A/N: Well, here we are. I was lovingly pushed to write 500 words more or less every day, and it helped pull this chapter out this past month.

Please see the end of the chapter for the rest of the notes. Otherwise, enjoy!

Chapter Thirty: Nehme dein Schicksal selbst in deine Hand

(Take Your Destiny into Your Own Hands)

.

Waking up was slow. He didn't even understand the concept of it until the indistinct shapes of dim light and darkness winked out and then back into existence, and he thought oh, that was a blink, and then, oh, I'm waking up. Another blink, and he was suddenly aware that there was more of him, absurdly heavy. The extent of his weight felt odd, though he couldn't pin down an actual time as to when he hadn't felt so dragged down. He blinked, tugged a little on his eyes, and the indistinct shapes of light brightened and sharpened. It hurt. He groaned, the sound vibrating up his throat and into the slightly open cavern of his mouth.

"Rin?" The voice was familiar. "Rin, are you awake?"

A hand on his forehead. It was cold. It was nice. Rin hadn't realized that he felt so warm. He turned his head to chase the cold, a soft sound vibrating thin at the back of his throat.

"Rin?"

Rin's eyes stayed closed, head pressed into the other's hand.

"Are you ready to wake up yet, big brother?"

Rin thought about that. Waking up. He was so heavy, though, so tired still, and the light was so bright when he had tried to open his eyes. With a small, soft sigh, he let go of all the tension in his body and nuzzled into the other person. His brother. He had a brother? It seemed right, that he had a brother. Comfortable.

There was a span of near silence, broken only by a lulling thu-thud thu-thud thu-thud that eased slower bit by bit, and then another hand was smoothing the hair from off his face. Rin sighed again, felt a smile on his lips.

"Okay, Rin," his brother said. "You can sleep, it's okay. Sleep as long as you need to."

Rin slipped back down.

.

The next time he woke, he was lighter than before. When he cracked open his eyes, it was dark enough that it didn't hurt. Blinking slowly, he let his eyesight adjust to the levels of darkness and stared up at the ceiling. It looked—old, almost. Wooden. There were spiderwebs clinging to the corners, sweeping between the small beams separating the ceiling into tiles. They glinted silver in moonlight. Rin turned his head. The effort it took was more than it should, he knew, but his mind was too muzzy to focus on why he knew that. It took him a couple moments to take in the open window, partially obscured by a fan blowing air into the room.

The room. It wasn't a room he'd ever been in before, Rin thought. Or at least, he didn't ever remember being in this room before. He didn't remember that fan, metal gleaming around the edges of its curves. He didn't remember the spiderwebs. Or the blanket on top of him. Or anything. He remembered a room with two bunk beds. Another room that had just the one—that memory fills him with a kind of vague longing that he doesn't know what to do with. Neither of those rooms were this one, not with him on the ground on a futon.

He made a noise of displeasure and dragged his arms up his body. It was hard. It was so, so hard. Tears welled up in his eyes, and he actually cried out loud when he finally got his hands up on his chest, tired fingers curled up against his collarbone. They burned. It burned. It burned like pins and needles digging through his skin and scraping against the bones at the core of his arms.

There was a rustling next to him, then a click and a soft yellow light. Rin stilled in fear before he heard, "Rin? Rin, what's wrong?"

His brother's voice gave him the strength to turn his head over to the other side and yes—there he was, sitting up from where he had been leaning against the wall, shirt rumpled and eyes tired. Rin opened his mouth and managed to say, "Yukio."

"What's wrong, Rin?" Yukio asked, hands stretching out to gently soothe over Rin's forehead. He was still blissfully cool, and something about that seemed off. Strange. Why was Rin so warm? "Can you tell me what's wrong?"

"Hurts," Rin said. He tried to move his arms again and cried out. Yukio shushed him, smoothed his palm over Rin's forehead.

"I know, I know," Yukio said. "You pushed yourself too hard. You just have to rest."

That was distressing. Rin whined, closed his eyes. Then he remembered the room, the strange room they were in, and opened his eyes to ask, "Where?"

"We're safe," Yukio said, like that answered the question. He slowly slid his hand over Rin's eyes, like they were in Preschool again and the teacher was trying to make them take their midday nap. He was a teacher, Rin remembered. What an overachiever. "Sleep, Rin. We're safe."

He wanted to ask more questions. He opened his mouth to do so, but the darkness was so inviting, Yukio's hand was so cool, that the thoughts drained out of his head like melted butter through a sieve, the vestiges of them clinging to the corners of his mind without substance. Finally even they dissipated, drowned under the heavy weight of sleep.

.

There was something cooking. Rin's eyes snapped open once the smell registered. His stomach grumbled seconds later, and it occurred to him that he didn't remember the last time he'd eaten.

He pushed himself up to a sitting position. The thin, heat-resistant blanket slid down to his lap, pooling over and between his legs when they bent to help him up. His whole body ached, dull, like he'd spent an entire day hell-training with Shura. It made him want a hot bath despite the oppressive summer heat he was practically swimming in.

"Oh," Yukio said. He was crouched next to a portable gas stove, which had a sizzling pan on it. There was an empty bag of frozen fried rice next to his leg. "You're up."

"Hey," said Rin. His voice cracked, and he reddened a little in embarrassment. "What…what's going on?"

Yukio looked down at the fried rice heating up in the pan. He prodded at it with the cooking chopsticks in his right hand. "Making food. I might need to make more now that you're up, though."

Rin really wanted fried rice, but instead he made himself ask, "How long have I been out?"

Instead of answering, Yukio stirred the rice some more. The oil hissed and spat a little. It might be the kind with tiny meat chunks in it, Rin thought. He sniffed at the air—the smell was strong enough to make him a tiny bit queasy, actually. It had distressing connotations regarding exactly how long he'd been asleep, or sick.

"I'm asking because I'm not sure if I can handle lots of oil right now? Or anything like, super processed," Rin said. He shifted so that he was facing Yukio a little more squarely. "So I might need something else."

"Oh," said Yukio. He reached up and rubbed at his eyes under his glasses with two fingers. "Oh. I didn't. I didn't think about that."

Rin's stomach grumbled again. The silence between them turned awkward without Rin understanding why. Speaking of things that Rin didn't understand, he still hadn't gotten a straight answer about where they were and why they were there.

"So, uh," Rin said, "Cool…place? It's…new?"

"You've been out for a bit over forty-eight hours," Yukio said, instead of deigning Rin's fumbling with an actual response. He stirred the fried rice some more. "We're in a safe house."

"A…what?" Rin blinked over at Yukio. "A safe house? What's a safe house?"

Yukio's lips pressed together. He reached over and turned the gas off. It clicked, and the near-silent fwoosh of smothered flame and displaced air made Rin's hair stand up on the back of his neck. Something was wrong, he realized. He shifted to his knees, curled the fingers of his right hand into the blanket. It was cool to the touch. In the window, the fan whirred, white noise that threatened to buzz into Rin's ears.

