the principal had nervously extracted a deal from Shiro to scour the premises for demons.

It wasn't common knowledge, really, that demons existed, and while the Vatican didn't go out of their way to hide their existence, they didn't try to tell everyone either. So the common folk were left in a strange limbo of myth and legend, and with the onset of technology most people believed the "viral images" of actual demons were doctored.

Overall, it made the exorcists' jobs easier, since they didn't have to cater to the public's many fears but still got leeway with government officials, since the Vatican transcended political and geographic boundaries. It was a good deal and they weren't eager to change it.

Yukio adjusted the strap of his bag as he tugged out his shoes and set them down, briefly thinking of Rin, who would probably just drop the shoes on the ground. Lips tilting up softly, he toed off his indoor shoes, replaced them with his regular ones, and tapped his toes to settle the sole.

A glance at his wristwatch told him he was on time, so he didn't rush as he left the school's premises, nodding genially towards the school teacher on guard at the gate. The bus stop was a block or so down the way, in the opposite direction of the monastery and towards the incline of the mountain their city rested on.

The bus stop was empty as this time of day - reasonably, since most people would be heading back from working in the upper districts rather than going towards. It wasn't late enough for night shifts yet, either, so Yukio enjoyed a quite ride in the bus towards the train terminal.

Similarly, when he disembarked, he found few going through the turnstiles. It suited him well enough, since by nature he didn't particularly like crowds. Where people gathered, demons tended to congregate, too, and Yukio didn't want any unneeded stress now. He swiped his rarely used train pass and grinned when his habitual meticulous planning paid off. His train was just pulling in, the screech of metal loud in the absence of a crowd.

In a strange way - and he supposed it was because he was born a twin - while he didn't like crowds, he also didn't like being alone. There was something about pure silence that unsettled him. He needed something; someone's soft breathing, the clack of train wheels rolling, the whistle of factories, to break the silence. When it was dead quiet, he retreated into his mind, twisting and turning through all the possibilities and plans.

The quiet presence of someone else, like the elderly man down the aisle, was welcoming.

Yukio closed his planner, resting it atop his messenger bag on his lap. Now that he thought about it, there was no one else but he and the old man in their car. He leaned forward to peer through the window into another car, and found it similarly empty. In fact, no one at all was in the next one. They were the last car of the train, too, and it unnerved Yukio.

It was late afternoon, sure most people wouldn't be heading towards the upper districts, but was it really just he and a lonely old man?

Yukio opened his planner and bent his head forward, fishing a pen - marked by the insignia of the order - from a side pocket in his bag and began to mindlessly scratch out characters, adding more details to his plans and allowing his glasses to slide down the bridge of his nose.

He peered sideways over the frame of his glasses, heart thumping uncertainly. Yes. Yes, there was something off about that man. He held a cane loosely between his legs, resting wizened hands on the curve of the stick. The man sat with his back ramrod straight, and was dressed in casual slacks and a button down, brown suspenders stretching up to cross on his back. He was still fairly young looking, with mostly brown hair and white beginning to bleach away color at his temples.

There was something off about the man, but Yukio couldn't see it. He felt it, and he knew he was missing some detail his brain had registered but that he couldn't see.

Suddenly, darkness enveloped the car, and Yukio watched in dismay as the mouth of the tunnel swallowed the train. Blinking rapidly, Yukio tried to adjust but was thrown backwards when hands wrapped around his neck, knocking his head against the window and his glasses loose.

"Wha-!" Yukio choked, fingers scrambling to hands around his throat.

"Little boy, what are you doing?" Warm breath puffed against his cheek, and Yukio reared back when he smelled the rotten stench of spoiled teeth. "You...you're an exorcist, aren't you?"

Yukio could dimly make-out the outline of the elderly man from before, though Yukio was doubting he was simply a man. The fingers that tightened around his neck tapered off into sharp nails that threatened to draw blood, and Yukio desperately wiggled his fingers to free his throat.

"H-how…?" He huffed, a headache beginning to pound in his temples as his vision became distorted. His glasses weren't on properly and it was dark, and even as he squinted he could still barely make out the stray hairs on the man. Where was the lighting in the train? What had made it go out? Was it the demon?

The demon clicked his tongue and roughly brought Yukio forward. He cried out in alarm at the sudden tug, and felt his breath catch when the demon leered closer, eyes so close that Yukio could distinguish his pupils, slightly glowing yellow.

"This puts a wrench in my plans, but oh well."

Yukio was about to demand what plans the demon had, but without warning the demon slammed him back roughly, snapping his head back. The edge of the window bit into his skull and Yukio cried out as his vision blurred. The demon let go and Yukio fell forward, curled into his lap and hands cradling his head.

The demon spoke more but Yukio couldn't tell the difference between his words and the steady clacking of the train's wheels. Dizzily, Yukio wondered if the train was still moving, then why they weren't out of the tunnel yet. Surely it wasn't that long?

Nausea crept up his throat, coating his tongue with saliva even as the pounding in his head continued to grow louder. He groaned, digging his fingers into his temples and shaking his head slightly. It made him dizzier, so Yukio curled in and tried to stay still.

He barely noticed when the train came to a stop.

A/N: Been a while since a cliffhanger, huh? Surprise! Haha, Yukio gets his own share of demon fighting, too. It's surprisingly harder to write Yukio than Rin, who's simple-minded.

Also, did you hear? Blue Exorcist is getting an anime reboot next year! I'm super excited! And the new volume cover featuring Shura looks amazing. I can't wait until I can write more of her 3

This chap feels really short even though its 3.5k words lol I wonder what that says about my writing...? Anyways, I hope you enjoyed! Thank you for all the reviews /

Next chapter: Yukio is cruel and a character makes a reappearance. (Very vague, yes, good)