"How much do you remember, Rin?" Yukio reached out, pulled a paper bowl from a stack just barely within arm's reach, and set it by his knee. He tipped the pan and poured the rice out. The grains glistened in the lamplight.

"I…" Rin tried to think. He looked down at his bare knees, then at his left hand draped over them. There was something wrong with it, too, but he couldn't quite tell what. "I don't…we were fighting? And…"

Suddenly, Yukio was in his face, his hand smooth and slightly cool against Rin's forehead, under his bangs. He was frowning. "You're still warm, even for summer," he said. "Is it a fever, or just a permanent side-effect?"

"Side-effect?" Rin asked. He blanched. "Wait, did you feed me some weird kind of experimental medicine?"

Yukio was still frowning, but it gained a slant of exasperation. "Why would I feed you some weird kind of experimental medicine?"

"Yeah, why would you do that? Am I dying? Was I dying? Will I still be dying?" Rin reached up to press Yukio's hand more firmly against his own forehead. "Check again, I don't want to—wait, where's my Tsunagari sweatband?"

Yukio was damningly silent. Rin pushed Yukio's hand up to pin his bangs back, to stare Yukio in the face. He'd try to stare Yukio in the eye, but his four-eyed mole-ridden little brother had decided that he wasn't going to look directly at Rin. Rin looked over his little brother, and noted for the first time the exhaustion in the bags under his eyes, in the slightly pale cast to his skin, in the limpness of his hair that said Yukio'd been without a shower for a little too long.

It occurred to Rin that he should be wondering why Yukio's the one looking after him. Rather, why Yukio was the only one looking after him. Why would their dumb old man leave them alone? If Rin really was dying, if this was right after a fight, where was their father?

Movement flickered in the corner of his eye. Rin glanced at it, glanced away, and then let out an unholy shriek when he registered the giant fuzzy black thing laying against his pillow. He let go of Yukio and lashed out with a hand to kill it dead.

"Wait, Rin, don't—"

Too late. Rin smacked the thing, and pain unlike anything he'd ever felt before crackled up what he could only describe as the second spine he'd never known he had. It lanced up and up and up before it hit the spine around his hips and up into his shoulderblades and then slammed into the back of his head. It happened faster than he could blink, and he was down on the ground before he knew it.

"Rin!" Yukio cried, new worry in his eyes. "Rin are you okay?"

Rin groaned. His vision fuzzed around the edges, white sparking in the corners of his eyes. "Wha? th'fk?"

"You dumbass," Yukio said, "That's your tail! Your tail is the most fragile part of you now, you can't just do things like that!"

"Uh," Rin said. He stared up at the ceiling. He could almost feel his teeth vibrating from the whatever that was. "I. My tail?"

Yukio moaned, and then set his forehead on Rin's chest with a dull thud that actually hurt just the tiniest bit. "Your tail, Rin."

Rin gaped at nothing. The missing sweatband. Their absent father. The sudden appearance of a new body part that was apparently his. A tail. Like demons had. Even though he was hu—

With a sharp gasp of breath, Rin reached up to the shallow of his collarbone. He felt for the necklace containing Kurikara—found it—and found it threaded on a strip of leather instead of the chain. He remembered suddenly the feel of metal digging briefly into the skin around his neck before it snapped, the warmth and thrum of energy as he pulled Kurikara out of the necklace-dimension. He remembered fear. He remembered resignation, and grief, and how Kurikara's hilt felt under his palm as he took a deep breath and—

He remembered power.

It was still there, he realized, in the way people realize things without ever having forgotten them. He could still feel it, that vast lake with the even vaster, even deeper wellspring under the cracked earth of him, ebbing and flowing like a tide without a guiding moon. It whispered in his ear, wordless whispers that he only understood snippets of.

Rin bit his lip. He hissed in pain as his teeth sliced into the flesh there, more pointed and more dangerous than they had been before. Rin pulled his bottom lip back into his mouth and sucked back the blood before it could run down his jaw and neck to the futon below.

"Oh," he said. Then, in the quiet, before Yukio could move, he asked, "Where's Dad?"

Yukio, again, damningly, did not answer. He fisted his hands into the fabric of Rin's shirt, and was silent.

Rin closed his eyes. "Oh," he said again, quieter, because he knew that he should be in True Cross custody right about now, and he wasn't. He knew he should be dead, now, and he wasn't. "Is he…did they get rid of him?"

Yukio inhaled shakily. "I don't know," he said into Rin's shirt. "I sent Kuro to find out, but…"

"He hasn't come back," Rin said. The fan in the window whirred. The salt-rich smell of frozen fried rice wafted over them, heavy in the summer humidity. His shirt was starting to get damp where Yukio had his face pressed to it. Rin reached down and patted Yukio's shoulder. Yukio lifted his head and looked at Rin.

"C'mere," Rin said, opening his arms.

Yukio blinked big fat tears out of his eyes. "You want a hug?"

"Yeah," Rin said. He made grabby motions with his hands. "And so do you—don't shake your head at me, I know you want one! You're not too old for hugs yet, little brother!"

"I'm only, like, two minutes younger than you," Yukio grumbled, but crawled close. He set his head on Rin's shoulder, like he used to when they were in first grade and somebody had bullied him and Rin wanted to curl his body around Yukio's and protect him forever.

"And I'm not too old for hugs either, so you're definitely not too old," Rin said. He flailed his right hand out, snagged the cool blanket, and tossed it over Yukio one-handed.

Yukio laughed a little. "I guess so," he said. There was a pause, then—"My fried rice is going to get cold."

Rin shushed him. They were quiet for a little longer.

"I hope he's okay," Rin said, words fragile-soft in the air.

"Me too," Yukio murmured back. He reached out and hugged Rin tight, buried his head further into Rin's shoulder. "Me too."

"Kneel."

Arthur Auguste Angel knelt in the courtroom. His heavy robes slid over his skin with the movement, cool silk against his arms and whispering fabric slithering to pool on the ground below him. The room was lit soft gold, bright enough to see but dim enough that two figures at the top of the bannister were shrouded in shadow beyond what their hoods afforded them. One of them actually stood before him. Despite the angle, when he'd glanced up he could see nothing but their chin, pale-skinned, too-perfect.

"Please recite the covenant laid before you," the man said. Nothing about him moved—there was no shifting of cloth as weight was redistributed, no twitching of hands, not even the slightest change in the cast of his shadow on the tiled ground below them. Angel took in a deep breath, his knuckles pressed to the unbelievably clean floor, and began to recite the words he'd memorized before even becoming a Knight himself.

"I vow to protect all civilians from Gehennan forces both large and small to the best of my physical and mental capabilities,

"I vow to treat all I come across with tenfold the respect and dignity I would afford myself, no matter their walk of life or presence of mind,

"I vow to heed the caution of my peers and in turn refuse to turn a blind eye to the wrongdoings of those around me,

"I vow to call for aid when needed, and answer a call for aid with alacrity,

"I vow to uphold the morals of this great organization and will endeavor to my last breath to preserve the sanctity of life even as I may be moved to be the sword of Death,

"All this and more I vow. So mote it be, so mote it be."

The words rang in the room around them. They slid over the burnished banisters, brushed the ornately decorated walls before echoing back at him, quieter than he'd spoken them. Beside him, in its sheath, Caliburn was silent.

"Arthur Auguste Angel," the man in front of him said, when the ringing echo faded into nothing more than memory, "do you swear to fulfill, to the best of your ability and judgment, the covenant laid before you in your new office?"

"I do," said Angel. He'd been nervous when he'd first stepped into the room, old clothes freshly dry-cleaned and hanging in a way that was unfamiliar, after several months in a skirt and button-down shirt. Now, though, the clothes were comforting, empowering. Angel felt calm spread through him, sink down to the very core of him. It both anchored him to reality, and left him feeling as though he were floating through the ceremony.

The man held out a hand. The back of it arched gracefully in the air; his robes shifted nearly soundlessly. "Your sword, please."

No words were needed. Angel, without moving from his position, reached down to slowly unsheathe Caliburn. Blessedly, the sword did not speak. Angel slid the fingers of his left hand down the flat of the blade, then held it up to the Grigori representative. He bowed his head.

He was prepared for Caliburn to be taken from him, and yet he still nearly jumped when all of the sudden, its weight was lifted from his hands. The Grigori representative was so quiet as to be unnerving. Unearthly, almost. Perhaps even divine. Angel shivered at the thought, and lowered his hands for the next part of the ceremony.

Blinded as he was by the curtain of his hair around his face, Angel knew only a split-second before it happened that Caliburn was being rested against one shoulder, and then the other. The blade hummed soft as it moved up and over Angel's head. "By the power vested in me as a member of the Grigori," the man intoned, "I dub you, Arthur Auguste Angel, Paladin of the True Cross Order. Paladin Angel, please raise your head."

Angel looked up. Backlit by golden light overhead, the Grigori man looked more divine than ever. His expression did not change once as Angel reached his hands back out, and up. It didn't change when he set Caliburn down into Angel's waiting fingers, didn't change when Angel sheathed the blade once more, didn't change even as he opened his own mouth to speak.

"Rise, Arthur Auguste Angel."

He rose. His coat rustled as he did so, the trailing ends of his half-split cape slid up off the floor. Angel looked down at the Grigori representative, and was surprised that Angel himself was the taller of them.

"Paladin Angel," the representative said. "Your first task is already at hand. Will you hear it and obey?"

"Yes," Angel said. He set his jaw. He was Paladin. He was ready.

"You are to take this key," the man said, withdrawing a small, unimportant looking key from his sleeve, "and escort former Paladin Fujimoto to this room for his hearing."

Angel thought it might be better just to leave that oathbreaker to rot, but he would fulfill his own oaths without hesitation. If that included this first task, then he would do so. "I hear, and I obey," he said. He bowed. "Please leave it to me."

The key was placed in his hands. He bowed again, turned on his heel, and strode away to the entrance. Fitting the key in the slot, Paladin Angel turned it, heard the lock unlatch. He pulled the door open. It led to an unobtrusive hallway with plain tile flooring and stone walls. Every ten meters there was a wooden door with a slatted window set in the upper center of each one. Bright yellow lights were set on either side of each door. Angel took a deep breath to settle himself.

Anger and feelings of betrayal would do him no favors here.

The door closed behind him. Key clutched in one hand, Angel moved onward, further down a hallway that never seemed to end. Thirteen doors down, though, he turned to his left and peered into the room. The figure within, dressed in a plain gray shirt, plain grey pants, was laying on the bed. His hands were linked under his head, elbows jutting into the air. Angel had never realized how thin, or how wiry, the former Paladin was.

Angel looking in caught Fujimoto's attention almost immediately. It was strange to see him without his orange-tinted glasses. Fujimoto grinned a little. It didn't reach his eyes. "Ah, Angel. Are they finally holding my trial?"

"You have been summoned to hear the judgment of the Grigori," Angel said, "and, should it please them, present your case."

"I'm sure they'll be willing to hear it," said Fujimoto. He sat up, set his arms on his spread knees, and stared Angel straight in the face. His wrists were shackled by about 30 centimeters worth of chain. "I have a very long history with them, you see. I've been…invaluable."

"You broke your oaths," Angel said, furiously tamping down the snarl that he wanted to show. You broke your oath to me, he didn't say out loud.

"I would argue to the contrary," Fujimoto said. He stood, arched his back, and grimaced when it cracked and popped in several places. "Well, what are you waiting for, Angel? Take me away."

"That's Paladin Angel," he said. He waited for Fujimoto to approach the door, eyes narrowed. His hand fell on Caliburn's hilt. Caliburn thrummed in excitement.

Fujimoto smiled, toothy. "As you wish, Paladin," he said. "Now are we going to get this party started or what?"

Lips pressed, Angel slid the key into the lock again. He took a deep breath, twisted it, and the unlatching of the door rung all around them. The door swung in. Shiro Fujimoto, former Paladin, stepped out into the hallway for the first time in days. His eyes flicked down to Caliburn, to Angel's hand around its hilt. The ghost of a smile flickered at the corners of his mouth.

Angel tried to tell himself that it was rueful, that Fujimoto had been banking on escaping the moment he was let out. The smaller, more truthful part of him knew that Fujimoto had just been amused. That if he wanted to escape, he might actually be able to with a lot of luck.

There was no escape attempt. They walked to the door at the end of the hallway, Angel unlocked it, opened it. They stepped into the golden light.

Fujimoto Shiro's trial began.

When Shura breathed, her ribs ached.

It was the binder, the doctors had told her. She had been wearing it a lot more than usual the past few days because of how many people were around. "You need to take it easy," they told her when she woke up in the hospital, binder cut off her body, a saline drip in her arm and ice packs pressed up against her strangely relaxed body. She wasn't even shivering from the cold. "It may take time for your body to recover."

So instead of standing outside the courtroom with the remaining Cram School students, she was sitting in a fairly comfortable chair. Instead of wearing some stylishly scandalous top, she had on an old bra and a sweatshirt on over that. The only reason the sweatshirt wasn't the cropped one she had wanted to wear was because Kuro had shown up at her apartment mewling pathetically and refused to be shooed away. Sitting really helped disguise the fact she had a cat in her shirt.

Kuro was damn lucky she wasn't allergic, the little shit.

To the right of her chair, Shima Renzo yawned. "When is this supposed to be over again?"

"When they reach a verdict," Miwa Konekomaru said. From what she could see of his phone, he was studying sutras.

"And why are we here?" Renzo whined and sagged against the wall. "It's been ages. I'm so bored."

"Then leave," Kamiki said. She'd pulled out a bottle of nail polish from somewhere and was painting Shiemi's nails a very complimentary shade of pale green. They were cross-legged on the floor, knee-to-knee. "You'll just be the last to know the verdict."

Renzo groaned and slid to the floor. Shura raised an eyebrow at him. "But I need to know now."

"I get that you're worried about Rin and all and you're bored as shit, because I am too," said Takumi. He was sitting in a chair too, provided because he still wasn't supposed to be standing for long periods of time. "But like, there's not a lot we can do to speed that shit up."

"There's not anything we can do," said Suguro. He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. "Unless you've got a special card to play, sensei."

It took her a moment to remember that she was the sensei here. Apparently True Cross decided that a low-effort mission would be teaching Cram School, and so she was stuck babysitting. Which wasn't really new, but like—she would have preferred missions where she could more subtly assist Rin and Yukio.

"No cards, no nothing," Shura said. She shrugged. "Grigori's the highest tier. Can't touch 'em. Though I'm betting Mephisto got his fingers in that there pie already, 'cause otherwise this'd've been over long before now."

Takumi, interestingly enough, shook his head like he wasn't surprised. Shura might have to keep an eye on that one; these kids shouldn't be that well acquainted with the Headmaster yet. Underneath her shirt, Kuro curled into a tighter ball and pressed his horns into her belly. Years of training stopped Shura from twitching.

"That aside," Renzo said, a little slyly. "Who'd have thought that the mysterious Yamada was a drop-dead gorgeous babe?"

This time, it was Shura's turn to raise her eyebrows. "You're, like, twenty years too young for me."

"Don't mean I don't have eyes," Renzo said, smirking. On his other side, Suguru rubbed one hand up his face and let out a strangled groan.

Shura smiled at him and put in all the teeth she'd learned to use as a child in Aomori prefecture. "You might not have them for long if you don't shut it."

He paled a little. Shura grinned even sharper. He looked away. Shura settled back into her chair, satisfied.

"Besides, you were also fooled by Angelina's act," Izumo said. She switched to Shiemi's other hand. "Shiemi, don't touch anything with that hand for the next minute, the polish needs to dry—back to Shima, if you have eyes, shouldn't you have figured that out?"

"I'm glad you asked!" Renzo exploded, smacking his hands on the ground. "Because I've thought a lot about it the last two days and I've decided—Angelina truly was a woman during the past lovely months we had with her, and I was attracted to her! I still love women! My sexuality is not under question!"

"Huh," Izumo said. She was quiet for a moment. "So if you fell in love with a woman like Angelina, how would you feel about finally making love with a woman with a—"

Shura wasn't quite sure if these children remembered that she was actually an adult who didn't need to be listening to the burgeoning sexual lives of her students. Oh, well. If they asked her, she had a wealth of second-hand and first-hand information for them.

"I've thought about that too!" Renzo said. "And—"

"Let me get this straight," Takumi said. His hands were flat together, fingers pressed against his nose. "Instead of thinking about the shit that's been going down, you've been thinking about hypothetical sex."

"I mean, I thought about the shit too, yeah," Renzo said. He looked down at his hands. "But that got depressing so I turned to other, more manageable questions that related to me more! I learned a lot about myself, by the way, including the fact that women are women and as long as I topped, everything would be perfectly fine."

Everybody was quiet for a moment as they digested the information.

"Right, so, that aside," Takumi said, "has anybody heard from them?"

"Even if we had," Konekomaru said, setting his phone down in his lap, "It would be foolish to admit so here, a short distance away from the room that Fujimoto-sensei's trial is taking place. But I personally haven't, and that's probably a good thing."

Shura set her hands on her lap. Kuro nestled further up against her stomach, almost uncomfortably warm. She hoped they were okay. That they hadn't disturbed any demon's nests or anything. It was distressingly possible, though.

"And we shouldn't try," Izumo said. She capped the nail polish and set it into her uniform jacket pocket. "Cell phone signals can be tracked, and we don't want to be responsible for their hiding place being snuffed out should the Grigori decide to do the worst."

"I hope they're okay," Shiemi said. She looked down at her fingernails. "And that they're eating well."

Suguru snorted. "You kidding me? It's Rin. He could make something delicious out of cardboard. They'll be eating just fine."

Across the hall, right as Suguru finished speaking, there was the click of a lock. Shura's pack of children quieted and looked over. Shura pulled out her phone and started fiddling with it like she couldn't care less. Her heart stuttered in her chest.

Clad in regal white and gold, Angel strode out of the room. Mephisto followed close behind, olive eyes shining bright in the shadow of his ostentatious hat. The smirk on his face had an edge like something amusing or bewildering had occurred and he was delighted as a result. Shura didn't trust it one bit. Fujimoto may have been buddy-buddy with the Headmaster, but she'd always regarded Mephisto as she would an unknown home; potentially useful, but she wasn't about to trust the house to not contain false walls and hidden ladders brimming with booby traps. She'd used them herself far too many times.

"So?" she drawled when it was clear that none of her students were going to speak up. "What's the verdict?"

Angel scowled. Shura took that as a somewhat positive sign.

"Shiro Fujimoto is to be stripped of all titles and placed under house arrest—here, of course, under constant guard. He will be assigned missions, but only when accompanied by other Exorcists. His interactions with others will be supervised. He is not to make contact with any of the Exwires unless mission parameters necessitate it."

Shura blinked. That was…unexpected. "They ain't locking him away in some deep dark corner to rot forever?"

Angel scowled harder. "No."

"But…he's the Paladin," Konekomaru said. "He's the strongest Exorcist there is."

Shura smirked at how Angel pursed his lips at the comment, but he was at least mature enough to not say anything. Konekomaru shrank back a little, but didn't take back his words—he was growing a backbone. She liked that. It made her wonder absently about when she should schedule their next training exercise. It would be an interesting experiment to have him in charge; see how he handled the personalities in their class.

"Ah, but you see, they've got a leash on our dear ex-Paladin," Mephisto said. He tipped his hat at them. "Greetings, belatedly."

And there it was. Shura could guess what that particular leash was.

"Leash?" Takumi asked. Shura looked down at her phone and fiddled with it. She almost opened her contacts, then decided to pull up social media and scroll through it.

"Oh," said Kamiki. She was a smart girl. Maybe too smart.

"Why, the Okumura fugitives, of course!" Mephisto smiled wide. He spread his hands out. "If Fujimoto Shiro puts one toe out of line, their sentence changes from retrieval and processing to, well, something a little more drastic."

"And we will be searching for them," Angel said. "Okumura's Blue Flames are too dangerous, and need to be contained as quickly as possible. Okumura Yukio is a lower priority due to his lack of supernatural ability, but the fact of the matter is that he has gone AWOL."

Suguro finally spoke. "He's not dangerous, and he doesn't need to be contained," he sneered. "Rin's the reason we only lost two lives."

Oh no. Shura could read the writing on this wall loud and clear. She shifted, and opened her mouth to interject, but Angel had already squared up and was doing his best to shut Suguro down.

"It seems I need to remind you that we also had countless burn victims the moment Okumura showed his true colors to the world," Angel said, voice glacial. "Victims that now need additional healing and trauma counseling."

"Rin was cleaning up your guys's mess," Suguru snarled. "He was up on that mountain risking his life—in more fucking ways than one—because you couldn't get off your ass and—"

"If you two hadn't been up there in the first place I could have—"

"Well if you weren't fucking around with your stupid cover and actually wanted to save lives instead of hunting down innocent—"

"Don't give me innocent, he's a monster—"

"Don't you fucking call him a monster—"

"He is the son of Satan, that in and of itself is—"

"—when you're the fucking one who—"

"Okay, wow!" Shura said as loudly as she dared. "Time to stop comparing, this isn't a men's locker room and even if that was, Angel, you're the adult and it would be completely inappropriate and immature to continue down that road!"

Suguro had the gall to actually glare at her. She reached out, ignored how the stretch made her chest twinge, and literally yanked him from where he'd been well on his way to getting up in Angel's face. Angel, red-faced himself, leaned back and took a couple steps away while sputtering out incoherent statements of denial.

Somebody clapped. Shura wasn't at all surprised to see that it had been Mephisto. "That was very entertaining, thank you both! However, the new Paladin is a very busy man who has a Kraken to deal with, and you are all very busy students who undoubtedly have work to do, so you should be on your way."

"That's right," Shura said. She tugged in warning on Suguro's uniform shirt. "I know for a fact that a couple of you haven't started your summer homework."

Renzo whined. Takumi buried his face in his hands and cursed. Shiemi looked askance and shifted her hands over her uniform skirt.

"What a wonderful time to start then," Mephisto said. He tipped his hat again and bowed. "Well then, we'll be on our way—Shura, I trust that you'll be able to lead the children out?"

She raised her eyebrows at him. "Is that even a question?"

"Glad to know you haven't lost your edge." His eyes flickered down to her midsection, where Kuro was curled up and trembling. The hint of a smirk twitched at the corner of his lips. If Shura had been five years younger, she would have stiffened. "Then, without further ado—Auf Wiedersehen, little Exwires."

Pink smoke puffed out, obscured his figured, and then dissipated into suddenly empty air. Angel coughed and thumped his fist against his chest once.

"Well," he said. His eyes flicked over the lot of them. "I will undoubtedly see you at some point in the future. Study hard to become upstanding Exorcists."

When she felt Suguro inhale, Shura yanked on his shirt again. He stumbled back a step and glared at her over his shoulder, but he didn't try to pick a fight with Angel so she considered it a win.

"I'll put 'em through the wringer," Shura promised.

Angel nodded at her, then turned and left. It was almost strange, seeing him back in his ridiculously white clothes. She had the fleeting thought that she would miss rooming with him, dumb antics and all, but then Suguro pulled out of her grip and the thought was gone.

"Well," she said. "This was a fun trip, but it's time for all of us to go back to the Cram School! I want a one-page report on your thoughts about this excursion. It's for my eyes only, so don't be afraid to let your thoughts go wild—except for you, Renzo," she said, pointing one painted fingernail at him. He blanched.

"Why me?"

"Your thoughts will go too wild," she said. "You're on a leash."

A couple expressions flitted across his face before one settled. Shura immediately regretted her choice of words. Renzo opened his mouth, a sleazy grin pulling at the corners of his lips. "I mean, if it's you, I—"

"Wrong! Now you gotta write five pages on sexual harassment and inappropriate conduct too," Shura said. "With at least three references. Cited."

Renzo whined. Kamiki sniggered. Shura regretted opening her mouth even more because now, instead of seven one-page essays, she had seven one-page essays and one five-page essay that she would have to review—

"Wait," Shura said. She craned her head and took count of the students again. Her eyes narrowed. "Where did Takara go?"

There was a beat of silence. Then, Konekomaru said, "He left to go to the bathroom almost as soon as we got here."

Shura groaned and dragged one hand down her face. "Of course he did," she said. "Of fucking course he did."

She was so out of shape. Something told her, though, that it was only going to get worse from here on out.

It was approaching sunset by the time Shiemi reached the bottom of the stairs to home. She looked up the path, at the plants growing up and over, casting the stones below in shade. When she crouched down, she could see ants climbing through and over soft moss. They clung to the wiry, fragile strands and moved forward bit by bit, golden light glinting off their carapaces. Shiemi crouched there for a while, arms crossed over her knees, chin nestled over her forearms. The evening was hot, and sticky, but there was a cool breeze that made it tolerable for a while. She'd pulled off her necktie as soon as she'd left school.

The sun began to set.

Shiemi stood, looked up the stairs, and sighed. She would have to face her mother sooner or later. Her mother, who she loved with all her heart. Her mother, who wanted her to quit Cram School. Who wanted her to give up on being an Exorcist. Who had told her why she wanted Shiemi to stop.

Cram School had served its purpose. It had lifted her up out of depression, had given her connections with others. Even then, Shiemi had never been meant for that world, her mother had explained. She had been meant for something else, for something adjacent yet more. The person that had come to help her mother explain things had made it sound like a wonderful duty, an inescapable, shining fate. Shiemi wondered at that. It hadn't sounded wonderful at all to her. Just…necessary. Sacrificial, almost.

The stones below were uneven, imperfect. Shiemi stopped halfway up the steps, looked down at her hands. They were so pale, she thought. So pale, and dainty. Elegant, her mother had said once, raising her eyebrows, even though Shiemi gardened so much she had calluses over her palms and on the sides of her forefingers. Lady-like, her grandmother had chuckled. Shiemi wasn't too sure about that. She slowly clenched her hands into fists. She remembered the feeling of her knuckles biting into flesh. They had stung, and smarted, but inside her had been a tiny, vicious thrill at the feeling of being able to finally shove back for once. It had been immediately smothered by shock, but Shiemi could still remember it. Hot. Warm. Proud.

Was that part of the purity they wanted?

Shiemi sighed. Her hands dropped to her sides. Her backpack straps dug into her shoulders. She looked down at her feet, at the loafers that were only starting to show signs of wear. At her knee-high socks, at her uniform skirt. They were her first, and they would be her last.

There was something strangely sad about that, Shiemi thought to herself. Then she took a step forward, and another, climbing up the rough stairs until she reached the front of the shop. With more calm than she actually had, she opened the door. A rush of cool air flowed over her from the A/C on overhead. The bell at the top of the door chimed once opening, and then again when she closed the door behind her. A moment later, she said, "Mother, I'm home."

At the register, her mother took a puff of her pipe and said, "Welcome home, Shiemi." Her eyes were narrowed in thought. Shiemi stopped halfway through taking off her backpack; usually something else followed.

"Did…something happen?" she asked. Her bag listed heavily off her right shoulder. She shifted from one foot to the other.

Her mother hummed. She drummed her fingernails on the register table. She had painted them today, Shiemi noticed. If it weren't for the color, they would have matched each other. "Yes," her mother said. "We need to talk."

Shiemi paused, then finished pulling off her backpack. She walked to the back of the store, the heels of her loafers hitting the wooden floor and echoing dully. Pushing through the swinging gate that separated their home from the store, Shiemi dropped her bag at the threshold of their home and turned to her mother. Her mother gestured at the stool next to her. Shiemi sat.

Neither of them spoke.

Fiddling with the hem of her skirt, Shiemi tucked her feet behind the bottom rung of the stool and looked out into the shop. Shelves and shelves of dried herbs, anti-demonic concoctions, and special materials for making ammunition and summoning slips stretched up to the ceiling. Hanging from the ceiling were yellow lightbulbs that, if Shiemi listened very closely, hummed with electricity. Her mother had somebody come out to change them whenever they burned out. Said that she was scared Shiemi would fall. Said that she herself didn't feel comfortable changing them.

It used to make Shiemi feel warm and protected. Now, she still felt that, but it was soured by this undertone of does she think I'm incapable, and now with the even quieter is she afraid of me getting hurt because then they'll be unhappy?

The last few days had been confusing, to say the least.

Her mother heaved out a sigh. There was a dull clack! as her mother tapped the ash out of her pipe. "Shiemi, look at me."

Shiemi looked. She smoothed out her skirt.

Her mother's eyes were still narrowed, still on this side of flinty. Her mouth was set in something of a scowl. "I'm sure you remember what we talked about, correct?"

Shiemi nodded. She didn't say, it's all I've been thinking about, because that wasn't strictly true even though it felt like it.

"And you understand why it's important, correct?"

She nodded again. She wanted to say, but I don't understand why I have to give up everything I've come to love. She didn't, because it was important, and because Shiemi wasn't a selfish girl.

Her mother looked at her a while longer, then sighed. She closed her eyes. "You're allowed to speak, you know."

"I know," Shiemi said. "But I do remember, and I do understand. It's okay," she said, even as she knew it wasn't. "I know why."

With pursed lips, her mother opened her eyes, the same shade as Shiemi's own. "But you don't like it."

Shiemi hesitated. Then she shook her head. She smoothed her skirt down across her thighs again, even though it was smooth enough to begin with. She watched her hands as they went over the fabric, again and again and again, skin pale save for the slight bruising still present around the first two knuckles of her right hand. It was already a yellow-green. It would fade soon enough, maybe tomorrow.

There was silence between them again. The clock on the wall ticked away the seconds, and Shiemi counted them until her mother spoke. It had been a long seventeen.

"It's okay, not to like it," she said. "It's okay to want something else."

That was…Shiemi looked up, frowning. "But you said that I had to, that I was the only one who could—"

"Yes," her mother said. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. It slipped back almost immediately. "I did say that. And it's not untrue; you're the only one who can do what they want you to do. It would change things, maybe for the better."

Shiemi waited. Her mother smoothed down the lap of her kimono, once, just once, and made eye contact with Shiemi.

"Then I had a visitor," her mother said. "Two, actually. And I was reminded that you are my daughter. You're only fifteen. You deserve more time to grow into yourself. You deserve the chance to say no."

Shiemi folded her hands together. A tentative hope rose in her. "What do you mean? Wouldn't it be selfish?"

"Selfishness isn't all terrible," her mother said softly. She reached out, and Shiemi let her mother cover Shiemi's hands with her own. They were warm, soft from the lotions her mother used every day before bed. "Without selfishness, we wouldn't be able to take care of ourselves. I know that we teach you otherwise. Yes, the way forward that they described to us is supposed to be the only good way forward. But there may be other ways. There may be consequences. And I owe it to you to give you the chance to choose for yourself."

Shifting so that she was holding her mother's hand, so that her mother was holding hers, Shiemi looked between her mother's eyes. They crinkled up in a hesitant smile. "I don't understand," she said slowly. "I thought I had to?"

"And you would have had to," her mother said. She squeezed Shiemi's fingers, and then withdrew her hands to her own lap. "But first, I think you need to see the visitors who came today. I sent them to your bedroom out in the garden."

Shiemi still didn't understand, but she nodded. Her duty, as they had put it, was important. There was no room for choice. There could be no selfishness. She slid off the stool and made sure her skirt was properly adjusted, then that the stool was pushed into its proper corner. Turning around, she looked at her mother one last time.

Her mother smiled. Her hands were folded together in her lap. "Go," her mother said.

"…okay," Shiemi said. She went back to the bag she'd dropped on the ground, then picked it up. Hesitating, she looked back at her mother. "Who is visiting?"

"You'll see," her mother said. She picked her pipe back up. The front door rang, and she looked over lazily. "Welcome," she called.

Shiemi caught sight of an Exorcist she didn't know, bowed, and then left the shop. She stepped down into the genkan between the shop and their home, toed off her shoes, and stepped up to the wood hallway floor. Once she picked her shoes back up to be put back on outside, she walked down the hall, footsteps soft and interspersed with the slight creak of floorboards underfoot.

It took her very little time to reach the back door and the private genkan there. She set her shoes down on the concrete floor, then stepped down from the raised interior floor into her shoes, slipping them on properly with the help of a shoe hook set on the shoe cabinet to her right. When she opened the back door, the heat and humidity had her wishing she could go back inside immediately. They kept the home cool during the summer, just in case they had guests or consultations, but her room was usually stuffy when she got to it—

It occurred to her that because the visitors were in her room, her mother must have already set the A/C on. It was strange that they were in her room in the first place, but Shiemi supposed that if it meant she could enjoy the cool air immediately, it would be worth it. She wondered who the two visitors were, and how they could have changed her mother's mind about Shiemi's responsibility to the world.

She closed the door behind her. The sun had set further, casting the garden in dull gold and warm shadows. She hefted her bag onto her back. She looked at the hydrangea bushes just beginning to bloom and felt her fingers itch for a spade, itch to dig into the dirt and feel the life all around her. Then she thought of what she had to do, of the life she was connected to, of—and, well, that would be a reason for her green thumb, wouldn't it?

Shiemi still couldn't stop herself from leaving the path to her room and rubbing one of the hydrangea leaves between her fingers. There was a spiderweb attached to one of its sides, and the jostling set the spider in the middle of the web to tensing.

"Sorry," she told the spider, and stepped away. "That was rude of me, wasn't it?"

It would be rude to keep her visitors waiting much longer, Shiemi thought to herself. But she was filled with so many thoughts and doubts and regrets and yearning that she wasn't sure she could keep up conversation with two strangers for very long.

But that wasn't right, Shiemi realized as she stepped back onto the path. Her mother's mind wasn't easily changed. It took somebody she knew to change her mind. And why would they want to change her mind about Shiemi? How would they know Shiemi well enough to push for something like that? She walked by the pansies, wilting a little in the summer heat. How would the two of them—

Shiemi stopped. She looked back at the pansies. Two visitors, who knew Shiemi well enough to ask her mother to change her mind. Two visitors, who her mother knew well enough to actually succeed in changing her mind. Her heart began to beat faster in her chest. It wasn't likely, she knew that. It was too dangerous, she understood that. But now the thought was in her head, that Rin and Yukio might have actually come back for her. Yukio might have kept his promise.

She ran to the door of the garden shed that was now her bedroom. She flung it open. She closed it just as fast. "I'm here!" she called, and stepped out of her shoes as fast as she could. She stumbled into the wall and hissed under her breath in frustration. She set her socked feet straight onto the floor of her genkan before stepping up onto the floor of the short hallway that led to the small kitchenette and the loft with her bed and—

And the kotatsu, unplugged for the summer, in the middle of the floor. There were two people she didn't recognize, and her heart sank. The dyed blond streaks of the one and the gelled-back bangs and glasses of the other and their brown eyes blinking back at her were unfamiliar. "O—oh," she said. "I'm sorry, I really thought—"

The boy with the dyed hair chuckled. He tugged down his black facemask. "Well," Yukio said, and she should have realized it was him even with shorter, somewhat messier hair. "That's two so far. I told you this would work."

"You just wanted me to deal with glasses," Rin grumbled. He pulled them off his face and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Dumb things keep sliding down. And these contacts are the worst!"

"I have contacts too, you know. Plus, I dyed my hair for you," Yukio shot back. "And cut it, and put on a facemask, and I literally pierced my ears—"

"I kept telling you that you could put on makeup instead to cover your moles, but you refused! And the earrings are dope, don't regret them, they make you look so much more badass."

"Makeup is expensive and facemasks will call less attention. I should have made you shave bald, even if it would expose your ears—"

Overwhelmed, Shiemi burst into tears.

Ten minutes later, she found herself blowing her nose into tissues, seated at the kotatsu with a cup of tea in front of her and a blanket over her shoulders. "I'm sorry," she sniffled. "I didn't mean to do that, it's just been so stressful, and I've been so worried, and we just got the news about your father—wait, do you even know about that?"

Yukio nodded. "Yes. Kuro came back and spoke to Rin. He's currently off running another message, but we heard maybe an hour after you guys did."

"Okay," Shiemi said. She lapsed into silence, and then blew her nose again. "So, uh, if you already know, then why—why are you here again?"

Rin had his chin in the palm of his hand and wasn't making eye-contact, so she went for Yukio's gaze instead. He looked straight at her. It was strange seeing brown eyes in his face. He smiled. "I told you we would come back for you, and here we are."

Warmth bloomed in her chest. She sent him a watery smile. "Thank you, Yukio. Do you need somewhere to stay, or?"

"We have one, thank you. We really came to make sure that you knew I hadn't forgotten, and to set up a secure line of communication," Yukio said. He glanced over at Rin, and then back at Shiemi. "And then we found out that you're in a bit of a situation yourself."

Rin scowled at the wall, expression dark. Shiemi kind of felt that way herself, just a little. "…oh. Yes," she said. "Do you…know?"

"We don't know specifics, only that you're being faced with a choice that has no way out." Yukio folded his hands together on the table. "And we know that the True Cross Order has something to do with it, so you're well and truly backed into a corner."

Shiemi nodded. She wrapped her fingers around the cool cup of tea. "They need me to act as a vessel for Lord Shemihaza," she whispered. "They…said I was made to do it."

There was utter quiet. She didn't have the courage to look up, and it all began to come out. "I was—an experiment? My mom volunteered to take treatments while she was pregnant with me, because she didn't know if I would make it, but when I was born I was. Normal? And they didn't know that the treatments worked until really recently, and so I'm. Um. Really compatible. They said that—that they didn't know what would happen when I became the vessel, if I would still be me, or if I would be Lord Shemihaza, but they hinted that they thought I would—that I wouldn't be in control, at least." Her eyes began to burn again, and her throat felt tight. "They didn't say, like out loud, or to my face, that I would—that I would die, but I think, from what they said, from how they—how they said what they said, that I would. Die, I mean." There were big fat tears dripping down her cheeks and splattering onto the top of the kotatsu below.

When the silence was broken, it was Rin who did it. "What?" he asked. "I—who's Shemihaza? I mean, what they expect you to do is shit and I'm not letting you die no matter what, fuck them, but who the fuck is Shemihaza?"

Yukio reached forward and placed a hand on Shiemi's shoulder. His voice was tight when he spoke. "Lord Shemihaza is one of the three Grigori; I wasn't aware that he needed a vessel, though."

Shiemi reached for another tissue. "He's the Emperor of Creation," she managed to get out before blowing her nose. "He's—really important."

"So are you!" Rin said. "So fuck him! Your life is yours!" She heard him stand, and looked up, startled.

"But if I don't, the world could—"

"Fuck it, there's more than one solution," Rin said. He bared his teeth. They seemed sharper than before, though that could have just been a trick of the light. "They just aren't thinking enough! They're stuck in stupid little boxes. Well fuck them, we're out of the box, we can find a way to save the fucking world ourselves."

Yukio sighed. "We don't even know how Shiemi becoming a vessel will save the world. Did they explain that to you?"

"No," she said, voice small. "I just know that—that they're worried about something called the Illuminati?"

"There we go," Rin said. He punched his own hand. "We fuck them up."

"Easier said than done," Yukio said. His hand slipped from Shiemi's shoulder. "The Illuminati are shrouded in mystery. They're dangerous. They're not…small fry. And you don't have enough control of your flames to just, I don't know, blanket the earth in them to weed the Illuminati out."

"So we hunt them down," Rin said, almost growling. "You're smart and I'm tough and Shiemi's got skills too—"

Shiemi blinked. "Me?"

"Yeah," Rin said. He put his hands on his hips. "You got mad skills. You're a kick-ass summoner and to hear Takumi talk about it, you're really good at herbal shit and fixing people up."

"She also throws a mean right hook," Yukio said with a small smirk.

She blushed. "No, I mean—I'm coming?" Shiemi gripped the cup of tea tighter in her hands. Her head swam. "But I have to—"

"You have a choice, Shiemi," Yukio said, quietly. She looked over at him. He was running a finger over a small divot in the top of the table from when her granny had accidentally dropped a portable stove onto it. "You actually have a choice now. You can stay here, with your mother, until the time comes for them to perform the ceremony. Or you can come with us, and we can be enough of a thorn for the Illuminati that they trip up against the True Cross Order. There's risks and rewards to either one."

The A/C in the corner of the room whirred back to life as the temperature in the room rose too far for its sensors. Condensation dripped down over her index finger. Shiemi felt as though the world had opened up again. She felt like she could dig her hands down into the soft, rich soil of the earth down to her wrists, down to her soils, and pull them back up just as easily.

"I…could," she said, more to herself than her friends. "I could, couldn't I?"

She turned her attention away from Yukio to look at Rin. Rin, who could have gone to the True Cross Order to be judged. Rin, who chose not to. Rin, who was choosing not to even if—even if it might help out his father. His angry expression softened a little, looking at her. Suddenly he flushed and looked away, ruffling the back of his head.

She could be selfish. She could stay herself by going. Maybe it was the wrong thing to do, something said. Maybe she shouldn't go, whispered something deep inside. She could save the world through sacrifice, it whispered. She wouldn't be around anymore, but the world could be safe, even without her in it. What was one life against billions?

Mine, another part of her whispered. That one life is mine. It's precious too.

Shiemi stood. The blanket slid off her shoulders. Then she bowed, hair falling forward around her face, a whisper of friction against her ears as she spoke, clear and strong and as sure as she'd been when she'd decided to start at Cram School. When she'd told Mr. Neuhaus that he was wrong, when she stood up against Suguro in that cramped shed in Kyoto. When she'd reached back and slammed her knuckles into the face of the enemy with all of her might, angry and scared and crack-quick sure that this had to happen.

"Please," she said, "take me with you."

It was dark in the room. The light was dimmed down to levels that were difficult to see in. The medical machines beeped a slow, steady march into the relative silence, otherwise broken only by the thin, wheezy breaths of the figure in the bed at the center of the room. Metal and plastic gleamed dull. The figure's eyes were closed.

The door opened. Light spilled in. The figure's eyes squinted, creased shut against the brightness. They made a disgruntled noise that came out halfway between a whine and a growl. Bandages criss-crossed their face; the slivers of skin visible were sick-pale and peeling. The woman who opened the door beckoned the man following her in quickly, then shut it with a soft click.

"I'm sorry, my Lord," she said. "But Todou Saburota is here to see you."

The figure's eyes opened. They looked hungry in the dimness. "Report," the figure in the bed said, voice weak but wrapped around steel.

"My Lord," Todou Saburota said, a smooth smile stretching across his youthful face. "The Impure King has been defeated. While in Kyoto, the existence of Satan's son was confirmed, and his power measured. He is…strong, but uncontrolled."

"And the other one?" The figure said. "The other son?"

"The seed has been planted," Todou said. "The absence of the Paladin in his life, and the condemnation of his brother, should see to it that it grows."

"Excellent," the figure breathed. "This was not according to plan, but…it should work. Satan's sons will be ours."

Todou hesitated. He took a step forward. The woman at his side cut him a glance, a scowl stretching the corners of her mouth very slightly. The figure blinked in surprise.

"Was there something else?"

"There was," Todou said. "I can't be sure, but I encountered a girl who has the spark of something strangely powerful in her. She caught me off guard. I can't be certain, but she may be important."

The figure on the bed blinked, long and slow enough it could be mistaken as simply closing one's eyes briefly. "Oh," they said. "I trust you, Todou Saburota. Keep an eye on the situation; use our young True Cross spy. Report to me when you have something conclusive to convey. I commend you for bringing this to my attention. We can't have the True Cross Order hiding things from us, now can we?"

Todou Saburota bowed. "With pleasure, Lord Lucifer," he said. "Is there anything else you require?"

Lucifer, in his bed, ailing body covered by bedsheets, hummed to himself. "This body is not much longer in the world," he said. "Bring me the next clone by tomorrow morning."

"Yes sir," the woman said. She bowed, one hand in a fist over her heart. "It will be done."

"Good. You are dismissed."

The woman and the man left, bowing as the door closed in front of them. The room returned to darkness. Lucifer sighed, closed his eyes, and listened to the beep of the heart monitor trill through the room.

A/N: That's it. That's the end of Part One.
Why Part One?
It seems to me, here, that we're at a natural ending here. Not of the whole thing, no; I still feel like there are threads that need to be covered from canon, and overarching threads that I've introduced in this fic that haven't been wrapped up yet. However, Rin has drawn Kurikara; Shiro has fallen to disgrace; Shiemi has received life-shaking news, etc. We have reached a real turning point. VA is the shift which runs alongside canon (sometimes a little too parallel, I'll admit it). Whatever comes next will, I think, sample a lot of the big events that are happening right now in canon itself. It is my hope, however, that I can craft something out of the potential sequel that splits a little further away.

It's also honestly been a long time since I started VA. 8 years, man! 8 years. 8 years, 30 chapters, and almost 300,000 words. Damn!

So what comes next? When will it come next?

I'll be honest. I can't promise anything. All I can promise is to try. I have a busy few months coming up (through early December, what with a local culture festival I need to prep for, and Inktober, and I'm planning on trying for the JLPT in December, and bleehhhh). I'm going to do my best to write a few hundred words every week, though!

In terms of content, however, I'm thinking some fugitive trio shenanigans. I'm thinking some drama with our Kyoto Trio. I'm thinking Izumo's arc, and of making something more concrete for Takumi. I may even add another OC, but mostly because I'm staring at the remaining Exwires and going 'there's...so many dudes...' Which isn't necessarily bad, but I'd like for Izumo not to be the only gal. I'm also thinking about Angel, and the possible arc I want for him. I have a lot of thoughts, friends. Who knows what will happen with them?

Another project I really want to work on is editing VA and bringing it up to my current standards (and crossposting to ao3). 16 year old me had great ideas and did good stuff with the knowledge base she had at hand! 24 year old me just knows more and has different priorities and a different outlook on life. I definitely do want to make this more LGBT friendly in particular; I've grown a lot since I was that age, and I know that there's some not great stuff in here. Blue Exorcist isn't exactly the most queer-friendly manga out there, but you know what? it's fanfiction. I can do what I want.

Also I really got to re-read everything because gosh it's been a while.

In the end, I need to send all of you a giant THANK YOU for supporting this fic! For all of you who somehow managed to stick with me all eight years, pat yourselves on the back because it's been a long haul. For newer readers, thank you for giving this oldie a go! For everybody who subscribed and stayed in the shadows, thank you so much for reading this anyways, inconsistencies and all. Maybe I'll see you again with the next fic! Aka the next chapter.

The biggest, hugest thank you needs to go to my sister, Oreramar. She proof-reads my chapters. She's the one who lovingly told me to stop fixing Chapter 1 of VA and keep writing Chapter 30 even though I was stuck and didn't want to write. She's listened to me and brain-stormed with me and is the best sister a person could ask for. I love her so much. Send her some love, y'all. She's the only reason this chapter existed as fast as it did.

One more time, THANK YOU to everybody! I'll see you guys next time, if you're willing ;). I'll probably post a preview chapter here when I upload the new fic so that you can find it.

Later!